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Butternut Squash Gratin, 2009 Revisited


If a face can launch a thousand ships, what power could a butternut squash have? Turns out one baked butternut squash from Tuscany topped with melted sheep’s milk cheese had the power to change my life.

Flash back to more than a year ago. While on my honeymoon in Italy, my newly minted husband and I stopped for a late lunch in the town of Montepulciano at a tiny restaurant named Osteria Aquachetta.

Among the many Tuscan dishes we sampled, it was a simple side of fresh-from-the-hearth butternut squash with melted sheep’s milk cheese that made us return for dinner several hours later, only so that we could taste the contorni again. The flavors of sweet, caramelized squash united with the oozing, nutty and tart layers of sheep’s milk cheese in a combination of flavor so powerful, I found myself reconsidering everything I knew about food.

Quite simply, when I took that first bite of butternut squash gratin, I saw God. As I relished in the simplicity of the dish—the tender orange meat layered with gooey rounds of sheep’s milk cheese–I could see in perfect detail just how lucky I was to be alive, to be in love, and to be eating as well as I was. In this culinary aha moment, I knew that my time had come to use my craft as a writer to document each and every great meal.

A FOOD WRITER IS BORN

After that fateful meal, I returned home with a new perspective. For the first time I could remember, I began thinking about food as an art form I could master. I put away my novels and began reading cookbooks. I studied the knife skills and cooking techniques of the restaurant’s chefs. I took note of every prep cook’s secrets (like how they de-boned salted anchovies under a steady stream of cold water). I mustered my courage and asked my culinary hero (and boss), Nancy Silverton, for detailed culinary advice about how to perfect this recipe.

After multiple attempts, I settled on a simple recipe with good ingredients that proved to be as close as I could get to the original dish I sampled at the Osteria Aquacheta. I posted the recipe on my newborn blog and moved on.

photo by White on Rice

Since posting that first recipe in November of 2007, a lot has changed. I cook differently. I make meals with confidence. I cook with growing understanding. Cookbooks are my friends but not my sole confidants.

The following recipe is a tiny reminder of all the things I learned in 2008. Where I once was stymied by a lack knowledge, I now have the vocabulary and a growing skill set to know where to look for answers. Though I may still be a padawan learner, I am on the right path.

My updated Butternut Squash recipe has texture and another layer of sweet, nuttiness from fresh pistachios. The crunch of breadcrumbs, the sweetness of the squash, the salted nuttiness of the sheep’s milk cheese and the unifying flavors of the pistachio nuts makes this dish my favorite dish of 2009.

photo by White on Rice

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My 2009 Butternut Squash Gratin

Find the longest necked butternut squash you can find for this recipe. Reserve the seed-holding cavity of the squash for another use.

2 Butternut Squash necks, cut into 3/4 inch rounds
½- lb Pecorino Fresca, cut into ¼ inch thick slices. (Idiazábal, a Spanish hard cheese made from the milk of the long-haired Lacha sheep is a good substitute. Grate, if the cheese is too hard for slicing)
½ cup olive oil, with extra for drizzling
½ cup home made bread crumbs*
1/4 cup chopped pistachio nuts
Maldon sea salt, to taste
Freshly ground pepper, to taste

Preheat oven to 375. Peel the squash, cut into uniform rounds. Toss the butternut squash with oil in a medium sized bowl, making sure to coat the rounds with oil. Arrange the squash rounds in a medium-sized casserole dish, allowing for some layering. Pour the remaining oil over the squash. Bake in the oven for approximately 30 minutes, or until the squash is tender enough for a fork to pierce the meat, but not buttery soft. Remove from oven and set aside to cool. This step can be done in advance.

Once the squash is cool enough to touch, begin layering slices of cheese between the rounds of the butternut in the casserole dish. For individual portions, stack two or three butternut squash rounds on top of each other with layers of cheese in between.

When finished layering, sprinkle the entire dish with bread crumbs, then top with the chopped pistachio nuts. Drizzle lightly with olive oil to moisten the breadcrumbs. Finish with a sprinkling of Maldon sea salt and black pepper. Bake at 375 for another 10-20 minutes, or until the cheese is melted and the squash is soft.

If you desire, turn the oven to broil to caramelize the top of the gratin. Put under the flames for just 2-3 minutes. Serve. Add additional seasoning or red chili flakes if spice is desired.

*Grind left over bread (or toasted fresh bread) with a food processor until a mildly course texture. Add 2 tablespoons of chopped parsley and a hearty pinch of Malden sea salt. Toss. If bread is soft, spread onto a cookie sheet, drizzle with a touch of olive oil and toast in oven (250-300°) until a light, golden brown. Store extra breadcrumbs in an air tight container.

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Prosciutto Wrapped Scallops: A Recipe from Alice Waters

After some seven months of posting recipes and food reviews, I was pleasantly surprised to receive a culinary request from my filmmaker-friend, Jesse:

I have a question to ask you: I’ve started hosting these little soirees at my house lately- a small group of intellectuals and artist types, who come for an evening of frolic, food and film. I pick a film that most of them have not seen or not seen in years, and design a meal around the film’s locale or origin.

