7 posts tagged “pasta”
He's not the only one who's been making some changes. I have been tinkering over the past year with the recipe and I think I have finally found the perfect version. The first modification I made was keeping some of the squash in chunks instead of pureeing it all in with the cheese sauce. I liked the orangeness and richness that the pureed squash lent to the cheese sauce, but I missed the contrast of sweet and salty that you get from carmelized chunks of squash, which was lost in the blended texture. So I settled on a version with half the squash pureed and half roasted in chunks.
Also I experimented with reducing the amount of butter and in the end, I chopped off an entire tablespoon. (OK not that impressive, but considering the original recipe I adapted it from had an entire stick of butter, I think getting it down to half that is pretty good.) Since I reduced the butter, I also had to adjust the amount of flour, milk, and broth in the sauce. But I chose not to reduce the cheese amount at all, because, cmon it's mac and CHEESE.
Over time I decided I liked a little more kick in the sauce so I increased the amount of cayenne by a 1/4 teaspoon.
The final change I made was to bake the casserole in the oven rather than crisping the top under the broiler. I kept on getting little burnt fringes when I did the broiler, and I find that the oven browning is more reliable plus it gives the noodles time to absorb more of the cheesy flavor. It takes a little longer but it's worth it in my opinion. If you roast the squash the day before it's still a pretty quick dish to make.
Ingredients:
1 butternut squash
1 pound elbow macaroni
4 Tablespoons butter
1/3 cup flour
1 1/2 cups milk
1 teaspoon dry mustard
2 teaspoons salt
1/4 teaspoon ground nutmeg plus more for sprinkling
heaping 1/4 teaspoon of cayenne pepper
1 pound sharp cheddar cheese, shredded (about 4 cups)
1 cup chicken or vegetable stock
1 slice of bread - OR - 1 cup panko crumbs
Instructions:
Preheat oven to 400 degrees F.
Slice squash in half and discard seeds . Peel one of the squash halves and cut into 1-inch cubes. Spray the half and the chunks with cooking oil and sprinkle with a little nutmeg. Place the squash half, cut side down, on a baking sheet and scatter the squash chunks next to it in a single layer. Roast for 45 minutes until very tender.
While squash is cooking, make breadcrumbs by putting 1 slice of bread in the food processor and pulsing until it creates fine breadcrumbs. Set aside.
After removing squash from the oven, reduce the heat to 350.
When squash has cooled, set aside the chunks of squash. Peel skin off the squash half and discard. Puree squash half in food processor until it has a smooth consistency. Set aside.
Bring a large pot of water to boil. Salt generously. Boil pasta to al dente - about 6 minutes. Drain pasta and set aside.
Melt 3 Tablespoons butter (set aside 1 Tablespoon) and slowly stir in the 1/3 cup of flour to form a paste.
Off heat, SLOWLY whisk in 1 1/2 cups of milk. Return to medium low heat until sauce fully blends and thickens.
Add pureed squash to the thickened sauce.
Add mustard, salt, nutmeg, and cayenne pepper. Stir in 3 1/2 cups of cheese (set aside 1/2 cup for the topping) and 1 cup of stock, alternating cheese and stock by cupfuls. Taste sauce, adjust seasonings if needed.
Combine pasta, squash chunks, and cheese sauce in a large casserole dish, toss to coat evenly.
Melt the remaining Tablespoon of butter and blend with remaining 1/2 cup of cheese and the breadcrumbs to form topping. Sprinkle mixture over the macaroni.
Place macaroni uncovered in a 350 degree oven until cheese sauce is bubbling and breadcrumb topping is lightly browned, about 20 minutes.
Serves 8, leftovers freeze well if you're so inclined. Reheat frozen portions in a 350 oven for 20-30 minutes or just nuke it.
I finally got my hands on some Meyer lemons. I've been hearing about these things for years. Brought to the United States from China at the turn of the century, these sweet little lemons were used mostly as ornamental plants until they were popularized by California chefs in the 70s and 80s pursuing a cuisine of locally grown organic foods. Nowadays cookbook chefs are constantly dropping them into recipes all casually, as if we all live in California and can just go pick some off the bush in our back yard.
