Ice rings campanile in the glass, a cool contrast to the warm hues of the potent mixture. The tumbler has captured the colours of sunset, the oranges, the golds and the saffron reds. A glow blooms on my cheeks from the mellow hit of a negroni. The late warmth, a change from the storms of the day before, not helping the flushness. The chinking sound, icy clinks, pierce the silence of the kitchen, keeping me focused as I ready myself for the challenge of tonight’s supper.
The pale, dimpled skin and pink flesh of a chicken, although like a gift in unwrapped wax-lined paper and bathed in the light of the setting sun that angles through the kitchen window, it seems curiously unappetising, leaving me cold. And yet, grilled, fried, or roasted, I love chicken. Maybe it is the heat of the changed season. Maybe. Memories give me pause.
Another setting sun, another place. The apartment then was set directly below a terracotta tiled roof terrace in the searing heat of an Andalucian summer. The reliably insulating clay absorbed as much warmth as it could for the sticky night ahead. The kitchen, a small space attached to the main living area was surely an afterthought. A trivial sized window that was meant to let out heat, barely let in light. The dividing wall, fitted long after the floor tiles, sat atop of them, a paso doble from the oven. That was where I first attempted cooking this dish, nearly one thousand kilometres from its original creation, a further five hundred from the cookbook I so desperately needed to get the recipe right. The heat left us more thirsty than hungry. We were drunk before we ate. So drunk we had little appetite. So hot we fell asleep quickly. So hot, the remaining food, left out overnight, began to take on a different, more unpleasant aroma by dawn.
Memories can shake the confidence. Even so, I draw my knife from the block, holding it with a firmness that is perhaps a little too tight.
My chopping board, a large wooden square, grooved around the edge for clumsier times, carries vegetables: an onion, a carrot and some celery sticks. With a rapidity that surprises me, I top and root the onion. The parchment, a pale envelope brown, peeled away to expose the opal green flesh. It is so young the pungency stings my eyes. Smarts them. I roughly chop it. The carrot, washed, remains unpeeled, large and gnarled. I chunk the bright orange body, narrow slices at the head and wider ones where the tip tapers, discarding the navel-like top where the foliage was torn away. Ripping off the leaves from the celery sticks, I throw them into the liquid to add more perfume. The peppery stems are also cut at each end and then sliced widely. I realise I am using the knife with a dangerous glee. Everything goes into the pot. Everything.
Placing the pot over the largest hob ring, I pour in a large jug of water and scatter some aromatics: crushed, fresh bay leaves, thyme, peppercorns. Herbs casually thrown as if the simplest heated water will turn biblically into a bouillon by the merest bouquet garni. There is a block of frozen stock, a remnant from a previous experiment with chicken that is too saline to use without weakening it with other liquids. I release it from its plastic surround and drop that in. Everything must go in.
I breathe deeply as I reach for a match. I am about to cook that dish. The dish of yesteryear. Though the ingredients may be the same, the method will be different. My own. A satisfying trail of smoke rising from the blackened head as the gas is lit. I begin.
The bouillon is bubbling. It has taken some time. Steam rises. My brow and the condensation on my now empty glass are practically twins. I lift the chicken up by the drums´ ends. Slowly, I lower it into the hot liquid bath. Ensuring it is submerged, or as close as it can be. A few minutes to the pound is all I need.
Three large chorizo, the softer, squeezable stewing type, dangle from my fingers. The strings, in Andalucian green and white, a cat´s cradle in my hand. I take each one carefully and lower them into the poaching poultry water, gently tucking them in and around the floating fowl. They slowly sink beneath the flotsam and jetsam of the stock. I top the pot with a lid and start the timer.
I am not idle. While I wait for the poach, I crouch down and hunt in the store cupboards to find the ingredients that will complete the dish, to prepare them for the final part. Nor am I conventional. No. It is true. It is not as if it is a deliberate way of being, a defiant act. It is just the way it is. But while this dish defies the conventions of the original recipe, defies the order, and while I am standing over simmering stock, I do ask myself, why I am preparing a stew in the searing heat when a salad would suffice? I shake my head and sigh. No, indeed, I am not conventional.
My hand reaches into the darkness of the back of the cupboard to retrieve a can of olives, black, pitted. I lift it to the counter. At the front, there is a jar of already cooked and shredded peppers, the oil perfumed with a plastic looking clove. Up it goes. Slipped along the side of the cupboard wall, hidden, I find a pack of saffron, the crispy strands contained in a small pill box-like plastic container. That too gets raised to the worksurface. From a basket I take another onion and a part used bulb of garlic. And from a cupboard, a lidded glass jar of rice.
