Aroma Cucina

Grappa Grab: Cooking with Grappa

“Oh, how can you drink that stuff?” ask the tourists and the unintiated. Yes, some grappa can be like drinking throat-stripping hi-test fuel oil, but a good grappa has a grab that tickles your palette and warms the innards. Cheap grappa may be nasty as a digestivio, but it's great for cooking as it has an inherent sweetness that plays nicely with a bit of spice.

The other night we were at Enoteca Wine Club in Umbertide, and they had baby chicken marinated in grappa on the menu. Patrick, one of the owners, and an outstanding sommelier, said he was surprised how much people enjoyed the dish. I was surprised too, because when I cook with grappa, I keep it a secret so I don’t have to go through the whole spiel of “I know you don’t like grappa but…” 

 So Patrick has given me the courage to come clean. I cook with grappa and I’m proud of it.

 

Go out and buy a bottle of cheap grappa. Also buy a bottle of good grappa so you can become better acquainted.

 

Drunken Quail with Garlic Chips on Crispy Saffron Rice

2 quail per person

Grappa, white wine

½ cup of aborio or bomba rice per person

1 ½ cups warm chicken or vegetable stock per person

2 large cloves of garlic per person

1 cup frozen peas (totally optional!)

Olive oil

Salt, fennel pollen if you can get it, smoked spicy paprika, saffron

The Birds

Marinate the quail in grappa for 4-6 hours. Be generous; drown those birdies in the booze.

When it's roasting time, remove the birds from the grappa and discard the grappa. Using scissors, cut the bird open lay each one flat on a baking sheet. Generously salt the birds, and sprinkle them with fennel pollen. Roast at 350F/180C for 30 minutes.

 

The Rice

Use an aborio or bomba variety of rice as these absorb moisture without coming apart like a basmati rice would do. Plan on approximately ½ cup of rice per person, and you’ll need about 1 1/2 cups of stock per ½ cup of rice. Use a vegetable or chicken stock.

 The saffron is optional, but I love saffron so for me, its obligatory. Place a few strands of saffron in a small glass of white wine and let steep while you cook the rice.

Place the rice in a flat-bottomed pan, like a paella pan. I’m hesitant to use the word paella here because people make all different types of paellas and I don’t want to get into a what-is-an-authentic-paella-pissing match, ok? Let’s just call it crispy rice.

Much as you would with a risotto, add a glug of olive oil, turn on the heat to medium and toast the rice. That means roll it around in the oil until everything gets hot and toasty, but don’t brown the rice.Start adding the warm stock to the rice, enough stock to cover the pan and float the rice.

Keep adding stock and stirring the rice as the pan dries out. You want the rice to be about ¾’s cooked. (How to tell if the rice is nearly done: taste a few grains, they should be soft almost halfway through, with still a bit of hard crunch in the middle.) This should take about 10-12 minutes.

 Add the white wine and saffron and the remaining stock to the pan, stir in the frozen peas if you are using them and put the pan in the oven on a rack above the quail.  The liquid will evaporate and the rice will become brown and crispy on top.

The Garlic Chips

Peel 3 to 4 large cloves of garlic. Using a mandolin, thinly slice the garlic. (I use the 2.0mm setting on my mandolin.)

 

In a small pan, add enough olive oil to form a shallow pool to fry the garlic. They need to be able to float in the oil. Heat the oil to 350F/180C (use a thermometer when you fry things, its hard to do this by eye or feel).  Add the garlic slices and fry for 1-2 minutes until they just start to turn golden. Remove the slices from the oil and drain.  Turn the oil off, but don’t discard it because you are going to fry the garlic slices one more time right before serving.

Assembly Time

Remove the quail from the oven and liberally dust with the spicy smoked paprika.

Turn the oven on to broil and broil the surface of the rice. Not too close to the broiler coils; but close enough to give the rice an extra crispy finish.

Reheat the oil to 350F/180C or even a bit hotter. Add the garlic chips and fry again until golden, about 30-45 seconds. Drain the chips and discard the oil.

Remove the rice from oven, arrange the quail on top of the rice, cover with the garlic chips, open a nice bottle of chilled white wine, and now eat!