Even though Meyer lemons are certainly not locally grown here in Illinois you can still find them once in a while, usually during the lemon season which is from December to April. Thought to be a cross between regular lemons and tangerines, they are rounder and more orangey yellow than conventional lemons. Their flavor is sweeter than regular lemons and their skin is soft and has a wonderful orange-lemony fragrance.
So when I finally found some during my weekly grocery shop, I grabbed half a dozen. Now I could finally make all those lemon-snobby cookbook recipes I'd been bypassing! I decided to start with a main course, meyer lemon pasta. I actually had two different recipes for a meyer lemon pasta (one from the Living spa cuisine article and one from Cooking for Mr. Latte). I decided to keep the common elements - spaghetti, meyer lemons, arugula - and just add in which ever of the other ingredients suited me. The result was a light, delicious pasta, which was pretty easy to make (once I got the lemons) and as a bonus, it's pretty healthy to boot!
Spaghetti with Meyer Lemon-Pistachio Pesto
Ingredients:
1 pound whole grain spaghetti (I use Barilla - the yellow box)
2 meyer lemons (the recipe will still be good with regular lemons, just use one lemon instead of two)
1 cup grated parmesan cheese
3/4 cup roasted pistachio nuts (buy the kind that are already shelled)
1 large shallot, minced
1 Tablespoon olive oil
1/2 cup creme fraiche or sour cream
3 handfuls arugula, roughly chopped
salt and pepper to taste
Instructions:
Put on a pot of salted water to boil.
Zest the lemons into a large bowl and add the grated parmesan.
Cut the lemons into six wedges each and remove seeds. Discard peels.
Pulse pistachio nuts in food processor until well chopped. Add peeled, seeded lemon wedges and pulse to combine.
When water boils, put in pasta and cook until al dente (about 10 minutes or as package directions indicate).
While the pasta is cooking, heat one tablespoon of olive oil in a small pan and saute shallots over medium heat until fully softened. Add cooked shallots to pistachio-lemon mixture.
When pasta is done, drain, reserving 1 cup of cooking water. Toss cooked pasta in bowl with lemon zest and parmesan. Add pesto, mix thoroughly until all strands are coated. If the dressed pasta is too sticky, add some of the cooking water until it has a nice slippery texture. Fold in creme fraiche. Finally, add the chopped arugula, and mix until it is wilted and evenly distributed throughout the pasta. Salt and pepper to taste.
Serve with a fresh grating of parmesan on top.
Serves 4
My friend Betsy invited me to a new kind of party this weekend: a potato potluck. Inspired by the deliciousness of Hanukkah latkes, her friend Kendra had decided to throw a party honoring the humble potato with any treatment her guests could devise. I decided to make another attempt at my most recent potato venture, sweet potato gnocchi.
Enlightened by my pasta-shaping experience making the cavatelli, I tried a variation on this method with the gnocchi. I cut the gnocchi smaller this time, about twice the size of the 1/4" cavatelli pieces, and I used the same roll-across-palm-until-outer-lip-folds-over method but this time with a dessert fork rather than my finger tip. The finished gnocchi did not look like the perfectly symmetrical ridged cylinders in the cookbook photos, but more like a baby's fist, the outer lip resembling a big thumb clenched tight beneath the fork-lined fingers.
I froze the gnocchi and took them in a ziploc to boil at the party, along with a tupperware full of the rosemary gorgonzola sauce I had learned to make at Jorie's. The party was a revalation - it was like a potato episode of Iron Chef. There were potato dishes of every color and creed. Roasted garlic potatoes. Two kinds of mashed potatoes. Sweet potato hash browns. Vegan potato and mushroom gratin. Latkes. Pierogies. Potato chips. And for dessert, Betsy's Coconut and Pecan Sweet Potato Souffle! I boiled my gnocchi in some salted water and served them up in a big bowl next to the sauce. Sitting in that bowl, they got a little soggy over the course of the party, but my culinary schooled friend Zev, who doesn't mince words when it comes to food (or anything really), said he was impressed so I consider the dish a success!
