What's Cookin'?

Though I enjoy and prefer to cook, with many of my evenings filled over this last year, Ben volunteered to make dinner on some of my busier nights.

Though he has a background in baking, I wondered a little about what he might make. After all, he is also loosely associated with a family recipe called “Grenada Invasion.”

Imagine pizza made without the crust: the ingredients, including large chunks of pepperoni, whole green olives, spicy peppers, and heaps of cheese, layered in a glass rectangular dish, baked until crisp and solid, then cut into squares and served. Unspeakably delicious, but so wrong there was little room to feel right about it. One left the table feeling a mix of emotions: guilt, as surely this was akin to taking the hand of the devil; regret, with the immediate tightening of the waistband and slight swelling of the fingers; and uncertainly of what might lie ahead. Would this concoction be violently jettisoned from my body, or stop all traffic for days?

I had reason to be skeptical, because it turns out that most of Ben's creations, while always oh so tasty, have slid the slope into unholy territory. For example, a skillet queso, so rich and layered in flavors that it was difficult to stop eating, but warranted questions surrounding how, exactly, it could be called dinner.

Or chorizo, chicken, and caramelized onion tacos that were so wickedly memorable, I begged him to make them again last night. (But, through delicate negotiations involving who would run grocery errands and who would :cough: :sniff: stay home, I ended up cooking, and, of course, I made way too much.)

With the abundant leftovers, I decided to create:

Guerrilla Black Bean Soup

Here’s what you need:

⅔ pound of fresh, not cured, chorizo from the butcher shop
1 pound of chicken breast, trimmed of fat and cut into thin slices
1 medium onion, sliced
Freshly ground sea salt and black pepper, to taste
½ teaspoon of Aleppo pepper, plus an extra pinch
A splash of balsamic vinegar
Olive oil

Plus:

1 medium onion, chopped
3 cloves of garlic, minced
1 teaspoon of Aleppo pepper
Olive oil
1 can of petite diced tomatoes
1 can of black beans, rinsed and drained
2 cups of vegetable broth
1 cup of water
½ a teaspoon of smoked Spanish paprika

Here’s what to do:

Sauté chicken in an oil-coated skillet until partially, but not fully, cooked. Season chicken with salt, pepper, and ½ teaspoon of Aleppo. Add chorizo to skillet and break up with a spatula until well crumbled. Cook on high, stirring constantly until both meats are cooked through and browned.

While chicken is cooking, add onions to a separate oiled skillet and stir in salt, pepper, and pinch of Aleppo. Cook onions slowly on medium-low until soft and slightly crisp. Splash with balsamic vinegar and cook for one minute longer. Stir onions into chicken-chorizo mix and stop here if you want to eat tacos.

If you have about 1½-2 cups of leftover meat, it’s time to make stew...

Add chopped onion, garlic, and Aleppo to a medium sauce pot with a little oil in the bottom. Cook until onions are translucent, then stir in tomatoes, beans, broth, water, and reserved taco meat (I chopped it up a little to make the chicken pieces smaller, but this may not be necessary). Simmer on medium for about 45 minutes, stirring occasionally. At this point I tasted it and it didn’t seem to need any extra seasoning, but I felt I should add something, so I stirred in the ½ teaspoon of smoked paprika. That was a good call. Cook for about 15 more minutes. Serve!