Aroma Cucina

Linguine & The Art of Vongole

Twenty years ago, Napoli Restaurant was a classic spaghetti joint on the corner of Spring and Sullivan streets in Soho, NYC. Actually, it was ‘our’ spaghetti joint back in the day when we were living cheap and going out didn’t require a mortgage to buy a bottle of wine.

Spaghetti with clams was a favorite, and the hardest decision was whether to have it with a white or red sauce. The restaurant sold so much of this dish that the place actually smelled like it; in fact the block smelled of spaghetti and clams. I don’t remember any shells, so the clams probably came from a can or the freezer.

Remember...I said this was ‘back in the day’ before we all realized that the only decent clam to be eaten had to be raised in the wild and hunted down by a fisherman named Guy. (And you know the fisherman’s name because now all the clams are tagged with their origins, the date and time of capture, if the clam struggled or gave up willingly and the fisherman’s name, age, and Facebook page.)  Yeah, I’m all about truth in labeling, but back in the prior millennium...who knew to even ask where the clams came from!

Flash forward to the new enlightened us who live in Italy and have eaten many clams, preferably picking them up at the port from the fisherman, with a cold bottle of local wine in the shopping bag. Here’s the time warp part: eating linguine alle vongole at the Italian seaside is probably cheaper than those dinners at Napoli. See, life isn’t always cruel.

Things you should know about making linguine alle vongole:
 

• The type of clams you buy really doesn’t matter. It will affect the cooking time and flavor, but buying fresh clams from a reputable fish monger is what is important. The clams should be tightly closed and smell of the sea.  For my taste, smaller clams are better, but not too small or you end up spending all your time picking out itsy bitsy pieces of clam meat from the shells while the pasta gets cold, and some one else just might eat more than their share!

 

• You can mix different types or sizes of clams, but you’ll need to add them to the pot at different times because over cooked clams taste like...flavorless rubber. Not that I’ve eaten a lot of flavorless rubber, but you get the idea. Clams are cooked when they open, in fact, as soon as they open, so timing matters. (And of course size matters, but that goes without saying.)

 

• Garlic is friend of linguine alle vongole. Adding cream or cheese to the dish makes Italians gag and is viewed as a crime.

 

• Use dried pasta, not fresh pasta. Although eaten all over Italy, lunguine alle vongole’s foundation is southern Italian, and they use dried pasta.  Fresh pasta usually has eggs in it, and this would also produce the gag reflex in any good southern Italian.

Making the linguine alle vongole:

1. Set a big pot of pasta water on to boil.
2. Decide if you want red or white sauce. I can’t help you with this decision. Both are good, sometimes you just have to choose. 
3. Give the clams a rinse and check to be sure all the little guys are still closed tight. Discard any clams that are open and don’t close when touched. You only need to scrub the clams if they are big and the shells feel gritty. Ideally you want to keep as much of the sea water inside the clam as possible.

White Linguine alle Vongole
1/2 kg or 1 lb of small clams
1-2 cloves of garlic
1 anchovy filet
White wine, olive oil, parsley, chili pepper


When the pasta water has come to a boil, salt the water and add your linguine.

In a sauce pan big enough to hold the clams and all of the linguine, add a generous glug of olive oil and warm the oil over medium heat.

Here’s where personal taste kicks in: if you like a mild garlic flavor,  just peel and crack the garlic clove before adding it to the pot. If you want a strong garlic flavor, finely chop the garlic. The finer the garlic, the stronger the flavor.  Now toss in one or two roughly chopped dried chili peppers or chili pepper flakes, and the anchovy filet.

You do not want to burn the garlic, but you want to flavor the oil, so tip the pan to make a puddle and let the garlic, chili pepper, and anchovy sizzle in the oil.
Pay attention! There is a valuable lesson here.... it means you stand over the pot and keep an eye on the garlic without getting distracted, and it has the extra benefit of you looking like you totally know what you are doing.

