Part 2 - Glinha Moreninha and Paulo Coelho's Short Novel or Long Fable

"Ever since he had been a child, he had wanted to know the world, and this was much more important to him than knowing God and learning about man’s sins."

Book:  The Alchemist by Paulo Coelho
Recipes:  The Brazilian Kitchen by Leticia Moreinos Shwartz

Glinha Moreninha

(Chicken Braised with Caramelized Onions)

4 whole chicken legs, cut into legs and thighs (I just used thighs)
Salt and pepper
2 tbsp olive oil
2 large onions, finely sliced
3 cloves garlic, sliced
1/2 cup Madeira wine
3 cups chicken stock
2 ripe plum tomatoes, peeled, seeded and chopped
2 tbsp fresh parsley


Wipe the chicken with a paper towel.  Season with salt and pepper and brown in olive oil over medium high heat, about 4 minutes per side.  If you were feeling "healthy" and trimmed the fat off your chicken, and this caused your chicken skin to separate from your chicken meat, and this caused your chicken meat to stick to the pan, learn your lesson about "healthy," remove your now skinless chicken to a bowl, deglaze the pan with just a little sweet white wine, strain through a sieve, and reserve.


If your fatty, crispy skinned, delicious chicken didn't stick, just remove it to a bowl, turn the heat to medium-low, and add the onions.  Cook the onions until they caramelize, stirring frequently, about 25-30 minutes.  The book says low heat, which will take much, much longer; cooking guru Jerilyn assures me that you can get it done in 25 minutes over medium low without burning them.  If you see the edges start to burn, the book says you can add a teaspoon of water to the pan.  Add the garlic and cook for another minute.  Deglaze with the Madeira and reduce almost completely.  Add the stock and bring to a boil. 

Return the chicken to the pan with any juices from the bowl.  Braise over very low heat for 2 hours, with the pan partly covered (if the sauce is too thin, remove the cover).  Add the tomatoes (I only had one, and it wasn't as ripe as it could have been - using 2 very ripe ones would have made the recipe a little less brown), season with salt and pepper, and garnish with parsley.  Serve with rice. 

Sigh.  This recipe, though it smelled absolutely divine, turned into a near disaster.  I forgot to turn the heat down.  Many years ago, I learned the best braising trick ever; guaranteed to make even your beef come out tender, and it works like a charm every time.  Boil with the lid on for 45 minutes and the lid off for an hour.  I thought it would save me 15 minutes.  I left it to boil with the lid on, forgot to reduce the heat, and blogged my last Russian blog.  It scorched the chicken and onions on the bottom of the pan.  


I nearly cried and threw it all away.  Then I told myself to just taste it and see whether all the chicken had absorbed the scorched flavor.  It hadn't.  I cut off the blackened parts, scraped out the few unburnt onions, and started the sauce from scratch.  Unfortunately, it was already 8:00 on a work night and I was out of onions.  I added some scallions that were wilting in my fridge for flavor and gently simmered the sauce.  I steamed my rice with mushroom bouillon in the water and broiled asparagus with butter, garlic, lemon, and almond slivers.  I was fearful that this time I really would have to pay up on my offer to order a pizza in case dinner sucked. 


The chicken, far from being dried out by its scorching, was falling off the bone almost as though I'd pulled it.  It was delicious and if I'm not mistaken, the leftovers were scarfed down the very next afternoon.  I know I enjoyed mine at work during lunch.  Of course, I think it would have been far more authentic if I'd managed to remember 2 important rules of cooking, namely, don't put your heat too high, and don't get distracted.  


About the book:


Paulo Coelho's novel reads like a fable.  The character is "the boy."  He is on his quest for his life's dream, his "Personal Legend."  He meets many people who help him on his way because, he learns, the whole world conspires to assist anyone who is truly looking for their personal legend.  He has already left the seminary school, where his parents wished he would become something grand; he has sold his sheep and left off his shepherding, where he had the freedom to wander Andalusia; he has abandoned his job as assistant to a seller of crystals, where he made enough money to buy double the sheep of his former flock and a license to import foreign wares; and now he has left behind his love in the desert, because she understands about Personal Legends and would be ashamed to think that she had ever held him back.  


In the process, rather than learning of the world instead of learning of god, he learns to know god through the sacrifices of the world, "we are afraid of losing what we have, whether it’s our life or our possessions and property. But this fear evaporates when we understand that our life stories and the history of the world were written by the same hand.”


He also learns the lessons of life and death, "'I’m alive,'  he said to the boy, as they ate a bunch of dates one night, with no fires and no moon. 'When I’m eating, that’s all I think about. If I’m on the march, I just concentrate on marching. If I have to fight, it will be just as good a day to die as any other. Because I don’t live in either my past or my future. I’m interested only in the present. If you can concentrate always on the present, you’ll be a happy man. You’ll see that there is life in the desert, that there are stars in the heavens, and that tribesmen fight because they are part of the human race. Life will be a party for you, a grand festival, because life is the moment we’re living right now.'"  I like what he says about war and human nature.  It makes a nice segue from War and Peace and parallel's Tolstoy's theories of determinism.  


