Letters from an Aspiring Sous #1
Chickpeas and chorizo
Let’s face it — after this past year, we’re all experiencing a bit of Zoom fatigue. Hell, we’re just facing a bit of fatigue at this point. And while we’ve now passed the supposedly all-redemptive threshold into 2021, this week hasn’t felt like much of a redemption (God bless Georgia?). If we’re being honest with each other, today feels like one more day in a long line of long, rainy days.
Like many of us, so much of our time this past year was spent at home puzzling, binge-watching, and dancing irreverently in our kitchens — what, just us? We’ve also found a surprising amount of joy while cooking together. Given that it’s not yet clear when we’ll all be able to sit around a table again, we’d like to at least share what we’re cooking with you all. We plan to chronicle the next year through 52 recipes. It’s a way for us to keep in touch and stay a little bit more sane as we navigate this next year together. We hope that you’ll indulge our ramblings, read our stories, and try a recipe or two in your own kitchens.
And with that, this is Letters from an Aspiring Sous #1: Chickpeas and chorizo, oh my!
I hated leftovers as a kid. I couldn’t fathom why we would eat days-old meatloaf with a perfectly good Chinese buffet down the street. I hadn’t yet received the value of a dollar lesson from my father — that would come a few years later while returning socks to a Costco. During these same prepubescent years, I developed a peculiar habit of disposing my unwanted dinner behind the couch in our living room. It must have been a sophisticated ruse given how long it went unnoticed. Eventually those leftovers rotted and the jig was up, however.
In certain regards, I’m still that food-impaired child, preferring Szechuan takeout and Mission burritos over a home cooked meal — or more accurately — over learning to cook a meal of comparable quality in my own home. Although, in other ways quite a lot has changed in the intervening 30 years since discarding my Irish stew behind the sofa. Most notably, my life partner is an executive chef. Her name is Alex — say hi, Alex — hello, friends! (she’s actually asleep right now in the other room so use your imagination). Also, while she’s not **technically** an executive chef (she’s a physician at UCSF), she is the closest I’ve ever come to knowing one, so we’ll just toss it up to the old tomato / to-MAH-to category of misunderstandings and move on. Suffice it to say, the leftovers in our fridge are no joke. Like szechuan-pepper-based-chili-oil-from-scratch-no-joke. I didn’t know that was possible, either; I too thought it was only available in little glass jars with tiny spoons at the Chinese buffet.
Our kitchen’s second in command is not a role I take lightly. As my grandfather once told me: with great power comes great responsibility. And so while I dutifully grate this garlic clove and rinse these chickpeas (classic sous jobs), I am transcribing tonight’s main course for you to recreate in your own kitchens. If for whatever reason your version doesn’t turn out quite like ours below, well, you can always just blame the sous.
This recipe is slightly adapted from Alison Roman’s Dining In (page 126 for those who have it — one of our fav’s for those that don’t). Serves 4 but makes for fantastic leftovers.
Yogurt
1 cup full-fat Greek yogurt
1 garlic clove, finely grated
1 tablespoon fresh lemon juice (~1/2 lemon)
Kosher salt and pepper
Chickpeas and chorizo
1 large bunch kale
6 tablespoons olive oil
12 ounces chorizo
1-2 garlic cloves, finely grated
1 can (15-ounce) chickpeas (aka garbanzo beans)
Kosher salt and pepper
Step 1. Make yourself a cocktail. We’re drinking a pair of El Diablos from John deBary’s Drink What You Want. The homemade ginger syrup is puckeringly good.
Step 2. Put some tunes on. Alex has on Leon Bridges, a regular on our cook-time radio.
Step 3. Mix all the yogurt ingredients in a bowl. If you don’t have anything to grate garlic, chop it up. (Although if that’s the case, you seriously deserve to Prime yourself this $14 microplane grater. You won’t regret it.) Set aside.
Step 4. Tear the leaves (with your hands) off the kale stems, rinse ‘em, and tear into two-inch pieces. No ruler necessary.
Step 5. Heat 3 tablespoons of olive oil in a pan and sauté the chorizo on medium heat for 8-10 mins while breaking it up with a spatula; add garlic to taste. Use a slotted spoon to set aside, leaving the oil.
Step 6. Clean as you go, says Alex — a fundamental culinary technique she claims to have learned from her father. Sounds like another job for sous. Thanks, Greg.
Step 7. Drain and rinse the chickpeas, sauté in remaining olive oil and chorizo fat until brown (8-10 mins).
Step 8. Toss chorizo back in with chickpeas. Let them mix and become friends for 1-2 mins. Set aside in bowl.
Step 9. Sauté kale in same pan for 30-45 secs, turn heat off, pinch of salt and pepper, toss to become wilted.
Step 10. Layer the yogurt on the bottom of your plate, chickpeas & chorizo on one side, kale on the other, chili flakes to taste, and enjoy!
As some of our closest family and friends, you’ve been subscribed to this newsletter against your will. Feel free to click that little unsubscribe button at the bottom of the email — no one will know. Although, in a post-pandemic world when we begin to reconvene for holiday dinners, don’t think I won’t ask you what your favorite recipe is. And you’ll inevitably miss out on the homemade chili oil.