Archive for the 'Italian' Category

Wild Mushroom Risotto

Published on October 27, 2011 in Grains + Rice, Italian and Side Dishes. 0 Comments Tags: , , , , , , , .


Now that I’ve left you in suspense for a couple days, I’m back to tell you what I did with that giant thing. Well, seeing as how it was, you know, GIANT, I did a few things.

The first thing I did was dissect that sucker. It was so pristine, I only needed to wipe a few spots of dirt off with a wet paper towel. Gorgeous. Then I cut off all the stems, chopped them up and made a nice mushroom stock. Very quick — put a couple tablespoons of olive oil in a heavy-bottomed pan on medium heat. Chop up an onion, a couple carrots and celery (if you have it, I didn’t). Cook that in the olive oil for a few minutes. Add the mushrooms, some fresh or dried thyme, whatever herbs you feel like (sage is good and I tossed in some fennel seeds for fun) and cook that up for a few minutes. Add about 8 cups of water, a pinch of salt, a few peppercorns and a couple bay leaves, bring to a boil and then simmer for a couple hours. Drain well through a sieve, pushing down on the veggies to make sure you get all the liquid out. Discard the cooked veggies (or give them to your dog; he will be one happy hound).

The next thing I made was a quick sauté with butter and shallots with a sprinkle of basil (I would’ve preferred thyme or sage, but didn’t have any fresh). Served on homemade honey wheat bread toasted and rubbed with olive oil and garlic, it was a perfect appetizer for our lazy breakfast-for-dinner supper. So so good and the simple preparation really enhanced the gorgeous, earthy flavor of the mushroom.

The next night I finally did what I’d been planning since I procured that delicious specimen. Mushroom risotto. First off, mushrooms in anything are fantastic. Second, butter helps — always. Add creamy, velvety risotto to the mix, along with a generous helping of tangy Parmesan stirred in at the end, and I’m pretty much done and dusted. And very very happy. Contrary to what you might think, risotto is not hard to make, but it does take some time and preparation. This is a dish that shouldn’t (can’t, really) be rushed, but rather approached as a happy little journey in the kitchen. Put on some music (this is always a favorite), pour yourself some white wine (you’ll have to open a bottle anyway for the recipe) and ladle and stir, and ladle and stir, and prepare yourself for something really spectacularly good.

NOTES:
Don’t be too concerned about heading out into the woods to forage your mushrooms — Whole Foods or your local farmers market will do very nicely for you with their selection. Or if you’re in NYC, head over to the New Amsterdam Market on Sunday by the South Street Seaport and get someone to do the foraging for you. Shitake, cremini, porcinis, even portabello will all taste delish. Just don’t get those white button ones (or eek! Remember canned mushrooms? Can you even get those anymore? The horror. The horror.). Here’s some info if you do want to try your hand at foraging for these beauties!

I used my fresh mushroom stock (along with some supplemental mushroom stock from the store), but you can also use an ounce of dried morels or porcinis soaked in boiling water for 30 minutes to make about 2 cups of the cooking liquid. It brings a really nice mushroom flavor to the dish, but it’s not absolutely essential. If you do go this route, make sure to strain the liquid very well (through a coffee filter or paper towel), so you don’t get any gritty stuff in your risotto.

Wild Mushroom Risotto

6 cups mushroom stock, preferably homemade
4 tablespoons/1/2 stick butter
2 shallots, minced
3 cups (or about 2/3 pound) fresh Hen-of-the-Woods mushrooms
1 tablespoon fresh thyme or sage, finely chopped
1 1/2 cups Arborio rice
1/2 cup dry white wine
1 teaspoon sea salt
1/2 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
2/3 cup freshly grated Parmesan cheese, plus extra for serving
Herb garnish (optional; fried sage leaves would also be really nice)

Clean your mushrooms gently and discard any stems (or make your own stock). I chopped my mushroom into approximately 1/2″ sized chunks.

