Month: September 2023

Cooking for the refugees again this weekend. Kept it fairly simple — I had some onion & bell pepper marinade (left over from the Venezuelan roast chicken last week), that I’d cooked down and then frozen. I dumped that in a pot with some chicken, and just let it simmer for a few hours, then let it cool and pulled it off the bone — it was delicious, and so easy.

Kevin made beans, I made rice, and I tried a new recipe for corn muffins — it didn’t really brown up, but they’re pretty tasty anyway. I always stir corn (frozen or canned works fine) into my corn muffins. If I’m just making it for me, I add a good amount of green chili too.

The real experiment was the sardine recipe — next post!

Okay, so this isn’t EXACTLY a Venezuelan recipe? I was thinking that mostly volunteers have been dropping off dishes with chicken or beef or pork for the refugees (meat was requested on the sign-up sheet), and maybe they’d like some seafood for a change.

Not everyone likes seafood, of course, so I also made a chicken dish to be safe. But googling led me to believe that sardines are popular there, so I thought I’d try them.

I ended up combining two different recipes, so I’m not sure this is quite what you would get in Venezuela, but I did use their flavors, and the end result is DELICIOUS. I had a little bit to try with corn muffins, and it was SO GOOD — the flavors pair beautifully.

It’s similar to some Italian sardine dishes, I think. I don’t normally eat sardines that often, but I do love a Sri Lankan mackerel curry, and sardines are in the same ballpark, so I think I may try eating them more often. Also, did I mention, they’re really cheap? In this era of soaring grocery prices, worth noting.

The recipes I started with were:

– a Sardine Mojito (not the drink kind!) — https://steemit.com/…/recipe-mojito-sardine-step-by…

– Sopa de Pescado (fish soup)

https://thecookwaregeek.com/venezuelan-sopa-de-pescado…/

*****

Venezuelan-Style Sardine & Potato Stew
(serves 12 as a main dish, 24 as a side)

1/4 c. vegetable oil
3 onions, sliced
6 cloves garlic, chopped
3-4 potatoes, peeled and chopped
1 t. cumin powder
1/2 t. pepper
6 cans sardines packed in oil
2 14 oz. cans diced tomatoes
salt to taste

1. Heat oil in a large pan. Add onions and garlic, and stir until onions are translucent.

2. Add potatoes, cumin powder, and pepper; continue to stir until about half-way cooked (if you prefer, you can parboil the potatoes first in the microwave or on the stove, so they cook faster).

3. Add diced tomatoes, bring to a boil, cover, and lower head to medium. Cook another 10 minutes or so, until potatoes are cooked through and tomatoes are somewhat reduced.

4. Add 5 cans of sardines (reserving 1), and stir in GENTLY. Let simmer 10 minutes or so for the flavors to blend. (Add water if needed to keep from sticking.)

5. Turn into serving dish and top with last tin of sardines. Enjoy with arepas or corn muffins.

The first is beef & potato curry with cabbage sambol. The cabbage sambol, I’m pleased to report, came out just fine from the freezer — not QUITE as crisp as when it went in, but still with a good toothsome bite. I’m planning to just make a whole cabbage’s worth next time I cook Sri Lankan, and portion it out and freeze it, so I have an easy vegetable to add on busy weeknights.

Last week’s quick-pickling resulted in onions that are yummy on a bagel with cream cheese and lox; I also picked up some house-made roast beef at Carnivore Oak Park this week, and I’m planning on a nice sandwich sometime soon with the pickled onions and horseradish. Mmm…

And I’ve been feeling very cheese-bite focused recently, for some reason, so last’s night’s first dinner (followed, of course, by second dinner), was just 6-month aged Manchego cheese and these intense cherries in syrup. Lovely pairing. Bite of cheese, pop in a cherry, repeat. I’ll have a fair bit of cherry syrup left over, which should go nicely in cocktails or mocktails. Or maybe a glaze for roast pork…