Aroma Cucina

New Years Food Tips for Wealth, Health and Fertility

Happy New Year to you from the Aroma Cucina family!

We’ve been busily celebrating every possible December holiday, so I’ve been in the kitchen or at the table with friends and family, but we wanted to make sure to wish everyone some peace, prosperity and happiness in the coming year.

 

The naughts, or aughts, or whatever this past decade is called was a difficult decade for pretty much everyone so I thought a list of lucky, healthy, wealth-attracting foods might be a good idea.

 

Bubbly Wine: The thoughtful French and Italians believe bubbly wine brings good luck.  They also believe its good for just about everything else and why would I argue with this institution?

 

Grapes: A tradition amongst Spanish speaking people, eating a grape for each month of the year is thought to bring good luck. However, grapes also symbolize fertility so be warned and take the necessary precautions.

 

Foods that are Supposed to Look Like Money and Therefore Will Bring you Money:

Cooked greens such as collard greens and kale represent folded dollar bills and will bring you wealth. Obviously this is a US tradition. So what should our Euro-toting friends eat? Rainbow gelato?

 

Lentils, chickpeas, cow peas, black-eyed peas all represent coins and wealth. When combined with fatty pork, it’s a natural wallet enhancer.  Which is why Italians go for the fatty cotechino sausage with lentils, and Southern US households and those with African backgrounds reach for ‘hoppin’ john: a black eyed pea and pork stew.

 

In Turkey, pomegranate arils are supposed to represent money, which begs the question, what on earth does Turkish money look like?

 

You definitely want to eat some part of a pig because eating pork is a nearly universal method of insuring wealth and a bigger waistline.

 

If longevity were an objective then I’d recommend the Japanese and Chinese tradition of eating long, uncut noodles. Provided you don’t choke on the noodles, you will live a long and healthy life.  Shrimp dishes also bring you long life in Japan, so a shrimp and noodle dish should do the trick.

 

If you are looking to hear the pitter patter of little feet in the near future and the 12 grape method doesn’t’ work, you could also try eating some herring roe while invoking the Japanese gods of fertility.

 

Next we come to the Round Baked Thing category and I’m going to go out on a culinary historian theory limb and say that round circles represent eternal life, and I’d like to dedicate this moment to Homer Simpson and his love of donuts.  As the longest running TV show EVER, there must be something to the whole round baked theory. To recap: in Italy you can eat chiacchiere, in Holland "ollie bollen", in Mexico its ‘rosca de reyes, in Greece it’s vasilopita, and in Springfield, its jelly filled with sprinkles.

 

Things you Should Not Eat:

Lobster. What??? I love lobster on New Years Eve, although, actually this could explain a few things. Lobsters crawl backwards and so will your luck and fortune.

Chicken: They scratch backwards and will cause you deep regret.

Winged Fowl: Your good fortune will fly away on their wings.

 

That should help you plan the menu. Now, as to what to wear, it doesn’t matter as long as your underwear is red.  Red underwear wards off the evil eye, however it is a single-use item and you must throw out the undies the next day. The red underwear also symbolizes fertility so that could explain why the usually frugal Italians are throwing out their underwear.

 

And in the interest of historical accuracy, my clan will be celebrating New Year’s Eve wearing Roman togas, as the Romans are responsible for inventing this whole New Years Eve thing. In 46 B.C., Julius Caesar was responsible for introducing the 365-day calendar, which put two-faced, forward and backwards looking Janus as the god in charge of kicking off a New Year.   So, don your gay apparel toga with red underwear and have a very, very Happy New Year.

 

 

Cooking Meat: And the Science of the Sear

To sear or not to sear – that is the question.

Whether ‘tis juicer or tastier on the tongue

The claims and counterclaims of outrageous bloggers

Or to take forks against a sea of evidence

And, by opposing, end them. To taste, to eat

 

Apologies to Mr. Shakespeare but I’ve been experimenting with searing meats and digging around regarding the ‘science’ of searing meat and it is like entering a debate on whether the earth is still round.

