Kevin72

Regarding the ricotta: I woke up early this morning worrying about my still-unused ricotta going bad and partitioned it up and tossed it in the freezer. Probably not going to aid the flavor/texture much but after all that work I'd hate to see it go bad. The top layer already had a taste that was heading that way.

I was going to ask if there was anything specifically different about Sicilian couscous. We have the small, standard kind and then the large Israeli pearl couscous--is it more similar to that? I've also seen it made by hand by Lidia Bastianich on her show; not sure I'm ready for that undertaking! I'd assume "real gamberi rossi" are shrimp, right? I am intrigued by doing almond milk and thought about making some sort of cocktail with it later this month. I went to a Middle Eastern store on Saturday (where I got the sardines) and loaded up on whole, blanched almonds, so they will play a large role in the coming month.

We finally got to go here Friday night. It’s at a hectic intersection where Live Oak becomes Skillman, in a small, unassuming building near a convenience store. It’s fairly “cozy” inside, maybe 13 tables, so that’s probably why reservations are so hard to come by. No liquor; beer and wine only. As soon as you are seated you are given two glasses of dry sherry and a little plate of almonds and olives. The menu is seasonal-ish, and ingredient-centered, not arch-local the way T’fia is but a similar layout or feel. There wasn’t a thing on there I didn’t want. We started with “Poudre Puff”, a plate of Colorado brie-like cheese with candied ginger, apricots, and a strange thin rye wafer. Unusual; I liked it but my wife wasn’t keen on the bitter aftertaste of the cheese. We had a bottle of MacPherson Texas white (not a Chardonnay) that was quite enjoyable. Also you’re attentively given little ciabatta muffins and a crock of sea-salt crusted sweet butter that is highly addictive. I saw the peach soup that they have a reputation for, but I couldn’t not try the duck egg appetizer. My wife had the house salad with figs, pistachios, and bacon. They asked us, when taking our order, if we were interested in one of the two special dessert items: cherry clafoute(sp?) or a blackberry cobbler, both of which required advanced notice to make. We ordered the cherry. What followed was an interminable wait for our salad items, and an even longer wait for our main, despite the restaurant only being about half-full. For the main I had ordered the braised veal cheeks with sweet wine-glazed morels (the lavender quail Robyn talked about would have been my second choice). My wife had loup de mer (wolf fish or branzino) with a watercress sauce, but it was called “dribble” or something clever like that. We split an order of the spinach, which was silky and perfectly seasoned. The veal cheeks were tender and the sauce was an excellent accompaniment; I nearly licked my plate clean. My wife’s fish was rolled up or in some sort of bundled shape. There was a nice anise flavor to the dish but the very center of the fish was nearly rare, which I know is trendy but didn’t quite work, texture-wise. Our blackberry cobbler arrived after another achingly long wait (and now the restaurant was one-third capacity). Funny, since we had ordered the cherry clafoute (again, sp?). Not wanting to wait another 20 minutes for them to bring us the right item, we ate it anyways, and it was pretty tasty; we’re just not as into blackberries. It was a fun night. Obviously they were having timing problems and inconsistencies in the kitchen that they need to tighten up. Things started strongly with a firm handshake from I’m guessing the owner or manager right when we walked in, and then the staff descending on us as we were seated to bring bread, drinks, a menu, and the almonds and olives, but by the end of the evening everything had pulled back. Certainly it is the best fine dining experience we’ve had in Dallas this year and are eager to go back, maybe in the cooler months to see how the menu evolves then.

Hey, thanks for the shout-out on the Dinner thread! Glad you liked the pasta con le sarde. This was only my second time to ever make it and both times it really went over well. I always forget just how layered the flavors are and how well they go together. Needs to become a summer staple, I think. Sorry I missed your blog way back when, just noticed it in your sig last night and went through the thread. Great stuff in there, like how you do a little globetrotting with each meal! And I loved including the music choices in each meal!

