The Kitchen Chronicles

Adventures in City Cooking

Tag: main-course-pasta&rice (page 1 of 2)

Risotto with Shrimp and Asparagus

Another shrimp recipe? Another shrimp recipe, my friends. I promise, I wouldn’t do two nearly back-to-back shellfish if it wasn’t really, really worth it. Last week’s shrimp was a simple, classic standby. Today’s is the polar opposite – complex, time-consuming and labor intensive. But the effort pays off because this risotto is going to be the best you’ve ever eaten.

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Spicy Cabbage and Rice (Lahanorizo Kaftero Kozanis)

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First of all, happy new year to everyone!  It’s January 2nd, which means most of us have just barely recovered from the stresses of the holidays and this week’s celebrations. Regardless of what you’re bouncing back from, I doubt I’m alone in my readiness to eschew all things “holiday.” That means no more cloves, cinnamon, allspice, winter squashes and cranberries, at least for the time being. Adios rolling pie dough, goodbye feeding 8-10 relatives, sayonara washing dishes. For me, this week is about getting back to simplicity, back to cooking in a single pot.

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Persian Gulf-Style Shrimp and Herb Rice

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A few weeks ago on a Saturday I thought I was throwing together a straightforward shrimp and rice dish from a beautiful new cookbook I’d purchased – what I actually was doing was creating a veritable masterpiece. It was my first foray into Persian cooking, and, true to form, I had skipped all of the boring pages on the region’s unique rice cooking technique and set my sights on making a meal without thoroughly reading the recipe, besides the ingredient list. I invited a friend over for a “quick dinner” before going out, but a brief review of my text messages from that evening documents a spiral into fear and anxiety surrounding the “scary” recipe, the “many steps” of which I was “carefully reading out loud to myself.”

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Baked Rice with Zucchini (Arroz con Calabacin)

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Every so often, it’s refreshing to make a dinner that doesn’t require grinding a custom spice mix with a mortar and pestle or using Google translate in the grocery store. It’s a busy time of year at work, and, as much as I love to cook, the warmer weather is a tempting alternative to spending hours in my dark and claustrophobic cave of a kitchen. And so, in an unusual move for me, I’ve been looking for inspiration in simplicity.

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