Happy New Year!

Just a quick note to wish you a wonderful 2012 full of good times, good friends and, most of all, good food!

To get you off to the right start, here's a dish you might try - it's celebratory and impressive, though not difficult, and just decadent enough.  Thanks to all of you who have continued to tune in throughout the year and check out what's cooking with me.  I appreciate your appetite!

Pasta with Vodka Sauce - adapted from Grace Parisi's Get Saucy
(Makes 6 servings)


A Brief Word on Pasta:  Although vodka sauce is traditionally served with penne, I recommend any pasta that is substantial (ie. not too thin) and pleasing to you - maybe fusilli, gemelli, rigatoni, or even bucatini (pictured), a thick spaghetti-like pasta with a hole running through the middle.  Whatever the variety you choose, make sure you cook it in rapidly boiling, well-salted water (no oil!!), stir frequently, drain promptly, and reserve some of the pasta cooking water to help glue the sauce to the pasta - it makes a big difference!


1 pound (16 oz.) dried pasta

1 teaspoon extra virgin olive oil
4 ounces thickly-sliced pancetta, diced
1/2 onion, minced
3 garlic cloves, minced
1 tablespoon tomato paste
1/4 teaspoon red pepper flakes
Pinch of dried oregano
1/4 cup vodka
One 28-ounce can peeled whole Italian tomatoes, with juice, chopped
1/2 cup heavy cream
1/3 cup frozen green peas, thawed
salt to taste

Bring a large pot of water to a rolling boil, and then salt generously.  Cook pasta according to package instructions.  Drain, reserving some of the cooking liquid, and set aside.

Heat the oil in a large, deep pan over medium-high heat and add pancetta, stirring occasionally until browned and the fat has rendered.  Add the onion, garlic, red pepper, oregano, and tomato paste and stir until softened, about 3 minutes.  Add the vodka and cook until evaporated, scraping up the browned bits stuck to the pan (hooray for pre-cleaning the pot!).  Add the tomatoes and simmer over medium heat until thickened slightly, about 20 minutes.  Add the cream and peas and simmer another 10 minutes.  Season with salt and more red pepper to taste.

If the saucepan is large enough, add the pasta now and reduce heat to low.  If not, transfer both the pasta and the sauce to a clean, large pot, over low heat.  Stir well and add pasta cooking water to thin sauce to your liking.  I like to make it a little too thin at this point, and wait an extra 10 minutes for the liquid to evaporate - this helps the sauce really stick to each piece of pasta.  If you're in a hurry, you can skip this and just serve immediately.  Either way, enjoy with a sprinkling of freshly chopped parsley and a hearty appetite!

Fall pasta

In my continuing obsession with all things autumn-related, today I took a walk over to the farmer's market in my neighborhood of Astoria to gather seasonal goodies for lunch.  There I found some gorgeous Tuscan kale, and all sorts of squash and apples.  Naturally, I bought more than I could reasonably carry and awkwardly shuffle-shuffled home, cursing myself because I just had to have that huge, round kabocha squash.  Ah well!  Cooking is nothing if not a labor of love.

This is a simple recipe inspired by this recent post from one of the food blogs I follow, Dinner: A Love Story.

Pasta with Kale and Pancetta
6 to 8 servings

1 lb. (whole wheat) pasta (I like fusilli for the way the diced pancetta gets stuck in the curls)

1 tablespoon olive oil
1/4 lb. pancetta, diced
1 garlic clove, minced
1 bunch Tuscan kale, stem ends removed and roughly chopped
good red pepper flakes to taste (I'm obsessed with the Calabrese kind from Buon Italia in Chelsea Market!)
salt to taste

3 oz. crumbled goat cheese

Put up a large pot of water on high heat.  Once it comes to a boil, salt generously and add the pasta.  Cook according to the package instructions.  Drain, reserving at least 2 cups of pasta water.

In a large pan, heat the olive oil over medium-high heat and add the pancetta.  Cook until browned, then add the garlic and cook another minute or so.  Carefully add the kale on top (it will sputter and hiss when the oil meets the water) and let it wilt into the pan.  After the racket dies down, add salt and red pepper flakes, stir, and cook another 3 minutes.  Remove from heat and set aside.

In a large bowl or tray, mix the pasta, kale/pancetta mixture, and the goat cheese.  Toss to allow the heat to melt the goat cheese, if it seems too dry, slowly pour in pasta water to your liking.  Serve hot, with extra red pepper flakes on the side.

Buon Appetito!

Sunday Suppers: Chicken Tetrazzini

For our make-more-to-store meal this week, I was looking to do a big, hearty chicken-noodle situation, and after numerous searches it became clear that the best bet for a rib-sticking casserole would be a dish named after the Italian opera star, Luisa Tetrazzini, for whom this was created circa 1910, legend has it, at the Knickerbocker Hotel in NYC.  Sweet!

There is no universal standard for this dish, but all recipes out there agree on a few general parameters: non-red meat (i.e. chicken), mushrooms, butter, cream, Parmesan, sherry or wine, and noodles.  My version is a slightly healthier version, with milk instead of cream and minimal cheese.  Even still, the aromas emanating from your oven will be as rich and palatable as a Puccini aria!

