Aroma Cucina

Addicted to Love & Eggplant

We have a plant in our orto that I call our “Teen Bride”.  She keeps having babies, is totally unsupported, and when you pluck a fruit from her, she shudders as if to say, “Thank you!”. Then she stands a little straighter, brazenly sprouting even more fruit.

Meet Teen Bride.

 I like eggplant, don’t get me wrong. I just didn’t LOVE eggplant, until recently. Now, we’re addicted. We tried the eggplant parm (I’ve got a great summer recipe.).  But this eggplant dip is the cause of our addiction.

 

Charred Eggplant Dip

1 eggplant (bigger eggplant, more dip…just make what you need because it tastes better warm and fresh)

Extra virgin olive oil (because only a virgin will do)

Sea salt

Lemon juice (fresh, don’t even think about anything else)

Garlic

Cumin, Smoked Picante Paprika, Sesame Seeds

 There are no measurements here. This is cooking by eye and taste. Get used to using your senses; you’ll thank me in the long run.

 You’re going to need a blender; a robust one, like a Vita Mix. An average strength blender or food processor will certainly do, but you won’t be able to get the super creamy texture.

 

1)   Char the eggplant. Start by piercing the eggplant with the tip of a knife to make steam holes. (If you follow me on Facebook, then you know I blew up the first eggplant in my oven. It made an incredible stringy, hanging-from-the-walls mess).

Broil the eggplant until the insides are soft and the skin of the eggplant is crackling and brittle. Turn the eggplant once or twice to get an even char. This usually takes 7-10 minutes with a medium size, more narrow eggplant.

2)   In a blender, add a good amount of olive oil, starting with a healthy glug. Add a pinch of sea salt, a clove of garlic, and some of the juice from half a lemon. Remember, you can always add more of an ingredient, but it would be a bitch to remove too much salt or lemon juice!

 

3)   While the eggplant is still hot, make a slit from one end to the other and open the eggplant. Using a spoon, scrape the meat from the fruit and add to the blender. Scrape it close to the skin because that’s where the char flavor comes from.  Blend until creamy. Now taste. More lemon? More salt? More garlic? If it isn’t feeling really creamy in your mouth, add another glug of olive oil.

 

Garnish with a sprinkle of cumin, a good amount of picante smoked paprika and a sprinkle of sesame seeds. Serve with some warm flat bread.

 No matter how much I make, we lick the bowl clean and fight over the last drops. Honestly, two grown people fighting over eggplant? That’s ridiculous and undignified. It must be love….and addiction. Don’t say I didn’t warn you.

 

 

 

Kitchen Wizard's Secret Weapon for Divine Dinners

What is the emergency, go-to, secret weapon that I try to keep in my fridge at all times? And it’s not ketchup, although mustard takes second place. First place goes to:....Veal Stock!

If Merlin the Magician waved his wand in your kitchen, he would give you this Secret Weapon.  It’s the painter’s white canvas, it’s the keyboard to your computer, it’s  butter on your toast, the magic in your saute pan.

Michael Ruhlman compares it to turbo charging your Mitsubishi... your kitchen is now faster and more fuel efficient.

It’s a flavor bump, adding depth and intensity to a sauce. It’s the umami bridge that literally blends the components of your dish together.

There is a toll to be paid in order to enjoy all this fast freedom: you need to make some veal stock.
I hear you.. where can I find veal bones? At your butcher, you should be patronizing a butcher anyway.

They’re expensive compared to chicken bones. Correct! But, you’ll get extensive use from the bones, it’s worth the $$.
It takes hours to make it. Correct again, but it’s not like your standing next to the oven, frozen in time, while the bones are roasting. Stop whining.

