What I've Been Doing With Myself Since January

Well, it's been a while since my last blog update, but that doesn't mean I haven't been cooking, baking, and trying new recipes in the intervening months. I thought it might be a good idea to share a bit of what I've been up to before I start making (potentially false) promises about more regular updates in the future.

During the winter I had an amazing meal of braised short ribs with cheddared spinach on a bed of fresh made pappardelle at Caseus, an excellent fromagerie and bistro style restaurant. It inspired me to finally braise some short ribs of my own, and I settled on this recipe from Simply Recipes, which I've made two times. The resulting meat was so amazingly tender and full of flavor from the wine reduction - the beef literally falls of the bone, cuts like butter, and melts in your mouth.

As Easter approached, and I found out I would be hosting my parents and brother for dinner, I decided to try and recreate my entire dinner from Caseus, substituting lamb shanks for short ribs. Of course this meant making my own fresh pasta, something else I had never done. I followed this tutorial, rolling out the pasta sheets by hand since I didn't have a pasta machine. The dough was easy enough to make, but I just couldn't roll the dough out thin enough, and the resulting noodles cooked up thick tough rather than thin and delicate. I bought a pasta machine, and a few days later, made my first batch of delicious fresh pasta (with an assist from my lovely wife since I couldn't quite seem to crank the dough through the machine and hold it coming out the other end at the same time).

The lamb shanks came out beautifully, as did the fresh fettuccine, and I served it all over my own version of cheddared spinach (steamed baby spinach leaves tossed with microplaned sharp cheddar). I must say that while my recreation didn't quite measure up to the original, it was pretty darn close.

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I have a few more things to share...

This is the simplest and best pasta recipe I've come across in quite a while, thanks to one of my favorite blogs, Smitten Kitchen. Apparently, spaghetti with cheese and black pepper is an Italian pantry cooking staple that I'd somehow missed for my entire life. It's also one of the most beloved dishes at Mario Batali's acclaimed New York restaurant, Lupa. I've probably made this five times since I discovered the recipe, and that's only because I can't justify eating a pound of spaghetti and cheese more than once a week. I want this all the time.

Also from Smitten Kitchen comes the excellent "best cocoa brownies" recipe, which I can't endorse highly enough. Really delicious brownies on the chewy end of the brownie spectrum. I suggest trying peanuts instead of walnuts, for an interesting Snickers-esque quality.

A wonderful guacamole with bacon from Rick Bayless is delicious as a topping for quesadilla, spread on a turkey sandwich, or just eaten with chips. Smoky, spicy chipotle peppers blend nicely with the bacon and tomatoes to make a truly excellent guacamole.

And last but not least, tuna burgers with wasabi mayo. This recipe had been in my "to make" pile for a few years, and I finally decided to make them for a some friends. I would say that these burgers were probably the single best thing I've cooked since January. The comment I left on the blog where I got them pretty much says it all...

I’ve had this recipe in my “to make” pile for 3 years! Well, I finally got around to making it last night, and though I was initially hesitant about doing anything with such beautiful tuna as giving it a light sear and eating it extremely rare, I must say this recipe is amazing!

Without hyperbole, I can honestly say this is the best non-beef burger I’ve ever had, and it’s not even close. Great recipe! Thanks!

Using high quality tuna is a must, so this recipe is not a cheapie, but as an every once and a while splurge, is definitely worth the high price tag. I also baked some pita to stuff these into, and highly recommend you do the same (or at least buy some pita).

So that pretty much brings us up to speed...now, I promise to update more regularly from here on out (heh heh heh).

Spaghetti with Tuna, Arugula, and Hot Pepper

Here's a quick pasta dish that can be made with (mostly) pantry ingredients from another great blog, Simply Recipes. Saute some minced garlic and red pepper flakes in olive oil, add in some tuna and mix with the spaghetti and arugula, a little salt and pepper and you're done. Once the water boils, this one comes together in about 10 minutes with very little prep.

