Slow cooked Saturday

There is nothing I love more than honest, earthy cooking. A pot on the stove that makes the whole house smell rosier, and straight forward flavors that taste of just what they are. This afternoon I started a pot roast that simmered until eight in the evening, and it just tasted so incredibly… well, beefy! I don’t really think anything more could be said. Shredded and coated in dark, voluptuously umami braising liquids (collagen FTW), embellished with a dollop of sour cream and spooned lovingly over buttered egg noodles, it was such a satisfying meal. I gilded the lily with a still-warm slice of pumpkin pie, which pushed me right over the edge of the happiness-meter.

Lip Smackingly Simple Pot Roast
Serves 6-8

One 3-4 lb chuck roast
AP Flour
Salt and pepper
Olive oil
2 tbsp butter
1/2 large yellow onion, roughly chopped
1/2 bottle dry red wine (I used some Merlot I had hanging around)
32 oz beef stock

Season the roast very generously with salt and pepper, the dust with flour and brown on all sides in the olive oil and butter in a heavy dutch oven. Towards the end of the browning, toss in the onion to sweat. Deglaze with the wine and add the stock. Simmer, partially covered for 4-5 hours, until it falls apart. Serve in a variety of ways: you can reduce the braising liquids to an intense sauce, toss with egg noodles, serve over mashed potatoes…the possibilities are endless! You can even add paprika to the braising liquids for a stroganoff-style sauce.

Just a thought…

…loosely associated with the Puerto Rican boy band, Menudo. First of all, did you know that menudo is tripe soup? Seriously, guys. I get that it’s a catchy Spanish word, but tripe soup?

So it got me thinking, what if every nation had a boy band named after tripe soup? In Italy I loved bollito and tripa from Mercato Centrale. Bollito is boiled meats, but it’s always the mystery bits, especially at the central market. So obviously there needs to be an Italian boy band named Bollito.

Imagine… a coliseum full of people and the em cee booms over the hushed crowd, “Ladies and Gentlemen….BOLLITO!” and out comes a guy dressed as tripe, one as a bun and the third as a bowl of salsa verde. And they sing and dance around.

I never said my thoughts made sense, just that I have them.

Meatless meal

I’m going to try and start a new tradition in chez Cecile (my nom du francaise from middle school french class, natch…no it doesn’t mean Christina, I just picked it out because I liked it. I was a brilliant twelve year old), and that tradition is eating better and having one meal a week be meatless. Why? It’s not so much that I want to eat less animal protein, it’s that by pointedly changing my eating habits, hopefully I’ll forge some new, better ones. Ones that will help me lose the weight I’ve gained this semester, weight caused by lots and lots of ice cream. This evening I made rice and black beans and a slow-roasted sweet potato. I started with a favorite salad of mine, marinated cucumbers. It was simple and delicious, and lovely washed down with the last of the apple cider.

So Simple Sweet and Sour Cucumbers

This receipt is more of a ratio. You take any number of Persian (hothouse) cucumbers, peel, halve and seed them, then chop them into slices. For each cucumber you take a 1/4 cup each red wine vinegar and sugar. Add to this salt and pepper to taste, and sometimes when the whim moves me I add minced dill. It’s lovely and refreshing. I’ve never met a soul who didn’t like it. It needs to marinate for at least two hours before service.

Simmered Black beans

Olive oil
1 shallot, minced
1 large clove garlic, minced
2 tins black beans, rinsed
1 tsp. sweet Hungarian paprika
1/4 tsp. ground cumin
1/4 tsp. red pepper flake
Pinch of chili powder
Bay leaf
Vegetable broth, 1 c.
Cilanto garnish

Saute shallot and garlic, add beans, seasonings and broth. Simmer for 20 minutes while your rice cooks. For the rice I made a pilaf with almonds and saffron.

For the sweet potato, I roasted it in the oven at 350*F for about 90 minutes until it was tender. At that length of time the very outside of the potato carmelizes inside the jacket and you can practically peel the skin away. I added butter, salt and cinnamon. Delicious.

Bumper crop

I have a ton of kale. I’ve eaten kale about six times in the last two weeks. I should be so healthy from all the vitamin C, K and zinc that I could run a marathon.