After stuffing ourselves for 2 hours, Betsy and I left the party in a carboloaded stupor. If only I had a marathon to run or something, those calories could have gone to a good use! Instead I went home and got ready for dinner.
Sweet Potato Gnocchi
adapted from Bon Appetit magazine, via epicurious.com
Ingredients:
2 pounds sweet potatoes (about 2 large potatoes)
12 ounces ricotta cheese
1 cup finely grated Parmesan cheese (about 3 ounces)
1 tablespoon brown sugar
2 teaspoons salt
1/2 teaspoon nutmeg
2 3/4 cups all purpose flour plus more for dusting
Instructions:
Drain ricotta cheese in a fine mesh sieve about 2 hours
Line large baking sheet with parchment paper.
Wash and dry sweet potatoes, pierce each several times with a fork. Place them on a plate and microwave on high until tender, about 15 minutes, turning the potatoes every five minutes. Cut in half and cool.
Scrape sweet potato flesh into medium bowl and mash; transfer 3 cups to large bowl.
Add ricotta cheese; blend well. Add Parmesan cheese, brown sugar, salt, and nutmeg; mash to blend. Mix in flour, about 1/2 cup at a time, until soft dough forms.
Turn dough out onto floured surface; divide into 12 equal pieces. Rolling between palms and floured work surface, form one piece into a 20-inch-long rope (about 1/2" in diameter), sprinkling with flour as needed if sticky. Cut the rope into 1/2" pieces.
To shape the gnocchi, with well-floured palms, roll each piece into a small ball. Place the ball on the left side of your left palm. With a small fork in your right hand, roll the gnocchi across your hand applying a medium amount of pressure. As it crosses your palm, the outside lip of the dumpling will roll over and touch the fork. Gently pull the fork out of the dumpling and set it on the baking sheet to rest. If the fork sticks when you are pulling it away from the dough, it's time to scrape the dried dough and flour residue off the fork. You will need to clean the fork about every six gnocchi or so.
When you have finished shaping all the gnocchi from the first rope, roll out the second piece of dough and continue working. Do not roll out all the dough at once or the pieces will get a crust on the outside before you have a chance to shape them and this makes things more difficult.
You will need at least 2 baking sheets to hold all the gnocchi. You can freeze one baking sheet's worth while you're filling the next one and then store the frozen gnocchi in a ziploc or tupperware and reuse the baking sheet.
When you are ready to serve, drop the gnocchi in small handfuls into a pot of boiling, salted water. When they float to the top, scoop them out with a slotted spoon and set to rest in a SINGLE LAYER in a large colander. Serve with Rosemary Gorgonzola Cream Sauce or another sauce of your choosing.
Serves 6 as a main course, 10 as a first course, or 20 as one of sixteen potato dishes at a carbo-loading potluck.
Rosemary Gorgonzola Cream Sauce
Ingredients:
1 cup heavy cream
10 oz. crumbled gorgonzola
2 large sprigs fresh rosemary
Instructions:
Wrap rosemary in a piece of cheesecloth and tie the ends together.
In a heavy-bottomed saucepan, combine cream and rosemary bundle. Bring cream to simmer.
Add in the gorgonzola and whisk until melted.
Remove the rosemary bundle and drizzle sauce over gnocchi.
Makes about 2 1/2 cups of sauce, more than enough for the gnocchi recipe. You can also make the sauce ahead of time and refrigerate it. (Microwave to reheat.) The leftover sauce tastes great on a roast beef sandwich or mixed into mashed potatoes.
I decided to try another handmade pasta this weekend. Since I don't have a pasta machine or a rolling pin I was pretty limited in what I could make. I settled on cavatelli, a fingertip-sized, hollow pasta shape perfect for holding a meaty sauce, and you only need a bowl and your hands to make it!
