so let’s talk pizza.

in the usual fashion of me watching the calories, i starved myself all day – and then began making mario batali’s pizza dough recipe. or at least the one from ’03 that i found over at food & wine. and in keeping with the magazine/website concept, the dough actually had wine as an ingredient (mario you sly fox you) – and i quite liked that idea. because i like a pizza dough with character – as in flavor and i’ve not been having the best luck finding the dough of my dreams.

mario not only uses wine in his dough, but also chooses to use cake yeast which i converted to 18 grams of active dry yeast using my trusty yeast calculator. as called for, i used mostly 00 flour, the perfect flour for pizza making insuring a crisp crust and a soft crumb. but it’s a very soft flour, making it hard to manuever the dough, so a bit of all purpose gets added – if only for insurance. judging from the above photo, the 1:6 ratio was not enough… at least for me. next time i’ll add a bit more ap flour. the pie got mangled upon being placed onto the 550 degree pizza stone. but hey, looks aren’t everything…

really the story goes something like this. chris was coming over with some of his home-cured venison prosciutto and i had one fennel bulb and a big bunch of shitakes in my fridge. for some reason i felt unsure of the vegetable combo so i called my friend laura wilson, formerly the chef at ombi restaurant and she said – pizza. and i thought to myself, why did i not think to make pizza? and then i realized it’s just that well, i don’t think of so many things…

i caramelized the fennel and shitakes in some olive oil along with about half a dozen roughly chopped garlic cloves, then chris showed up with the prosciutto (check out his december 2 post about the doe that he butchered) which got sliced and added to the top. the pie was then hit with a generous amount of fresh thyme and at the last moment i thought EGG and well, maybe i do think of things sometimes…..

sadly, the pie got folded onto itself which affected nothing but my pride. and the yoke broke too but you know, it was all really just so much more than good.

did i mention that the prosciutto was AMAZING? the smell alone was absolutely intoxicating.

meat + salt + patience = delicious. my kind of math.

a wonderful cheeseless pizza. it can be done.

just simply fabulous stuff…

i used tilapia. o’charley’s perpetual "catch of the day". and really,  it’s a nothing kind of fish. farmed. not terribly exciting, yet i buy it all the time. tilapa is inexpensive. you can’t seem to overcook this fish. it crisps up with minimal oil. and it goes well with almost anything and everything. it’s definitely not the fish you have a fling with, it’s the one you marry. i have flings with, say, chilean sea bass – expensive and rich. but tilapia is your everyday fish. you can totally count on tilapia.

so my latest greatest is to chop up a fennel bulb and throw it in a pan with 2 teaspoons of oil and get it all browned up. i added minced garlic and some capers – an anchovy would work nicely too, and then a minute later some chopped fresh tomatoes (good canned are an option). and oregano. i love oregano. it’s right up there with thyme as my favorite herb. and rosemary. and basil. anyway, just season that up, add a bit of water, cook it down for a few minutes and put it on top of whatever’s going. fish. chicken. pork chops. pasta. italian sausage, giant lima beans… then add a few good olives. the fennel frond garnsh was for you – because i care. especially after the beige food assault of ’09.

while adhering to ‘the plan’, not only do i count every calorie but i weigh everything. because i am neurotic that way and because i secretly kind of like it. i realize this eccentric ‘production’ isn’t for everyone but i can’t impress upon you enough how effective it is. i am trying to set myself up for success. because failure is just not an option. speaking of which, do you remember when wynonna went on oprah, all "i need to put myself on my list because i do sooooo much for my fans and family that i have no time to eat right even though i have a personal chef and trainer on staff"? it just wasn’t pretty on so very many levels. (personally, i think she left oprah’s studio and her first stop was shoney’s… bless her heart. (fyi – this is what they say in the south.))

i often make this for dinner even with fennel at $4 a bulb. and hey, by the way, is it me or are ‘whole foods’ produce prices out of control? anyway, the good news is that you get everything on that plate for in the neighborhood of 375 calories – and that right there is a caloric bargain. and c’mon. you gotta admit. that’s awesome…

UPDATE!!! THIS JUST IN:

Farm-raised tilapia has very low levels of beneficial omega-3 fatty acids, but high levels of omega-6 fatty acids, new research shows. Researchers say this combination could be dangerous for some patients with conditions including heart disease, arthritis, asthma and other allergic and auto immune diseases.