The How-To of Making Reduced Veal Stock Kitchen Magic:
4-5 lb veal bones
1 large carrot
1 large onion
3-4 ribs of celery
Peppercorns,  salt, vegetable oil, herbs(rosemary, thyme, sage)
1/2 can canned tomatoes
4-5 good sized glugs of white wine, enough to cover the bottom of the roasting pan

In a large roasting pan, lay out the bones and lightly salt and pepper them. Roast the bones for about 1 hour at 350F/180C. Remove from the oven when they are toasty brown and the smell is intoxicating.

Meanwhile, roughly chop the peeled carrot, celery and onion. Add a little vegetable oil to the bottom of a large stock pot and add the chopped vegetables, another sprinkle of salt, a small palmful of peppercorns, and a bit of rosemary and thyme.
Saute until the vegetables are a  little burned, this caramelization adds color and flavor to the broth.
Add the roasted meat bones to the stock pot.
Using white wine, deglaze the veal bone roasting  pan, dissolving all the tasty browny bits and add the wine and meat juices to the stock pot.
Add enough cold water to the stock pot that you cover the bones.
Lightly simmer for about 2 hours. That means little bubbles gently swimming to the top of the pot. Skim off any of that icky foam.
After two hours,  first remove and discard the bones. Then strain the stock through a fine mesh colander and pour the strained stock back into the pot. (It’s much easier to strain the stock if you pull the big bones out first, less mess and less weight to deal with.  Reserve the bones for a worthy dog.)

Add 1/2 cup canned tomatoes, turn up the heat to a slow boil,  and start reducing the stock.
 After boiling for about an hour, strain the liquid once more and move to a smaller pot. Continue reducing until the stock liquid  become thick enough to coat a wooden spoon, and the boiling bubbles look like syrup.
Reducing time will depend on how much water was in the stock pot to begin with and the temperature you are using to reduce the stock, but plan on a few hours.
Be careful, because at this syrupy stage, you could burn your precious elixir and that would be a real drag.
When you have the stock reduced to about 1 1/2 cups of liquid, carefully pour it into a very clean jar.
Let it cool, then refrigerate the stock. The fat will come to the top and you can remove it later.  What’s left, is Veal Kitchen Magic.  It will keep in your fridge for 3-4 weeks; just be sure to use a clean spoon every time so no other food particles can contaminate it and encourage mold.


What to do with Veal Kitchen Magic:
Saute a a piece of pork, a piece of codfish (yes, it works very well with a meaty fish), chicken breasts, turkey bits. Whatever protein strikes your fancy. Remove the protein from the sauce pan, keeping the meat or fish on a warm plate, add flavoring like chopped mushrooms, a splash of wine and a teaspoon or so of Veal Kitchen Magic to the saute pan. Swirl these ingredients around in a pan, voila!,  you have your sauce a la minute.

Pork chops with green peppercorns: Once the pork chops are cooked, add green peppercorns, mustard, your veal kitchen magic and a shot of whiskey to the pan. Cook for 45 seconds, remove and pour over the pork chops.

Lemon Chicken breasts: Remove the cooked chicken breasts from the pan, add veal kitchen magic, a glug or two of white wine, deglaze the pan, finish with the juice of a fresh squeezed lemon. Add capers if you are feeling happy.

Codfish Delight: Remove the codfish from the pan. Add chopped mushrooms, veal magic, lots of fresh pepper, a little white wine. Cook until the mushrooms are soft, finish with a squirt of lemon juice.

It all builds off the basic saute and stock. It’s like a painter’s white canvas,  it’s like playing jazz in your kitchen. It’s your secret weapon.
This blog post was inspired by a class I gave on Saturday. I hope you guys had as much fun as I did!

Apple iBooks is featuring Cooking Simply The Italian Way!

Apple likes "Cooking Simply The Italian Way" so much we’re featured as “New & Notable” in the iBook Store! My name is on the same page as Agatha Christie....mamma freakin‘ mia that is amazing! 

OK, I  hear you,  “Uh, what's a CookVook?”
 It’s a cookbook with videos.   "Cooking Simply The Italian Way" is a talking cook book that is designed for home chefs who need a little confidence boost and who like good food.