The dough was actually fairly easy to make. Mix together some flour, an egg, some ricotta cheese and a little salt and let it rest for half an hour. Then I rolled it into thin ropes and cut the ropes into little beads about 1/4" square. So far so good.
The next part of the recipe was what stymied me. I have discovered that these pasta-shaping techniques are best learned by direct observation, like from your Italian grandmother. If you don't have an Italian grandmother, next best would be watching some friendly chef make them on TV. Trying to figure it out by reading someone's brief, vague and subjective description of the process is hardly even possible. But this time I was determined. Even though it was completely impossible for me to follow the directions in the recipe: "Using the inside of a cheese grater,
roll each pellet against the grater with the tip
of your finger. This creates a macaroni shaped like
a hollow football with a bumpy exterior from the
grater's indentations." Um... not only did this sound unlikely, but I couldn't find my GD small hole cheese grater. All I had was a microplaner (the best! for hard cheese) and a large hole cheddar-style grater. And then to add insult to injury, the recipe went on to say: "It
takes a little practice and a little patience but
my Aunt Mary taught all of us to do this by the
time we were 5 years old. I'm sure you'll get the
hang of it -- or find a five year old!" Yeah, thanks. I decided to try and make a conventional (non-bumpy) cavatelli shape. After much, MUCH trial and error, I devised the process detailed below:
Handmade Cavatelli
Ingredients:
2 cups flour
2 eggs
1 cup ricotta cheese, drained for a couple hours in a fine mesh sieve.
1/2 teaspoon salt
Instructions:
Mix
the flour, egg, ricotta and salt. Gradually add
more flour until you have a fairly stiff dough.
Knead the dough on a floured board until it is smooth and no longer sticky. Let it rest for 30 minutes, covered with a bowl.
Divide
the dough into eight small balls.
Roll the first ball into a thin rope (about 1/4" in diameter).
Cut the rope into 1/4" pellets and dust them lightly
with flour.
Repeat with the next ball of dough. (Do not roll out the next ball of dough until the previous one has been completely formed into cavatelli, otherwise the pellets will get a dry crust and be more difficult to shape smoothly.)
Place the finished cavatelli in a single layer on a lightly floured baking sheet.
Allow the pasta to dry for 2 hours. (While you're waiting for it to dry, you have just the right amount of time to make Mario Batali's Bolognese sauce!) You may also freeze them at this point.
To cook, bring 4 quarts of salted water to boil and drop in the cavatelli
a few at a time. Boil for approximately 6 minutes, drain and serve.
Makes 4 servings of pasta. The Bolognese sauce recipe I linked to above makes about 8 cups so there's lots extra to freeze and use later.
Did you know I'm responsible for an internet sensation? Well, I am. (If something that became very popular on a private internet message board can qualify as a sensation, that is.)
After you go through with planning a wedding you are left with this surplus of project energy and no project to work on. Some turn to scrapbooking. Some take up sewing or antiqueing. Some buy a house or have a baby. Me, I channelled my nesting instinct into the kitchen.
Apparently I'm not the only one, because the Cooking forum is one of the most popular ones on that non-wedding message board. Among the dozens of discussions on cooking, there are threads about cookbooks, kitchen equipment, holiday menus, party food, crockpot cooking, packing your lunch, two virtual cooking workshops, and my favorite, "What's for Dinner." On What's for Dinner, people just write about what they're planning on making for dinner, and share recipes. It's a great inspiration for those of us who tend to fall back on a few old favorites, especially on hurried week nights. It's also where I started an internet sensation.
It
all started with a quest for healthier macaroni and cheese. I had
somehow come across the idea of adding butternut squash to mac and
cheese in order to cut fat and up the fiber and vitamins of this homey
favorite. I couldn't remember where I had seen the recipe, so I tried
googling it and came across this great foodie blog, my madeleine.
