Pasta e Fagioli

A couple of weeks ago, we had the Food Network on TV and Rachel Ray was making Pasta e Fagioli. She used several ingredients that we had in our cupboard, like canned cannellini beans, tomato, and pasta so I put it on my list of future meals. A couple weeks later, when the temperature dipped into the single digits, I thought it would be a good time to make a hearty soup and I remembered the Pasta e Fagioli. So I pulled out a few cookbooks to find a recipe that looked good to me. As usual, "The Joy of Cooking" was one of the first. Then I grabbed Barbara Kafka's "Soup - A Way of Life" and then "Trattoria" by Patricia Wells. Rachel Ray had mentioned that when she first made the soup on her show, she didn't include tomato and a bunch of people wrote in and told her that she should have. On her latest show, she did include tomato and she was pretty sure that she would get as many letters as before but now saying that she shouldn't include tomato. As Patricia Wells says, "There are about as many versions of pasta and bean soup as there are cooks".  I decided to go with Patricia's version, which did not include tomato.

My rule of thumb for most recipes is to follow it exactly the first time and then vary it as you wish after you have experienced the original, as intended by the author. Patricia Wells did not have any canned ingredients in her version so I prepared a grocery list for Tyler. We didn't have dried cranberry beans, tiny dried Italian pasta, like ditalini or stars, or pancetta (ours is a mostly vegetarian household), so those went on the list. I carefully specified two ounces of pancetta, exactly enough for the recipe so we didn't have an excuse to use meat again. I also added a bunch of celery with leaves to the list, which I usually buy except for last week when celery hearts were on sale. The soup recipe called for a rib of celery including the leaves as well as a bouquet garni that included celery leaves, so we'll just have to eat more celery in the next week or two.

Last night was the night. I am still recovering from hand surgery so Tyler pretty much made the whole thing. (I, of course, directed the show). Our local Coop did not have dried cranberry beans so we used dried cannellini beans, which we soaked in boiling water for about an hour before "we" started cooking. Tyler sautéed the pancetta with onion, carrots, garlic and celery (with leaves) in olive oil, and then added the beans, water and bouquet garni. After simmering for about a half hour, he added some salt and then simmered for another hour. He then removed a couple of ladles of the beans and veggies putting them in a bowl on the side. Using our awesome immersion blender, he pureed the remaining soup until almost creamy. He added the beans and veggies back in and brought the soup to a simmer and adding the pasta to cook for another ten minutes. (The Coop didn't have ditalini so "we" broke vermicelli into small pieces as a substitute, as Patricia Wells suggested). 

Time to eat! The soup was served in bowls with a drizzle of extra-virgin olive oil on the top. It was just wonderful! We are looking forward to trying other versions of the soup at some of our local Italian restaurants, but it couldn't possibly be better than this!

By the way, Tyler didn't get two ounces of pancetta (surprise!). He got about five ounces. Whatever will we do with the rest? Check in again to find out...

One more footnote: play Dean Martin's version of "That's Amore" while you cook.

Sunday Brunch: Julie Sahni's Indian Eggs

Our Sunday Brunch this week was a new twist on a favorite of ours: Indian Eggs or to be more specific Scrambled Eggs with Cumin and Fragrant Herbs from our new Indian cookbook Classic Indian Cooking by Julie Sahni. 

Meg has made variations on a Madhur Jaffrey egg recipe for some time and it is one of my favorites - especially when she goes heavy on the chilies! This recipe, though simpler, was a real wake up call. It is basically chunks of onions lightly sautéed with scrambled eggs and then topped with freshly roasted/crushed cumin, fresh cilantro and fresh chopped (seeded) chilies. 

Meg and I have become huge fans of gently toasting whole cumin seeds and then crushing them in a mortar and pestle to release their fragrant goodness. The crushed toasted cumin in this recipe, combined with the fragrant cilantro and burning chilies, transforms this simple crunchy egg dish into something really special. We will definitely be making this again and again! Thanks Julie!

Tuna Melt

I'm feeling a bit under the weather this weekend, probably the result of a long work week and a bit of sinus trouble. As lunchtime rolled around today, I was feeling a bit whiny and begged Meg to make me one of my favorite lunchtime comfort foods: a good tuna melt.

In response I got a masterpiece.