Add a small splash of white wine, no more than a half glass. It may look like you are being cheap with the wine, but the truth is the clams release a lot more juice than you think, so go easy on the wine.    Now add your clams, cover the pot, and turn up the heat.

By now your pasta should be in the pot about five minutes, or half way to being done.
After one or two minutes, when the clams are starting to open, add a ladle full of the pasta water to the clam pot. Drain the pasta and add to the clam pot. Finish cooking the pasta and clams together. In a perfect world, you want the pasta and the clams to finish cooking at the same time. This comes with practice. There is no way a recipe can tell you this because I don’t know what size clams or linguine you have. Learn to listen to your inner voice, and if you don’t have an inner voice, then cook with a friend and the two of you will figure it out.

Finish with some finely chopped parsley, a good pour of olive oil,  and a generous bit of ground black pepper.


Red Sauce for Linguine alle Vongole
Tasty, but not as common as white. In fact, it's probably an American-Italian invention, but who cares because it tastes good. Do everything as above, only substitute tomato sauce for the white wine. Double the amount of sauce, so instead of a half wine glass of sauce, use a full cup of tomato sauce.

A word about eating spaghetti with clams: For god’s sake don’t sit there with a fork and pick out the clams. Pick up the clam shell with your fingers and suck out the clam. Clam shells taste good! OK, if you’ve got a boatload of clams on your plate and you want some in every forkful, then go ahead and fork out the meat and mix it up with your spaghetti but don’t let me catch you eating each and every clam with your fork!

And one final secret: keep mixing the pasta as it sits in the pan or bowl (We like to eat it out of the pan because it keeps the pasta hot longer and I have this really beat up old pot that allows us to pretend we are grizzly fisherman hanging out by sea). The bottom of the pot is the best part as the pasta has soaked up all the juices.

Bon apetito and thanks to Kris Rudolf for asking me for the recipe for her blog Delicious Expeditions! I’ve been making this regularly for years and just hadn’t really thought about the details.  Enjoy!

Recipe for Wonderful: Summer Shrimp & Zucchini Spaghetti

What is a summer shrimp? It’s shrimp that are eaten when the sea is at your doorstep, the air is hot, and the wine is chilled.

Essential Ingredients:
1 small Mediterranean island
1 well kept medium sized villa with a view of the sea
2-3 weeks of vacation time

Pasta Ingredients:
500 g of fresh, red shrimp
1/2 onion, chopped
1/2 small zucchini
8-10 small ripe tomatoes
2-3 cloves of garlic, minced
1 cup of white wine or Prosecco left over from last night’s dinner

Preparation:
In the morning, go out in search of the perfect coffee bar. This is a critical step. It’s important the barrista gets to know your coffee order so if there is a crowd at the bar, he already knows how you like your coffee and you just need to raise an eyebrow to place your order.

This gives you time to discuss the meaning of life, what to do during the day and to watch what people are buying at the fishmonger’s truck outside the door.  I already had my heart set on the ‘gamberi rossi’ (red shrimp) so it was divine confirmation when the fishmonger brought a plate of the raw shrimp into the bar as an apertivi to be shared and eaten ‘crudo’ (raw).

Yes. Raw shrimp. If the shrimp have never been frozen, still wrapped in  the scent of the sea, and are beguiling red, it does seem like a pretty good idea.

When it is time to eat, meander into the kitchen, fill a pasta pot with water and figure out how to turn on the stovetop.
Now chop a small white onion. Cube a small zucchini. Using a pan big enough to hold the spaghetti and everything else, sauté the vegetables in olive oil for 2-3 minutes until they soften and snuggle. Pour in the wine and let that simmer for another 2-3 minutes.

Quarter  or halve your tomatoes depending on the size. Be sure to pop at least one of the tomatoes in your mouth while you are quartering them so that you know what they taste like. Chop 1-2 cloves of garlic. You can taste that too if you are so inclined.