Well, the recipe she detailed was far from healthy, with a whopping 10 tablespoons of butter and a pound of cheese. But it did have extra vitamins and fiber, right? At any rate I'm a sucker for the salty/sweet combo, and butternut squash and cheddar cheese fit that bill perfectly. I gave the recipe a try, and it was without a doubt the best, yummiest mac and cheese I had tasted in my life. The cheese sauce is the CHEESIEST ever. The roasted squash is caramely and nutty and sweet. The topping is nice and crispy and golden without being dried out or leathery. And it has a nice, dense texture that holds together well when you serve it.
Butternut Squash Mac and Cheese
Ingredients
- 1 butternut squash
- 1 pound elbow macaroni - I use Barilla whole-grain macaroni (the yellow box)
- 5 Tablespoons butter
- 1/2 cup flour
- 2 cups milk
- 1 Tablespoon Dijon mustard
- 2 teaspoons salt
- 1/4 teaspoon freshly grated nutmeg
- 1/8 teaspoon of cayenne pepper
- 1 pound shredded medium sharp cheddar (about 4 cups)
- 1 3/4 cups chicken or vegetable stock
- 1 slice of bread (I use rye bread because that's what we usually have around, but any kind will do.)
Instructions
Preheat oven to 400 degrees F.
Slice squash in half and discard seeds. Place, cut side down, on a baking sheet and roast for 1 hour until very tender.
While squash is cooking, make breadcrumbs by putting 1 slice of bread in the food processor and pulsing until it creates fine breadcrumbs. Set aside.
When squash has cooled, peel skin off and discard. Puree squash in food processor until it has a smooth consistency. Set aside.
Bring a large pot of water to boil. Salt generously. Boil pasta to al dente - about 6 minutes. Drain pasta and set aside.
Melt 4 Tablespoons butter (set aside 1 Tablespoon) and slowly stir in 1/2 c flour to form a paste.
Off heat, SLOWLY whisk in 2 cups of milk. Return to medium low heat until sauce fully blends and thickens.
Add pureed squash to the thickened sauce.
Add mustard, salt, nutmeg, and cayenne pepper. Stir in 3 cups of cheese (set aside 1 cup for the topping) and 1 3/4 cups of stock, alternating cheese and stock by cupfuls. Taste sauce, adjust seasonings if needed.
Combine pasta, squash and cheese sauce in a large bowl, toss to coat evenly. Transfer mixture to an oven-safe dish.
Melt the remaining Tablespoon of butter and blend with remaining cup of cheese and the breadcrumbs to form topping. Sprinkle mixture over the macaroni.
Place macaroni under the broiler until topping is nicely browned - about 2-4 minutes. Let stand 10 minutes before serving.
I used this recipe from the Brooklyn restaurant, Al di La. These were way easier to shape than the gnocchi, although at first I thought it was going to be harder.
After I drained the ricotta and squeezed the heck out of the chard until it was as dry as boiled leaves can possibly get, and mixed them together with the eggs, flour and seasonings, it was still a totally sticky mess. The recipe instructed me to "shape into 1 ounce balls, about 1 tablespoon each." I was like "Oh-Kaaaaaayyyyy...." and basically dumped a bunch of tablespoon-size sticky globs onto my floured cutting board. Malfatti indeed, I thought.
Then the next step read, "Put a teaspoon of flour into a narrow wineglass. Drop in a ball and swirl until it forms an oval." I used a tiny cordial glass inherited from my friend Juliet after our brief stint as roommates (until she was whisked off to California suddenly by the love of her life and left me with a bunch of mismatched dishes and stemware). And what do you know, it worked! After 5 seconds of swirling, the sticky globs were transformed into smooth little eggs with a powdery coating of flour. I'm told these are a bit rounder than the malfatti they serve at Al di La, but I thought they were adorable. Before I knew it, I had 42 little chard balls sitting on my baking sheet. I froze half for later and went to work on my sauce while I boiled the rest.
