Category: lunch

  • Tuscan Crepes – Crespelle (from Osteria del Circo in NY)

    Tuscan Crepes – Crespelle (from Osteria del Circo in NY)

    Tuscan Crepes - Crespelle (from Osteria del Circo in NY) recipe photo

    I first learned about these Tuscan-style crepes while living in Florence, studying food and wine (both formally and inevitably informally) at Apicius. I rediscovered them when a pleasant little article popped up in the NY Times recently about them.

    I made a pilgimage to Rainbow to get chestnut flour and good quality pine nuts (often rancid in my corner store). i went to work. I followed the recipe quite closely, save for the filling which I used a bit less boursoin and more sheep’s milk cheese. The rest was delightful. I wilted some spinich, squeezed half a lemon over it and we had a wonderful dinner. I’d recommend it and it’s a great one for a dinner party as you can assemble, and then pop in the oven for 10 minutes just before serving.

  • Alaskan Halibut on Hazelnut Gomashi Corn, Peaches in Wine

    Alaskan Halibut on Hazelnut Gomashi Corn, Peaches in Wine

    Halibut on hazelnut gomashi corn

    1lb halibut fillet, no skin
    5 ears fresh sweet corn (2 white 3 yellow)
    Gomashi (toasted sesame seeds and salt in a grinder, use a mortal and pestal lightly if you dont have one)
    Rainbow microgreens
    3 green onions/scallions
    Hazelnut Oil
    Sesame seeds
    Soy Sauce
    1T butter
    Olive oil

    Marinate the halibut in soy sauce, touch of olive oil, and sesame seeds for at least a couple of hours, but not more than 12.  Cook it in a nonstick pan just big enough for it, so it’s nice and tight. More on this in a moment.

    Cut the corn off the cob. Slice the scallions thinly into the green.

    In a large nonstick pan, heat 2 T hazelnut oil and butter (alternatively use a lightly flavored oil or olive oil and toast actual hazelnuts in it–crush them well first, use low heat for some time to infuse, but it’s just not the same) at medium heat, and add the corn. Add Gomashi mixture to add saltiness. Taste as you cook to add regular salt if needed, depending on proportion of your gomashi.

    In a small nonstick pan, cook your marinated halibut on medium, top side down first. Once getting opaque, flip it over and cover it at least loosely with a lid, reduce heat slightly and continue cooking through.

    When corn starts to color, add the scallions. Keep tossing until some kernels are browned and all are cooked. Place this on the base of your plate.

    Top with clean microgreens, then portion the halibut onto each plate. This serves four with an appetizer (we had some heirloom tomato sauce & red pepper linguini, very small amount).

    There is also now a Chilean Sea Bass & Spinich version of this dish.

    White and Yellow Organic Peaches, Sliced

    Peaches in Wine

    4-5 peaches (you can mix apricots too, and yellow and white peaches)
    White sugar
    Rose or dry white wine

    No need to skin them unless you don’t like the skin

    Slice evenly and toss in a bit of sugar, then cover in rose or dry white wine, most of the way. Cover and refrigerate for several hours at least. I served them on shortcakes and reduced the liquid to syrup in a pan, putting on top.

  • Pasta Bolognese (From Marcella Ansaldo at Apicius in Florence)

    Pasta Bolognese (From Marcella Ansaldo at Apicius in Florence)

    tagliatelle bolognese

    I’ve posted about my favorite Italian comfort food before, but I’ve decided it’s time to wow you with its deliciousness in a way that will allow replication. This dish was the very first recipe (and demonstration of technique) I learned in Marcella Ansaldo’s introduction to Italian Regional Cuisine course at International Culinary School Apicius in Florence.  Marcella was fabulous and ended up to be one of my very favorite and most professional teachers while I was there.

    Typically you’d make your own pasta (once you’ve done it a few times, it’s really not overwhelming), but if you’re in a hurry you could use dry pasta, preferably something with texture like rigatoni, penne, or egg fettucini.

    Mirepoix (celery, carrot, onion small dice)

    All of the measurements below are approximate. You’ll develop your own liking over time. Serves 4.

    1 large carrot, small dice
    2 stalks celery, small dice
    1/2 medium/small onion, diced

    1/2 C red wine
    1/3lb lean ground beef
    1/4lb ground pork
    50g (1 quarter inch thick) slice of pancetta (if you can get it smoked, that’s the best option)
    1.5-2 C san marzano or other good quality tomatoes, preferably whole
    1 tsp chili flakes (this is non traditional)
    olive oil
    salt & pepper

    Heat about 1T olive oil in a large sauce pan. Start your water to boil at the same time, or soon after. Sautee on medium low heat the onion, carrot, and celery which are chopped a small dice, evenly sized. You do not want to caramelize anything here–simply soften and cook. I remember Marcella telling us that Italians 1) do not like to see their vegetables and 2) do not over cook them like the French. Don’t forget the salt at this point, either.