The study is in the Journal of the American Dietetic Association. Senior study author Dr. Floyd H. Chilton is quoted in the article: "If you’re in a vulnerable population such as a heart disease patient, you need to be very careful with what you’re eating, and that includes everything. But when it comes to fish, there’s not a more important thing you can do for heart disease than eat the right type of fish or take dietary fish oil. There is evidence that you may harm yourself by eating the wrong kind of fish, and [farmed] tilapia and catfish are the two that fall into that category."

and now 2 complimentary puppy pics of grace at 10 weeks old on her 7th day at home. because she is just too damn cute not to show off.

we’ll be flying to nyc to celebrate thanksgiving with my mom. so this year i don’t have to cook a thing.  ok, i am bringing lupini beans that were soaked in a brining solution for 5 days, but that hardly counts (just add olive oil and fresh black pepper). and really, the ‘not cooking’ thing is totally fine with me. after all, i cook quite a bit. so i’m more than happy to relinquish control. plus, last year was quite the scream…

but while everyone is going turkey crazy, i decided to have a little early sunday celebration of my own and so my bff angela came over with her husband, and this was our dinner. well this and some of that smoked mullet roe, and cannellini beans cooked with the pig jowl skin sliced from chris’s guancialle. and speaking of chris, the doe that the venison came from was shot by his step-father in leipers fork, just 30 minutes from my house. chris had offered me some of the meat and i somehow had the nerve to request the best cut – the tenderloin, and he kindly obliged.

chris butchered the deer himself, and brought me both of the choice tenderloin strips. i aged them in the refrigerator for 10 days, soaked them overnight in milk and then they were salted for about 7 hours before they hit my grill. i’m not saying that this is the way to do it. it’s just the way it transpired over here. and i’d do it again. yes i would. like as soon as possible.

and it was beyond excellent. the venison was perfectly cooked on a very hot (900f) grill with nothing but some olive oil. i had feared that it might overcook before i got much of a char but because of the leanness of the meat, it was just as i’d hoped.

i simply sautéed some chanterelles in some of my danish butter that i’ve grown quite fond of, and then there was the cherry mostarda. it’s a mixture of cherries, sugar, balsamic vinegar and mustard powder.

see? simple… i mean really, really…

yes, a touch of parsley crossed my mind, but it felt just too lame…

so, just a quick post before i fly up north. and a huge and grateful thank you to my ceF readers. you’ve just no idea how fond i’ve grown of you, and how i have come to sort of rely on the fact that you’re all out there. it makes my life richer and rounder, in so many ways.

a very happy thanksgiving to all of you…

i realize the name of this dish probably sounds a bit random and that the picture is not helping. but let me explain…

this past week there have been 2 cooking classes held in my home with 16 students in total. the topic was handmade pasta and well, it really was a lot of fun. we made 3 dishes – a sweet potato tortellini, batali’s fettuccine capricciose and the roman classic, amatraciana with an extruded bucatini.

next month we’re holding a bruschetta and biscotti class. we’ll make a few wonderful bruschettas, we’ll drink some chianti and we’ll bake and bake, everyone going home with a big bunch of cookies for the holidays. be there.

anyway, we had leftovers of the tortellini filling, so last night i invited a friend over with no real thoughts on what i might make for dinner, but somewhere between washing my face and putting on my fuzzy lined merrell’s, it came to me in a flash… i had somehow once again channeled my inner ‘gabrielle hamilton’ and came up with this dish.

i realize it doesn’t look like much. thank god for parsley. but here’s exactly what’s going on. ok. ready? the tortellini filling contained mashed sweet potatoes, egg, parmigiano, nutmeg, parsley and finely diced prosciutto. i formed it into 2 patties and rolled them in panko crumbs. i had bought a couple of king oyster mushrooms to use in my fettuccine dish, but the second night of class used only the regular oyster mushrooms. so i had this beauty sitting in my fridge. phallic? perhaps… i sliced the mushroom into long rectangular strips and grilled them until crisp. my friend had recently been to seattle and stopped into salumi, batali’s dad’s charcuterie shop and brought over some guanciale. we sliced 4 pieces thinly and grilled them as well.

 
think 8 inches long at the very least…. (image swiped from wiki)

so, king oyster mushrooms. who knew? i’m now totally in love with this cultivated funghi. i saw them at the asian market and had to check them out. they only run about $5 a lb and are fleshy, dense and meaty – almost like abalone in texture. just slice them in long vertical strips and they grill up nice and crispy on the edges. huge surprise. which only goes to prove that i need to get out more…

so class, to review:

• pan fried sweet potato cakes filled with prosciutto and parmigiano
• king oyster mushrooms sliced and grilled
• guanciale sliced and grilled
• with a poached egg on top
• a drizzle of balsamic syrup
• and a sprinkling of chopped parsley.

remarkable.

this post is dedicated to these 3 bloggers who inspire me to try and be a better cook: jennifer from last night’s dinner. peter from cookblog. and heather from gild the (voodoo)lily.