By now the salted pasta water has boiled and your spaghetti is 2-3 minutes away from being done. Add 2 cups of the pasta cooking water to the zucchini and onions. Drain the pasta and add to the zucchini pot, adding the tomatoes and garlic and mix well. Cook for 1 minute.  Add the shrimp and cook for another minute, mixing well. You really only want the shrimp to be heat kissed.  Now serve the spaghetti ‘in padella’, or in the cooking pan. While it looks romantic, the truth is the villa didn’t come with a serving platter. Oh well, the hardship we must endure.

Serve with a smile and a good box of chilled white wine!
A note about that Mediterranean island: we are having a group meeting to determine if we will disclose our location...or keep it a secret.

More Mushrooms Than You Can Imagine

As I’m walking into our local grocery store, the Euro Spin, AKA “The Spin”, an elderly, hunched over lady is staggering out of the store lugging a massive flat of white mushrooms.
 Of course, I’m thinking, “What the hell is she going to do with all those mushrooms??”

I cruise into the produce section, which in Italy is still front and center in most grocery stores and is at least 95% untouched, unsliced, unadulterated produce, and I see a wall of mushrooms.
They are selling whole flats of gorgeous, fresh white mushrooms for 2,50 euro (or about $4 US bucks).  They are practically giving them away!

 Holey camoley, now I know why that lady bought so many mushrooms and we’re buying them too.  I bring the flat to our grocery cart, and Jeff gives me the raised eyebrow, what-are-you-doing-now look.  I tell him the price and he makes a secure spot for the flat in our grocery cart. And, that’s one of the reasons why I love him.

Then we get home and I realize this is really A LOT of mushrooms. So the first thing I do, is bag some up for our Orto-Mates. And that still leaves me with 5 or 6 pounds of mushrooms.  

It’s another use it or lose it moment, so I start cleaning mushrooms. I cut the spongy stems off, cube the mushrooms into chunky quarters, go harvest a pile of parsley from the orto, slice up a head or so of garlic and toss everything into a very large pot with equal parts butter and olive oil. And the house smells wonderful!

Here’s the recipe scaled down to a 2 to 4 person serving.

Sauteed Mushrooms
1/2 lb or 500g mushrooms, cleaned and quartered
3-4 cloves of garlic, thinly sliced
1 small clove of garlic, minced
1 heaping tablespoon of finely chopped parsley
1 T butter
1 T olive oil
1 glug of wine
1 3 finger pinch of bread crumbs
lemon juice, 1/2 half of a juicy fresh lemon
salt, pepper

Melt the butter in a saute pan big enough to hold the mushrooms in only one or two layers. Add the olive oil and over medium heat add the mushrooms, sliced garlic and a sprinkle of salt. Cover the pan and let the mushrooms release their juice. Stir frequently.

When the mushroom pan is full of juice, uncover the pan and add a good glug of white wine. Cook until all the moisture is gone. This will take about 15 minutes.

The mushrooms will turn a deep, golden brown. Right before serving the mushrooms, generously pepper them, add the minced garlic, parsley, breadcrumbs and finish with the juice of half a lemon. Cook for no more than one minute and serve with a smile.

You can serve these as a side dish with roasted pork, or chicken or use as a pasta sauce.
If you are using them in pasta: about a minute before the pasta is cooked,  spoon a ladle full of the salted pasta water into the pot. Drain the pasta and add to the mushroom sauce pot. Cook until the pasta is done and the cooking liquid has been absorbed. Serve with some extra olive oil and grated cheese on the side.

Buon’ appetito!

PS I went back to the Spin the next week, and there wasn’t a mushroom in sight.

Cannelloni Crudo

Get your mind out of the gutter. Crudo means raw.
And no, the cannelloni wasn’t raw, the sauce was.  Actually the fresh tomato sauce was almost raw or “quasi crudo” as they would say in Italy.
The story goes like this: it’s summer, no one wants to spend extra time in the kitchen, and we have tomatoes coming out of our ears.
And thus, I’ve learned inspiration and abundance make excellent cohorts.