I have to admit that when I first read the teaser description of Molto Italiano: 327 Simple Italian Recipes to Cook at Home on Amazon last fall, I was worried. Had Mario gone the way of Rachel Ray and FoodTV in general and surrendered to the “quick and easy” path that seems to plague the cookbook shelves at bookstores these days? As it turns out, there was nothing to be worried about. This is still the same old Mario, who can give a 5 second breakdown of Pugliese cuisine, make an obscure reference to a Rolling Stones song, and grill an octopus tentacle without pausing for a breath in between. So, while the subtitle includes the word “simple”, this is not the stuff of other FTV shows like Everyday Italian or 30 Minute Meals. You’ll find sweet and sour calves’ tongue, tripe, the aforementioned grilled octopus, and an anchovy and almond soup in these pages. In fact I’d say that “simple” is in fact a misnomer or at the least a relative term here: recipes do call for making the pasta yourself, or making your own mustard fruits, Cremona-style. The book is staggering in its scope and depth, and nearly every recipe has a beautiful, artfully composed full-color photograph by Beatriz da Costa to accompany it. It’s laid out in the usual Italian fashion, flowing from antipasti, to soups, to pasta, then onto seafood, meat, vegetables, and desserts. As always, his pasta recipes, both for dried and fresh pasta, seem to be the standout, and truly are “simple”, if you can get past making some of the pastas yourself. Peppered throughout are essays by Mario or other guest writers on Italian wine, the glories of cooking cephalopods, why ducks aren’t as popular in the U.S, and other varied topics, and Mario shares some of his dry, esoteric worldview in almost every pre-recipe writeup: when you break down a chicken, keep the thighs and legs and feed the breasts to the dog. That said, anyone familiar with his previous books will be a little dismayed at the number of recycled recipes here. Too, some recipes are only subtly different from one another, with only a minor variation in technique or ingredient to stand apart. The book starts with two fried cauliflower fritters, and there’s three antipasti recipes for clams on the half-shell. I’d rather have seen them rolled up into one master recipe, with variations listed afterwards, rather than blow a whole extra page and photo on them. Mario begins in the introduction by surveying his previous works as an overview of where he was at at each point in his career when he wrote them, and then continuing right up to this book, a summation of his total experiences with three cooking and two travel shows, and an ever-growing army of successful New York restaurants. It’s a look at the state of Italian food and cooking today, and he does indeed swing from Italian-American staples, to arch-regional specialties never dreamed of on these shores, to trademark, only-in-a Batali-owned-restaurant dishes. Mario’s strength has always been to walk the line between professional, restaurant-level cuisine and simple home-style cooking, and this is no exception. It’s hard not to argue that it doesn’t deserve a place on the cookbook shelf. Certainly anyone looking to get their first Mario cookbook should now begin (and almost end) here, but those with more familiarity of his previous works may have some misgivings. I gave a few of the recipes from this book a spin and made a weeknight meal for some friends. Here’s the menu: Antipasto: Prosciutto and Grilled Figs (page 100) Pasta: Spaghetti with Green Olive Sauce (Page 168) Main: Grilled Jumbo Shrimp with White Beans, Rosemary, and Mint Oil (Page 268) Vegetable: Asparagus with Citrus, Parsley, and Garlic (Page 418) Dessert: Peaches with Primitivo Syrup (Page 486) Total cook time from walking in the door to serving the antipasto: Almost exactly 90 minutes. No significant challenges or special techniques in making these items, the title gives almost an exact description of the ingredients. About the thing requiring an unusual technique was making the red wine syrup for the peaches, but seeing as how this was one of my first successful desserts back when I was learning how to cook, it can’t be that outlandish.

Couscous is on tap at some point. I'm struggling to recall what cuccia is.

Whoops! Didn't know that. Err, it's okay if I stick to this method, right?

That's a good question and something I've wondered myself. My wife hates goat cheese though (unlike the lamb, this point is non-debatable) so I've not taken the opportunity to experiment. Can't see why not, unless there's some sort of treatment in there that prevents it. 2-3 tablespoons acid, depending on strength, should be a good start. You'll immediately notice a difference. Bring it back to a simmer after you stir it in. If it's not breaking enough, another tablespoon will do it. Yeah, now I'm beginning to worry how long the ricotta will keep, myself, after making such a huge batch.

