I Never Sang For My Father

Even at a young age, my father was my hero. Although I vaguely understood all the sacrifices he made as a single military father, I felt his devotion.  Back in the day, widowed fathers gave their children over to aunts or others to care for the kids. He didn't. I'm still not sure why. He was a busy guy. Big time army man. When my mother passed away, he didn't hesitate to pack us up and move us back overseas. Although we must have been a burden, I never felt like a burden. He did the best he could to make a life for us in foreign lands surrounded by strangers. Don't get me wrong, I knew something was different. We were different. I was different. Everyone else had mothers and big families. We simply had each other and a few lovable revolving nannies.

My father was kind and strong, but not overly sentimental. He was army through and through. He could burn my little soul with one stern look or melt it into puddles when he smiled. I shot for smiles.

Throughout my life, Father's Day got lost in the ordinary days of summer. I never sent cards, wrapped gifts, or made any kind of deal about the whole thing. Father's Day was just June something or other. I called him on every Father's Day and that was enough. As a rambunctious trouble-shooting kid/teen/adult, he knew I loved him. I knew he loved me. We really didn't need the hoopla of a single day to point that out. When he got sick, everything changed. As he struggled to fight cancer, every day was Father's Day. Every day was precious and full. Me. Him. Us. Although  I couldn't take back the ordinary years of routine phone calls, every  ounce of love, respect, honor, and commitment poured out of my own fearful quest to connect during the tender days.  Eventually, our roles slowly reversed, rewound, and played back. Who was the dad? Who was the kid? We met in the middle. Simpatico.

I actually did sing for my father...once. The summer between 6th grade and 7th grade, I fancied myself a fine chanteuse. Although I couldn't sing a lick, I found my destiny. Armed with my battery powered cassette player and a lone cassette tape featuring Anne Murray's Snowbird, I wondered the fields of the farm singing along with my muse. As wonderful as she was, I was better. I was the complete package. The hip smiling family bands of the 70's couldn't hold a candle to my boyish puckered lips and smoldering eyes. I sang for the cows, chickens, ponds, trees,  blackberry bushes, rocks, or anything else that stood still to hone my craft. After several weeks of intense practice, I knew I was ready. Shrouded in secrecy,  I mounted a fierce snail mail letter writing campaign, promoting my self indulgent stratospheric talent,  to land an audition for a low budget variety show produced by a local Bowling Green television station. The world was my oyster.

One day, having returned home from my lakeside soft-serve ice cream day job, I received a letter congratulating me on my persistence along with a scheduled audition date. I had almost arrived. Blessed be Anne Murray.

That's when things got a bit iffy.  I was a kid. The television producers didn't know I was a kid. Bowling Green was 35 miles away as the crow flies, farther by car if driving on back roads through the hills and valleys of Allen County. You see, I needed a chauffeur to make my audition date. I needed a ride and had to face the music.

My dad spent a lot of time in his hot and humid woodshop. With lathes lathing and buzzsaws blaring, he didn't hear me enter his hallowed space. Beaming with confidence, I fessed up, told him my plans, and asked him for a ride to my audition. Sweaty sawdust dripped from his forehead. The singed heat of ripped wood burned my eyes. It must have been 110 degrees in that little shed. After turning off the saws and lathes, he cracked open a window and told me to sing my song. Suddenly wracked with nerves, I fumbled with the clunky buttons of the cassette player. Click. Rewind. Click. Fast Forward. Click. Pause. Click. Click. Click. Play. I cranked the volume as high as it could possibly go and belted out, "Beneath the snowy mantle cold and clean, the unborn grass lies waiting for its coat to turn to green...". On and on and on.  Anne and I sang the entire song. When I finished, it was so quiet I could hear chiggers crawling through my cotton socks. Dead silence. He didn't flinch. He didn't laugh. He didn't do anything. He closed the window  and simply said that he couldn't take me to my audition. Gentle giant. No excuses. No explanations. Game over. And with that, I shuffled through the gritty sawdust on my way out of the woodshed and closed the door on my cabaret career. Although somewhat relieved, I hadn't felt such disappointment since he flat out refused years earlier to buy me a chimpanzee as a playmate. Ever resilient, I moved on. I had frogs to gig, catfish to catch, and ice cream to scoop.

