So I finally got around to adding my most recent efforts to the "Other Projects" section. It's a funny and serious look at life in South Jersey...and if you use the "wise guy" accent in your mind when you read this book I will be displeased. It is my personal goal to educate as much of the world as I have access to about the fact that North Jersey (near NYC) and South Jersey (near Philadelphia...or not, depending on how far south you go) have almost completely different accents, and that people from South Jersey do not like, after having put their flavor of Jersey accent to use when answering the question "So, where are you from?" being answered back with, "Oh, so you're from Joisey, eh?" People from South Jersey do not say "eh," they do not pronounce it "Joisey", and they do not like being compared to Newark.
Monday, March 26, 2012
Creamy Carrot Bolognese Sauce / A Fishy Mystery
I want to say again that I am so thankful that I have readers for this blog. It really gives me a great deal of joy to chronicle my own and others' food adventures here and know that they will be enjoyed and appreciated.
My latest adventure is another new take on a recipe from The Northend Italian Cookbook. (I recently discovered, the 4th edition. It's not like it was a big secret, I just usually don't take the time to read the dozens of pages of forwards and dedications and introductions and summaries that seem to accompany all published books, including even cookbooks and books of knitting patterns.) The original recipe was for a Bolognese sauce, which is the authentic version of what we all usually think of when we picture the "meat sauce" part of "spaghetti with meat sauce". Now, let me state for the record once again that I do not think that eating meat is intrinsically evil, especially if the animal in question was humanely raised and humanely led out of this life so that we could enjoy and benefit from it. But, I think it is an uncontestable statement to say that we should all probably eat less meat for a variety of reasons, not the least of which because we are making ourselves FAT and are giving ourselves heart conditions and colon cancer. So, I modified this recipe to be a good "weekday/meat free" alternative, but you could use the meat of your choice in place of the substitute I offer, which is....carrots.
I know. I'm a card-carrying member of the nut club in your minds now, right? Carrots? Carrots? Yes, carrots. "Why carrots?" you may ask. Because...and here is another personal revelation...I think meat substitutes are nasty. They start life almost flavorless (not taking into account their own natural flavors, which are usually odd, to say the least) and with a variety of textures to appall. So I tend to avoid them in my cooking and in my eating. So, since I've lately been exploring ways of cooking and eating less meat without sacrificing my favorite foods and flavors, I've been exploring vegetable options to replace the texture and role that the meat portion of some of my favorite recipes. The eggplant experiment in my personal experience, wildly successful. For further support of eggplant, I offer you this example: I once cooked some fried eggplant for a former boyfriend, who came across it later and ate it, totally unaware, he told me afterwards, that it was not the fish I had meant to cook. So, with that in mind, I bring you:
Creamy Carrot Bolognese Sauce
4 large carrots, peeled and cubed*
1 small onion, chopped the Italian way (into slivers rather than cubes)
1 28oz (850mL) can ground or crushed tomatoes
2 cloves garlic, minced
3-4 sprigs fresh parsley, minced
salt and pepper to taste, red pepper flakes or cayenne to taste
2/3 C. white wine (I used the aformentioned muscato)
cooking oil (olive oil, if you have it)
1/2 C. (120 mL)
about 1lb (450g) hot cooked pasta (I actually put it over cooked split peas with flavorful success, but I admit that this is a little more experimental than most people are willing to be when it comes to their Italian staples)
Heat the oil in a saucepot over medium heat. Add in the carrots and let them sizzle and cook for about 5 minutes. You can actually chop the rest of the things that need to be chopped while this is happening and cut your total preparation/cooking time down. Anyhow, after the carrots have had their time in the saucepot hot tub alone, toss in the onions and garlic and let them sizzle with the carrots for another 2-3 minutes. Add in the wine. Let it reduce, another 2-3 minutes. Add in the crushed tomatoes, parsley, and the seasonings. My canned tomatoes came with some added salt, so I actually didn't put in any additional salt at all and that was just right. Put the cover on the saucepot, reduce the heat to medium-low (a fastish simmer) and let it cook, stirring it every so often, for about 15 minutes. You can use this time to find your pasta in the cabinet (emphasis find if you live in a place with limited cabinet space in the kitchen) and get it cooked and drained. At the very end of the cooking time, remove the sauce from the heat and add in the cream, stirring it to blend. The end! Serve it over your pasta. It's good just the way it is, although some parmesan is never amiss with most Italian dishes. This makes a good bit of sauce. I made a full batch and set some aside to use for eggplant parmesan.
_________
*Cubing carrots is not as hard as it sounds. After you get them peeled, instead of cutting them from end to end into disks, cut each individual carrot into 2-3 sections, making your cuts where the carrot obviously changes sizes as it tapers from the big end to the small end. Then, cut each section in half. Cut each half into 3 strips longways. Holding all the strips together, cut from end to end. These are not perfect cubes, mind you. This is not the haute cuisine cordon blue mirepoix carrot cutting method. This is just the simplest way to get carrots into cube-like pieces.
