Day 12: Learn to Experiment.
Today, starts with the very technical task of squeezing the juice out of an orange.
Easy-peasy-orange-squeezy
So far, it’s easy peasy orange squeezy.
Juice pours plentifully from these sweet Valencian Oranges and soon I have the required 850ml.
As tempting as it is, to glug it back, I resist.
Instead I let Agata know I have achieved the set-task, with a loud ta-dah I point to the jug of OJ. She hard stares. And I wonder, if I’ve already messed up.
But then she hands me a small tattered blue note-book.
“It’s all in there. Ask me if you have any questions,” and with that Agata disappears into her cold cubicle to finish the olive oil ice cream.
Oh. And with that I’m left in charge of making the Arroz a La Naranja, a dish which will be served to 50 industry experts at tomorrow’s big event.
Doesn’t look so easy, now does it Fairbrother?
It’s Day 12 of a 100-Day Chef Stage, and the kitchen is busier than usual.
Tomorrow, head-chef Maria Jose San Roman is leadingwill give a talk to on the benefits of extra virgin olive oil.
To showcase its culinary uses, she has created a one-day tasting menu that finishes with this Orange and Olive Oil Rice Pudding.
It’s rice pudding, but with a difference.
There’s no dairy at all. The milk has been replaced with orange juice and Arbequina olive oil. And the typical two-hour slow cook has been cut down to a nifty 14 minutes in a pressure cooker.
As I study the illegible handwriting in the note-book in front of me, I wonder how a recipe is developed? How do these experiments begin?
I guess they begin like they do, with anything we want to improve.
They begin with the question: What if … ?
What if … I do this? What if … I change that? What if … I try those?
And it’s these questions that create ideas, and through this imagination comes innovation.
We experiment to learn.
But first we learn to experiment.
In judo, you experiment all the time. They call it training.
To throw another person you learn how to grip the jacket, where to place your feet and which direction to throw in.
But, once you’ve learnt the basics, it is time to experiment.
What if I place my hand further up the collar - does that give me more control? What if I move my feet closer together - how does that affect my balance? What if I move faster…? slower…? What if……?
To experiment well, there should be no fear of failure. Things will go wrong. It’s all part of the discovery.
If you get it wrong on the jud mat - it’s simple - you get thrown. You you stumble, you fall over, you get thrown onto your own back, you lose.
So what? You experiment to learn. It’s just training. It’s just information. Information to take on board, and learn from. No reason to fear it.
Same, goes for recipe development.
No doubt, this Arroz a La Naranja didn’t turn out perfect on the first attempt.
I wonder how many times the dish was chucked in the bin because it was too sweet? or too acidic? or the rice too hard?
In the note-book in front of me, I just have a recipe - quantities and ingredients.
It doesn’t show these failed attempts.
But I bet they happened.
With Agata, elbows deep in olive oil ice-cream, I begin.
While the orange juice, water, cinnamon and the rice is cooking in the pressure cooker, I make the orange confit.
The whole orange is used in this dish, the skin is cooked in sugar and water until translucent, soft and sweet.
No surprise that oranges have found their way onto El Monastrell’s menu.
Drive inland from Alicante, and sure enough you’ll soon be driving through orange groves. You can buy bags of oranges from road side vendors; five kilos of oranges for just a couple of euros.
And the taste! Oh, the taste. Nothing like those tight shrivelled oranges, I ate as a child growing up in the UK in the 80s.
These are oranges that are sweet and juicy, and still taste of the sunshine.
Once the rice is cooled, I add the super-star ingredient, the Arbequina Extra Virgin Olive Oil, mixing it in to the grains gently so as not to mush them.
As well as bringing flavour, the oil makes this rice pudding creamy and sticky, anda s I spread it into 50 mini paella dishes it is already looking delicious.
I sprinkle on brown sugar, then blow torch the sugar so it caramelises, and top each paella dish with strands of sugary orange confit and fresh orange segments.
And ta-dah! It’s done!
Agata comes out of her cold cubicle to examine the mini-sweet orange paellas, now and then she rearranges the segments. She is nodding, so I take that as a good sign.
But there is only one way of telling.
The proof is in the pudding ;-)
It’s a clever dessert; a lighter, cleaner version of the original heavy, thick rice pudding.
But like any good experiment, the only measurement we need to concern ourselves with is - does it work?
There is only one way to find out, so I dig in a spoon.
I think it’s a winner - but don’t take my word for it. Have a go yourself. Here’s the recipe, and feel free to mess around with it.
Arroz a La Naranja
(original recipe by Maria Jose San Roman)
Ingredients
serves 4 / time: 45 minutes
For the Rice
850 ml orange juice (freshly squeezed)
900 ml water
3 cinnamon sticks
500g short-grain rice
For the Confit
Peel (no pith) from 6 oranges
400g sugar
400g water
100 ml Arbequina extra virgin olive oil (or a mellow, yellow variety)
For the Topping
Orange segments
Brown Sugar
Method (at a glance)
Cook the rice / Make the Confit/ Mix into the Cooled Rice / Sugar and Blow Torch / Add the Final Touches.
Instructions
1. Juice the Oranges
Juice the oranges - reserve the peel. Put the orange juice, water and cinnamon sticks in a pressure cooker and bring to the boil, without closing the lid. When it boils, add the rice. Close the lid and cook for 14 minutes, then remove from the heat, and rest for 5 minutes. Remove the cinnamon and spread the rice onto a tray to cool.
2. Make the Confit
Scrape the pith from the orange peel. Put in a saucepan, with the sugar and water. Bring to the boil and then cool. Repeat this three times, to remove bitterness. Then cook on a low heat until the orange peel is translucent, about 30 minutes.
Fine slice some of the orange peel - and reserve to use a topping. Blitz the rest of the peel into a blender. Add the olive oil.
Add the confit orange and olive oil mixture to the cooled rice, stirring it gently through being careful not to mush it.
3. Finishing Touches
Spread the rice in a thin layer in a small serving dish.
Just before you are about to serve sprinkle the rice with brown sugar and blow torch to caramelise the sugar.
Top with some confit orange strands and fresh orange segments.
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