Bucatini All’amatriciana

Shu joined us for Bucatini All’amatriciana, it is one of our favorite pastas. We use the recipe from the Babo Cookbook by Mario Batali. You can get the recipe on our blog of: November 24, 2014. Click the date to get the recipe. We wanted to make this recipe because we had purchased Benton's Bacon and we thought it would work well in the recipe. It was great - bacon is my favorite seasoning! This is a delicious spicy pasta. Try it!

We started with a Caesar Salad. We use the recipe from The Zuni Cookbook, modified by a trick we learned at Mozza. We put all of the ingredients for the dressing in a blender and let it blend the sauce. It works perfectly. You can get the recipe for the salad on our blog of: July 25, 2009. Click the date to get the recipe.

Chick-Pea Soup and a Cheese Soufflé

We decided to make a winter meal of Soup and a Cheese Soufflé. We tried a new soup for us: Pureed Chick-Pea Soup with Mushrooms from Bugialli’s Italy by Giuliano Bugialli. It is an older cookbook that we have used for years. The soup is quite thick and the Porcini Mushrooms give it loads of depth. Cathy added fresh mushrooms to make it even more earthy.

We made a Cheese Soufflé as a second course. I love the way it puffs up and has such a crisp brown top. This was a Parmesan Cheese flavored soufflé and turned out perfect. It is always anxiety creating when you bake the soufflé you know you exactly followed the recipe but none the less you aren’t sure until you bring it out of the oven that it will puff up. This one did! You can get the recipe from our blog of: Feb. 15. 2013. Click the date to get the recipe.

CREMA  DI   CECI AI  FUNGHI

Pureed Chick-Pea Soup with Mushrooms

Bugialli’s Italy

Giuliano Bugialli

Makes  8   servings

From Umbria we have a crema of chick peas. The term ciema is used for pureed soups and really does not imply the inclusion of heavy cream as an ingredient. A significant difference between French and Italian cooking is that Italians almost never add small amounts of cream to a dish in which it is not featured as one of the primary ingredients, as is true of French cooking. One could almost say that in Italian cooking olive oil takes the place that heavy cream has in French cuisine. Dried porcini mushrooms, soaked, provide the dominant flavor here and it is intensified by adding some of the mushroom soaking water to the soup. Dried porcini have a much more intense flavor than fresh ones, and they are an important ingredient in their own right. And fortunately they are plentiful, especially under the chestnut trees that grow in Tuscany and elsewhere.

2     cups dried chick peas, picked over

3     quarts cold water

1     large carrot, scraped and cut into large pieces

1  medium-size red onion, cleaned and quartered

1     large clove garlic, plus 1 small clove garlic, both peeled

1     bay leaf

¼    cup extra virgin olive oil

2     ounces pancetta or prosciutto, in one piece

Coarse-grained salt

1  ounce dried porcini mushrooms

15  sprigs fresh Italian parsley, leaves only

1  cup strained mushroom soaking water

1  tablespoon tomato paste-(optional), preferably imported Italian, dissolved in the strained mushroom water

Salt and freshly ground black pepper

TO   SERVE:

Fresh Italian parsley leaves

Extra virgin olive oil to drizzle all over

Soak the chick peas in a large bowl of cold water overnight. The next morning, drain and rinse the peas and place them in a medium-size stockpot. Add the cold water, carrot, onion, large garlic clove, and bay leaf, then 2 tablespoons of the olive oil and the pancetta or prosciutto. Set the pot over medium heat and boil the chick peas for at least 50 minutes or until soft. Add coarse salt to taste and cook for another 5 minutes. Discard the bay leaf and pancetta and pass the contents of the pot through a food mill fitted with the disk with the smallest holes into a clean medium-size stock-pot. Set over medium heat and reduce for 10 minutes.

Soak the mushrooms in a bowl of lukewarm water for half an hour. Finely chop the parsley and small garlic clove together on a cutting board. Clean the soaked mushrooms very well, removing all the sand attached to the stems, and coarsely chop them. Remove the sand from the soaking water by pouring it through paper towels or a coffee filter several times. Save 1 cup of this water for this recipe and freeze the remaining water to be used when you prepare a meat sauce and want to enhance its taste.