We started with “Big Night” and I made timpano. Then we did a Chinese evening with “The Last Emperor” (my 2nd favorite film…”City Lights” is still #1 in my heart). And for my next eve, we are hitting the streets of Paris, with a George Roy Hill film I’ve always loved, “A Little Romance,” starring a young Diane Lane and an old Laurence Olivier.

For the menu, I’m thinking “Paris Bistro”…but am having trouble coming up with ideas for courses. So I thought you might have some suggestions?

How exciting! A request for MY food advice?! Hooray! My food blogging has paid off! Someone values my culinary advice! Sure, Jesse is a good friend…but a food blogging person has to start somewhere. Right?

Being one to respect authority when it’s given to me, I decided to do some serious research. After much cookbook reading, I felt it best to turn to one of our country’s greatest culinary icons: Alice Waters. Since the early 70’s, Waters and her Chez Panisse team have created mouth-watering dishes inspired by the French Bistros she visited as a college student. At Chez Panisse Café, the simple dishes are thoughtfully prepared from fresh, local ingredients that are either foraged from local environs or purchased from nearby farms.

The following dish is an incredible example of how fresh ingredients, when paired well, can create a memorable bistro dish made only from a handful of simple ingredients.

Baked Scallops with Proscuitto and Lemon Relish
Adapted from the Chez Panisse Café cookbook

Ingredients:

1 pound medium-sized fresh sea scallops  Note: the scallops I bought were big enough to serve 2 scallops each (which are about 1/8 lb each). You may choose to cut big scallops in half—thereby creating the visual effect of a “larger portion size”

3 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil

6 – 8 slices of Prosciutto

Handful of young greens (lettuce, cress, rocket or mache)

Few drops of red wine vinegar

Salt and Pepper

½ cup Lemon Relish*

Preheat oven to 475 F.

Remove the tough “foot” from each scallop. Season with salt and freshly ground black pepper.

Heat a cast-iron pan or a heavy, oven proof skillet over medium high heat. Pour in about 2 tablespoons of olive oil or enough to coat the bottom of the pan. When the oil is nearly smoking, add the scallops in one layer. As soon as the scallops begin to sizzle, place the uncovered skillet on the top shelf of the oven.

Check the scallops after five minutes. They should be nicely caramelized and firm to the touch. If the top portion is not yet golden colored, gently flip the scallops with a fish spatula in order to caramelize the other side. Cook for an additional 2-3 minutes, or until caramelized. Remove from oven.

Drape the prosciutto slices over and around the scallops.

Quickly, put the handful of greens in a small mixing bowl and lightly drizzle with a touch of olive oil, red wine vinegar, salt and pepper. Toss by hand. Add individual portions of seasoned greens to each plate and then arrange the prosciutto wrapped scallops on top. Spoon a small amount of Lemon Relish over each serving.

Note: You may want to serve one perfectly wrapped scallop as a delicious first course, or a few as an incredibly satisfying main.

*LEMON RELISH
Adapted from the Chez Panisse Cafe Cookbook

1 large shallot, diced fine

1 tablespoon red wine vinegar (or lemon juice)1 large lemon (if Meyer lemon is available use it!)

1/2 cup extra virgin olive oil

2 tablespoon chopped tarragon

Salt and Pepper to Taste

Put diced shallot in a small bowl. Add vinegar and a pinch of salt. Let macerate for 10 to 15 minutes. Cut lemon into 8 wedges. Remove the seeds and white pith from center of each piece. Cut across the wedge into thin, triangular slivers. Combine the slivered lemon and shallot and add more salt. Stir in the olive oil, parsley, tarragon and some freshly milled pepper. Taste and adjust for seasoning.

Spoon relish on top of prosciutto wrapped scallops.

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Stone Fruit Cobbler

With summer already on its way, it’s time for a bevy of backyard barbeque’s and dinner parties. The minute I read the June Gourmet I thought I found the perfect party-time dessert. Unfortunately, Gourmet’s original recipe for a stone fruit cobbler didn’t dazzle the crowd as promised. However, after a bit of tweaking, I think I’ve come up with a crowd pleasing version that wows guests and makes them want to dive in for more.

MARKET SUGGESTIONS

Nectarines at the Hollywood Farmer’s Market

If you live near a farmer’s market, I suggest buying stone fruits that are in season. In Southern California, you can find nectarines, plums, pluots and peaches in abundance.

Plums at the Hollywood Farmer’s Market

Peaches at the Hollywood Farmer’s Market

For simplicity’s sake, I suggest using only plums and nectarines in this recipe. That way all you have to do is pit and slice and never have to peel off the skin. Otherwise, if you pick peaches or pluots, you’ll need to remove the skin before cooking. Also, choose firm fruits as they are a better choice for baking.