I love soup in the autumn. Last year I purchased Lidia’s Family Table, and inside she has a chapter on soups based on three “bases:” a garlicky white bean broth, a potato broth, and a turkey broth. Tonight, rolling with the various iterations she presents, I made a garlicky white bean broth, added potatoes, and finished with, you guess it! kale.

Cannelini, Potato and Kale Soup

3 slices Ossian bacon, cut into lardon
1/2 large onion, diced
1 carrot, diced
2 T. butter
3 cloves garlic, minced
32 oz chicken broth
2 cans cannelini beans, rinsed
4 white-skinned potatoes, sliced
4-6 cups water
1 large bunch kale, chiffonade and well rinsed of dirt/sand
Salt and pepper to taste
Pecorino romano

Start the bacon in a cold pot to render, then sweat onion and carrot with a bit of salt. Add the garlic in the last 30 seconds, then deglaze with the broth. Add your beans, potatoes and water and simmer for about 10-15 minutes. The potatoes should be cooked but not falling apart. Add the kale and simmer for 15 minutes longer until tender. Adjust the seasoning and serve with a generous snow of pecorino and some hearty bread.

Stress, I has it

This is the week from hell. I worked all weekend until after midnight, then exam today and tomorrow, two case studies to complete and a presentation to write on top of the typical homework. It’s just overwhelming. I’m sitting here with bloodshot eyes and an aching back from leaning over textbooks constantly. Tomorrow is a sixteen hour day, followed by work Thursday and a ten hour clinical Friday. And then it will be over. This, my friends, is just another week as a student nurse.

I talked to Z and my mom about my quitting or going to down to PRN at work. It’s just a weird thing, my job makes me a better nurse (my clinical instructor tells me it’s so refreshing that I have lots of experience), but my actually BEING a licensed nurse is hinged on excelling in school, and right now, my job is seriously impeding my studying. It’s 11pm and my exam is at 9 am, and I still have three chapters to read. There is just no time to cram it all in.

Seattle

I just spent a week in Seattle with a couple of dear friends and Z. Sadly, I was sick for all of it, and my friend L was sick for half of it, so I don’t have much to say, except a.) Seattle is beautiful and b.) the stomach flu sucks donkey balls.

Seattle is really, really beautiful. I was fortunate to be there during their summer, which is mild and sunny. We had a few amazing moments, like this one, at Duke’s Chowder House on Lake Union:

The next day we went to the Experience Music Project, Sci-Fi Museum, and the Space Needle, where we had lunch in the rotating restaurant. Z snapped these pics:

It was a good day, especially when I finally started perking up a bit. That evening we had dinner at Coho, and I had halibut for the first time, with couscous and tomatoes. The fish was so buttery and yummy, and it was the first meal I actually enjoyed in Seattle, so it was very special. Z had the mixed seafood grill, and L had these amazing caveman-sized porkchops with a savory bread pudding. We split creme brulee three ways which was a great ending to a simple but tasty meal.

Seattle just didn’t get any less beautiful. Every day was sunny and awesome. One day we went to Ballard to view the salmon ladder, as it was spawning season. On the way we stopped at Archie McPhee’s, which is a local novelty shop that makes a lot of it’s own merchandise. I got a unicorn vs. narwhal playset I’ve been coveting for years, and a brocoli vs. tofu playset (it doesn’t make sense unless you’re a dork). I also mastered the fez grimace:

Thursday L was really ill so Z and I hung around Bellevue, where our hotel was located. In the evening we walked the half-mile circuit around Bellevue Downtown Park, which was so picturesque that both of us were waxing poetic about moving there and becoming Microsoft nerds who play volleyball.

The walking path curved around the center lawn, and was bordered by a man-made stream, which culminated in a waterfall and a pond. These two dogs were taking advantage of the path-stream and cooled off:

Our last morning we drove to Salish Lodge and had a delicious breakfast. On our way out we stopped at the Snoqualmie Falls observation deck and took in all the beauty.

I miss L and T already and am so grateful for their hospitality and their friendship. I hope to return to Seattle with my normal appetite and zest for adventure. They didn’t really get to see how much fun I can be, since half the trip I was like this:

See you soon, Seattle!