and if i wanted to sleep with you, it’d be ’torcetti con salsa di noci e funghi’.  but being that we’re all platonic here, i thought i’d keep it to the english since i hit you so hard in my last post with my γαλακτομπο?ρεκο. 

i’m forever browsing blogs, looking for inspiration – and this dish caught my eye while catching up with the folks from ‘we are never full’.  it’s a site full of exuberance and passion – they take their food very seriously and it shows.  the pasta sauce, from genoa, is a recreation of yet another wonderful dish from their extensive travels through italy.

again, i’m a big fan of simplicity and so that’s where my sensibilities tend to lead me.  this was the primi course for a small dinner party, followed by a secundo of grass-fed grilled to perfection ribeye, along with a basic green salad of romaine and arugula with grape tomatoes.  so yes, perhaps simple, but a wonderful dinner.

the pasta dish suffers somewhat from the innocousness of its beige colorway.  but apart from that, it’s quite good.  having said this, let me share my initial resistance, which was that the walnut texture in the sauce, was for me a minor distraction. but it seems i was alone in this assessment.  and everyone else was raving.

but you see, the thing is (and here’s a dirty little secret), in my mind, my opinion – when it comes to food – outweighs any number of other opinions at the table.  so i’m not sure if this pasta is a do-over for me.  my gauge is this: if i were in a very good restaurant, would i flip over this?  and then i know…

soak two pieces of crustless, white bread in some of the cream so it soaks it all up.

put the salted pasta water on to boil

in a pan, add your sliced mushrooms along with some olive oil or a pat of butter and sauté until firm-soft.

process the walnuts until fine, then add and blend all the rest of the ingredients together : the milk-soaked bread, the cheese and cream, along with a pinch of salt to taste.

add your pasta to the boiling water and cook till al dente.

this pasta is everything that is wonderful about italian cooking.  a short ingredient list with a big result - and all in about 15 minutes, including the 2 or 3 that it takes to boil the fresh pasta.  of course, being that i am now an ace pasta maker, i am forcing the stuff down the throat of everyone i know, and so far no one is complaining – although it’s bound to happen soon.  but not with this particular dish.  this one is all mario and as one might expect, he knocks it out of the park.

the pasta dough took about 1 lb. of flour and 5 eggs.  i can’t stress emphatically enough how much i love these 3 kitchenaid rollers.  i am making my own freakin’ pasta and it is so very not hard to do.  i even really kinda get off on the whole process.  it feels good.  it’s meditative, even cathartic.  if you regularly make pasta – and why wouldn’t you, you can then cancel your weekly therapist appointment.  and that right there will save you a ton of cash that you can now put towards buying the KA  rollers, working out your ‘issues’ by kneading the dough, with feeling – elongating not only the gluten fibers, but possibly your very own existence.  so, just make pasta.  it will improve your life in more ways then you could ever imagine.  just look at all it has done for me.

and then when your pasta is rolled and ready - then make this recipe right away.  because it is a smashing dish that will surprise the hell out of you, and whoever’s expecting dinner that night.

fettuccine with oyster mushrooms, sweet garlic and arugula
lightly adapted from mario batali’s molte italiano

1/4 cup extra virgin olive oil
15 cloves garlic
2/3 cup cinzano rossi or any sweet red vermouth
10 ounces oyster mushrooms = trimmed
4 T unsalted butter
salt and freshly ground black pepper
1 bunch arugula, stemmed, washed and dried
1/3 cup freshly grated pecorino cheese

bring 6 qts of water and 2 T salt to a boil in a large pot

meanwhile, in a 10 – 12" sauté pan, heat the olive oil over medium heat until almost smoking.  add the garlic and sauté until lightly browned on all sides.  remove from heat and add the vermouth.  replace the pan onto the burner, add the mushrooms and butter, and bring to a boil.  reduce by half then remove from the heat and keep warm.

cook the pasta until tender and then drain. add to the mushrooms and stir gently over medium heat for about 1 minute to coat the noodles.  add the arugula and toss until wilted. transfer to serving dish and toss with the cheese.

this is one of those dishes where everyone will think you are a brilliant and talented cook.  but in reality it really wasn’t you at all…

it was my boy, mario…

ok – it wasn’t a panini.  nor was it teeny weeny.  but it should’ve been all of that.  and next time it will be.  with zucchini.  made while wearing a bikini.  yeah, like THAT would ever happen.