Stone Fruit Cobbler
Adapted from Gourmet magazine
Serves 8 (or a handful of gluttonous people)

For the filling:
1 cup brown sugar (packed)
¼ cup all purpose flour
3 lb mixed stone fruit, pitted and cut into ½ inch thick wedges (8 cups).
1 Tbsp unsalted butter, melted
1 tsp pure vanilla extract
¼ tsp pure almond extract
NOTE: I adjusted the amount of sugar required from the original recipe. Keep in mind that after blending together the filling ingredients, you may want to increase the sugar level if the fruit mixture tastes overtly sour.

For the biscuits:
1 ½ cups all-purpose flour
½ cup cornmeal (not stone-ground)
2 tsp baking powder
½ teaspoon (rounded) salt
2 Tbsp cold unsalted butter, cut into ½ inch pieces
3 cups (plus 1 Tbsp) heavy cream
4 Tbsp demerara sugar

Make filling
Preheat oven to 400 degrees F with the rack in the middle. Butter a 3 quart glass or ceramic baking dish.

Toss together filling ingredients in a large bowl. Spread filling into the baking dish. Bake until just bubbling 15-20 minutes.

Make topping
While the filling bakes, whisk together sifted flour, cornmeal, baking powder and salt. Blend together the dry ingredients with your fingers until the mixture resembles a course meal. Add 1 cup cream and stir until a dough forms.

Turn dough onto a floured surface. Lightly dust the dough with flour. Roll out the dough with a floured rolling pin until it’s ½ inch thick and is 10-inches around in diameter. Cut out dough with a 2-inch cookie cutter (or use the top of a small to medium sized glass). Gather scraps and re-roll once to cut out more biscuits.

Arrange biscuits ½ inch apart over hot filling. Brush tops with remaining Tbsp cream and sprinkle generously with sugar. Bake until topping is golden brown and the fruit is bubbling in the center. About 25-30 minutes. Let cool a few minutes before serving.

Whip the remaining heavy cream until it forms soft peaks. Serve cobbler and finish the individual portions with a generous dollop of whipped cream.

Suggested dessert wine paring:
Brachetto, a semi-sweet sparkling rosé, or my all time favorite: Vin de Bugey, a semi-sweet sparkling rosé from France.

I’ve brought this cobbler to several parties already. It’s an easy recipe that results in a real show stopping dessert!

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Inspirational Dishes


Eating at a great restaurant is inspiring.

If you can get beyond the the daily challenges of the service industry, working at a great restaurant is galvanizing.

While working in a great restaurant: I met and fell in love with my husband. I found some of my best friends. I discovered (and tasted) wines from all over the world. I became a foodie. I learned how to make a miserable guest happy. I unraveled the mystery of cheese making. I gained an acute sense of taste and smell. I sampled a panoply of dishes and made them my own.

This spring time antipasti, is one of them.

This is one of those great restaurant dishes that once I tasted it, I needed to know how to make it. The following is my interpretation of the dish we currently serve at the restaurant.

Peas Mint and (home made) Greek Yogurt Cheese

3 tablespoons (a full palm’s worth) of Greek Yogurt Cheese
(Note: see previous post for the full recipe). To save time, goat or sheep’s milk cheese will do.
1 cup of sweet peas (in the pod), juilienned
1⁄4 cup red onion, diced
Juice of one lemon
3 tablespoons of a good red wine vinegar
1⁄4 cup Extra virgin olive oil
Salt and freshly ground pepper
Maldon sea salt (or a good finishing salt)

*Begin preparation of Greek Yogurt cheese one day before serving with salad!

Toss the julienned peas and onion with the olive oil, lemon juice and vinegar.

Season with salt and pepper to taste. Put on plate and serve with a small round of your home made Greek Yogurt Cheese. Finish with a drizzle of olive oil and pinch of Maldon sea salt.

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Say Cheese


For some people, cheese is just a food. For others, it’s an addictive substance.

Cheese lovers hover at cheese counters and unconsciously paw at the glass that keeps them from aromatic wedges of Parmesan, stinky rounds of French triple creams and pungent British blues. They’re the people that actually eat the cheese samples at Whole Foods. Normal people may go to a cheese shop and ask to speak to the cheesemonger–but cheese addicts go to cheese counter and ask for “the pusher”.

I am one of those people. My name is Brooke and I have a cheese problem.

Confessions of a Cheese Lover

It’s sad how much money I’ve spent on goat, sheep and cow’s milk cheeses. With the ridiculous cost of gas, I’d rather go easy on the environment (and my cheese buying budget) and walk a mile to the store and back, just so I can get a great wedge of cheese. Considering my commitment to the creamy stuff, I recently decided I should learn how to make it. Maybe not a great idea for a cheese lover (addict) like myself to do, but besides being a great learning experience, I could save some serious money while I’m at it.