In a small saucepan, heat the mushroom stock and bring to a simmer.

In a heavy-bottomed pot dutch-oven over medium heat, melt the butter and sauté shallots for 5 minutes. Add mushrooms and herbs and sauté for another 5 minutes. Add the rice and stir to coat the grains with butter. Add the wine and cook for 2 minutes.

Add 2 full ladles of the mushroom stock to the pan along with the salt and pepper. Stir and simmer over low heat until the stock is almost absorbed (about 5 minutes). Continue to add the stock mixture, 2 ladles at a time, stirring every few minutes. Each time, cook until there’s a bit of liquid left (but not completely absorbed into the rice), then add more of the stock mixture. Keep going until you use up all your stock or until the rice is cooked (I like it al dente). It’s okay if there’s a bit of liquid still not absorbed. Take off the heat and stir in the Parmesan cheese. Serve hot in shallow bowls with extra cheese.

Zucchini Linguine

Published on September 9, 2011 in Italian and pasta. 0 Comments Tags: , , , , , , .

Don’t you just love it when you randomly start making something, and it turns into something mindblowingly delicious? Something that you could eat every day and never get sick of? Something that you can’t stop raving about to your perplexed but grateful husband while simultaneously shoving it in your mouth?

Well, this is that something.

It all started when I was cruising food blogs and found a bunch of intriguing posts centered around raw zucchini cut into the shape of spaghetti. Now you all know how I love zucchini (don’t you?). And as it’s in season, there’s a lot of it to love. But I wasn’t feeling the raw angle and I felt like it needed a bit more oomph (as my mother would say) or substance, so I decided to combine it with actual spaghetti. Totally meta. And yet not too heavy because it ended up being half zucchini spaghetti and half real spaghetti.

And then the plot (and dish) thickened. I had some lovely roasted heirloom tomatoes lying around and decided to toss those in.

And then (yes there’s more), I was thinking about a recipe from Gwyneth Paltrow’s cookbook (stop rolling your eyes, I didn’t actually purchase it, just saw a recipe on some website; but I have looked at it and there’s some good, if not groundbreaking, stuff in there, so don’t hate, people) where you bread and fry zucchini slices and thought that sounded nice, but too much of a pain to execute. So I came up with the idea of a cooked butter-parmesan-panko gremolata-type topping (translation: fancy breadcrumbs). That turned out to be a very good idea, to the point that I now want crunchy cheesy lemony breadcrumbs on pretty much everything.

The bottom line is that the result of my meandering, puttering day of cooking and fiddling is a damn good dish that I will be making again and again. And you should too.

Zucchini Linguine

2 medium zucchini, julienned lengthwise on a mandoline (or spiral slicer)
1 tablespoon olive oil
2 garlic cloves (preferably roasted), chopped
1 cup roasted cherry tomatoes (optional)
1-2 tablespoons half & half
Juice of 1/2 a lemon
Black pepper
Salt
3/4 lb. spaghetti
1/4-1/2 cup pasta water, reserved

Topping:
1-2 tablespoons butter
1/2 cup panko breadcrumbs
1/3 cup Parmesan cheese, freshly grated, plus more for garnish
Zest of half a lemon
2 handfuls (about 20 good-sized leaves) of basil, chiffonaded and separated

Put a large pot of water on to boil. Cook the spaghetti til al dente and reserve 1/2 cup of the pasta water (before draining!).

In a nonstick sauté pan, melt butter over medium heat. Add the breadcrumbs and cheese, stirring to combine. Keep stirring continuously and cook until breadcrumbs start to brown. Turn off the heat and stir in the lemon zest and 1/2 the basil. Check for seasoning.

Heat olive oil over medium-high heat in a large sauté pan. Add garlic and zucchini, cooking until just softened, but still holding its shape, about 3 minutes. Add the half & half and let it thicken a bit. Turn the heat down to medium-low and stir in tomatoes (if using) and lemon juice; season to taste with salt and pepper (chili flakes would also be nice).

