What to Cook for People Who Know What They're Doing

One of the smartest things I ever did was convince six of my closest friends, all of whom know much more about food and wine than I do, into coming over to make dinner one night about a year ago. Rather than preparing dishes in advance, everyone brought their own ingredients and we all cooked together. (This was mostly a selfish move on my part--I wanted to learn how to make these dishes, not just eat them, but it turns out that cooking together is so much more fun anyway. Plus, you have help when you need it, and freshly prepared food when you sit down to eat.)

Anyway, that's my Supper Club. I'll be talking about it a lot. There are ten of us now, and usually three of us bring wine and champagne, while the rest of us take care of the food. Our most recent theme was Spanish foods, which are especially lovely when eaten on the patio on a warm April night. Some sample recipes:

Wendy's Patatas Bravas (Fierce Potatoes)

2 lbs potatoes
Half a large onion, diced
1 clove garlic, diced
olive oil
2 or 3 tablespoons paprika
3 fresh tomatoes, chopped
1 red or green chile, diced
Spanish thyme

Boil whole potatoes for 15 minutes. Drain and cool. Dice into 1"-1.5" pieces. Fry, or "oven fry" until crispy, or until you're sick of waiting for the potatoes.

In a saucepan over medium high heat, saute onion and one clove of garlic in a smidgeon of olive oil. When they're translucent and sticky, add paprika and stir and cook for a minute or so, until it starts looking like paste. Red paste. Mmmm. Add tomatoes and chile and Spanish thyme, and cook until the tomatoes have broken down (if you have a stick blender with you, this takes less time). Taste. Add more paprika if you have it and want to. Hold over low heat until ready to serve.

Either toss to combine potatoes and sauce, or pour sauce over individual portions of potatoes. Great served with a garlicky aioli to take away some of the heat.

Karen's Chorizo with Figs

1 lb chorizo
Half a large onion
2 cloves garlic
Splash olive oil
1/2 c red wine
1/2 c red wine vinegar
1/2 c sugar
cinnamon
cloves
1 cup dried figs

Chop up chorizo into 1-inch sections, slice onion lengthwise, and chop up garlic. Heat up olive oil in a saucepan, add the chorizo, onions, and garlic, and sautee it until the garlic is golden brown. Add red wine, red wine vinegar, sugar, three shakes of cinnamon, and a pinch of cloves. Stir it up all, reduce heat, cover, and simmer for thirty minutes. While it's simmering, roast figs in the oven (I brushed them with olive oil and put them in at 400 degrees, then drank cava until Wendy finally told me take them out already. Maybe five minutes?), and right before serving, stir the figs into the chorizo. This is smoky and spicy and sweet.

Kristen's Sangria

3 bottles Spanish red wine (the wine guy at Whole Foods on P St has some great recommendations)
2 cups lemon-lime seltzer
juice of two oranges
juice of one lemon
juice of one lime
1/2 cup triple sec
two apples, cut up into small bites
one lemon, same
one lime, same
one orange, same

Combine everything, add sugar to taste, stir, and let sit in the fridge for hours. Add one basket of strawberries, cut up into small bites, just before serving, so they don't get too mushy. Add some cava if you want to lighten it up.

This is a guest entry from Karen over at jitterbugparfum.livejournal.com. Thanks, Karen!