Kevin72

Sunday morning we started with the Sicilian summertime breakfast of champions, a gelato in brioche sandwich. This was featured on a cooking show on TV once, and my wife, ever the gelato freak, gave a giddy yelp when she saw it. So I thought it apropos of her “second birthday” brunch. We’ve gotten into the habit that on my wife’s birthday, she does a “mystery basket” meal and requests an ingredient she’s craving. She gives me advance notice, usually at the start of the month, so I can start planning. This year, she dropped “salmon” on me. How was I going to do that, and remain true to Sicilian cooking? I was blocked for quite some time, but then woke up one day and the entire menu came to me. Not entirely Sicilian, but I tried to keep some of the spirit and ingredients true. First up, smoked salmon bundles with ricotta and chive filling. Cocktail was vodka, zammu (homemade sambucca), and “arancino” (orange digestivo in the same vein as limoncello) shaken together. We followed with “impanatina”, little fried pastries, stuffed with salmon and capers. Third appetizer was salmon and potato pancakes. Urgh, no pics: they fell apart in the pan trying to flip them. Topped with a tomato and green olive sauce. “This is the last course, right?” My wife asked as we finished. Uh-oh. After a little respite, we dove back in with fennel, salmon, and saffron soup, the most overtly Sicilian dish of the evening and the first one I came up with when brainstorming the meal. Finally, salmon “salmoriglio”, grilled salmon topped with a sauce of olive oil, lemon juice, and hot water emulsified together. I guess the water lightens up the sauce? My wife thought it was butter, so mission accomplished! The contorno was pan-seared “slaw” of red peppers and zucchini.

Maybe they're hampered by the concept? I think the mains have to be grilled or rotisseried.

This weekend was part two of my wife’s birthday celebration. Saturday night, I made some Sicilian dishes I’d been doing practically since we started dating. But first, a new appetizer: spittini, Sicilian dialect for skeweres (spiedini) of ground pork and mozzarella from Many Beautiful Things. Alternate very lean ground pork and mozzarella cheese on a skewer, roll in bread crumbs, and deep fry. There was also supposed to be savory béchamel included as one of the items, but mine never set up. Yes, the skewers were as delicate as you’d think and had to be handled and lowered in the oil carefully. But worth it, and tasty! In the background was our cocktail: watermelon, lime juice, vodka, and sweet vermouth pureed together in a blender. Perfect summer starter. The primo was another Sicilian pasta masterpiece (meaning their masterpiece, not mine!), Pasta alla Norma. Eggplant is braised in a spicy, garlicky tomato sauce and finished with ample basil. Toss with rigatoni. What makes the dish, though, is the coarsely grated ricotta salata on top. Very important. I’ve had to “make do” before with parmigiano and even pecorino, and it just isn’t the same. The secondo was pollo all’vincotto, chicken with “cooked wine”, which is made by reducing red wine and sugar together with cloves until it forms a syrup. Brown a quartered chicken in a casserole, then add: carrot, celery, onion, red pepper, cinnamon sticks, whole chili pepper pods and sweat them. Pour the wine syrup over the chicken, sprinkle in some currants or raisins and pine nuts, and then top off with red wine vinegar. Yep, yet another sweet and sour variant. The cinnamon is an important element and really sends up a welcome, homey, yet exotic aroma when the whole thing is braising. The contorno was a baked casserole of slice potatoes and onions, layered with bay leaves, and they perfumed the entire dish nicely. Dessert was one of my wife’s favorites, cannoli. We met and first started dating in Atlanta, and in my typical clueless fashion, our first date consisted of me dragging her all over town on a search for my favorite Italian deli and food store there. I bought cotechino (a large sausage), she bought cannoli, and somewhere, Freud’s head exploded at the subtext. And yet, I’m cursed with an inability to make cannoli from scratch. Maybe it’s the cheapo metal tubes, but every time I make them and fry them, they either slip off as soon as they hit the oil, or worse, hold tight and won’t come off the tube afterwards, ruining them. Batch after batch have been ruined, and I’ve tried all the tricks: water as a sealant, egg whites, oiling the tubes first, nothing works. Fortunately, either Lidia Bastianich or Michael Chiarello in their PBS cooking shows fully endorse just frying the cannoli in disc shapes so that they puff up and make little fritters. Nowhere near as aethetically pleasing, of course. And again, runny topping. Maybe it’s the heat?

