cook: patatas bravas

Still reeling from the results of the election, my neighbor Cecilia decided she was still going to cook a Kamala Harris roast chicken lunch that Sunday. We were going to cook in commiseration. Gathering in community became our solace. I decided too to fry my patatas bravas that would be a practice run for Thanksgiving to accompany my sister-in-law's roast salmon, turning to 3 different recipes on how to cook my patatas mixtas: Crispy Patatas Bravas, Oven-Fried Patatas Bravas, and Eduardo Garcia's Papas Bravas, which I had watched him prepare on his cooking show. I drew from all three techniques and recipes in order to cook my version.

 

While eating my lox and bagel that Sunday morning, I re-read this poem....

.... as well as this reminder to dedicate myself to democracy, which seems to be suffering in popularity in the world right now. I get it folks, democracy is work and is hard, in a world of uncertainty and cataclysmic (because the American media tells us so)change.

Back to selfish care. Starting my preparation of my Spanish potatoes. I didn't use the whole 5-lb bag of potatoes, merely what would fit in my glass casserole dish. And started chopping and whirring spices and herbs and acids for my sauces.

 

Unfortunately, I also started day drinking...

Then went to the clubhouse with my parboiled potatoes, chimichurri and spicy aioli sauces to finish frying my patatas bravas.

 

The potatoes were fucking delicious, which we were all sampling as I watched Cecilia and Mahdu, watching Cecilia finish preparing for lunch.

In retrospect, next time, I will peel the potatoes. The skin-on just didn't allow the potatoes to get as crispy as I wanted them. I very much enjoyed the chicken with patatas bravas and a kale salad.

The bonus for all the kitchen labor was the bone broth I made along with all the leek tops and onion ends and parsley stems in my freezer.

Also Cecilia had stuffed the cavities of the chickens with a shit ton of herbs, making the broth even more flavorful.