Dan Bites

So, I had planned on making sort of an easy-to-make paella for dinner last night, but the chorizo I bought tasted more like andouille than chorizo. No worries, it’s just as easy to make a gumbo. So that’s what I did.

I started off by thinly slicing about 4oz’s of chorizo and cooking them in a hot pan without any oil. I wanted two things, first was a nice brown crusty surface, second was some melted tasty pig fat in my pan.

Once the chorizo was browned I added 4 meaty chicken thighs skin side down. Before doing this I generously seasoned the chicken with salt, pepper, and smoked paprika. I only cooked the skin side of the chicken for the same reasons I cooked the chorizo. Crispy skin and animal fat. Now I have no need to add any oil.

I threw in a small onion that I had diced along with 4 minced garlic cloves. I let those cook in the animal fat for about 7 minutes, or just when they started to turn translucent.

Then I added a yellow bell pepper that I chopped along with 1.5 cups of Thai Red Rice. I stirred that all together and let it saute for about 3 minutes.

Then I added a half cup of dry white wine that had some saffron strands soaking in it for about an hour. I scraped up all of the burnt bits on the bottom of the pan and stirred them into the dish (the burnt parts have tons of flavor!). Then added a 14 oz can of crushed tomato to form a base for the sauce, as well as 1.5 cups of chicken stock and a bunch of green beans that I cut up. After that I mixed in the cooked chorizo and laid the chicken pieces on top. I covered the pan and threw it in a 400 degree oven for 25 minutes.

After the 25 minutes I took it out, put the chicken on a plate, added salt and pepper, stirred everything around, put the chicken back on top, covered it, and threw it back into the oven for another 10 minutes.

When I took it out again I took the chicken back off and mixed in a bunch of chopped parsley. To serve, I laid a bed of fresh baby spinach on the plate, put a pile of the gumbo on top, then a piece of chicken on top of that, and garnished with parsley. I drank it all down with the rest of the wine that I used in the sauce.