Arroz con Pato Chiclayano - Peruvian Rice with Duck

In Peru they use the native Muscovy ducks, but since I could only get my hands on a Pekin duck here in the states, I used that instead. With the Muscovy, throw in all the duck pieces along with the braising liquid when you get to that step. I held back the breasts in the fridge, since the ones on a Pekin don’t need all that long to cook (especially after being browned). Also, if you are buying a whole duck, I highly recommend you trim the excess skin and render some delicious duck fat in a pan. And make some duck stock with the carcass, because why not.

Rice with Duck: (serves 4; cooking time: about 1 hour 15 minutes all together)

1 large duck, ideally a Muscovy

2 dried aji panca peppers (or guajillo)

1 teaspoon red wine vinegar

6 large garlic cloves, diced

1 medium red onion, diced

1 green bell pepper, diced

1 teaspoon cumin

1 teaspoon salt

1 teaspoon black pepper

¼ cup white wine

1 quart water

1 cup chopped cilantro

1 cup long grain rice

Remove the stems and seeds from the aji panca peppers, and place in a small pot with 1 cup of water. Bring to a boil, and simmer for 15 minutes. Add to a blender and puree.

Cut the legs and breasts off the duck. Brown in a dutch oven over medium heat – I did this in two batches. Pour off excess fat and reserve, but leave some in the pan. Add the onions and pepper, and sauté for 3 minutes. Add the garlic and continue cooking for another minute. Add in the ¼ cup of wine, and cook for a minute, until reduced by half. Add in the aji panca puree, and cook for 2 more minutes.  Add the 1 quart of water, the legs of the duck, the red wine vinegar, and the salt/pepper/cumin. Bring to a boil, the simmer, uncovered for 30 minutes. Reserve the duck breasts in the fridge.

Rinse the rice under cold water. Add the reserved duck fat into a large pan over medium heat. Add the rice and toast for 3 to 4 minutes.

Chop the cilantro, then ladle 1 cup of the broth from the duck pot into a blender, along with the cilantro. Puree. Add back to the pot along with the rice and the duck breasts. Cook for 15 minutes, until the rice is finished. Turn off the heat and let stand for 10 minutes before serving.

Pollo Relleno Mendocino (Argentinian-style Stuffed Chicken)

I took the plunge and de-boned my first chicken. It actually wasn’t as bad as I had dreaded, but it does take some patience (Jacques Pépin says you should be able to do it in ‘about a minute’ but he’s just pulling our collective leg). For the stuffing, I followed a recipe in Gran Cocina Latina from an Argentinian winemaker. Apparently the Argentinians love that retro flavor, so what we have here is a giant chicken cordon bleu. I screwed up by burning the skin – I had my oven set to a little hotter than the recipe calls for, and I didn’t keep an eye on it during cooking. The obvious solution is to keep the oven at 400 (what the recipe calls for) and peek in on the bird once or twice and rotate the tray or cover with foil if needed.

De-boning the chicken:

(1) 6 lb. Chicken

I’m not even going to try and explain this in words. I followed Jacques Pépin’s method, and you should to. Here’s a handy-dandy youtube video how-to.

Brine:

1 onion, sliced

4 cloves of garlic, papery sleeve removed, but left whole

15 oz. water

Bay leaf

1 lemon

1 sprig rosemary

Fresh sage leaves

3 tbsp kosher salt

Black pepper

1 tbsp sugar

15 oz. ice

Sautee the onion and garlic in oil over medium/medium-low heat until the onion softens, 5 minutes or so. Add the water, bay leaf, rosemary, sage, salt and sugar. Stir to help incorporate the salt and sugar. Squeeze the lemon juice into the brine, then add the leftover lemon pieces. Bring to a boil, remove from heat.

Weigh out 15 oz. of ice in a large bowl, then pour in the brining liquid. Stir and allow ice to melt. Make sure the brine is room temperature (or cooler).

Pour brine into 1 gallon Ziploc bag and add deboned chicken. Allow to brine for 8 to 12 hours.

Stuffing:

1 lb. ham, sliced thin

3/8 lb. Gouda cheese, sliced thin

3/8 lb. Edam cheese, sliced thin

1 jar of roasted red peppers (or roast 2 red bell peppers yourself)

Lay out the bird on an appropriate surface and layer on the stuffing ingredients. Make little roll-ups of ham, cheese and peppers and stuff them in the leg holes to help keep their shape. Close him up when he’s all stuffed, and follow Pepin’s instructions on how to truss the beast.

Rub:

¼ cup Dijon mustard

1 tablespoon ground coriander

2 cloves garlic, chopped

Lemon juice to taste

Add all ingredients to a food processor and blitz until smooth. Rub all over the skin of the chicken.

Preheat your oven to 400°F. Place the bird in a roasting tray (I placed mine on a trivet of vegetables [carrot, onion, celery, rosemary]; this is great for making pan-sauce afterwards) and roast for 1.5 hours, or until the breasts reach 165°F. Let rest for 10 minutes before slicing.

