Tuscan Ragu

I just made a really delicious meat ragu, served over egg papardelle.  When we were in Tuscany last fall we had some fantastic Pici pasta with a rabbit ragu at our inn’s restaurant, and this is my attempt at something similar.    We stayed at the Locanda dell’Amorosa, an inn about 40 km from Siena, just outside a fairly grubby industrial town named Sinalunga.  Aside from Sinalunga, everything about the Locanda dell’Amorosa was incredible – as you can see from these pictures.  We had a lovely room with a view out over vineyards and rolling hills.  It’s a working farm and produces its own wine.  It has a great restaurant.  It has a beautiful pool (although it was a bit chilly for swimming when we were there).  And it’s in the middle of the Chianti region of Tuscany, about half an hour’s drive from Siena, Montepulciano and Pienza.  It’s a bit further to San Gimignano, but still an easy day trip.

Pici is the local pasta - kind of like a really thick spaghetti, often served with a simple ragu.  So this evening I wanted to try to make a ragu sauce like the one at the restaurant.  My wife has decreed that rabbit shall not enter our home, so I made do with pork sausage and some pancetta.

To make enough sauce for two people (as you’ll see from the quantities of ingredients, it’d be easier to double this and make enough for four…):

• Half a carrot, diced
• Half a rib of celery, diced
• Half an onion, diced
• 3 Italian sausage (200 grams)
• 100 grams Pancetta or thick sliced bacon
• 3 tablespoons tomato paste
• 1/3 cup good red wine (I suggest a Montepulciano d’Abruzzo)
• Half a can of chopped tomatoes (200 grams)
• 1 teaspoon chile flakes
• salt and pepper to taste
• A sturdy, long pasta, such as Pici, Pappardelle, or Fettucini

Pour a slug of good olive oil into a medium sized heavy pot (I use a cast iron Le Creuset), and heat over medium heat.  When the pan is hot (but not too hot), add the carrot, celery, and onion.  Cook for 8-10 minutes, stirring regularly, until softened but not browned.  Add the sausage and pancetta.  break up the sausage into crumbly bits – it helps if you take the casing off.  Just run a sharp knife across the sausage, lengthwise, to cut the casing, then peel it off.  Continue to cook over medium heat, breaking the sausage up as it cooks, for another 10 minutes or so.  Clear a space in the middle of the pot, then add the tomato paste.  Stir it in the middle of the pot for a minute or two to caramelize, then mix it all together.  Pour in the wine, mix well, and let the liquid cook off – another few minutes.  Add the tomatoes and chili flakes, and mix well.  Cook for a few more minutes, until the sauce is the desired thickness.  Taste and add salt and pepper to taste (most tomotoes have lots of salt added, so taste the sauce before you add any more).

Boil a large pot of water, add the pasta, cook until done, drain, and serve with your sauce.  Grate some good fresh parmesan or romano cheese over it.  I’m still working on a hunk of romano we brought back from our trip (I think we bought it in Pienza – a perfect little Tuscan hill town, founded by and named after Pope Pius).

I steamed some asparagus and served it with butter, more romano, and a squeeze of lemon juice.

And if you’ve never been to Tuscany… GO!!!

Pears in Puff Pastry

Happy New Year!  Let’s hope this one’s a bit easier than the last…

Last night we made one of my favorite party meals – cheese fondue (the traditional kind, with Gruyere & Emmentaler in white wine).  Then to top off the evening, I made an old standby dessert: Pears in Puff Pastry with Caramel Sauce.

I first had this dish at a restaurant outside State College when I was in business school – I don’t even remember the name of the place, but I managed to recreate the dessert.  It’s fantastically decadent and pretty easy to prepare.  Last night I used a couple of perfectly ripe Comice pears, which were perfect, but pretty much any of the softer varieties of pear would work well.

For the Pears:

• 2 ripe pears, cored and peeled
• 2 tablespoons butter, at room temperature
• 2 tablespoons dark brown sugar
• 2 tablespoons Grand Marnier
• Ready to roll puff pastry (make sure it’s the all butter kind, not the margarine kind!)
• 1 egg, beaten

Preheat oven to 400 f.