Place the remaining 2 tablespoons olive oil in a small nonreactive saucepan set over low heat. When the oil is warm, add the garlic mixture and very lightly saute for 2 minutes. Add the mush­rooms and saute for another 2 minutes. Add the cup of mushroom soaking water containing the dissolved tomato paste if desired, season with salt and pepper, and simmer for 15 minutes. Pour the contents of the saucepan into the stockpot, mix very well, and let simmer over low heat for at least IS minutes, stirring every so often with a wooden spoon to prevent the crema from sticking to the bottom of the pot.

Serve hot or at room temperature, sprinkling the parsley leaves and olive oil over each serv­ing. This soup may be prepared up to a day before and reheated at the last moment before serving.

Mushroom Farro and Indian Delights

Sunset Over Silverlake

Cross Cultural Dinner

New Year’s Eve Mushroom Farro

Bouche De Noel

For a long time Cathy had kept a recipe from the New York Times called: New Year’s Eve Mushroom Farro. We finally decided to make it. The porcini mushrooms are very fragrant with a hearty earthen flavor. The liquid that they are reconstituted in is added to the faro making the dish even more assertive. The dish is cooked like a risotto with the farro replacing the rice. It is chewier and more nutty. I definitely liked the texture and taste.

Shumon called us and said he would like to join us. He offered to bring Paratha from his favorite Bengali restaurant. He surprised us with fresh Chicken Tikka. It was delicious.

For dessert we had a Bouche de Noel from McCall’s Meat and Fish.

New Year’s Eve Mushroom Farro

New York Times

4 cups chicken stock

1 ounce dried porcini mushrooms

10 ounces pancetta, diced

2 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil

2 large shallots, minced

1 pound faro

Salt and freshly ground black pepper

1 1/2 cups white wine

2 tablespoons butter

8 ounces button mushrooms, quartered

1 1/2 to 2 cups grated Parmesan.

1. In a medium pot, heat the chicken stock and keep warm. Place the dried mushrooms in a small bowl. Bring about 2 cups of water to a boil and pour just enough over the mushrooms to cover. Let sit for 15 minutes. Drain the mushrooms, reserving the liquid, and roughly chop.

2. In a large, heavy pot, cook the pancetta in 1 tablespoon olive oil over medium-high heat until lightly browned. Reduce the heat to medium, add the shallots and cook until soft. Add the farro and cook for a few minutes to coat. Season with salt and pepper. Increase the heat to medium-high and add the wine, stirring until the liquid evaporates.

3. Meanwhile, in a medium pan, heat the butter and remaining tablespoon oil. Add the button mushrooms and sauté until soft. Toss in the porcini mushrooms and season to taste with salt and pepper.

4. Add the mushroom liquid to the farro, stirring until the liquid evaporates. Stir in the mushrooms. Add the stock, 1 cup at a time, stirring until the farro is al dente, 25 to 30 minutes. Do not overcook; the farro will continue to soften. Stir in the Parmesan, season as needed and serve immediately. Serves 4 to 6.

Adapted from Osteria del Matto in Spoleto, Italy.

Oh the Excess!

Fois Gras on Toast Points with Jam

Kobe Beef # 6

Kobe on the Grill

Kobe with Garlic Mash Potatoes with Truffles

Chocolate Carmel Tart from McCall's

I was brought up to believe “if you are going down, go down big!”. Boy did we on this dinner. Obviously New Year’s diet resolutions have not yet kicked in. We started with the remaining Fois Gras from New Year’s Eve. I was happy to learn yesterday that the ban on the sale of Fois Gras in California has been overturned. We had to order the Fois Gras from D'Artagnan. Now I guess it will be available in stores, not that we eat it that often. This particular Fois was extremely tasty!

When we were at McCall’s Meat and Fish they had some Japanese Kobe Beef. It is extremely marbled, tender, juicy, flavorful and expensive. They Japanese have a grading system for Kobe and this was # 6, I immediately asked is there a #7, I was assured, no, this is as good as it gets. How could we pass up the opportunity? We couldn’t, of course. We asked how best to cook it and they suggested grilling 2 minutes per side, using no oil, the meat is laden with fat it will cook fine without sticking. They were correct. This is definitely a meat eater’s ultimate experience.

We served Garlic Mashed Potatoes with the Kobe Beef. We shaved Fresh Black Truffles on top of the potatoes. The Garlic Mashed Potato recipe is the best mashed potato recipe we have ever made. You can find the recipe on our blog of: November 12, 2012. Click the date to get the recipe.

