The Airstream Turkey

Here in Los Angeles, we trick ourselves into thinking that we have seasons by looking at the calendar and determining what the appropriate response would be if we lived someplace where there was weather. It was this thinking that caused Andreanna and me to whip up a hearty Fall evening spectaular of a delicious chicken and quinoa stew and homemade soft pretzels on an October Sunday when the temperature outside dipped to a bone-chilling 65 degrees. Brr!

We decided to each take a recipe so that it didn’t take sixteen hours to make dinner, and, as luck would have it, the food all came out at once. Andreanna took care of the stew, based on a recipe from Sunset Magazine, while I tackled Alton Brown’s pretzel recipe. I’d never done any handmade baking to speak of, owing to the fact that baking is more of a science and math skillset, while cooking is more creative. So, naturally, I was a little nervous about the whole thing, thinking that I might be a little out of my depth.

You can also imagine that I was a little more skeptical about the results when I realized that we’d scavenged all the ingredients, but managed to leave the stand mixer at Andreanna’s place. Of course, she’s had a little more experience with this stuff than I have, and convinced me that I could accomplish kneading the dough with my bare hands, using only the following piece of logic:

Me: I don’t know. Will it come out the same?
Andreanna: How do you think people did it before there were stand mixers?

Point, set, match.

So, I made the pretzel dough, which was the first time I’d bloomed yeast and punched a dough down and stuff, and we cut it up and rolled out pretzels, which, again, she was better at than I. It was also the first time that I’d par-boiled a dough in an alkaline bath (in this case, baking soda) to make sure that the pretzel would retain a harder outer crust while being soft and fluffy on the inside.

And, wouldn’t you know it, the damned things were perfect. Golden and delicious, with a slightly crusty outer shell and a beautiful, tangy center. I need to learn to roll out the pretzel shapes a little better, to make them look more like pretzels, and next time, I’m going to not only make a double batch, but also make twice the recipe, so they’ll last longer than a day. Oh, and I need to get some really good mustard, though Bobby Flay has a recipe for chipotle cheese dipping sauce that looks like it’ll be ridiculous, so we’ll probably try that.

We’ll let you know how it turns out.

In the meantime, there was stewing going on just three feet to my right, and it was an equally successful effort. Andreanna, who can apply science to the kitchen, prefers art, which is one of the many reasons I love her. She believes in only loosely following a recipe, which seems to be chaos to me, but always works out just fine. I’ve never eaten anything she’s cooked that wasn’t excellent.

At any rate, one of the things that actually was in the recipe, and it was a really good idea, was to cut down the chicken thighs and cook them by sort of poaching them in chicken broth. It not only flavors the broth, but makes the thighs a little more flavorful and succulent, making both elements better. It’s a fine trick, and worth doing again.

Speaking of worth doing again, the stew was excellent. Since we had some greens that needed cooking before they went bad, Andreanna added them to the recipe, and I think it added a necessary balance of a little bitterness to go with the spicy chicken, quinoa, and olives in the stew. The quinoa made for an excellent thickening agent, and almost disappeared in the broth, and the olives added some salt that rounded the taste out really nicely. There was some subtle heat from the ancho chile powder and the coriander, which made the whole thing taste Spanish in a way.

Together, the hearty German/Spanish combo was delicious and super filling, and made us feel like it was Fall outside, no matter what the temperature. These are two recipes we will absolutely be making again.

Care to share a soup or stew recipe? Please let us know, and we’ll happily make it and tell you about the experience!