Tag: local

Tuscan Kale “Caesar” Salad

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I have a cook’s confession to make: I don’t really like small, salty, oily fish, particularly when there are a lot of little bones to contend with. Mackerel has always made me feel slightly ill. Herring, sardines, or any other fish needing to be either canned or pickled before eating leaves me a little bit nauseous.

And let’s not even talk about anchovies.

I know. What kind of self-proclaimed gourmand doesn’t like anchovies? But I just can’t do it. It’s those little needle-like skeletons that so many people claim “dissolve,” but really don’t. And it is that persistent fishiness that sticks and clings, making me swear that I can smell it on my hands, clothes, and in my hair for hours afterwards.

So it is very ironic that I love Caesar salad.

It is just about the only dish with anchovies that I can abide by, so long as someone else does the dressing dirty work.

An abundance of lovely kale in the markets has had me thinking about kale salads. Kale is the kind of leafy green that cries out for strong flavors and tastes. Because it is so fibrous, you can dress it about an hour before dinner and let the acids in the dressing soften and relax the leaves into luscious, cruciferous ribbons.

Ever since reading about this Tuscan kale “Caesar” salad in the New York Times, I have been anxious to try it. Of course, some changes were made to suit my mood and what I had in the kitchen. For Pecorino, we were lucky and fortunate to have a fabulously savory and sharp wedge of Locatelli. Instead of croutons for crunch, I substituted some of Andrew Carmellini’s “Crumbs Yo!” One last Meyer lemon too. The result? A salad that was both tangy and delicate, mouthwateringly delectable and incredibly flavorful. I just want to eat it every day.

No anchovies required.

Ingredients:

1 bunch of Tuscan kale, stems removed and leaves cut into 1/2-wide ribbons

1/2 cup of “Crumbs Yo!” (1/2 cup of Panko bread crumbs, 1 tablespoon of olive oil, and salt and pepper to taste)

1 fat, minced clove of garlic

1/3 cup of freshly grated Pecorino Romano, plus more for serving

3 1/2 tablespoons of extra virgin olive oil

The freshly squeezed juice of one lemon

1/8 of a teaspoon of red pepper flakes

Salt and pepper to taste

Special Equipment:

A hand-held immersion blender

How to prepare:

1. In a small bowl, combine the garlic, Pecorino, olive oil, lemon juice, red pepper flakes, and salt and pepper. Using a hand-held immersion blender, whizz everything together until it forms a nice emulsion, just about 15 seconds or so. Let stand for 5 minutes or more to let the flavors meld together.

2. Meanwhile, make the “Crumbs Yo!” In a small sauté pan, heat the olive oil over medium heat. Add the bread crumbs, salt, and pepper to the warmed oil, tossing gently to evenly coat all of the crumbs. Continue to toast the bread crumbs until they are golden brown, about 3 to 4 minutes. Remove the bread crumbs from the heat, and transfer them to a cool plate or bowl. Let them cool for about 4-5 minutes.

3. Using your hands, toss the kale with the dressing in a large salad bowl until all the leaves are evenly coated. Let sit for at least 5 minutes (but you can let it sit for longer) before adding the bread crumbs and tossing again. By adding the bread crumbs near the end, you can preserve their crunch. Shower the salad with some more freshly grated Pecorino right before serving.

Macaroni and Cheese

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Home for the holidays a few years ago, I decided to make macaroni and cheese from scratch: roux, béchamel, freshly-grated nutmeg, 5 kinds of cheeses (smoked and unsmoked), 3 different pasta shapes, bread crumbs, the whole shebang.

The reception? After poking the golden pile and perfectly crunchy top with suspicion, my brother declared that he preferred the stuff out of the box.

My heart immediately sank. It was like someone telling you that they liked Tang more than fresh-squeezed. My inner cook shook her useless, cheese-stinking fists at the sky and wailed, “Why?!”