There is so much hype about cooking, with wacky TV shows that intimidate or entertain, but don’t really show you how to cook.  I just wanted to scale back the noise and zone in on the basics: fresh food, in season. The way Italians eat at home. Warm roast pear salads, lentil stew, steak tagliata, roasted fish in a salt crust, green beans with pancetta, risotto, foccacia, bangin' good tiramisu...all good stuff, all easy to make.

For now, you need an iSomething to buy Cooking Simply: The Italian Way. Its available for iPad, iPod & iPhone. Soon, it will be available as an eBook. For now, download the iBook app and then you can download our CookVook. Or go directly to the Vook website. I haven’t figured out how to do autographed copies, but I’m working on it.  Look, fame has already gone to my head!

Best Risotto Ever

  How can I write a risotto recipe that starts with  “Roast 1 flock of chickens? Reserve juices.”??

 I recently had to roast a lot of chickens, actually an entire flock of them, and as they cooled, there was all this lovely chicken juice in the bottom of the pans.  I put it all in a container, not really sure what I would do with it, but certainly not letting it go to waste.   As far as I’m concerned, the best part of the chicken is the burny, toasty brown stuff that gets left on the roasting pan. It’s pure essence of concentrated chicken.

 

Lunchtime rolled around the other day, and getting Chinese food delivered to Montone is clearly not an option so I needed to figure out something that we could eat. Right about now, I’d kill for some good Chinese dumplings, but instead, we took a vote and decided on risotto instead of pasta. It’s tough when there are only 2 people voting, who is the tiebreaker? Yeah, you’re right, it’s the chef. It’s good to be the chef.

 I decided on a classic risotto Milanese with peas, and then I remembered my magic chicken juice in the fridge. What good luck!

 Best Risotto Ever Recipe

2-3 cups Magic Chicken Juice (diluted 1 part chicken juice: 2 parts water)

½ cup freshly grated parmigiana

½ cup peas

1 good-sized knob of butter (why do they call a hunk of butter a knob? Is it more dignified?? Not if you’re British…)

2 cups Arborio rice

½ teaspoon saffron

1 medium sized glug of white wine

1 minced shallot

 

Your standard risotto technique:

        1)   Toast the rice in a dry pan

        2)   Start adding your liquid, bit by bit.  Adding more as it absorbs. I add the wine near the end.     Add the shallot near the beginning of the cooking process. Just toss it in the pan.

        3)   Butter poach the peas. I take frozen peas (pea season is over, whatcha gonna do?) in a small crockery dish, with that good sized knob of butter, and over very low heat, I let the butter melt and the peas poach. This technique is marvelous; use it whenever you want decadent peas.

        4)   When the rice is done, combine the saffron, cheese and peas…in that order.

        5)   Now eat. Eat it immediately...risotto waits for no man. 

 

If there is a moral to the story it has to be that if something looks good enough to keep, keep it. Figure out what to do with it later. Now I have to wait until the next time there is a flock of chickens needing to be roasted before I can get more of the Magic Chicken Juice.   If roasting a flock of chickens is not in your future, use good home made chicken stock from a roast chicken, and it too will make you happy.

 

 

 

 

Garden Arugula with Gorgonzola

Woo hoo!!! We have our first ‘harvest’ from our orto (vegetable garden). Well, OK, it might be an exaggeration to call it a harvest, but it was a colander full of rucola (or arugula or rocket, everyone calls it something different, depends on where you live).  I think the garden lettuces are doing well enough that we don’t have to buy lettuce anymore. Now that is good news!

The weather has not been kind to us this year, very cool, very rainy, so things are much further behind than they were last year. Nevertheless, it looks like we are getting back on track.

