Entries Tagged as 'Italian'

Festa di Salumi: Bucatini all’Amatriciana with Guanciale

2

30.10.12

This post is part of the Festa di Salumi from Punk Domestics.

As a pasta taskmaster, I’m gonna go out on a limb here. According to legendary Italian cookbook writer Marcella Hazan, All’amatriciana and bucatini are “as indivisible as Romeo and Juliet. But other couplings of the sauce…can be nearly as successful.” I utterly disagree! Those hollow rope-like bucatini tubes are the only noodles that stand-up to this extraordinary sauce.

Not that making this dish is any trouble– most of the cooking is hands-off. Rendered pork fat amplifies the bright tomatoes and red pepper flakes to create a vibrant synergy. It feels crude adding a dollop of butter to the bubbling tomatoes rich with pork fat and olive oil, but just do it. It adds creaminess and pleasantly coats your mouth.

Use home cured guanciale if you can. Pancetta is an acceptable substitute but lacks the nutty depth of dried pig jowl. For the love of god, DON’T USE BACON. The smokiness muddies the delicate harmony. The sauce is done after it has simmered for over an hour and pools of oil collect on the surface. Slather the cooked noodles in the sauce, and garnish with crispy guanciale and grated cheese.

My bucatini all’amatriciana recipe will make you swear off stodgy Prego slop on gluey spaghetti forever. Just please take care while making it.

Bucatini all’Amatriciana

2 tablespoons olive oil
3 ounces guanciale, sliced into thin lardons
1 1/2 teaspoons red pepper flakes
1 large onion, diced
2 cloves garlic, minced
1 28-ounce can tomatoes
1 tablespoon butter
1 pound bucatini
2 tablespoons Parmigiano-Regianno

1. In a skillet, heat the olive oil over medium heat. When the oil is hot, add the guanciale. Turn the heat up to medium high, and let the guanciale cook for 2 to 3 minutes to get it going, and then turn the heat down to low and let it cook for about 15 minutes or until crispy.

2. Turn the heat down to medium low. Using a slotted spoon, remove 2/3 of the guanciale to a paper towel.

3. Add the diced onion and red pepper flakes and cook, stirring occasionally, for about 10 minutes.

4. Turn the heat up to medium. Add the minced garlic and cook, stirring frequently, for about 2 to 3 minutes.

5.Carefully add the tomatoes to the skillet. Cook on low for 15 minutes.

6. Stir the butter into the simmering tomatoes and mash them with a wooden spoon. Cook on low for another 45 minutes or until pools of oil collect on the surface of the sauce. Serve over cooked bucatini noodles garnished with the crispy guanciale and the cheese.

Festa di Salumi: Guanciale Is Not Pig Jowl Bacon

7

25.10.12

This post is part of the Festa di Salumi from Punk Domestics. It is the first of three projects from Salumi by Michael Ruhlman and Brian Polcyn.

My mom recently said, “I haven’t seen any pig jowls at the Stop & Shop recently.” It jolted me back to reality– it’s OK that most people don’t regularly eat guanciale.

Cured pig jowl and I actually only met recently when I lived in New York. Dustin and I had ventured to Bushwick after reading in Edible Brooklyn about a rag-tag gang of hipsters casually throwing together a pizza joint. Roberta’s exuded intimidating coolness: local micro brews, drinks served in Ball jars, locally sourced chickens, rooftop gardens, and piggy bank centerpieces begging for donations to the Brooklyn Grange. It was all so novel at the time.

Another novelty was guanciale listed under the pizza topping options. I timidly asked the server, “um, could you tell me what this is?” pointing to the word on the menu (I didn’t know how to pronounce it). He described it as pig jowl bacon. I wondered, “Doesn’t that come from the face/head area?!” while picturing myself as an Andrew Zimmern-esque nose-to-tail character ordering pizza topped with guanciale and roasted red peppers. It was exhilarating.

Three years later I confronted a raw pig jowl in my own kitchen. It was surprisingly large– similar to any other hunk of pork (I’m no Andrew Zimmern after all). Following the directions in Michael Ruhlmn and Brian Polcyn’s new Salumi book, I rubbed the pork with tons of salt and black pepper, placed it in a Ziploc bag, and left it in the fridge for a few days. Then I rinsed it, patted it dry, and hung it from the ceiling fan in the extra bedroom.

