Hello Friends!!
I’m popping off strong at a long day of 00:33 but at least I got a good meal in my coffee and stronger and sweeter coffee than usual to nourish as I crack the whip of this post into fruition.
Ahem, ahemeherm, ahem *clears throat*
This is:
Cassoulet Rice, how do you ask of this phantasm of rigorous joy and fusion? Well my theory is I made chicken and rice soup. Straight to the point. Boiled a whole chicken to create a nice stock until it shredded it apart by a quick dab of a slotted spoon. Stirring in sequences to get that lovely smaltz/schmaltz/shamasaeas or chicken fat into a beautiful emulsion. Took out the shredded chicken by each slotted spoonful, savoring that beautiful smaltz and picking out the bones and cartilage of each piece.
I joke that it takes 6 days for a frozen young chicken to defrost perfectly. Well, today was 7 and there was still a bit of ice in there, so I suppose my instruction of good intentions remain true, haha ๐๐ .
I gave it a good a rinse in the sink, getting out all the blood. Took out the neck and offal for perhaps some fried goodies for later if I ever get around to it. Otherwise they sit in a Ziploc baggie waiting to see if I actually fry them or just toss em or pan fry em maybe for my doggie or something? Pip loves fried chicken livers, but not sure about the healthier version. Time will tell ๐ค๐ผ
Anyways! I just salted the chicken. Once I had the chicken in a big ol’ glass bowl I seasoned it up. Season as you wish, it’s your winner winner chicken dinner! Or rather the chicken and rice soup, was my lunch. Then Cassoulet Rice was my winner winner chicken dinner!!
All cheesiness aside for the lactose intolerant following around; it really doesn’t matter how you season even for a Variety Spice Chef Sam, like myself… Technique is universal, Seasoning is personal ๐ค๐ค I will stand by these ethics forever.
Though! Today my tummy has been a bit upset and my allergies have my left jab and uppercutting my existence and ENT system for some time now… So I went a bit BRAT Diet on this one for the moment. Little sweetness to keep the Insulin Resistance at bay, as well.
I seasoned the chicken stock with some bouillon and extra salt and left the fancy stuff to toss the chicken with. I believe pretty simple. A Garlic Pepper seasoning blend, garlic powder, onion powder, ginger powder, nutmeg, and little lil dash of cinnamon to keep it copacetic. No herbs surprisingly, as I was out of thyme and time was running myself impatient. Left it up to the bouillon and scary scary pre-made seasoning blends I usually steer away from unless it’s Adobo or perhaps some Nature’s Seasoning. Little ginger and other warm spices to keep the system running in a much more fun way than breaking out the diphenhydramine (for actual seasonal allergies and a fur baby parent not realizing I’m pretty more than mildly allergic to cats about 5 years after having two, at one time, four. Dogs too, but I’ve always had a dog or many. It’s a process but my babies are my babies, allergens or not โบ๏ธ๐ฅด๐)
I didn’t take any pics of the soup while I was cooking because I didn’t plan on making Cassoulet Rice for a nice, right before midnight dinner.
It had been sitting in a Tupperware awhile to cool off, then plopped into the fridge. I took it. Used a metal baking pan. Dish? I don’t know the ways of bakery cookware definitions, as I’ve only recently taken up the skill of zhuzhing of BC packs. Baking is usually for my toasty toasty savory adventures, consider Cassoulet Rice one of them โบ๏ธ
I’ve been craving Cassoulet for months but it’s quite hard to find the beans nor other butcher cuts for the type I like. I helped make it with whatever French neighbors I had as a kid (the Block was too large, I can only retain so many names at present, about 20 years later from my childhood – the Love is there anyways!! ๐ฉถ)
My Grandmama was one of those sneaky French Huguenot second gens in Lowcountry South Carolina hiding in plain sight with a “Flourishing Green” name but her French cooking knowledge and technique would beat any Escoffier trained chef (no mames, no reputo ๐ค๐ผ {idk the French version of this, “no remรฉ?? I have no idea, it’s not archaic enough *personal laughter knee slapper* ๐ ๐๐๐คฃ*})
But yeah, of Asian background and my Soy Mixto Heritage, we mos def understand the struggles of acclimating when “traditional” ingredients are hard to come buy or hard to afford with import/export taxes amongst procuring from primarily small business.