    Once softened but not brown, add the pancetta, diced the same size, and if it’s not smoked, allow it to cook until almost crispy (you may need to adjust the heat upwards). If it’s smoked, cook together for 1-2 minutes, and add the ground meat. You should mix the meat together first and make sure not too add too large of chunks. Once the meat is mostly cooked, crank the heat a bit up and add the wine*.

    When the vapor coming from the pan is no longer astringent, add the chili flakes and the tomato, and reduce to simmer. Adjust salt & pepper.

    Mix your sauce and pasta well in a large bowl/in the pasta pan and serve with good Parmesan (I will cry if you use the pre-grated stuff, seriously).

    *If you’re smart, you’ll buy a dry, red Italian wine that you might actually want to drink not only because it will taste better, but because then you’ll have an appropriate wine to go with your dinner.

    As a side note, we ate it up with some Liguria Bakery Foccacia, which I am very pleased to say is being retailed at my neighborhood Andronico’s, for four times the price as at the bakery and not as fresh, but it is so freaking good and so inconvenient to get at the bakery that I am happy to pay it.

  • Capay Leek & Potato Soup (& a lesson on leek etiquette)

    Capay Leek & Potato Soup (& a lesson on leek etiquette)

    [donotprint]Capay Farm Leek & Potato Soup

    I drove my Capay Farm Leeks back up the coast to Mendocino for Thanksgiving and found myself cleaning & chopping them to make a leek & potato soup to feed all of us cooks before the main event–kind of like the “family meal” in a restaurant.

    On cleaning leeks & picking leeks: A good leak is not slimy, is firm, and has healthy, firm looking leaves. They will have minimal wear and tear at the tips of the greens but will not be cut excessively short already.

    Leeks are particularly sandy because of the way in which they grow. The best way to clean them is to cut the tattered or overly wilted greens off the top, slice them in half lengthwise so all the layers are accessible, and put them in a large bowl of water. Go through the outer layers with particular care and use your fingers to brush away or agitate any dirt/sand. Give them a good wiggle in the water and be sure to change the water frequently especially if your bowl is smaller.[/donotprint]

    Capay Farms Leek & Potato Soup

    Leek & Potato Soup Recipe

    3-4 medium leeks or equivalent
    1 small yellow onion or half a large one
    1 stick butter
    1 qt chicken or vegetable stock (organic box of it or your own)
    1 qt 2% or 1% milk
    2 russet or red skin potatoes
    salt & pepper

    In a large sautee pan or cast iron skillet add half the butter at medium high heat.

    Chop your leeks in half circles as thin as is reasonable to be consistent. Use the firmer part of the greens as well if in good condition. Add to the warmed butter once it has stopped bubbling. Add salt & pepper. After a few minutes, reduce heat to medium or medium low. Stir occasionally the whole time to prevent too much coloring or carmelization in one place.

    While the leeks are cooking, peel your potatoes and chop them into cubes; perhaps a bit smaller than a lego. Dice the onion finely.

    To a large soup pot, add the other stick of butter.  Add the onion to the butter at medium heat. Once mostly translucent, add the potatoes. Let the potatoes gain some color with minimal sticking to the bottom of the pan and without smashing them into mashed potatoes. Add more butter if necessary to accomplish this. Reduce to medium low heat once colored a bit, let cook mostly through. Add the leeks to the soup pan, and add half the milk or enough to cover the leeks & potatoes.

    Bring to a simmer and let soften some more. Add most of the stock, reserving some in order to adjust the consistency. Add most of the rest of the milk, also reserving some. Check the salt & pepper, adjust and check and adjust consistency. Once ready, serve or turn off heat and reheat later–do not leave simmering or you’ll have mashed potatoes with leeks.

  • Hazelnut Crepes with Leek-New Potato filling, Arugula, and Creme Fraiche

    Hazelnut Crepes with Leek-New Potato filling, Arugula, and Creme Fraiche

    Hazelnut Crepes with Leek & New Potato Filling, Arugula, & Creme Fraiche

    Crepe Batter:
    1/2 C Hazelnut “flour” (finely ground hazelnuts)
    1/2 C -2T all-purpose unbleached flour
    3 eggs
    2T melted butter
    1 1/3 C whole milk
    dash salt
    dash fresh grated nutmeg

    Mix dry; Mix wet, add into a “well” of the dry and whisk together to avoid lumps, slowly incorporating the dry. The batter should be the consistency of light cream.