Curing meat requires suspension of disbelief. Leaving the flesh of others unrefrigerated for over three weeks feels vaguely shameful. We underestimate salt’s powers to purge meat of moisture and create an environment inhospitable to bacterial growth.

Thinking back to that dinner at Roberta’s, I’d say that bacon comparison was misleading. Yes, guanciale has those familiar white streaks of fat, but it tastes delicately sweet instead of harshly smoky. The application of heat releases the silky fat and echoes the complex flavors of a good Spanish ham.

But the Roberta’s memory did inspire me to recreate that pizza. I’ll try to remember to get off my high horse whenever I eat it.

Pizza with Guanciale and Roasted Eggplant and Summer Squash

1 recipe pizza dough
1 tablespoon olive oil
2 ounces guanciale, thinly sliced
1 small eggplant, thinly sliced sliced
1 small summer squash or zucchini, thinly sliced
1/4 medium red onion, thinly sliced
1 teaspoon red pepper flakes
2 garlic cloves, thinly sliced
salt and pepper to taste
1/4 cup canned tomatoes
1 or 2 balls fresh mozzarella, sliced

1. Heat the oven to 425°F. Place the olive oil in a skillet and heat over medium high heat. Add the guanciale and stir frequently for several minutes. Then turn down the heat and allow the guanciale to cook for 10 minutes on low. Remove the guanciale pieces to a plate lined with a paper towel. Remove the skillet from heat.

2. After the skillet has cooled, place the eggplant, squash, garlic, and red peppers in the skillet to coat the vegetables with the rendered fat. Season with salt, and then spread the vegetables onto a baking sheet. Place the baking sheet into the oven for 20 to 30 minutes.

3. While the vegetables are roasting, stretch the pizza dough into a circle. Spread with tomato sauce and top with the fresh mozzarella, onion slices, and cooked guanciale.

4. After 20 to 30 minutes, remove the vegetables from the oven and turn the heat up to 500°F. Top the pizza with the roasted vegetables. Place the pizza in the oven after it reaches 500°F– it needs to be screaming hot! Bake for 8 to 10 minutes. Scatter parsley over the top of the pizza after removing it from the oven and then serve.

Book Review: My Berlin Kitchn

0

17.10.12

France and Italy get all the attention in food memoirs. Think about it– My Life in France, Under the Tuscan Sun, the part in Comfort Me with Apples where Ruth Reichl is doing Colman Andrews, Between Meals, Eat Pray Love, etc. There must be hundreds of food memoirs pontificating on the wonders of French and Italian cuisine. It gets tedious. Yes, we know France and Italy are fabulous, but too many other destinations get pushed under the carpet.

Berlin really got under my skin when I visited in 2004. It feels strangely empty– as large as two cities with the population of one. It takes awhile to travel between the vastly different neighborhoods, traversing parks and Cold War era no man’s lands. As a 20th Century history nerd, I was fascinated by Berlin’s historic sites, but it’s also a forward thinking place with a youthful Euro vibe. And I adore the unpretentious German tradition of sipping a stein of golden pilsner while snacking on sausages, pretzels, and sauerkraut.

So I was intrigued to read My Berlin Kitchen by Luisa Weiss, the blogger behind The Wednesday Chef. The daughter of an American father and an Italian mother, she chronicles her life growing up in Berlin, moving to Boston, moving back to Berlin, settling as a young adult in New York, and then finally moving back to Berlin in her thirties. Her father moved back to the United States after her parents divorced, and she led a disjointed existence pulled between her father in the United states, her mother in Berlin, and her Italian relatives. Each chapter is short, self-contained, and includes a recipe. Several of them detail her trips to visit relatives in Italy and her year studying in Paris to keep the food memoir purists satiated.

Above all, Weiss is completely relatable. Food memoirists aren’t the most self-aware bunch, often detailing their glamorous lives of cooking, dining, and travel. But even though Luisa lives the supposed dream (youth spent in New York City, food blogger turned writer, beautiful wedding in Italy to perfect guy) you don’t begrudge her for it. You cheer her on because she’s honest about all of the hard work and heartache she went through to get there. Ultimately, Weiss’s story is inspirational. She worked hard, trusted her gut, took big chances, and it paid off.