I can't even make it through my first meal in Sicily without branching out and experimenting in some probably less-Sicilian ways, but here it goes. Started last night off with what I call a "Palermo", a Manhattan made with Marsala instead of sweet vermouth. I also pan-toasted some nuts (almonds, pistachios, and pine nuts) then tossed them, still warm, with Spanish smoked paprika. Here's my internal dialogue when I decided to do this appetizer: "Umm, the Spanish ruled Sicily for a while, right? So this is Sicilian then!" Next up is the Sicilian heavyweight, pasta con le sarde. Last month when I was cooking from Abruzzo, every time I went to the store they had a nice mound of glistening, fresh sardines in the fish case. I knew Sicily and its many great uses of sardine dishes was coming up, so I got excited about getting to use them. Naturally, I go shopping yesterday to both branches of this store (Central Market) and they're nowhere to be found. Fortunately most recpies I've seen are pretty forgiving about using canned sardines, which I was able to find. They didn't hold their integrity the way fresh sardines do, but left a great, pungent counterpoint to the sweet caramelized fennel and the spicy kick of chilies. Also in the dish were the ever-present pine nuts and raisins for added sweetness, and saffron. I wonder how big a topic of debate it is on whether or not to use tomatoes in the dish. I've not seen it referenced that this is something up for heated debate, but my cookbooks are almost evenly split on tomatoes or tomato-less versions. I opted not to include tomatoes since I thought they would mask the flavor and color of the saffron. This dish is sooo multilayered and complex; everything great about Sicilian cooking almost in one dish. Here's a glimpse of the old boards that Food Network had up: when Mario did this dish on his show, some twit came blaring onto the boards about how Mario didn't know anything about Sicilian cooking, "'cause my grandmother's Sicilian, and she never made that crap!" Another branch-out and experimentation for the main. I crusted yellowfin and ahi tuna steaks with ground coriander and star anise, then seared them on the grill. Served them with a pan-seared "relish" of olives, orange, and chilies. The rare tuna and spices used in the crust are probably non-Sicilian (though again I justified it mentally by theorizing that the spices *could* be found in North African cuisine). I know Italian tradition is to eat fish cooked through or of course completely raw, not in-between like this, but I can't see how completely cooked through tuna isn't dry and flavorless. This also flies in the face of the "Popular Restaurant Menu Items You Despise" thread currently going on elsewhere on eG, where a number of people weigh in on the preponderance of crusted seared tuna steaks. Dessert was hopefully the first of many, many gelati this month, pistachio.

Let's build up a Sicilian pantry! Sicily is certainly no more or less demanding of supplies than any other region, but I plan on exploring a few of the desserts more extensively, especially with Sweet Sicily as a guide, and so I thought it was a good opportunity to make some supplies to have on-hand. First up: homemade ricotta. Stunningly easy. Bring 2 gallons of milk and 1 quart cream to 170F, then swirl in some sort of acid--I prefer white wine vinegar as, contrary to what you'd think, it leaves very little flavor, as opposed to lemon juice which does impart the more telltale citrus flavor. This acid will then break the milk and cause it to curdle. Leave it to sit for an hour or so, then pour through a sieve lined with cheesecloth (THAT's how they got that name!). In Sicily, their ricotta is sheep's milk, which has a slightly different, more tart flavor. You can get Chatham Farm's sheep's milk ricotta, but at $8 for 2 cups' worth, I figured I'd just try to replicate it by also stirring in some sheep's milk feta, a favorite cheese of mine. Next, some digestivi. These of course not unique to Sicily or even Italy, but it seems that once you get into the Southern parts, these sweetened liquors play a much more dominant part. I used to make these regularly, but damned jobs and adult responsibilities got in the way and now they're more a once-a-year thing, usually done at Christmas. But researching Sicily got my interest fired back up again, so I gave it a spin. Recipe: soak some sort of aromatic, be it a citrus peel, an herb, or a spice, in neutral grain alcohol. Lots of recipes call for vodka but I pull out the big guns and use Everclear (95% ABV). And yes, I usually have to explain myself to the cashier when I buy it, normally the stuff of college frat parties about to go horribly awry. But here's why you use it: 1 cup gets diluted with 2 cups of simple syrup. So one $18 bottle of Everclear can feasibly get you three bottles of Limoncello, normally around $25 apiece. At any rate, here's four separate batches "stewing". Left to right: toasted almond, coffee and cinnamon (rasoliu i' cafe e canedda), lemon (limoncinu), and anise (finucchiedu or zammu). The anise one is a mixture of star anise, regular anise, fennel seed, and cardomom. Length of times for them to soak vary; I've seen some authors say you need as little as two days, and I usually go a month, but this time I started late and am only going a week, then diluting them with the syrup and bottling them. Hopefully it'll be enough for the flavor to come through. Candied squash: normally the Sicilians use the outrageously long and vaguely vulgar cucuzza squash to make this, but I used some acorn squash. Simmer in heavily sugared (3:1) syrup until the squash is translucent. Used in a variety of pastry fillings and decorations. Sesame bread: this is a semolina bread that curled in on itself and then covered with sesame seeds. To give it a more distinctive flavor, I use the non-Sicilian touch of sesame oil in the dough. The oregano in my herb patch it out of control and has been flowering now for over a month. I trimmed it back and dried some with the flowers intact to sprinkle over dishes. Two Siclian pantry items I won't have access to: Malvasia, a sweetened Sicilian (white?) wine. Dallas is really funky about its liquor laws and so only items with a certain ABV limit can be sold as "wine". I suspect, as a dessert wine, Malvasia has a higher alcohol content which would then limit its sale here. This is only in theory, but I've been looking at my usual sources so far and have turned up nothing, and I had similar results when I went looking for other dessert wines before. Bottarga, the cured and pressed tuna roe. Not available, and while I'm sure I could readily order it online, I suspect it's prohibitively expensive.

