I had all these fresh strawberries and a desire to make a relatively easy dessert from them. I found this recipe in the current issue of Cook’s Illustrated. Little did I know such a simple recipe could be so fraught with epic fail.

I wanted a mixture of berries, so I retrieved some blackberries and raspberries from the freezer. I had frozen the berries myself; they weren’t supermarket berries in sugar syrup. The recipe clearly states “Do not use frozen berries,” but I figured it was to prevent sugared berries from being used.

I thawed out the blackberries and raspberries, and left them to drain in a colander set over a bowl. I sliced the strawberries into quarters, added them to the rest, and tossed them with two teaspoons of granulated sugar and a pinch of salt.

I divided the mixture into four six-ounce gratin dishes.

While the berries released some more juice, I whisked together three egg yolks, two tablespoons plus one teaspoon granulated sugar, and three tablespoons of dry white wine in a glass bowl.

I set the bowl over a pot of barely simmering water and proceeded to whisk the bejeebus out of the yolks, until they reached the consistency of hollandaise. I removed the bowl from the heat and continued whisking for another minute to cool down the resulting zabaglione.

I chilled the mixture in the fridge for ten minutes, then turned on my broiler.

At this point I was supposed to whip three tablespoons of heavy cream into soft peaks, but I was out of heavy cream. I made an educated guess and added about three quarters of a cup of whipped cream right out of the spray can, then folded it into the zabaglione. I spooned this mixture over the berries. I mixed together two teaspoons each of white and light brown sugar, then sprinkled a teaspoon over each dish. I let everything sit until the sugar had been absorbed.

I slid the dishes into the broiler on a rack about seven inches below the flame. The recipe calls for a browning time of one to four minutes. I set the timer for two minutes. Mistake.

It’s difficult to tell from the photo, but the top didn’t turn black — it was a very dark brown, not unlike a well-toasted marshmallow. It was appropriately crispy, like the top of a well-torched crème brûlée.

Sadly, even though I was willing to overlook the topping, I couldn’t also claim “I meant that” when we reached the interior, which was too watery. It tasted of fresh berries, and the strawberries were warned through without being mushy, but the raspberries and blackberries had dissolved, diluting the zabaglione.

Leaving aside the timing of the browning step, the failure here could be blamed on the two substitutions. The frozen berries continued to release all of their liquid during the preparation. The whipped cream wasn’t dense enough to add structure to the egg foam — the canned stuff injects too much air.

I should have used my blowtorch to crisp the tops. I would have had better control over the browning, and it would have looked cooler.

I’ll make this again beacuse the recipe didn’t fail me, I failed the recipe. Lesson learned: Don’t fuck with Cook’s Illustrated.

I first encountered a paella recipe 25 years ago, in The New York Times 60-Minute Gourmet by Pierre Franey, one of the books I used at the beginning of my continuing Great Cooking Adventure. It appeared to have all of the necessary elements: sausage, chicken, shrimp, clams, rice, and saffron (available only in powdered form, which meant it was probably 50% tumeric). It tasted good, so I was happy to cook it every other month.

Then I tasted a real paella, cooked by a friend’s Spanish mother. It was nothing like the soupy rice concoction I had been eating for years — it had al dente, saffron-scented short-grain rice, perfectly cooked seafood, and a crispy socarrat — the caramelized bottom crust. Thus began my Quixotic (Spanish, get it?) quest to cook an authentic paella.

I tried other recipes, including what should have been a foolproof method from Cook’s Illustrated, but the best I ever wound up with was a jambalaya with upper-class aspirations. I thought I made a breakthrough when I found a paella pan at Ikea (a Swedish paella pan, should have been a warning sign), but it had a non-stick coating which prevented socarrat formation.

I had given up on the dish when I read about a specialty provider, La Paella, that sold authentic paella pans and genuine short-grain Valencia rice. A week later I had a sixteen inch pan and a kilo of rice, and I was ready to go.

The pan is carbon steel, so it had to be cleaned and conditioned like a new wok. I assembled the ingredients:

One onion, two plum tomatoes, six large peeled garlic cloves, a quart of lobster stock, a dozen mussels, a half pound each of shrimp, scallops, and calamari, saffron, and Valencia bomba rice. I peeled and de-veined the shrimp, and cut the calamri into strips (the bodies had been cleaned and split, so I didn’t wind up with rings).

I peeled the onion and tomatoes, then pulsed them both in a food processor until finely chopped.

I added some olive oil to the pan and sauteed the shrimp, scallops, and calamari for two minutes, then removed everything from the pan.

I added the onion and garlic and cooked for about five minutes on medium heat until the onion softened.

I added the tomato and some salt, and cooked for another 15 to 20 minutes, until the mixture thickened and darkened. I now had a sofrito.

While the sofrito cooked, I brought the lobster stock up to a simmer and added a large pinch of saffron threads. I added two cups of rice to the sofrito and stirred for about two minutes.