A few days after my unfortunate near brush with fame, I was catching up on some early morning Shirley Temple re-runs when I heard ridiculous noises spilling from  the front yard. Hell, I tried not to think much about the raucous because my dad was always wiring fences, splitting firewood, or just sawing things.  Although annoying, it was par for the course. After a while, the noises died down and he called me outside. Tucked into a corner of the front yard by a small stone wall and seemingly floating on air, he had fashioned a high bar. A. High. Bar. Towering 8' from the ground, he managed to jerry-rig, build, and firmly secure a 2"x 5' metal pole between two large mature maple trees. A horizontal bar of my own. I was dumbstruck. It was magnificent. Somehow and somewhere along the way, he'd remembered that I always wanted to become an Olympic Gold Medal Award winning gymnast. All I needed was a horizontal bar to hone my craft. My head filled with thoughts of double twist flips, release moves, and nailed landings. I knew big time gymnasts worried about those sorts of things and I wanted/needed to embrace that worry.  The world was my oyster...again.

That's what fathers do.
They help build dreams.

Oh sure, I never became an acclaimed cabaret singer or an Olympic gymnast. In the long run, it really wasn't about reaching those lofty goals. it was about the journeys.
And the dreams.

Pick One. Eat Five.

I was never a good strawberry picker. Whether dispatched to forage the family farm for wild strawberries or carted away to crawl around endless rows of ankle high berries through dusty U-Pick strawberry fields, I was that kid. You know the one? The grazer. The kid who ate everything. Pick one. Eat five. That was my game. Full belly. Empty baskets. Small hauls.

Not much has changed, really. Well, not that much. Nowadays, I don't pick a lot of strawberries.
When they're in season, I'll stop by the farmers market and nab a pint on my way to work. Like clockwork, they're gone before I get to work. Morning snacks. Stained fingers. Stained lips. Hulls on my shirt. Empty baskets. Happy country boy.

Last week, I changed things up a bit and stopped by the market after work. Game changer. Armed with full baskets of Henry County strawberries, I finally (and coyly) shared a few strawberries with Michael.

So, here's the deal. With strawberry season just getting under way, there will be plenty of time for shortcakes, ice creams, macerated sauces, and salads. With that in mind. I took my drive-by stash down an unexpected detour.




Grilled Spatchcocked Chicken with Fresh Strawberry-Bourbon Barbecue Sauce.
Simple and fun.

Mise en Place.
Barbecue Sauce.
After hulling and chopping 2 cups of Henry County strawberries, I tumbled them into a food processor before adding 2 cloves minced garlic, 1 minced shallot, 1/2 cup light brown sugar, 1/2 cup ketchup, 1/2 cup Woodford County Country Rock sorghum, 2 tablespoons white balsamic vinegar, 1/4 cup Makers Mark bourbon, salt, and cracked black pepper. I pureed the mix, strained it into a sauce pan, simmered the seedless sauce for 35 minutes, and pulled it from the heat to cool.

Chicken.  
So, I really didn't want to get all fiddly with turning several pieces of chicken around the grill, so I spatchcocked (butterflied) a whole Marksbury Farm chicken. Grilling or roasting a whole spatchcocked chicken allows it to cook evenly and more quickly.  Using kitchen shears, I removed the backbone from the neck to the tail, trimming some excess fat along the way. To help the chicken flatten out, I flipped the splayed chicken over and sliced the piece of cartilage covering the center of the breast bone (some folks remove the entire breastbone), flipped it back over and cracked the bird until it was evenly flattened. Instead of removing the wing tips (personal favorite), I tucked them under the breast before seasoning the chicken with smoked salt and cracked black pepper. With the cock spatched, I set it aside.