And if writing a vulnerable and heart felt memoir isn’t enough, Weiss also included over 40 recipes in the book. They could almost comprise a small cookbook by themselves! But I couldn’t help but ask myself– does every single important moment in your life actually relate to food somehow? Is that really how the world works? I can’t help but feel it’s a tad contrived.

But there’s no better person to include all of these recipes in a memoir. Weiss is a descriptive food writer. Every time I finished a chapter, I fought the urge to put the book down and make her food. She’s also an adventurous cook and baker, so her recipes aren’t boring tarts with stuff she made from the farmers market. Not that I wouldn’t happily eat that.

I made one of the simpler recipes from her book. This salad of roasted peppers, breadcrumbs, and anchovies is one of her Italian mother’s staple dishes. It maybe converted me to roasting my peppers in the oven instead of on the gas stove from now on.

Peperoni al Forno Conditi

2 to 3 slices stale white peasant bread
3 red bell peppers
3 yellow bell peppers
1/4 cup oil-cured black olives, pitted and chopped
1/4 cup salt-cured capers, soaked and drained
3 anchovy fillets, minced
1 cup loosely packed flat-leaf parsley, minced
4 tablespoons best-quality olive oil, or more to taste
Flaky salt, such as Maldon

1. Cut the stale bread into rough chunks and blitz in the food processor until they turn to coarse crumbs. Spread the crumbs on a plate and set aside to crisp up and dry out.

2.Heath the oven to 375 degrees. Line a baking sheet with aluminum foil. Wash and dry the peppers and arrange them on the baking sheet. Put the sheet in the oven and bake for 45 minutes, turning the peppers every 10 to 15 minutes to make cure they cook evenly (I use my fingers, but you could also use cooking tongs). By the end of the cooking time, they should be blistered all over, and their juices bubbling.

3.Remove the baking sheet from the oven and let cool on a wire rack until you are able to handle the peppers. Set out a clean plate or bowl next to the baking sheet and pull the skin off the peppers, working over the aluminum foil. Take care when you “unplug” the stem of the pepper: hot steam or liquid usually comes gushing out. Your hands will become quite wet as you work; periodically dry them to facilitate cleaning the peppers. Transfer the peeled peppers, devoid of any seeds, to the plate or bowl. As you transfer the pieces of pepper, use your fingers to tear the flesh into thin strips. Discard the aluminum foil and the pepper trimmings.

4. Sprinkle the plate of peppers with the breadcrumbs, olives, anchovies if using, capers, and parsley, and drizzle the olive oil over the peppers. Mix gently, and then add a few pinches of flaky salt to taste. Serve right away or let sit at room temperature, covered, for up to 4 hours before serving. If you’re not going to serve the peppers right away, don’t sprinkle on the breadcrumbs until the last minute. That way they retain their crunch.

Disclaimer: Viking sent me a review copy of the book. I was not otherwise compensated to write this review.

Cookbook Review: Vegetarian Cooking for Everyone by Deborah Madison

9

26.6.12

My absolute favorite cookbook ever is Vegetarian Cooking for Everyone by Deborah Madison. I credit her with teaching me to cook. It’s not just a vegetarian cookbook— it’s a guide to anything you’d ever want to cook that happens to be meatless. Wondering how to make mayonnaise? Or the best way to cook zucchini? Just consult Deborah Madison and her impeccable sense of flavor. After you master those simple recipes, move on to much more complicated dishes like butternut squash ravioli with toasted pecans and sage— one of the best meals of my life, right up there with Uchi. This huge book has 1400 recipes that appeal to every skill level, so you’ll never get bored.

No one venerates seasonal produce as much as Deborah Madison, clear in her delightful writing. First published in 1997 before farmers’ markets were fashionable, Vegetarian Cooking for Everyone was ahead of its time. I’ve returned to it again and again now that I subscribe to a CSA. The useful index lists recipes for every vegetable imaginable, and D.M. always knows the best way to prepare them.

Of course this book isn’t without faults. D.M. learned to cook while a student at the San Francisco Zen Center, so the book is quite California-centric. I can’t always turn to her for new ways to prepare the black-eyed peas, okra, collards, and green tomatoes that seem omnipresent at Austin farmers’ markets. Her soup recipes are occasionally disappointing, and I don’t depend on her for desserts.

Her other books, like Local Flavors, are also outstanding, but Vegetarian Cooking for Everyone will always have a special place in my heart. I followed those recipes word for word when I was learning to cook, but now they’re more like a source of inspiration. Some of the recipes, like roast potatoes with garlic, have become so second nature to me that I forgot where I learned them.