To celebrate our first growth, we made a ‘rucola con Gorgonzola’ sauce for pasta. It’s a classic pairing of the spicy green with Gorgonzola blue cheese.  Quick Gorgonzola lesson: it’s a cow’s milk cheese and it comes in two varieties, sweet/dolce/montagna or piccante. The sweet Gorgonzola is very creamy and mild and works beautifully as a pasta sauce. The piccante version is harder and sharper and works beautifully with a slice of pear and a hearty red wine. This is a great, quick sauce that you can have ready in less time than it takes to cook the pasta.

Rucola con Gorgonzola  

1 hunk of Gorgonzola (say 4-5 oz, or a chunk the size of a deck of cards)

1 finely minced shallot

Pancetta or bacon (optional)

Splash of wine (optional)
Minced pear (optional)
Olive oil (not optional)
1 colander full of fresh rucola

Put your pasta water on to boil…first thing!

Very gently sauté the minced shallot, you don’t want any brownage. If you are using pancetta or bacon, sauté that first, remove from the pan and cook the shallot in the fat from the meat, otherwise use olive oil for the shallot.
If you have a pear on hand, mince that into small pieces and sauté. Remove the bits of pear from the pan and hold for garnishing. Might sound a bit unusual in a pasta sauce, but pear and Gorgonzola is a match made in heaven.  And if you leave it in the pan while you melt the cheese, the pear gets really mushy and sort of disappears into the sauce. Which could be a good thing if you want to sneak  pear into the dish.
Break the Gorgonzola up into small bits and add to the saucepan, stirring frequently.

By now your pasta is nearly done, and all the Gorgonzola is melted.  You’ll need to add a bit of liquid, so you can add a splash of white wine (colored wine will make for a really unhealthy looking grey sauce…it will taste good, but will look very funky. I’m just sayin’….) or you can add a ladle full of the pasta water, or you can add a bit of both. The liquid will make the melted cheese into more of an emulsion, so it will be a sauce and not just a glop of melted cheese.

Strain and drain the pasta, add to the cheese sauce, add the clean and dry rucola and toss well.   If you’d like your rucola to be soft and wilted, and this is a much more traditional Italian way to serve the dish, add the rucola to the warm cheese sauce while it is still on the stove, stir for a minute or so until the rucola wilts, then add to the pasta. I like the rucola to still be crunchy because I like the contrast with the soft pasta, but to each his own. 
Add your crunchy bacon on top, scatter the sautéed pears and feast away.
Try a rose' wine with this pasta. No. Rose' is not a girly man wine. Get over that already!
We didn’t have a pear in the house, but we did have some prosciutto, so Jeff carved off a few slivers and that went on top of our pasta.  It’s good to have some cured pig leg around!

Pasta in Primavera with Asparagus

  

According to that ever-flowing fount of knowledge, also known as Wikipedia, Pasta Primavera is an American-Italian pasta dish invented in 1974 by Sirio Maccioni of Le Cirque fame.

I beg to differ.

Pasta Primavera means “pasta in the springtime”, which means vegetables and pasta, and I’m dead certain people have been combining pasta and vegetables since way before Mr. Maccioni was a glimmer in his babo’s eye.  It’s a natural combination this time of year when after a winter of eating roots we can now eat the stuff that grows above ground.

We happened to pick up some gorgeous asparagus in the market this morning, and I had some tomatoes that needed to be eaten, and that’s how our version of “Pasta in Primavera” came to be. Like the carbonara recipe from the other day, its more about the technique and what you have on hand, than it is about being tied to a recipe.

I was wishing we had some spring onions to go with our lunch, but it was just tomatoes and asparagus. 

This is a delicately flavored pasta dish, so the trick here is to concentrate the flavors of the asparagus and tomatoes so that each bite gives you a nice crunchy burst of flavor.