Monkfish, brutti ma buoni

Monkfish is an ugly fish. The Venetians call it Angelfish or Angelshark, which is a corruption of its genus, anglerfish. It’s colloquially called “Poor Man’s lobster” because it is sweet with a dense, firm flesh. I’ve never had a mouthful of lobster tail (shocking, I know!), but monkfish I can now say I’ve had.

Z and I went to Chelsea Market, a wonder-building filled with lovely shops, including The Lobster Place. Inside the place smelled clean and briny and the floors were wet from being regularly washed down. This cleanness, which is such a contrast to the dank stink-holes I find in Indiana, filled me with much excitement- freshly caught fish! The fish, lobsters, mussels, clams and oysters were shining and beautiful; Z was giddy with the potential of stuffing his maw with tasty piscatorial delights. But what particularly caught my eye was a large, translucent, gleaming tail of monkfish. I had never tasted monkfish before, and at $13,50, I felt like it was due time to try it.

Z and I shopped for the rest of our ingredients at Buon Italia and Manhattan Fruit Exchange. Buon Italia is a great resource for the Italian cook, as they have many rare pastas, cheeses and meats, as well as roasted porchetta and hot pasta dishes, imported sundry and chocolates. At every turn I was gasping with delight- they have three lengths of buccatini, they have spaghetti alla chittara, they have 18-hour-old burrata flown in from Puglia, they have 36-month old Vecchio Rosso parmesan, they have speck!! I was almost vibrating from excitement. I turned to Z and said, “We’re not going out tonight, I am making a big feast for us.” We settled on burrata on a spicy arugala salad, monkfish braised in a Sicilian-style sauce then tossed with spaghetti all chittara, and tiramisu with hazelnut chocolate curls.

For the monkfish, I removed the thin outer membrane, cut it into 2″ chunks, and lightly floured and browned it. I then sauteed lots of garlic, pitted and slivered olives, a generous pinch of pepperonchini and anchovy fillets before deglazing with white wine and crushed tomatoes. Finally I returned the monkfish to braise while I boiled the chittara, which took a bit longer than regular pasta as it is dense and rough. Finally, I tossed it all together and served it with basil and vecchio rosso cheese.

We both really enjoyed the meal. The burrata was milky, buttery and so fresh. The monkfish was sweet, delicately flavored and meaty. The chittara pasta was toothsome and the sauce clung voluptously to the hewn edges. And finally we both had a hefty square of tiramisu, which is always delicious.

Les noms

A Tale of Two Pastas

One of the days that Z was in class I took a 3 train to Penn Station to Salumeria Biellese, an old-school shop/restaurant across the street from Madison Square Garden. I was in search of guanciale to make Bucatini alla Amatriciana for dinner. This is one of my favorite Roman dishes, and while I make it at home with linguine and bacon, it’s just not the same. So a hunt for guancica it was.

Amatriciana sauce is a simple one with very few ingredients: onion slices, guanciale, pepperochini, crushed tomato and a liberal topping of medium-aged pecorino. There are variations, such as the medeval amatriciana (which means “from Amatrice”, indicating it’s origins 100 miles east of Lazio, the Roman province) of shepherds, which has no tomato sauce and is thus “white” with a flurry of pecorino and speckled with a heavy hand of black pepper. I believe this was a peasant dish before tomatoes were commonplace in Italian cookery. You see, tomatoes were considered a poison in Europe for centuries, as they are part of the nightshade family (Solanaceae), which includes potatoes and eggplant. The nightshade plants themselves ARE poisonous- atropa belladonna is a perfect example of this- but the fruits and tubers which are now staples to us are not. It wasn’t until the 16th century that Europeans began to cook with nightshades and tomatoes gained their current foothold in Southern Italian food culture. Interestingly, current medical research claims that the alkaloid enzyme solanine in tomatoes may have an inflammatory property for people suffering from arthritis, so maybe our predecessors were onto something.

The star of the show is the guanciale and the pasta. Guanciale is pig jowl, and it is a cured meat but unsmoked. The jowl, or cheek, is a much used muscle, which makes the flavor more complex. It is also 80-90% fat, and since all this fat is unsmoked it remains sweet and savory, something that American bacon just can’t replicate. Even after rendering quite a bit of fat, guanciale retains an unctuous toothsomeness, it is a chewy little morsel for your teeth and tongue to delight in when you’re wrestling with the long, reluctant buccatini, also called perciatelli (“little worms”). The buccatini struggle to free themselves from the constrains of your plate as you wrangle them onto your fork; this is a dish to eat with a loved one who won’t mind you leaning into your meal and splattering your face, your shirt, and every available surface with sauce.