Fire.
I stacked a heaping pile of charcoal into the center of the grill, lit it up, and let it rip. When the coals were ashen and ready to go, I scooped them to one side of the grill to allow for two heat sources. After tossing soaked hickory chips onto the glowing embers, I nestled the chicken onto the cooler side of the grill, closed the lid, and let the chicken cook for 30-35 minutes, turning and flipping it every 10 minutes or so.  When the internal temperature reached 165 degrees and the juices ran clear, I brushed the chicken with the strawberry-bourbon barbecue sauce and slid it over to the hot side of the grill. As the heat caramelized the meat, I turned, basted, moved, and babysat the chicken until it was burnished and lacquered with bits of char before removing it from the grill to rest.

Messy business. Held together by the candied sticky skin,  the tender juicy meat slipped off the bones with whispering ease. Pull. Swipe. Suck. Repeat. Finger food. Funny, while fortified with sorghum and brown sugar, the sauce wasn't achingly sweet. The bright sweet acidity of the strawberries balanced the mellowed caramel/vanilla undertones of the bourbon, the slight anise hints of the wilted basil, and the dark smoky sweetness of the Kentucky sorghum. Fruity. Salty. Sweet. Sensational.

Kentucky barbecue
with a strawberry twist.

Fire up the grill
and pass the bourbon.

Baby Baby

It doesn't matter what they are, I always fall for the baby vegetables when they arrive at the farmers market. Sometimes, I'm not sure if the tiny vegetables are intentional or if they're simply thinnings plucked from garden rows to make room for the big guns. Whatever the reason, I'm a sucker for the teeny-weeny stuff. Whether they're root vegetables, patty pans, yellow squash, zucchini, potatoes, or cucumbers, the little ones beguile me. So, when Stonehedge Farm had a few bunches of  baby beets (Golden, Chioggia, White, and Purple) innocently stashed next to bags of mizuna, mustard greens, and lettuces, I took the bait. Hook, line, and sinker.


I grew up loving beets. As a military kid in Vienna, Frau Olga plied me with all kinds of wild and wonderful Slavic beet dishes. As a transplanted Kentucky farm boy, I watched my grandmother grow, pickle, and can beets every year. Her arsenal of dusty canned beets from the dark dank cellar graced our table at almost every meal. Yep, I'm a beet lover.

Unless I'm pickling beets, making chilled summer borscht, hearty meat-laden winter borscht, or rolling out fresh beet pasta, I typically roast beets, chill them down, and add flecks of goat cheese before tossing them with a light vinaigrette. The slight fresh tang of the goat cheese pairs beautifully with the roasted sweet earthiness of the beets. It's a classic combo. That said, my market beets were too small to roast. They would have collapsed into mash from the prolonged heat. They needed a lighter touch. Without sacrificing my favorite go-to flavor profile, I took a different route.

Skillet Braised Baby Beets with Beet Greens and Chevre. 

I snipped the green tops from 2 small bunches of Stonehedge Farm baby purple and chioggia beets. After setting them aside, I brought  1/2 cup water to a rolling boil in a large cast iron skillet, tumbled the purple beets into the skillet, reduced the heat, covered the skillet, and let them braise/steam for 20 minutes. When the beets were tender, I scooped them onto a side plate, drained the liquid from the skillet, added 1/2 cup water back into the skillet, and repeated the process with the remaining baby chioggia beets. After letting the beets cool, I slipped off the delicate skins and set them aside.

With the beets on deck, I reheated the skillet over a medium flame, added a drizzle of olive oil, and sauteed 1/4 cup minced shallot. When the shallots turned translucent, I tossed the reserved beet greens into skillet, gave them a quick turn with a pair of tongs, and splashed the skillet with 1/3 cup white balsamic vinegar. As the vinegar started to reduce, I tumbled the beets back into the skillet and pulled them from the heat. While the skillet was still warm, I tucked pieces of creamy Bluegrass Chevre into the beets and drizzled everything with extra virgin olive oil before finishing with flaky sea salt, stinging white pepper, and fresh beet greens.


Warmed by the residual heat, the wilted greens and soft melting cheese created a fantastic take on classic  beet and goat cheese salad. While almost glazed with the sweet acidity of the reduced white balsamic vinegar and fruity olive oil, the subtle earthiness of the jeweled baby beets balanced the creamy tang of the soft chevre, slight crunch of the fresh greens, and the biting heat of white pepper.