Only one point seems to be universally agreed upon: searing meat at temperatures above 310F/154C will brown the meat. . Browning is also known in food nerd circles as the Maillard reaction, so if you want to show off, you can say, “Oh my dear, you have achieved a lovely Maillard reaction on my steak this evening.”  This will however result in your dear one cutting you off from any further sips of wine.

 

Where the nerds circle like angels on the head of a pin is whether or not searing ‘seals’ in juices or actually results in a drier piece of meat.  Frankly, I don’t think that’s the issue. What I enjoy is the contrast between crust and the meaty middle and I don’t care if its scallops or steak, I want crusty crunch on the outside and soft on the inside. Sort of how I like my man to be, but that might be too much information.

 

If you like to sear here are some guidelines:

       1) Use a heavy pan.  If you use a lightweight, flimsy pan you will scorch not sear. The lightweight pan concentrates heat in small areas and doesn’t let the heat spread evenly. That heavily used pan you see in the photo was my grandmothers pan and it's been in constant use for probably 75 years.

       2) Preheat the pan until it is really hot. I use my handy dandy infrared digital thermometer. Try not to put the meat in the pan until the temp reaches around 450F/230C.

   3)    Use a dry pan; don’t put any fat in the pan. Here is where I’ve been experimenting and I’ve found that no, you don’t get stickage at high temps and you run the risk of adding too much fat and then the meat steams instead of sears. When the meat hits the pan, resist the temptation to move it. Let it do its thing and form a crust. Once you have the crust, you can freely flip the meat.

       4) It’s gonna make smoke. Santa, if your are listening, I’d like a better ventilation system.

       5) Once you’ve seared both sides…turn down the heat!  In my cast iron pan, with say a 1 ½” thick steak, I can now remove the pan from the heat, cover it and it will continue to cook. We like our meat pretty rare, so you’ll have to experiment with this technique to find the best way to cook meat to your liking.

       6)   If you want to pretend that you grilled the meat, take a metal skewer and heat it mad hot in the oven. Using gloves, remove the skewer from the heat and press it into the meat, essentially branding it like they did in old western movies. I can’t imagine anyone actually doing this, but at least you know you can.

 

In case you are now hungry:

 Steak Bistro Style

Parsley: take the leaves from 5 or 6 stalks of fresh parsley

1 good-sized clove of garlic

3T butter (you won’t really need this much, but it tastes great on chicken, pork, scallops, so you may as well make a little extra)

 

Place the 3 ingredients in a little blender and whirrrr away until you have a smooth green butter.

 

Preheat your searing pan.

Generously salt the steak.

Sear, let it rest, and place a chunk of the parsley butter on top of the steak. Done to perfection. Some roasted or boiled potatoes on the side will soak up all the extra juices quite nicely.

 And for anyone who is trying to remember the words to the Hamlet verse that I bastardized at the beginning of the post, rest easy, here it is:

 To be or not to be – that is the question: 

Whether 'tis nobler in the mind to suffer

The slings and arrows of outrageous fortune, 

Or to take arms against a sea of troubles

And, by opposing, end them. To die, to sleep⎯

 

Why you need a scale: the salt story

Seems that I’m always getting asked for advice on cookware, what pots, what knives and like most things the answer depends on how much you cook, how you cook, what’s your budget, etc. etc.  It’s all about defining what you need and what you want to do with it.

But, if there is one thing that is crucial to my cooking style, it’s a digital scale. I’m Low Tech Girl: no microwave, I have a rolling pin not a pasta machine, and I knead my bread, but I cannot cook without my scale.  

 

Here’s the visual: a recipe calls for a tablespoon of salt. Currently in my house I have three kinds of salt: Diamond Kosher, Maldon Salt Crystals and some very fine grain Japanese sea salt (I’m not being esoteric, I have a Japanese grocery store across the street and their sea salt is cheap.)  I measured out one level teaspoon of salt and then weighed them:

19 g sea salt

12.5 g salt crystals

9 g kosher salt

 

It's a little more than twice the volume of salt if I used sea salt instead of kosher salt. Wonder why that chicken recipe you made came out so salty?