Add the pasta to the zucchini pan and cook for a couple minutes, adding a bit of the pasta water to loosen things up a bit. Transfer the zucchini pasta mixture to a serving dish and garnish with the breadcrumb topping. Season with more salt and pepper, the remaining basil and more Parmesan.

Pizza

Published on September 7, 2011 in Breads + Muffins, Italian and Main Courses. 2 Comments Tags: , , , , , , , , .

Pizza is the one thing I’ve been willing to turn the oven on for this summer (ok, that’s not entirely true; there was this and this and this). But you have to turn it up really high, like 450-500ºF. So it needs to be worth it. And pizza is one of the few things that is worth it.

It’s the ultimate in flexible cooking. In the instance of the pizza above, I had some leftover pesto, so that went on with the tomato sauce, cheese and arugula (make sure you put the arugula on right at the end and cook just until wilted and really pile it on — it shrinks up a lot). If you don’t have any tomato sauce, you can toss on olive oil or tomatoes (roasted or not). Avocado is so good on pizza; try it, please. My guacamole pizza is so easy: olive oil, garlic, tomatoes and avocado, finished with cilantro and lime zest. Figs, nuts, dried fruit…really, the possibilities are endless. Olives are sort of essential in my opinion. And pretty much any kind of cheese is good on pizza; don’t just stick with the usual suspects.

Having said all that, don’t overload your pizza with too many ingredients because that makes it harder to cook the crust properly (not to mention transferring the uncooked pizza into the oven). Think 3-5 ingredients. That way you can really taste them. Of course, if you make enough dough, everyone can top their pizza however they like.

Nowadays, making pizza doesn’t even require that you make the dough, although it’s super-easy*. You can buy pre-made dough pretty inexpensively (whole wheat, regular, even herbed) at both Whole Foods and Trader Joe’s, which can make the pizza-making process much more of a spontaneous event. Just make sure you let the dough sit out for at least an hour before you starting rolling/stretching; cold dough is not terribly cooperative.

Pizza Dough (bread machine version)

Makes 2 12″ pizzas

3/4 cup cold water
2 tablespoons olive oil
1 teaspoon salt
2-1/2 cups bread flour (you can substitute up to half with whole wheat flour)
1-1/2 teaspoons active dry yeast
1 tablespoon fresh herbs like basil, thyme or oregano (or 1 teaspoon dried), optional

Put the ingredients in the bread machine mixing bowl in the order they appear above, making a small well in the flour before adding the yeast. Set on the dough cycle and go read a book, run or whatever for 1.5 hours.  There will be pizza dough waiting for you when you get back.

Pizza Dough (by hand)

Replace the cold water with lukewarm. Stir dry ingredients, including yeast, in a large bowl. Add water and olive oil and combine into what will hopefully resemble a ball. Once it’s pretty well together, dump it out on a floured work surface (I just use my *clean* counter) and, with floured hands, knead for a few minutes to get that gluten to start working its magic. Lightly oil the bowl you mixed the ingredients in, drop in the dough and roll it around to coat all surfaces in oil. Cover with plastic wrap and let it rise for a couple hours or until double in size.

Once that’s happened, punch down your giant blob of dough to release the air and scoop it back out onto the work surface. Divide into two equal pieces (or four if you want to make “personal” pizzas), shape each into balls and let it sit for another 20-30 minutes under the plastic wrap.

Rolling Out the Dough

Roll out the dough on a lightly floured surface using a rolling pin. I don’t worry too much about making a perfect circle; I just like to get the surface very even and thin. I actually like the sort of random shapes I end up with sometimes. If you’re feeling daring, oil up your hands and stretch the dough by hand into a disk and then use your fist to gently coax the dough out into a larger, thinner circle.