So what do we do? Adapt with Fusion!! Another Dialect of Cooking with Intuition, and Variety Spice. Keep up!!
I was thinking… Chicken Perlo is basically French Huguenot Banequois or “Peasant Chicken Rice when you don’t know what to make, but need sustenance, and something healthy on the cheap” or “Whatever’s Around” is a more common translation. So my Day 7 of waiting for this frozen young chicken seemed to advance the option.
I even scrambled two eggs and streamed it through the slotted spoon to get a lill egg drop soup action in there. (Another favorite of all my soup loves when allergies are at bay!!)
I had a eaten a huggeee bowl of Chicken and Rice Soup for Lunch. I took a 3 hour or so nap after a diphenhydramine and many loves and biscuit kneading with my Tux, Ozzie. (All cat owners know the Tux is the X-Games archaic mode of Cat Allergies, yet we persist bc that’s my mf Son!!!)
So in the end, I decided I wanted a bit of texture, a bit o crust for the crunchies. And most notably, all that shmaltz.. to shine ๐๐๐โโ๏ธ (that was a hair flip of excellency and foundational thought).
Once again, buttered up the pan. Left some knobs of butter in the pan, couple of cooled spoonfuls of Chicken and Rice Soup from the Tupperware. Lil big ol’ pat of butter on top. Cooked it in legs at 325ยฐ for I think 1hr25mins?? Then knocked it up to 375ยฐ for 1hr15mins. Then finally used the Air Fryer setting on 400ยฐ for I think 45 mins??
I had zero intention of making a Cooking with Intuition post about it until I saw that beautiful crust.
One notable thing about my cooking – I adjust temperature A LOT. I live by the coast, so no high altitude or whateva whateva conversion idk how to do that. I’ve never been to culinary school, I just kinda.. guesstimate everything with Intuition? So about every 30, 45, 15, 20, 25 mins; whatever it takes judging on when I’m looking and not opening the oven too much for it to cook right. Same happened while making the stock and getting the texture of shredded chicken I was looking for. Broken up with slotted spoon, no hand shredding necessary – this was all by ear, sight, smell, sound.
If that’s anything I love about cooking is, I use all my sensory to cook.
I’m always doing a million things in one. I was taking care of work and talking with a friend otp while the Cassoulet Rice was baking and I had my timers on my phone (no more carrying three eggs and a kitchen timer if you’ve ever seen a 6 year old cooking brisket and shoveling coal in the desert at 3am, a technical mobile revolution!! ๐คฃ๐คฃ {The brisket reaction: ๐ถโ๐ซ๏ธ๐ฎโ๐จ๐ฅฑ๐๐ซข๐ฅน} )
So even if I use timers and my intuition, if I have to stay away from the stove or oven for awhile instead of babysitting and falling asleep in a chair I stole from the table – I, in the words of another great Sam of namesake, Toucan Sam, I choose to “Follow your Nose…” Fruity smells that show or not, this one was the smell of chicken, schmaltz, rice, egg, and simple seasoning. Along with a lil zest of lemon and lemon juice on top. Somewhere before the air fryer part happened at the end, came the lemon.
With, you guessed it – this is Cassoulet Rice after all gl- the cracks in the middle for that perfect crust!!