 

Think about a brownie recipe that calls for 1 cup of nuts: if there was such a variation with salt, imagine the variation with roughly chopped v. whole v. finely chopped nuts.

 

And finally there is the clutter factor: all those measuring cups you’ve acquired can be tossed, those single measuring spoons that get disconnected from the ring and you can’t find the ¼ teaspoon spoon because it’s buried under the clutter of random spoons and lobster forks that have mysteriously accumulated in the junk drawer, can all be tossed and replaced by one single, elegant scale.

 

Find a scale that tares, which means you put the bowl on the scale, hit tare and the scale goes to zero so you aren’t factoring in the weight of the bowl. Which would be a nice thing for the deli man to do so you don’t have to pay $12.99/lb for that plastic container, but I digress.  Also find a scale that has ounces and grams because it’s good to have an easier conversion. All of my cookbooks have scribbles all over them where I’ve done the conversions, which sounds like a royal pain, but once you get used to working with weights, you don’t go back.  I use the CJ-4000, it gets the job done, and please don’t spring for the scale with the bowl, you already own bowls.

 

Breadsticks made easy

Everybody loves bread sticks or grissini, as they are called in Italy. Fun and quick to make, they add a homemade touch to a cheese plate or a rustic accent to a simple pasta dinner. Oh come on, do you really need me to tell you when it’s a good time to eat a breadstick? No, I didn’t think so.

 Here’s what you need:

250 g flour (about 1 ¾ cups)

125g water (scant 2/3 cup)

20g extra virgin olive oil (1Tablespoon + 1 teaspoon)

8g fresh cake yeast (1 Tablespoon)

5g salt (1/2 teaspoon)

12g honey (1 teaspoon)

1 or 2 baking sheet pans and some parchment paper

 

Yield: approximately 22 breadsticks about 8 inches long

Life is simpler, clean up is easier, eliminate cabinet clutter, and your recipes are more accurate if you use a scale.

 

Combine all the ingredients in a bowl and knead for about 5 minutes or until you have a yielding but resilient ball of dough.  I use bread flour, but you could probably use all-purpose flour and get good results. Seek out cake yeast. It gives much more reliable results than dried, powdered yeast. Cake yeast comes as a fresh block of yeast; it’s not yeast that you use to make a cake rise. I get mine at an Italian food store, but I also saw it at Dean & Deluca’s the other day, so it’s around. Whole Foods probably carries it.

 

When your are finished kneading, wrap the dough ball tightly in plastic wrap and let it rest for about 15 minutes. An old Italian chef taught me this trick, and I’m a little fuzzy on the science, but something about the compression aids in hydration and gives you a more pliable dough that doesn’t tear or shred as easily.

While the dough is resting, choose some flavorings for your breadsticks. Today I used: chopped walnuts, black sesame seeds, dried oregano, fennel pollen. Other possibilities could be: grated cheese, grated cheese with smoked chili powder, fresh thyme, chopped olives, a smear of spicy tomato sauce. Let the contents of your kitchen be your inspiration. Less is more….use just a bit of topping, don't cover the whole thing in cracked peppercorns, ok?

Preheat oven to 400F/204C.

Unwrap the ball of dough and roll it into a long tube, about 1 ½” in diameter. Don’t be too concerned if this long tube isn’t precisely even or round. You’re going to cut off chunks to make the individual bread sticks so you can adjust the bread stick size as you cut the chunks. One thing you need to do is keep all the bread sticks a fairly even thickness so they all bake at the same speed. I have seen some very creative breadsticks being made in some of my classes and it just breaks my heart to discourage creativity, but enormous renderings of body parts cook much slower, so you wind up with either your body parts are underdone or your sticks are burnt.

 
Place a small amount of topping on your work surface and gently pat the seasoning into the round ‘coin’ of dough that you cut from the tube. Using both hands, gently roll the coin into a breadstick shape; as your hands are rolling the breadstick, extend the dough lengthwise. As you do this, the topping gets rolled and incorporated into the breadstick.  When you have enough of one flavor of breadstick, clean up the board and move on to the next flavoring, otherwise you get bits and pieces mixed in and wind up with a tomato-walnut-black sesame mess.

