A Spanish style pasta entree!
Pasta is popular nearly everywhere. About 20 years ago, French chefs created many nice French style pastas that required as few Italian cooking ingredients and Italian cooking techniques as possible. French chefs did this in order to create pasta entrees that were representative of what French cuisine was at that time. Top American chefs did the same thing, but they chose ingredients that were representative of gourmet American tastes. Italian chefs merely stood back and watched, because their pasta recipes had already been perfected for a very long time. Italian pasta cooking techniques and their styles of presentation define what pasta is really all about. Italian chefs would look at a French or American chef's gourmet creation and simply say, too must sauce or wrong type of pasta for the ingredients. The rules of Italian pasta are not merely arbitrary rules. There are reasons why certain shapes of pasta are prepared with certain ingredients and sauces. There are reasons why too much sauce with a pasta is not a good thing. It takes a few years for a newcomer to the tradition of the world of Italian pasta to start understanding why Italian pastas are prepared in specific ways. Italians that were raised around pasta cooking do have a big advantage when it comes to knowing about the "whys and why nots" of pasta! Spanish chefs have reverence for their own cooking traditions. Many ingredients of Spanish cuisine are shared with Italian cuisine. The cooking methods share similarities too. The cooking language of the two countries share many similar latin cooking language words. The climate of Spain is similar to the climate of many regions of Italy. Pasta naturally became a nice item on Spanish menus. It seems like every chef of every cuisine choses to offer a pasta on the menu. Pasta is a good selling item and it is a recognizable item for tourists that travel abroad. Just like the token hamburger on a local restaurant menu, pasta fills the same void in restaurants that do not specialize in Italian pastas. Tourist trap restaurants and luxury resort restaurants always seem to offer a token pasta on the menu. Usually the pasta entree has local ingredients in the recipe. You might say that today's blog pasta recipe would be a good item for a Spanish restaurant that has a steady flow of tourists. The ingredients and flavors are easy to recognize and the stewed sauce is cooked with Spanish style. Throw it all together and you have a Spanish pasta entree that appeals to tourists who just want to eat something they recognize. This pasta entree appeals to home cooks too!
Beef Chorizo and Chicken Ragú: Spanish chefs commonly use the word ragú for certain items instead of estofado, guisado or caldera. The Spanish word sofrito compares to the Italian word soffritto or the French word mirepoix. By definition, each has its own proportion of vegetables and choices of vegetables. A Spanish sofrito usually has no carrots in the mixture. Sometimes celery is omitted. Basically, a sofrito is the aromatic vegetables that are part of a beginning of a sauce or stew. This recipe requires one chicken breast that is cooked ahead of time. A leftover roasted, sauteed or poached chicken breast can be used for this recipe. Place a 4 to 5 ounce chicken breast filet on a roasting pan. Brush the chicken with blended olive oil. Season the chicken breast with sea salt and black pepper. Roast the chicken breast in a 325 degree oven, till it becomes fully cooked. Allow the chicken breast to cool to room temperature. Dice the chicken breast and set it aside. Heat a saute pan over medium/medium low heat. Add 2 tablespoons of olive oil. Add 1 minced garlic clove. Add 2 tablespoons of small chopped onion. Add 3 tablespoons of small chopped green bell pepper. Add 1 tablespoon small chopped celery. Add 1 tablespoon of finely chopped green onion. Saute till the vegetables start to become tender. Add 3 ounces uncased fine ground beef chorizo sausage. Saute and stir, till the sausage becomes cooked, but not browned. Add the reserved diced chicken breast. Add 1 finely chopped plum tomato. Add 2 tablespoons of tomato paste. Stir and saute the tomatoes, till the tomatoes begin to lightly caramelize. (Lightly pincer is the French cooking term.) Add 3 ounces of dry white whine. Add 1 1/2 cups of light chicken broth. Add sea salt and black pepper. Add 1 pinch of cumin. Add 3 pinches of coriander. Add 1 small pinch of marjoram. Stir the ragú. Reduce the temperature to low heat. Simmer and reduce the ragú, till it becomes a thin sauce consistency. Keep the ragú warm over very low heat, while the pasta is cooked. Fusilli Col Buco with Beef Chorizo Chicken Ragú and Queso Manchego: Cook 1 portion of fusilli col buco pasta in boiling water over high heat, till the pasta becomes al dente. Drain the water off of the pasta. Add the pasta to the warm ragú in the pan. Add 2 pinches of minced Italian parsley. Add 1/2 tablespoon of virgin olive oil. Toss the pasta and sauce together. Use a long tine carving fork to place the pasta on a plate. Sprinkle some finely grated manchego cheese over the pasta. (Manchego is a Spanish sheep milk cheese from the La Mancha region. It has a very nice semi sharp flavor!) Sprinkle some thin bias sliced green onion over the pasta. Place 1 quenelle of sour cream on top of the pasta.
Delicious! No paprika, cayenne pepper or any ground red pepper needs to be added. There is plenty of Spanish paprika in the beef chorizo sausage. As you can see in the photographs, the old Italian pasta rule of "just make enough sauce to coat the pasta with flavor" applies to even this Spanish style pasta. This pasta has a true Spanish flavor that is very appealing. Yum! ... Shawna
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