Great! Now you’ve got one grappa recipe and a mostly full bottle of industrial strength grappa. Mushrooms to the rescue. 

Intoxicated Mushrooms

Fresh mushrooms, whatever kind you can find or that you like

Grappa

Olive Oil, Butter

Shallot, Garlic, Lemon Juice, Salt and a lot of Pepper

Roughly chop the cleaned mushrooms. Finely chop the shallot. Place both in a large sauté pan (big enough so the mushrooms have room to dance around the pot), add a glug of olive oil, a sprinkle of salt, turn the heat onto medium high and cover the pot.  When the mushrooms start to give up their moisture, add a good size glug of grappa to the pan, cover the pan and cook for 1-2 minutes, then uncover the pan and let all of the moisture evaporate.

When the pan is dry and sizzling, turn off the heat, swirl in a knob of butter, add a generous sprinkle of pepper and a good squeeze of lemon juice. Eat while they are mad hot!

 

The mushrooms are so quick, easy and delicious, you’ll use up that bottle of grappa in no time.

 

Now, as for the good grappa? Look for a golden color grappa, that means it’s been in oak and is a softer, warmer flavored grappa. Enjoy a small amount after dinner as a digestivo. Enjoy a large amount after dinner and you risk a magnificent headache in the morning. Always respect the grappa!

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.

 

 

 

Pass the Prosciutto - Just in time Holiday Potatoes

What's in a name? that which we call a ham
By any other name would smell as sweet.*

Ham.  Prosciutto. Prosciutto crudo. Prosciutto cotto. Prosciutto di Parma. Prosciutto di San Daniele. Iberico. Seranno.  Confused yet? It’s all pork, but that’s like saying wine is just grape juice. This post is sponsored by Prosciutto di Parma and the fine folks at Honest Cooking, and what a tasty post!

One of my first trips to Florence, I saw a man being served a plate of nothing but prosciutto. I thought that was crazy. Who would want a plate of just one thing? Silly me. A fine plate of nothing but exquisite, hand-carved prosciutto is the stuff dreams are made of.

What exactly is prosciutto?

It’s the hind leg or thigh of the pig. The word ‘prosciutto’ is derived from the Latin words ‘pro’ (before) and ‘exsugere‘ (suck out moisture).  Bonus point!  You know you’ve always wondered how to say ‘moisture sucker’ in a way that sounded totally cool, scientific and could be used in a game of Latin Scrabble.


Back to prosciutto.  Traditionally made in winter months, the hind leg is rubbed with a salt and fat mixture, with the salt drawing out the remaining blood and moisture. This takes about two months, then the salt is removed and the meat is left to hang for another period of time. And yes, mold matters when you are curing meat.

This is basic prosciutto crudo, or cured 'raw' prosciutto.  Prosciutto cotto is cooked ham, and is the ham you get in delis. You have to specifically ask for prosciutto cotto otherwise the default is prosciutto crudo.

The other variations like Prosciutto di Parma, di San Daniele, Iberico or Seranno indicate where the meat was cured and each have their own set of rules & regulations.

Prosciutto di Parma is one of the best known, and with good reason. It’s a DOP product, or “Protected Designation of Origin”. This means there are complex rules about breed specifications, where the pig is raised, what it eats (those lucky Parma pigs get to eat the whey from Parmigiana cheese making, but not more that 15 liters a day!), how big it is when slaughtered, no nitrates or additives, only sea salt etc.

This all means that each of these types of prosciutto have very different textures and flavor profiles. Prosciutto di Parma is silky, medium salty and has a bit of a nutty finish.  Prosciutto di San Daniele is softer, silkier, maybe even a touch sweeter. Iberico ham comes from Spain and is oily and unctuous.

In Umbria, our local prosciutto is more rustic. It’s harder, saltier and an umami bomb. They are all delicious, but it’s our prosciutto of choice in melon season.

However, we aren’t in melon season. It’s holiday season. That time of year when you are either entertaining, or being entertained and you need to bring something delicious to the next party.   
Here’s a simple and delicious way to make potatoes. If you use little red potatoes and a chopped parsley as a garnish, it will look extra holiday perfect.