 Lay the little guys on a baking sheet that has been lined with a sheet of parchment paper, leaving an inch between the sticks. If you like a bit of salt, sprinkle a touch of salt over the raw breadsticks and give them a little roll to set the salt crystal into the surface. Just before going into the hot oven, I usually spritz the sticks with a bit of water, which increases the overall crunch factor.

After about 10 minutes in the oven, give the sticks a roll in the pan to expose their underbellies.

Total baking time is anywhere between 25-35 minutes, they’re done when they are golden brown. They may still feel a bit soft to the touch, but they crisp up as they cool. Every oven has hot spots, so depending on where you place the tray it will affect the cooking time so it  helps to rotate the trays while they are baking.  

  Let the grissini cool before putting them into any sort of container, otherwise you risk losing your crunch and getting condensation sog, and trust me, no one likes condensation sog.

If you are not planning to serve the grissini that day, you can freeze them in a zip lock bag. When you need some, put them into a 350F/180C oven for a few minutes until they are warm and crunchy. Arrange the grissini in a pretty glass jar, and watch them disappear.

 

 

 

 

Spaghetti Puttanesca: Good Spaghetti with the Bad Girl Name

  A simple spaghetti puttanesca, or as it could be translated from Italian:“ slut’s spaghetti” is a combination of homey ingredients that results in pure alchemy. Combine tomatoes, olives, capers, some anchovies, garlic, oregano and these rustic ingredients turn into soothing, comforting, delicious goodness.

 Why name something so purely wonderful after a whore? As with all hand-me-down recipes there are as many theories as there are tangled noodles on my plate.  It was called a call-girl’s spaghetti because:

·       it was quick enough to make and eat between clients

·       it was quick enough to serve to clients when they were hungry

·       prostitutes usually aren’t very rich, e so it’s what they could afford to eat

·       in the 1950’s Sandro Petti, owner of the famous Ischia restaurant Rancio Fellone claimed he invented the sauce when hungry friends arrived after hours and begged  "Facci una puttanata qualsiasi" which roughly translates as “make any bloody thing!”

·       another name for this dish invokes the “figlio d'una buona donna” as in pasta of the son of a good woman, except the meaning of the good woman is ….the same as a puttana and her offspring

·       perhaps the salty, fishy flavor of the sauce is reminiscent of other pleasures.

 

You can ponder the origins of the name while you cook the sauce, which is another one of those “in the time it takes to cook the pasta” sauces.

 All quantities for this recipe are very, very flexible; it’s all about using up what’s on hand. (Don’t you just love a good innuendo?)

 

Spaghetti Puttanesca

1 cup tomato: puree, sauce, canned, chopped or fresh

½ medium yellow onion, diced (In Italy, they are known as cipolla dura, or hard onion, but that might be just too much innuendo)

2-3 cloves of garlic, minced

5-10 roughly chopped olives

1 T of capers

2-3 salted anchovy filets that have been rinsed

½ t dried oregano

Some chili peppers…you be the judge how hot you want your whore’s spaghetti.

1 T butter

olive oil, salt & pepper to taste

 

Put the pasta water on to boil. Don’t forget to salt the pasta water.

Now prep your onions, olives, garlic, and anchovies.

 Soften the onions in a few tablespoons of olive oil ((it’s the only time I’ll use the word soft, ok?), then add everything else except the butter.

 

Cook your pasta, when it’s done and right before you are ready to drain the pasta, add the butter to the tomato sauce and mix well.

(Question: why do recipe instructions always tell you to drain the pasta…what you are going to do, serve it in the cooking water? If you don’t know enough to drain the pasta, I would suggest that someone else be in charge of making dinner.)

 

Place your drained spaghetti in a bowl, add the sauce, grate a little cheese and you are good to go. What you choose to wear while serving spaghetti puttanesca is your call.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Update on the Olive and Grape Compote

Robin Maxwell, author of Signora da Vinci, emailed me this morning on the olive & grape compote recipe and she asked: “Without the oil (you use only a splast) and balsamic vinegar to create a "juice" to simmer in, does it come out dry, or do the grapes produce a juice?  Lately, I've been suggesting using even more oil and vinegar than is stated in the recipe, and also cooking it longer.  One of my readers who tried the recipe used a potato masher to mash the compote after cooking, so that the grapes and olives don't fall off the bread.”