Crudo Salsa
1 or 2 cored whole fresh summer red tomatoes
1 small onion
2 cloves garlic
2 T soft white cheese like Ribiola Fresca
2 fingered pinch of salt
1 glug of olive oil
1 T red wine vinegar

Pitch all the ingredients into the blender. Blend until lumpy (or until you have a pleasing,  sauce like consistency).  I was liking the lumpy bits and that’s what pleased me. You can go smoother or lumpier depending on your mood.

Pour over cooked pasta: spaghetti, ravioli, cannelloni. If you’ve started with room temperature ingredients, this sauce warms up as soon as it is mixed with the pasta. 

I finished the sauce in the oven with a healthy sprinkle of grated parmigiano cheese, which is why my sauce is quasi crudo. 

This ‘crudo’ sauce is a work in progress. Next variation will include lots of basil, and I think a chili pepper/oregano version could be tasty.

If you have a blender, and some tomatoes, let your imagination inspire you in all things crudo!
Buon appetito.

Kitchen Garden Lunch: Spaghetti Ortolana

The dog days of summer are upon us.
"When the seas boiled, wine turned sour, Quinto raged in anger, dogs grew mad, and all creatures became languid, causing to man burning fevers, hysterics, and phrensies" according to Brady’s Clavis Calendarium, 1813.

Is it any wonder, when the world feels baked to a crisp, why three showers a day might not be enough, and the urge to howl at the full moon seems like a perfectly good idea, that a walk to our garden, and a chat with friends, seems like a mini-vacation after the torrid heat we’ve endured?

We’ve reached the harvesting point where lunch can be made by just visiting the orto, our kitchen garden. It’s so deliciously easy now, to walk over to the garden, with no plan in mind, just a “let’s see what needs to be eaten” attitude.  For all of us in the northern hemisphere, it is a time of lazy quick meals that taste of summer sunshine.

Here is today’s version of  Spaghetti Ortolano:
2-4 ripe, sun warmed vine tomatoes like San Marzano
1 chili pepper of unreliable heat (sometime killer, sometimes sweet, there’s no telling until you cut it open)
1 red Tropea onion (the first of the harvest)
Some fennel fronds, basil and parsley leaves
3 stalks of fresh celery

Not from the garden: a handful of olives, a big spoonful of capers, olive oil, oregano,and a big clove of garlic.

Put the pasta water pot on to boil.
Chop everything up and gently saute the vegetables.
A minute before the pasta is ready, ladle a spoonful of pasta water into the saute pot.
Drain the pasta.
Add it to the saute pot and cook for 1 minute.

Serve immediately with a cold glass of wine and enough time to have a lazy chat with your dining companion.

On Sunday, we’re planning on having our 1st Ever Beet Festival because the beets are ready to be eaten. We are eagerly requesting all music suggestions to accompany the Beet Festival. Tweet us @judithklinger or @jeffaromacucina because our music selection is in need of help!

Buon appetito!

Not Mac & Cheese, It's Rav & Cheese

If mac & cheese is macaroni and cheese, then I guess we had rav & cheese for lunch: ravioli and cheese baked in the oven.

I don’t like leftovers. And I hate leftover pasta; it’s always soggy and mushy. But it’s not as bad as leftover salad which has no reason to exist except in a compost bin. But I had some outstanding leftover lemon ricotta ravioli on hand... and I just couldn’t toss it out. And so I discovered baked ravioli is a pretty good way to use up leftover pasta.


Line a dish with left over or already cooked ravioli. Add a few tablespoons of cream or milk to keep things lubricated. Cover with two or three kinds of cheese like pecorino, and be sure one of the cheeses is parmigiana. Bake until it’s bubbling brown, but wait until it cools down before you eat it!

I suppose the moral of the story is just because it’s leftovers, doesn’t mean you can’t be creative. Just treat it as another ingredient and push the boundaries a little.

