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Everything posted by Kevin72
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It's kind of a chain since there's two in Dallas, but I believe there's a Cru in the Woodlands area: wine bar with some fun appetizers to go with. May be ideal to not get so weighed down with a big gutbuster meal and then sit outdoors in a humid Houston night.
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Well, these threads are always open to further comment and cooking exploits . . . witness Pontormo's Sardinian meal she posted a few days ago. But we can't take away from poor Puglia!
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Had a fantastic lunch at the deli across the street this weekend; everthing that walked by looked awesome and by the time I got my shawarma wrap I was little worried I hadn't ordered right, but it was great. My wife had a mortadella, feta, and pickle sandwich and the combo worked perfectly. I seriously want to take like a week off and eat my way through Houston, I'm so far behind now on places I want to try out. The store itself is something to see, though it seems much bigger on the outside than it is when you walk in. My parents who were with us actually know one of the chefs that works there and we got to talking to him. He pointed out a can of Syrian white truffles(?!) which, while he said were of course not comparable to Piemonte's kind, made for a good substitute by themselves in the dish. The seafood and meat counter was especially impressive; quartered lamb was being offered, and they had a pile of shimmering, appetizing fresh sardines.
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I'm really curious to see how cannoli turn out if someone makes them from scratch. You may recall they were and remain one of my culinary weak spots; I can't ever get them to turn out right: they either slip of the mold in the oil and turn into puffs or stay stuck on the mold and fall apart trying to scrape them off. I don't even think I'll attempt them this month but will take notes from anyone who succeeds.
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I've been quite busy this month and haven't been able to devote as much time to cooking from one of my favorite regions as I'd like to. But everyone else is doing such a great job that I'm having almost as much fun just watching and reading about everyone's efforts.
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After some disastrous attempts at making it with chestnut flour (it went rancid as Franci cautions) I did wonder about making it with chestnuts, as with potatoes. If you try it, please post your results, I'm still curious. I made it with a mushroom and thyme sauce that was pretty good.
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Adam!
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I see your timing is as always uncanny. Be careful, though. Duh.
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Heh.
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Yeah, looking back I misread Ling's posts. I had thought she said they were okay with fish and cheese but it was only cheese.
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Going home at lunch to hose the shirt down with it, as a matter of fact! The chickpea fritters are great and another item that winds up working better than you could possibly think, especially with cheese grated over them hot out of the fryer. Both Rome and Sicily (coincidentally two of my favorite cooking regions) really get my frying jones going. But, dammit, I still think Ling should make the pasta with sardines.
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This just in: Caponata leaves a hell of a stain when it tumbles off your cracker and down the front of your tan shirt. At work.
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Oh, and Ling, why not do the pasta con le sarde? That's substantial enough that you wouldn't miss a "main", accompanied with the arancini and the fennel and orange salad it sounds perfect.
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There's a similar Roman prep called suppli all telefonato that has a cheese filling; arancini typically have the ragu or, sometimes, anchovies.
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Cacciocavallo continues to be elusive but I settled for provolone after Alberto gave his blessing on it when I brought it up last year. (You did give your blessing on it, right Alberto? Good.) Ricotta salata is amazingly easy to come by now. I have access to sheep's milk ricotta, which Victoria Granof says is most traditional for Sicilian recipes, but don't want to buy at those prices. I have a whole collection of those cloth maps of Italy at home that break down each region by a particular product, so one map is all breads, one is all wine, etc. One of the maps is for cheeses, which I'll look at tonight since I can't think of any others from the region.
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I think it was the former; Ricotta Salata didn't become more commonly available here until the start of the decade. And it really is what makes the dish. I had to make do with pecorino and parm once and it just wasn't the same. Almost, but not enough.
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I like the orange part of it, very Sicilian. What about using Sambucca as the base or part of the base?
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It's inspired by Erica de Mane's book, Flavors of Southern Italy, which I've been meaning to plug with the Triple Crown of Southern Italian cooking coming up in the next few months. Glad you liked the impanata, Klary! I had re-researched last year's thread and forgotten about that one, and now am trying to think of a time to cook this one. And you got everything I liked about it when I made it, too: the sweet crust off against the swordfish, capers, and roasted peppers.
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It was slightly warmer than room temp; I was worried that it would set up if it cooled too completely and then I'd have difficulty getting the chips stirred in smoothly.
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Shaya, I think that ironically the commonly available semolina flour works much better in breads than it does in pasta: I use the same for both, just out of the bulk bin at our local gourmet store. However, it does help if you have a KitchenAid (or at least it does for me) to give the dough the requisite beating it requires.
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I've only made it the one time last year, from the Sweet Sicily recipe, whic was pretty good. I'd be shy of a chocolate frosting as well. So, while I can't give anything close to an authoritative, "which is best" recipe, I will advise you to make it in advance and give yourself plenty of time to do it; as I'm sure you've noticed there's a hell of a lot of ingredients and different steps. And, it improves as it sits and the various liquors soak into the cake itself.
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I've experimented with both and yes, there's a noticeable textural difference. The rolled enitrely out by hand kind, on a wooden surface with a wooden matarello, creates a rougher texture and it holds on to the sauce better. Perfect for ragu bolognese. But I only make it a couple times a year; in my experience it adds considerably to the production time, I'm a little too clumsy to do it exactly right or get it thin enough, and you need quite a bit of surface space to roll it out. It's one of many of the nuances I loved about the book. Honestly, the whole thing is like a dream topic for me: he just hits almost every thing I'd want to cover. I loved the whole bit about the ideal spaghetti with clams and why it's so great ("No one likes it for the little snot of meat in there!") I'm almost wanting to read it again since I blazed so quickly through it the first time.
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Here again, seems like we've all got the fever for a particular item already: caponata. I made mine over the weekend: Went a little heavy on the olives. And, I got to use some of the pane curasau! For the main, I made the next dish I hope we all get a chance to make this month: pasta con le sarde, the dish that to me symbolizes how exotic, aromatic, and layered Sicilian cooking is. It's so much more than what you think it will be when you make it. To me, it brings to mind really good Thai or Vietnamese dishes since it incorporates so many basic flavors at once: sweet, pungent, spicy, salty; in other words addictive, heady, and complex. And it even works well with canned sardines.