Eat This While You Read That: Alma Boykin

I've been reading more, recently, and one of the series I have been catching up on is the Familiar Tales by Alma Boykin. It's a lovely set of stories, that gradually lengthens from short interconnected tales of mages and their animal partners into novels centered more around one or two specific characters. I've been delighted with the whole effect, and am looking forward to more, if more comes. When I had asked Alma some time back for a dish and a book, life crashed over me like a tsunami, so this is the second attempt... and it was worth the wait, I hope.

For one thing, while Familiar Tales is book one, you'll have plenty to keep you busy even after you've finished this book and meal. There are ten of them in the series now!

Alma's stories are hearty, warming fare, just like this meal.

Alma calls for canned fire-roasted tomatoes, which I could not find in store near me (see notes below for why 'near' was important) but on the other hand, I know how to do that, even when the weather outside keeps me from lighting the grill to do it that way for optimum flavor and fire. 

Roasting the tomatoes and peppers, then using mortar and pestle to remove skin/stems.

I used a gas burner with a wire rack to keep the smallish Roma tomatoes from falling through. My sweet peppers are also smaller, so they needed the rack as well. You'll want to keep a close eye on your roasting, and turn them with metal tongs frequently. This isn't to cook the vegetables through, it's just enough to get the tomato skins loose. As you pulp them in the molcajete (I have a mortar, but a molacajete is better as it's rougher) you can pull out the skins, and with a little skill, you'll learn how to grind so the stem can be pulled out intact as well.

This is what you'll wind up with - coarse chunks of tomato, most of the skin off.

Southern (US) Paella

1 lb. boneless, skinless chicken thighs, trimmed and cut in half (I used BS chicken breast)

1/2 pound peeled shrimp*

olive oil, salt and pepper, 7 cloves garlic

butter

one sweet onion - minced

one small green pepper

  1 15 oz can fire-roasted tomatoes (drain, mince, drain again but reserve liquid) (I pulped up about 4-5 roma tomatoes I had fire-roasted and saved all their juice)

2 C jasmine rice

"healthy pinch of saffron" 1/2 t. give or take (I used an equivalent amount of turmeric)

3 C chicken stock brought to a simmer

1 1/2 t. Spanish sweet smoked paprika**

1. In separate containers, marinate chicken thighs and shrimp in olive oil, salt, pepper, and minced garlic. 2. Heat large cast iron [or heavy] skillet over medium heat. Add 1 T each butter and olive oil, add chicken when oil shimmers. Ignore for a few minutes. 3. Turn chicken over and add onion, green peppers and tomatoes; add salt and pepper. Shuffle them around the chicken until the veggies soften.

Veggies that have been roasted and roughly ground, on the chicken, onion, and garlic.

4. Add rice and saffron and stir to coat rice thoroughly, or around one minute. Pour all of the hot stock into the pan and stir to distribute. 5. Keep this mixture at a small boil/ active simmer, stirring every few minutes. If the rice begins to dry out before it has cooked, add more broth or leftover tomato liquid.

Adding in the stock a cup or so at a time. I wasn't sure how much the liquid from the chicken/tomatoes was going to offset the amount of stock, so I treated it like a risotto.

6. When rice is finished, stir in raw shrimp and cover the pan. Shrimp should cook in 4-5 minutes. 7. Top with green peas (if one is traditional or not plagued with fussy eaters) and adjust seasoning. Serve.  (I like to add a few shots of good garlic balsamic vinegar, but that's just me.)

* The original recipe calls for leaving the shells on, but since they don't add flavor, I prefer the low-mess option. ** I go heavy on the paprika, because mine never seems as warm as what other people buy.

What my pan looked like when the rice was done!

To read: Familiar Tales.  This is the sort of thing Morgana Lorraine would make, as would André Lestrang. It can be adjusted to local seasonings and available seafood (or sausage, in which case add it with the veggies), takes 45 minutes at most, and only requires two bowls, a pot, and a large pan. It looks fancy, tastes good, and feeds a lot of people on a relatively small budget.

Cedar's notes: I substituted chicken breast for the thighs, as I had them on hand. With the panic of the coronaviral scare going on, cooking out of the pantry is very much a thing. I've been doing very little shopping! I also substituted in turmeric for the saffron, rather unhappily, but I could not find my saffron after the last organization of the spic cupboard, and the store where I would buy it is further than I wanted to go under the current state of affairs. It came out very, very well in spite of this. 

We served it with rustic homemade bread, and roasted corn on the cob (in the oven, but my son really, really wanted it)

The best thing? Not only was this delicious on the night of, and even the tomato-hater ate it all up, but the leftovers for work lunches were even better as the flavors just got melded and mmmmm... I may play with some variants on this, but it's so simple to make I may just keep it in mind for any occasion. Plus, it's given me an excuse to indulge myself in a proper molcajete next time I'm in the right shop for that. 

You can find all the other Eat This While You Read That! recipes here and there are over 70 at this point. Good food, paired with good books! Bon appetit!