Her "tuna melt" included chopped onion, diced hot chilies, roasted red pepper with smoked swiss cheese and tuna on a single slice of Jewish Rye. There may have been some other kind of magic in there because it was an entirely new thing. The smoked swiss and the roasted red pepper combined with the tuna to create a very savory experience. The diced chili asserted itself, adding flavor and heat, without overwhelming. The result was like nothing I've ever had before. 

Followed up with a few gingersnaps, it was just what the doctor ordered!

Latkes

I have great memories of potato pancakes that my Dad would make when we were kids. Most of the time, my Mom did the cooking but there were a few items that were my Dad's specialty. Western omelettes, breakfast pancakes and potato pancakes quickly jump to mind. I had been meaning to make latkes before Christmas but just didn't get to it. We still had all the ingredients, including sour cream and homemade applesauce, so we went for it.

We followed a Mark Bittman recipe which started by grating about 2 lbs. of starchy potatoes and one medium onion. We usually hand grate them, as my Dad did, but that's pretty hard work and we were not so inclined, so we grated them in the food processor. It sure goes fast but I think you end up with a better texture if you do it by hand. Next, Tyler squeezed as much water as he could out of the grated vegetables. It's surprising how much comes out. Then we combined the veggies with 2 beaten eggs, salt, pepper and enough bread crumbs to bind the batter. We cooked them in Tyler's heirloom cast iron skillet, in a small amount of hot corn oil. It took about 15 minutes per side and we cooked up the entire batch, keeping them warm under the heat lamp, drying on paper towel.

 

This is not really health food but it sure was tasty! We served them with light sour cream and applesauce on the side. When we heated up some leftovers the next day for lunch, we also added a dollop of Patak's Hot Mango Chutney for some zing. Really good.

We very rarely cook anything in oil and the house smelled a bit like a greasy spoon - it was great coming back into the house after being outside!

These were wonderful - especially with the hot mango chutney. They are pretty fun to make too - we sweat whether they would hold together and learned not to worry: the heat and the eggs do the trick.

I'm also completely psyched to learn that we have at least one heirloom pan in the house! 

Buvez: Sadly the last of the case of Big-A IPA we purchased a while ago at the Co-Op. A great fit as always.

 

Sauerbraten

This holiday season, Meg gave me the honor of choosing our Christmas dinner. As mentioned before, during the holidays, tradition trumps common sense and we indulge in dishes that warm our hearts even if for example, they are non-vegetarian and bad for our arteries. 

As I pondered this responsibility, a couple serious contenders emerged. 

First up was a nice beef tenderloin. I have very fond memories of holiday's at Meg's family's house early in our relationship. One of her family's more recent traditions was serving a beef tenderloin for Christmas dinner. We co-opted this some years later when I hosted my family for Christmas and we put together a killer beef tenderloin.

My second thought was a nice roasted chicken. I perhaps miss chicken more than anything through the vegetarian year because there are some chicken dishes I really love and because when I fall off the vegetarian wagon, I usually do so with either beef or pork. So my thoughts ran to a simple roasted chicken, as we saw Julia Child demonstrate on TV in the immediate aftermath of Julie and Julia. I also had in mind the succulent and flavorful chicken I had during a working lunch once while visiting a company in Paris.

But the vision that kept coming back as I considered this serious question was pot roast. My mom used to make pot roast occasionally during the holidays when I was young. She seemed to cook it forever and it included lots of carrots, potatoes and of course at the insistence of my father, more onions than you can imagine! It was wonderful, plentiful (I was a teenager and ravenous), and delicious.

This train of thought also brought to mind some of Meg's food memories. She has related over the years how, when she was little and her family would visit her grandparents on the weekend, she would awake on Sunday morning to the comforting smell of her grandmother already preparing the Sunday meal. As we talked about this recently, Meg explained to me that sometimes, this wonderful smell was that of sauerbraten, a sour marinated pot roast from her grandfather's German heritage. Vinegar? Pot Roast? A food connection between our families?

My decision was made.

So we started hunting for recipes. We immediately found both common themes and seemingly important differences. In the end we led with a recipe from the classic and well worn Good Housekeeping Cookbook (ours is from 1963) with considerable input from our friend Chris Kimball. In American Classics, the Cook's Illustrated folks discuss the science of braising as a method for creating a tender delicious pot roast. This food novice found it interesting and useful.