Somehow, because this book seems so much like a fable to me right now, I feel as though it is simple and straightforward and therefore my discussion of it seems simplistic to me.  I have a feeling that it will only be when I've finished the book that I will have more thoughtful things to say about it.  That should be tomorrow, as I'm already 90% through it.  It's a very short novel. 

I was also more than a little disappointed that not only is the novel not set in Brazil, it's not even set in Portugal.


As promised, here are 2 of the next Brazilian books that I'll be reading:  
The Posthumous Memoirs of Bras Cubas by Joaquim Maria
Iracema by Jose de Alencar

Book 14 - Chapter 12 - Khndzorov Tolma, Nigvziani Badrijani, and a Few Insights on Happiness and Suffering

"While imprisoned in the shed Pierre had learned not with his intellect but with his whole being, by life itself, that man is created for happiness, that happiness is within him, in the satisfaction of simple human needs, and that all unhappiness arises not from privation but from superfluity. And now during these last three weeks of the march he had learned still another new, consolatory truth—that nothing in this world is terrible. He had learned that as there is no condition in which man can be happy and entirely free, so there is no condition in which he need be unhappy and lack freedom."

Book: War and Peace by Leo Tolstoy
Recipes: Culinaria: Russia by Marian Trutter

Khndzorov Tolma

(Apples stuffed with Ground Beef)

8 medium apples
3-4 tbsp butter
2 onions finely chopped
1/4 cups ground beef
1 bunch each parsley and cilantro
Sweet paprika, salt, and pepper to taste
2 cups boiled rice (I used cooked pearled barley)
2 very ripe tomatoes
1 cup vegetable broth

Carefully cut the tops off the apples, and using a spoon, core them, and scrape out some of the apple flesh to make room for the stuffing.  Reserve the apple flesh.

  

Melt the butter in a skillet over medium high heat.  Saute the onions until they start to become translucent.  Add the ground beef, herbs and spices and cook through, adding the reserved apple at the end.  Mix with the rice or barley.  Use the mixture to fill the apples and replace the apple tops.

Puree the tomatoes in a food processor and run through a sieve to remove seeds.  Arrange the apples in a saucepan with their tops on and pour the tomato puree and broth over them.  Bring to a boil, reduce heat to low and simmer for 30 minutes or until the apples become tender but do not fall apart. 

Nigvziani Badrijani

1 large eggplant
Salt
Oil for frying (I actually roasted mine in the oven)
11/2 cups of finely chopped walnuts
2-3 cloves of garlic
Khmeli Suneli (spice mixture of saffron, fenugreek, and corriander - I didn't have anything even approximately close to this mixture)
2-3 tbsp red wine vinegar
2 tbsp finely chopped cilantro

Cut the eggplant lengthwise into thin slices.  salt each slice and cover it for an hour to draw out the moisture.  Drain and press the remaining liquid from the eggplant (I made this recipe after work and skipped this step).  Fry teh eggplant in hot oil on both sides, remove from the pan and leave to cool (or you could just roast it in the oven).  Dump the rest of the ingredients into a food processor and run it until you have a thick paste.  I didn't have most of the spices for this, so I used a lot of extra cilantro, which made my paste a rather pleasant green color; in the cookbook, the saffron made it a rather pleasant yellow color.  Spread the paste on the eggplant slices and fold them in half so the skin is on the outside.  Let them sit at room temperature for about an hour to let the flavors blend (I skipped this part too, but the leftovers did taste better than the ones I ate right away.)

I was a little hesitant about apples and tomato broth, but in fact it was delicious.  After the uncooked garlic yogurt experience, I was also a bit hesitant of the eggplant, so for the second batch, I put the spread on first, then roasted it.  It didn't make a very appreciable difference except that the pleasing green color turned brown.  These were both good recipes, it was a lot of work to core the apples so carefully, which is why there are only 4 of them in the photo.  The rest of the filling is in my fridge waiting to be steamed into the rest of the apples, which are in my fruit bowl.

About the book:

Pierre has finally been rescued!  By our lost friend Denisov!  But while a prisoner of the French he has learned some powerful insights about his own choices in life; he thinks, "that suffering and freedom have their limits and that those limits are very near together; that the person in a bed of roses with one crumpled petal suffered as keenly as he now, sleeping on the bare damp earth with one side growing chilled while the other was warming; and that when he had put on tight dancing shoes he had suffered just as he did now when he walked with bare feet that were covered with sores—his footgear having long since fallen to pieces."  He has even learned to cope with his sore feet, much in the same way that young Rostov has learned to cope with his fear of death during a battle, Pierre simply thinks about other things.  


Rostov's younger brother, Petya, did not learn his older brother's discipline in war.  He did not listen to Denisov before engaging in a mercenary, pointles battle against the French troops, not to defeat them, but to take supplies from them which they were wholly ready to surrender.  He rushed into a token resistence and was shot through the head.  This episode, of course, will be used to highlight my next post where I will take up Kutuzov and his experience of the "glory" of war.  Look for that blog post later this afternoon.

