Kevin72
-
Posts
2,576 -
Joined
-
Last visited
Content Type
Profiles
Forums
Store
Help Articles
Posts posted by Kevin72
-
-
Is Hersch's the one in Plano? In the old shopping center off Parker with the closed grocery store?
-
*forcibly swallows back bile*
-
Inconsistent food quality. My dad I think has never been a fan. My mom went with some lady friends for lunch on I think a Monday and she said it tasted like some of the stuff was a holdover from the weekend. She was reluctant to go for a while but I think the last time they went it was better.
-
I had a dish with guanciale in it in Florence, so it should be around somewhere. Mercato Centrale had numerous butchers and delis inside.
Most market places are open until 2 I think and then close, and re open at 5 or so.
-
The first time I went there I nearly cried it was so good. It's become a must-visit when we're in town. My parents live in Houston and go a bit more often and have had some rocky experiences, though every time I've been it's been nothing short of great.
-
For February, the region I'll be cooking from is The Veneto.
The Veneto is one of those regions like Latzio and Campania that tends to be dominated by its best-known city, in this case, Venice. Most of the cookbooks I have that devote recipes to the Veneto use Venice as their primary resource. There is a cookbook called Veneto by Julia de la Croce but it has become quite hard to find and I regret not snapping it up last time I did see it. So, I'll try to cook from other cities and areas in the Veneto but much of my cooking will gravitate to Venice.
Complicating this is that Lent starts next week. My wife and I use Lent as an excuse to do a bit of a diet and give up sugar and land-based meat, so alot of the great game and fowl dishes of the marshlands and mountains will unfortunately be left out. Any good vegetarian recipes from the Veneto would be welcome.
I have had the pleasure of being to Venice and Verona, in October 2003 for our honeymoon. Venice was, as so many have said, purely magical. Verona was probably the place where in our winning-the-lottery fantasies, we'd most want to live. I'll be trying to approximate several of the meals we had on that trip.
Other resources I'll be using for this month's cooking:
The Da Fiore Cookbook
The Cooking of Venice
Molto Mario Episodes
Marlena di Blasi's section on Veneto in Regional Foods of Northern Italy
As always, discussion on experiences in travelling and cooking in this region is welcome. Any must-have dishes?
-
Rudolf's Sweet Italian (sold in a long coil rather than links) is my go-to and I try to make a point of always having some in the freezer. In fact I just took some out for tonight's meal. Central's is pretty good but Rudolf's is just much richer and more subtle I think in its flavoring. And frustratingly, CM Plano seems to often be out of just plain pork Italian sausage.
Never tried Kuby's though I hear great things. I need to make and excursion down there.
-
Apparently there is a pastry guy who also posts on eGullet who is going to be a challenger on one of the battles
That would be Michael Laiskonis.
Oddly, the Babbo website calendar has the Iron Chef schedule posted:
http://babbonyc.com/calendar.html, including who Laiskonis is going up against (Batali).
-
Unagi--smoked eel. It's not sushi until I have that. I'm apparently known for my "sushi face" when I eat it.
-
The concluding meal from Friuli-Venezia-Giulia from Sunday. I'm still tinkering with the camera so the pics I took all turned out blurry.
Antipasto: Raddichio and speck wallets. This is a repeat from the antipasti meal I started the month with, only now with speck instead of Prosciutto San Daniele. It was one of my favorite dishes and my parents were over for the weekend so I thought it'd be a good appetite stimulant.
Primo: Gnocchi di Susinne--Gnocchi stuffed with prunes (normally plums). Sauced with butter, cinnamon, breadcrumbs, and some of the braising liquid from the secondo. Another of the great sweet/savory combinations from FVG.
Secondo: Beef shanks in "squazett" (sp?). I adapted a recipe for venison from Marleni di Blasi's book Regional Foods of Northern Italy. The shanks were marinated in red wine, juniper, cloves, onion, and ginger, then seared and braised in the marinade. The sauce reduces, darkens, and takes on a nearly bitter flavor. Then you make a second sauce (rare in Italian from my experience) of currants, sugar, and red wine. The sweet/tart currant compote really cuts the rich, deep flavors of the braise.
Incidentally, the term "squazett" is a prime example of micro-regional differences in terminology. In Cucina di Lidia, Lidia Bastianich says that in Istria squazett referred to a meat (most often game) braised with tomatoes, rosemary, and juniper. Plotkin gives a recipe for squazett in his book (and he does note the regional differences in the word) that is basically the currant or prune compote I used.
Contorno: Zucca al forno--baked stuffed squash. Stuffed with mushrooms, the squash meat, scallions, breadcrumbs, cheese, and marjoram.
Dolce: Gubana--a baked pastry (I used phyllo) rolled around a stuffing of mixed nuts, dried fruit, several liquors, cinnamon, chocolate and egg whites. Very rich and almost a little too dry for my tastes. First few bites are good but you're struggling by the end.