Red Potatoes & Crispy Prosciutto di Parma
Small Red Potatoes
Prosciutto di Parma (1/4 slice for each potato)
Grated Parmigiana cheese
Robiolina or Robiola cheese (it’s a soft white Italian cow cheese)
Salt, Pepper
Finely chopped parsley as a garnish (optional)

This recipe is completely scaleable, which means that it can just as easily be made for two people or twenty people. Figure on 1-2 small red potatoes per person.

You can buy Prosciutto di Parma in packages with the ham already sliced, or at the cured meat counter where it will be sliced for you. My preference is always to have it freshly sliced, but you go with what you can find! And I specifically like Prosciutto di Parma for this dish because it is not overly salty or oily.

Preparation
1) Preheat the oven at 400F/204C. You want a hot oven.

2) Clean the potatoes with a soft scrub brush under running water. Do not peel.
3) Boil the potatoes in salted water with a good glug of red wine vinegar. (A glug is a unit of measure that means you pour the vinegar while saying the word glug: finish the word, finish pouring). The vinegar helps the potatoes from falling apart as they boil.
4) Cook the potatoes until they are soft and the tip of a knife easily slides into the potato. About 15 minutes depending on the size and freshness of the potato.
5) Drain and let the potatoes cool until you can handle them, then slice in half, lengthwise. If you are using large potatoes, cut into large bite size bits.
6) Layer a baking pan with parchment paper (optional). The pan or dish should be big enough for all the potatoes to lie flat in one layer.
Spread an even layer, about 1/4”/6 cm of the robiola cheese on the parchment paper,
7) Wrap each potato half in a piece of prosciutto. Lay the wrapped potatoes in a single layer on top of the cheese. Generously sprinkle with grated parmigiana cheese. Wrapping each piece of potato, instead of draping the ham over the top means it will be much easier to serve at the table. Just in case you were thinking about taking a little short cut.
 8) Bake in a hot, preheated oven until the prosciutto begins to brown and turn crisp. Approx 25 min.  Serve piping hot.  Using the parchment paper means you can lift the whole finished dish right out of the baking pan and directly onto a serving plate. And the baking pan isn’t full of stuck-on cheese....The dishwasher in the crowd will love you forever.
     If you are transporting this dish, assemble it and finish baking at the host’s house. The potatoes are cooked, so you are simply heating and crisping the top.

Onion Variation: In case you can’t find robiola cheese, you could substitute a bottom layer of sauteed onions, lightly tossed with heavy cream. What you want in the dish is a creamy, flavorful base for the potatoes.

Fennel variation: Cut the fennel into bite size bits and use it instead of  the potatoes. Plan on baking the dish about 40 minutes to roast the fennel.

*Left over bits of Prosciutto di Parma?

What good luck! Just eat it and you only have to share if you feel like it.

*You could finely chop he prosciutto and saute the  bits to make crispy crunchy prosciutto shards that taste great sprinkled on just about everything, probably even Cheerios.

*You can add it to your soffrito.

*Saute  a bit of chopped prosciutto and onion, add it to your roasted brussel sprouts, and finish the whole dish with the tiniest drizzle of good maple syrup.


Happy Holidays!

*Apologies to William Shakespeare, and Juliet for corrupting her verse to Romeo.

Follow Parma Ham on Twitter for a chance to win $50 worth of the world's most famous ham. Click on the banner below to participate. This post is a collaboration between the blogger and Parma Ham.

 

Summer Elegant Italian Parmigiana

In the US, ‘parm’ comes in four generic flavors: chicken, veal, meatball, or eggplant. Usually heavy, goppy and greasy, it’s an overweight distant relative of the sleekly elegant Italian parmigiana. Think Jersey Shore versus the Amalfi Coast.
In Italy, a parmigiana is made from vegetables like eggplant or zucchini, or even combined with some potato. It can be a light main course, or a contorni (vegetable side dish).  In the summer, a parmigiana served at room temperature, along with a chilled white wine, is pretty much the perfect hot weather meal.