My latest adventure is another new take on a recipe from The Northend Italian Cookbook. (I recently discovered, the 4th edition. It's not like it was a big secret, I just usually don't take the time to read the dozens of pages of forwards and dedications and introductions and summaries that seem to accompany all published books, including even cookbooks and books of knitting patterns.) The original recipe was for a Bolognese sauce, which is the authentic version of what we all usually think of when we picture the "meat sauce" part of "spaghetti with meat sauce". Now, let me state for the record once again that I do not think that eating meat is intrinsically evil, especially if the animal in question was humanely raised and humanely led out of this life so that we could enjoy and benefit from it. But, I think it is an uncontestable statement to say that we should all probably eat less meat for a variety of reasons, not the least of which because we are making ourselves FAT and are giving ourselves heart conditions and colon cancer. So, I modified this recipe to be a good "weekday/meat free" alternative, but you could use the meat of your choice in place of the substitute I offer, which is....carrots.
I know. I'm a card-carrying member of the nut club in your minds now, right? Carrots? Carrots? Yes, carrots. "Why carrots?" you may ask. Because...and here is another personal revelation...I think meat substitutes are nasty. They start life almost flavorless (not taking into account their own natural flavors, which are usually odd, to say the least) and with a variety of textures to appall. So I tend to avoid them in my cooking and in my eating. So, since I've lately been exploring ways of cooking and eating less meat without sacrificing my favorite foods and flavors, I've been exploring vegetable options to replace the texture and role that the meat portion of some of my favorite recipes. The eggplant experiment in my personal experience, wildly successful. For further support of eggplant, I offer you this example: I once cooked some fried eggplant for a former boyfriend, who came across it later and ate it, totally unaware, he told me afterwards, that it was not the fish I had meant to cook. So, with that in mind, I bring you:
Creamy Carrot Bolognese Sauce
4 large carrots, peeled and cubed*
1 small onion, chopped the Italian way (into slivers rather than cubes)
1 28oz (850mL) can ground or crushed tomatoes
2 cloves garlic, minced
3-4 sprigs fresh parsley, minced
salt and pepper to taste, red pepper flakes or cayenne to taste
2/3 C. white wine (I used the aformentioned muscato)
cooking oil (olive oil, if you have it)
1/2 C. (120 mL)
about 1lb (450g) hot cooked pasta (I actually put it over cooked split peas with flavorful success, but I admit that this is a little more experimental than most people are willing to be when it comes to their Italian staples)
Heat the oil in a saucepot over medium heat. Add in the carrots and let them sizzle and cook for about 5 minutes. You can actually chop the rest of the things that need to be chopped while this is happening and cut your total preparation/cooking time down. Anyhow, after the carrots have had their time in the saucepot hot tub alone, toss in the onions and garlic and let them sizzle with the carrots for another 2-3 minutes. Add in the wine. Let it reduce, another 2-3 minutes. Add in the crushed tomatoes, parsley, and the seasonings. My canned tomatoes came with some added salt, so I actually didn't put in any additional salt at all and that was just right. Put the cover on the saucepot, reduce the heat to medium-low (a fastish simmer) and let it cook, stirring it every so often, for about 15 minutes. You can use this time to find your pasta in the cabinet (emphasis find if you live in a place with limited cabinet space in the kitchen) and get it cooked and drained. At the very end of the cooking time, remove the sauce from the heat and add in the cream, stirring it to blend. The end! Serve it over your pasta. It's good just the way it is, although some parmesan is never amiss with most Italian dishes. This makes a good bit of sauce. I made a full batch and set some aside to use for eggplant parmesan.
_________
*Cubing carrots is not as hard as it sounds. After you get them peeled, instead of cutting them from end to end into disks, cut each individual carrot into 2-3 sections, making your cuts where the carrot obviously changes sizes as it tapers from the big end to the small end. Then, cut each section in half. Cut each half into 3 strips longways. Holding all the strips together, cut from end to end. These are not perfect cubes, mind you. This is not the haute cuisine cordon blue mirepoix carrot cutting method. This is just the simplest way to get carrots into cube-like pieces.
Thursday, March 22, 2012
Parmesan Patties in Onion Cream Sauce
1 lb hot cooked pasta
Patties
1 lb ground turkey
1 C. parmesan cheese
salt and pepper to taste
2 eggs
Mix all together. (If you want, you can cook all of them with this dish, but what I did was save about 2/3rds of the mixture in the freezer as premade meatballs. So you may want to double the sauce recipe (or more) if you want to serve all the patties at once.) Heat 3TB (1/2 a stick of butter) in a large skillet. Fry the patties on both sides over medium to medium-low heat (so they don't brown too fast and do get cooked all the way through). Set aside. DO NOT DISCARD THE BUTTER IN THE PAN.