 

Pasta in Primavera con Asparagi and Pomodori Arrosto or

Springtime Pasta with Asparagus and Roasted Tomatoes

For 2

 

8 small tomatoes

2-3 hefty garlic cloves (not the skinny cloves that are in the middle of the head)

1 bunch of crispy fresh asparagus

1 hunk of cheese, like a ricotta salata, or something soft and white and easily meltable

1 more clove of garlic

salt, pepper, olive oil

grated lemon peel

 

Soft, wide, noodle pasta like fettuccine

 

Slice the tomatoes in half, and place in an ovenproof dish, sprinkle with a bit of salt and a drizzle of olive oil. Add the 2 large, unpeeled garlic cloves to the dish, and give them a little coating of oil. Place in the oven and roast at 325F/165C for about 20 minutes. If you are just getting home from work, put the tomatoes in the oven, then go change your clothes, walk the dog etc. When you come back into the kitchen it will already smell good and you’ll be in the mood to make dinner.

 

Wash your asparagus, then in one swift, humane motion, cut their heads off.  It’s the same as cutting the tips off, but say you’ve had a bad day at work; it’s so satisfying to just whop the head off of something. Set the tips or heads aside, and then chop the asparagus stems into ¼ to ½” slices. No, put the ruler back in the drawer; just chop into small, bite size pieces.

 

Grate the cheese into a bowl and set aside. If you can’t find ricotta salata, use something else mild and young or you could even use parmigiana if that’s what you have in the house.

Put the pasta water on to boil. Put another small pot of water onto boil because you are going to blanch and shock the asparagus. Unlike “Shock and Awe”, this actually works. The asparagus will turn a bright, beautiful green and stay that way.

As the little pot of water comes to a boil, add a bit of salt and toss in the asparagus tips, let the water come back to a boil, remove the tips and run cold water over them. Set aside. Do the same thing with the chopped asparagus stems (boil for a moment, drain, run cold water over the bits, drain again).

 

In a pan large enough to hold the pasta, add a few tablespoons of olive and the last clove of garlic only this time peel it and crack with your hand. (Lay the garlic clove on the cutting board, press down hard and fast with the heel of your hand, wait to feel the satisfying crack.) When the garlic clove starts to sizzle in the pan, add the asparagus tips and gently sauté for 2-3 minutes. Remove and keep warm (that just means put them in the oven with the roasted tomatoes).  By now, the pasta water has boiled, you are cooking your  pasta and its about 2 minutes away from being  done.

Sauté the chopped asparagus, just like you did with the tips, only leave them in the pan. Take a small ladle full of the pasta water and add it to the chopped asparagus.

Drain the pasta and add it to the asparagus, and add the cheese. Remove the roasted garlic from the tomatoes, slip the skins off and mush the soft garlic into the pasta. Now toss everything together.

Arrange the tips on a plate, add the pasta, and decorate the dish with the roasted tomatoes, pouring any extra tomato juice onto the pasta. Grate a little lemon peel over the whole thing. Stand back; admire your design, add a few grinds of fresh pepper and then eat!

Pasta in the springtime!

 

Jamie Oliver at TED Conference

This dude is saying everything that I've been saying for years.  People need to cook, people need to get into the kitchen, sit around a table together.

Watch the video, then let's talk.  It's important.

Fennel and What’s Love Got To Do With It?

What’s fennel got to do with love? I mean romantic love, and carnal love, not a love of fennel salad.

The very ancient and now extinct, giant fennel plant known as silphium became associated with lovemaking because it was thought to be a powerful birth control agent.  And guess what the seedpod of the silphium plant was a dead ringer for? It looked like the stylized version of the heart that we’ve all come to know: the rounded orbs at the top descending into the pointy bottom. How wonderfully ironic: the sanitized symbol of a heart is derived from the need for birth control.  Hanky-panky and fennel, who knew??

 

I love random bits of culinary trivia like this, and I have the author, Robin Maxwell, to thank for clueing me in to the fennel connection. Her new book, O Juliet, is being released this February and her blog and love games contest are a fun diversion from the relentless bad news that seems to surround us. It is actually OK to take a break and think about something romantic for a change.