So off to the races! Meg ordered a nice 4.5 lb boneless chuck roast from the Co-Op and we set about marinating it. Most of the recipes we considered contained similar ingredients though the Good Housekeeping one also included 4 sliced onions! In the marinade! Oh, I'm feeling good about this. We set up the marinade of vinegar, red wine vinegar, red wine, onions, and a bevy of traditional spices and herbs including bay leaves, cloves, juniper berries and mustard seeds. We put all this in our dutch oven and put it in the fridge, turning once or twice a day for over four days.

Finally it was time to cook! I pulled the roast out of the marinade (Wow does this smell good! Can I eat it now?) and set it aside patting it dry and removing the sliced onions from it. I then rubbed it down with flour, salt and pepper,  warmed a small amount of bacon fat in the dutch oven and browned the roast on all sides.

This is my idea of heaven. The house just smelled wonderful, warm, delicious and comforting. When the browning was done, I added the roast to the combination of the reserved marinade (and onion solids!) and fresh goodies include more onions, cloves and mustard seeds. Then into the oven at 300℉ for about four hours, checking occasionally.

Unveiling the roast after four hours was a revelation! The roast was surrounded by delicious broth which I combined with crushed ginger snap cookies to reduce to a nice thick sauce for our sauerbraten.

The result was delightful. As we sat down to eat, it seemed to me that this version of sauerbraten took Meg back to Sunday afternoons in Ventnor, New Jersey and also to her mother's version. For my part, combining the delicious sour tang of the marinade with deep onion flavor in a slowly braised meat produced a delicious and comforting Christmas dinner - as well as several meals afterwards!

Buvez: I conferred with my nephew and homebrewing enthusiast Sean on a German lager to serve with this meal as I know zip about lagers. His recommendation: a good strong Dortmunder Export beer. Though the Co-Op is quite weak in the lager area, it was able to deliver an Ayinger Jahrhundert-Bier 

Here's to Sauerbraten!

Wow!

We just finished our first recipe (Fish in Velvet Yogurt Sauce) from the book Classic Indian Cooking by Julie Sahni. It was just fantabulous - and trust me, I mucked it up in at least seven ways.

Looking forward to getting it right! Wow!

Son of Hangtown Fry...

Since the successful completion of the hangtown yesterday, I've been reminiscing about this succulent seafaring decadence. I discovered this article on the hangtown which is both informative and present some other ideas about preparation. This fellow is not alone in frying the oysters separately but I remain under the spell of the minimalist; it's just easier to cook things all together.

I managed to resurrect the fact that it was Winship restaurant in Sausalito where Meg and I discovered this treat in October of 1996 as part of a birthday follow up. Sadly I see that this artery clogging bundle of joy is no longer on their menu; perhaps a victim of the local health department. I thank them nonetheless for bringing this delight into my life.

I also must mention that our Thanksgiving trip to Eastern Maryland this year produced not only a crab feast of epic proportions but a genuine hangtown fry at the Imperial Hotel's fabulous Bloody Mary Brunch. Nice - and interesting - to find a dish so connected to California (I guess Placerville to be specific) done and done so well here on the East Coast.

Though we are already starting to count calories this new year, I think I'm going to stockpile some exercise in anticipation of the next hangtown. When is the next holiday I can co-op as a food holiday...

Hangtown Fry!

New Years Day is a great opportunity to access the year that has past by and to make plans and set goals for the upcoming year. It's also a great day to have prosecco for brunch and to indulge in the joy that is the hangtown fry.

I first met the hangtown fry about twelve years ago when Meg and I took a day trip to Sausalito above San Fransisco. At our brunch stop I found something fascinating on the menu: an omelet that had oysters in it. How could you go wrong? I tried it and I loved it.

I don't remember all the details of that hangtown (I think it was pretty packed with ingredients) but in recent years I've followed the advice of our friend Mark Bittman and simplified the recipe to include just oysters, good bacon, and shitaki mushrooms. I've also decided New Year's Day is the perfect excuse for this indulgence.

This year's version came out better than most I'm happy to say. Bittman emphasizes crisping the bacon and cooking the eggs slowly. I did a pretty good job of both and I embellished the eggs with just a splash of prosecco which we truly think improved their consistency. The oysters were quite fresh and I didn't overcook them. Yum!

It's going to be a great year!

Buvez: Mionetto Prosecco di Valdobbiadene (thanks Elisebeth!)