Tiny bites.
Big payoff.
Perfect.

Early Bird

I don't have an asparagus patch tucked into a corner of our downtown back forty. Because of that unfortunate void,  I have to hit the farmers market fairly early to snag a few bundles of fresh spring asparagus once it starts rolling in. Although fresh spring asparagus has gotten much more plentiful over the years, it still disappears quickly. Very quickly.  Last weekend, at the crack of not-enough-coffee, Michael and I stormed the market for the early bird special. We got lucky.

I typically roast asparagus. Not only is it easy, but it's a great way to subtly mask the slight woodiness of out-of-season asparagus. Most of my big time asparagus moments have involved large hard core events that require tons of out-of-season asparagus. Prepping and cooking thousands of  spears for hundreds and hundreds of people can be somewhat daunting. With a little forethought, well honed timing, and a frenzied two-step between ovens, roasting has always been my go-to method. Olive oil. Salt. Pepper. Roast. Call it a day. That said, freshly harvested spring asparagus is a game changer that doesn't need a heavy hand. It's best to let it speak for itself.

What grows together goes together.
A simple spring salad.

I guess I could have roasted, sauteed, or grilled the asparagus to add depth of flavor, but I wanted to keep it as simple and clean as possible. Using their natural breaking points, I snapped the ends off of a pound of gorgeous Lincoln County asparagus spears. After giving the ends a quick trim with a vegetable peeler, I tumbled the spears into heavily salted boiling water for 4 minutes, scooped them into a salted ice water bath to stop the cooking process, patted them dry with a dish towel, and slid the asparagus spears into the refrigerator to chill.

While the asparagus chilled, I threw together a very basic vinaigrette by whisking together 3 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil, 2 tablespoons sherry vinegar, 1/2 teaspoon minced garlic, 1/2 teaspoon herbs de Provence, a pinch of red pepper flakes, salt, and cracked black pepper.

I tossed the asparagus spears with the vinaigrette and nestled prosciutto ribbons to the side along with tiny Casey County baby carrots. After scattering shaved Silas Farm breakfast radishes over the top, I finished with an additional vinaigrette drizzle, chardonnay smoked sea salt, and flash-fried Madison County mizuna.

Simple.
Delicate.
Fresh.
Fabulous.

Sugar + Spice

So, what do you do when you have a meaty fat-capped slab of Stonecross Farm pork belly and a sexy bottle of Bluegrass Soy Sauce from Bourbon Barrel Foods? For me, it was a no brainer. I plunged head first into an East meets West mash up of red cooked pork.

Hong shao rou (red cooked pork) is a classic mainland Chinese dish that raises pork belly to an ethereal level. Although many variations can be found throughout China, most versions contain pork belly, two types of soy sauce (light and dark), ginger, garlic, Shaoxing wine or sherry, rock sugar and spices.

While most of the ingredients are fairly standard pantry items, great ingredients make the classic comfort dish soar . For the most part, it's all about the pork and the soy sauce. Chinese dark soy sauce, aged longer with molasses or caramel, is sweeter, thicker, and more full-bodied than light soy sauce. The combination of the two helps create the signature color and depth of flavor that characterizes red cooked pork. While dark soy sauce can be found at any Asian market, we have our own wonderful homegrown version of light soy sauce right  here in Kentucky. Bluegrass Soy Sauce, a light bodied version,  is a fabulous example of Kentucky craftmanship and care that is uniquely special.

This sauce is from the only small batch soy sauce brewery in the United States. It's made from whole non-G.M.O. Kentucky grown soybeans and pure limestone filtered water Kentucky Spring water. It is brewed and aged in bourbon barrels. The result is a smoky, brothy sauce with hints of oak and mild sweetness reminiscent of fine Kentucky bourbon.  - Bourbon Barrel Foods.

