La Chamba clay cookware

[Syzygies]

 
My latest toy arrived, a La Chamba Paella Pan, 12" from My Toque.
 
I have actual carbon steel paella pans from The Spanish Table, which I will continue to use for classic Spanish paella using Bomba rice. This will be primarily for rice dishes broadly construed. Turkish? Indian? Hopefully I will figure out how to use Massa brown rice, the rice that turned me around that brown rice could actually taste much better than white rice.
 
This would also make a nice Moroccan tagine. The classic tagine shape (which La Chamba makes) is a nod to a fire handling style that none of us practice; it has become pure theatre that I'm skipping. I'm also eyeing this as a nice cassoulet pot.
 
I now have five La Chamba pots from various sources, and my friends have more. They have been made for eternity in the same Colombian village from black micacious clay, which lends strength. I've read accounts of potters in the U.S. southwest who have trouble breaking their mistake pieces made from micacious clay. The pots feel like incredibly dense wood, are basically non-porous, and I don't worry about or heat or flame. I'll turn a burner on high, or put a room-temperature pot into a hot oven or KK. I've never broken one, and I doubt it would be easy. The surface is smooth enough for sautéing at the start of a cook. They are so buffered that the more conventional shapes make great bean pots.
 
I have lots of experience with other kinds of clay pots. Riado's Moroccan Souss tagine, also high mica, unglazed for cooking rather than show, and a steal at $29, is perhaps my favorite other piece. I'd love to buy everything in The Spanish Table's cazuela collection. Yet if I'd never heard of a clay pot other than La Chamba, I'd be very happy.
 
My Toque does an impeccable job of packaging and shipping these pots, though I suspect they'd arrive fine on a dare, with just a UPS label glued to the bottom. As these are entirely handmade, I've seen variability in how lids fit. In my small sample size, the best specimens have come from My Toque. I suspect that their long relationship with La Chamba guarantees them the best pieces.

[tinyfish]

Cant wait to see some cooks in there.

[CeramicChef]

I'm looking forward to these cooks. Should be interesting and educational!

[ckreef]

Nice. Never heard of them before but will check out the links you have posted.

[tony b]

Thanks for the inspiration Syz! Been a while since I've done any Moroccan cooking. My tagines sit on the top of my cabinet more as decorations than as cooking vessels. I've never put one on the KK; always on the cooktop - DUH?? Plus, my last batch of preserved lemons have probably gone bad by now in my pantry. 

 

Here are my 2 favorite Moroccan cookbooks.

 

http://www.amazon.com/Cooking-Kasbah-Recipes-Moroccan-Kitchen/dp/081181503X/ref=sr_1_4?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1440536223&sr=1-4&keywords=moroccan+cookbook

 

http://www.amazon.com/Couscous-Other-Good-Food-Morocco/dp/0060147210/ref=pd_sim_14_17?ie=UTF8&refRID=1FNXBFBEHWKE9XWF508D

[Syzygies]

Here are my 2 favorite Moroccan cookbooks.

 

Yes I love those books. Though I share Paula Wolfert's obsession with clay pots, Kitty Morse is my Moroccan zombie master, and that's my favorite book of hers, though I found a precursor to that book published abroad, also good. I believe that we missed the era where she leads trips, too bad.

[Syzygies]

 

So we made a lamb biryani from Madhur Jaffrey's Indian Cooking. I found a hunk of gnarly frozen lamb in the chest freezer, from some undetermined local artisan source. A half day at 165 F sous vide, then boned and cleaned up. Fry the chunks for the recipe, then they steam as the rice cooks. Include the thrown juices. Triple cooking rocks, this was the best lamb that I've had in some time.

 

The La Chamba pot is more porous than I recall. An endless supply of olive oil bubbled into it, while prepping it for the biryani after bringing several full loads of water to a simmer. Some of this oil clearly worked back into the biryani. Funny, I was reading Seductions of Rice by Jeffrey Alford and Naomi Duguid, as they described a "rich" baked rice dish that was entirely welcome by the locals who usually didn't see enough fat in their diets.

 

There's a clear fix here, that I first learned from Paula Wolfert: Fix any leaky clay pot by boiling milk in it. Here, I'd recommend this as an initial step, after boiling a full load of water, before seasoning with oil. I nevertheless love this pot, like all my other La Chamba pots. It is wonderfully buffered, and I could learn to develop a golden, not burned socarrat crust with many rice recipes.

 

Besides a new pot, and an unfamiliar recipe, we were also working with an insistence on using brown rice. The recipes calls for a six minute boil for the rice, followed by too little water while baking. We modified this, but in hindsight, we'll simply toast / fry the rice in the pot, then top up the cooking liquids with water to a target ratio, and cook the rice till done. It is exciting to be able to use brown rice in this range of recipes.

 

The recipe called for a 300 F oven. Letting the Komodo go to 350 F or 400 F seemed like a good idea at the time, though we were at risk of a socarrat forming early. Play this by ear.

[CeramicChef]

Syzygies - if you teach like you post, sign me up for any class! That was one great post. It was if you were right here at my table, drinking coffee with me. BUT (and there's always a but!) now I'm dadgummed hungry! That pic and your description have left me with a waterfall in my mouth. Kudos!

[PRippley]

Great cook, great writer, thanks Syzygies.

[Syzygies]

 

Another Spanish rice. Love this pot! Once it settles down it is amazingly nonstick, doing all steps in the pot.

 

 

[Poochie]

Your lamb dish looks incredibly delicious. I'd love to have a plate or two of it to "test" it out!  Keep 'em coming!

[PRippley]

The peas and red peppers are so bright and beautiful!

[tony b]

Killer, Syz!

 

It's tempting to reach for that credit card, but gonna hold off and give the wallet a rest!