Almost Risotto

Rule Number One for Risotto: have it.

I was all set to make roasted mushroom risotto with a parsley blend when, after going through a thorough search of my cabinet, I realized I had no risotto. I had already peeled and chopped an excessive amount of garlic for roasting with the mushrooms. Everything was ready, except the rice. So I made a quick choice looking through what was left: polenta.

Bear in mind I've never cooked polenta before, but I figured that something as simple as polenta would be hard to screw up. In a sense, this is very true. It's hard to mess up polenta. But I also discovered over the course of over an hour of slow stirring and seasoning-correcting that it's also hard to make really good polenta.

Even with the parlsey, mushrooms, butter, parm, and garlic all mixed in, I couldn't figure out what was wrong. I added some fresh thyme and a little rosemary. Better. Just as I was getting ready to serve, I had the consistency that I wanted, but it just lacked that taste that I loved about polenta in restaurants. I did what I usually do when something needs more flavor. I added a little olive oil. Bam. It went from ok to amazing. The earthy flavors of the mushrooms jumped out. The short-roasted garlic subdued and blended harmoniously with the other flavors, and even the consistency improved.

I know I got lucky, but I'm ok with that. But who knew polenta took an hour to make? I certainly didn't.

Best Pesto Yet

I've made pesto only a few times - my first mishap was in Italy when I first started cooking for myself (I was studying abroad and quickly discovered that I didn't have it in my budget to eat out for every meal. The solution seemed simple. Ask the nonne at the market what they're cooking and try to imitate).

Since then I've used blenders, forks, knives, and most other utensils to try my hand at it. It's never as good as you get in the restaurants. It seems like it should be simple - basil, garlic, cheese, oil, nuts. No cooking. No fire. Yet somehow, a really good tasting pesto seemed illusive. Until tonight.

I was searching through Jamie's cookbook for some quick prep dinners. Tomorrow is risotto night (first of the season, go figure it's going to be like 80 degrees). Jamie's recipe calls for the following: almonds, tomatoes, par

m, basil, oil, garlic. I liked the idea of tomatoes and almonds (instead of pine nuts) right away. I liked it even better that my hands would be used not only to mash the ingredients together in my new mortar and pestle (thanks Jason!) but also to squish and mangle the tomatoes. The ripe grape tomatoes were absolutely essential.

The results were simply divine. We rampaged through our servings, wishing there was more for tomorrow.

Sliders

It seems that instead of supersizing, posh Americans are 'sliding.' They're deliberately paying more to eat less meat. Whether there is a deeper psychological theme to consider here, I'll let you decide, but all I know is that when you have a pound of meat and two people, it's more fun to experiment, leading me to a night of sliders.

Over the past year I've seen some pretty interesting versions, but they're all based on a similar premise: small bun (usually more artisanal bread), small patty, simple additions, fries and/or salad.

The small bun is an interesting point because bakers have churned out really good buttery rolls that far exceed the average burger bun. And why not? When it's only a few bites for each, the meat (even if the ratio of burger/bun stays the same) has less of a chance to overpower the bun. +1 slider.

Occasionally you'll see a restaurant offer regular ole' beef patty sliders. I think even White Castle started doing this?! Often (at least in NYC), you'll see an important adjective next to beef. Like "Kobe," or "free-range" or "grass fed" or "organic." The idea is that somehow because the meat is smaller, the restaurant has to make up the difference in size with taste (or at least perceived taste, as unfortunately there are many organic burgers that are simply awful). I still think this a plus. If we ate smaller portions from local farms all the time, we would be a much healthier and happier country. Off the point though. +2 slider.

Rarely, you'll even see the restaurant taking it a step further. Game. Ever had ostrich? No need to get the 25 dollar plate. Try a 4 dollar slider. Then, once you're hooked and thought to yourself "my god this tastes good... too bad they're so cute" you'll dive in for the 25 dollar plate. Brilliant marketing. One place I went to in Brooklyn had an absolutely brilliant scheme. They paired up a gamey slider with a 4 oz beer, a cheese, and a style of potato. You could order just one, but since these guys are too small to share, watching your buddy roll his eyes back first bite in will make you want to try whatever s/he ate. So, all of a sudden you've order 4 sliders and spent more on burgers than you ever had. But oh are they good.

And every once and a while you'll get a little 'balsamic drizzle' or something fancy to top it off. Blue cheese emulsion (I don't even know what that would be, but sounds pretty).

As a home cook, however, sliders allow you to try to cook burgers in lots of different styles and with lots of different ingredients. Plus, you really have to try hard to cook them wrong since the meat is more likely to cook evenly when it's thinner. Yum.

Mushrooms 3 Ways

Mushrooms are funny. How long did it take for us to figure out which ones were poisonous and which ones were delicacies? Who tests new species? Whenever a recipe calls for cooking mushrooms - wild ones in particular - I'm transported 5 years back to when I got to spend a short weekend in Sweden during midsommar. I was staying with a wonderful family who hosted a huge fete, and one of the great traditions they had was that in preparation for the grand meal, the male head of house would set out into the woods to gather the mushrooms and kill the meat.