 

My grapes were juicy and tart so I didn’t really need the vinegar and I used a clay pot to roast the compote so things stayed juicy, but I’m going to revise the original post and recipe to include Ms. Maxwell’s comments because this is the kind of recipe that evolves over time as everyone puts their own spin on it.

 

Ms. Maxwell also told me about her upcoming book, O. Juliet, so if you are a fan of historical novels, Florence, romance, Romeo, iambic pentameter, then you should take a look at her new blog.  I’m trying to talk her into coming to Montone where the spirit of our own Braccio Fortebraccio could be the next inspiration for a project.

 

 

Olive & Grape Compote Da Vinci Style

A recipe handed down through the centuries, emerging from the swirling mists of Tuscan history drifted into my kitchen. OK, maybe not really, but I did get inspired by the olive and grape recipe found in “Signora da Vinci” a fictional novel about DaVinci’s mama. If you can suspend belief and surrender to the central concept that it’s written from Leonardo’s mother’s perspective, it’s a fine read. Who wouldn’t enjoy spending some time with the Medici’s and their friends?  All through the book there is mention of this wonderful olive and grape compote and at the end, the author, Robin Maxwell, kindly supplies the recipe.

 

I tweaked it a bit, and it’s a good thing to have a batch stashed in the fridge for visitors, a quick snack, apperitivo time, a holiday cheese tray or a midnight nibble.  Guess you could call it versatile.

 

Olive & Grape Compote

½ pound of red seedless grapes

¼ pound black pitted Kalamata style olives

1 fresh thyme sprig

2 cracked cloves of garlic

1 tiny chili pepper (optional, if you go the chili pepper route, you want just a wisp of heat to mingle with the sweet and salty, it’s all about balance now isn’t it?)

Olive oil, salt, balsamic vinegar

 

Slice the grapes in half; rough chop the olives and place in a roasting dish. Remove the skins from the garlic and give the cloves a good smushing crack with the side of your knife, and toss in with the fruit. Add the crumbled dried chili pepper if you are using it. Strip the thyme branch of its little leaves and sprinkle over the grapes and olives. Add a tiny sprinkle of salt, splash of olive oil and roast in a 325F/165C oven and bake until the grapes and olives have collapsed, about 40 minutes.

*Edit to add: As per Ms. Maxwells' suggestion: add some balsamic vinegar to the compote if it needs a little acid or if it seems dry, add extra olive oil and a bit more vinegar. 

I roast this compote in a a clay pot so it tends to stay juicer and if you're grapes are tart...be careful with that vinegar.

 If you pack the hot compote into very clean canning jars you can then store the compote in the fridge for a few weeks to have on hand for emergency feedings. Or put into a regular jar and eat it quicker.

 

To serve:

Warm up the compote by placing it in a small oven proof dish in a cold oven, turn the oven on to 250F/120C and remove when it’s warm….about 10 minutes, depends on how quickly your oven heats up.

Serve on thin slices of toasted garlic bread. Slice the bread, and place in the oven at the same time as the compote. When the bread is crisp, remove, lightly rub with a peeled garlic clove and drizzle the bread with a bit of olive oil. Serve on the side with the compote.

A bit of soft goat cheese would be pretty tasty with this compote.

 

It’s delicious and think how happy Leonardo would be knowing you made his mama’s compote?

Food, elephants and the carpenter theory

Seven blind men go to ‘see’ an elephant, they touch one part of the beast and come back and describe it as if that one part is the whole animal. The carpenter theory: because he has a hammer in his tool belt, the hammer is the go-to tool to fix all things.

 

Since I’m back in NY, I’ve been to two ‘food politic’ events: a screening of Food, Inc. and this morning’s unveiling of the blueprint for  New York’s FoodWorksNY program and the F.R.E.S.H.  supermarket initiative. The blind men with hammers were present at both events.