I added the saffron-infused stock, shaking the pan to distribute the rice evenly, then simmered vigorously over medium-high heat until the liquid reached the level of the rice, about ten minutes.

Even though my stove has a large “power boil” burner, the flame doesn’t spread out across the entire pan bottom, so I slowly rotated it during all of the remaining cooking steps to ensure even heat distribution.

I added the mussels to the pan and cooked over medium-low heat for another ten minutes. When all the liquid was absorbed, I arranged the shrimp, scallops, and calamari over the rice.

To create the socarrat, I turned up the heat to medium-high and rotated the pan for about two minutes, listening for the rice crackling. I let the dish rest for five minutes under foil, then served the whole pan at the table with lemon wedges to pass around.

I invited our guests to serve themselves out of the pan, which is the traditional style.

How did it taste? For a first attempt, I think I came pretty close. The rice was separate grains with a slight chew, you could taste and smell the saffron, the seafood was perfectly cooked, and the socarrat (the darker bits in the photo) had a nice crunch.

The rice should have had a deep yellow-orange color instead of the beige I wound up with . I probably didn’t use enough saffron, and I didn’t add any smoked pimenton — another traditional ingredient — that would have deepened the color. A seafood paella omits chorizo sausage, which would have added color as the fat rendered out.

I still haven’t made a near-perfect paella, but now I know I’m moving in the right direction.

Sources:

Seafood from New Deal Fish Market.

Paella pan and bomba rice from La Paella.

Saffron from Penzeys.

Lobster stock from the Belm Laboratories Research Kitchen.

This happens to me sometimes: I buy some meat with the vague notion “I’ll cook something with it,” which is then followed by an episode of Good Eats addressing my purchase. In this case it was pork tenderloin (on sale, 50% off) and the “Tender is the Pork” episode, which featured preparations for grilled pork tenderloin and Pork Wellington.

I have never attempted the original beef version attributed to Arthur Wellesley, inventor of the waterproof boot and vanquisher of Napoleon at Waterloo (note the cunning display of recently acquired London knowledge), because it’s heavy, expensive, and prone to mishaps. But a pork version wouldn’t set me back too much if I failed, and it took less than an hour to prepare.

I started with two pork tenderloins, 6 ounces of prosciutto (the Canadian stuff — it would be a crime to cook the good Italian variety from Parma), fresh thyme, mustard, dried apple rings, and frozen puff pastry.

I left one sheet of the puff pastry out to thaw under a clean towel, then set the oven to 400°F. As it warmed up I turned my attention to prepping the tenderloins.

The recipe only requires one tenderloin, but since they’re always packaged in pairs, I figured I’d trim them both and save one for grilling later in the week. Notice the white sheath at the fat end of the muscle: that’s the inedible silverskin, and must be trimmed off with a sharp knife.

Once trimmed, I wrapped one up and returned it to the fridge, the other I split in half lengthwise.

I minced enough fresh thyme to make a generous teaspoon, and pulsed an ounce of the dried apples in a food processor until they reached a medium dice.

Then I laid out the slices of prosciutto, overlapping the edges slightly to create a uniform layer as wide as the length of the tenderloin. I flattened the slices with a rolling pin, then seasoned them with the minced thyme and salt and pepper (instead of plain salt, I used some thyme & fennel fleur de sel for an extra flavor boost).

I laid the tenderloin halves across the middle of the prosciutto, making sure to flip one of the halves so that each thin end matched with a thick end — thus ensuring an even thickness. I filled the gap between the halves with the diced apples.

Using the parchment paper as a guide, I rolled the prosciutto tightly around the tenderloin halves, finishing with the seam on the bottom.

I rolled out the now-thawed puff pastry into a 12 by 14 inch rectangle, and spread a tablespoon of mustard across the center. The recipe calls for whole grain mustard, but I only had Dijon, which worked just as well.

I placed the prosciutto/tenderloin roll over the mustard, then folded the pastry over the top. I spread some egg wash (one egg beaten with a tablespoon of water) over the exposed edge before rolling up the package.

I placed the pastry bundle on a parchment-lines sheet pan, seam side down, tucked the ends under and pinched them closed, the covered it all with more egg wash. It went into the oven for 25-30 minues, until golden brown.

After a ten minute rest, I sliced the wellington into inch-thick portions and served them with wilted garlic spinach.

How did it taste? The dish merged all of the flavors that traditionally accompany pork: apples, mustard, and thyme. The prosciutto added a salty, earthy depth to the sweet, barely pink pork. The crust was still crisp on the outside, but chewy — not soggy — on the inside.

I served a Ravenswood 2002 Napa Valley zinfandel with the pork. Its astringency worked well to cut through some of the richness of the dish.

It occurred to me as I was eating the wellington that this was the second dish in a row I cooked that involved wrapping pork in cured pork (see also here). Maybe I’ll make them both at the same time, wrapping the Bacon Explosion in a fast Bisquik crust (or better, some Pilsbury biscuit dough), and let my guests decide which they prefer.