Made a couple of pizzas last week. At first it was just going to be one pizza, with sardines and marinated artichokes. I don’t even know now where I saw the recipe, just that it was in reference to Sicily. And, I’m not even sure if the crust is traditional Sicilian, either: just standard thin-crusted pizza. But, since I’d be in trouble with the wife if I made pizza and didn’t do one with some kind of sausage, I made a second pizza with sausage, roasted pepper, and scamorza. Both were gobbled quickly, no leftovers as I’d originally planned.

Wait, so are you back in Scotland now with this last meal?

It's "jambalaya" (in quotes) on the menu, so you know something's up. Our waiter also took pains to set it apart from the traditional dish when he described it. It's been tinkered with since NYTexan went, or was a little different when we saw it . . . fetuccine now, and it had a Tabasco redux sauce. I was a little intrigued myself, but seeing as how badly they botched the seasoning for my entree, I shudder to think what I would've wound up with . . .

My, you do get around, don't you? Great compositions as always and a pleasure to read.

I am really, really hating my fish market right now.

My maker is about a 3 1/2 cup capacity, so I usually do 2 cups milk, 1 cup cream. Honey to taste; I'd start with 1/2 a cup. The almonds I didn't do a precise measure for, but at least 3/4 cup whole and peeled before toasting.

Two hours is the time called for in the recipe but I thought they were still a little firm after that point and went out to four. The white stuff is the eggplant; it just sporadically soaked up the oil and gave it a mottled white/yellow appearance. I added mint but basil or both would be great. Ooh, and maybe some olives . . .

Grind the fresh-toasted peeled almonds with a little of the hot milk to a fine paste. Simmer for a few minutes in the milk mixture (I've switched to doing milk and cream instead of custard) then steeped and left to cool to room temp.

Hey, it's seasonal, so there's no faulting that! I've done many a summer meal like that.

Went here Saturday and I'll add my voice to those of the disappointed. We were seated by the roaring, cozy fireplace so apropos of Dallas in July. When we asked about turning it down or off, our server and the manager (who did come over directly to talk to us about it) said it wasn't possible. They did offer to move us to another table, though. My wife had to order wine three times because they were out of the first two, even though the second bottle was recommended by our server. Other than that, though, our waiter was good. But the guy running the reservations desk up front was gruff. And next to where we sat, a party of six got up (all at once mind you), went to the restroom, leaving their to-go bags on the table. The table was quickly cleaned and turned over when the original party returned and one of them got huffy. Dessert was on its way, so really, it was a pretty bad mistake on service's part. But honestly, why would everyone at a table of six (parents, grandparents, son and daughter) suddenly get up and go to the restroom at once and be gone for ten minutes and not at least leave one person behind to hold down the fort and watch the food? Fruit flies were a constant at our tables and we could see other guests swatting at them. We left them a decent tip though. As with NewYorkTexan, our maytag chips were greasy and cold. But I still ate much more than I should have in my starved state. We also ordered the calamari app, and while they were good, they came with a dipping sauce that was puddled at the bottom of the serving dish first, then the calamari put over it. As opposed to putting it in a separate dish so you could, you know, dip them in the sauce. I ordered a grilled amberjack with portabella mashers. Some of the amberjack was dry and overcooked, and the potatoes were gaggingly salty. In fact, a coworker warned me when I told her we were going here that they way overseasoned their food, and I can't believe this hasn't been fixed yet. My wife had the peach-glazed pork tenderloin and everything about it was good except that the sauce was very obviously (to me at least) a gussied-up bottled sauce, like maybe Heinz 57. Blah. I really like that little shopping center so it's a pity one of their anchor restaurants is so subpar. And yet it was packed!