    2 large fresh leeks, greens removed
    4 small to medium white new potatoes
    2-3 T butter
    salt & pepper
    5-8 stalks fresh wild arugula

    Split leeks in half and chop finely in half circles. Dice finely the new potatoes to the size just slightly bigger than the eraser on a pencil. Melt the butter in a non stick pan at medium high heat (you could also use pancetta and half as much butter). When the water has evaporated (it stops bubbling), add the potatoes, with plenty of salt & pepper. Let them color, tossing occasionally. Reduce heat to medium, add leeks. Let leeks soften and color while potatoes also finish cooking.

    Use a non-stick skillet and cook the crepes at medium high heat. Coat the pan in butter first, let the water evaporate and add batter. Don’t add too much batter or the crepes will be too thick; they should barely coat the pan. Flip when mostly done, cooking briefly on the other side.

    Assemble, adding fresh washed arugula. Top with creme fraiche or sour creme and a few whole hazelnuts.

    Wine: To cut the fat, try a vinho verde from Portugal, or a non-oakey chardonnay like one from Cakebread Cellars.

  • Roast Golden Beet & Chevre Tortelloni in Brown Butter Sauce

    Roast Golden Beet & Chevre Tortelloni in Brown Butter Sauce

    fresh golden beet & chevre tortelloni pasta

    Including: How to make fresh pasta for tortelloni and other stuffed pastas & ravioli

    Most of us who are at least a little enamored with Italian food realize and recognize the vast and unending code for Italian pasta shapes. They range from fairly consistent (spaghetti is spaghetti just about anywhere you go) to the incredibly confusing (tortelloni can be either the little parmesean filled pastas we find dried in the grocery, more commonly known in the US as tortellini, or large, fresh pasta dumplings, or even a stuffed dumpling of any kind, as in a bit after the middle ages, when pasta was really making itself popular in Italy via Napoli’s maccheroni which we think of as being the elbow shape but in Italy can mean just about any unstuffed pasta shape, especially something similar to bucatini).

    Anyway, it’s not consistent. But by tortelloni here, I mean a stuffed pasta in a particular shape, as, well, shown.

    For the filling:
    two medium golden beets, roasted with olive oil, salt, & pepper in foil for 1 1/2 hours or more, peeled & rough chopped
    1/3 lb capricho di caba or other salty, moist fresh goat cheese/chevre
    salt & pepper
    olive oil

    Blend all ingredients in a food processor until smooth. Add olive oil as needed to make a ricotta consistency.

    Fresh Tortelloni with golden beet & goat cheese

    For the pasta:
    Measurements are approximate
    1/2 C (or 50g) semolina 00 size flour
    1/2 C (or 50g) 00 white wheat flour
    1 tsp salt
    1 egg

    Mix the flours, pour in a pile and create a well. Sprinkle with salt, add the egg to the center, and gently beat to incorporate flour. Once somewhat together, use hands to mix the rest of the flour in until it takes a comfortable amount and is no longer sticky when handling repetedly for several rounds of kneading. Cover tightly in plastic wrap and let set for at least 1 hour, up to 12. See this entry on making fresh pasta for more details on making the dough: How to Make Fresh Italian Egg Pasta.

    Roll the dough out using plenty of flour to keep it from sticking. I find it easier to work with half the dough at once, keeping the other half nicely covered with the plastic wrap. Roll out as thin as the dough will allow without tearing or becoming fragile. The longer you let it rest the easier it will be to accomplish this. Using the correct size flour (extra fine) will also aid in this.

    Cut in equal squares. I eyeball it, it doesn’t have to be perfect. Add a small drop of filling to each square.

    Fold into a triangle and seal with your fingertips by pinching, starting at the top of the triangle and working around the edges. Try not to include extra air near the filling, or they may have trouble staying closed once in the hot water.

    how to fold home made tortelloni pastahow to fold home made tortelloni pasta

    Press the left and right sides of the triangle together to form a circle with a tail. Flip the pasta “inside out” to create an edge that will help trap sauce.

    how to fold home made tortelloni pasta

    how to fold home made tortelloni pasta

    Cook in boiling hot water, salted (several T of sea or kosher salt).

    Fresh Tortelloni Cooking in Water

    Meanwhile, melt 2-3 T of butter, adding salt & pepper; you can add poppy seeds too if you like. Let it brown, and add pasta as it’s finished cooking. Toss. Serve.

    Wine: this one is fairly tricky, because of the salty-sweet combo. A nice and soft, round merlot would work, as would a dry, less aromatic white.

  • Quinoa Salad with Butternut Squash and Pancetta

    Quinoa Salad with Butternut Squash and Pancetta

    Quinoa Salad with Butternut Squash and Pancetta Recipe Photo

    1 butternut squash
    6 spears asparagus (large)
    1/4 vidalia or other sweet onion
    1 large eggplant
    1 C quinoa
    2 C water
    1 slice 1/4 inch thick pancetta, cubed
    olive oil
    salt & pepper

    Cube butternut squash, egglant. Dice onion. Section eggplant to 1/2 inch sections.