Red Cooked Pork Belly.
With crisp soy flavor, the clean salty undertones of Bluegrass Soy Sauce helped balance the combined spicy sweet forwardness of dark soy, caramel, Shaoxing wine, aromatics, and spices that make up the flavor base for red cooked pork. Although it was a simple lazy braise to throw together, building layers of flavor was key in developing the intense complexity of the classic comfort dish, special occasion meal, or drunken late night snack.

Belly Up.
After slicing 1 1/2 pounds of gorgeous Stonecross Farm pork belly into 2" cubes, I blanched the pieces in salted water for 5 minutes, drained them, and set them aside. Blanching the pork leached out some of the impurities while tightening the skin and fat for the quick saute and braise.

I placed a wok over a medium high flame and added 3 tablespoons of vegetable oil. When the oil started to ripple, I tumbled 4 heaping tablespoons of white rock sugar into the oil, gave it a quick stir, and let the sugar melt into the oil. I was shooting for caramel, so I took it to the edge of reason.  Just before the umber-colored rock sugar self-combusted, I quickly added the belly pieces to temper the heat and bathe in the bubbling caramel.

When the molten caramel started to blister the fat, I added 3 star anise pods, 4
sliced green onions, 4 crushed garlic cloves, and a 4" knob of peeled fresh ginger (sliced) before delgazing the wok with 1/3 cup shaoxing wine, 1/4 cup dark soy sauce, and 4 tablespoons of light Bluegrass Soy Sauce.  After coating the pork pieces with the combined sauces, I added 1 cup water, brought the shallow braising liquid to a boil, reduced it to a simmer, covered the wok, and let it rip until the pork was meltingly tender, stirring every 20 minutes or during wine breaks.

After 1 1/2 hours, I removed the lid, cranked the heat to medium high, and reduced the braising liquid until it formed an unworldly aromatic stickiness that burnished the pork with a deep red mahogany glaze.  I tossed the pork belly with the glaze and  pulled the wok from the heat before finishing with pickled red chilies, enoki mushrooms, green onions, and fresh cilantro.

Braised in caramel, soy sauce, shaoxing wine, and pork jus, the unctuous meat surrendered to the terrific explosive sweet ooze of the plumped caramelized fat bombs. That said, with the deep underlying layers of flavor from the ginger, star anise, and garlic fortifying the glaze, it wasn't simply a caramelized pork one note wonder. While the quick-pickled chilies countered the salty sweetness with biting heat and bright acidity, the chilled scallions added grassy wet crunch.

Sugar + Spice.

Lip smacking pork candy.
Perfect.

Market Fresh

I love the early growing season. Year after year, I hop on board with unabashed abandon. Right now, I have Grandpa Admires lettuce, Bloomsdale Spinach, and Appolo arugula seedlings nestled in covered peat pots tucked into a sunny corner of our dining room bay window. Enthusiastic? Yes. Practical? Not so much. Curbing my enthusiasm has always been a challenge. Downtown urban gardening has its ups and downs. As much as as I try, I've had hits and misses throughout the years. While planting space is always an issue ( even with containers), the biggest obstacle might be the nineteen enormous mature shade trees surrounding our downtown farm.  Well, that and my impeccable impatience. If patience is indeed a virtue, I'm a slut. A gardening slut. Thankfully, we've had a spring awakening at the farmers market. While over-wintered potatoes and root vegetables still  rule the roost, tender lettuces, micro greens, pea shoots, and ramps have quietly joined the rugged winter stalwarts. Long before the big guns flood the market like thundering wildebeests, the dainty early season jewels flutter into the market like dancing sprites offering hope, renewal, and long awaited inspiration.

Fresh Angel Hair Pasta with Pea Shoot Pesto.

Pea Shoot Pesto.
Early season pea shoots and pea tendrils are wonderful little things. With delicate twisting tendrils, floppy leaves, and crisp juicy stems,  tender young pea shoots sport the subtle flavor of fresh spring peas edged with soft grassy undertones. Although  hampered by a very short season, pea shoots and tendrils are incredibly versatile. They're great in salads, soups, sandwiches, stir-fries, and/or pesto.