Chapter 9 - Pickled Herring on Toast, Salmon Koulibiac, "Russian Salad," and Apparently Some Russians Drink Rum

Book:  War and Peace by Leo Tolstoy
Recipes:  Blue Hill Bay Pickled Herring
Trout Koulibiac
Russian Salad

Music:  A Russian Weekend - Various Artists

Pickled Herring on Dark Wheat Toasts

(I did not pickle my own herring)

I bought a jar of Blue Hill Bay Herring Fillets in Wine Marinade and I cut up some Dark Wheat bread and it was delicious.  Interestingly sweet and surprisingly tasty.  After the toast was gone, Samantha was eating it with a fork from the bowl, it was that good.

Salmon Koulibiac

Ingredients:

2 Salmon Fillets

2 Hard Boiled Eggs
1 cup of cooked long grain rice

2 Bunches Green Onion (sliced both white and green portions)

Large bunch of Fresh Dill

1 Lemon (zested and juiced)

Box of Puff Pastry

1 Egg (beaten for glaze)

If you are going out to see some friends at an open mic before dinner and don't want to eat at midnight, I suggest prepping your filling ahead of time.  Add half the dill to the water and steam the salmon for just about 4 minutes.  Don't listen to any web site that says you have to (over)steam your salmon for 10 minutes, it won't ruin it, it just won't be nearly as tasty.  Flake the salmon,  and mix everything together in a big bowl to await your return.  And don't, as I did, forget to boil the eggs, because that will spoil your whole plan for getting that prep work finished ahead of time.  If  you have a faithful kitchen friend named "biscuit Ben," ask him kindly to boil the eggs for you, then crumble them and add them to the mix.  When you are ready to bake, use one sheet of puff pastry for the bottom.  You are supposed to roll it out - I don't have a rolling pin and couldn't use my grandmother's "Vodka bottle as a rolling pin" substitute because my vodka bottle has chocolate drips all over it - so I just oiled a baking dish and threw the sheet in there and that worked fine.  Spread the salmon mixture evenly over the pastry, leaving room at the edges to seal it.  Assemble the top, pressing the edges together and brush with the beaten egg.  Bake at 400 degrees for 30 minutes until golden brown. 

A note about looking for fresh, skinless trout fillets in East Harlem.  Don't bother.  The original recipe called for trout, which I really wanted to try, but there is only one fish market in my neighborhood and no trout to be found and only salmon steaks with the skin on.  I ended up buying frozen fillets in individual sealed packages.  It was fine.

 "Russian Salad"

Ingredients:

2 cartons of grape tomatoes (because they are the only ones that are red right now)

3 cloves garlic

1/2 Vidalia onion

1/2 Cup sour cream

Salt pepper to taste

Slice tomatoes into chunks, press garlic, and chop onion finely. Add sour cream and salt and pepper. Mix well and chill. Let stand long enough for flavors to blend.  If you are not a big onion person, don't add the whole onion, it's really oniony.  But tasty and a nice, creamy accompaniment to our Koulibiac.

Some suggested variations to the Koulibiac:  Sam thought Feta would add nicely to the mix and I think some white sauce or alfredo-style sauce would complement it deliciously.  I think you could use the alfredo sauce especially if you used a regular pie crust, which would give you more of a pot-pie taste to it.  I imagine you could substitute any other sort of shredded meat as well, if you are not a fish lover.  Also, if you have any leftover filling when you are done, I think it would be great mixed up with mayo in pita bread.

About the book:  Apparently, the Russian aristocracy was even more "French" than I realized.  At one point, an awkward son of our social grasper wished to tell a story at a party and insisted on it being spoken in Russian, but he spoke haltingly "as a Frenchman might, who'd lived in Russia for a year."  I also read about the other son, Anatole, who was a "rake" about town and threw drunken card parties every night before visiting the brothels.  He had a friend who made a bet that he could climb out on the roof, drink an entire bottle of rum (not vodka!) without taking the bottle away from his lips and without holding on to anything for support.  He won his bet and he might be a quite charming addition to some of our more raucous, modern fraternity parties.

The set up of the story right now is that all the proper people are anti-Napoleon and have staying in their midst a "true" emigre from France.  Who seems to be staying there only until the Bourbon restoration comes out on top.  These folks have his and her coachmen to assist with capes and jackets, and twiddle their time away at parties praising the Czar and his family and cursing the revolutionaries.  A few "uncivilized" young persons advocate for Napoleon,  but so far they have been quickly muffled up by empty pleasantries and overzealous hostesses who speak too much French.  NB:  It is only to the revolutionaries that Pierre (a half-Italian illegitimate son) is know as Pyotr. 

About the music:  The nutcracker suite is not suggested eating music.  I believe all the comments were to the effect of "I feel as though I have to eat faster!"  We had to skip ahead to the Borodin in order to enjoy a relaxing tune with our meal.