Maybe making my own cheese a bad idea for someone like me. But after getting my first taste of home made cheese I have to say, how can something so good be bad?

After doing some tentative research on-line that offered me disappointing results, I stumbled upon some chefs making cheese at the restaurant I work at. Low and behold, in my very own place of culinary work, I learned that cheese making didn’t need to be difficult. At all.

Thanks to the kind, smart and talented chefs at my restaurant, they answered all of my questions and tolerated my obsessive observation of the cheese making process so that I could come to you with some great tips and one of the easiest cheese making recipes around! Ladies and gentlemen, I give you Greek yogurt cheese!


Greek Yogurt Cheese
(makes approx. 12 oz. of cheese)
*This cheese would also be great with the addition of lavender or herbs such as thyme, dill or oregano.

Ingredients:

1 regular sized (32 oz.) container of Greek Yogurt
1 lemon (to be zested and then squeezed)
Kosher salt
Cheesecloth (cut into 3-4 18-20” pieces)
Kitchen twine
Tall prep container


Pour the container of Greek yogurt into a medium sized bowl. Mix into the yogurt the zest and juice of one lemon.

Add salt to taste. 2-3 tablespoons should do.

Line a second bowl with the cheesecloth, being careful to leave the sides hanging out over the side.

Ladle the cheese mixture into the cheesecloth-lined bowl. Bring the tops of the cheesecloth together, creating a semi-tight sack or “purse”. You will notice clear liquid dripping from the sack already. The cheese making process has begun! Though this is a very exciting step, be sure not to get too eager to remove moisture from the yogurt and squeeze the purse too tightly. Otherwise you’ll see yogurt oozing out through the cheesecloth, not just liquid. Tie the top of the purse off with kitchen twine.

Wrap the loose portion of the purse (use twine if you need to) to the neck of a wooden kitchen spoon or ladle. Set the spoon across the top of your prep container (or, if your prep container is too shallow—set it between two tall containers and let the moisture fall into a short bowl).

Make sure that the bottom of the cheesecloth purse doesn’t touch the bottom of the container! Keep in refrigerator for at least 24 hours. The cheese will feel firm, like a goat cheese when it is done. Remove from cheesecloth. Serve! The texture of the cheese should be that of a goat or sheeps’ milk cheese. The flavor, however, is incredibly refreshing, zesty (from the citrus) and deliciously creamy. You won’t want to waste one bit of this cheese!

My husband and I vow to make this cheese every month and skip the cheese counter.

Simple serving suggestions: Serve on crackers with Italian flat parsley and thinly sliced lemons.

Or toasted bread with tomato, parsley and prosciutto.

Next up, the dish that inspired home made Greek Yogurt Cheese!

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Beyond "regular"


Picture the scene. Busy restaurant. Tables packed with hungry guests. A guest in jeans and a tee shirt gives the menu a cursory glance. They scan the appetizers for words they know. Their eyes fall on the heading: bruschetta. They see chicken liver bruschetta then salt cod bruschetta and, suddenly, they’re confused.

“Don’t you have a regular bruschetta?” they say in a pained voice.

“I’m sorry,” I try to say with a blank look on my face (I hear this question twenty times a night). “What exactly do you mean by regular?”

Now, I know it’s not fair asking a question I already know the answer to. But I always want to be sure that my guest really is thinking that they want garlic bread with tomato, olive oil and basil—despite the fact that they have three or four other really amazing (and far better) options to choose from on the menu.

Unfortunately, “regular”, in the mind of my restaurant customer, actually means “what I’m used to.”

You see, when it comes to food, there really is no “regular”. There are regional dishes and traditional fare, but every chef in every culture has their own way of doing things. In the case of bruschetta, bruschetta is to the Italians what toasted bread is to us—it’s just a starting point for something else.

According to Italian food expert, chef and cookbook author Marcella Hazan, the word bruschetta comes directly from the Latin verb bruscare, which means to toast (as in a slice of bread). “In bruschetta,” she says, “the most important component, aside from the grilled bread itself, is olive oil.”

So, thinking beyond the “regular bruschetta”, I’ve been experimenting. I’ve been trying to stay within the world of Italian cooking, while thinking of bruschetta as a sort of open faced sandwich or a tiny vehicle to showcase a handful of exciting flavors.

I found some gorgeous Italian dandelions and fresh goat cheese at the farmer’s market this weekend and came up with this simple, and delicious nibble that’s just perfect for a before dinner snack. The dandelion greens are bitter so I recommend using something sweet to balance out the flavor. I used a slightly spicy (as in mustard, spicy) clementine jelly for mine. If you don’t have access to an Italian market then be sure to use a nice honey in its place.

Italian Dandelion, goat cheese and bacon bruschetta with salsa di Clementine
Serves 6–but feel free to adjust recipe to make as many or as few as you want!