Ricotta makes an excellent binder for fritters. Mix in whatever you've got sitting around that you'd like to toss in, some grated parmigiano or pecorino, an egg or two, roll in breadcrumbs, and deep fry. I made ricotta gelato once and it was unbelievably good. Can't remember the recipe though.

Exactly. Honestly, I still don't mind 30MM, but the other stuff has gotten out of hand. It was pointed out on a previous Rachel thread that she's on 28 times in a programming week, and that was before her talk show was announced. It can't be good business in the long run. Just ask ABC, who saturated the air with "Who Wants to Be A Millionare" and then plummetted in the ratings when everyone got burnt out and they had nothing else to offer. And to top it off, there's entire shelves at the bookstore just taken up with her stuff. I still have no dislike for her personally, and I'd never equate her cooking with the deplorable Lee show, but she did pave the way for this new mentality at FN.

Great interview, well thought-out questions, Rachel. Couple of random thoughts: I saw something about putrefied shark on the National Geographic Channel and thought "There's something I'd like to see Tony try!" The PETA comments took me by surprise too. I'm wondering, with his stance towards vegetarianism, what if his thoughts have changed any after going to India? Finally, I've noticed that FoodTV has, conveniently, started airing Cook's Tour on Sunday afternoons . . .

All right, I was going to say that somehow I just couldn't pity anyone who was crabby in Italy, but no A/C makes this americano very crabby, esp. at night . . . I did lemons and thyme. I was going to use orange actually but used 'em on the sardines instead. Oh, c'mon, there's something "not right" about that cake. To be fair I think the heat got to it, but I couldn't shape the marzipan right and the icing . . . it was damn near paste at first, then I added a squirt of water and suddenly its liquefied. In fact that's been my consistent pastry problem this month is getting the icing right. Impanata recipe will be PM'ed shortly.

My wife’s birthday was Sunday, and I kicked off a week of various special meals for her with her traditional brunch: ciambella, a shortbread-type pastry baked in a ring shape, topped with summer berry compote and then honey and Sambucca-scented yogurt. Also had a frittata of fresh tomatoes and basil. Sunday dinner we started with fried coins of zucchini that are then dusted with sugar instead of the customary salt. Another mind-blower from Mario Batali’s run of Sicily episodes on his cooking show. The primo was a baked pasta with an almond and sausage ragu from Vincent Schiavelli’s Many Beautiful Things. Making it even more offbeat, the tomato ragu is seasoned with cinnamon and orange zest. When cooking, it kicked up an aroma reminiscent of when I was doing Friuli, way back in January. Coincidentally, I remember at the time comparing Friuli and Sicily as two of the most distinctive, exotic-spice laden Italian cuisines I had run across. Everybody went back for seconds, even though I warned them more was coming! The main was duck in a chocolate agrodolce sauce. Mario attributes this dish to the Spanish rule. Duck pieces are browned, then carrot, celery, onion, fennel seeds and bay leaves are stirred in. Slightly submerge the duck in white wine vinegar and cook for an hour until tender. Remove the meat, reduce the pan juices a little, then stir in bitter chocolate and sugar. The chocolate adds just the right base note to the zing of the vinegar and makes it a rich, rounded sauce. The Sicilians seem to have come up with infinite variations on the sweet and sour theme and ways to do it. Almost as common an embellishment as cheese is the customary pine nuts or almonds and raisins or currants. I omitted them from this recipe as I’ve still got many other dishes this month with that combo and I don’t want to get burned out. The contorno was lemon-pickled eggplant, again from Schiavelli. It’s important to use baby eggplants in this as you essentially “cure” the raw eggplant in the lemon juice and then serve it. Sliver it finely and toss with salt and sugar, then the juice of several lemons and some olive oil, and set aside to pickle for a few hours. It still has a firm texture to it but it was addictive in its own way. Dessert was cassata, the millennium-old, elaborately layered Sicilian pastry. Sponge cake is layered with sweet ricotta cream (it’s done well for having been frozen), wrapped with strips of green-colored marzipan, then iced with a lemon icing and garnished with candied fruits. It also called for chocolate but I left it out. I’ll give you three guesses what my culinary weak spot is. More birthday dishes next weekend.