Small effort. Big payoff.
I tumbled 3 tablespoons of shelled pistachio nuts and 2 crushed garlic cloves into the base of a food processor. After pulverizing the nuts and garlic, I added 3 cups (loosely packed) Hoot Owl Holler Farm pea shoots, a dash of salt, and 1/2 teaspoon white pepper. With the motor running, I drizzled 3/4 cup extra virgin olive oil into the bowl and let it rip until the pesto formed a rough puree. After scraping down the sides of the processor, I added 1/2 parmigiano- reggiano, gave it a quick pulse to incorporate the cheese, scooped the pesto into a small glass bowl, drizzled it with olive oil, and slid the pesto into the refrigerator to chill.

Angel Hair Pasta.
I interviewed with a local restaurant a while back and was hired on the spot because of my angel hair (capelli d' deangelo)) pasta. Here's the deal. Making fresh pasta is fairly straightforward. Most pastas incorporate a combination of very simple ingredients (eggs, flour, salt, sometimes olive oil, sometimes water) in various forms and ratios. That said, angel hair pasta can be a little tricky. Because the fragile strands are so delicate and thin, the dough needs to be a bit drier than most other pasta doughs and kept well floured throughout the process to help the cutting process.

I kept it very simple.
I changed out the bowl of the food processor and replaced the metal blade with a plastic dough blade. After scooping 2 1/2 cups Wiesenberger Mill unbleached all purpose flour into the bowl, I cracked 3 large Elmwood Stock Farm organic free range eggs into the flour, added a pinch of salt, a smidgen of olive oil, and ripped the dough into a rough ball. Instead of pulling the dough from the processor, I let go for another 30 seconds before plopping the dough onto a floured board. After kneading the dough for 5 minutes, I formed it into a small disc, rolled it in flour, wrapped it plastic wrap, and set it aside to rest for an hour.

When the dough relaxed, I used a bench scraper to divide the dough into fourths. Working with one piece of dough at a time, I floured and rolled the pieces through a hand crank pasta machine, changing the settings to thinner settings after each pass (flouring the pasta at every stage) until I had four long pliable pasta sheets. After letting the sheets dry for 10 minutes, I sliced them in half and used the machine to cut the pasta into wispy strands before feathering them onto a floured dish towel.

I brought a large pot of water to a rolling boil, heavily salted the water, and added 2 handfuls of the pasta.  After 2 minutes, I scooped the pasta out of the water with a spider, dropped it into a large glass bowl, and tossed the pasta with 1/2 cup pea shoot pesto. To loosen the sauce a bit, I added 1/4 cup of the starchy pasta water, gave it another toss, and twirled the pasta into large pasta bowls before finishing with a splash of lemon and Harmony Hill organic microgreens.



Spring renewal.

Like a breath of fresh air.

Bluegrass Paella

While paella is common throughout all of Spain, the dish originated from early field workers using local ingredients found in and around the eastern coastal region of Vallencia.  As the dish spread across the country, the ingredients in paella intermingled and changed from region to region. For the most part, any given paella is open for interpretation.  Almost anything can be tossed into a paella. That said,  the three big guns in the paella world are Valencian paella (chicken, rabbit and snails), paella marisco (seafood paella), and paella mixta (a meat and seafood mixed paella). Aside from the various meats, fish, shellfish, and rice, the most common additions to paella are tomatoes, garlic, green vegetables, stock, and saffron. Depending on the region, season, and availability, other add-ins can include garrofo (lima beans), tavella (long white beans), ferraura (local green beans), artichokes, chorizo,  peas, and sometimes lemon.

Although paella can be a free form affair, there are some hard and fast rules that purists embrace for paella excellence. First and foremost, paella is a rice dish. It's all about the rice. The rice has to be either Bomba or Calasparra, tiny fat rice nubs that can absorb tons of liquid while still remaining firm to create the sexy crunch of the socorrat  on the bottom of the pan. While sofrito (garlic, onion, smoked paprika, salt, pepper, and grated tomatoes) is the key flavor base, it's the exotic saffron-infused stock that packs the most alluring  potent punch. Finally, when possible, paellas are best cooked over an open flame. An open fire provides even heat distribution (for the soccorat) and additional smoky undertones.


