Chop and Stir

Papa, papardelle

Cover of Essentials of Classic Italian Cooking

Another good rainy day activity---making pasta from just flour and eggs. I haven't done this in a few years, so we had to reach deep into the cupboards for the Atlas pasta roller. Ahh, still there.

I dusted of Marcella Hazan's Essentials of Classic Italian Cooking, and checked out her thoughts on pasta. 00 flour good, semolina bad. OK. So, I compromised with 2 cups of 00 (that I got for making pizza's), 1/2 cup of finely ground semolina. Plus 5 whole eggs.  That turns out to be the right amount of pasta for about 5 servings. And it was just right because we had only 5 eggs  in the house.

All in all, it was a success. Alex and I had a fun time rolling it out, he being my pasta "machine", cranking the Atlas. The poor boy just about wet his pants when we hit "6", and produced a 5 foot long, see through ribbon of pasta. I'll do a demo of that technique soon, which I vaguely recall from a few grueling Saturdays of making pasta at Acquerello ten years ago.

We made some papardelle, longing for some bolegnese, but settling for a liason of butter and parmigiano regiano. Where else can you find that ethereal, melt-in-your mouth quality--only from homemade pasta.

Alex shows off his technique for bow-tie pasta, that he picked up at Steve & Kate's summer camp.

 

Blistering good

Pizza!

Yum. We've got our pizza game back on, perfect for the rainy season that seems to have just started in San Francisco. I'm using a 75% hydration, sourdough-leavened dough, from the Tartine Bread book, using 2 parts Giusto's Ultimate performer and 1 part Giusto's 00, in place of the "bread flour". And Giusto's whole wheat ultimate performer for the wheat. It's smokin hot good. The crust is like a mini loaf of sourdough bread, so it's something to look forward to, instead of leaving on your plate.

You'll want to get the Tartine Bread book to get the deets on making the dough. After you divide it up into pizza-sized portions, and shape into boules, retard it in your fridge in those ubiquitous 8-oz plastic containers that you get sour cream and fresh mozarella cheese in. The pizzahacker taught me that trick.  That allows you to remove them from the fridge at the right interval before baking. About 1.5 to 2 hours at room temp is about right. You can retard the dough in the fridge for one, even two nights, probably more.

I'm baking at 550 degrees F on a pizza stone in the middle rack of our oven, then turning on the infrared broiler to finish the pizza of with some blistery goodness.

For the cheese, it's a Delfina-inspired mixture of 1/4 cup buttermilk, 1/4 cup cream, 1/4 cup loosely packed shredded parmesan, and 8 oz fresh whole milk mozarella, mostly drained of the water. Cut and smash up the mozarella, mix with the parm, buttermilk and cream, and add salt and pepper. Spoon the mixture onto your shaped dough in splotches-- it will run enough to fill in the empty spaces.

Pictured here are an heirloom tomato and oregano-thyme pizza, and a brocolli rabe pizza (also Deflina inspired).

 

Cheryl's perfect bolognese

4 hours and many secrets. Maybe a bottle of brunello will loosen her up.

Fettucine Alfredo

Last Sunday night, Cheryl was studying and I was beat from doing yard work all day. Too busy and tired to cook once again. Nothing much in fridge. Seems like a take out kind of night.

Cover of Ratatouille [Blu-ray]

Except for the secret weapon that we didn't know we had. Alex to rescue. He wants to make dinner. He whips out his book from the Ratatouille movie, "What's Cooking? A Cookbook for Kids". Fettucine Alfredo.

Same kind of setup last night, a Friday night. Alex to the rescue once again. By now, Cheryl and I are thinking, hmm, maybe we can make this a regular thing. What are all the things that Alex can make, that he also loves: turkey chili, spinach and asparagus risotto, risotto-flavored risotto (that's what we call plain risotto). Let's see how long we can keep this up.

We modified the recipe from the cookbook. Only the forward was written by Thomas Keller, not the actual recipes. We're using a papardelle from Trader Joe's, which has a soft texture and soaks up the sauce well. Instead of just straining the cooked pasta and setting it aside to stick to itself, we undercook it a bit, so that we can finish the cooking in the cream sauce. We're using a fry basket to transfer the pasta to the sauce pan-- that's a maneuver that even  a 9-year old can handle. Much safer than trying to take a giant pot of boiling water and empty it in the sink. There's got to be a law against that.

Also, add some pasta water to your cream sauce, ideally just before you drop your pasta. That will help to smooth out your cream sauce, and also give you more liquid for your pasta to absorb. Otherwise, you'll end up with a creamy sludge pretty quickly.

I do realize that this recipe, with 2 cups of heavy cream, and some extra pork fat in the form of pancetta, sounds like a gut bomb. But it is really good, your kids will love it, and they'll love making it.

Fettucine Alfredo

Arroz con pollo

This is a soul-warming dish for me. Partly because mom often made it while I was growing up. And partly because of that warm feeling in your belly of steaming hot chicken and rice baked in chicken stock.

A good weekday dish, it's just over an hour from first chop to first bite. I've optimized this recipe for time to table: you give your rice a head start on cooking, while you brown your chicken. In the videos below, I forgot to add the saffron--we didn't have any in the house anyway. The recipe in Freebase includes saffron.