The sauce was just browned butter and sage (couldn't be easier - you just cook some butter until it's brown, throw in some fresh sage and cook for 30 seconds more). I finished them off with a sprinkle of grated parmesan. They tasted terrific - airy and light but still rich and yummy. A scrumptious first course, followed by roasted chicken and salad.
Last Saturday we went to visit Jorie and her husband Mike. Last year we visited them on the first week of NFL playoffs and the boys spent 48 hours in front of the TV. Jon had such a blissful time (in spite of the last 3 hours, where the Bears fell to Carolina in their first post season appearance in four years) that he decreed it was now a family tradition for us to go to Springfield to watch the playoffs.
Our visit happened to coincide with Jorie's parents' (my Aunt Wendy and Uncle Bob) visit to Springfield to celebrate their 33rd wedding anniversary. Since they hadn't made any reservations, Jorie and I decided to treat them to a fancy six-course Italian meal. We came up with this menu:
sparkling cranberry mocktails
dates stuffed with toasted almonds
toasted italian bread with truffled pate de foie gras
salad of beets and baby greens in a white balsamic vinaigrette
sweet potato gnocchi with rosemary gorgonzola cream sauce
stuffed chicken breasts with mixed mushrooms and shallots
espresso
vanilla ice cream with raspberry sauce and fresh blackberries
We started out with the gnocchi. We were inspired by a dish at Phlair, a now-defunct Chicago restaurant that Jorie and I used to frequent back in our Bucktown days - sweet potato gnocchi in a gorgonzola cream sauce with walnuts and raisins. It was divine but there was only one problem: Jorie's husband is a known raisin-hater. So we decided to 86 the raisins and swap out the walnuts for a rosemary infusion suggested by her Williams-Sonoma pasta cookbook.
Recipe looked simple enough. Bake some potatoes (we used half sweet potatoes, half white potatoes). Mash the potatoes - still easy (even though it turned out Jorie of all people did not own a potato masher or ricer - but forks worked fine). Combine with a couple of beaten eggs and some flour. Check. Next step - take a tennis ball-sized piece of dough and roll it into a rope 3/4" in diameter. Cut the rope into 2cm segments. Check, check.
Then we got to the difficult part. The part of the recipe I never can master. "Roll the gnocchi along the tines of a fork to indent." First of all I could not get them to roll. The best I could manage was to slide them along the fork. But that didn't do much in the way of indentation. Then I tried sliding them with a little more pressure. But that just resulted in a smooshed blob with fork prints in it. We finally settled on a technique of smooshing the gnocchi with the fork tines and then pinching it back into shape. You know, the old Smoosh and Pinch method. Two Jewish girls' take on Italian cuisine. (Though Italian grandmas are known for doing their share of smooshing and pinching too, so maybe we weren't that far off!)
And then... THEN... the most brilliant moment of our day: we stacked all our gnocchi in a tupperware container and set it aside until we were ready to cook the pasta.
That's right, we piled a bunch of small, arduously shaped pieces of mooshy dough in a plastic container, snapped a lid on top, and let the whole thing sit out on the warm counter for the next couple of hours.
We went about preparing the chicken, the salad, the hors d'oeuvres. Bob and Wendy arrived and everyone was happily snacking on the starters and drinking their fizzy cranberries. The chicken was baking, the gorgonzola was melting in the cream, the water reached it's boiling peak, and I opened the tupperware to put in the gnocchi to boil... and guess what?
You'll never believe it.
The warm, soft gnocchi, all piled together, had coalesced back into one big ball of dough! GASP!!
Thank goodness we had perfected our smoosh and pinch technique earlier. We rolled out those tennis balls into rope and in ten minutes had another batch of slightly misshapen dumplings ready to go. In the end, covered in creamy rosemary gorgonzola sauce and served on Jorie's fancy place settings, our twice-rolled gnocchi didn't look too bad at all! And they tasted delish - tender and fluffy, and the combination of sweet potato and gorgonzola and rosemary was sublime. A dish that truly had "phlair."