For July, I'm doing the exotic, aromatic cooking of Sicily. This is probably the region I've most been looking forward to all year. For such a rabid Italo-phile, I'm ashamed to admit how little cooking experience I have with Sicily, considered one of the very best and most influential regions. I can't really say why, other than I don't have an all-Sicily cookbook to inspire me. In fact I almost want to say it was determining to devote a month to cooking Sicilian food sometime that got me thinking about this yearlong project. But what I have seen and what I have cooked has always blown me away, and left me wanting more. Unusual, wild ingredients that you'd have never thought go together (eggplant and chocolate? in a cookie???), and it's not just some young punk chef putzing around in a restaurant, this is part of the rooted culinary traditions. Sicily very much marches to its own beat. Hopefully I'll be able to convey some of that this month. I've already said I don't have an all Sicilian cookbook, but here's what references I'll be using. Mario's last hurrah before Molto Mario ceased production was to do Sicily, and it wound up being one of his best regional treatments. At least once an episode I'd shake my head in awe and the novel (to me) flavor combinations and be chomping at the bit to make them. There's the ubiquitous di Blasi and Culinaria references of course. Islands in the Sun by Marlena Spieler is a great and unique angle on Italian food. So you get recipes not just from Sicily and Sardegna of course, but Elba, the Aeolian Isles, Pantelleria, Capri, Ischia, and Procida, to name just a few. But Sicily dominates the book and she really captures a feeling of place and cuisine. Highly recommended. Many Beautiful Things by actor Vincent Schiavelli. It's an autobiographical account of his return to his ancestral hometown in Sicily, Polizzi Generosa, and his reconnecting with long-lost, distant relatives, and new friendships with the people there. And there's recipes to boot! Sweet Sicily by Victoria Granof is I guess an all Sicilian cookbook, but it focuses on desserts and sweets. Nothing wrong with that as you still get a great understanding of this island and it's culture. She gives a thorough writeup in the beginning of Sicily's history, including a timeline of who ruled it when (in case you get confused ) and what spices, flavors, and techniques each culture brought. Still, any recommendations for an all-Sicilian cookbook would be most welcome.

That's why it's called digestivo, huh? That's the bottle I remember in your pic. Always painful when you get near the end of your edible (or drinkable) souvenirs . . .

I thought Marc Cassel when he was running the Green Room (and actually cooking that night) really was able to hit the fusion note well, intertwining Asian and Mexican or Latin flavors. He's trying to incorporate North African flavors at Dragonfly now and it'll be interesting to see if he gets it down or just chucks it altogether. I haven't been in years, and it may not even be open anymore, but benjy's in Houston was also pretty adept at the straight up Asian fusion angle. This may not qualify, but guilty pleasure nod goes to Tin Star, esp. the buffalo chicken tacos. Mmmm . . .

That hardly looks like 100 herbs! What's genziana?

That's what I did.