Argentinian Big-Bellied Beef Empanadas with Red Chimichurri

I recently purchased Gran Cocina Latina, and I gotta say, holy shitballs it's amazing. It's 900 pages of exhaustive research travel from Maricel Presilla, co-owner and chef of two Latin restaurants in Hoboken, N.J. This is the first recipe I've tried, but I dare say that this book is on par with Marcella Hazan and Julia Child.

On to today's recipe: these empanadas are fantastic, but dear god do they take a while to make if you aren't familiar with assembling empanadas. If you're not up for devoting a few hours in the kitchen, I'd consider making the stuffing and dough one day, and assembling and baking these off the next. A few notes on autheticity:

• The dough traditionally uses suet as the fat. You can substitute with lard, or if like me you can't find any in the grocery store use a mix of bacon fat and vegetable shortening.
• Speaking of tradition, lean beef, such as beef shin, is usually chopped small for the filling; I  substituted ground beef.
• The recipe for the filling also incorporates (3) hard-boiled eggs and (24) black olives. I omitted the black olives because I can't stand them, and the eggs I boiled turned out soft instead of hard. Whoops. The recipe in the book recommends spreading the eggs/olives over the beef mixture once it's cooled. Makes it easier to spoon the filling onto the dough.

This recipe will make 24 empanadas. I ended up with 15.6 ounces of leftover dough as well, which I froze.

For the Dough:
2 lbs. low gluten flour such as Argentinian Blanca Rosa 000 or cake flour
2 teaspoons salt
2 teaspoons sugar
1/2 cup bacon fat
1/2 cup vegetable shortening
2 extra large eggs
1 1/4 cup cold water

Combine the flour, salt and sugar. Blend in the fat/shortening, using a pastry blender or your hands, until the fat is the size of pebbles. Mix the eggs and water in a bowl, and slowly incorporate it into the flour to form a dough. Turn out on a lightly floured surface, and knead for 5 minutes until smooth. Split in half and roll into two 12 inch or so logs. Cover with plastic wrap, and place in the fridge for at least 1 hour or up to 24.

For the filling:
1/4 cup extra virgin olive oil
3 large garlic cloves, finely chopped
2 large yellow onions (10 to 12 ounces), finely chopped (about 4 cups)
4 scallions, white and light green parts only, finely chopped
1 medium orange bell pepper, deseeded, deveined and finely chopped
1 lb. ground beef
1 tablespoon salt
2 teaspoons ground black pepper
1 teaspoon cayenne
1 teaspoon smoked paprika
2 teaspoons ground cumin
2 teaspoons dried oregano

Heat the oil in a large skillet over medium, add the garlic and cook for 40 seconds until golden. Add the onions, scallions, bell pepper as well as all the seasonings and let cook for 7 minutes, or until the onion and pepper are softened. Add the meat and cook for another 4 to 5 minutes, until cooked through but still juicy. Transfer to a baking dish, and spread with a spatula. Refrigerate until cooled. While that's cooling down, it's time for the chimichurri.

Red Chimichurri:
1/2 cup chopped cilantro
1 large head of garlic (12 cloves), peeled
1 small yellow onion (5 ounces), finely chopped
1 tablespoon dried oregano
1 tablespoon smoked paprika
1 tablespoon, crushed red pepper flakes
1/2 cup of red wine vinegar
1/2 cup extra virgin olive oil

I used the slicer on my food processor to chop the garlic. You can use a knife if you want to deal with it that way. Add everything else to the food processor, and pulse until the ingredients are finely chopped, but not pureed. Serve at room temperature. This will keep in the fridge for 2 to 3 weeks.

Assembly:
2 large eggs, beaten with 2 tablespoons of cold water for an egg wash

You'll need to use a 5 inch round ring/cookie cutter/improvised object. The lid of my sugar container measured 5 inches, so I popped it off and used that.

Cut each log into 12 one-inch pieces, keeping the dough you're not working with covered with a towel.  On a wooden cutting board, knead a piece of the dough into a circle. Using a rolling pin, roll out the dough to between 1/8 and 1/16 inch thickness. Using your handy-dandy template, cut the dough into a 5 inch circle. Spoon a healthy 2 tablespoons filling onto the center of the dough, then fold the bottom of the dough onto the top.

Press the edges of the dough to seal. Fold one corner into a triangle. I made pleats in the dough by placing my finger onto the dough, lightly applying pressure, then rolling the next section of the dough up and repeating. It takes a little while to get the hang of assembling these, but since you'll be repeating this 24 times you'll no doubt get the hang of it.

Preheat your oven to 375F. Place the assembled empanadas on two parchment-paper-lined baking sheets, and brush the egg wash generously onto them. Bake for 25 to 30 minutes, until the crusts are golden (mine didn't quite get that color on them), and the empanadas sound hollow when tapped on the bottom.