Mix together the butter, sugar, and Grand Marnier in a small bowl – you can just mash it all together with the back of a fork.  Peel and core your pears, set aside.  Roll out your puff pastry into two squares, about 8 inches on a side.  Place one pear in the center of each square of puff pastry, then stuff the core of each with half of the butter and sugar mixture.  Fold the puff pastry up and over the top of the pears, pressing together to seal it up into a big dumpling. Make sure you seal the pastry up well – when I made these last night, the pastry came apart at the seams and fell down into a nest around the pears.  They still tasted great, but they weren’t quite as elegant as usual.

Place the pears in a baking dish, then brush the outside of the pastry with the beaten egg.  Bake for 20-25 minutes, or until the pastry is golden brown.

While the pears are baking, make your caramel sauce:

• 1 cup white sugar
• 1/4 cup water
• 1/2 cup heavy cream

Pour the sugar and water into a small heavy saucepan and bring to a boil over high heat.  Reduce heat to medium and simmer until the mixture turns a medium caramel color (6-8 minutes) – do not stir - swirl the syrup gently to mix.  Pour the cream in slowly – it will bubble up, so be very careful.  Cook for another minute or two over low heat, stirring constantly, then allow to cool to serving temperature.  You can also make the sauce ahead of time, then warm gently before serving.

If you don’t feel like making the caramel sauce, you can buy it in a jar and heat it up gently before serving.  Just make sure to get real caramel sauce, not caramel topping.

Summer Berry Cobbler

There is no more irresistable summer dessert than a simple berry cobbler, served hot from the oven with some good vanilla ice cream.  Here’s an easy recipe that you can adapt to whatever fruit happens to be in season.  This recipe will serve two, but is easily doubled or tripled for larger crowds.  You can make it in one big dish to take to a picnic, or individual ramekins for a more sophisticated presentation.  With a little practice, you can pull this together in about 10 minutes, plus 20 for baking.  You can also make the dough a bit ahead of time and keep in the refrigerator until you’re ready to assemble the dessert.

Preheat your oven to 375 F/190 C.

• 1 1/2 cups summer berries (any mix of strawberries, raspberries, blackberries, blueberries you like)
• 1 tablespoon white sugar (adjust depending on the sweetness of your fruit)
• 1 tablespoon Grand Marnier
• 1 teaspoon corn starch

Mix the filling ingredients together and put in a small baking dish – a 6 in. ramekin works well.  You can also divide between two 1 cup ramekins if you want to make individual desserts.

Place the following ingredients in the bowl of a food processor:

• 1/2 cup white flour
• 3 tablespoons white sugar
• 1/2 stick chilled butter
• 1/4 teaspoon salt
• 3/4 teaspoon baking powder

Pulse these ingredients a few times until combined, but don’t overdo it.  The dough should be the texture of course cornmeal.  With the food processor running, add 2 tablespoons of heavy cream.  As soon as the dough starts to come together, maybe another 10 seconds, stop the blade and scrape the dough onto a clean cutting board or counter top.  Pull the dough together into a ball, gathering up any loose crumbs.  Pull off chunks of the dough and place on top of the berry filling – cover well, but not completely.  If you leave some gaps, the berry juices will bubble up through and caramelize on the crust.  Brush the top of the dough with a bit more heavy cream, and sprinkle with granulated sugar.

Place in the oven and bake for about 20 minutes, until the top has puffed and is golden brown. 

Serve immediately with vanilla ice cream or heavy cream.  If you’ve made it in individual ramekins, you can poke a hole in the top and drop in the ice cream.  It’ll melt and blend with the berries and give you a lovely blending of temperatures and textures.

This recipe adapts will to any kind of fruit, but as the crust is extremely delicate, I think it’s best with soft fruits.  Try a mix of rhubarb and strawberries – cut the rhubarb into chunks and simmer with a bit of sugar and grand marnier until the rhubarb starts to soften.  Then mix in the strawberries before topping and baking.  Peaches or apricots are also great in this dish, and you can add a few nuts too, if you like.  Slivered almonds or crushed hazelnuts go really well with orchard fruit.

One more note: I find it easier and less of a mess to just make the dough in a bowl with a pastry blender.  If you don’t have one, you can probably find it in your local grocery store for about 2.99.  They usually have a simple wooden handle with 7 or 8 stiff parallel wires running down below the handle in a semi circle.  You mash the wires through the flour and butter mixture until you get course crumbs (you’ll probably have to scrape the butter off the wires a couple of times), then add the cream and mix and gather with a spoon or your hands.  Use the same basic process for pie crust or crumb topping.  I find that this method gives me much better control than the food processor – it’s very easy to overdo it with the food processor and end up with a tough pastry crust.  You also have only one bowl and the pastry blender to clean, rather than the food processor blade, bowl and top, and you don’t have to put the food processor away afterwards.

