You probably have noticed that my recipes go in phases. I try to use up my on-hand ingredients before moving on to a new set of ideas and grocery-lists, and my brain gets into a sort of culinary riff, where I try to work out all the different variations on a theme I can, until I can't stand it any more. So, this week I was determined to find a new use for tupper-wared remains of last week's Chipotle peppers in Adobo sauce.
Being a Friday night, I had seriously low energy and motivation to cook, so it took some will power and a good half hour of browsing my cookbooks and files for inspiration before I started getting excited about dinner again.
I still had a small butternut squash I picked up from the market several weeks ago, as well as some small Yukon Gold potatoes, and when I was perusing Martha Rose Shulman's taco recipes (tacos are great for low-key, tired nights) from her NY Times column, I hit upon her "Soft Tacos with Sauteed Winter Squash and Chipotles," which seemed like an ideal solution for dinner. I had to go to the store to pick up some things for tomorrow night, so I resolved to get tortillas for the tacos.
Well, lo and behold, my exhaustion level led to quite a cluster-failure: I didn't read the original recipe carefully enough, and so I didn't think to buy the requisite yogurt, and I completely spaced out the tortillas, none of which I realized till I got home.
One thing I find though, time and again, with cooking, writing, and living, is that there's a curious freedom in constraint, and I get much more creative with externally imposed limitations on my options. So, my failure at the grocery store only served to motivate me to figure out what I could create from the remnants of my plan.
First, I had to think about a replacement for the tortilla. This one was obvious: rice! I started some jasmine rice (it's all I had on hand) to cook on the stove. Even if the rest of dinner falls apart, you can salvage good quality fragrant thai rice, so at least now I was cooking with a safety net.
Rice and chipotles started me thinking in the obvious direction: rice and beans. I had a can of black beans in the cupboard, but I was resistant at first. Once I realized the original recipe called for a chipotle-yogurt mixture to dress the squash in, I started thinking about curry. Why not Mexican curry? I had some leftover chicken stock in the fridge that needed using, so I tinkered with the idea of baking the squash in a mixture of pulverized chipotle and stock. Sadly, the stock was past its prime (I really need to come up with a better solution for keeping and using stock), but a plan was starting to form.
Right about this moment, Sean was busy cleaning up the remains of last night's dishes, and getting quite vocal about the number of pots that needed washing. I took this information under advisement, and resolved to be as one-pot about this as possible, which means I ended up using three.
As the rice was cooking, I committed to the idea of baking the squash in small chunks, along with a single small diced potato, in the nice red ceramic baking dish I received for Christmas (thanks Sean, even though it just adds to your washing up!).
The path cleared as I got to work. I preheated the oven to 400 degrees, chopped and peeled the squash (fortunately a small one), cleaned and chopped the potato, and put them in the baking dish with a couple of tablespoons of olive oil, ground salt and pepper, dried thyme and dried oregano, coating it all nicely, and put the whole thing in the oven while I worked out the next steps.
I finely diced an onion and crushed a couple cloves of garlic and pulled the baking dish out to add them in, again giving it all a good stir to evenly coat everything with olive oil. After returning the squash and potato to the oven, I rinsed and chopped a bunch of broccoli raab, and heated some olive oil, garlic, thyme, oregano, and finely diced cilantro stems in a medium sauce pan on medium heat. Once the garlic had just begun to crackle in the oil, after just a minute, I added the chopped, rinsed raab with a couple of tablespoons of water, and put a lid on it.
Then I started to chop up the chipotles quite finely in their sauce (about half of what was remaining, so maybe 3 chilis and a couple of spoonfulls of sauce. We like it really spicy, so you will probably want to use quite a bit less unless you are a hot chili fiend). At the 20 minute mark, the rice needed to be turned off and left to steam, which I think happened at about this point.
It was time to check the squash and potatoes again, and I decided to turn the heat up to 450 degrees. Perhaps a rookie sort of move, but that's how things go in my kitchen. I added a few tablespoon-fulls of water and the chopped chipotles with sauce to the baking dish and gave it all a good stir, and put it back in the oven.
This was a good point to check on the broccoli raab, which was just on the verge of starting to stick to the bottom of the pot, so I added another 2 tablespoons of water before stirring and covering again. Medium seemed a good temperature for the raab, as the stems can be quite tough and fibrous, and they generally need a good hot steam bath to make them pleasant to eat (they have a lovely verdant flavor, slightly bitter but not overwhelmingly so, somewhere between broccoli and spinach).
At this point, I worked on chopping my remaining cilantro, lime wedges, and avocado, and finally gave in to the idea of making this a rice and beans dish. I opened the can of black beans, gave them a good rinse, pulled the baking dish out AGAIN, and threw in the beans. I gave them another good stir to evenly mix all the elements, added a splash more water, and then returned the dish to the oven.
At this point, I set the timer to 7 minutes because I didn't want to lose track of time, at such high heat. I grated about an ounce and half (roughly, maybe it was an ounce, maybe it was three...oh I don't know, it was enough--that's all that matters) of Mexican cotija cheese. I don't see why you couldn't use parmesan, pecorino, feta, or a hard french or US American goat's cheese instead. At this point, I got Sean to set the table so all would be ready.
I pulled out the dish again, raised the heat on the oven to the broiler setting, sprinkled the cheese all over the top of the squash and the potatoes, and broiled it for about 2 minutes, just till the cheese started to brown lightly.
After 2-3 minutes, the--I guess I can call it a casserole or a gratin now, can't I?--casserole was more than ready, so I turned the oven and stove off and pulled it out.
At the dinner table, we filled our bowls with rice and sauteed broccoli raab first, and then dished up the squash, potato, black bean and chipotle casserole on top, garnished with an extra helping of cilantro, avocado, and fresh lime juice.
Holy moly you guys. This was SO GOOD. I had very low expectations of this bizarre improvisation, but it was just fantastic and I'm definitely going to make it again. This, or something very like it, may exist out there somewhere already, but I kind of feel like I invented something completely coherent and intelligible that really works. You could make it vegan, without the cheese topping, and it would still be delicious and deeply, completely satisfying. I am pretty proud of myself!
While this certainly was delicious, what goes unreported here is that the potatoes could have been more thoroughly cooked. Remember folks, when baking potatoes, unless you play to do so for HOURS, it's always worth to give them a quick parboil.
ReplyDelete