Warning: This recipe is all about the prep and it’s not insignificant. You should figure on 45 minutes to an hour to fully assemble the parmigiana. Make it in the morning, before the kitchen gets hot, make plenty of it, and freeze any leftovers. If you’re going to make a mess in the kitchen...go big...‘cuz you have to clean up the same amount if you make parmigiana for two or for ten!

Eggplant Parmigiana (6-8 servings)
2-3 medium eggplants
1 medium onion
1 stalk of celery
2 cloves of garlic
1 liter of pureed tomato
A lot of fresh basil
2 cups of grated parmigiana
1 egg
Olive oil, sunflower oil, salt, flour, cornstarch


Thinly slice the eggplant and rub each slice with a small amount of salt. These slices are about a few millimeters thick. Remember...stiletto elegant, not running shoe chunky!

Stand the slices on end in a colander and let the slices drain out their excess water. How long should they sit? Long enough for me to head over to our orto (vegetable garden) to get the basil, feed the town cat Niccolino, and take a few pictures because the garden looks really good...so, about 20 minutes. Leave the colander in the sink or in a bowl because it’s surprising just how much water will drain out of the eggplant slices.


While the eggplant is doing its drippy thing, it’s time to make the sauce. Finely chop the onion and celery and gently sauté them in a little olive oil for a few minutes. Add the pureed tomato sauce, garlic and basil. 

You should never cut basil with a knife because the basil will turn black where it has touched the blade; you are supposed to rip the basil into small pieces. But, let’s get real...standing there ripping basil into little pieces is either great anger management therapy, or a waste of time if you are going to be cooking the basil in a tomato sauce.
I roughly chop the basil and toss it into the sauce. Simmer on low heat for about 20 minutes or until the sauce thickens and loses that ‘raw’ tomato taste.

Another warning: this sauce makes the kitchen smell amazing. Resist the urge to eat it right out of the pot...well, ok, you can eat it out of the pot, but then you’ll need to make some extra.

Here comes the fun part, frying the eggplant. This is actually the most time consuming part, so put on some good music and prepare yourself to stand at the stove for the next twenty minutes.
Combine equal parts flour and cornstarch in a flat dish or on a cookie sheet. For 2-3 eggplants you’ll need about 3/4 cup of each.

Dredge each slice of eggplant in the flour mixture, shaking off any excess flour. Don’t rinse the salt off of the eggplant slices; unless you’ve gone hog wild with the salt; most of it will have dripped off and there is no salt added to the tomato sauce.

Heat the sunflower oil in a large, deep, flat bottomed pan. You want enough oil in the pan to allow the slices to float in the oil. You may need to add more oil as you go, but do so in small batches so you don’t dramatically lower the frying oil temperature. You want the oil to be around 350F/180C before you start frying the slices. Use a thermometer, don’t guess. If the oil is too cool, the eggplant drinks up the oil like it was water in the desert and you’ll get soggy slices. If the oil is too hot, you’ll scorch the slices instead of crisping them.

Fry the slices until you see a little bit of brownage on the edges. Turn once and fry until the slice is a light golden brown. Think elegant eggplant chips, not sodden slabs. Drain the slices in a strainer over the sink. This is the best fried food tip I will ever give you. Don’t bother with layers of paper towels to soak up the grease, just use your colander. You're welcome.
OK, sauce is done. Slices are done. You are in the home stretch now.

Lay out your mise en place di parmigiana: grated cheese, the egg, sauce, slices and a baking dish lined with parchment paper. Heat your oven to 350F/120C.

Ladle a small amount of sauce into the baking dish and spread it around using the bowl of the ladle...just like you’ve seen the pizza guys doing it. Add a layer of eggplant, a thin layer of cheese and keep building the parmigiana, but you don’t want more than 4 or 5 layers. Use a bigger baking dish if you need to, but don’t build higher!

But, what about the egg, you ask? You’re going to use it for the top layer of sauce. Add a ladle full of sauce to a small bowl, break the egg into the sauce and whisk until thoroughly blended. If the sauce is still bubbling hot, do this step quickly so that you don’t risk scrambling the egg instead of blending it.