I'm not always crazy about arugula because I find its bitterness a bit off putting in certain dishes. I was going to swap in baby spinach, but they did not have any at the grocery store when I went shopping, so I ended up using baby arugula. All was well in the end, as I found the slight bitterness added a nice note to the finished dish. When you buy your tuna in oil, make sure it's packed specifically in olive oil (which is what the recipe calls for), not canola or some other oil. I made this mistake and ended up having to make a stop on my way home for the correct product.

Recipe: Spaghetti with Tuna, Arugula, and Hot Pepper

Christmas Eve Dinner

I was pretty much raised Italian (even though technically I'm only half) and that meant no meat on Friday's during Lent and fish on Christmas Eve. We never got too fancy with it, maybe we'd have lobster or stuffed clams along with a nice linguine and shrimp dish that my mother had perfected over the years. Three years ago I volunteered to host Christmas Eve at my house so my mother would have a little less to do around the holidays. I knew I wanted to keep the fish tradition going, and had heard quite a bit about the "Feast of the Seven Fishes" that some Italian families partake in, so I decided to give it a go.

A little research revealed that nobody is quite sure why seven fishes is the number, and in some parts of Italy, it's actually nine or eleven or thirteen. The common theme though is fish, and one type that I kept reading about was salt cod, or baccala, although the other six types seemed to vary quite a bit. I love fish, especially in sushi form, but for a number of reasons I don't buy it and cook it very often. Consequently, I'm not super confident when it comes to preparing fish. Not wanting to jump in over my head, I started out three years ago with four fish dishes and upped it to five last year. This year I felt I was ready for seven.

I planned out my menu, which would include seven fishes (scallops, cod, tuna, pollock, sole, shrimp, and crab) spread out through an appetizer and five subsequent courses. I planned on starting appetizers at 7:30, serving the first course at 8:00 and another course every 25 minutes after, finishing around 10. I prepped everything that I could in advance (with a substantial amount of help from my father), and made a timeline that ran from 7:30 to 10:00 so I would know when to preheat ovens, start warming soup, boil water for pasta, start a sauce, etc. The dinner was quite a success, and all the dishes were pretty good to great.

Here's how it went...

The appetizer course was scallop and cod ceviche served with sliced avocado and tortilla. I didn't really want to do shrimp cocktail again because I'd already done it the previous two years and I find it to be a little boring. I had seen ceviche many times on various cooking shows, and decided to give it a try. Ceviche is small pieces of fish marinated in lemon or lime juice. The acid in the juice denatures the proteins in the fish, essentially cooking them without heat. I chose this recipe from the Simply Recipes blog and was quite impressed with the results.

The first course was sesame seared tuna, which my mother and brother really love (as well as myself). The preparation is very simple, as the tuna is rubbed with a little oil, salt, and pepper, then pressed into some toasted sesame seeds. It is placed in a hot pan and cooked for about 2 minutes, then flipped and cooked for about 2 more minutes. The resulting fish nicely seared on the outside, and still cool on the inside. Delicious. High quality tuna is a must for this dish, and I used a recipe from America's Test Kitchen.

The second course was a salt cod cake. This year I went non-traditional and actually used salted pollock instead of cod, and there was no noticeable difference in the result. The recipe comes from Mark Bittman's How to Cook Everything, and combines the fish with mashed potato, egg, and bread crumb and formed into little cakes. The recipe has you pan fry the cakes in a oil, butter, or bacon grease, but this year I deep fried them in canola oil which resulted in a much nicer and more uniform golden brown crust. I actually fried these up in the early afternoon, and reheated them just before serving. The real key to this dish was a delicious condiment called remoulade - I used an excellent recipe from Emeril.

The third course was a simple fish stew which was really easy to make and very very good. This is another recipe that came from the Simply Recipes blog. I used cod and sole for the fish. I made the stew in the early afternoon and let it sit all day for the flavors to blend, then reheated it before serving.