Looking back, I shouldn’t have been so surprised. Mac and cheese is the ultimate comfort food, and as comfort food it should be instantly familiar, recognizable, and convenient. Warm, soothing, and uncomplicated.

For myself, my first “real” mac and cheese was a revelation. Having grown up with the boxed stuff, I found the fussier version so much more satisfying and have never gone back — even if it means I eat it at home a lot less frequently.

In truth, to make it from scratch really isn’t so much fussier; like anything else we cook, there are complex ways to make something as well as simpler ways. My absolute favorite macaroni and cheese recipe comes from Deborah Madison’s cookbook The Savory Way. That recipe is decidedly a lot of work, but it is so worth it. This recipe from sadly defunct Gourmet Magazine is not nearly as complicated, but it is still delicious. Four cups of whole milk from Milk Thistle Dairy made the sauce exceptionally rich and creamy. For the cheese, we had one last scrumptious wedge of Bier Meck from our CSA that we shredded along with a good chunk of raw milk Colby.

Ingredients:

8 tablespoons of unsalted butter

1/4 cup, plus 2 tablespoons of all-purpose flour

4 cups of whole milk

1 1/2 teaspoons of dry mustard

1/8 teaspoon of cayenne

1 pound rotini

3 cups coarsely grated “melty” cheese (about 12 ounces of different cheeses is always best)

1 1/3 cups freshly grated Parmesan cheese (about 4 ounces)

1 cup bread crumbs

How to prepare:

1. Preheat the oven to 350°F. Butter a 3- to 4-quart gratin dish or another shallow baking dish.

2. In a kettle of salted boiling water, cook macaroni until just al dente. Drain well.

3. In a heavy saucepan, melt just 6 tablespoons butter over moderately low heat. Add the flour and cook the roux, whisking, for about 3 minutes. Add the milk in a stream, whisking while bringing to a boil. Continue to whisk the sauce. Add the mustard powder, cayenne, and salt and pepper to taste. Simmer sauce, whisking occasionally, until thickened, about 2 minutes.

4. In a large bowl, stir together the macaroni, the sauce, the grated cheeses, and one cup of Parmesan. Transfer the macaroni mixture to the prepared dish and spread it out evenly.

5. Melt the remaining two tablespoons of butter in the microwave. In a small bowl, stir together the bread crumbs, the remaining 1/3 cup Parmesan, and the melted butter. Sprinkle the mixture evenly over the macaroni.

6. Bake the macaroni in the middle of oven for 25 to 30 minutes, or until golden and bubbling.

Spaghetti and Meatballs

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In general, the restaurants that are nearest and dearest to my heart are the one’s that are the least complicated. Just straightforward, quality food. Beautifully sourced and expertly prepared. No foams, no fuss.

For this reason, I have always been a big fan of Frankies Spuntino. In the years since opening their doors — first in Carroll Gardens and then on Clinton Street — Frank Falcinelli and Frank Castronov’s food has never failed to put a big smile on my face. This is good, solid, tasty cooking at its best.

In June, the gastronomic duo released their first cookbook, The Frankies Spuntino Kitchen Companion & Cooking Manual. It’s a beautiful tome to own, filled with charming fine-line drawings and direct prose. Like their food, it is exceptionally accessible.

This meatball recipe is mostly theirs, though the basic tomato sauce is my own. While making them at home, I forgot to add the eggs, but did not find that the flavor suffered. Maybe my meatballs were a little springier as a result. If I had to do it again, I think that I would do something to make the raisins and the pine nuts not so obtrusive by either substituting golden raisins for dark. Even better still, I think I would use currants. The pine nuts I might think about coarsely chopping too.

Ingredients:

2 slices white bread (about 1 packed cup’s worth)

1 pounds lean ground beef (from High Point Farms if you have it!)