For the top and final layer of the eggplant, add the tomato/egg sauce, cover with cheese and congratulate yourself on a job well done.

Bake in the oven until it is brown and bubbly, approximately 30 minutes. Let it cool in the pan and then use the parchment paper to lift it out of the pan and onto a serving plate. Parchment paper is a wonderful thing.

Voila, you have just made a proper, elegant Italian eggplant parmigiana! For variations, use whatever you have in abundance in the garden but you only have to salt and drain the eggplant.  Enjoy! Buon apetito and thanks to Kate for giving me a push to write down the recipe!!

Elegantly humble: Celery and Saffron Risotto

 

Like a marriage between a nobleman and a peasant, elegant saffron marries with the humble celery leaf, creating a bit of risotto magic.

Arguably,  Risotto Milanese in one form or another, has been served for centuries.  The grains of risotto rice are bathed in creamy Parmigiano,  a rich golden hue stained with the bitter sweet saffron, and possibly with a sprinkle of edible gold to satisfy the eye as well as the stomach.  
Why arguably? Because the origins of this dish are as mythical as a Cesear salad or spaghetti carbonara, including the tradition of serving risotto Milanese with gold foil. Ask 5 Italian historians their opinion, and you will receive at least 12 theories on the origins of any dish.

Shall we yank back the misty veils of history, and get real?
I’m standing in our orto where most of the celery had wintered over and is now very robust. Which meant, I better chop some of this down and start using it!



The celery in our orto is extremely flavorful; it’s celery on steroids. But it is also tough and fibrous, so it’s best used cooked, instead of raw. Our celery is like some robust, weather beaten country peasant. Store bought celery is like your pallid cousin who lives in the city and is afraid of dirt.

I threw some chopped celery into a sauce on the stove, and now I was left with a pile of leaves. It seemed sinful and careless to throw away these perfectly good leaves, but as they were soooo intensely flavored, I wasn’t quite sure what to do with them.  As an experiment, I threw the leaves, a few stalks and bit of onion into the stock pot and let it simmer for about 2 hours. Voila`! Pure celery stock, clear, greenish gold and intensely flavored.


Now what do I do with it? I was trying to be thrifty and oh, so Bonne Femme and now I’d spent more time and energy on the damn celery leaves and I still didn’t know what to do with them. I was a Bad Femme, not a Bonne Femme!

Finally inspiration struck: brodo for risotto! Normally, I use a small bit of soffrito in my risotto: that holy trinity of chopped carrot, onion, and celery. This time it was soffrito minus the celery and it was delicious. A nice flavor bump that married well with the cheese and saffron. Give it a try next time you’ve got a big handful of celery leaves, even if they are pallid city cousins to my robust orto celery!

I also had some fresh peas on hand that needed to be eaten.. so they went to the risotto as well. That’s the beauty of risotto, it’s very forgiving, you can make risotto out of just about anything.

 
Risotto di Sedano e Zafferano
2 cups warm celery stock
1 cup risotto rice: Aborio or Carnaroli
1 T equal parts of finely chopped onion & carrot
1/2 cup of white wine
1/2 cup of grated Parmigiano cheese
1 good sized knob of butter
10-15 saffron threads steeped in a tablespoon of warm celery stock
Olive oil, the extra virgin kind!

Proceed as you would with any risotto.
Gently sauté the rice grains with the chopped carrot and celery. Slowly begin adding the warm celery stock, adding more as the rice grains absorb the stock.
When the rice is nearly done, add the wine and let the rice absorb the wine.
When you deem the rice is ready, and the only way to really tell, is to taste a grain or two, remove the risotto from the heat and swirl in the butter and cheese.

And serve immediately...because you know what they say around our house! Risotto waits for no man!  Buon’ apetito!


 

Dinner Rituals and a Side of Sautéed Mushrooms

In all the chaos of the past few months, I was struck by a lightening bolt moment of clarity. And, gee, no surprise, it was at the dinner table.

Deep into this conference experience, there was a rare night when it was just Jeff and me at home. Alone. Unexpected. And I made us dinner.   And it was good.  Thus spake Zarathustra, that sly Ubermensch,  delivering his sermon about evolved humanity.