but i did have half of a whole grain baguette in my freezer which worked perfectly.  so after being led willingly down the boletus edulis path by a simple post on a wonderful blog, i stopped at ’whole foods’ and bought 2 porcini along with a few cipollini onions.  the next day after foraging in my meager liquor cabinet i was surprised to find an old and near empty bottle of dry sherry.  just what i’d need.  and then on an otherwise solitary sunday afternoon, a friend stopped by between errands to contribute to the cause with a handful of just picked parsley from her herb garden and lingered for a mid-afternoon bite of the ‘king of wild mushrooms’. 

all it would take were those few things - and some butter, salt and pepper and we’d be well on our way to some fine food. 

as an aside, like napolean at waterloo, i’m thinking that the french grey salt’s moist and granular proverbial ass gets royally kicked by the white and flakey british maldon every time.  i have become a big fan of maldon for most all cooking purposes.  still, don’t touch my guérande.  it is for me, the quintessential finishing salt.

it was clear that at these prices the cèpes were going to be well cared for and i reached way back into both my memory and my drawer of assorted kitchen gadgets and pulled out the little soft bristled brush created expressly for this job, the one that had been following me around all these years.  the mushrooms got gently brushed of any dirt and then sliced and thrown into a very hot cast iron pan with just a little olive oil to get a bit of a sear on them.  then i lowered the heat and in went a knob of butter along with the chopped onions – sauteed until soft, followed by the sherry.  when the sherry reduced i seasoned the mixture with salt, added the parsley and shut off the burner and let it sit for a minute.  i hollowed out the baguette and filled it with the porcini/cipollini combo, hitting it with a solid grind of black pepper.  of course this dish just screamed for a crispy sunny side up farm fresh egg.  after all, it was brunch.

next time, i’ll add garlic.  i forgot to add garlic.  how this happened i will never know…

ps – the diet?  not going so well…

in keeping with my ‘eating down the house‘ challenge, the only ingredient that i needed for last night’s dinner was some cream, something that i rarely if ever buy or cook with - if only out of a healthy dose of fear.  but i had perused my freezer, fridge and pantry and had a pretty solid idea of what direction i’d be heading.  i reached for the frozen niman ranch sweet italian sausage, the opened can of tomato paste and the leftover fresh thyme from last weekend. 

but the plan was sealed when i spotted the small but coveted bag of dried morels and another of porcinis tucked away in a corner top shelf of my freezer, leftovers from a bulk buy i’d made from earthy’s.  i hesitate to say it, but i figured i’d been hanging on to them for at least three years now and their well overdo time had finally come.  i’m sure their three frigid trips around the sun wasn’t working in their favor but i was hopeful that they’d still pack that smoky rich and fragrant punch that i love so much.  (later, when i checked the current price of dried morel’s my jaw literally dropped.) 

so then i’m at the store facing this wall of orderly bottles and cartons.  the assorted dairy soldiers are all lined up in colorful uniform, standing at attention armed with various counts of deadly fat grams. and i come to the sober realization after reading the nutritional labels and doing the math that the very small box of fat laden heavy cream was just not going to pass through either my front door - or my lips.  there had to be a line drawn.  and by god, this was it.  i grabbed the organic half and half and feeling only vaguely better about my choice, headed for the checkout line with a nagging suspicion that no one ever cooks with half and half.  half and half, it’s what’s in your coffee.  half and half, the name itself feels so non-committal. 

(the dried morel and porcini mushrooms)

early in the evening when i began to assemble all the elements, i knew a red wine would be in order, most of it to be sacrificed to the sauce.  the only thing i currently had in stock that was sacrificable was an ’03 clos du bois cabernet.  a bit nicer than my usual cooking wine, but i salvaged one big glass for me and offered up the rest to the bolognese gods.  (note to self: buy wine for cooking.)

(the mushrooms rehydrated)

i began by soaking the mushrooms in warm water.  then i sauteed onions in some olive oil and added the sausage meat.  next i poured in the wine and cooked it down to perhaps a half cup of liquid.  then i added the chopped rehydrated mushrooms along with most of a can of tomato paste.  the fresh thyme was de-stemmed and a big fistful was added to the pan along with salt and a generous helping of coarsely ground black pepper.  finally in went some half and half and while i carefully brought the heat back up and the sauce began to thicken, i thinned it all down with the reserved and carefully strained mushroom soaking water.

at about that time, angela called and i offered for her to come by and pick up some dinner for her and bruce.  they got the half unused bag of strozzapreti (literal translation: priest choker) and a tupperware of the just finished sauce.  i was thrilled to not have leftovers – and to be able to feed my friends.

it was a heavy meal, no doubt.  but the fat content was considerably lower than it might have been had i not had the sane concept of substituting for what was the ‘better, richer’ ingredient.  heavy cream, we did not miss you.

eating down the house – to be continued…