Sauce
1 large onion, chopped into slivers (ie, stop chopping them one step before you get cubes)
1/2 C. cream
salt and pepper to taste
the rest of the stick of butter
Scrape the browned bits off the bottom of the pan. Melt the butter in it. Saute the onions in the pan until they are soft. Reduce the heat to low. Add in the cream and stir to mix well. Season with salt and pepper to taste. Pour the sauce over the turkey patties to comingle the flavors --or-- Serve each plate individually with pasta, patties, then a generous helping of sauce.
________
This is my own take on a recipe from The Northend Italian Cookbook, "Saporite de Manzo". I felt it deserved a rename because my version differs in some of the ingredients and quantities and also does NOT have any balsamic vinegar, and therefore probably tastes a lot different.
I really wanted to add some white wine to the sauce-- I had even bought some muscato at the liquor store-- but the cheap corkscrew I bought literally broke off in the bottle. It was a hot mess. I had to dig most of the cork out crumb by crumb with: a steak knife, my bare hands, and a long knitting needle. The rest came out stuck to the bottom of the corkscrew or ended up in my wine. Ugh. So, needless to say, my wine-adding plans were scuttled when the corkscrew broke off in my wine bottle, since making a sauce is a time-sensitive operation that doesn't really allow for 30 minutes of cork-mining and I therefore had to set that project aside and finish making my dinner. If you want to add wine, what you would do is: after you've removed the cooked patties from the cooking pan, add in the wine (about 1/4 C.) and let it bubble and moil about while you scrape the brown bits off the bottom of the pan. Then, once all that's done with, add in the additional butter and continue with the recipe as written. However, the oniony sauce as it is was pretty good, especially mixed with the flavor of the parmesan cheese in the patties.
When I made my pasta, I actually cooked a half pound of pasta and a half pound of frozen peas together. I think it was yummy, but you could go with plain pasta, too.
Patties
1 lb ground turkey
1 C. parmesan cheese
salt and pepper to taste
2 eggs
Mix all together. (If you want, you can cook all of them with this dish, but what I did was save about 2/3rds of the mixture in the freezer as premade meatballs. So you may want to double the sauce recipe (or more) if you want to serve all the patties at once.) Heat 3TB (1/2 a stick of butter) in a large skillet. Fry the patties on both sides over medium to medium-low heat (so they don't brown too fast and do get cooked all the way through). Set aside. DO NOT DISCARD THE BUTTER IN THE PAN.
Sauce
1 large onion, chopped into slivers (ie, stop chopping them one step before you get cubes)
1/2 C. cream
salt and pepper to taste
the rest of the stick of butter
Scrape the browned bits off the bottom of the pan. Melt the butter in it. Saute the onions in the pan until they are soft. Reduce the heat to low. Add in the cream and stir to mix well. Season with salt and pepper to taste. Pour the sauce over the turkey patties to comingle the flavors --or-- Serve each plate individually with pasta, patties, then a generous helping of sauce.
________
This is my own take on a recipe from The Northend Italian Cookbook, "Saporite de Manzo". I felt it deserved a rename because my version differs in some of the ingredients and quantities and also does NOT have any balsamic vinegar, and therefore probably tastes a lot different.
I really wanted to add some white wine to the sauce-- I had even bought some muscato at the liquor store-- but the cheap corkscrew I bought literally broke off in the bottle. It was a hot mess. I had to dig most of the cork out crumb by crumb with: a steak knife, my bare hands, and a long knitting needle. The rest came out stuck to the bottom of the corkscrew or ended up in my wine. Ugh. So, needless to say, my wine-adding plans were scuttled when the corkscrew broke off in my wine bottle, since making a sauce is a time-sensitive operation that doesn't really allow for 30 minutes of cork-mining and I therefore had to set that project aside and finish making my dinner. If you want to add wine, what you would do is: after you've removed the cooked patties from the cooking pan, add in the wine (about 1/4 C.) and let it bubble and moil about while you scrape the brown bits off the bottom of the pan. Then, once all that's done with, add in the additional butter and continue with the recipe as written. However, the oniony sauce as it is was pretty good, especially mixed with the flavor of the parmesan cheese in the patties.
When I made my pasta, I actually cooked a half pound of pasta and a half pound of frozen peas together. I think it was yummy, but you could go with plain pasta, too.
Monday, March 19, 2012
Talking Trash
I may or may not have solved my food trash problem.
After doing some research, I discovered that there is a way to avoid putting, shall we say, unnecessary food directly into the trash. Yes, now I have one more reason for my neighbors to think I'm crazy. There's a trash bin on my patio that I regularly talk to, water, and put food scraps in. I like to think of its occupants as the hamster for people not responsible enough to have a hamster. Yes, oh yes. I now have a worm bin. I got the doings from a couple of local stores and the worms from my aunt's backyard.