The Holly Bush Pub

We had dinner tonight in a local pub in Hampstead: The Hollybush.  We were invited by some friends who were celebrating a birthday.   Everything about the pub was great except the food, which was pretty mediocre.  Not bad, but not worth the prices they were charging.  It’s a nice, old fashioned local pub, with a bar area out front and a warren of small rooms with tables in the back.  Their selection of beers was excellent, with a range of bitters from smaller breweries, and plenty of lagers, ciders and stouts as alternatives.  The wine list, while pretty short, had a nicely varied selection. They had enough servers behind the bar to cope with the crowd, so you didn’t have to wait too long for your pint.  The servers were all friendly and helpful.  We ordered a few beers to start while we decided on food, then put in our dinner order.

There were about 12 of us, so it wasn’t surprising that the food took a while to come out, but the wait started to seem excessive after about an hour…  We ordered a burger for the kids, which was probably the best of the meals (even if they didn’t eat it), and chicken two ways for ourselves: a goat cheese stuffed breast quarter and a chicken and mushroom pie.  The food was OK.  The burger was nicely prepared, with shreds of horseradish mixed in with the meat and, while a little rare for the kids, was nicely cooked.  The roast chicken and pie were both pretty tasteless, as were the mashed potatoes served with them.

Overall, we had a nice night out with our friends, and really enjoyed the pub.  I’d just suggest you start off there for a pint or two, then move on if you want a meal.

Souvlaki

We went on a family vacation to Greece a few weeks ago – probably our best vacation ever.  Perfect weather, we went to the beach every day, nobody barfed, and everybody slept well.  Pretty much everything you could ask for in a vacation – those of you who have young children will know what I mean.

We stayed at Bungalows Ingrid (highly recommended) – small bungalows in the middle of an orange grove, inexpensive, clean and well maintained, with a beautiful taverna in the middle.  Ingrid made us simple but fantastic breakfasts every day, which we ate on our patio, or at a picnic table surrounded by orange trees.  The bungalows are between the towns of Assini and Drepano, near Nafplio with its Venetian fortresses, shops, and waterfront cafes, about two hours drive south of Athens on the Peloponnese Peninsula.  The town of Tolo, with a gorgeous sandy beach (most of the beaches in the area, while beautiful, are pebbly), is about a kilometer away.  I cannot recommend this place highly enough – we will be going back.

While we were there, we had some terrific meals at local tavernas – The Meat Market (literally, the meat market) in Drepano, the Mermaid in Vivari (the next town to the east of Drepano), and Casablanca in Tolo, where we got our lunch to take away and eat on the beach every day.  Which brings me to Souvlaki – marinated skewers of grilled chicken or pork.  Since we’ve been home I’ve made it three times.  Try this for your next barbecue – you won’t be disappointed.

But first, a disclaimer – I’m not big on measuring when I cook.  There’s a time and place for measuring, and it’s usually when I’m baking.  Otherwise, I tend to eyeball things.  So I’ll try to provide measures in my recipes, but they’ll probably be a little fuzzy.  It’s be my little way of encouraging you to experiment…

Chicken or Pork Souvlaki

Cut chicken breasts or pork chops into 1-1.5 in. cubes (if you make them bigger, it’s less work to put them on the skewers).  If you do pork, leave a little bit of the fat around the edge – it’ll get crispy and flavourful when you grill it.  Drop the cubes in a zip top plastic bag, and for each pound of meat you’re cooking, add:

• The juice of one lemon or lime – cut it in half and squeeze it straight into the bag
• 2-3 cloves of garlic, peeled and chopped
• 1/2 teaspoon or so of oregano, preferably Greek
• A slug of olive oil (2 or 3 tablespoons)
• A few shakes of salt and a few grinds of pepper

Seal the bag, shake it all up, and throw it in the fridge for an hour or two.  I’ve also made this on a weeknight, leaving the meat at room temperature on the counter for half an hour, and it was delicious.

When you’re ready to start cooking, go get your grill started.  Then cut up an onion into 1-1.5 inch squares (peel it, cut it in half, pull out the smaller layers in the middle, cut the outer layers to the right size, then break up the layers).  You can also cut up a green pepper into similar sized pieces if you like.