Crack yo crust, break it and build the foundation. Destruction for Creation of Delicacy, this ๐ I permit for Cassoulet Rice delicacy. It ain’t just Creme Brulee the French are cracking at to make better in a dish ๐คญ๐ซฃ๐ซฃ๐คซ it’s savory too ๐๐๐
My Internet connection is not strong enough for videos I won’t sure will post right – so imagine here:
In retrospect, my version of on-the-fly Cassoulet Rice could be considered “Gemiga” or “Gemini Rice” to symbolize the chicken and the egg, or who came first bc ultimately – the chicken ate that rice to make the egg. So it’s joke that chickens come from rice in Basque and Andalusians say the Egg came first bc it fried to get the cold rice bc of some Asian girl that taught them about fried eggs and rice for breakfast and a Filipino Dish called Arroz Caldo. Whatever, I’m not a ๐ค ๐ค
Sidenote of Cultural Significance:
I identify as Filipino, as we all are from Mixed Heritage. I say Soy Mixto because of my Spanish and Italian sides kinda got those sentiments peeked, and I was fortunate enough to start remembering all my travels before Kindergarten to know “the World doesn’t only think in American” or “gerifima” which is ..often why Gemiga is the first dish you eat in Andaluscian or Basque and THE FIRST DISH you eat when you arrive to The Village of LIANE Villalobos, where my title and familial maternal namesake come from.
It’s mostly a notion to be like… “Hey, you feel all sad and confused you’re American and all misunderstood. Crazy, we’re misunderstood over here too. You eat chicken and rice? Crazy, so do we. You like chicken and rice? Arroz con Pollo? Soup-form? You mean Arroz Caldo, oh Filipino? We like their stuff too, our soil just can’t handle ginger. They don’t really use ovens, they use spits and holes in the ground. The government won’t let us do that anymore. Causes all the mulberry coffee pods to get roasted. Not only doesn’t cause the wildflowers to turn to wildfires because of the essential oils [“like in your California, we love Johnny Cash but will not forgive him for burning down the Condor’s Archaic Forest because he got so high to eat strawberry scream cake in a bush.. oh you don’t know what strawberry scream cake means…” It takes so many dialects to prove a point in English…”” *Causes another Dialect thread to protrude, 7 hours later to the main point*] and then the goats get crazy and the pigs become gigantic from all the fresh mulberry coffee they’re eating …”you’ve never had coffee with chicory, never had Cafe du Mรถnde?”
And this is how you end up whittling a birch tree and chopping logs with a hatchet at 4 years old because kindergarten beckons in 4 months and you became a Villalobos in-title 3 months ago and you only just got around because “you’re Big In Japan” and then you have to perform a dialectic paper and Socratic seminar on the key tonals and tonage of “Mr. Blue Sky” while the birch wood is too oil-condensed to light with a stone and arrow point and you sacrifice the archaic forms for a duraflame stick and suddenly you’re herding 37 long-horn sheep cattle that started to encroach behind you as you plucked a wire basket of Iberian acorn husk, a floral linen basket of penny-wheat, and woven handmade basket of jeet and jute twin handmade before you even enter the pinage gates, (not the wire ones, that’s different; wrought-iron gates are a totally different field, etc etc.) and yeah suddenly the 2 ft tall girl is running as fast as possible because 30 hectares of farm is chasing after my various nuts, acorns, husk, and mulberry coffee cacoaoapods, and the smell of ginseng is all over my suit-of-armor metallic knee pads and hands in 8th century blacksmith gloves apparently “beckons the herds of the wild” and I am the youngest, first female, and shortest to accomplish the Villalobos title even if it’s a legality for my Mother and otherwise maternal side of grands, grands before, and ggreat-grands before and before before that too.