2 finely minced cloves garlic

1/4 cup finely chopped flat-leaf parsley

1/4 cup grated Pecorino Romano, plus about 1 cup for serving

1/4 cup raisins

1/4 cup pine nuts

1 1/2 teaspoons fine sea salt

7 turns white pepper

1/2 cup Panko bread crumbs

Basic tomato sauce

Spaghetti

How to prepare:

1. Heat the oven to 325°F. Put the fresh bread in a bowl, cover it with water, and let it soak for a minute or so. Pour off the water and squeeze the excess out the bread as best as you can. Tear it into tiny pieces.

2. In a mixing bowl, combine the bread with all the remaining ingredients except the tomato sauce and the spaghetti. The mixture should be moist-wet, not sloppy-wet. If the mixture is too moist, you can adjust it by adding more Panko.

3. Gently shape the meat mixture into handball-sized balls. Space them evenly on a baking sheet or arrange them evenly in a large cast-iron pan. Bake for 25 to 30 minutes. The meatballs will be firm, but still juicy and gently yielding when they’re cooked through.

4. Meanwhile, reheat the tomato sauce in a deep-sided pan that is large enough to accommodate the meatballs and sauce comfortably.

5. Put the meatballs into the pan of sauce and turn the heat up a little. Simmer the meatballs for no more than half an hour so they can soak up some sauce. Any longer that 30 minutes, and they start to disintegrate.

6. Meanwhile, prepare the spaghetti according to directions.

7. Top each serving of spaghetti with 3-4 meatballs and a healthy helping of the sauce. Shower the bowl with the freshly-grated Pecorino and a little finely chopped parsley. Serve immediately.

Penne with Roasted Chicken and Parsley

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I have never liked the term “leftovers.” To me, “leftovers” imply scraps. Superfluous remnants, really. Unwanted and unused remainders. Surplus.

But what remains after one dinner can be the start of the glorious next — sometimes a meal even more treasured than the former. This is the case with this dish.

Don’t get me wrong. I adore roast chicken, but what I love almost more is what follows the roast chicken dinner. I take the carcass and pick off every wonderful and delicious bit that I can. I save the juices and fat in a separate container. The next day, I remove the top layer of cold fat from the juices, which have now solidified into a beautiful amber jelly. I keep the fat for another day when I want to roast potatoes.

Perfectly al dente penne gets tossed with the morsels of meat. The added jellied juices melt into a luscious sauce. A good handful of freshly chopped parsley adds both freshness and crunch.

The result? The most chicken-y pasta in the world. A rich and dense meatiness permeates every mouthful, amplifying the flavor in what was already extremely flavorful chunks of chicken. Believe me, nothing is left over.

Roast Chicken with Russian Banana Fingerling Potatoes

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If I had to choose a last meal on Earth, it would be a beautifully roasted chicken.

This is hands-down one of my most-adored dishes. I love the smell of a chicken in the oven, the warm and cozy aroma filling the apartment with comfort and contentment. I love how luscious a browned bird looks, gleaming and golden. I love the heavenly juxtaposition of crisp, crackling skin and moist, delicious meat.

This is not a recipe per se, but more like a set of guidelines that I have developed over the years for cooking perfect poultry.

1. Buy the best. We have been fortunate to have stowed a wonderfully flavorful High Point Farms chicken in the back of the freezer for these first few brisk days of fall. Barring that, aim for organic, free-range, no hormones or antibiotics, humanely-raised and processed. Heirloom if you can get it.

3. Pre-heat that oven to 425-450°.

4. Dry your bird throughly. The dryer the skin, the crispier the chicken.

5. No stuffing. This is the secret to perfect chicken. I find that by the time the stuffing is done cooking, you have overcooked your lovely bird. I like just three things in my chicken: one lemon (cut into wedges if your chicken is small), one onion, and fresh thyme. If it’s Meyer lemon season, please do use one of those.

6. Use the best butter or olive oil. In Nigella Lawson’s cookbook, How to be a Domestic Goddess, she writes that when roasting chickens, you should anoint your chicken with the highest quality butter or olive oil the same way you might apply very expensive hand cream. I always liked that image.