We topped the dinner off with a Chocolate Carmel Tart from McCall's. Joy and Brenda had given me a delicious bottle of Chateau Boswell wine from Napa that was the perfect accompniment to this very rich and excessive meal! 

A Magnificent Wedge of Parmesan Cheese

Our dear friend Guillermo surprised us by stopping in for a visit. He has a house in Italy and is slowly relocating back to the States. He brought us a magnificent wedge of Parmesan Cheese from Italy. It is quite enormous and we have many plans in mind for it. We started out with a Date and Parmesan Cheese Salad. The cheese is very mild. It is very different from the Parmesan we have been purchasing in the stores here in LA. We were delighted to see Guillermo and appreciative of the cheese!

Polenta and Sausage

On a cold rainy night in Los Angeles there isn’t anything better to have for dinner than Sausage and Polenta. The Polenta is thick and warm and the sausage is cooked then added to a wonderful earthen Porcini Sauce. It is a very hearty dinner. We get fennel sausages from McCall’s Meat and Fish. Many times we have made the recipe Polenta con Salsicce, (Polenta with Sausages) from The Fine Art of Italian Cooking by Giuliano Bugialli. You can get this recipe from our blog of: June 9, 2014. Click the date to get the recipe.

Since we were at McCall’s purchasing the sausage, how could we resist the dessert? Damn they are good!

Chanukah

Latkes Frying

Pork after the Braising

Pork and Latkes

Happy Fressers

Nothing says Chanukah more than Potato Latkes, the traditional Jewish potato pancake. We invited Robert and Darryl to join us. The holiday requires a food fried in oil and this is usual choice. Mine weren’t very good this year, they didn’t hold together the way I like them to.

I made mine in our new large frying pan. Maybe that was the problem, it was All-Clad not cast iron. It could have been that I used too much potato and not enough flour. Maybe the problem was that the heat wasn’t high enough. Could be I didn’t use right ratio of flour to egg. However when I really think about it the problem was that I served the Potato Latkes with Boneless Pork Braised in Milk. Could I have crossed a cultural divide I shouldn’t have?

The Pork Braised in milk, which sounds so un-kosher, is one of our favorite preparations. You can find the recipe on our blog of: Oct. 17, 2011.

Cheese Soufflé

Date Salad

Onion Soup

It puffed up!

Yummy and light

It had been cold in Los Angeles and damp. We decided to cook a warm Parisian dinner. Onion Soup and a Cheese Soufflé. Robert, Darryl and Shumon joined us for dinner. We started with a Date and Parmesan Salad. It is a simple salad, simply dress some lettuce with oil and sweet vinegar like balsamic, add salt and pepper to taste and top with pitted dates and thin strips of cheese. I actually use a vegetable peeler to obtain the strips of cheese. Everyone likes the salad.

We then made Onion Soup Gratinee from The Balthazar Cookbook by McNally, Nasr, Hanson. Once while Cathy and I were walking around in New York City it started to rain. We couldn’t catch a cab in the rain and luckily we saw a restaurant across the street. It was Balthazar. It was just like stepping into a Paris Bistro on a cold winter day. It was warm, and smelled wonderful and was very welcoming. We love the fact that their food and their cookbook allows us to recreate that magical moment.

A Cheese Soufflé is not a hard thing to make if you follow the directions and you have a good mixer. I followed the directions precisely and we have a great Kitchen Aid Mixer. You can get the recipe from our blog of: Feb. 15, 2013. Click the date to get the recipe.

For the dessert we had Cookies from McCall’s Meat and Fish and Ice Cream.

It was a perfect winter meal!

Onion Soup Gratinee

The Balthazar Cookbook

McNally, Nasr, Hanson

This simple and hearty soup, rich with burnished onions and sweet port, is topped with tangy Gruyere. Borrow a custom from Bordeaux and spill a little red wine into the bottom of your nearly empty soup bowl. The tradition, known as chabrot, dictates a quick swirl of wine into the tail-end of the hot broth and then a hearty gulp right from the bowl. Tradition does not dictate doing all of this while undressed, but rumor has it that it makes the soup taste even better. We've been too shy to try it.

