Archive for September, 2008

I keep hearing about mac and cheese. It’s the comfort food everyone’s talking about, and trying to re-invent. So, I made my own version.

This one used applewood smoked bacon. That made it… great.

Start by making a cream sauce. Bacon fat, butter, and flour makes a type of thickening agent (a roux), and add to that milk. This will thicken as it boils, and you can augment that with cream if you like. Ok, I did.

Make sure you add several cloves of garlic as this creamy mixture comes up to temperature.

Then, mix in your cheeses to form the sauce. In this case, I used a divine aged white sharp cheddar, a smokey mozzarella, a sweet gorgonzola, and you guessed it, some parmesan. Fold cooked pasta into the creamy, cheesy mixture, add the bacon, chopped, and top with more grated parmesan and fresh bread crumbs.

Bake for 30 minutes at 375 degrees. If you need, turn on the broiler at the end to “toast” the fresh bread crumbs.

Enjoy. Each and every creamy bite. For this recipe, I used and enjoyed a De Cecco rigatoni. Garnish with chopped basil or parsley.

I recently cooked an Italian meal inspired from two sources.

For one, I consulted some magazines at the library, and found a quick and easy recipe in Gourmet for veal in brown butter and capers. I made this pretty much the way they suggested, after pounding the scallopini.

My only addition was some left-over marjoram from another recipe. It was a nice touch to the butter.

The second recipe was dictated to me via Lynne Rossetto Capser via The Spendid Table, a version she guessed was a call-in person’s ideal dish from a trip in Italy: lemon fettuccine. You take EVOO, steep it warm in garlic and lemon zest. I added cooked fresh pasta noodles, and made a sauce using cream, parmesan cheese, and lemon juice. It was simple, and delicious.

Simply scrumptious this meal was!

Recently, our friend Greg celebrated his birthday, and the Messy Chef was in the kitchen.

Menu

• Ribeye with Cabernet Sauce, Chanterelles, and Parmesan Cheese
• Sea Bass en papillote with Bell Pepper Quinoa
• Chocolate Cake
• Sourdough with Salted Butter

The bread and cake were simple - we procured them from the new Whole Foods in Short Pump.

The appetizer, or “starter” was one of WF’s dry aged steaks, cooked medium, using a grill pan, with copious amounts of salt and pepper. I thinly sliced the beef on each plate, and served it with a reduction of cabernet sauvignon wine steeped with garlic, fresh parmiggiano reggiano cheese, and butter-sauted chanterelle mushrooms (with more garlic and cayenne). The mixture was sublime.

The main entrée took two parts: for one, we prepared fillets of sea bass in EVOO, lemon zest, lemon slice, beans, fresh tomato, baby squash, garlic, and capers. This was wrapped in parchment paper and baked/steamed in the oven for 10 minutes.

The side dish was red quinoa, prepared in vegetable stock in a rice cooker, alongside yellow and red bell pepper. At the end, we scented the quinoa with EVOO, and added more fresh chopped tomato.

The dinner ended with a superb chocolate cake. I would never endeavor to make such a good looking, and especially so good tasting cake; I’m glad someone else this time around was the baker.

Tonight I made a dinner that was inspired by a delectable magazine cover shot from almost a year ago—Bon Appetit had a simple recipe for short ribs, one of my more favorite dishes.

The flavors are simple: herbs, good wine, and a base of creamy polenta, scented if you will, by sweet gorgonzola cheese. We start with some ingredients:

• beef short ribs
• red wine (I used a yummy Black Burret syrah/grenache blend)
• onion
• herbs (majoram, thyme)
• garlic
• beef stock

Brown the short ribs in oil, set aside. Add one sweet onion to the pan, still hot, and wilt. Add 3 cloves garlic. Pour one bottle wine into an oven-safe vessel, and add back the short ribs. Since my wine didn’t quite cover the ribs, I augmented the liquid with beef stock.

Cook for 2-3 hours in the oven at 300-375 degrees.

The flavor is punched up here with the addition of a grimolata, a type of spicy topping. Chop more herbs, including parsley, with lemon peel and garlic, and top the cooked short ribs for a flavor “punch.”

To make this topping, I whizzed everything up in the Cuisinart.

I covered the beef short ribs with a wine sauce reduction, after straining the herbs and onion/garlic from the mixture. I thickened the sauce with a flour/butter addition.

For the polenta, whisk-in some instant-cook polenta into boiling beef or chicken stock. It thickens quickly; keep stirring with the wisk, then drop in two medium-sized knobs (I know, how big is a knob, right? You judge!) of gorgonzola dulce cheese. Finish it off with a few glugs of heavy cream (again, judgement!), and stir. Take off the heat; stir in some salt, and keep covered until service (not too long, as you still want to ladle it into the plates runny).

The meal started, however, with some heirloom tomatoes and a favorite: prosciutto.

Here, we used heirloom cherry tomatoes, sliced, and dressed with a garlicky olive oil and aged balsamic vinegar dressing. Between slices of La Quercia American prosciutto slices went the tomatoes; on one side, a wedge of delicious private-farm (Vermont) smoked mozzarella.

I was anxious of trying La quercia after reading about it… it’s produced in America “to rival” the Italian original. The pigs are fed a specially-created diet, matching the ‘old fashioned’ one once carried on in Italy. It was different, for sure, sweet, very “porky,” and not as fat as the Italian variety. Still, delicious.

The tomatoes were so sweet, with sea salt and balsamic adding just the right notes.

Tonight’s dinner came by way of the Whole Foods market, with some ingredients and things I hadn’t used before. I hope you enjoyed reading about it. Everything was quite good.

Ingredients:

• Asian-flavored firm tofu
• Garlic
• Vegetable Oil
• Red Bell Pepper, sliced thin
• Scallions, chopped small
• Chinese cooking wine
• Peanut Butter
• Fresh Ginger, grated
• rice vinegar
• red chili flakes
• sambal
• brown sugar
• soy sauce
• salt
• snow peas or sugar snap peas
• thin pasta spaghettini

Procedure:

Make a “sauce” out of cooking oil, rice vinegar, brown sugar, soy sauce, fresh ginger, pinch of chopped scallions, chili flakes, sambal olek, and peanut butter in a food processor. Mix with warm, cooked pasta. Cool pasta down by placing in the refrigerator for 1-2 hours.

Flash-sauté the red pepper, tofu, and garlic in hot oil; add chinese wine and reduce; take off heat, and mix in with blanched peas (3-5 minutes in boiling water) into the noodle mixture. Mix well, and return to refrigerator.

Take noodles out of the refrigerator for about 30 minutes before serving. Toss with reserve scallions and enjoy.

For a variation, add sesame seeds and toasted sesame oil to the mixture.