The fourth course was penne all vodka with shrimp. This is a slightly modified version of a recipe from the Sopranos Family Cookbook. This is a can't miss recipe. The sauce takes as long to cook as it does to cook the penne, and then you just toss it together and serve. Everybody loves this dish. My slight changes are no prosciutto (wife doesn't do pork), and the addition of a half a pound of shrimp sliced in half lenghtwise (so they curl up), which I add along with the vodka. If you're not much of a cook, but your having somebody over for dinner, make this.

The fifth course was a seafood gratin from Ina Garten (the Barefoot Contessa). The past 2 years I had made a modified version of Jamie Oliver's Prawn and Pea Risotto with Basil and Mint for the final course, last year even perfecting a method of partially pre-cooking the risotto so I wouldn't have to make the whole thing in between courses. This year I wanted to do something different (and less filling) for my final course. While randomly flipping through the channels a few weeks ago, I landed on the Food Network and Ina was already well into this recipe. I saw her pour a creamy, golden sauce over some combination of seafood and top that with sauteed leeks and carrots, then seasoned, buttered panko crumbs. Then she baked the whole thing. I'd found my final course. The recipe was a bit complex, as you need to make the sauce, cook the fish in it, remove the fish, reduce the sauce, sautee the veggies, put it all together and bake it. This recipe is not a cheap one to make either, as the golden color of the sauce comes from saffron, the world's most expensive spice, and aforementioned "combination of seafood" turned out to be shrimp, lobster, and halibut (I used shrimp, cod, and lump crab meat). I was able to put this dish together in the afternoon, and all I had to do was top it with the breadcrumbs and bake it about a half and hour before serving. Despite the effort and cost, the result was worth it - a sumptuously rich combination of flavors and textures, and a delicious final course.

And for dessert a delicous cookie tray put together by my mother, who makes some of the best cookies (pies, cakes, etc...) that I have ever tasted. All in all, a perfect Christmas Eve dinner.

Shrimp and Scallop Risotto

If pressed I would have to say that rice is my starch of choice (why I'd ever be "pressed" about that I'm not really sure). When faced with a choice between pasta, potato, corn, or rice, I will almost invariably choose the rice dish. I even love eating the plain white rice that comes with an order of Chinese take out - nothing else really tastes quite like it. The many varieties of rice make it an extremely versatile ingredient. It can be a side dish or the dish itself. Savory or sweet, rice can pretty much do it all. And then there is risotto.

Risotto to me is the ultimate expression of what rice can be. Rich and luscious without being too heavy, it is an extremely satisfying meal. A simple risotto makes a great side dish for virtually any meat or fish, and a more dressed up risotto makes an amazing meal on its own. The best thing about risotto though is that it can be made, and made excellently, at home. Once the basic technique is mastered, you can turn out better-than-restaurant quality risotto with no problem whatsoever. Risotto is both delicious and impressive, and should be a part of any home cook's repertoire.

There are tons of different risotto recipes out there, but practically all of them are variations on the same theme: saute the aromatics in oil or butter, add the rice to coat, then slowly ladle in a small amount of stock and stir until it is absorbed, repeating until the rice is cooked and attains its full creaminess. A few things are essential here, first the rice should be a medium-grain rice, preferably Arborio, which is easy to find in most grocery stores. Arborio rice has a higher starch content than regular long-grain white rice, which is what gives the risotto its creaminess. Second, the stock must be added slowly, about 1/2 cup at a time and stirred until it is absorbed. This is what allows the creaminess of the starches to develop. Great risotto is not hard to make, but you must have all your ingredients ready to go before you start (good mise en place is always a good idea when cooking!), and you also have to be ready to stand at the stove for about 30 minutes. The effort is definitely worth it.

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Shrimp and Scallop Risotto is a recipe I adapted from Jamie Oliver's Prawn and Pea Risotto with Basil and Mint as a final course for my Christmas Eve dinner the past two years (an extremely filling final course). The first year I cooked the whole thing from start to finish between courses, which was a little slow, so this past year I looked into precooking as an alternative. With a little research I uncovered a technique which I have incorporated into this recipe that allows for partial precooking. If you choose this option and make the risotto ahead of time, you can finish the dish later that day or the next day in about 10 minutes and nobody will be the wiser because it comes out just as good as if you cooked it all in one go. This particular recipe is loaded with shrimp and scallops and has been a huge hit every time I have made it. If you want the fish to take more of a back seat to the rice, cut the amounts of shrimp and scallops in half.