 

After watching Food Inc., there was a Q&A section and the questions were so far ranging, I wondered if we had all watched the same film: the impact of Nestle micro-loans, do growth hormones affect obesity, were the tainted pistachios really repackaged, why can’t the media cover more holistic stories, should home ec be reintroduced into schools, is TV’s Top Chef part of ‘the problem’, we are all ill because we eat animal products etc etc. I started writing down the question topics because I was fascinated by all the different elements that people saw as being THE defining issue of our ‘food problems’. Everyone represented one small part of the Food World, and no one seems to be filling the void as a guiding light spokesperson. (Really, who would want that job?? Making peace between vegans and the Beef Council…I don’t think so.)

 

This morning’s event was described as City Council Speaker Christine C. Quinn will “deliver a major food policy address.”  “Speaker Quinn will discuss the future of New York City’s food system, and ways she and others are working towards developing a more sustainable system that also creates jobs for New Yorkers.”  -Taken from The Council of the City of New York’s Office of Communications, Media Advisory.

 

Well, that sounded good enough to get me out of bed early on a Monday morning and to be up at the New School by 9:00 am. There was an amazingly lavish breakfast buffet, and I’ll let the pictures speak for themselves but remember healthy eating, local, seasonal and sustainable were all topics for the meeting.

 
 
 

I got a little twitchy when I saw that one of the movers and shakers for this new initiative is Bruce Both, President of the UFCW Local 1500 that represents supermarket workers. I’m all for protecting the rights of workers, but I was skeptical that his motivation would be the same as the grass fed beef farmer and the press release didn't mention anything about supermarket workers. Sure the union guys wants to create jobs in supermarkets, but is it the UFCW’s mission to help New Yorkers realize that a potato chip is not a fresh vegetable (even though the work fresh is printed right there on the bag)? This quote is taken directly from the UFCW’s blog: “She [Christine Quinn] also touted the expected passage of F.R.E.S.H., an initiative aimed to bring more supermarkets to NYC’s low-income communities.”  Nope, he’s not worried about what’s on the supermarket shelves, he just wants supermarkets.

 

Peggy Shepard, Executive Director for We Act for Environmental Justice probably brought the most tools on her carpenter’s belt. Sharp, articulate, direct and engaging, she laid out the challenges of living in a neighborhood of color, where there is a KFC but no permanent farmer’s market. If there were anyone that I’d like to share dinner and a debate with, it would be her. She described a pattern of environmental racism that would challenge anyone to eat healthy.  Again, I can see the supermarkets responding to this persuasive woman, but I still see aisles of processed food, not vegetables.

 

I rode my bike up to the Harlem Fairway yesterday and stood in wonder at $2.49 grapefruits and that’s for just one grapefruit. And in order to get to the grapefruit section you must first navigate the Aisle of Chips and Cookies at the entrance. It’s formidable… I confess to keeping my eyes on the ground lest I be seduced by the selection of potato chips. I’m not that strong.  So, bring on the supermarkets, but how much has the neighborhood gained by kicking out the KFC?

 

 
Dan Barber, of Stone Farms spoke next and he compared what is going on now in the food world to Black Sunday of April 14, 1935. After years of dust storms, the mother of all dust storms picked up 100,000 acres of available topsoil and blew it from the Great Plains all the way to Washington DC where coincidentally Congress was debating if they should sign the Soil Conservation Service bill. As the dust darkened the windows and choked off all further debate, the Congressmen signed the bill.  The comparison was that we are standing in the midst of a decaying food bowl and that perhaps the initiatives being voted on this week would help us on the road to healthy, enjoyable eating. Chef Barber was the only one to address my concern: we can give people supermarkets, but they still aren’t cooking. Until people return to the kitchen they cannot take command of their personal food world.