SERVES 6

In a 5-quart Dutch oven or other large, heavy pot, heat the olive oil over a medium flame. Add the onions and, stir­ring frequently to prevent burning, saute until they reach a golden color, approxi­mately 30 minutes. Add the butter, garlic, thyme, bay leaf, salt, and pepper and cook for 10 minutes. Raise the heat to high, add the white wine, bring to a boil, and reduce the wine by half, about 3 to 5 minutes. Add the Chicken Stock and simmer for 45 minutes.

Preheat the broiler.

Remove the thyme sprigs and bay leaf, and swirl the port into the finished soup. Ladle the soup into 6 ovenproof bowls. Fit the toasted bread into the bowls on top of the liquid, and sprinkle Ms cup of Gruyere onto each slice. Place under the broiler for 3 minutes, or until the cheese melts to a crispy golden brown. Allow the soup to cool slightly, about 3 minutes, before serving.

Ingredients

¼            cup plus 1 tablespoon olive oil

4            medium yellow onions, peeled, halved through the stem end, and sliced 1/4-inch thick

1            tablespoon unsalted butter

1            garlic clove, peeled and thinly sliced

4            sprigs of thyme

1            bay leaf

1            Tablespoon salt

¼            teaspoon freshly ground white pepper

¾            cup dry white wine

2            quarts Chicken Stock

½            cup port

6            slices of country bread, about 1 inch thick, toasted

2            cups Gruyere cheese, coarsely grated

A Joining of Forces

Radicchio with Croutons, Hardboiled Eggs and Anchovy Vinaigrette    

Posing per Kashmera

Roast Boneless Pork Shoulder    

Thai Fried Rice

Roast Boneless Pork Shoulder with a Tomato Fennel Sauce    

Pecan Tart

I really like joint dinners. We had been to ChiSpacca and had lots of left over Pork from their giant Tomahawk pork chop. We knew we would be making Thai Fried Rice with it.

We saw Robert and invited him and Darryl to join us for dinner. He had already committed to making Roast Boneless Pork Shoulder with a Tomato Fennel Sauce. I suggested we join forces, that he should simply bring it to our house and we would have one big feast!

We started with a Radicchio with Croutons, Hardboiled Eggs and Anchovy Vinaigrette. I love this salad: the bitterness of the radicchio the saltiness of the anchovies are offset by the egg and breadcrumbs. The recipe is from the Zuni Cafe Cookbook. You can find the recipe on our blog of: Jan. 31, 2007. Click the date to get the recipe.

Robert and Darryl served the Roast Boneless Pork Shoulder with a Tomato Fennel Sauce. It was delicious and the sauce really set it off.

We then served the Thai Fried Rice. We have made it many times and it is one of our favorites. We use the recipe for: Fried Rice with Crab from Thai Street Food by David Thompson. We simply substituted the Crab with Pork. You can the recipe from our blog of April 4, 2013. Simply click the date to get the recipe.

For dessert: Pecan Tarts from McCall’s Meat and Fish.

Cinnamon Persimmon Salad

We were at Gelson's and purchased Cinnamon Persimmons. We have never tried that particular specie before. They were very sweet and tender. They made a great salad!

Risotto of the Vigil

Risotto Cooking

McCall's Gateau Basque

We have many cooking traditions and one of ours is making Risotto of the Vigil every December near Christmas. This recipe is from The Splendid Table by Lynne Rossetto Kasper. It is a very hearty risotto and perfect for the cold climate. It is delicious and helps us welcome in the holiday season. You can get the recipe from our blog of: Dec. 22, 2009. Click the date to get the recipe. We purchase all of the meat and cheese at McCall’s Meat and Fish.

While we were at McCall’s we saw a Gateau Basque that Karen had baked and couldn’t resist it. A perfect dessert.

Veal Pasta

Pasta in the pan

Pasta on the Plate

We have all of Patricia Well’s Cookbooks. They are great. Here is a great pasta recipe we have made many times. It is a favorite of mine: Le Cameleon's Braised Veal with Fresh Pasta from Bistro Cooking by Patricia Wells. We purchased veal shanks and cooked them until the meat fell off the bone. We were sure to use all of the marrow which adds extra richness to the sauce. It is a very rich pasta and requires no cheese. It is a real keeper, try it if you haven’t already. You can get the recipe from our blog of: Dec. 19, 2011. Click the date to get the recipe.