Last meal in Abruzzo: Brodetto di pesce alla "Pappa Callen". For all the coastal regions I've done so far this year, I can't believe that I haven't done one of the many famous regional Italian seafood soups/stews. This was particularly the case in Puglia, though I guess the ciambotta was similar enough. So when I started researching this month's dishes, I decided that a brodetto had to be on the menu somewhere. This is Anna Teresa Callen's father's famous version, which she says everyone in her family and her village wanted a recipe of. Actually, "Callen" may not be her maiden name, so this probably isn't the right title for this dish. At any rate, this one had mussels, scallops, shrimp, and haddock cooked with tomatoes, roasted red peppers, chilies and white wine. So it's the end of the month and with it comes the usual angst about whether or not I conveyed a fair picture of the cuisine, or dishes I didn't get to make or try. We've already hashed alot of that out above though. I do regret not having access to cent'erbe, brilliant green Abruzzese digestivo reputedly made with (you guessed it) one hundred herbs. I was even on a hunt for it when we were in Italy this spring but saw it nowhere. Also, I can't believe the entire month slipped by and I didn't make a single Abruzzese dessert (though that rhubarb cake probably caught everyone's attention more! ). Hopefully the upcoming month will more than make up for that oversight .

Earlier in the week had an Abruzzese variation on that delicious Italian dish, the Sunday Ragu. For a Ragu all'Abruzzese, you braise (left to right) pork shoulder, duck legs, and lamb together with roasted peppers, tomato sauce, fennel seeds, and red wine. Naturally you don't just glop all that extra braising liquid onto the meat, but instead use it to sauce pasta, in this case more of the maccheroni alla chitarra (ma non la chitarra). For a contorno we had patate all'Abruzzese, cooked in a similar fashion to patate en teccia when I was doing Friuli: slowly cook mashed potatoes in a pan (this time a cast iron skillet) until a crust forms, then flip. I must admit that for both this and the teccia version, I don't quite "get" the technique. Yes, a crust forms, but it's certainly not enough to keep the dish in one piece so that you can flip it or slide it onto a plate and then invert it back into the pan. I could certainly understand that this would work if there were a couple eggs in there to set the whole thing, but it's just potatoes. So I do it piecemeal, resulting in the mottled look here. In keeping with too many of my meals lately, I have to screw something up, and in this case, I put garlic in raw rather than sauteing it first as the directions stated. So it didn't really have a chance to cook out and there were periodic bites of raw garlic in there.

Good call on the eggplant solt'olio, kellytree! Thanks for the compliments, Alex!

Hah, I don't blame you on that cake! My mom says that of all the things out there to bring me to my knees . . . Great observation on the crepes. These are made with far, far more egg than flour, (I think it was like 10 eggs and 1 cup flour)so they're not the traditional "French" (or Northern Italian) crepes you may have had before. They're also much easier to make than the standard crepes. So anyways, they're also a little more firm and do hold up to the broth much better. Finally, you just ladle the broth right over the crepes already in the bowl, no cooking them in the broth, so they don't get much of a chance to fall apart.

Mint and eggplant are a good combo, as are zucchini and mint, and of course the aforementioned artichokes and mint. Also, you could broil or bake eggplant in place of grilling. Mix some broiled/baked/grilled eggplant with ricotta, a beaten egg, and mint, then roll this mixture into balls and then in breadcrumbs and deep fry. Serve with tomato sauce.

Well, see, I just cook that way out of hat, as it were. Certainly when I find simple stuff I try to showcase it, too, but alot of these festive dishes are so locked into that region's traditions and culture it's hard not to reach for them first as an examplar of the cuisine. Callen only gives one recipe in her book and it's called "alla Mediterreana". Prick an eggplant all over, then roast or grill it whole, then coarsley chop it. Toss it with mustard, garlic, lemon juice, parsley, capers, olive oil and seasoning. I quite like the Pugliese method (clickety-click) where you halve eggplants, score them, then massage in a paste of mint, parsley, garlic, capers and olive oil and grill them. Sweet and sour: saute with some red onion and celery and then add vinegar (I like commercial balsamic, certainly not the artisinal stuff!) and sugar in near-egual portions and reduce.

Thanks tupac! Alberto, hathor and some others are keeping me in line, though!

Certainly your blog a few weeks back and then the excellent Monica Pope chat got me really wanting to explore the local wine scene more. It's a natural extension of terroir and making meals of what grows around you.

We're also looking to do a fall trip to Fred. Lonely Rose sounds good, thanks for the rec. If you go in mid-late October, they have the wine festival one of those weekends and you can sample many local wineries at once.

mrbigjas, I haven't forgotten the rhubarb cake request. I talked to my mom, and she didn't have it on her, but said it's similar to a recipe found in a two volume set called Recipes From the Heart, except that her recipe calls for much more rhubarb, like maybe two cups, chopped. And it isn't a sponge cake, either. Anyways, I wrote it down and now of course have lost it, so I'll have to ask her for it all over again.