Cooking your Pizza

Now for *how* to cook it. I love my pizza stone, but I’ve also had good results with a basic sheet pan. To prevent sticking, I use cornmeal on the stone and oil with the pan. If you’re using a stone, preheat the oven with the stone on the floor of the oven (use the bottom rack if you have an electric stove) for 30 minutes or so (don’t heat the sheet pan if that’s what you’re using). I first cook the pizza on the bottom of the oven, then move it up to the top rack and broil for the last couple minutes (you want to make sure the bottom is well-cooked before you do this). I find it much easier to precook the crust for about 6 minutes (make sure to poke the dough all over with a fork or you’ll end up with some very puffy bread) and then add the toppings, but if you have a pizza peel (which would be handy, but makes me nervous), you can compose the pizza on that and then slide it onto the stone/pan.

Oven temperatures vary widely, so while 450ºF works well for me, you may need to crank your oven up to 500ºF. Just experiment. The best way to tell when the pizza is done is to just keep an eye on it, and lift up a corner of the bottom to check how it’s browning.

* This or this is for when you’re planning ahead. Sounds great, but I have yet to try it.

Basil Pesto

Published on August 8, 2011 in Italian and pasta. 6 Comments Tags: , , , , , .


I have somehow managed to not kill my basil plant — it is, in fact, thriving on our windowsill with a view of Ground Zero — and like the Freedom Tower, it’s growing like gangbusters, so it’s time to make some pesto!* As this is one of our easy summer go-to dinners, it’s ridiculous that I’ve waited til now to post this, but there it is and here you go.

Modeled after the one and only Patricia Wells’ recipe from this fabulous tome, this pesto is made with basil. If you’re feeling frisky, however, you can substitute another herb in there, like cilantro or parsley or even sweet pea shoots (which I realize is not an herb). And if you don’t have pine nuts (as I often don’t), leave them out or use walnuts or pecans or some other meaty nut.

This go-round I happened to have a delicious balsamic-infused Parmesan they were sampling at Whole Foods the other day (and which G and I took liberal advantage of). Called Sartori Bellavitano and sporting a lovely balsamic-induced edible brown rind, it’s the kind of cheese you crumble off little chunks of here and there and happily nibble away on, only to realize with a sinking kind of horror, that you’ve just ingested half a pound of said cheese. I somehow managed to restrain myself sufficiently to grate enough for the pesto, which gave the dish a nice little kick. I wouldn’t mind some lemon zest sprinkled over this either, just for fun. And if you feel guilty that there are no veggies in there (am I the only one who does this to myself? Please say no), toss in some halved cherry tomatoes or even a cup of broccoli florets or a scoop of cannellini beans (which would combat the protein scarcity guilt complex, a completely different — but equally debilitating — illness). Or just have a salad and some nice bread with whatever’s left of that Parmesan.

Basil Pesto

1 lb./1/2 kilo dried pasta
2 fresh garlic cloves, roughly chopped
2 cups loosely packed basil leaves
Sea salt to taste
1/3-1/2 cup extra virgin olive oil
1/2 cup Parmesan, freshly grated, plus another 1/4 cup for sprinkling
1/4 cup pine nuts

Put a large pot of water on to boil and cook your pasta of choice, reserving a scoop of the pasta water. Toast pine nuts in a dry skillet over medium heat, flipping regularly so they cook evenly. Don’t leave the kitchen while you’re doing this.

Put the garlic, basil and sea salt in the bowl of a food processor (this recipe fits perfectly in this) and whiz into a paste. Add the olive oil slowly through the feed tube thing while running the motor, scraping down the sides if necessary. Pour the pesto into a large serving bowl, stir in the cheese and a few tablespoons of the pasta water. Taste for seasoning. Stir in the pasta and serve with lots of black pepper and more Parmesan.

* Full disclosure: the basil in the photo is not from my plant and, honestly, if I had used the leaves from my plant, I’d have no plant left.

Dinner

Published on May 25, 2011 in Italian, Salads and Side Dishes. 0 Comments Tags: , , , , .

When it’s 82º in New York City.