Imagine spinach & feta in phyllo dough….in risotto form…..No?? Well, here it is, in all its splendor!! Of course, we have taken liberties, & added ingredients that have no bidness in this recipe….but it works, as usual!!
#greekcuisine #risottoislife
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Spanikarizo
Ingredients:
• 1 cup medium-grain rice, such as Arborio, paella, or Bomba rice
• 4-6 chicken thighs. skin off, bone in.
• 1 bunch scallions (about 6), divided, 1/4 cup extra-virgin olive oil
• 10 ounces fresh baby spinach (1 bag), 1 tablespoon finely chopped garlic
• 1 1/2 teaspoons kosher salt, 1/2 teaspoon black pepper, 3 cups fresh chicken stock
• 3 tablespoons chopped fresh dill, 2 tablespoons chopped fresh mint
• 2 tablespoons unsalted butter, cubed
• 1/2 teaspoon grated lemon zest, plus 3 tablespoons fresh juice (from 1 lemon), divided
• 2 ounces feta cheese, crumbled (about 1/2 cup)
• Fresh dill leaves, fresh small mint leaves, and a drizzle of EVOO!!
Instructions:
Step 1 – Place rice in a large bowl and cover with cold water. Agitate using your hand to release excess starch; drain. Repeat process 4 to 5 times until water is mostly clear. Drain and cover with cold water. Let soak at room temperature, uncovered, for 20 minutes. Drain rice well, and set aside.
Step 2 – While rice is soaking, thinly slice white and light green parts of scallions; set aside. Thinly slice dark green parts of scallions to equal 1/4 cup; place in a small bowl. Cover using a damp paper towel, and set aside until ready to serve. Reserve remaining dark green parts of scallion for another use.
Step 3 – Heat oil in a medium Dutch oven over medium-high. Lightly sear the thighs until golden brown, but not fully cooked. Remove with a slotted spoon. Add reserved sliced white and light green parts of scallions; cook, stirring occasionally, until softened, about 2 minutes.
Step 4 – Add spinach, garlic, salt, and pepper; cook, stirring constantly, until spinach is wilted, about 2 minutes. Add drained rice; cook, stirring constantly, until rice is well coated in oil, about 2 minutes. Add 3 cups of chicken stock; bring to a boil over high. Reduce heat to maintain a simmer; add the chicken back to the mixture, cover and cook, undisturbed, for 18-25 minutes. Remove from heat, and let stand, covered, for 10 minutes.
Step 4 – Remove lid from Dutch oven, and stir in dill, mint, butter, and lemon juice. Pick or shred the chicken Transfer to individual plates or a platter; top with feta, reserved dark green parts of scallions, lemon zest, dill and mint leaves. Serve immediately.
[Music] Hey, how you doing? [Music] Oh, we are back on the big board for our 340th tutorial. And of course, we’re using chicken thighs. Look at that price. A buck 139 a pound. Are you kidding? Bag of spinach. Some mustard greens that are right on the edge. Feta cheese. Hm. Which direction we going here? Red onion, green onion, oregano. Sounds Greek. Feels Greek. Got a shallot laying there. A boreo rice. Are we doing risoto? Some beautiful gelatinous chicken stock. Homemade. Wait a minute. Couple of scotch bonnets. Two scotchies. Yeah, we’re going Greek. All right. But we’re going to mesh it. This is spanarizo, folks. Help us out, Mimi. All righty then. Let’s get through some maintenance. Let’s get through this chopping. There goes our two scotchies, as they call them down in Jamaica. There goes our onions, our shallots, our green onions. We’re going to go ahead and rough chop that mint. Yes, everything’s done. Maintenance. Who wants to see me not chop ever again? [Music] Ah, the usual suspects. But check it out. Check out the mason floss. Hey, but guess what? There’s more chopping to be done. Screw you. We’re going to peel the mustard greens off of those thick senuey stocks. Make sure we have the leaves. Give them a rough chop. Now we’re going to dab that chicken and dry it off. We rinsed it. Now it’s time to season. Salt and pepper. Our 4 in one. 4:1 kosher salt to black pepper. All right. Season that. Going to drop a bunch of oregano on there. Yes, that was Sheamus in the background. And as usual, we are using Benimo oils. Just go to the website, get yourself some beautiful olive oils, flavored if you will. Also, you can enter our drawing to have your name pulled. You’ll win a free flight. Check out the last tutorial or just go online. All right, you with me? Down go those chicken thighs. Okay, seasoned side down. We’ll go ahead and hit them with salt and pepper and oregano on the back side. We’re going to put a nice sear on these. We’re not going to cook them all the way for obvious reasons. They are going to braze in the liquid. You dig? [Music] All right, we have achieved an appropriate sear. We have drawn all that beautiful fat out of the chicken thighs. Look at that fond. Let’s start building this sauce. this flavor. Levels upon levels. Onions, shallots, green onion