Getting buccatini was a job unto itself. I asked the congenial men behind the counter at S. Belliese if they sold it, or where I could find one. They didn’t have any and could offer no suggestion. I needed to pick up a few things, so I took the E five stops to Spring St. and ambled around, popping into every little gourmet shop I came across but no dice. I took the E back to WTC and headed over to Whole Foods. While they have an entire aisle of pasta, my little worms weren’t one of them and grabbed some emergency linguini. I shuffled home feeling defeated. I texted Z “I can’t find the buccatini for my BUCCATINI!” I just couldn’t bring myself to serve him buccatini all amatricana made with linguini, so I used my Google-Fu and found that Dean and Deluca on Prince Street- the flagship D&D- claimed to carry it. After playing musical phone chairs for fifteen minutes, I got the sundry stock guy on the phone and he said that he had two packets of buccatini left. “You better hurry, Miss, someone’s going to buy them!” I put my pants back on, took the W up to Prince St. and entered Dean and Deluca.

The place was amazing, as you enter you are dazzled by perfect produce and an aisle of jewel-like flowers. On your left is a counter that lines most of the building offering pastries, antipasti and cured meats. The center of the shop is filled with the most obscure dry foodstuffs, including my beloved buccatini (I actually found three varieties after a little digging, but who am I to say that to the stock guy?). I also spied a dusty cellophane-encased box of strozzapreti, or “priest stranglers.” I’ve never seen these in person, but legend goes that the most delicious strozzapreti are rolled on the thighs of virgins. I snatched up the box, my packets of buccatini (I wasn’t walking out of there with just one packet after all that work!) and a few other items I just couldn’t live without, and returned gloriously (albiet a little sweaty from waiting for the train for twenty minutes) to the apartment to cook.

Bucatini all’Amatriciana

2 medium onions, sliced into half moons
1/4 cup water
1/4 lb. guanciale, cut into lardon
1 28 oz. can whole San Marzano tomatoes, crushed by hand
1/2 tsp. pepperochini
1 lb. buccatini
Pecorino
Chiffonade of basil (optional)

Begin by cooking the onions in the water to soften. After the water has evaporated, add the guanciale and saute until some of the fat has rendered and the gunaciale becomes translucent. Add the pepperochini and let it toast in the fat, then add the tomatoes. Rinse the bowl out you crushed the tomatoes in with water and add the water to the pan. Simmer the sauce while the buccatini cooks, about fifteen minutes. Toss together in the saute pan and serve immediately with a generous amount of pecorino (this is obligatory) and basil (this is optional and not traditional).

Strozzapreti with tomato and ricotta

3 garlic cloves, thinly sliced
1 medium onion, diced
Olive oil
1 28 oz. can San Marzano, crushed by hand
Handful basil leaves, chopped and divided
Pepperochini
1 lb. strozza preti
8 oz ricotta, drained
Ground pecorino or parmesan
S&P to taste

Take your garlic, onion, olive oil and tomatoes and make a basic marinara: saute the garlic and onion, add the tomato and pepperochini and rince out the bowl with water and add the water. Add half the basil to cook in the sauce while you boil your pasta. When it is cooked toss with the sauce and add quenelles of ricotta on top, along with ground pecorino or parmesan. Broil until the ricotta is hot and the whole thing is browned and delicious. Top with fresh basil and serve.

A-Maying in New York

I had the most amazing May, spending nearly three weeks with my sweetie. A couple days after finishing my classes for the semester I flew to New York for twelve days, returning to Indiana for a few days of work and then, finding myself without an agenda and making myself and everyone around me miserable without my man, made my most spur-of-the-moment decision and bought a ticket fourteen hours before it was scheduled for departure. I felt like quite the jet-setter, though my initial departure was out of South Bend, IN. No offense to any Notre Dame fans, but South Bend is quite literally the dullest place in America. There’s not even a Starbucks.