 

Finally Speaker Quinn delivered a rousing speech that clearly demonstrated her genuine passion and zeal for creating jobs in NY and feeding people. She believes the F.R.E.S.H. initiative and FoodWorksNY are valuable holistic tools for helping New York Citizens. She believes this with all her heart, but maybe these initiatives are missing some key ingredients. Citing an example of how to bring local produce to our school children, she praised the benefits of a wash-cut-bag facility that could process romaine lettuce. Ms. Quinn seems to think that we can replace California romaine with NY romaine all during the school year, which would be OK if we had the same climate as California. They’re growing romaine in California because it’s naturally easier to grow it there, and if you factor in the cost of maintaining a heated greenhouse and above average irrigation requirements v. consolidated shipments and economies of scale, I wonder which is actually greener.

 

One suggestion is to stick with what is local: namely dark leafy greens that survive pretty well, at least until it snows.  My other suggestion is to eliminate the wash-cut-bag facility all together, and literally wash and prep the natural produce onsite. Kids would see the vegetable crates lined up at the side door. They would physically see the whole broccoli plant, not just the tips. Science projects would make use of composting. And somebody, somewhere in the kitchen would actually have to cook instead of opening a can. It’s mind bending to think of all the positive reinforcement that could come from handling raw produce. Life style classes would be mandatory and everyone gets a turn in the kitchen. Those who like it, get to stay for extra credit. Oh, if only I was queen of the universe there would be a dish rag and a sharp knife in everyone’s tool kit.

 

Of course, actually cooking and getting people back into the kitchen is the hammer that I carry in my tool belt and I really do try to see all sides of the various elephantine food debates.  I know home cooking isn’t going to solve everything that’s wrong with our food culture, but I do believe that until we make an apple as appealing and affordable as a Coke, we’re spinning our wheels. I think we need more Cooking Activists, and honey, I am not talking about Paula Deen, so quit hanging out on the computer and go make something in your kitchen.

Roasted Chicken Bits, Olives and Tomatoes

I confess. I hang my head in shame. I’ve completely fallen off the local and in-season wagon. I bought tomatoes, not only that but I bought tomatoes with a bar code! I couldn’t help myself, I missed having tomatoes so much, I caved. I’ll never achieve sainthood, but I have figured out a way to make winter tomatoes taste good. Not those big round tomatoes, which are hopeless, but the smaller grape tomatoes as they have a more intense flavor.

 

The other advantage to this dish is that you set it up in about 10 minutes, into the oven for 40 minutes and you’re done. No fuss and very little mess.

 

Roasted Chicken Bits, Olives and Tomatoes

Chicken thighs for 2, about ¾ of a pound, more if you’re extra hungry

15 grape tomatoes

2 cloves of garlic, peeled and thinly sliced

1 handful pitted black olives

¼ t dried oregano

Olive Oil

1 glug of red wine

Lemon Wedges

Salt, Pepper, 2 T flour for dredging.

 

Turn oven on to 350F/180C

Chicken thighs taste better than chicken breasts, try them, they’re also cheaper than chicken breasts. Cut the thighs up into small chunks and lightly flour the pieces.

Brown the pieces in a few tablespoons of olive oil.

 

While the chicken is browning, peel and sliver the garlic and place into a small roasting pan (preferably clay), add the tomatoes and oregano. When the chicken pieces are nicely browned, pour them into the roasting pan, deglaze the pan with a small shot of red wine, mix together and put in the oven. No, I didn’t forget about the olives. About 10 minutes before the chicken is done, add the olives. The olives are a much stronger flavor and adding them later will keep the flavor more separate rather than totally integrated. Gives you flavor variety from bite to bite.

Serve with some lemon wedges and a crisp white wine and maybe some bread to soak up the juices.

 

P.S. Roasting the little grape tomatoes with the garlic and oregano makes a nice side dish all by itself. Put the tomatoes in a small roasting dish, add some garlic, sprinkle of salt and oregano, splash of olive and roast until they soft but not totally mushy. Works well with a simple piece of grilled meat.

 

A Montone Calendar for 2010

I'd like to share a labor of love with you. I've put together a calendar for 2010 with photos of our beloved Montone, lots of food, and a little bit of New York. It's available through Lulu.com...click the link at the left. I promise there are no incriminating photos of anyone! And you know I've got them!