This fresh tomato sauce is another example of a dead simple recipe that I’ve integrated seamlessly into my repertoire. By the way, D.M. taught me NEVER to put tomatoes in the fridge because it “cold kills everything about them that’s good.” You can actually find me saying that word for word on occasion. After growing up on Prego and it’s ilk, this sauce was a revelation. Fresh summer tomatoes simmered with basil and finished with a glug of olive oil tastes like sunshine in a bowl.

Fresh Tomato Sauce from Vegetarian Cooking for Everyone by Deborah Madison

3 pounds ripe tomatoes, quartered
3 tablespoons chopped basil or 1 tablespoon chopped marjoram
Salt and freshly milled pepper
2 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil or butter

Put the tomatoes in a heavy pan with the basil. Cover and cook over medium-high heat. The tomatoes should yield their juices right away, but keep an eye on the pot to make sure the pan isn’t dry. You don’t want the tomatoes to scorch. When the tomatoes have broken down after 10 minutes, pass them through a food mill. If you want the final sauce to be thicker, return it to the pot and cook over low heat, stirring frequently, until it’s as thick as you want. Season with salt and pepper to taste and stir in the oil.

Unlocking the Mystery of Rainbow Cookies

11

15.4.12

When I worked at a crazy cheese shop in New York City around the holiday season, I didn’t have much energy to do anything but work, sleep, and drink. I didn’t eat much. Usually I ran across Bleecker Street to the Italian bakery for a much-needed sugar boost. Nine times out of ten I bought a rainbow cookie.

I might like the idea of the rainbow cookie more than the actual cookies. I’m attracted to those eye-catching layers of bright pink and green (said to represent the Italian flag) tasting strongly of almond flavoring, held together with apricot or raspberry jam and dipped in dark chocolate. A good rainbow cookie should be more cake than cookie; it should be moist and dense and not at all dry and crunchy.

Growing up in the Northeast, I took rainbow cookies for granted. Any decent Italian bakery in the Northeast carries them. They’re right up there in the Italian-American baked goods cannon with cannolis and pignolis. That said, I’ve rarely seen them in Texas.

When I saw this recipe in Saveur, I knew I had to make them. It doesn’t actually require much baking skill, but assembling the layers is time-consuming. My cookies turned out a little crooked. After I made them, I saw that Deb from Smitten Kitchen used a different recipe and weighed the cakes down to ensure even layers. Brilliant move! Check out her blog for some more hints.

RAINBOW COOKIES from Saveur

ingredients

1 ½ cups unsalted butter, softened, plus more for pans
2 cups flour, plus more for pans
1 cup sugar
1 12.5-oz. can almond pastry filling, such as Solo brand
4 eggs
12 drops green food coloring
12 drops red food coloring
1 12-oz. seedless raspberry jam (I subbed homemade strawberry vanilla bean jam)
12 oz. semisweet chocolate, melted

instructions

1. Heat oven to 350°. Grease and flour three 9″ x 13″ baking pans and line with parchment paper; set aside. Using a hand mixer on high-speed, beat butter and sugar in a bowl until pale and fluffy, about 2 minutes. Add pastry filling; beat until smooth. Add eggs one at a time, beating well after each addition. Add flour; beat until just combined. Evenly divide batter into 3 bowls. Add green food coloring to one bowl, red food coloring to the second bowl, and leave the third bowl plain; stir colorings into batters. Using an offset spatula, spread each batter into a prepared baking pan. Bake each pan until just beginning to brown, about 10 minutes. Invert cakes onto wire racks; cool.

2. Heat jam in a 1-qt. saucepan over medium heat; cook, stirring, until smooth; cool slightly. Place green cake on a cutting board or foil-lined baking sheet. Using an offset spatula, spread half the jam over green cake; top with plain cake. Spread remaining jam over plain cake; top with red cake. Chill cakes to set jam, 1 hour.

3. Using a slicing knife, trim cake edges to form an even block. Slice block crosswise into 1 ½″-wide logs; separate on a cutting board. Using an offset spatula, spread chocolate over top, sides, and ends of each log until completely covered; chill to set chocolate. Slice each log crosswise into ½″-thick squares to serve.

Biscuits of Today

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