    Wash quinoa and combine with water in saucepan. Bring to boil, cover, reduce heat immediately to low. Set 15 min until water absorbed.

    Fry pancetta in seperate pan, dry, adding to medium hot pan until crisp.

    Heat olive oil and onion to medium high. Once onion shrunk but not translucent or colored yet, add butternut squash cubes (salt & pepper at every stage). Let soften. Turn heat up, add eggplant cubes. Allow to color, continuing to toss occasionally.

    Add asparagus last. Let get bright green, turn off heat. Combine cooked quinoa with mixture, top with fried pancetta and serve.

    Wine: You could serve this with a light, bright wine like an Oregon Pinot Noir.

  • Spaghetti with Ligurian Pesto & Pan-Seared Rockfish

    Spaghetti with Ligurian Pesto & Pan-Seared Rockfish

    Spaghetti with Ligurian Pesto & Pan-Seared Rockfish

    For Two:
    140 grams spaghetti
    1 large bunch basil
    olive oil
    1/3rd cup pine nuts
    8 cloves garlic
    1 lemon
    1/2 lb Rockfish Fillet (or substitute sea bass or red snapper)
    salt
    pepper

    Start a large pot of water boiling, meanwhile using your food processor to combine washed basil, pine nuts, juice of one lemon, several tablespoons of olive oil and salt & pepper to taste to make the Ligurian-style pesto (basil grows like a weed in Liguria, and the Italian Riveria region is the origin of this now popular tapanade).

    When the water is ready for the spaghetti, add 2 T salt to the water. Add spaghetti, cook AL DENTE. The pasta should retail some stiffness when it is finished (when you roll it into a ball on a spoon, the last inch of the noodle should stick out defiantly).

    After adding the spaghetti to the pan, heat your non stick skillet to medium high, add olive oil, and then your lightly salt & peppered fish fillet. Cook most of the way with the top side down, then flip to finish.

    Drain the pasta, put back in the saucepot and add several tablespoons of your fresh pesto, mixing well. Serve in a ball (use a serving two-prong fork to roll it into one) in a soup or pasta bowl. Cut the fish fillet in half and serve on top with lemon slices.

    Wine: Vermentino from Liguria (hard to find! Will say “Cinque Terre” most likely), Sardegna, or Tuscany (in that order of preference), or a nice Sauvignon blanc or Pinot Grigio-Tocai blend.

  • Winter Garganelli (Pasta with spicy creamed tomato sauce & chicken)

    Winter Garganelli (Pasta with spicy creamed tomato sauce & chicken)

    Winter Garganelli con pollo - pasta with spicy tomato sauce and chicken

    I’m sick. We’re all sick. Everyone has the sniffles, the sore throat, the strange things coming from their lung. I’ve been working 7 days a week, and haven’t had much time to cook (though I have fit in a few mini dinner parties and even one real one that involved scallops with an orange vanilla cream sauce, and my mother’s recipe for pork & figs with balsamic reduction (very easy)), but because I’m ill I vowed last night to stay in and use what I had to make something nutritious, delicious, and expelling of all grossness inside (read: something spicy).

    First, chop half a slice of 1/4 inch thick pancetta into a dice. Throw it into a hot non-stick skillet at least 8 inches but hopefully more like 11 and let it get a little crispy. Add a boneless, skinless chicken breast cubed into small peices and turn the heat up, tossing frequently until the chicken is mostly done or just barely done.

    Pour in enough heavy cream to coat the bottom of the pan, add a bunch of fresh thyme leaves, let it come to a simmer and pour the mixture into something else and let it sit aside.

    Now put into the pan olive oil, half a shallot in a small dice, at least three garlic cloves or as many as you like coursely chopped on medium to medium low heat (remember my philosophy about cooking garlic slowly–it may smell good right away at high heat, but it will not taste nearly as complex or sweet as if you cook it on low heat for longer. Please also remember shallots have a high sugar content and will burn easily).

    Add about half a large can of san marzano D.O.P. tomatoes (reserve the rest in your fridge for something else), about two teaspoons of dried thyme (crushed between your fingers as you put it in), about a teaspoon of chili flakes, and a good amount of salt (another few teaspoons). Put the heat to medium low or low, and let this cook 15-30 minutes. When it’s almost done, start a huge pot of water boiling for the garganelli, meanwhile add the chicken and cream mixture to the tomato sauce.

    When the garganelli are almost done (you can substitute rigatoni but make sure its semola flour based), and the tomato and cream mixtures are heated and blended, add 2 tablespoons of creme fraiche to the sauce, turn the heat off, and grate a few tablespoons of piave and/or parmesean cheese in. Mix. Now add the pasta to the pan, toss to coat well, and serve (in my case, with kleenex on the side).

    Deliciousness.