1 bunch of washed and dried dandelion greens (cut into 1” pieces)
1 garlic clove (whole)
olive oil (for drizzling)
1 small container of fresh goat cheese (a fresh sheep cheese would also work)
3-5 pieces of bacon (cooked and cut into 1 inch pieces)
1/2 batard of rustic bread or ½ of a well made baguette
Salsa di Clementine (an Italian, spicy clementine jelly) Feel free to use any other moustarda jelly or specialty honey.

Cut the bread into ¼ inch thick slices. Heat up a saute pan over medium high heat, then add bacon. Cook until crisp. Remove bacon with a slotted spoon and place on paper towels to remove excess oil. If bacon hasn’t given off too much grease, throw cleaned and chopped dandelion greens into the same pan and quickly cook until wilted (about 2 minutes). Otherwise, remove the excess grease, leaving about a tablespoon worth of bacon fat behind in the pan for cooking the greens.

Meanwhile, toast the bread. When bread is done, rub the bread with the garlic clove. *this is my favorite part, watching the garlic melt like butter onto the bread. Then, drizzle bread with a tiny amount of olive oil and then spread a small amount of spicy Clementine jelly on top. Note: if using honey, drizzle honey over the greens at the end. Add a teaspoon of goat cheese to each piece of bread, then top with a heaping teaspoon dandelion greens. Top with bacon. Eat immediately.

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Don't fear the egg


The beauty of an egg is its simplicity–simplicity embodied in its elegant shape and intelligent design. Inside the egg, there is a delicate liquid dance of light and dark—a golden orb of yolk suspended in a viscous, protective fluid. Combined, these elements are powerful enough to support a life. In the hands of skilled chef, the egg is the center point of a meal or the central ingredient behind rich sauces or a delicate soufflé.

Up until recently, I feared the egg.

My fear wasn’t based on science, agricultural politics, or some kind of bizarre food phobia. No, my fear was based on the power of one single cooked egg to confirm (or disprove, in my case) my level of skill in the kitchen.

If I can conquer all sorts of culinary challenges, my thought process would go, how is it an EGG can thwart me?

It an embarrassing thing for a food writer to admit, being afraid of cooking eggs. I mean, after years of cooking, brining, roasting, fish gutting and baking, I should have long ago gotten over this fear of an egg-centered breakfast. Granted, I kept my fear in the closet for years after mastering egg poaching, just so I could continue on living like a perfectly normal, food-obsessed woman in the kitchen. And now, after years of quiet observing and coaching (Thanks husband!), I am now happy to report I can now cook scrambled and sunny-side up eggs as well as fluffy omelets without breaking into a sort of culinary panic attack.

But for anyone like me that still may secretly fear they might undo any culinary status they’ve built up with friends and family by making a terrible egg dish, I offer the following fool proof dish that will wow any breakfast guest. This, by the way, also makes a great lunch when the cabinets and fridge are nearly bare. Oh, and feel free to increase the recipe, depending on how many guests you plan to impress!


EGGS AL FORNO
Serves one

One monkey dish (small, 5 to 6” cassarole dish with “ears”)
One egg (or two if you like)
1 piece of bread from a rustic loaf (or baguette), cut to fit the dish
1 handful of a good cheese (fontina, perrano, or any medium bodied cheese), cubed
1 generous sprinkling of freshly grated parmesean (1/3 cup)
a healthy pinch of chopped sweet onion (or green onion, or chives)
a touch of olive oil (1 teaspoon)
salt and pepper

Preheat the oven to piping hot 500 degrees. Put the piece of bread into the dish. Drizzle with a little olive oil. Surround the bread with the cheese cubes and parmesean. Add a healthy pinch of sweet onion around the bread. Crack the egg and lay it on top of the bread. Season with salt and pepper. Grate a tiny bit more parmesan over the egg. Bake on the middle rack of the oven for 7 minutes, or until done.

Be very careful taking the baking dish from the oven! Place a folded cloth napkin on your plate before serving. For bacon lovers, a piece of fried bacon on top would be a perfect way to garnish the dish!

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Taste of Spring: Favas


When I shell peas, any kind of fresh bean in a pod, I am instantly transported back to the early days of my childhood. Pop open a pea pod and that sweet, almost green smell brings me a vivid sensory memory of the old farmhouse we once lived in and the lush vegetable garden my mother lovingly tended by hand. When I sat down in front of my television the other night to peel six pounds of fresh Fava beans (also known as an English “broad bean”), I was immediately transported to my days as a make-believing six year old, sitting cross-legged on the screened-in porch, shelling a bowl of peas.

While a caught up on my Tivo’d recordings, I snapped the tiny green caps off the end of my Fava bean pods and, recalling the same wonder I felt as a child, I zippered open its belly with the pod’s center “string”. Once inside the pod, I was like a child observing nature’s ingenious design. I marveled at the white spongy material that held the tender beans in place and protects them from harm. Curious, I popped a fresh Fava from the shell and put one in my mouth. The flavor made me cringe a little as I discovered that fresh Fava beans are too bitter to be eaten raw. Considering how long it takes to shell a fava bean, it’s a good thing that the beans’ fresh, green, earthy flavors are just perfect for short cooking time.