With all the intriguing restaurant dinners, hastily grabbed meals, take out and delivery, we were losing our personal social mooring. Gobbling food in front of a computer does not a dinner make. Shared meals matter and it wasn’t until I was making this dinner that I realized how much they matter to us. What’s that silly pop song? “You don’t know what you’ve got ‘til it’s gone?”

That’s not to say, I wasn’t a bit rusty in the kitchen! My timing was off.  Normally I’m pretty good at managing when to start the water, heat the pan, pull the vegetable from the heat. There is a little dance that goes on when you cook (which is an excellent reason to have good music on in the kitchen).  And was my dancing was creaky that night!
It didn’t matter, what mattered was simple, tasty food, with no other obligations. Besides sautéed mushrooms always make things better.


In our house, there is a ritual to making, eating and cleaning up dinner. my gift is making the dinner. We share the eating. Jeff’s gift is cleaning up. It’s not the best way, or the only way...it’s just our gift to each other ritual. 

If you have kids, or presumably you were once a kid, you know the value of a bedtime ritual. It means safety and comfort and imparts an all-is-right-with-the-world security. Why shouldn’t we recognize the value of a dinner ritual?  If marketers were able to convince the world that convenience and speed trumps home cooking, couldn’t a different set of marketers help us ‘discover’ the value of home meals? 

This is something we should be discussing over the dinner table, isn’t it?


And here is my go-to, can’t really mess it up, Sautéed Mushroom recipe.
Sautéed Mushrooms
A mix of mushrooms is best, but white buttons will do
Minced Parsley
Minced Garlic
Butter
Olive Oil
Sweet Wine
Lemon Juice
Salt, Pepper

There is no real need for quantities here. The recipe scales and is forgiving, so use what you have on hand.

Wash, drain and cube the mushrooms. Mince 1 clove of garlic for every cup of cubed mushrooms. I prefer the dish to be about the mushroom flavor and not overly garlicky. You make them the way you like, ok?

On medium heat, warm a saute pan big enough to hold all of the mushrooms. Add about a tablespoon of olive oil and a small pat of butter. Let the butter melt and the oil warm up. Now add the mushrooms and garlic, cover and let the mushrooms simmer and lose their water, approximately 3-5 minutes.

When the mushrooms are bubbling away in their own juices, remove the lid and let the moisture reduce. When the pan is just about dry, this should take about 5 minutes, add a shot of sweet wine and mix well.  Reduce again until the pan is nearly dry.

Add another small pat of butter, a squirt of lemon juice and a generous grind of black pepper.  Mix well and serve in a warm dish. Garnish with the minced parsley.

Catch y’all on the flip side, cuz’ we’re heading back to the old country tonight.
Time to plant the orto, have ringing bells tell us the time (instead of honking horns letting me know it’s rush hour) and slow down the pace of life. Our boyz are having a little pre-flight snuggle....this is Dante’s first big adventure, so wish us a peaceful flight!


Buon appetito e ci vediamo a presto!

Crackling Prosciutto Wrapped Potatoes: Perfect for a Party

“What can I bring?”
 It is the holiday season after all!  As the words are coming out of your mouth, your brain is flipping thorough your stockpile of recipes.
What can I make that is awesome and quick because you know your ToDo list is more frightening than the thought of a fat man in a red suit stuck in your chimney. Seriously, who came up with that story? An overweight guy squeezing down a filthy dirty chimney?

Crackling Prosciutto Wrapped Roasted Potatoes to the rescue. Tasty, simple to make, pretty and transportable. What more could you ask for?

Ingredients
Scrubbed potatoes cut into bite size wedges
Strips of prosciutto to cover each potato wedge (an average slide of prosciutto will cover  3 to 4 potato wedges)
Grated parmigiano cheese
Sliced shallots
Olive oil

Bring a pot of water to a boil, large enough to hold all the cut potato wedges, and lightly salt the water.
Boil the potatoes until they are just about soft. Usually no more than 10 minutes.

Drain and run cold water over the potatoes. This stops the cooking process and it’s so much easier to work with cool potatoes instead of scalding hot ones.
Cut or tear the prosciutto into small strips and wrap a strip around each potato wedge.