I was shopping for Friday’s meal and about to get the ingredients for the planned appetizer, when I noticed that our market was now, of course, carrying fresh sardines, exactly when I wasn’t going to use them. Still, I decided to “let the market dictate” and scrapped the original antipasto plan to do some grilled sardines as a starter. One was stuffed with dried figs and breadcrumbs, then rolled in a crust of orange zest and fennel seeds. The other was simply marinated in lemon juice and rosemary. As with so much of cooking, simpler is better and I enjoyed the latter version more. For the main it was salt-crusted snapper. This is of course not exclusive to Sicily, or even Italy for that matter, but I love this technique and it had been way too long since I’d made it, so I decided to do it this month with the salt fields near Trapani in mind (and no, I didn’t use $10/ 2lbs Sicilian sea salt, either). Take the same weight of salt for the weight of fish you are cooking, mix it with whipped egg whites, and then completely encase the fish in it. Roast in a hot oven for 30-50 minutes, depending on weight. When it comes out the crust is golden brown and rock hard; you’ll need a hammer to get through it! The fish emerges steamed in its own juices, perfectly seasoned and not at all over-salty. Fillet it and serve it with some arugula (or my new favorite but difficult to get green, tatsoi), lemon juice, and olive oil. I also parboiled some fingerling potatoes, lightly smashed them, then doused them with olive oil and dried oregano and roasted them, as well.

Earlier this week we had a dish from my newly-acquired cookbook Flavors of Southern Italy by Erica de Mane. It’s a good book, exploring important cooking styles and ingredients from Southern Italy. She begins the book by outlining major flavor elements found in the South (bitter, spicy, sweet and sour, etc) and then offers various interpretations of southern dishes. Some are updates of Italian-American mainstays, some are tweaks of dishes she’s had in Italy, and some are just examples of improvised dishes using these flavors and elements. One such recipe that stood out almost immediately was an orange-scented swordfish impanata from Sicily. I tweaked it even further from her rendition and used for the filling roasted peppers, capers, and tomato sauce along with some seared cubes of swordfish. The pastry is almost a dessert crust: sugar and orange zest and juice in a standard pasta frolla. My wife commented that when you first bite into the pie you’re expecting a sweet filling, but then are pleasantly surprised by this savory flavor instead. It works really, really well; one of the best dishes I’ve done so far this month.

Saturday we made a far-too-infrequent visit to Deli News, at the intersection of Preston and Campbell. Deli News had originally been in operation further west on Frankfurt (maybe at Midway?), and it doubled as a Russian restaurant, complete with ornate murals of Russian palaces and scowling czars. It closed up shop and moved to this location, and we only found it again by accident, thinking it had shut down for good. It has dropped the overt Russian theme and moved more in the direction of a general delicatessen, though there are Russian/Polish/Jewish specialties liked stuffed braised cabbage and pirogues offered for dinner. For lunch they offer salads and deli-style sandwiches, and at breakfast they have omelettes, eggs, pancakes, challah French toast, bagels, and a good spread of smoked or preserved fish for the real deli-heads. I’m always interested in other items on the menu, but we go so rarely that I gravitate to my standby, the deli breakfast plate of scrambled eggs, a bagel, and sautéed sampler of salami, pastrami, and corned beef. They will roll the defibrillator up to your table on request. So as we’re eating it hit me that we really needed to start going here more. We’ve been wanting to find a reliable straightforward breakfast spot with no luck, and were also lamenting the recent (to us) demise of Gilbert’s Delicatessen in Addison. We’ll probably hit it for lunch sometime in the next few months and I’ll get that review up as well. I’m not making any claims about authenticity to displaced New Yorkers out there, but it’s a good, reliable spot. What are your favorite Dallas delis?

Awesome! Just got that for my wife for her birthday. Good to hear.

Here you go!

I've got a thread going on it in the Italy forum.

Thanks for the review, Frank.