In the end,
“It don’t mean shit where you come from, it don’t mean shit where you’re from or born or consider yourself to be: ie. because where you’re from is since the dawn of time, and that place has no birth unless you’re Korean, Filipino, or Dominican. You’re all of them but your Mother is Filipino-Born to Spanish, Italian, Chinese and East-Asian Immigrants, and you’re Indigenous so you’re all of them. The 4, not even the 3 or 2 can relate; so that’s why you’re here learning how to be a f***iNG Villalobos because no one has been one for like 400 years title-wise…” And this caused many dialectic arguments while I chased down Sally Bear the Goat that ripped my homemade hand-dawnned Overalls of Levi 501 scraps because frankly.. they didn’t anticipate a 4 year old, 2 ft 2in little girl of pure fury and intuitive dreamcasts to arrive and now they know why they’ve received so many transcriptions stating we gotta get this goat-herding shit outta the way so I got time to make it to Kindergarten. They thought I was like a 22 year old teacher or something and I just graduated since I kept mentioning summer work-travel-vacation is almost over, anyways.
My mom thought I made Arroz Caldo. Though this time The Allium Ante skipped out on the alliums and aromatics and went warm spices and lipids lipids lipids.
I even shared the bowls and spoons of two, switched em, so you see why I have to so hard and so do you; “gericama/geripravna” and I fixed your bowl too, shared bags of different Keebler cookies (M&M and Fudge Stripe). I knew my mom (my geritage, or grand-heritage member I chose to share this meal with at near midnight but roughly 9 hours cook-time broken up all day) would want the fudge stripes but might want the M&Ms. I wanted the M&Ms but I have her the “pick one” with two hands presented. She picked the one I knew and I almost denied but said “I have more” and then she accepted. Ate the meal, talked, on the phone, got hung up on because I wasn’t sure if I was being told something or my friend was directing their dogs that it’s time to go to sleep. (Oh look at that, 20% off left on my battery kismet {btw, I type all these Cooking with Intuition posts on my phone. It takes forever to mobile type, clocking at 1:42am rn, but the picture syncing stuff is too much between accounts, platform, and devices. Like this is how much I want all you dudes and dudettes to learn how to cook for yourself without Remy the Ratatatatatouille-ing you into doing it. That’s another Villalobos dialect..moving on.})
Lowkey, they spoke to me almost entirely in English at Villalobos and I can see why I have a “Daria” esque vibe anywhere I go, because they say the “Prefects” match the energy of the current “Prophet Candidate” and like – this is what they felt from me in my Nation’s legal language of English and we only spoke Andaluscian at night and Mother Tongue was between 3am-7pm but like silent hours are 3am-7pm so that’s kinda the point they’re making that “you feel alone in the world? So do we do, that’s why/where we’re the ๐ค ๐ค and you’re Villalobos. Like it ain’t your legalities digs in America, but my gawd, you’re 4 years old and the other youngest candidate for or with in-title was 73 and that was —x years old. We can uh.. see why you’re bored of America and not a fan or “propetent” whatever that means because it doesn’t exist anywhere except Russia and none of us barely speak English affiably, whatever that means it doesn’t translate to any dialect of Iberia, so that’s why we carry Merriam-Webster in our slow-tings because Ma’dame Merriam gets angry with us when we confuse her, I mean their gesticulations with Hebrew Sign Language because you just got back from Israel and studied at the DHOHHL Symphorium with —x and now we’re really confused so yeah, if you want to call it “Cassoulet Rice” *air quotes included* even if it’s really Gerigama, you know “shitty Arroz con Pollo y huevos with no vegetables for picky eaters ie. Autistics” as you’ve translated for us and chose the “Archaic Linguisticon of Dead Language Etymology” as your Communication Challenge and Covex to Stability within The FaMILIAN of Villalobos Bolos because every other candidate chose “Learn American English” as theirs and it became tradition [like myself] and the first of firsts and firsts as The Four – you know.. so be it. We just feel challenged as you only started speaking American-English last year as you’ve tied your beef with American-English post-getting a cochlear implant because Snoopy at Knott’s Berry Farm said Hello to you and then spoke in straight Mother Tongue for an hour and a half and got fired for it and then you… and went on a lecture of the important of Diplomatic Communications in American-English between Holders of Mother-Tongue and you as LAN Madre del lainenain Milian requires instructions to bridge the effort and this is why you will name your first xhocoiltal Snoopy [I did, may he RIP like Reese’s Pieces dripping from Heaven / xcishamihitohijitojihitootototo]ย So yeah, so be it. You make me, us, and all the ๐ค ๐ค feel stupid, bhut if this is the challenge and your marker for “Non-Verbal Communication Excellency” is Black Sign Language to nourish our African Roots.. so be it. And if you choose for us to drink coffee instead of water to challenge us and make us work more since you can’t have it yet and drink mochachinnos all day because you’re —x and 4 years old [{I deserved that, I’m sorry, I’m still learning American-English as a ๐ค ๐ค Mate, you know.. so be it.”