Many chefs cook young, fresh Favas in the pod while others recommend shelling the beans and cooking them in salted water for salads, side dishes and purees. After an hour of shelling, I decided upon a recipe that was not only extremely easy to prepare but also something uniquely original. In a city filled with fava bean purees and fava bean salads, it was rather refreshing to find a decadent dish such as this.

The following recipe from the Silver Spoon is sure to please the adults at the table, along with curious six year olds with a hankering for shelling fresh peas.

FAVA BEANS IN CREAM
Adapted from the Silver Spoon cookbook

3 pounds Fava beans, shelled
1 cup heavy cream
2 oz Fontina

Cook beans in salted water for 10 minutes. Drain the beans and then tip into a skillet. Add cream and simmer gently for 10 minutes, or until thickened. Stir in fontina and cook until it is just starting to melt.

Serve immediately.

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The taste of Spring: Ramps


In New England, Spring is a colorful and dramatic turning point to a long and blistery tale about the hardships brought on by snow. When Spring arrives in the east, states that spend most of the year draped in snow are suddenly part of delightful show of color. Yellow daffodils and triumphant purple crocuses make a cameo. Green buds, sprouting from tree limbs, steal the scene.

But here in southern California, where temperatures linger in the 70’s for most of the year and flowers bloom year round, the shifting of seasons is so subtle, it takes more than just the eyes to observe the nuanced shift to Spring. Beyond the obvious wardrobe changes of its inhabitants—shoes are shelved for flip flops, shorts replace pants, miniscule dresses take over for floor length skirts—the real signs of spring in southern California can only be tasted.

One of the first flavors of Spring–sweet, pungent and earthy– is offered by the short lived ramp. This leafy, wild green closely related to onions (and lilies!) offers robust flavors akin to garlic and sweet onion, for a brief handful of weeks at the beginning of Spring.

The tear drop-sized bulb of the ramp is sweet while the delicate leafy greens hold intensely pungent flavors of sweet onion and garlic. It’s a perfect vegetable for a fast sautée in olive oil or a brief flash of heat from grill. At the Santa Monica farmer’s market, the “ramp man” suggested pickling the bulbs and grilling the greens on the BBQ.

My good friend Leah of Spicy Salty Sweet described a delicious bruschetta, she once had at a Lower East Side restaurant that had nothing but “prosciutto butter and sautéed ramps”. Anxious to recreate this recipe, I hurried home and prepared this recipe.

Sauteed Ramp bruschetta with prosciutto butter
Serves four

5 slices of proscuitto. (I used just two slices short of a full package of sliced proscuitto from Trader Joes.)
1 teaspoon butter
1/4 pound of ramps (about 12 ramps)
1 small baguette
a splash of olive oil
Maldon sea salt and freshly ground pepper

Delicately wash the ramps. Dry on paper towels. Remove the roots of the ramps from the bulbs. Sautee the ramps in a tiny amount of olive oil for about 2-3 minutes or just until the leaves have wilted. Turn off heat and lightly drizzle with salt and a quick turn of the pepper mill. Leave the ramps in the pan to keep warm while you throw the sliced prosciutto into a food processor with a pat of butter. Blend until you have the consistency of a creamy, pâté-like spread.

Slice, then lightly toast the bread. Spread a thin layer of prosciutto butter on the warm bread and then top with the ramps. Note, you may want to cut the ramps into quarters or bite sized pieces before putting them on the bread, in order to make the bruschetta easier to eat.

Serve immediately.

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Deconstructed Creamsicle Recipe


Getting to know a place eventually requires a trip to the market. Step into a local  market and discover valuable cultural information, right there on the supermarket shelf. City markets filled with ready-made convenience food show a wholly different snapshot of daily life than the mom-and-pop corner store with a deli counter and an aisle of mismatched necessities.

It wasn’t until I started frequenting farmers’ markets that I really started to understand just how different California was from Massachusetts. Back east, vegetables were named simply: potato, lettuce, corn. In Massachusetts I never thought of varietals, hybrids, heirloom, and organics. But at the markets of California, I saw fruits and vegetable I’d never heard of. I experienced produce that tasted more real than anything I’d experienced before.

Suddenly, a tomato wasn’t just a tomato. An orange could be any number of different things.

After scanning cookbooks in search of the perfect ending to a culinary celebration with my friend Leah of Spicy Salty Sweet, I found Suzanne Goin’s recipe for “Creamsicles” and sugar cookies in Sunday Suppers at Lucques. Before thoroughly reading the recipe, it was easy for me to conceptualize the dessert. I would serve sugar cookies with a bowl of vanilla ice cream, topped with freshly squeezed orange juice. It wasn’t until I actually read the recipe that I realized I was about to enter into uncharted citrus territory.