Now let me tell you, I am currently thankful that my neighborhood apparently has had a run on worm bins. Otherwise I would have gotten even more weird looks than I already did when I went to the customer service desk at a hardware chain and said I needed peat moss "because I have worms." While the guy behind the counter mentally filed that one away, the manager for the garden section stepped up, fortunately for us all, and that's when I learned about the other worm owners in my area.
Anyway, the worms are now installed, and I have even named three of the five or so that I am hoping are still alive and reproducing in there. (Wormeo, Juliet, and Tina after Tina the Llama from "Napeoleon Dynamite". Why? Because part of my worm ownership learning curve involved standing over their trash bin and commanding them to eat all the good food I was providing them with.) Hopefully they will actually eat the food, I will feel a lack of guilt about disposing of things like onion skins, and less trash will go in my trashcan. Hopefully. Otherwise I may have started a small-scale composting operation, which will probably be even unpopular with the neighbors than my current practice of going out several times a day to talk to a plastic trashcan.
After doing some research, I discovered that there is a way to avoid putting, shall we say, unnecessary food directly into the trash. Yes, now I have one more reason for my neighbors to think I'm crazy. There's a trash bin on my patio that I regularly talk to, water, and put food scraps in. I like to think of its occupants as the hamster for people not responsible enough to have a hamster. Yes, oh yes. I now have a worm bin. I got the doings from a couple of local stores and the worms from my aunt's backyard.
Now let me tell you, I am currently thankful that my neighborhood apparently has had a run on worm bins. Otherwise I would have gotten even more weird looks than I already did when I went to the customer service desk at a hardware chain and said I needed peat moss "because I have worms." While the guy behind the counter mentally filed that one away, the manager for the garden section stepped up, fortunately for us all, and that's when I learned about the other worm owners in my area.
Anyway, the worms are now installed, and I have even named three of the five or so that I am hoping are still alive and reproducing in there. (Wormeo, Juliet, and Tina after Tina the Llama from "Napeoleon Dynamite". Why? Because part of my worm ownership learning curve involved standing over their trash bin and commanding them to eat all the good food I was providing them with.) Hopefully they will actually eat the food, I will feel a lack of guilt about disposing of things like onion skins, and less trash will go in my trashcan. Hopefully. Otherwise I may have started a small-scale composting operation, which will probably be even unpopular with the neighbors than my current practice of going out several times a day to talk to a plastic trashcan.
Friday, March 16, 2012
Some Italian Mystery Ingredients, Revealed
This is not a recipe post as such, but a suggestion post. I recently tried some recipes out of The Northend Italian Cookbook, which Grandmom gave me with high recommendations, and they were delicious. Now, that cookbook is relatively current, and I feel bad about potentially defrauding the author, Maria DeMino Buonopane, who looks like a very nice woman based on her author photograph on the back. So, I'm not going to include those exact recipes here. However, I did discover by trying out those recipes the answers to some culinary mysteries and, since I have been eating those culinary mysteries from Grandmom's kitchen my whole life I don't feel that it's unethical to reproduce those here.
Mystery #1: Why does Grandmom's tomato sauce taste so good, and so different from, jarred sauce?
The first thing that jumps to your mind (as it did to mine) was a matter of freshness, seasoning, and ingredient choice. However, the ingredients used (and not used) in the pasta sauce I buy are almost identical (as far as I knew) to the homemade variety. In addition, jarred sauce avoids the metalic taste from traditional canning. Still, it just wasn't the same. Through happy accident, I discovered mystery ingredient number 1, and The Northend Italian Cookbook revealed the second mystery ingredient.
Tomato Sauce Mystery Ingredient #1: rendered meat fat.
If you brown your sausages, meatballs, porkchops (yes, porkchops) or whatever meat you plan on putting in your tomato sauce in your sauce pot first, set them aside, and then proceed to make the sauce, your sauce will have this delicious meaty quality. (You will still need to add some olive oil after you remove the meat from the pan so you can saute your onions and garlic-- just not as much.) After you've got the sauce looking like a sauce, add the meat back in and cook everything all together the way you would a meat-free sauce-- about 1 hour on a low simmer.
Tomato Sauce Mystery Ingredient #2: fresh mint!
I haven't tried this in a meat sauce like the one I describe above, but in a meat-free red sauce, the fresh mint in delicious. Instead of the pepperiness of fresh basil (also good) you get a milder zip, as well as the sweetening qualities of mint. I think this is why commercial tomato sauce typically has added sugar. But it just can't compare.
Mystery #2: When I saute garlic for a dish, it just doesn't have as much garlicky goodness as when Grandmom does it.