Plates and bowls sit waiting to be filled with the ingredients that I have taken from below the counter. I tear the ring pulled top off the can of olives and drain away the dirty black brine, giving them a shake to ensure none is left. I do not like Dirty Martinis. They are placed in one bowl while I struggle to open the jar of peppers. It is stuck. I find a rose-coloured rubber glove by the sink, not mine, and reluctantly pushing my hand into it, as if it were distasteful. Posing like a body builder I take a final punt at the lid. It gives. A wry wrinkle of a smile comes to my flushed face, and I hum a chord or two of Ode to Joy before I return to the meal. I pour out the peppers into an orange colander that sits in the sink. It clashes violently with the red of the roasted capsicums. The oil from the jar draining away, joining the brine. The fleshy strips, poured from the colander, slumped into a clear glass bowl.
The alarm goes off. I turn off the hob and, lid still on, lift the stockpot to one side. The chicken will bask in the poaching liquor for as long as it was cooked. Time, even set to an alarm, is on my side.
I walk into another room and put on some swing jazz to get me into a rhythmic-paced chopping mood. I pick up the knife. I pick up the beat. I top and skin the onion, removing the hair at the root with a flick of the blade. There is a debate over which way to cut an onion half. Should the knife cut downwards, then horizontally, or, across then down? I cut the bulb in half and place each section face down. I cut across first, then slice the knife downwards close to the root. I am not radical. Then finally, finely chop the stinging allium into smart, small sized dice. I have a frying pan that I use specifically for dishes of this nature. I find it on a shelf behind me and slide the diamond shaped pieces into it. Picking up a bidon on the floor behind the fridge, I pour a large measure of local olive oil over them. They will keep for a few minutes.
The olives tumble onto the chopping board. Hollow oval fruit, their stones long gone. Purple-black and bitter flavoured. I manoeuvre each one to sit sideways, left to right, and, pausing with my knife in the air, determine three slices of the knife, four small tyre like rings, individual flicks into a small bowl. As I said, I have time. Time enough to sing along with Ella Fitzgerald. Time enough to croon with Dinah Washington. Time enough to hum with Sarah Vaughan. The alarm goes off. Enough. Time´s up.
The aluminium foil is hidden in a basket above the fridge. With one arm, I blindly feel around above my head for the long box until my hand hits something familiar in shape and size. I grab it. Pinching a bit of the metallic foil at the end, I spread my arms outwards and tear off a large silver sheet. I lay it down on the counter in readiness. In a drawer beside the cooker, I rummage around until I find a pair of tongs. Lifting the lid of the stockpot, I slide one prong into the chicken´s cavity, the other clamped on top, I start to lift the fowl upwards. The action, awkward at first, is made easier by using the pot´s wall to help the lifting process. Liquid pours out of the chicken´s core as I tilt it upwards. Some stock dribbles along the arms of the tongs threatening my hand. Not for the first time, I break into a sweat. The chicken breaks free from the bouillon´s hold. In a sweeping movement I swing the tong clutched meat over to the foil and land it centred to be wrapped. The noisy metallic crush fills the kitchen as I fold over the foil and make a rolling seal on the edges around the chicken, and for a few minutes while I move to the next part, it can sit, settle. Relax.
The tempo is shifting. Early evening flies work in tandem with mosquitoes, distracting me while the bloodsuckers draw out their own evening meal from me. I brush some lemon juice on the bites and concentrate. Stirring the murky waters of weak stock with the tongs I find what I am looking for, lifting out one, then two, and finally a third chorizo sausage. I sit them on a plate next to the olives and return the stockpot to the hob. Lighting the gas underneath, I start to reduce the cooking liquor. It has flavour already, but I want to ensure it has almost as much punch as that negroni. I am ever hopeful.
I find a used match and carefully manoeuvre it under the stockpot to light the tip. The flaming taper slowly moves towards a medium hob, at a careful pace, I do not want it to go out. The challenge is for the hob to be lit before my fingers. I watch the flame edge along the match. Twisting the knob, the hob coughs up a neat blue ring of flame just as the tip of my thumb starts to feel the heat. The match, blown out, is discarded, a blackened stick with the smallest hint of untouched wood. A large pinch of sea salt, sprinkled like hail over the oiled onion slices as the frying pan is put into position. My ear close to the pan, I listen for the sizzling sound before lowering the flame.
The garlic cloves, five, are shed of their purple parchment, leaving me with ivory nuggets. Between each peel, I check on the onions, shaking the pan. I rub each clove tip first along a fine grater, leaving me with a gloriously aromatic mound. I tap the grater on the board to wait their turn. The sticky, perfumed oils permeate the grooves of my fingers. I inhale one more time before running my hand under cold water.
I have some time in between stirring, before the onions turn translucent, to chop up the chorizo. I trim off the roped ends with the metal loops, then chop into thick slices. I go further. I am making this dish more delicate. I take each chunk and cut into slightly smaller pieces. The reason will become evident as the meal is brought together. Another stir of the onions, and I throw in the sausage. One more stir, and I will select the rice.