bulbs. Let’s go. Let’s go. Oh, and now it’s time to drop this scotch keys. That’s right. Two scotch bonnet peppers. Desated takes away most of the heat. And in goes a full half a cup of dried garlic. Both have nothing to do with Greek cuisine. But guess what? We doesn’t care. That’s what we do here at the bloated chef. We use what we have. We make it work. We flavor it. And we make it delicious. Are you with me? Time for the delaze. White wine will work. In this case, I’ve got sake left over from a couple two tree videos ago. It’ll do the trick. It’ll pull up all that beautiful fond. And boy, what a smell in this place right now. And you can see the alcohol is cooked out. You got scrapes. Now you can add your greens. We’re going to sweat down those mustard greens. Throw that spinach right in on top of it. Sweat them down. Trust me. Seems like a lot, but it ain’t. It ain’t. Believe me. as we season every level. Salt and pepper. Sweat them all down. They’re almost completely sweated down. Now, we’re going to add some fish sauce. Chef, what does fish sauce have to do with Greek cuisine? Nothing. But this is what we do. All right. In goes that a boreo rice. We’re going to call that three cups. Three cups. Cuz I’ve got eight quarts of beautiful chicken stock. We’ve sweated that down. Okay, we’ve toasted it. You got a nice nutty flavor. In goes that chicken stock. One batch at a time. We’re going to do this in two batches. Slow cook, slow simmer, big puffy rice. Are you with me? See how quickly that absorb that. 20 minutes later, all that liquid’s gone. Let’s add the rest. Normally, you add this in stages and batches, but we’re not doing it this way. We’re going big time. Industrial size. We got peoples to feed, folks. All right, go ahead and add the chicken in there. Now, let’s pull some of that fat out of there. This flavor bomb is going to be amazing. Trust me. 30 minutes later on low simmer, that rice has come together. We’ve got a nice risoto style creamy scraping the bottom. Getting all that fond off of there. Let’s go ahead and grab that chicken out of there. And let’s take our next step. A few moments later. Well, I just happen to have some vine ripe tomatoes. So, let’s add those in there, too, for a little acidity and a little color pop because what do we do? Memes, can you help me out one more time? Use what you have. That’s what we do. We use what we have. And I happen to have a couple of nice vine ripe tomatoes. In they go. It’s going to add a little color. Going to add a little acidic pop to the dish. Use it all. Use it all, people. In they go. All right. The heat is basically off at this point. The rice is still cooking. It’s carryover cooking. And now we go ahead and add the juice of three full lemons. That’s right. It’s Greek, folks. You got to have some citrus and some acid to balance everything out. Onto our warm chicken thighs. We’re going to pull that with a fork. Shred it off the bone. That’s right. Nice decent sized chunks. You know, bite-size if a little bit bigger. But you don’t want humongous chunks. Are you with me? All right. That’s all shredded. It’s all pulled. It’s all picked in into the rice mix. It goes. Normally in Spanacizo, there’s no protein or meat or anything like it, but that’s as you know, we don’t care. So, stir that around. Looking good. Actually, looking great. Are you kidding me? Get a load of this. Come on. Seriously. Now, we can add the remain of our ingredients. In goes our green onions. Okay. Right on top of that, here comes our mint. Fresh mint. Talk about brightening it up. You got lemon juice and fresh mint, green onions. Wow. This thing’s going to have multiple layers of flavors. Trust me, this is going to work. Oh, hell. It already has. I can smell it from here. [Music] And finally, we add that feta cheese at the very last along with that dill paste. I have no clue what this is going to do for the flavor profile because I would have normally used fresh dill, but for some godforsaken reason, I couldn’t find any fresh dill anywhere. Hong Kong Supermarket, Nom Demoon, Publix, Walmart, Kroger, none of them had any fresh freaking dill. All right, but here we go. Let’s get this thingated up. A few moments later. [Music] Tell me that doesn’t look like a perfect risoto. Come on. Come on. All right, big dumb animal time. Look at him. All that all the gel in the world in his hair. Look at that. What a stunning qua. There he goes. Look at that. Big pieces of chunks of chicken and spinach and greens. He goes in. Ooh, good looking ball spot right there. Ever growing, ever thinning. All right, here he goes. What’s he thinking? All right, I’m pretty sure he’s thinking, “Wow, lot of depth of flavor. Very balanced. Just enough heat.” Hm. Let’s think. Yeah. Depth of flavor, perfect amount of heat, perfectly cooked rice. What a great dish. Yeah. [Music]
1 Comment
Chicken Thighs are always a WIN!!!