If you are transporting: wrap the potatoes, and lay them into a plastic container with a cover. The less loose space in the container, the better, but don’t crush the potatoes.

I use the ‘caterer wrap’ to make sure nothing spills or leaks. Using plastic wrap, don’t just cover the top of the container, but literally wrap it around the container. Just like they do with suitcases at the airport. Nothing leaks out and nothing seeps in.

Peel and thinly slice 1 or 2 shallots. Mix with the grated cheese. You want a generous coating of cheese, enough to form a crust. Sprinkle a little salt and a generous amount of pepper into the cheese and mix thoroughly.
If you are transporting: put this cheese mixture into a plastic bag and seal it tight.

Ready to Bake:
Coat the bottom of your baking dish with a thin film of olive oil.
Arrange the prosciutto-potato wedges in a single layer in the baking dish. Use a pretty baking dish that can also be used to serve the potatoes.

Sprinkle the cheese mixture over the potato wedges and bake in a 375F/190C oven for approximately 15 minutes. You’ll know the dish is ready when the cheese is brown and crispy and the potatoes are hot.

Finish with a drizzle of good extra virgin olive oil.
Buon’appetito and enjoy your holidays!

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.

A Few Hot Tomatoes

And the canning season begins.
 A walk over to the orto to get some basil and I’m hit with the realization that there are a ton of ripe tomatoes that need to be dealt with...NOW.
On one hand a kitchen garden is forgiving; if you don’t need any onions, you can leave them in the ground for a few days and no harm done. On the other hand, there is a use it or lose it urgency to ripe  tomatoes.
 
So much for a lazy Saturday afternoon.
The harvesting is fun, the tomatoes are warm from the sun; there is a satisfying weight to the basket as I lug it home.

An hour into peeling the tomatoes, the warm fuzzy glow has been washed away by the steaming hot tomatoes, burned finger tips, and that itchy feeling I get from being submerged in tomato acid. I ruefully realize the Pioneer Woman has staff to do this kind of stuff, and here I am only halfway through the peel and grind process.

Once the ground, peeled, and mostly seeded tomatoes are in the pot, bubbling away, my mood improves considerably. The tomatoes smell delicious and they are crazy sweet.

 
I have a fancy pair of canning tongs that makes lifting the boiling bottles out of the sterilization bath a breeze. They are more like elongated, scissored grippers than tongs, and they allow you to pick up the bottle by the neck or the body.  Regular tongs have a channel for the boiling water to run directly onto your arm, so you either scream and drop the jar or suck it up and let the water flow. My gripper tongs make bath time fun.
Once the bottles have boiled for a good half hour, out they come to cool. Now I wait for the "POP" sound as the lids contract, and I know I have a good seal on the jar. As I’m making dinner for our orto-mates, the crimson colored jars are cooling by the window I know they are filled with nothing but tomatoes and satisfaction.

OK, like childbirth, all pain is forgotten, and I’m ready for the next batch of tomatoes.

(PS The idea that childbirth pain is forgotten is rubbish. I remember it ALL..it’s just the price you pay for a kid or for a batch of canned tomatoes.)

And the Beet Goes On!

 
What do you do when a whole row of beets in the orto need to be eaten now? You yank those babies and throw a party!
 

We had Speecy-Spicy Pickled Beets. (Note to self: back off on the chili peppers from the garden! I wonder what would happen if I pickled hard boiled eggs in that spicy brine? Now that would truly be a deviled egg.)


Sweet Roasted Beets covered in Gorgonzola and Toasted Walnuts. (There was a small skirmish when it was down to the last few bites.)


Richly decadent beet consume’. (A rich meat broth laced with dried porcini mushrooms to give it an earthy zest. Recipe courtesy of our friend The Polish Countess. So named because you could always count on her in the kitchen).

And as a finale, pale pink beet panna cotta! (Relax. I just used the beets to color the cream, not flavor it!)  And no picture either, it was too dark and toooo late in the evening.

I’m getting worried though. The tomato plants have kicked into high gear...anyone up for  Tomato Fest...running from today through September??