Categories
Recipes

fava beans with manchego cheese

It has been quite busy in Jobyland as of late. Two product launch campaigns and one major sale in a span of six weeks is a lot for one girl to handle. Thankfully, Jordan finished his semester last week and has been taking good care of me. Last Thursday, he made his famous paella. Paella is one of Jordan’s specialties, but this time he decided to experiment and cook the shrimp in a spicy tomato sauce, instead of cooking them along with the rice. Slathering paella rice with spicy tomato shrimp and a garlicy aioli after a long day of Photoshopping—yep, that’s a very good idea.

But, paella isn’t just one of those things you whip up. It takes a while to come together and so to tide a hungry Emily over, Jordan made marinated fava beans. They were simple and delicious, and only get better the more they sit.

Marinated Fava Beans with Manchego Cheese
1 cup shelled fava beans
1/4 – 1/2 cup olive oil
2 garlic cloves, sliced thinly
zest of one lemon, removed with a vegetable pealer
1/2 t fennel seeds, rosemary leaves and oregano leaves
salt and pepper
1/4 cup manchego cheese, cut into tiny cubes

Put a large pot of water to boil. Remove the fava beans from their pods. Fava beans come in a large pod and then have another external shell that needs to be removed before you eat them—annoying but worth it. Blanche the favas for a few minutes in boiling water, drain and remove their outer shells. Place them in a medium glass bowl.

Add the herbs, lemon zest and cheese. Pour olive oil over the mixture and season with salt and pepper. Let the mixture sit at room temperature for a few hours for the flavors to meld together. Serve with bread or crackers as an appetizer, or as a salad alongside your favorite spanish dish.

-Emily

Categories
Recipes

a dinner party with foraged foods

Last Saturday, Jordan and I hosted a dinner party. And, forgive my lack of modesty, I think we hit it out of the park. The food was wonderful, the company was fantastic, and not a single kitchen crisis befell us.

The Menu

Winter salad with shaved fennel, apple, radish, foraged* miner’s lettuce and foraged wild radish

Pork belly** with pomegranate molasses

Paella, from our recipe posted in Paella Per Se

Green beans

And for dessert …

Passionfruit*** mousse

*A note on foraging: Jordan and I are clearly interested in local foods and we’ve been talking about foraging our own wild foods for quite a while. While it sort of began as a distant possibility and kind of a joke, last week we went to a free lecture about the SF food scene at the library and one of the panelists Iso Rabins of ForageSF is a San Fran forager. Iso inspired us to get out and forage. And so, last Saturday, we did!

**Our pork belly was purchased from the Fatted Calf, a specialty meats and charcuterie shop near our place. The best part: we saw the butchering of the pig where our pork belly came from! More about the Fatted Calf to follow.

*** I am obsessed with passionfruit. Every since I went to Argentina and first tasted the maracuya helado, I was hooked. Sadly, passionfruit isn’t the easiest to track down here in the US. BUT! I have an awesome boyfriend who sympathizes with my obsession and somehow finds secret suppliers of frozen passionfruit puree in the Mission! Yay!

Now a few recipes …

Pork Belly with Pomegranante Molasses, click here

Passionfruit Mousse or Mousse de Maracuya, click here


Categories
Recipes

paella, per se

Let’s start this off by saying, I’m a lucky girl. Why am I a lucky girl? Because my wonderful boyfriend makes me yummy dinners while I sit at the table after work and putz around on the internet. Why else am I a lucky girl? Because that same boyfriend rides his bike down to purchase quality (and reasonably priced!) seafood at Sun Fat Seafood (23rd and Mission) even though its 9 million degrees out in San Francisco today. And one more reason …

… He is incredibly dashing in the kitchen.

Let’s get down to business …

Brown some PORK! chorizo*. Take out the chorizo, but leave that delicious fat in the pan. Toss in some diced onions and garlic. Let those brown a bit. Add broth (Jordan did 3 cups of vegetable stock and 1 cup of clam juice).

*Chicken chorizo was available, but we just don’t see the point in that.

Add saffron. Ours was a gift from our neighbor and came all the way from Dubai! It adds a nice floral taste, and added bonus, the broth will turn a lovely yellow-orange color.

Bring it all to a boil and add Calasparra rice. Use 1 parts rice to 4 parts liquid. We thought “That’s crazy!” but it really is quite absorbent.

Let it simmer for 20 – 30 minutes until most of the liquid has been absorbed and it has a creamy consistency. Then toss in some veggies (we did peas and red piquillo peppers), the sausages and …

the seafood! Jordan’s catch of the day included shrimp and scallops, which he quickly sauteed in some butter before adding to the rice. He wanted to get a nice sear on the scallops, but he’s a bit out of practice. I think this means more scallops in my future!

And the final dish …

Served with lemon and parsley.

Conclusions: Jordan was looking for a paella shortcut and looks like he found one. It still took a while to execute, but not much was lost in the way of flavor. Tasty and satisfying!

But the best part of the meal (according to Jordan at least) was not his paella, but …

this romesco sauce from Bi-Rite Market (18th between Guerrero and Dolores). It was good, but I’m partial to his paella.

-Emily