Mystery Step: Frizzle the garlic in a ton of oil. Half-burn it. We're cooking Italian, right? If you want less garlic, go eat a taco. For a sauce I don't know if I would recommend doing it this way. However, for something that has garlic as a main flavor (for example the broccoli rabe recipe I posted recently), don't be shy on the number of cloves you use, and once you've minced your garlic, heat about 3-5 TB. oil in a pan until it's hot!!!! and then throw in your garlic. Push it around in the pan a few times to keep it from actually burning, but it should turn a deep golden brown and even puff up a little. Basically you're deep-frying garlic on a very small scale. But the result is an oil full of a bold, nutty garlic flavor, perfect for dipping bread in, pouring over fresh cooked greens, or tossing into pasta with some parmesan cheese.
Mystery #1: Why does Grandmom's tomato sauce taste so good, and so different from, jarred sauce?
The first thing that jumps to your mind (as it did to mine) was a matter of freshness, seasoning, and ingredient choice. However, the ingredients used (and not used) in the pasta sauce I buy are almost identical (as far as I knew) to the homemade variety. In addition, jarred sauce avoids the metalic taste from traditional canning. Still, it just wasn't the same. Through happy accident, I discovered mystery ingredient number 1, and The Northend Italian Cookbook revealed the second mystery ingredient.
Tomato Sauce Mystery Ingredient #1: rendered meat fat.
If you brown your sausages, meatballs, porkchops (yes, porkchops) or whatever meat you plan on putting in your tomato sauce in your sauce pot first, set them aside, and then proceed to make the sauce, your sauce will have this delicious meaty quality. (You will still need to add some olive oil after you remove the meat from the pan so you can saute your onions and garlic-- just not as much.) After you've got the sauce looking like a sauce, add the meat back in and cook everything all together the way you would a meat-free sauce-- about 1 hour on a low simmer.
Tomato Sauce Mystery Ingredient #2: fresh mint!
I haven't tried this in a meat sauce like the one I describe above, but in a meat-free red sauce, the fresh mint in delicious. Instead of the pepperiness of fresh basil (also good) you get a milder zip, as well as the sweetening qualities of mint. I think this is why commercial tomato sauce typically has added sugar. But it just can't compare.
Mystery #2: When I saute garlic for a dish, it just doesn't have as much garlicky goodness as when Grandmom does it.
Mystery Step: Frizzle the garlic in a ton of oil. Half-burn it. We're cooking Italian, right? If you want less garlic, go eat a taco. For a sauce I don't know if I would recommend doing it this way. However, for something that has garlic as a main flavor (for example the broccoli rabe recipe I posted recently), don't be shy on the number of cloves you use, and once you've minced your garlic, heat about 3-5 TB. oil in a pan until it's hot!!!! and then throw in your garlic. Push it around in the pan a few times to keep it from actually burning, but it should turn a deep golden brown and even puff up a little. Basically you're deep-frying garlic on a very small scale. But the result is an oil full of a bold, nutty garlic flavor, perfect for dipping bread in, pouring over fresh cooked greens, or tossing into pasta with some parmesan cheese.
Tuesday, March 13, 2012
Butteriest Butter / Great-grandmom Pulls her Tricks
You know that butter you get in a seafood restaurant to dip your crab legs or lobster in? That butter that is somehow the epitome of butter, and of the concept of butteriness? Well, today I discovered how to make it. No, it's not just melted butter. And no, it's definitely not vegetarian. But it's great on anything!
1 stick of butter
1 clove of garlic, minced
3 anchovy filets, drained and patted dry (I didn't pat mine, but I guess you could)
Melt the butter in a small saucepan. Once it's all melted and also stopped foaming for the most part (only a few seconds after it finishes melting), toss in the minced garlic and let it sizzle for a few seconds. Then, remove the butter from the heat and throw in the anchovy filets. Mash them up as much as you can, prefereably with a wooden spoon.
________
That's it. I served it over cooked cauliflower today and I couldn't get enough of it. Not that I dislike cauliflower to begin with. I am an adult and buy my own groceries, so I don't have to eat cauliflower if I didn't like it. Which I do, and I did. But that was some of the most badass cauliflower I've ever eaten. This sauce was also poured over hot cooked spaghetti or linguine by Great-grandmom Canduci, and while I can't recall ever having it, my mom liked it so much that, despite not even liking anchovies, she still remembers that pasta and how delicious it was. The secret is that you can't taste the anchovies, at least not in the traditional sense. They are definitely the "secret ingredient", but the end product is not fishy or even oily. Just buttery. So deliciously buttery!
Grand-grandmom Canduci was a card. I got reminded of some good stories about her when I was putting up the broccoli rabe post, and decided I would share them.