7. Truss your bird tight. Like a compact little football.

8. Season liberally. In his Bouchon cookbook, Thomas Keller writes that he never butters his bird because the moisture in the butter creates steam that will ruin the integrity of the skin’s crispiness.

I’ve never found that to be the case.

I did once try Keller’s approach sans butter and found the skin to still be tasty, but less glossy and appealing overall. I do like his salting technique though: “I like to rain the salt over the bird so that it has a nice uniform coating that will result in a crisp, salty, flavorful skin (about 1 tablespoon). When it’s cooked, you should still be able to make out the salt baked onto the crisp skin. Season to taste with pepper.”

So by all means, hold your hand high and shower that bird with seasoning!

9. 20-20-20-15. I don’t always follow this but when I do, I find that I have a truly superior bird. Inspired by Patricia Wells’s Roast Lemon Chicken recipe in her Paris Cookbook, I start the bird in a super hot oven on one side. After twenty minutes, I turn it on the other side for another twenty. I turn it breast-side up for yet another twenty — a total of 1 hour. After that, I drop the oven temperature to 375° and continue roasting until the internal temperature reaches 165°, give or take about 15 more minutes .

Sometimes when roasting atop potatoes, I will just put the chicken in breast-side up at 450° for about half and hour before dropping the temperature to 375° for the remainder of the time. I find the results almost as good.

10. Remove from oven and let rest for 10-30 minutes before carving. Such an important step and essential for serving a juicy bird. Plus, you don’t risk burning your fingers!

Tips:

No basting.

A top-knotch carving knife is always an asset in the kitchen.

Keep the carcass and the juices! They are worth their weight in gold.

Ham Steak with Sautéed Lacinato Kale and Corn Spoonbread

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Yesterday night we had a nice, simple supper. A High Point Farms ham steak, with sides of sautéed kale and corn spoonbread. The ham, moist and flavorful, cooked quickly in a large cast-iron pan over medium heat (it’s true that with pasture-raised pork and grass-fed beef, you should drop the cooking temperature a bit because it is so lean).

What I love most about these meats that we have been getting from our CSA is that in the sausages, bacon, and ham, there are only about as many ingredients as I have fingers on one hand: beef or pork, salt, brown sugar, spices. Nothing unpronounceable, nothing that anyone would have difficulty recognizing as food, and everything tasty.

Kale is a favorite leafy green of mine, both delicious and nutritious. Some people deride it as diet food, but if you add some ham hocks and stew the heck out of it until it becomes rich and luscious, you have yourself some fine eating right there. I like it that way, but I also love it sautéed so that the stems retain a bit of their tangy crunch and the juicy leaves stay springy.

This was the first time that I tried a corn spoonbread recipe and I have to say that it was definitely more like a corn soufflé than a bread. I had been warned before though. It was still good (airy and ethereal), but left me sadly unsatisfied as I was looking for more of the heft and heaviness of cornbread, just not so much so. For that reason, I am only including a link for the recipe here.

If I had to make it again, I might let the corn meal/milk mixture (a lazy woman’s béchamel, if you wish) become much thicker before adding the egg yolks. I think that it would have benefitted from some fresh herbs, dill maybe as I do love corn and dill together. By all means, if you try it, use fresh corn from the cob if you can.

Penne with Pepper Sauce and Hot Italian Sausage

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Tonight we are very lucky indeed: kind friends have shared a tub of homemade pepper sauce. It’s lovely, creamy, unctuous, with fresh parsley and a spicy kick. They made it from some beautiful bell peppers that they bought in the Hudson River Valley. Absolutely delicious. It was such a treat.

To this, we can only add the very best that we have. I took some of the hot Italian beef sausage from our CSA and roasted it in a 375° oven for about 20 minutes. Maybe it was less, but I lost track of time licking the remainder of the sauce left on the sides of the container.