Prep all the ingredients then heat the oil in a large saucepan over medium heat. Bring the stock to a simmer in another pot. When the oil is warm, saute the onions, celery, and garlic until just soft, about 6 minutes.

Add the rice, season with a little salt and freshly ground black pepper, and stir to combine. Raise the heat to medium-high and stir the rice around for 1 minute. Add the wine and keep stirring until it is all absorbed, about 3 minutes.

One of the things you need to know when making risotto is when to add more liquid to the pot. A good rule of thumb is to drag the spoon down the middle of the pot making a divide in the rice and see how long it takes the rice to fill it in. If the rice flows immediately into the space left in the wake of the spoon, it needs more stirring. If you can see the metal bottom of the pan (see the picture below) then its ready for more liquid. Once the wine is absorbed, add about 1/2 cup of hot stock and stir until it is absorbed, again about 3 minutes. As you continue to add stock and stir, you will notice the rice grains beginning to swell, and see the creaminess developing.

After about 20 minutes of adding stock and stirring, taste the rice. It should be soft but have a slight bite, but it should not be hard or feel gritty between your teeth. If this is the case, continue adding stock and stirring for a few more minutes. It usually takes me about 25 to 30 minutes to cook the risotto the way I like it once I begin adding liquid. When the rice is done, stir in the shrimp, scallops, and peas. Simmer for 1 minute (2 if you like your shrimp and scallops a little more well done).

At this point remove the risotto from the heat and gently stir in the butter, basil, and lemon juice. Immediately cover the pot and let it sit for 3 minutes. Jamie Oliver says this stop gives the risotto a chance to achieve its maximum creaminess, and I'm inclined to agree with him. As soon as the time is up, place the risotto into bowls and serve immediately.

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Shrimp & Scallop Risotto
About 30 minutes prep and 40 minutes to cook - Makes 4 dinner-size portions

Ingredients:

• 6 cups of stock (fish, chicken, or veggie)
• 1 tablespoon olive oil
• 1 medium onion, finely chopped (between a mince and a dice)
• 2 cloves garlic, minced
• 4 ribs of celery, finely chopped
• 14 ounces Arborio rice
• salt and pepper to taste
• 1 cup white wine
• 1 cup frozen green peas
• 1 lb peeled, uncooked shrimp cut in half lengthwise
• 1 lb sea scallops cut into quarters
• 12 fresh basil leaves, chopped
• 1 lemon, juiced
• 4 tablespoons butter

1. Heat stock (reserve 1 1/2 cup for finishing risotto if you're precooking)
2. Heat oil in large saucepan over medium heat
3. Add onion, garlic, celery and saute until just soft, about 6 minutes
4. Add the rice, season with salt and pepper (about 1 tsp salt, 1/4 tsp pepper or to taste), raise heat to medium-high, and stir for 1 minute
5. Add the wine and keep stirring until it is all absorbed, about 3 minutes
6. Add about 1/2 cup of hot stock and a bit of salt (1/4 tsp), lower the heat back to medium, and stir until liquid is absorbed...continue for about 20 to 25 minutes until the rice is soft with just the slightest bite to it
   
7. Stir in the shrimp, scallops, and peas and simmer for 1 to 2 minutes
   
8. Remove from heat, gently stir in the butter, basil, and lemon juice
9. Place lid on pan and allow it to sit for 3 minutes
10. Give one final stir, place into bowls and serve immediately

If you're precooking the risotto, stop cooking during step 6 when the rice is not quite done, remove the risotto from the pan, spread it in a thin layer on a cold cookie sheet, cover and refrigerate. When ready to continue cooking, place a cup of stock in a pan and bring to a simmer, add the risotto and stir until the liquid is absorbed (3 to 5 minutes). If the rice is still not quite done, add the rest of the stock and finish cooking. Continue on to step 7.