Gardening: see "How to Get a Free Trip to the Grocery Store"
Great-grandmom was a wiley and resourceful old fox and, according to her children, a wiley and resourceful young fox too. Great-grandmom's method of getting stuff done around the house that she needed to delegate or just didn't want to do herself was to rope the unsuspecting bystander (read: family member) in with a statement something along the lines of "Hey, can you come help me with this?" Who's to turn down a sweet old Italian lady? HAH! Inevitably you would look up from pulling weeds or whatever it was you were "helping her" with and she would be gone! She even did this to me with the crab grass in her front walk, and she died when I was about 8 years old so I know I must have been a fairly small child at the time. Wiley indeed! To pull her tricks even with a little child! I remember the deep sense of irritation I felt.
This is also the method Great-grandmom used when, in her later years, she needed a ride to the grocery store. "Can you give me ride? Is on the way!" she would ask innocently. "Of course!" was the only allowable answer-- remember, this is the woman who smacked her own adult sons with the wooden spoon she was cooking with for failing to compliment her cooking. (FYI: the answer is always "Oh, it is so delicious," to an Italian woman. Otherwise: smacking.) So, the driver in question would load up Great-grandmom and drive over the the Acme ("Ack-em-mah") and she would then turn to them and say, innocently, "Oh, can you help me carry groceries? Is only a few things. Short trip." So, the driver would get out of the car (remember, at this point she or he has been promised that it will be "short trip" that is "on the way", meaning the driver still has other business to attend to) and become more and more incredulous as Great-grandmom worked her way through the entire grocery and at least one full cartload. It's obvious that her victims (read: family members) were truly fooled only a few times. But what are you going to say to Great-grandmom? No? No. In fact, you beat her at her own game, if you could, by claiming to have a strict appointment that you were running late for, or almost out of gas. Sometimes it worked, sometimes it didn't.
1 stick of butter
1 clove of garlic, minced
3 anchovy filets, drained and patted dry (I didn't pat mine, but I guess you could)
Melt the butter in a small saucepan. Once it's all melted and also stopped foaming for the most part (only a few seconds after it finishes melting), toss in the minced garlic and let it sizzle for a few seconds. Then, remove the butter from the heat and throw in the anchovy filets. Mash them up as much as you can, prefereably with a wooden spoon.
________
That's it. I served it over cooked cauliflower today and I couldn't get enough of it. Not that I dislike cauliflower to begin with. I am an adult and buy my own groceries, so I don't have to eat cauliflower if I didn't like it. Which I do, and I did. But that was some of the most badass cauliflower I've ever eaten. This sauce was also poured over hot cooked spaghetti or linguine by Great-grandmom Canduci, and while I can't recall ever having it, my mom liked it so much that, despite not even liking anchovies, she still remembers that pasta and how delicious it was. The secret is that you can't taste the anchovies, at least not in the traditional sense. They are definitely the "secret ingredient", but the end product is not fishy or even oily. Just buttery. So deliciously buttery!
Grand-grandmom Canduci was a card. I got reminded of some good stories about her when I was putting up the broccoli rabe post, and decided I would share them.
Gardening: see "How to Get a Free Trip to the Grocery Store"
Great-grandmom was a wiley and resourceful old fox and, according to her children, a wiley and resourceful young fox too. Great-grandmom's method of getting stuff done around the house that she needed to delegate or just didn't want to do herself was to rope the unsuspecting bystander (read: family member) in with a statement something along the lines of "Hey, can you come help me with this?" Who's to turn down a sweet old Italian lady? HAH! Inevitably you would look up from pulling weeds or whatever it was you were "helping her" with and she would be gone! She even did this to me with the crab grass in her front walk, and she died when I was about 8 years old so I know I must have been a fairly small child at the time. Wiley indeed! To pull her tricks even with a little child! I remember the deep sense of irritation I felt.
This is also the method Great-grandmom used when, in her later years, she needed a ride to the grocery store. "Can you give me ride? Is on the way!" she would ask innocently. "Of course!" was the only allowable answer-- remember, this is the woman who smacked her own adult sons with the wooden spoon she was cooking with for failing to compliment her cooking. (FYI: the answer is always "Oh, it is so delicious," to an Italian woman. Otherwise: smacking.) So, the driver in question would load up Great-grandmom and drive over the the Acme ("Ack-em-mah") and she would then turn to them and say, innocently, "Oh, can you help me carry groceries? Is only a few things. Short trip." So, the driver would get out of the car (remember, at this point she or he has been promised that it will be "short trip" that is "on the way", meaning the driver still has other business to attend to) and become more and more incredulous as Great-grandmom worked her way through the entire grocery and at least one full cartload. It's obvious that her victims (read: family members) were truly fooled only a few times. But what are you going to say to Great-grandmom? No? No. In fact, you beat her at her own game, if you could, by claiming to have a strict appointment that you were running late for, or almost out of gas. Sometimes it worked, sometimes it didn't.