What creative thing have you done with your leftovers? Come on, I could use a little inspiration or Jeff is going to be a hungry man!

Summer Confetti Pasta: Bawdy, Colorful, Sexy, Italian

Warm weather arrives and suddenly the kitchen color palette shifts from the tender greens of spring to vibrant reds, purples, deep sea green. In Italy, the men are tan, the women wear spectacularly high heels, and everyone struts their stuff. It’s an irresistible, seasonal call to go out and play.

It’s a perfect time to experiment with textures, temperatures, colors. Not serious cooking, but light, fun and flavorful cooking.

Here’s a colorful, rustic pasta recipe that combines raw tomatoes, cooked onions, chunks of parmigiana cheese and lots of olives. Like Italy in the summer: colorful and sexy.

Choose a dry pasta that has nooks and crannies. I used ‘caserecce’; short rolled up tubes that catch and hold the sauce.

Confetti Pasta
2 big handfuls of  cherry tomatoes
1 handful of olives
10 - 15 fresh, just picked spinach leaves
1 big sweet red onion
2-3 garlic cloves, peeled and chopped
1 hunk of parmigiana cheese
A few basil leaves and some parsley
A small glug of balsamic vinegar to finish (optional)

(It’s summer time...do you really think I was going to stand around measuring out the tomatoes and spinach?? Our garden is just starting to produce so I take what I can get.)

Put your pasta water on to boil. The sauce will be ready when the pasta is cooked.

Peel and slice the onions and gently saute them with a glug of olive oil. Use a sauce pan big enough to hold the cooked pasta.  Add the chopped garlic.

Roughly chop the tomatoes and set aside.

Roughly chop the spinach, basil and parsley leaves.

Chop the parmigiana up into bite sized pieces.

When the pasta is not quite done, scoop a ladle full of salted pasta water into the onion pot.
Drain the pasta and add to the onions.
Add the spinach, basil and parsley to the pot and let the leaves wilt for a minute. Add the cheese and olives and toss well.

Place the pasta in a serving bowl and top with the raw tomatoes. Mix well, add the balsamic vinegar if you like, serve with a smile...and take off those high heels!  Dinner will taste much better if you are bare foot.

Buon appetito!


 

Let the Season Begin! Oven Roasted Tomato & Onion Pasta

My man knows the way to my heart.
Yesterday I came home to the peace and quiet of Montone, and there were stunning roses in the living room and a full sideboard of vegetables in the kitchen.

Cherry season has just begun and it’s looking to be a bang up year if the cherries we just devoured are any indication. Jeff also bought a mountain of these gorgeous, sweet red onions. If anyone has some yummy onion recipes, I’m all ears because we’ve got a lot of them.


All the fixings for soffrito were in the kitchen: celery, onions and carrots. Jeff has been bragging that he made soffrito for himself, for two different sauces. He made enough one night,  that he had enough for the second night. Who says old dogs can’t learn new tricks? Now I’m worried that I’ll be made redundant.

Maybe I don’t have to worry, since at lunchtime he resumed his familiar bellow, “I’m hungry.” This is an invitation for me to go downstairs and start banging some pots, so I guess I still have a job as the cook.

I haven’t had time to go to the grocery store yet, so it meant putting something together with what was on hand. The first decent tomatoes of the season were sitting there, just begging to be roasted, along side some of those onions, so it was pasta with roasted vegetables for lunch.

Ingredients
2 branches of cherry tomatoes
1 sweet red onion
1 good sized handful of pitted olives
2 dry chili peppers, roughly chopped
2 anchovy filets
2 cloves of thinly sliced garlic
1/2 cup of tomato sauce
oregano, extra virgin olive oil, salt

Directions

Lay the cherry tomatoes in a shallow roasting pan, drizzle with olive oil and sprinkle with  some salt and a little oregano. 
Slice the red onion and lay the slices on a cookie sheet, drizzle with oil and salt.
Place both pan in the oven and roast at 350F/180C for 20-25 minutes.