๐คท๐ปโโ๏ธ๐๐ปโโ๏ธ๐๐ปโโ๏ธ๐ง๐ปโโ๏ธ๐ค๐ผ๐ค๐ค๐ผ๐โโ๏ธ๐๐
so be it.
And I ate my bowl I left on my desk I never got around to and dropped half a lemon’s worth of juice in descendant-citron glory and missed the days of my fingerprints burning off plucking cintrons from the Archaic Mother Villalobos’ Tree of Excellency that had not been pruned once since her Absence and Abjection into Life. And my Friend reminded me of this, after we talked about my time at the St. Jude campus at LA’s Cedar-Sinais as a brain-cancer patient and I chose Raven from Teen Titans to every doctor’s dismay until it was a hit for Cosplay Tuesdays and then Master Roshi the subsequent month after and the handiness of households objects for cleansing and remedies I learned from Doctors without Borders, such as a Skillcraft Pen Refill Replacement I used on my own Commitment Ring Finger on the Right some weeks ago. It still hurts and I keep hitting it!!
I hate shiny diamonds and prefer raw materials or hand-link-makimg, but if this is my initiation as a Leader and Matriarch and I finally accepted the Positionary Role – so be it.
“In the end, everyone eat chicken and rice. Slap some butter on there. Retract the lemon if you have picky eaters, add more if you’re stomach is upset. You’re are woman, so salt the eggs if you need to, but just know – we know this works for everyone. Including you, Samantha.” “It’s Sam.” “Now you’re getting how the world works!!”
Tracks to Accompany the Cookery:
“That’s That” by MF Doom
“Elizabeth” by Westside Gunn
“Risk” by FKJ, Bas
“Michael Irvin” by Westside Gunn
“Footsteps in the Dark Pts. 1&2” by SiR
“Hero” by Pivot Gang, Frsh Waters, MFnMelo
“Kiss You Right Now” by Duckwrth
“Mystery Lady – Sego’s Remix” by Masego
“12:34am” by Billy Lemos, Omar Apollo, Maxwell Young
…
And now I’m clocked at 2:28am. I’m tired. I’m gonna relax and delight in some well-needed self-care and formal shower instead of “…dorasia” clean-and-go’s I taught Andaluscian about 20 years ago as my coconut oil bath and hair slick serum oil emulsion down has done all it’s can and I’ve broken open the packs of sal de uvas and just ate Cassoulet Rice. It’s time, to go take care of myself and make sure I love myself unconditionally- no matter how tired I am. Maybe even get around to separating clothes even if Laundry Dry leaves me defeated often still!!
Last Two to Tie it Off:
“Skegee” by JID
“DOMINICANA” by Hush Forte, Aaron, Myquale
…
[unsurprisingly]
All tracks can be found on “aerodynamic applause” and “dark matter” from my music-streaming profile “petrichorfrequency” found on my Contact Page.
I would link the playlist but I have pushed the JetPack app as far as it’s gonna go on a mobile device yet again, without losing my post.
Goodnight / Abrecayma /Aberyadaren /Solaeimo / Arrevideeciereo / Solantanta / Excusimimineedsleepies ๐ฅฐ๐ค๐ผ๐๐ด๐ช๐คง -Sam ๐ค๐ผ๐ฉถ๐๏ธ๐ชจ