So that's it for Friuli. I really enjoyed it and there's a few dishes that I didn't even get to, so in some ways it's sad to see it go. But in cooking this way I am forced to try dishes and ingredients I normally wouldn't have gotten to for several years; I even come around to liking dill, a flavor I had convinced myself I didn't like long ago. Again, I am constantly amazed at the use of spices and different, seemingly contrasting ingredients and cooking styles, yet as with much of Italian cooking, they are used with such a delicate hand that the dishes turn out far more subtle than one would expect. It is truly one of the most unique and exotic cooking styles of Italy and I can see why those in the culinary world are presently doting upon it as the next "in" spot.
Comments on dishes I've missed? Other recipes from this region? (Bernaise, I'd particularly like a recipe for the goose with 100 herbs dish you mentioned).
-
Oooh, I couldn't not post this tonight! I was particularly pleased with this one.
This is pretty much an exact ripoff of a Molto Mario episode from Friuli.
Strudel stuffed with pork goulash. Sauteed apples with scallions and rum. Turnips with slivovitz.
The strudel was store-bought: pastry isn't my deal and it looked way too labor intensive. But I had heard good things about the reliability of store-bought strudel dough and this worked quite well. The strudel is even brushed with egg and sugar, so it was a sweet crust around this savory filling, though the goulash was laced with cinnamon and cloves, so the flavors went quite well.
The liquors I used for the contorni aren't exactly Friulani, I apologize. The apple dish was a little too sweet for my tastes. The original recipe called for red wine and cinnamon but on a lark I used the spiced rum instead.
Very pleased.
-
That was a good reference point, thanks Richard.
I should have mentioned that my parents live in Houston, so while Angelo's remains one of our "musts" for out-of-staters, its not so pressing to give my parents that experience. The Lone Star Bistro has been added to the pool though.
-
They also had chives in addition to the onions, forgot to list that.
I was so paranoid about cooking them since last time I tried them I ended up with a pot of water with bread floating in it. So I cooked it exactly as Plotkin said, and indeed did test one first. I just found that it got a little tedious eating something of that size: once you get to the middle it's just too much bread and they soak up so much sauce.
I've seen the canederli variation with liver before. I'm guessing knodel is the dialectical variation for FVG, again reflecting the Austro-Hungarian roots. Plotkin gives the recipe names first in standard Italian--he listed these as gnocchi di pane--then in parentheses if they have a Furlan name, and knodel was it for these.
I'm completely at a loss on the Furlan pronunciations, btw, and that's something that for all the research Plotkin put into his book, a pronunciation key and/or translation guide at the end would have helped. How hard is it to get by in Friuli if you just speak standard Italian?
-
The latest few dinners:
Chilled mussels with pepper vinaigrette
For the main we had steamed salmon with a ginger vinaigrette, and a pickled onion and cucumber salad (went heavy on the vinegar that night I guess). Salmon isn't an indiginous ingredient to the area (the recipe is given for monkfish), but I thought the recipe would work well and it did.
While the majority of F-V-G is landlocked, around Trieste there's a number of interesting seafood dishes and I regret I haven't done too many of them. This meal was an attempt at a remedy.
Other meals:
Last night I made knodel, a gnocchi made from rye bread that has been cut up and soaked in milk, then mixed with flour, butter, sauteed onions and speck, and eggs. While I've seen the recipes other places, in Plotkin's book, they are sauced with a cucumber "ragu" and I just had to try it. Very interesting flavor interplays. The only thing I'd change is that Plotkin calls for them to be a rather ungainly size, a little bigger than a golf ball (and you only serve 2-3 per person). I'd like to do them smaller for a more delicate texture but I wonder if their large size is part of why they stay together so well--I had attempted them before as a smaller size and they fell apart. Anyways, they weren't terribly photogenic so no pics.
Another meal, and one of the simplest, was grilled polenta, draped with a slice of prosciutto San Daniele and sauced with ricotta, milk, sour cream, and scallions that had been cooked together in a double boiler.
-
Thanks for the info!
Looks like Lanny's is a little more than I bargained for. I do want to go there, but probably more on a special occasion type thing.
What about the art museum's restaurant? Or which museum is it that has the cafe that gets notice? Anyone been there? Is it open for dinner?
You can see how little I know about the Ft. Worth dining scene . . .
-
I've devoted the past month to cooking from the Friuli-Venezia-Giulia region of Italy and have been using Fred Plotkin's Terra Fortunata. While it is a bit heavy on history, it gives a fascinating glimpse of a cooking style about as far removed from conventional understanding of "Italian" food.
-
It'd be a dinner place. Nothing too upscale, but probably not hole-in-the-wall unless the food's mind-blowing. Fun and interesting food helps.
Actually, while what got me to post this is the parents' visit, I've been wanting to do a thread on Ft. Worth eats for a while. Whenever we go that's where we get tripped up is finding places to eat. It seems like Dallas gets the limelight on restaurants.
-
I love taking day trips to Fort Worth but always get confounded trying to find new places to eat. My parents are visiting in the next few weekends and another day trip to Ft. Worth is a possibility on the itinerary. So what are good, dependable (non-chain type) places to eat out there? Lanny's is definitely in consideration.
