Variations on a Theme

Once again though not much time has passed, it seems the whole order of the universe has shifted since my last post. It's officially spring now, which the Persian new year has kindly reminded me, though for the most part the whether refuses to acknowledge that. On the table these days are a bunch of hard, honest, and essential questions, pending decisions, possible travel, and of course as it always is with these things, so many possible variations. You can get yourself pretty tangled in thinking sometimes as your comfortable grip on things fades farther and farther away and out of reach. This is where food comes to the rescue. It fills your stomach, your mind, and your kitchen. Something about the smell of cooking in the house, a cutting board covered in scraps and a sink full of dishes forces you to stop asking questions even just for a few hours. So here are recipes for chorizo (two ways) to keep you busy. Take a break, you don't have to do everything at once.

Glazed Chorizo Tappas Style

150 g chorizo sausage
1/2 small clove garlic, crushed
1 tbsp honey
1tbsp balsamic vinegar/red wine
olive oil

Slice the chorizo and fry in olive oil until crisp and slightly darkened in colour (photo above). Drain all but about a tablespoon of the oil, add the garlic and cook for a minute. Turn the heat down and add the honey and vinegar/wine and cook on medium until reduced and glaze-like.

Chorizo Pizza

1/3 recipe pizza dough
sliced chorizo
sliced red pepper
hot peppers
sliced red onions
spinach
buffalo mozzarella

Prehead oven to the highest possible temperature.Oil a baking sheet, sprinkle with cornmeal (very important step), and place your thinly rolled out dough over it, pricking the surface with a fork several times. Brush olive oil over the dough and a bit of tomato paste if you like. Arrange the sliced toppings and slip in the oven. Pour yourself a glass of wine as your pie bakes, but careful, it takes minutes, so don't walk away.

Bach Biscuits

I have no idea where I got this recipe, but I have it written on the reverse side of page two of Bach's Prelude from Prelude, Fugue, Allegro. It's amazing how certain things just work. I've been making these biscuits, for at least four years, and have never bothered to transcribe the recipe somewhere else. Instead, every time I crave biscuits I pull out my Bach sheet music and turn to page two. It's a really good recipe. Good enough to add to a classical repertoire...


Recipe: Basic Country Biscuits

2C all purpose flour, sifted
4stp baking powder (get Rumford's if you can)
1/2 tsp salt
1/2 tsp cream of tartar
2 tsp sugar
1/2C butter cut into cubes (very very cold)
2/3C cold milk

Preheat the oven to 450 degrees and line a baking sheet with parchment paper. Put butter in the freezer. Sift all of the dry ingredients together in a medium bowl and set aside. Work the cold butter into the dry ingredients using a pastry cutter, a grater, or your fingers. If for some reason the butter is starting to warm up, stick the whole bowl in the freezer for a few minutes and start again. You must not let the butter melt, if you want fluffy biscuits. Once the butter is worked in and the mixture resembles crumbs, add the milk and mix to get a dough. With cold hands, form a round workable dough.

Roll out the dough between two sheets of wax paper to your desired thickness. Keep in mind, they will double in height when you bake them. Cut biscuits out in whatever shape and size you prefer. If you are preparing these ahead of a meal, you should refrigerate them (plastic wrapped) at this point and bake them whenever you are ready to eat them.

Brush with milk or egg and bake 8-12 minutes. Baking time depends on thickness so watch closely.

These biscuits can be sliced open and slathered with homemade jams, or used to make afternoon tea sandwiches or, of course, served with a meal.