It was as much a right of passage as a family tradition, but it rang of authenticity unlike what you find here. Parents never show their stash to their kids, and the mushrooms they found dance the fine line between delicacy and poison - once cooked properly they are divine... but make a mistake, and you've got your whole party in the toilet (or worse).

But that was Sweden. This week was mushroom week for no particular reason except that Jamie has some great recipes I wanted to try, and when cooking for two its easier to get a whole bunch of mushrooms and use them many ways.

The stuffed mushrooms with ricotta were near perfect. The outside tender, the inside filled with a zesty and sweet cheese mix (spiced up with some chili). Not sure what the cause was, but the innards spilled out a little too quickly leaving me to trim off some.

The lightly roasted shrooms with cheese on top were nice, but not necessarily something I'd make again. It's possible I just didn't do it right, or didn't have good enough mushrooms, but they just didn't click.

Tonight, I went for the more adventurous style - mushrooms in a bag with fresh

herbs, prosciutto, and white wine. They were great, although I feel like the mushrooms weren't quite tender enough. Why? Although I only had enough for one go-round, I would guess the mistake lay with my bag-folding technique (Jamie is not very good about giving those kinds of details. In fact, few chefs are in their cookbooks with the exception of the folks at the test kitchen and all their publications).

Conclusion? Mushrooms are a great accent to any meal. Stems chopped up and mixed into a sauce add a perfect earthy flavor. Caps are wonderful for sautéing or stuffing. Good mushrooms, on the other hand, are quite difficult to find. The supermarket variety are so far from the full taste that truly wild mushrooms bring. If you find a good recipe, stick to it. Otherwise, you're often better getting the goods at a restaurant (I usually don't say this). Try the bags, they're fun (and easy)!

On Sunday

Sunday is a great day to cook. In most parts of Italy, Sunday is when the extended family gathers early and starts preparing a meal together - a ritual generations of Italians have passed on to their kids. Sauces like Bolognese can take 5 hours, and making the fresh pasta for tortellini can take almost as long, so you really need a whole day like Sunday to get it all done.

I choose Sunday to be experimental. Why not try my hand at some of the odder and potentially more challenging recipes in the book. I guess "challenging" is relative. To many, Eggplant Parm is a staple that any deli can toss up. Street food-style fried pasta isn't technically difficult. So what do I mean by challenging? To do a melanzane parmigiano right, you need a perfect tomato sauce, prime eggplants, nice mozz, and good parm. It shouldn't be overly chewy, or suggest bland flavors of canned tomato sauce. In fact, you should be able to taste every distinct layer - like a lasagna - but still enjoy the perfect blend of the

ingredients. That's the challenge.

And with the street food, authenticity is key. It doesn't take much to batter up some spaghetti and saute it, but it is more of a challenge to get that outer-crispy gooey-inside parsley & parm laden taste that Romans would expect for a euro or two. So how did I do? (and I apologize for the bad pics, I'm still getting the hang of using the camera in the kitchen)

Melanzane alla parmigiana

Jamie says the mozzarella is optional? Then again, he suggests using buffalo mozzarella. This is a joke. You MUST use fresh mozzarella, but don't waste your money on imported buffalo mozz (the stuff is only at its best when made day of, which doesn't work if you get it imported from your grocery).

The tomato sauce is key too. Good canned tomatoes, lots of fresh basil, a drip of wine vinegar, and some sugar at the very end made for one of the best I've made. Then, if you've grilled your eggplants right, it's just a matter of layering.

I think I messed up on the cheese. I might have put too much, or not shredded it enough, or whatnot, but it was fresh and unsalted (which is the best way to do mozz when you're cooking it). Amazing. Find the recipe and use it.

Fritelle di spaghetti

I had mixed feelings about the pasta from the start. Fried pasta? Washing it? So many different things that didn't seem right. Basically, you make pasta and prepare a batter (sans flour) with egg, parsley, and parm. When the pasta is done cooking, you toss it with the mixture, then put it in the saute pan in little batches.

It took me a few tries to get the heat and timing right. As Jamie suggests, you want a nice crisp outside with a soft, tender inside. Who doesn't want this? What it means is high heat, olive oil (not the extra virgin type which would burn at these temps), and practice. By the last few ones I tried, they were nicely browned, crisp, and soft on the inside. I might even undercook the pasta a little in the future by 30 seconds. Great as a snack, but must be eaten hot hot hot.

1 out of 21

A good friend of mine decided to start a project - 1 out of 21 - that encourages us to be proud of what we do in the kitchen, and perhaps more importantly, take more ownership of what we eat. The premise is really simple, but brilliant: out of the 21 or so meals you cook each week, make (and share) one you're proud of.

To me, this clicked instantly. As much as I love cooking, I've recently found myself in a bit of a rut. Whether out of habit, ease, or fright I set into a standard resume of basic Italian dishes. Most of them had been improvised, but once I had it down, I just kept making it.

