My favorite new discovery

 

My coaster turned dipping dish.

What’s your favorite part of a good meal at a fine Italian restaurant? If it’s not the tiramisu, mine may be the seasoned olive oil for dipping those crusty bread slices. And now I’ve discovered how to do that at home.

It should be no surprise that one day I was browsing Central Market’s web site looking for an appetizer. A new guest was coming to the cottage for happy hour, along with a good friend who I know needs carbs on a strict schedule. What to fix that would provide carbs and be a little bit showy, just a tad sophisticated? I came across a jar of dipping spices—you know, the small bottle most spices come in. And right next to it were dipping dishes—small, white, round. Eureka! I’d order that and a sliced baguette.

But when my order was delivered (by grandson Jacob) they had removed the dishes and listed the spices as out of stock—they still show on the site. This was the day before the happy hour, and I was fixated on serving that. I decided to go online for a recipe—found one that looked interesting. And realized that those pretty blue and white coasters I keep on the coffee table would be perfect dipping dishes. It was a hit, and I’ve served it twice more to raves—even had to make a second batch. Who knows? Tiny jars (it goes a long way) may make great Christmas gifts. It does store well and doesn’t necessarily have to be refrigerated.

Dipping spices

(Note that these are all dried flakes of spices; you do not want moisture to get into the mix.)

1 tsp. garlic powder

1 Tbsp. oregano

1 Tbsp. basil

1 Tbsp. parsley

2 tsp. onion powder

2 tsp. freshly cracked black pepper

½ tsp. red pepper flakes

1-1/2 tsp. kosher salt

1 tsp. thyme

½ tsp. rosemary

           Most of us have these spices in our cupboard, refrigerator, or freezer. The great thing about this recipe is that if you’re missing one or two ingredients, no one will ever know. It is what I call a forgiving recipe.

To serve, pour olive oil into a small pitcher. Put a basket of baguette slices on the table, and a small jar of the spices. If you want, you can also offer a small dish of grated Parmesan or Pecorino. If you have tiny serving spoons, like demitasse or espresso spoons, they are perfect for serving. Each guest can experiment to determine their favored spice to oil ratio and whether or not they want cheese (the cheese does tend to thicken the dip.)

Warning: I served this one night recently and ate so much I couldn’t even finish my salad for supper. And no, you don’t have to have an Italian entrée with this.

Another warning: Christian says not to put any unused dip with spices in it down the sink or disposal. Throw them in the trash.

Buon appetito!

*Recipe adapted from rachelcooks.com

The easiest pasta—or is it?

One of the earliest versions of mac and cheese was a thirteenth-century dish known as “de lasanis”—pasta with cheese. Today, Italians call it cacio e pepe—literally cheese and pepper. It has four ingredients—cheese, butter, pepper and pasta. Not even any garlic. You make it in your skillet, so it’s a quick preparation that doesn’t leave you with the kitchen full of dirty dishes some pasta dishes require. Anthony Bourdain once said cacio e pepe “could be the greatest thing in the history of the world.”

So what’s difficult about this? Getting that sauce right so that it’s velvety and smooth and coats every strand of pasta. Get it wrong, and you have pasta floating in cheese clumps in a thin and greasy sauce. It’s happened to me more times than I care to count. It’s a question of getting the pasta water and butter to blend together smoothly.

I’ve read that some chefs say the trick is in the flick of the wrist, learning to toss the pasta in the skillet at just the right angle. Others claim it’s the ingredients—you must use fresh cracked pepper. It’s not just a flavor accent in this dish. It is the flavor. And not any cheese will do—fresh, finely ground pecorino (a sharper Italian cheese than Parmesan). Grated cheese won’t work as well, because the pieces won’t melt and adhere to the pasta as well. Use your microoplane to achieve a texture on the cheese that will blend well.

Every chef makes cacio e pepe differently, and there are plenty of directions on the internet. But here’s a version I’ve had some luck with.

Ingredients

1 lb. fresh linguine or spaghetti

½ c. butter

1 oz. finely ground Pecorino cheese

Freshly ground black pepper to taste

Notes on the ingredients: use a European-style butter. It has been churned longer, sometimes allowed to ferment just a bit, and—this is important—has a higher fat content. I prefer Kerry Gold.

As for linguine, unless  you have the seasoned palate of a trained chef, dried will probably be just fine. If you make your own pasta, more power to you—the dish will be better. But in spite of experiments with one of my sons, I have never mastered making fresh pasta. It’s a lot of work.

I sometimes use spinach linguine for a nice variation in flavor, but I’m sure Italian chefs would recoil in horror.

Directions:

Cook pasta. Some chefs says to cook no more than two servings at a time, so the pasta and sauce have enough space to blend in the skillet. If you follow this, cut this recipe in half.

Melt half the butter in a large, heavy skillet. Use tongs to transfer the pasta to the skillet. Stir to coat.

Add 1 cup pasta water. Add remaining butter. Shake and stir until water reduces and forms a creamy sauce. Remove from heat.

Stir in cheese and pepper.

An added flourish if you’re feeling rich: top it with 2 oz. sliced truffles.

The nice thing about this is that, except for the truffles, you probably have everything on hand. And it sure beats elbow macaroni with powdered or processed cheese for the sauce.