Thread the cubes of meat onto bamboo skewers (I know, I know, you’re supposed to soak them in water first.  I never do and they work fine), alternating a piece of meat with a slice of onion or green pepper.  When your grill’s ready, put the skewers on, cooking on each side for a couple of minutes – they should take 8-10 minutes in all, depending on how big your cubes are.

For a quick meal, serve with a green salad and some fresh crusty bread.  For a Greek feast, serve with Tzatziki, grilled pita bread, and a Greek Salad.

I haven’t tried it yet, but I’m sure you could also just marinate and grill whole chicken breasts or pork chops if you didn’t feel like doing the whole kebab thing.

Tzatziki

Peel a medium sized cucumber (or half a long English cucumber), cut it in half lengthwise, and scrape out the seeds with a teaspoon.  Grate the halves on a box grater, and put the shreds into a colander or mesh sieve.  Squeeze out the extra water (it’ll make your tzatziki watery otherwise).  In a pinch, you could pile the shreds onto the center of a paper towel or dish towel, pull the edges up to make a ball, and squeeze the water out.

Dump the shredded cucumber into a bowl and mix with 1 cup of greek style (generally full fat) or nonfat plain (if you must) yogurt.  Mince one or two cloves of garlic (depending on how strong you like it) and add to the bowl.  Add a squeeze of lemon juice (maybe a teaspon), mix it all up and add salt and pepper to taste.  You can also add a drizzle of olive oil, or just leave it alone.  Serve as a sauce for the meat, and a dip for the pita bread.

This amount of Tzatziki will probably serve 2-3 people (be warned: it’s addictive).

Greek Salad

Peel and seed another cucumber (or the other half of the one you used for the Tzatziki), cut into thick slices, and place in a shallow serving bowl.  Cut a few nice ripe tomatoes into chunks and put on top of the cucumber.  Slice up a green pepper, and half a sweet red onion and put on top of the tomato.  Cut some feta into big chunks, and put on top of the vegetables.  Sprinkle with dried oregano.  Drizzle with plenty of good olive oil and a little bit of red wine vinegar; squeeze half a lemon on top.  Server with a bowl of Kalamata olives.

Borough Market

I’m going to start out with a post about one of my favorite places in London: the Borough Market in Southwark.  Open Thursday to Saturday, the Borough Market is London’s oldest food market – a sort of semi permanent farmers market and food festival.  With sellers offering everything from fresh fruit, vegetables, meat, fish, poultry and game to cheeses, prepared foods of every ethnic stripe, amazing breads and cheeses, even beer and wine.  You can fine any and every ingredient imaginable to make the most fantastic meals, or buy an armload of treats for a picnic on the banks of the nearby Thames.  We go pretty much every Saturday we’re in town.

Standouts include, more or less in the order that we visit them on our (nearly) weekly visits:

• The worlds best cheese toastie (grilled cheese to us Americans), featuring fresh crusty bread, cheese from Neal’s Yard Dairy, and fresh leeks and onions.
• Monmouth Coffee, with a stall in the main market, plus a storefront on the west edge.  Fresh roasted beans to take home, and fresh brewed filter coffee and espresso drinks to enjoy as you shop.
• Lebanese Harissa from the Arabica Food & Spice Company - with walnuts, garlic and chilis, I’ve tried to recreate this one at home, but haven’t succeeded yet.
• Stichelton (unpasteurized Stilton) from Rennet and Press. I have to mention this because it’s my five year old daughter’s favorite.  She’ll sit and eat a whole block.
• Chorizo from the Basque Pig – perfectly spiced and flavorful.
• Bread from the Flour Station.  The ciabbatta’s everything it should be – crusty, airy, delcious.

I could go on and list pretty much every stall in the place.  You’ll just have to go and see for yourself.  It never fails to inspire me to pick up a sackful of the freshest stuff to bring home and cook for dinner.  Get there early on summer Saturday’s, because by mid day it’s packed.  Take the tube to the London Bridge station, and follow the crowds.

An added bonus for your visit: Just off the back side of the market there’s a little pub called the Rake that’s one of London’s best.  It’s tiny, but has a fantastic and ever changing selection of beers from around the world selected by its owners, also the proprieters of the Utobeer beer stall in the market.  They’ve got a little patio that’s perfect for sitting and drinking a pint after a morning at the market.