In an effort to spice things up a bit, I joined a CSA to eat more veggies and force myself to be more creative. It has definitely helped, but as I kept turning back to epicurious and various cookbooks for advice with beets, kale, and the like, I figured it was time to embark on a real adventure.

The results so far have been great. My "1" I'm guessing will be quite different from many. Ironically, I'm afraid to cook from a cookbook. I'd rather conjure up ideas and add spices along the way. It's a fun way to cook, but, unless you really get adventurous, it actually has been holding me back. So I joined teams with Jamie (read earlier posts) to expand my repetoire. For the next while, my "1" will involve the oven - an item I have used almost exclusively for mac and cheese, baked ziti, and chicken marsala.

Caponata

By now most people don't confuse tomatoes as Italian, but that doesn't mean they didn't figure out how to use them best early on. The Sicilians probably deserve credit for this, although it is surely impossible to say who made the first tomato sauce. That said, when you combine some splendid sicilian produce (tomatoes and eggplant) with a local farm's zucchini, you get one mean caponata.

I decided to venture a little bit from the recipe once I had the basics down. Jamie's recipe calls for adding tomatoes, eggplant, and onion. I cooked the eggplant and squash together, set them aside. Cooked up some mixed mushrooms, set them aside. Put everything back in the pot, added the garlic, parsley, and onion, and when it started to blend, mixed in some balsamic vinegar. Once the vinegar dissolved, I tossed in the tomatoes and an extra splash of extra virgin olive oil. I let that simmer for about 15-20 minutes (oh, and I had doubled the amount of garlic he put in).

The end result was amazing. I tried it in a few forms: on some pasta I cooked up, finished off with a little chili and parm, by itself (nothing added), on a piece of bread once room temp. I have a feeling this is one of those "better the next day" meals and am very excited to have bundled 2 lunches (kept with the over pasta method for those).

Cooking eggplant had, for a long time, given me some major trouble. If you too suffer, try this:

1) use small, firm italian eggplants. Once you see seeds, too late.

2) cook on high heat with olive oil (not extra virgin!). The extra virgin variety has too low a burning point and can make for some funky cooking at these high temps. This is a good rule in general. Save the good stuff for salads and finish off dishes.

3) add oregano (and a fair amount of it). You don't need fresh stuff, and in fact, it might be better to use the dried as you're cooking it at pretty high heat. This makes it taste vunderbar.

Why Jamie?

When i was looking at my cookbooks and trying to decide which one to begin my journey, I really didn't expect this one to make the cut. I knew I wanted to start Italian because of both its simplicity, availability of ingredients, and my own taste preferences. I've got this great "cucina rustica" book as well as a few by some other better known chefs, but in the end, after revisiting a few recipes from each I decided Jamie was closest to both my style and attitude.

While Jamie covers many different regions and their local foods, he focuses primarily on Roman and Sicilian cuisine. Although my time in Bologna made me rather biased toward the Emiglia Romana cuisine, it's not easy and often heavy.

Additionally, Jamie likes veggies. Not just to use as a side here and there, but, in his own words, "cook them nicely, dress them with care and you'll be laughing." That was pretty much the experience I had when I was in Italy, and while I do use a lot of vegetables in my cooking, I'm always looking for ways to expand. I got caught in a bit of a tomato/pepper/onion thing for a while.

Stay tuned.

Ricotta Fritta

Romans like to fry lots of things, including cheese. When I say fry I don't mean like the deep oil dip - I mean more like a pan sear, but they have the same word for it - fritto. I read the recipe for "ricotta fritta" and thought this would be a perfect dish. In a lot of ways it was, except perhaps in looks.

Jamie's got this lovely picture of an omlette like thing next to a pile of quartered and marinated mixed tomatoes. Yum. This is one of those recipes where I feel like the folks from chef's illustrated would have been a little more helpful. How did he get it to look so pretty?

I tried it in several batches, lowering and increasing the heat, with and without olive oil, a minute here or there, but by the end of my batch I had come up with something that tasted amazing, but didn't have the 'crisp' consistency he bragged about at the end of his recipe. Something to work on in the future.

Squid

After last night's success with bruschette (I ended up doing: roasted eggplant w/goat cheese, tomato w/basil & mint, pesto and goat cheese) I decided to continue my journey through Jamie's Italy.

You ever have really chewy calamari or octopus, whether fried, in a salad, or some other form? I've had amazing stuff, and I've had unedible stuff. What I discovered tonight is that the difference isn't so much in the quality of the squidy, but in how it's prepared. It's incredibly cheap (about 4-5 dollars a pound) and full of flavor.

First, flavor some olive oil with some garlic, lemon, and parsley stem in a pan. Then, toss on the squid (whole) and let simmer for about 15 minutes until you can run a fork tenderly through it. This doesn't actually fully prepare your squid. Jamie offers several options, and I vied for the kebab method - lightly grilling (or in my case, pan searing) with a little extra parsley, lemon juice, and hot pepper. If I had more squid, I'd try marinating it (after the tenderizing process) to make a salad.