 

It’s a pity that this giant fennel plant is now extinct; although I’m pretty sure I’ve seen relatives of it in Italy.  But there is plenty of fresh fennel in the markets right now so at least we have that to comfort us although I would caution against relying on it for birth control.  If a guy whispers in your ear, “Hey Baby, come on let’s have some fennel and we can party all night.” Girl, you know he’s talking nonsense.

I recently found fennel in a supermarket under the sign for anise, so be warned. Just for the record, they are not the same plant, although they both belong to the Apiaceae family of plants. With the fennel plant you can eat: the pollen, the seeds, or the fresh bulb. With anise you just eat the seeds.

Wild fennel pollen or “finnochio selvatico fiore” is a staple in every Umbrian household. I use it on roast meats like pork and fowl: a liberal sprinkling of this magic dust, a bit of salt, and you get the most delicious, crispy skin on a roast chicken. If I’m making roast pork, I’ll coat it with the fennel pollen on the surface and then right before serving, pour a bit of pomegranate molasses on the meat. There is something about fennel and pomegranate that is a match made in heaven.

 

Fennel seed can be used just like you would anise seed: in sweet and savory preparations. I love the Indian custom of serving a little bowl of after-dinner dried roasted fennel seeds that you chew to freshen up your mouth and aid digestion after a spicy meal.

 

A fresh fennel slaw is a refreshing palate cleanser. It’s the perfect side dish when you have some thing rich and unctuous because it’s a clean, crunchy flavor counterpoint.

 

Fennel Slaw

1 bulb of fennel

1 orange

10-15 black pitted olives, roughly chopped, use more or less according to taste

Olive oil, pinch of salt, red wine vinegar if needed

 

Very thinly slice the fennel into a bowl. Working over the bowl so all the juices will run onto the sliced fennel, peel the orange, using a knife so that there is no white or pith left on the orange, discard the peel, then slice out the individual orange segments, roughly chop and mix with the sliced fennel. By the way, you have just ‘supremed’ that orange. Squeeze the left over core of the orange to extract all the juice. Add 1-2 T of olive oil, toss and check for acidity. Sometimes just the orange juice is enough and sometimes you need a bit more acid so you can add a little red wine vinegar. Toss in the olives right before serving, they will stain the fennel and if you put them in too soon the fennel gets all black pocked marked and diseased looking. Yes, I’ve done it and that’s why I don’t do it anymore.

Roast Fennel

And if you like your fennel hot: roasted fennel is a tasty side dish, you can even serve it in place of roast potatoes if you like.

1 fennel bulb

Grated parmigiana cheese

Butter or Olive Oil

Prosciutto (optional)

  Cut the fennel up into large, lengthwise chunks and par boil for about 7-10 minutes until just a little soft, but not mushy.  Drain and lay the chunks in a single layer in an ovenproof dish. Dot the fennel with little chunks of butter or a drizzle of olive oil and then sprinkle liberally with grated parmigiana cheese. Roast in the oven (350F/180C) until the cheese turns bubbly and brown. For extra oomph and if there are no vegetarians coming for dinner, drape slices of prosciutto over the fennel before you add the cheese. 

If  you are into distilling your own absinthe, and who wouldn’t love to do that, fennel is one of the original botanicals used when making absinthe. One of these days, I’m going to get a still, retire into the hills of Umbria and start making moonshine.

  Still not convinced that fennel is a wondrous plant?  Here’s a list of the reported benefits of eating the fresh fennel bulb: lots of fiber, high in vitamin C, and a source of potassium. Fennel also contains “Anethole”, an essential oil that gives fennel its flavor and is being studied as a cancer preventative, and liver protector.

 So the next time you walk by fresh fennel in the supermarket and you wonder what you would do with it, now you know!  And if all this talk of fennel has put you in the mood for love, don't blame me, blame Robin.

 

 

 

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⎯

 

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.