Rice. Bomba rice. A paella rice that is as hardy as it is absorbent. My long grain rice jar is near empty, and risotto, a completely different variety of rice, is too starchy and will not work. The grains hiss as they slide from the glass jar into a small bowl, cup sized and as creamy in colour as the rice itself. In a clockwise circle, so as not to invoke the devil, obviously, the rice falls over the onion and chorizo. I stir to coat them in oil then turn up the heat. Cooking wine stands next to the vinegars and other bottled liquids. The protesting sizzle as the out-poured beverage hits the pan, steam rising and dissipating, adds to the sense of heat in the kitchen. The bubbling begins.
In the door of my refrigerator, a tube of Italian tomato purée that, unusually, I imported myself, is curled around a jar of something I have been meaning to throw out for ages. I take it out and remove the red cap. Is the cap red because of the contents, I wonder? A squeeze big enough to compensate for the lack of tinned tomatoes in the cupboard. I stir it into the pan. Coating. Spreading. Loosening it. I slide in the garlic. Stirring that into the mix. I do not want to do anything but heat it through.
My ladle, wide and shallow like a coupe de Champagne, scoops out stock from the simmering pot, four or five measures into the frying pan and I let it be. I head to the parcelled poultry. The chicken looks milky as I pull away the foil. Liquid underneath, leeched out of the resting meat, can go directly into the rice. With the tongs I lift the chicken, moving it to the board with the grooved edge and start. Two forks, silver and slightly tarnished on the tines, lift the flesh away from the bone. I begin, starting on one side with the first breast fillet. The work is quick. Vigorous. Almost brutal. The forks, like knitting needles, occasionally clack as the tips clash. The shreds, fine strands of succulent white meat. A pile that gets higher as the forks make progress around the carcass. I tug at the leg and wing, removing them, then pull off the meat by hand before finessing with the forks. The skin, gelatinous, characterless, I set aside for the dog.
I check the rice and ladle some more of the poaching liquor into it. The saffroned stock has turned the pearlescent pieces a dusky yellow, adding a warm, comforting feel through its colour. I turn the chicken around and begin again. I am not going to use all the chicken. The remaining portion will make a stir fry at a later time. There is no excess. Nor is there waste. Breast fillet, leg, wing. Shredded. The oysters, the small oval muscles along the backbone, I pop out with my fingers. I check to see if anyone is around before consuming them one at a time. They are the chef´s perks, and that is an end to it.
With elation comes deflation and perhaps the finale of this meal is that. Everything will just be thrown in. A casual culinary shrug. But here I go.
I return my attention to the pan and, taking a teaspoon, test a small grain or two. There is a firmness, the right sort of resistance, as if my teeth have gone into a slow motion during the bite. Tilting the glass bowl, the red peppers slink into the pan. I separate them with a spatula as I mix them in. The olives cartwheel out of their bowl and are stirred in amongst the chorizo and peppers. Finally, I take the shredded chicken, a combination of dark and light meats, and scatter a good handful over the lot. Not for the first time, everything must go in.
Warming through the new ingredients, I ladle one more scoop of scented stock over the rice and turn off the hob. It will rest. Settle. Meld. Another negroni is handed to me and I am ready for it, thank you. My head wet from standing over the hob, over the stockpot, over heated food. I whet my palate and head for the horizon of this culinary odyssey.
In the bottom drawer of the refrigerator, I have a large bunch of flat leaf parsley. Twisting a handful off I place the leaves on the chopping board and get to work with the knife. The tip held down. The handle gripped. I fine chop one way, then the other. Flick the leaves back into a pile with the blade and start again.
I return to the cupboard above me and pull out a small box, red, tin. Using the tip of the knife I prise open the top. The almost tobacco aroma of paprika releases itself into the air. A smoked gasp.
The bowls are warm enough without the need to force heat on them in the oven. I ladle a good scoop of the mixture into each bowl, watching it quickly spread to the edges. I take a flat edged knife and use it palette-like to dust the top with paprika, then sprinkle some of the chopped parsley over and around the dish with my fingers.
The sun has set, the evening is filled with the sound of cicadas and the warm breeze envelopes me as I step out. Ice, that chinking, clinking sound, trills above the nocturnal noise as we prepare to eat. Perhaps the glacial ringing is an alarm to the traditionalists over the dish that I have served, but I doubt anyone is going to be that strict over a simple supper. This was never really Basque chicken. An interpretation, maybe. A nod, perhaps. Just as much really as the foiled attempt was all those years ago. The ingredients may have been right, or as close as possible, but the method… well, as I said before; I am not that conventional.
Another mini-epic of deliciousness. It tasted good too!