Monday, March 12, 2012
Broccoli Rabe A Thousand Ways
1 bunch broccoli rabe
2-3 cloves of garlic, minced
1 onion, sliced into strips
Steam the broccoli rabe 1-2 minutes. Strain and saute in olive oil with the onions and garlic until all are soft. Serve hot as a side dish, over pasta, or on a kaiser roll. Makes about 4 servings.
________
I don't think I've posted this one before, although it feels like I have because Broccoli Rabe is such a common ingredient both in the recipes in this blog and in Italian cooking in general. Let me let you in on a little-known secret about Italians: we love vegetables. Especially soft, summer vegetables like Broccoli Rabe, green beans, zucchini, and, to a certain extent, tomatoes. If you've been reading this blog awhile, you can probably guess what I'm about to tell you. We love vegetables because vegetables are cheap. Think about it. Nonna and Mama can have their house lot-sized vegetable gardens out back with free children/grandchildren labor all summer, can the bojangles out of what everybody eventually gets sick of eating, and going to the store becomes almost unnecessary. Throw some chickens into the mix and it isn't.
This is pretty much how Grandmom grew up. Whatever meat the family had frequently came out of the backyard (this was before home owners' associations) or out of the river or woods nearby courtesy of her father and brothers' hunting efforts. My great uncles still take a great amount of pride in having regularly put meat on the table all those years ago.
This recipe is straight off my Great-grandmom Canduci's table, and straight off of Grandmom's too. She still makes it for me whenever I go to visit her because it was one of my favorite dishes growing up. And that, my friends, is what they call "The Mediterranean Diet." Not that there aren't any fat Italian kids out there. I'm sure there are, what with all the "eat eat" and "finish finish", ending with "no throw away, MUST NOT WASTE!" I'm pretty sure that whole "you don't have to clean your plate" movement skipped the Italians, at least in this country.
2-3 cloves of garlic, minced
1 onion, sliced into strips
Steam the broccoli rabe 1-2 minutes. Strain and saute in olive oil with the onions and garlic until all are soft. Serve hot as a side dish, over pasta, or on a kaiser roll. Makes about 4 servings.
________
I don't think I've posted this one before, although it feels like I have because Broccoli Rabe is such a common ingredient both in the recipes in this blog and in Italian cooking in general. Let me let you in on a little-known secret about Italians: we love vegetables. Especially soft, summer vegetables like Broccoli Rabe, green beans, zucchini, and, to a certain extent, tomatoes. If you've been reading this blog awhile, you can probably guess what I'm about to tell you. We love vegetables because vegetables are cheap. Think about it. Nonna and Mama can have their house lot-sized vegetable gardens out back with free children/grandchildren labor all summer, can the bojangles out of what everybody eventually gets sick of eating, and going to the store becomes almost unnecessary. Throw some chickens into the mix and it isn't.
This is pretty much how Grandmom grew up. Whatever meat the family had frequently came out of the backyard (this was before home owners' associations) or out of the river or woods nearby courtesy of her father and brothers' hunting efforts. My great uncles still take a great amount of pride in having regularly put meat on the table all those years ago.
This recipe is straight off my Great-grandmom Canduci's table, and straight off of Grandmom's too. She still makes it for me whenever I go to visit her because it was one of my favorite dishes growing up. And that, my friends, is what they call "The Mediterranean Diet." Not that there aren't any fat Italian kids out there. I'm sure there are, what with all the "eat eat" and "finish finish", ending with "no throw away, MUST NOT WASTE!" I'm pretty sure that whole "you don't have to clean your plate" movement skipped the Italians, at least in this country.
Wednesday, March 7, 2012
Hotdogs are Foolproof
Heaven help us all, I'm hosting a dinner party in a little over a week. You would think that a person who writes a recipe blog would not need Divine Intervention to successfully host a dinner party (and a potluck at that, all I'm responsible for is the main dish) but lately I've been experiencing a run of bad dishes. Dishes that tasted bad. Dishes that looked bad but tasted okay. Dishes that should have been good, but were a new recipe for me and so some unidentified crucial step was impaired, leading to subpar food. (The taker of Chemistry classes in me likes to call this "the rate limiting step", maybe because I had two separate instructors use the "making a sandwich" analogy to describe that concept.)
Now it's bad enough when you're making food just for yourself and you both wildly overproduce and fail to accomplish tastiness. This leads to such desperate measures as repurposing food or, as I have resorted to lately, just throwing it out. Yes, I admit it. I have thrown out enough food to cause at least three Italian grandmothers to have heart attacks in the last week, but I had reached my criteria at last: spoilage and intentional eating out due to nastiness. (I have been known to accidentally-on-purpose forget about something in the fridge until it went bad and I could throw it away. It's sad that I have to play passive-aggressive games with myself over the refrigerator.) But returning to the subject, multiply all of the above bad by the number of guests who are not related to me and therefore do not have to pretend to like it, and you'll have an idea of why I have resorted to prayer.