While embracing the essence of Valencian paella, I honored the big rules
while bending a few others for a nontraditional and unconventional take on the original.

Bluegrass Paella.
Prep.
Sofrito.
I finely diced 1 onion, minced 5 cloves of garlic, grated 2 large tomatoes on the large holes of a box grater (skins discarded), and set them aside.

Artichokes.
Sure, fresh artichokes are bear to trim and clean (frozen or canned artichokes would have been fine), but I adore the earthy taste and unique texture of fresh artichokes. Patience was key. I sliced the top 1/3 off of one large artichoke and plucked off the remaining leaves until I reached the base. I peeled the stem, scooped the fuzzy purple choke from the center of the heart, rubbed all the exposed flesh with fresh lemon juice to prevent oxidization, used a paring knife to trim the cleaned artichoke, and quartered it before plunging the artichoke quarters into cold acidulated water.

Meats.
My rabbit butchery is average at best. Because I knew breaking down a whole rabbit would be tricky business, I ditched the hare altogether and used local Marksbury Farm chicken drummettes and thighs. For the pork factor, in lieu of Spanish chorizo, I opted for a Kentucky spin with diced pieces of Brownings country ham. For true Valencian flair, I rinsed, boiled, and drained two 7 ounce cans of imported land snails. Yep. I had snails tucked away in the pantry. Go figure.

Garnish.
Paella lipstick. After blistering 2 large red peppers over a gas flame, I transferred the peppers to a bowl and covered the bowl with plastic wrap. While the peppers steamed and cooled in their juices, I sliced 1/2 pound of green beans on the bias and blanched them for 3 minutes before plunging them into heavily salted water to stop the cooking process.

Stock.
I brought 6 cups of homemade chicken stock to a boil, reduced it to a simmer, and added a generous pinch of saffron. After reducing the heat to low, I covered the pan to let the saffron steep, bloom, and release its warming golden yellow hues into the stock.

Fire.
With all the prep on deck, I lit a fire in an outdoor grill. As the flames died down, I slid a paella pan over the grate above the fire and drizzled the hot pan with 2 tablespoons of olive oil. When the oil started  to spit and smoke, I browned 8 well seasoned  Marksbury Farm chicken drummettes and  3 split boned chicken thighs in the hot oil. Just before removing the chicken from the pan, I tumbled 1 cup of medium diced Brownings country ham into the mix to crisp up and render its salty fat. After sliding the chicken and ham onto a side plate, I scooped the sofrito into the screaming hot paella pan along with 1 heaping tablespoon of Spanish smoked paprika.

When the sofrito thickened and caramelized into an aromatic brick-colored paste, I deglazed the pan with the reserved saffron-kissed stock. Within seconds, the heat from the pan brought the stock to a rolling boil, so I sprinkled 2 cups of bomba rice over the stock and shook  the pan to evenly distribute the rice. As  the rice settled into the stock, I tucked the drummettes, chicken thighs (skin on), and the quartered artichokes into the rippling stock. After scattering the snails around  the paella, I let it rip (without stirring) for  35 minutes, rotating the pan every once and while to keep things loosey-goosey.

At the 30 minute mark, I could hear and smell the precious socorrat forming on the bottom of the pan, so I left the paella alone to allow the ingredients to settle into the gorgeous rice. When the rice was cooked through, yet firm, I pulled the paella from the heat, covered it with a dish towel, and let it rest for 10 minutes before finishing with julienned roasted red peppers, green beans, lemon, and olive oil.

Nestled in the jeweled rice, the tender chicken absorbed the smoky spice of the sofrito.  While the artichokes seemed to melt into the paella, the country ham added salty crisp bites that balanced the the springy chew and earthy funk of the plumped snails. Scattered over the top, the roasted peppers provided subtle sweet smokiness alongside the bright crunch of the green beans. Even with so much going on, the rice was key. Both tender and firm, it popped with intricately woven layers of highly seasoned flavor. Beneath it all, the prized toasted socorrat caramelized, forming crunchy sweet and savory swaths of spiced rice candy. The hidden treasure.

Fabulous.