Chicken Tetrazzini (printable recipe)
serves 6

a 4-pound chicken, cut into 8 pieces
3 celery stalks, with the leaves
2 medium carrots, peeled and cut into large chunks
1 large Spanish onion, peeled and halved
1/2 bunch thyme

1/2 pound broad egg noodles

5 tablespoons (2.5 ounces) unsalted butter
8 ounces mushrooms, destemmed and sliced thin
2 tablespoons all-purpose flour
1/4 cup Sherry
1 cup cream/milk
freshly grated nutmeg
salt and black pepper to taste
1/3 cup grated Parmesan

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Prepare the chicken: Combine the chicken, celery, carrot, half of the onion, and the thyme in a large pot with enough water to cover it by 2 inches, and bring to a boil.  Salt generously, and reduce heat and simmer for 20 to 25 minutes, until the chicken is tender.  Remove the meat from the broth and let it cool on a plate.  Separate the meat from the skin and bones, returning the skin and bones to the broth, and shred the meat into small pieces, reserving it.  Simmer the broth until it is reduced by half, then strain it, discard the solids and skim the fat, and boil the broth until reduced to about 2 cups.

While the broth reduces, cook the noodles in a kettle of well-salted boiling water until just al dente and drain well, reserving a cup of the pasta water.

Prepare the sauce: Chop the remaining half onion.  Melt the butter over medium heat and add the chopped onion and sliced mushrooms.  Cook until softened, about 5 minutes.  Sprinkle in flour, mix well, and cook about 2 minutes longer.  Add sherry and turn heat to medium-high to burn off the alcohol.  Stir in the reduced broth, milk and nutmeg, and simmer until slightly thickened.  Season with salt and pepper to taste. (Warning: your broth will already be well-salted, so don't go crazy.  Generous pepper is recommended, though.)

Assemble the dish:  Preheat the oven to 350 and oil a 3-quart casserole dish.  In a large bowl, toss together the chicken, noodles, and sauce.  If the mixture seems too dry, add a little reserved pasta water, just a splash at a time, to your liking.  Turn the mixture out into the prepared dish and sprinkle the top with the Parmesan.  Bake in the center of the oven for 25 to 30 minutes, until the top is slightly golden.

Sunday Suppers

Hey people, I'm baaaaaaack...

Sorry for the nearly summer-long hiatus.  I guess even though Dan and I didn't take a honeymoon per se (that comes later - Thailand in January!), we kind of checked out of the universe for a time.  But now Dan's back to school, and I'm back to reality, so let's get cooking!

Since Dan is taking pre-med classes mainly in the evenings, I've been strategizing ways to keep him nourished and away from the automatic takeout loop.  The answer, I'm finding, is in casseroles.  Big hearty dishes that I can make in bulk on Sundays, to be reheated at a moment's notice and last the whole week long.  So I'm hereby instituting a new series on the blog, which we'll call Sunday Suppers.  How bout it?  Maybe this will finally slap me into a steady cooking routine, something I've fallen off the wagon with in the past, say, two years.  That's what happens when you cook for a living, I guess.  Hmm...

A few words about this recipe: You can most definitely make them using the more traditional ricotta filling if you'd prefer, but I went the cottage cheese route because, a) it's much easier to find tasty cottage cheese than it is to find good quality ricotta (Polly-O, O no!), and b) it's packed with double the protein, making this much more filling without all that extra fat.  Great for those long nights in the chem lab (for example).

Meaty Stuffed Shells adapted from recipe by Heidi Swanson
(serves 6 to 8)

zest of one lemon

Sauce:
1/2 pound ground meat (beef, turkey, or a beef/pork/veal blend, all good choices)
1 1/2 teaspoons crushed red pepper flakes (Calabrese is the best, if you can find it)
4 garlic cloves, finely chopped
1 28-ounce can crushed tomatoes
1 14-ounce can crushed tomatoes
1 tablespoons dried oregano
salt and freshly ground black pepper

Filling:
1 16-ounce container 4% milkfat cottage cheese
1 egg, beaten
1 cup (about 5 oz.) grated mozzarella
1 bunch chives, finely chopped
large pinch of salt

25-30 jumbo pasta shells (Ronzoni makes nice ones)

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Oil a 13 x 9 inch (or equivalent) 3 quart baking dish and sprinkle with half the lemon zest.  Put up a big pot of pasta water to boil and preheat the oven to 350 degrees.

To make the sauce, heat a saucepan over high heat and add the meat.  Break up with a spoon as it browns and cook until no longer pink.  Add the red pepper flakes, garlic, and some salt, and cook another minute or so.  Add in the tomatoes and oregano, lower to medium, and cook covered about 5 minutes.  Remove from heat, taste and season with salt and pepper to your liking.

To make the filling, combine the cottage cheese, egg and some salt in a bowl.  Mix well until smooth and combined, then stir in 1/2 of the mozzarella, 3/4 of the chives, and the rest of the lemon zest.

Cook the shells according to the box instructions in salted water until al dente.  Be careful not to overcook or the shells will fall apart as you fill them.  Drain and let cool until you can comfortably handle them.

Spread 1/3 of the sauce across the bottom of the baking dish.  Fill each shell with the cheese filling, arranging them in a single layer across the dish.  Ladle the remaining sauce over the shells and sprinkle with the rest of the mozzarella cheese.  Cover with foil and bake for 30 minutes, then another 15 minutes uncovered.  Sprinkle with the remaining chives and serve hot.

Print the recipe