While the vegetables are roasting, put the pasta water on to boil. I used an egg pasta that cooks in about 4 minutes, so I had to move quickly to get the sauce made. Use a sauce pan that is big enough to hold all of the cooked pasta.

Saute the anchovy filets in a few tablespoons of olive oil until the anchovies dissolve; about a minute. Be sure to use a saute pan that is big enough to hold the cooked pasta.  Add the garlic, olives, chili peppers and gently saute.

Before you drain the pasta, add 1 full ladle full of pasta water to the olive-chili sauce pan.  Add the 1/2 cup of tomato sauce and mix well.

Now add the pasta and let it cook for about 2 minutes so it can absorb the pasta water and the flavored oil.
Remove the roasted, slightly caramelized onions from the oven and mix with a small amount of balsamic style vinegar.

Serve the pasta in a big bowl, topped with the roasted tomatoes and caramelized onions. Simple and satisfying; it’s good to be home.

Buon appetito!

When Comfort Foods Join Forces

What happens if you combine two comfort foods together? Extra-comfy comfort food?

Spaghetti amatriciana + a poached egg = Damn Good!  

Spaghetti amatriciana is a basic tomato sauce with pancetta. Eggs poached in tomato sauce show up all over the middle East and are sublimely, rustically comforting. I figured why not put them together and see what happens.

Simple Amatriciana Sauce
*Soffrito
Finely chopped pancetta, guanciale or bacon
Tomato Sauce

*soffrito: carrots, onion celery, finely chopped

Use a wide bottomed, flat sauce pan so that you’ll have room to poach the eggs.

Fry the soffrito and pancetta until the pancetta is soft. Add the tomato sauce. Add a little chopped garlic and a chili pepper if you are so inclined. 

When the pasta is just about cooked, gently slide one egg per person into the tomato sauce and let them poach for 2-3 minutes. You know...until they are snot free.

Drain the pasta and plate in individual bowls. Add some amatriciana sauce to the pasta, and top with the poached egg.

So good, you’ll wind up going back for seconds so keep some extra sauce and eggs around.
Buon’appetito.

Dinner in the Time of Twitter: Ravioli with Butter & Sage

“I don’t have time to cook.” How many times have you heard this or said it yourself? It really isn’t about time, is it? It’s about priorities. I get it. Twitter is an addictive time suck, but you have to fight the cravings if you want to eat ravioli.

How long does it take to make ravioli with butter & sage?  5 minutes for the  water to boil, 3 minutes to make the sauce and cook the ravioli.

How long does it take to make spaghetti carbonara? 5 minutes for the water to boil, 8 minutes to cook the pasta, 1 minute to finish and serve.

 

That’s not really fair, because I’m not factoring in shopping time. But either you batch shop about once a week, or you stop on your way home. Sometimes the shopping can be an adventure unto itself. We called it foraging when we were in Puglia. We never knew what we would come home with.

And I didn’t factor in the learning curve. Practice and things get better and quicker. There’s no way to avoid the curve. Embrace it.

So, make some dinner tonight. OK?

Ravioli with Butter & Sage
6 fresh ravioli per person, cheese or butternut squash are good choices
3-4 T butter
5 or 6 fresh sage leaves
Grated parmigiano cheese

Put the water on to boil, salt it just as it comes to a boil. 

Make a salad, take off your work clothes, play with the cat, check Twitter if you must.

When the water comes to a boil, add the ravioli and cook for about 1 minute.

In a saucepan, melt the butter over medium heat. Using scissors, snip the sage leaves into little strips.

Add the sage to the butter.

Drain the ravioli and toss in the sauce pan with the butter and sage. Saute for 30 seconds, flip the raviolis, saute for another 30 seconds.

Arrange the raviolis on a plate, spoon the extra butter over the top. Serve with grated cheese. Enjoy, relax, and savor the moment.  You can Tweet me later @judithklinger.

This video and recipe are from our Cook Vook,  "Cooking Simply: The Italian Way!"