I think I'll grill hotdogs when it comes time for my birthday. Hotdogs are foolproof.
Now it's bad enough when you're making food just for yourself and you both wildly overproduce and fail to accomplish tastiness. This leads to such desperate measures as repurposing food or, as I have resorted to lately, just throwing it out. Yes, I admit it. I have thrown out enough food to cause at least three Italian grandmothers to have heart attacks in the last week, but I had reached my criteria at last: spoilage and intentional eating out due to nastiness. (I have been known to accidentally-on-purpose forget about something in the fridge until it went bad and I could throw it away. It's sad that I have to play passive-aggressive games with myself over the refrigerator.) But returning to the subject, multiply all of the above bad by the number of guests who are not related to me and therefore do not have to pretend to like it, and you'll have an idea of why I have resorted to prayer.
I think I'll grill hotdogs when it comes time for my birthday. Hotdogs are foolproof.
Broccoli Rabe Patties
About 1 lb broccoli rabe (also known as "rapini")
1-2 eggs
1/2 to 1 C. fresh bread crumbs
oil for frying
Steam the broccoli rabe until done, 2-5 minutes. Strain, let cool slightly, then chop into small pieces. In a bowl, mix together the broccoli rabe, eggs, and fresh breadcrumbs*. Make into patties and fry like a hamburger in a little oil. Serve as is or on a bun!
________
*I say fresh breadcrumbs because they're basically the only binder in this recipe. Otherwise you would just have an omelet, also very Italian, but which does not fit the recipe's description of something you can "fry like a hamburger". For the record, the original recipe omitted the instruction to make them into patties, but did stipulate that you fry it like a hamburger. Hamburgers come in patties right? Judi, please correct me if I'm misreading the original recipe.
1-2 eggs
1/2 to 1 C. fresh bread crumbs
oil for frying
Steam the broccoli rabe until done, 2-5 minutes. Strain, let cool slightly, then chop into small pieces. In a bowl, mix together the broccoli rabe, eggs, and fresh breadcrumbs*. Make into patties and fry like a hamburger in a little oil. Serve as is or on a bun!
________
*I say fresh breadcrumbs because they're basically the only binder in this recipe. Otherwise you would just have an omelet, also very Italian, but which does not fit the recipe's description of something you can "fry like a hamburger". For the record, the original recipe omitted the instruction to make them into patties, but did stipulate that you fry it like a hamburger. Hamburgers come in patties right? Judi, please correct me if I'm misreading the original recipe.
Monday, March 5, 2012
Pan-Fried Zucchini Flower Omelet
Several dozen zucchini flowers (enough to make 1-2 C.)
1 green pepper, chopped
1 onion, chopped italian style*
1 zucchini, sliced thinly
1 potato, sliced thinly -or- green tomatoes, chopped and sugared
4 eggs
salt to taste
olive oil for cooking
Wash the zucchini flowers and saute in a little oil just for a little bit. (They will cook fast.) In a separate skillet, saute the rest of the vegetables until tender, starting from hardest to softest. (IE if you opt for potato, put it in the pan first, then the zucchini, then the green peppers, then the onion. Otherwise, go zucchini, peppers, onion, tomato. That way they'll all get done about the same time.) When the other vegetables are all cooked, add in the zucchini flowers and a little more oil. Beat the eggs, and add in the salt. Pour the egg mixture over the vegetables in the skillet, then reduce the heat to medium low and let the egg cook until set, swirling it around in the pan a little once it's set enough to come loose in a single piece. Serve as is or on kaiser rolls.
________
I confess to getting a little lazy. I looked at my post list and realized that it was still February the last time I posted anything. Then I found this recipe among the ones Judi gave me to put up here. How could I not post this!
1 green pepper, chopped
1 onion, chopped italian style*
1 zucchini, sliced thinly
1 potato, sliced thinly -or- green tomatoes, chopped and sugared
4 eggs
salt to taste
olive oil for cooking
Wash the zucchini flowers and saute in a little oil just for a little bit. (They will cook fast.) In a separate skillet, saute the rest of the vegetables until tender, starting from hardest to softest. (IE if you opt for potato, put it in the pan first, then the zucchini, then the green peppers, then the onion. Otherwise, go zucchini, peppers, onion, tomato. That way they'll all get done about the same time.) When the other vegetables are all cooked, add in the zucchini flowers and a little more oil. Beat the eggs, and add in the salt. Pour the egg mixture over the vegetables in the skillet, then reduce the heat to medium low and let the egg cook until set, swirling it around in the pan a little once it's set enough to come loose in a single piece. Serve as is or on kaiser rolls.
________
I confess to getting a little lazy. I looked at my post list and realized that it was still February the last time I posted anything. Then I found this recipe among the ones Judi gave me to put up here. How could I not post this!
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