First time ’round found me on my own during the day for five days, and I made the most of it with trips wandering aimlessly through Soho and Chelsea, going into shops like Purl and their haberdashery sister a few doors down. I needed to fix the sleeves of a dress and they had the elasticized thread I needed. After a long day of walking in the beautiful cool sunshine without a plan or a thought in my head (other than, “Hey, is that a gelateria?”), I returned to the apartment with an icy cold Toddy-brewed coffee from KAFFE 1668 and watched cartoons and sewed in my underpants. Because that’s how I roll.

The Wednesday that I was in town I got up early with Z and made him breakfast and then wandered uptown to Union Square Greenmarket, on the hunt for a few Spring specialties: ramps, fiddlehead ferns and asparagus (sadly the asparagus was a little past season- and thusly overpriced- when I arrived). People, Union Square did not disappoint! First of all, the market is wonderfully de-crowded of the mass of sweaty humans that usually inhabit the market on Saturdays. Secondly, the prices were unreal, even cheaper than Fort Wayne. Thirdly, HELLO! this is shit I can’t get in Fort Wayne, in fact, I’ve only seen pictures of fiddlehead ferns in magazines! I was wetting my foodie-knickers.

My haul:

– a 1.5 lb. rainbow trout ($9)

– a pint of fiddlehead ferns ($3)

– a bunch of ramps ($4.50)
– a pound of fingerling potatoes ($2)
– a pint of shallots ($1.50)
– a large basket of cippolini onions ($3)
– a pound of baby spinach ($2)
– some Rick’s Picks spicy pickled green beans ($8)
– and a gigantic head of Red Sails lettuce ($2)

I roasted the cippolini onions and potatoes in the oven with olive oil and S&P until they were nice and crispy. I sauteed some lardon then used the drippings to saute the ramps, ferns and spinach with shallot, finishing them white wine, pepperochini and lemon. The fish I stuffed with lemon and seasoned liberally inside and out then dusted with flour and pan fried it about 4-5 mins per side. The result was a barely cooked filet for both of us that was a beautiful coral pink and fragrant with lemon. I served the fish on a bed of the greens, topped with the reserved lardon, with onions and potatoes on the side. It was a delicious, fresh, understated meal that really embraced local, affordable ingredients.

Saucy

I love bolognese. It’s a little bit of an obsession of mine, in all it’s various iterations. I love that it’s soft and voluptuous when cooked for a long time, and that it’s not tomatoey but deeply meaty. I just want to stick my face in the bowl and breathe in the perfume. It’s like a narcotic.

You know you want to sniff me.

I had the grandparents over for dinner tonight, and I tried to entice my grandfather into eating by making this delicious sauce. It worked; he ate a moderate amount (when someone is sick from chemo “moderate” is like a feast!). My gramps is a sick little puppy, I feel so bad for him. My way of cheering him up involves pasta and a chocolate malted pie. Upon his first bite of pie he looked at me and said- I shit you not- “Woooo!” YES.

Bolognese Sauce
Serves 6 as primi

3 TSP olive oil
3 TSP unsalted butter
Sofrito (2 parts onion, 1 part carrot, 1 part celery), diced
1/4 lb. bacon, chopped
3 cloves garlic, minced
1 # ground pork
1 # ground chuck or similar (or veal if you can get your little paws on it)
4 oz. tomato paste
2 cups dry white wine
1 cup whole milk
1 tsp marjoram
1 tsp salt
1/2 tsp black pepper
pepperoncini to taste
OPTIONAL: 28 oz. can whole San Marzano tomatoes, hand crushed
1 lb. rigatoni or any tubular rigata pasta
Chopped parsley or basil to garnish
Parmeggiano to serve

Saute sofrito in olive oil and butter with salt until softened. Fry the bacon until it renders then add the ground meat and break it up with a potato masher or fork as it browns. Add the garlic, saute for 1 minute; add the tomato paste and let caramelize. Add the wine and milk, marjoram and seasonings. Bring to a simmer. If you want a redder sauce, add the crushed tomatoes now. Simmer for at least three hours and toss two-three cups of sauce with one pound of rigatoni (pasta should be dressed but not too wet). There will be plenty of sauce leftover. Serve with chopped herbs and cheese.