-
A purely technical question from a person not currently working the food industry, is it common place for a woman to wear a skirt in the kitchen? To me it looked like Mario Batali's female sous chef was wearing a skirt. Now don't get me wrong, if I was cooking with Kevin Brauch around (I know it's a little crazy, but I think he's hot) I would be wearing my old cheerleading uniform. But in a fast paced kitchen, is this accepted? It's nitpicky and makes no difference, just pure curiousity.
Shannon
I think it's an answer to Mario wearing shorts in the kitchen.
Sunday's episode was good. Steingarten continues to grate (and again, let me say I enjoyed his books but am just shocked at what an ass he is on the show). I still really wish they'd spend just a little longer on who the challenger is and what they are known for. Maybe not drag it out as long as the original IC did, but you had a good idea of the chef, their background, and why they were chosen to compete. And I also wish they could choose their opponent; though my wife pointed out that it would probably result in a run of chefs trying to take Flay down.
-
Eden, the place I was talking about in my first post is, I think, da Bruno. It's near San Marco, and if I remember correctly it served lots of grilled meats and game.
-
Thank you for the input, Bernaise. I'm afraid that with just 30 days I've only scratched the surface and this is the first time I'm hearing about many of the dishes you posted (particularly the goose dish). I've really learned alot about Friuli this past month and I'm glad it's put me out of my comfort zone, as it were, in Italian cooking. Lots of stuff I wouldn't have even tried if it weren't for this little yearlong quest.
I've contemplated brovada but don't have the grape must to pickle it in and I'm afraid I'm not much for canning things. But I haven't done the turnip justice, that's for sure. It will definitely be a contorno in one of the last meals I make.
-
I liked it and it's a refreshing change of pace from risotto. I always feel like barley's this as-yet-undiscovered-by-me grain that I don't do enough with. I made a barley and clam dish last spring with lots of celery and lemon zest that was pretty good.
But I'd have to give the edge still to risotto.
-
Updates:
Now Monopoli is out. It seems to very much be a resort-type town so it's just hotels. Maybe we'll do a stopover on the way from Bari to Ostuni but we're getting a little crunched.
So the plan: Leave Rome very early Saturday morning, get to Bari @ 11 am (hopefully). Hop another train from Bari to Ostuni.
Poke around Ostuni for whatever's left of Saturday, eat at Tempo Perso that night and stay in-town at a B&B.
Sunday get up and go to Alberobello, lunch at Poeta Contadina.
I've absolutely fallen in love with a B&B called Frantoia in the countryside about 5-6K from Ostuni. Problems of course are how to get there and that if we have checked out from the in-town B&B Sunday morning we'll have all our bags with us, any suggestions?
Then it's on to Lecce Monday evening and all of Tuesday, and back to Rome on Wednesday.
-
Some of my latest exploits:
Shrimp with polenta.
Pretty straightforward: There's much more austere recipes out there where you top polenta with sauteed shrimp. I made a little reduction sauce of chicken broth, white wine and shrimp shells simmered together, then topped it with ample paprika. My wife is really getting good at identifying regionality: she said this brought to mind the cevapcici meal, which was dead on since both are Trieste-influenced.
Sunday's meal:
Orzotto with mushrooms in the foreground; patate en teccia in the background.
Orzotto is barley made in the risotto style. Mixed in were shitake mushrooms, shredded carrot, celery, and shallot. It took longer than risotto does, however: I'd say 45 minutes compared to the 25 or so with risotto. But the barley was pretty old I think.
I'm not sure what the direct translation of "en teccia" is. You melt some onions in a pan and then stir in crumbled cooked potato and a little stock. Then you cook it slowly, slowly, slowly until a crust forms on the bottom layer. Ease it out onto a plate and flip it back over into the pan and crust that side as well. Mine of course fell apart but you still had that good crusty flavor in there.
For the main, chicken braised in sauerkraut.
Lidia Bastianich in Cucina di Lidia gives a similar recipe only with duck.
Also made, but not pictured, was paparot, a spinach soup thickened with a little polenta. It doesn't sound like much but it is very nourishing.
Getting down to the final week for Friuli and there's a lot I still haven't made! I have ideas but we will certainly be eating lots of leftovers into February.
A year of Italian cooking
in Italy: Cooking & Baking
Posted
Hathor: That meal sounded really good. Venice, like Trieste, was historically a trade centerpoint so it reflects many influences beyond Italian. Boiled meat is a Northern Italian classic. The vegetables all sounded impressive. I'll be doing lots of cicchetti-style meals (some of our fondest memories from the trip) since you do get good vegetarian dishes. I think we were on Via Assassini when we were there: I remember thinking it was an odd name for a street!
Redfox: Thanks for the input. Stay tuned, many of the regions you talked about will be used later this year! Friuli would definitely find its way into a subsequent trip.
Alberto we appear to continue to be thinking along the same lines. Alot of those dishes will be coming up. I've done saor variations before and in fact just did shrimp in saor for the Christmas Eve Vigilia, so I'm not sure if I'll be repeating it so soon. We do not get stocafisso here (I've heard it's a bit . . . umm . . . fragrant) but I can probably dig up baccala.