Continue For an Incredible Deconstructed Creamsicle Recipe »

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Soffritto: (Trying to) Learn from a Master–Part II

BACK HOME
I unload my farmer’s market finds and start prepping. I quickly glance at my copy of Soffrito. The recipe for Ragu is about seven pages—including a lovely picture of a finished Ragu and a three page essay on meat sauces. I force myself to skim the dense paragraphs describing the history of meat sauces and stop at the list of ingredients for the Ragu.

1 1/4 lbs of beefsteak (sirloin, rib eye or round steak)
1 pork sausage
2 chicken livers
1 chicken neck
1 large or 2 small red onion, minced
1 carrot, peeled and minced
1 large stalk celery, minced
½ cup extra virgin olive oil
½ cup dry red wine
salt
2 fresh or canned tomatoes, peeled
4 cups water
1 piece of lemon zest, cut into thin strips
2-3 tablespoons of butter for dressing the pasta
1 cup Parmesan cheese for serving

Though the list of ingredients calls for beefsteak, it isn’t until I start reading the actual recipe that I realize I was supposed to ask the butcher to mince the meat for me. Upon further reading, Vitali suggests strongly that the butcher must only put the meat through the mincer once in order to “prevent excessive flaccidity.” I try to imagine myself returning to the meat counter with my sirloin and asking the old man for a shot at the mincer. I made a fool of myself in front of him once today. There is no way I’m going back there.

Luckily, a few sentences later, Vitali says a good home mincing is also an ideal for a ragu, but warns the reader that it is not only time consuming, but requires “a certain skill.” Hoping I have the innate skills needed, I commence mincing.



Based on the size of my dice, I decide I have quite possibly succeeded in making a somewhat proper mince. I begin my soffritto and heed Vitali’s advice to do nothing but observe the cooking process of these key three ingredients.

I marvel at the smells of this holy trinity
and admire the way the heat and oil changes the texture of the vegetables over time.

What was once clearly separate becomes one in velvety texture. It is at this point, when the soffritto gets to the “moment before it burns” I toss in the meat and let it brown.

As I do I read Vitali’s advice with the hunger of a starved pupil.

“Don’t be seduced into forgetting what you are doing and letting browning turn to burning. In this recipe you work at full attention, monitoring all operations…as the browning of both the soffritto and the meat should stretch your attention to the maximum. You will need all your senses, including the olfactory one, to prevent disaster.”

I tell myself Vitali is my greatest teacher yet, and continue on. If anyone can teach an Anglo Saxon how to cook like an old school Italian, it’s Vitali. She describes the browning process as one of making the meat “suffer”. Without browning, she explains, the meat will taste like it was boiled.

Sure. Brown the meat. Got that. Check.

I brown the meat for 15 minutes, waiting for the tell tale “crust” to appear on the meat and on the bottom of the pan. When this begins to happen, I add ½ a cup of wine and let it cook off.

With the wine cooked off, I begin to add my two cans of peeled tomatoes.

After adding the first can I realize I have been using the wrong pan for the job.

I re-read the recipe and discover that Vitali calls for a 10 inch diameter POT, not a 10 inch in diameter PAN. Suddenly, I am forced to move all cooking operations into the right sized container.

***It is this moment here, when things began to go astray, that I should have realized there was something wrong. I should have turned off the heat, stepped away from the stove and re-read Vitali’s 7 page recipe. Had I done that, dear reader, I might have discovered that the recipe called for TWO TOMATOES. Not TWO CANS of peeled tomatoes. It’s embarrassing to admit, but I definitely have problems with paying full attention to the little (and some times big) details. Just ask my husband. He’d be the first one to say with a smile that I am one quick moving person of the Aries persuasion. ***

With my meat and two cans (blush) of peeled tomatoes transferred to a pot, I am ready to add the 4 cups of water to the sauce. I lower the flame to minimum, add salt, pepper and lemon zest and leave it for 2 hours.

At the end of the cooking time (no wonder it took my sauce about an hour more to cook down), I remove the chicken neck and pull the meat off the bone. I toss the bones and return the chicken neck meat to the sauce. Delish! While I cook the pasta, I heat up my oven to 100 degrees so I can warm my pasta dishes.

When the pasta is al dente, drain and save some pasta water for thickening the sauce. Pour a ladleful of sauce into the bottom of the pasta bowl with a dab of butter.

Add a serving of drained pasta in the pasta bowl and add more sauce. Turn the pasta with a fork and spoon so as to blend it and serve immediately with grated Parmesan cheese.

Though the meal was a success (the house smelled like Casalinga a favorite Italian trattoria), I know I sti
ll have much to learn. The ragu would have been a true meat sauce had I followed the directions to a T. What I ended up with was a saucy meat sauce.

I have to admit, this dish as prepared, was amazing. Next time, I shall try it with the requested TWO TOMATOES and see what the difference is!