We use brown basmati rice because the basmati variety takes on a nice spongey quality as it absorbs liquid. Brown rice to make it more healthy, and you can't really tell it's brown rice once you're done cooking.

I started working on this dish a few months ago after reading a bad recipe for it in a Williams-Sonoma catalog. As you can see from the recipe and the videos, I cook the rice more than the chicken, otherwise you either end up with crunchy rice or overcooked chicken. Add only stock or tomato to your rice mixture instead of water, as many recipes will suggest, since you're just diluting your flavors by adding water

It takes about 20 minutes to get the rice into the oven, then about 20 minutes to season and brown your chicken, then another 30 minutes to cook your chicken with rice.

Arroz

Pollo

Arroz con pollo

Crêpes with sweet ricotta and nectarines

It's hard to tell when its summer in San Francisco. But the summer fruits let us know that the sun is shining somewhere nearby. We were in need of a dessert recently, so Cheryl fired up our crepe pan with a recipe for some dessert crepes with sweet ricotta and warmed nectarines. The acidity, juice, and softness of the nectarines complement the sweetness and texture of the ricotta.

Crepes are simple to make. The bonus is that you're almost certain to have the ingredients already lying around your kitchen. And even better, you can get your kids to mix up the batter for you. Here's Alex showing his Uncle Kevin his whisking technique.

Below that we've got the nectarines simmering a sauce of brown sugar, white sugar, and touch of kosher salt.

 

 
And finally, our finished product, topped with sliced almonds.

Here's a video of Cheryl and the crepe-making technique:

And a basic crepe recipe on Freebase:

Crêpes

Men and Fire

Father's Day. Perfect present--- a grilling basket from Alex and Cheryl. I just had test it out right away, grilling some onions to go with our rib eye's. I generally think that's there's way too many grilling gadgets on the market, motivated naturally by the marketer's search for wallet share. Despite my skepticism, this basket is actually very useful.

I want direct heat and flame on food when I'm grilling, but there's some items that you just can't do well directly on the grill grates. Like the fajita steaks we did a few weeks ago. And the grilled onions today. All of these smaller items end up falling through the grates on the grill. So sad. For the chunks of beef for fajitas, I ended up using some pieces of left over chicken wire. Not terribly attractive, but it worked ok. Today, we are grilling in style:

As for the rib-eyes, quite possibly the best steak we've ever had. Five Dot Ranch steaks from Bi-Rite Market, that are pasture raised on grass, then finished with rice and grain, then dry-aged.  For heat, I used a combination of Lazzarri mesquite, mostly to get the fire started, and then some almond wood. The almond wood makes all the difference. I like to sear the steaks directly over the flame for a few minutes, then flip them for a quick sear, then move them off flame. 

Then, I'll cover the grill, close the top vents to damp the fire a bit, so I'm getting a smoky, slow roast on the meat.  The slower you can cook them, the happier you'll be, as the meat will be more tender and hold more of its juices with a slower roast.

Once the steaks feel a little firm, after about 10 minutes on a covered grill, I put them back over the wood, to flame up, and get a fresh char on them. 

Finally, let the steaks rest, covered or under a heat lamp for 5-10 minutes, to let the juices get absorbed back into the cells of the meat, to give you the juiciest, most tender steak you can get.

Grilled fish tacos

Maybe it's because it's summer or maybe because we just spent a few days in Pacific Grove. Cheryl had the need for some fish tacos. And the need to get some points on the Chop and Stir board! It's been a while. 

The tasty bites at the Fishwife Turtle Bay Tacqueria in Montery were an excellent warm up. Now onto the real deal. Some super fresh mahi mahi from Bryan's, cilantro, lime juice and zest, and chipotle peppers bring this dish to life. Grill the fish rare to medium rare, as it would be a crime to overcook a moist, meaty fish like this. 

She got the recipe from Epicurious, Baja Fish Tacos.  As you might expect, a recipe that yields eight servings was just enough for the three of us. It does yield eight tacos, so you be the judge of how many you'll want. Hint: a lot!

You might want to back off the jalapenos a bit, ours were somewhat fiery. We opted for corn instead of flour tortillas, more taste, and you guessed it, less filling.

 

Look at those grill marks. You go girl! The bit of vegetable oil in the marinate helps to get those grill marks going, and the flames ripping off the grill. 

Yum. Chipotle Pico de Gallo to heat you up, Southwestern Slaw and Sour Cream with lime juice to cool you off. 

Bread for Dough

We are firing up the mixers on overtime tonight, double bake at 5 am tomorrow morning, raising money for New Door Ventures. Phil will be slicing and buttering at Philz 4th and Berry. Come on by, support a super cause, enjoy some sourdough and Philz. Starting at 8:30 am.

"New Door Ventures helps at-risk youth in San Francisco get ready for work and life by providing jobs, job-readiness and supportive community"

 

Buttering it up at Philz!

Focus on one thing, start small, take lots of notes. Talking is nice, action is better.

Words of wisdom from Phil.  Phil did some test marketing of Chop and Stir sourdough at Philz 4th and Berry this morning. That's action. We're hoping to make this a regular thing.