Next week: Green noodles. Somewhat like cacio e pepe but with more ingredients. The vegetarian dish  has a history in my family and has long been a favorite.

Quick pastas for those last-minute suppers

The mail carrier brought me a bountiful gift today: the latest copies of Southern Living and Bon Appetit. Couple those with the Food & Wine already on my desk, and it’s a recipe-reading day for me. Once upon a time, I had a large collection of cookbooks, but many drowned when a deluge broke through the flat roof over one part of the house, and most of the rest were surrendered to the great downsizing. So now I don’t cook so much by the book, but by pages I’ve torn out of various magazines. Problem: my collection of recipes is once again headed toward appalling.

But here are two quick and good pasta ideas that you can make at the last minute. We all have those days—it’s five o’clock, the kids are hungry, and you haven’t started dinner yet. Or you don’t get home from work until 5:30 and you didn’t defrost anything before you went to work. These come right out of your pantry.

Bonus: you shouldn’t end up with a kitchen full of dirty dishes with these dinners.

Truffle linguine

            This always makes me think it’s an easier version of cacio e pepe, which is typically hard to master—you have to get the spin of the wrist just right. I find this easier.

1 lb. linguine – (reserve the pasta water)

½ cup good butter, divided use (I use Kerry Gold for everything these days)

2 oz. good, fresh grated parmesan or pecorino (I like the slightly sharper flavor of pecorino)

1 oz. truffle oil—(Oh, go ahead, splurge a little and keep it on hand)

Melt butter in skillet and set aside, dividing into two portions.

Cook linguine; use tongs to transfer it from saucepan to skillet with half the butter in it. Stir to coat. Add 1 cup pasta water, a bit at a time, and stir until water reduces a bit and forms a creamy sauce (you may not want all the water). Add the rest of the butter and stir.

If you want to approximate cacio e pepe, sprinkle generously with fresh ground black pepper.

Remove from heat and divide into four bowls. Sprinkle generously with cheese and drizzle with truffle oil.

Fast tomato sauce with anchovies

2 Tbsp. olive oil

1 tsp. minced garlic

4-6 anchovy filets with a bit of their oil

1 28 oz. can tomatoes, drained of juice and crushed (I prefer San Marzano)

Salt and pepper to taste

Cooked long pasta

Grated pecorino or Romano cheese

            Heat oil to medium in saucepan and add garlic and anchovies, stirring until anchovies break up. Add tomatoes.

            Bring to a boil and cook about 15 minutes. Sauce should thicken as it cooks—serve with linguine and top with pecorino or Romano cheese.

Buon appetito!

Eggplant Parmesan

Years ago I used to fix Eggplant Parmesan (or Parmigiana if you prefer)—it was one of my favorite “company” dinners. Instead of layers of sliced eggplant and meat sauce, I used halved eggplant shells as dishes and piled the filling in. But then along came four children who must have consulted about the matter, because they uniformly rejected eggplant. I admit that it’s one of those touchy things—you either like it or you hate it, and I have known people who were allergic to it. So I took it off my list, lost the recipe in my great downsizing, and occasionally thought about it wistfully.

When I joined Imperfect Produce, I impulsively ordered an eggplant, mostly because they looked so sleek and pretty. Then serendipity hit—I found a recipe online by Michael Chiarello (a chef whose work I admire). He called it “Mom’s stuffed eggplant,” but it was the same principle as what I’d done years ago. A friend was coming for dinner who I was pretty sure would eat eggplant, so I fixed it. But of course I had to fiddle with the recipe a little. Here’s what I did:

Ingredients:

1 eggplant

Olive oil

½ lb. ground beef

Salt and pepper

1small onion, diced

2 cloves garlic

1 Tbsp. dried basil

1 cup grated Pecorino (I like it better than Parmesan)

¼ c. seasoned bread crumbs

1 egg

Note: Chiarello’s recipe called for a red pepper but bell peppers are among the few things I never eat, never cook with. Feel free to add it in with the garlic and onion

Directions:

            Remember slicing eggplant and frying it, then draining it—the whole things was a mess, and eggplant soaks up oil more than anything. This is easier—slice the eggplant in half and hollow out the shells, leaving enough meat inside so that each half will hold its shape. Dice the meat you’ve removed and fry in olive oil—don’t use any more oil than you have to. Set aside to cool.

Brown onion and garlic in a bit of olive. When the onion is limp and slightly browned, add the hamburger and brown, breaking it up into small chunks. Stir frequently so the onion doesn’t burn.

In a separate bowl, combine 2/3 cup cheese, bread crumbs, basil, and egg. Mix thoroughly and then stir in the eggplant and the meat-and-onion mixture.  Pile this mixture into the carved-out eggplant shells (you will have leftover meat mixture, so just put it in a small oven-proof dish to bake along with the eggplant halves).

Top generously with more pecorino. Bake at 350^o for 30 minutes. Watch carefully that the top of the eggplant halves aren’t too close to the heating element in your toaster oven—the cheese topping will burn. In fact, that cheese is sort of your guide as to when the dish is read—watch for the cheese to not only melt but darken a bit.

Enjoy with crusty baguette slices and a green salad. My guest loved it, and said, “You notice I never say, ‘Let’s go out to eat.’ Your dinners are too good.” The kind of praise I love to hear.