Posted on

Employee’s New Years

If you work in the food service industry, chances are you work most holidays. Popular holidays like the Fourth of July, Thanksgiving, Christmas, Yom Kippur and in LA, the night of the Academy awards, are practically impossible to not work. So if you’re a traditionalist and insist on getting time off for all the major holidays you can most certainly can kiss your restaurant job good bye. Or you can suck it up, work the holidays, and schedule your life around the restaurant’s required hours of business. And so it goes. That’s just the nature of the food service business.

Most non-industry people see this way of thinking depressing/tradition ruining/frustrating, but I just see it as an opportunity to avoid preconceived notions, required moments of pomp, traffic and crowded shopping. Instead, every year I celebrate holiday MY WAY and on ANY DAY I LIKE.

So while Joe Public is getting messy drunk and spending way too much money on New Years because he feels he has to, Joelyne Server like me makes lots of money I can spend on a less pricey night with a million times less social stresses. Friday or Saturday night on the town with all the rest of the 9 to 5ers? No thanks! I’ll work on the weekends and forgo the line at the door for an amazing meal on the town on a quiet Monday night!

Which brings me to my point. Finally.

Since both my husband and I had to work New Years Eve at our restaurant jobs, we decided to celebrate the beginning of 2008 on first night of the New Year. Though I’m against celebrating big holidays with the masses, I am all about creating a great big traditional meal with friends. So while the rest of LA suffered through their lingering hangovers, husband and I were just gearing up for a night of incredible food and wine with our two wonderful foodie friends, Leah of spicysaltysweet and her boyfriend, Neal.


With the streets clear of drunken idiots and DUI searching cop cars, we were ready to enjoy ourselves.

NEW YEARS NIGHT MENU
Cotechino con lenticchie

With hearts set on making a traditional New Year’s meal, we decided to make Cotechino and Lentils. According to Mario Batali, Cotechino con Lenticchie is the most traditional dish of all Italian New Year’s dishes. The humble dish of pork, it is said, originated in Emiligia-Romana (while others say Modena) with the peasants who made the sausage from left over ends of a newly butchered pigs.

Quick to dive into research, I learned that Pellegrino Artusi, author of Italy’s first popular cooking book in 1891, believed that Cotechino was “not a refined dish” and was fit to be served only to very good friends who wouldn’t mind its rusticity. Undetered, by this information and descriptions of the sausage’s strange “tacky” texture (which comes from the gelatinous matter that is released from the pig skin component of the sausage), Leah and I went in search of Cotechino.

Though Cotechino is sold in two ways: pre-cooked and uncooked, I could only find the pre-cooked variety at local LA gourmet markets. The nice people at Froma on Melrolse sold me Umbrian black lentils and a reasonably priced pre-cooked l lb Cotechino sausage (Under $14). I skipped the $25 cotechino at Joan’s on Third I put my $$ towards a luxury bottle of $40 fresh pressed olive oil (harvested and pressed in October of 2007) from Gianfranco Becchina and a slice of Gorgonzola Torta (A layer “cake” of Gorgonzola and marscapone topped pine nuts).

On New Year’s day I arrived at Leah’s apartment with my ingredients in hand to cook our special meal together. While Leah rolled out her dough on the dining room table,

I started cooking the lentils.

Instead of following a recipe, however, I decided to go on instinct. Here’s what I came up with:

LENTILS

EVOO Olive oil (enough to coat the pan)
1 Onion (finely chopped)
1 Carrot (finely chopped)
A handful of sage
2 cloves of garlic
1 bag of Umbrian lentils (1/2 pound)
Chicken stock (2-3 cups)
1 tbl of tomato paste from a tube
¼ cup red wine vinegar
¼ cup fresh press EVOO
Salt

Chop the onion and carrot finely. Heat a large sautee pan on medium high. When hot, add enough olive oil to coat the pan. Add the finely chopped onion then carrot. Throw in the un-sliced garlic. Sautee down the onion and carrot until they become soft and transformed into cohesive, soft duo of texture. Add the lentils. Sautee for 3 minutes and then begin adding ¼ cups of chicken stock until the pan is filled with liquid. Allow to cook down and continue adding chicken stock and water from the cotechino pot (see below). Cook for 30-60 minutes, depending on the texture. The lentils are done when they are no longer al dente. Finish with vinegar and olive oil. Season to taste.

COTECHINO (pre-cooked prep)

Prick the Cotechino sausage with a toothpick and then drop into a pot of cold water. Bring the water to a boil—approx. 20-30 minutes. The sausage is done when it appears plump and a new shade of pink.

**Save the Cotechino water for adding to the lentils.
Slice the Cotechino and serve on the Umbrian Lentils. Serve with Mostarda di frutta or Salsa Verde (a sort of pesto of olive oil, parsley, garlic, S&P).

Our NEW YEARS MEAL:

Leah’s homemade ravioli (stuffed with Butternut squash, asiago cheese, and walnuts) and for later the Torta di Gorganzola

Cotechino and Lentils, Swiss Chard, Mostarda di fruita

Happy New Year!