After letting the sausage rest for a few minutes, we sliced it at an angle and tossed everything together.

Served with a side of local rainbow chard sautéed in minced garlic and olive oil. Does food get any better than this?

Stuffed Chard with Fresh Marinara

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In Patricia Wells’s book, Trattoria, she writes that many pasta dishes remind her of the Italian flag with its “proud red, green, and white” colors.

This dish is certainly that.

This recipe is an adaptation of one that I found on the Eating Well website. Since starting our meat CSA, we have been quickly accumulating ground beef recipes beyond the usual suspects (hamburgers, chili, meatloaf, tacos, meatballs).

This recipe satisfies all my criteria for a great meal at home: it uses seasonal vegetables, it is not overly complicated, it is quick to put together yet looks like I spent hours in the kitchen, and it is beautiful on the plate. Most importantly? It tastes wonderful.

I have altered the recipe slightly, using fresh herbs and garlic in the meat mixture instead of dried  I have also left the dried herbs out of the sauce, their presence being a pet peeve of mine. I like to see my marinara un-flecked with dirty-looking specks of dusty leaves. If I had to do it again, I might use less panko and employ a softer touch when forming the meat so that it crumbles a little more in the mouth.

As you can see, I am a giant fan of my Microplane grater, which makes gorgeous fluffy clouds of fragrant Parmesan.

Ingredients:

1 pound lean ground beef (Go High Point Farms CSA!)

1/2 cup panko breadcrumbs

2 medium shallots, minced, divided

2-3 cloves of garlic, minced, divided

1 tablespoon fresh oregano, chopped

1/4 teaspoon crushed red pepper

Pinches of salt and freshly ground pepper

8 large Swiss chard leaves, stems removed

1 1/2 cups chicken broth

1 tablespoon extra-virgin olive oil

1/4 teaspoon crushed red pepper (or more if you prefer)

1 28-ounce can crushed or diced tomatoes (I like Muir Glen’s Fire-Roasted Tomatoes)

2 teaspoons balsamic vinegar

Salt and pepper to taste

How to prepare:

1. Gently mix the beef, breadcrumbs, 1/2 of the shallots, 1/2 of the garlic, the oregano, crushed red pepper, salt and ground black pepper in a large bowl until just combined. Roughly divide the mixture into 8 oblong 3-inch portions.

2. Overlap the two sides of a chard leaf where the stem has been removed and place a portion of beef there. You may need to adjust the amount of meat you stuff in each leaf, depending on how big the leaves are. Tightly roll the chard around the beef. Place each roll, seam-side down, in a large nonstick skillet. Pour in broth, cover and bring to a boil over high heat. Reduce the heat to a simmer and cook for 8 to 10 minutes, or until an instant-read thermometer inserted into the center of a roll reads 165°F.

3. Meanwhile, heat the oil in a medium saucepan over medium heat. Add the remaining 1/2 of the shallots and garlic. Stirring often, cook until the shallots and garlic are soft, about 1 to 2 minutes. Add the crushed red pepper to taste and cook for a few seconds longer, but don’t let the pepper burn. Add the tomatoes and cook, stirring occasionally. Lower the heat a little bit and add the balsamic vinegar. Continue to simmer the sauce until it is reduced and thickened to your liking.  Adjust the seasoning according to your taste.

4. To serve, remove the chard rolls from its broth bath with tongs. You can discard the broth afterwards. Top the rolls with sauce and Parmesan cheese, if desired — and why wouldn’t you?

Tip: Start removing the chard stems by folding each leaf in half. Beginning at a point at the top of the leaf where the stem looks skinny and pliable enough to not have to remove, sever the tender part of the stem from the thicker part with a small cut. Separate the leaf from the stem by moving your knife parallel to the stem’s length, including the widest section of the rib at the base of the leaf.

Make Ahead Tip: Cover and refrigerate the chard rolls in the sauce; reheat in a covered baking dish at 350°F for about 10 minutes.