Chris Amirault

As promised: Cook-Off XIII: Fresh/Stuffed Pastas and Gnocchi!

Every now and then since December 2004, a good number of us have been getting together at the eGullet Recipe Cook-Off. Click here for the Cook-Off index. For our thirteenth Cook-Off, we're making fresh and stuffed Italian pastas, including gnocchi. I would take a bit here and try to say some intelligent things about pasta in general, but I'm very happy to defer to my betters in the eGullet Society's Culinary Institute! Check out Adam Balic's Pasta around the Mediterranean course here, and click here for and the associated Q&A thread. In addition, Moby Pomerance has three eGCI courses: the first on stuffed pastas in general (Q&A here), and the other two on Tortelli, Ravioli & Cappelletti and Pansotti, Tortelloni and Raviolo. Of course, there are also lots of other related threads, including several on gnocchi like this one, this one, and this one; a few fresh pasta threads here, here and here; and a thread on pasta machines. So break out your Atlas hand-cranked machine (or, if you're like me, start to justify buying that KitchenAid mixer pasta attachment!), dice up a few heirloom tomatoes, and start cooking! No machine? Then you're on tap for gnocchi, my friend!

patticky, we're always still doing the cook-offs; check out the links at the top of this thread and you'll see lots of recent action on even the oldest ones. Hell, the fried chicken thread pops back to life every week or so! Please do keep reading and contributing to the threads. Meanwhile, I sense a groundswell for fresh Italian pasta thread, including stuffed pastas and gnocchi....

Seems to me that y'all ought to post your recipes on RecipeGullet so that we can make us some tater salad and put your claims to the test. Except Sandra Lee's canned potato dish. Egads.

I've been looking forward to your blog for a good long while, johnnyd! It's already bringing back some memories of my childhood (grandparents in Waterville): Do you think you can snag a recipe for those? Or does anyone have one? These things are killer....

I've seen this tip before, and it really works, especially with the potatoes. On another note, what do people think we should do for the next cook-off? Let's gather some good ideas here!

I find that this sriracha principle applies with all foodstuffs: tortilla chips, pork chops, raisin bran, flan, s'mores....

Hey, Eric. Click on this thread to check out a hot dog style that I discovered while in Tucson: the sonoran hot dog. It's quite famously wrapped in bacon, and has all sorts of fantastic toppings. You'd have to expand your toppings, but it might be worth it: you'd have the only Sonoran hot dogs that I know of on the east coast. Is that accurate, Holly?

A new nominee: The astonishing "Adopt a Prosciutto" thread, which has reached its first- (and last-?) year climax.

This is indeed the one. Take it off the shelf, Steve, and get crackin; I never buy ground meat any more and have been making sausages like there's no tomorrow. There are I think two (maybe three) different grind plates (if that's the right word), and you can adjust the speed, of course, which does make a slight difference. I was thinking that I'd run it through the plate with the smallest holes a couple of times, see how that goes. I don't have a food grinder -- but I can say that I will be tossed out of my house on my fat arse if I even suggest that we should buy one.

Hey guy. Legal has always marketed themselves as a HACCP leader. They've also always been maniacal about fish and shellfish quality (or at least their press and marketing has lead me to believe). I must say that I've had many, many excellent raw oysters and little necks there, and they taste as if they've been plucked from the briny deep moments before.

After my ordeal, I was inspired to head on over. It was fine for me. ← Ok, Holly, if you're in Anaheim at all, you gotta check the La Palma Chicken Pie Shop out. It's an astonishingly untainted Googie architectural landmark in strip-mall Anaheim serving great pie and a dinner plate of pie, fries, and a few other things that costs something like $5. I wish I had brought my digital camera.... Click here (and scroll down) for a bit more info.

You clearly haven't pillaged enough hamlets, Brad.

Ok, thanks for all this information: Even though Steve (rancho_gordo) is leery about this I think that I'm going to give it a crack with the KA grinder, which has different grind settings and works like a charm on lots of stuff. The grinder at the tortilleria seemed like a standard issue large volume meat grinder -- at least to my amateur eyes. That website is great -- and the directions at the molino page are outstanding. Thanks! Sorry to misrepresent, Steve. I'm PMing you about the masa, as I don't at all trust that I can get good corn for masa at this store; I think I'd be stuck with Goya.... I've got one small and one large mortar and pestle, an heirloom molcajete, and I'm currently trying to justify getting a very, very large thai mortar and pestle (my merely large one needs a bigger companion!). So right now I'm loathe to lay out the $100 for a metate delivery!

You don't sound kidding at all! This place is worth a try. Thanks!

Why is there such wildly different levels of quality? I've also had good meals at the Park Plaza location, and, as noted before, bad ones at Warwick. Strangely, the Warwick location served us cool food, which, old Legal fans know, is a violation of the prime directive at the old locations. Food came to your table immediately after out of the fryer/oven/skillet, no matter the order of diners served at your table; I might get my fisherman's platter (I can't resist) five minutes after my dad got his blue fish, say.

Thanks, Ed. Your brief but very useful post prompts several potentially stupid questions: Should I assume that most fresh masa is made from dried, reconstituted dent corn, and thus that I'm not going to suffer in quality much, if at all? Does anyone have any sources for the corn and the lime? Racho Gordo seems not to have it, and when I Google "dent corn" I get a jillion feed sources. I have a Kitchen Aid stand mixer with a grinder attachment -- acceptable substitute for a molino?

Does anyone actually make the blend -- and what are the usual seven spices?

Is La Palma still there, S_A?

Ok, so: I visited my grandmother-in-law in Arizona in July. For several decades she was chief cook at her Bisbee church, regularly making 100 dozen tamales every Christmas Eve with her friends. Due to health reasons, she's had to move up to Tucson, and upon our arrival west with the first great-granddaughter in tow (look to your left), we drove down with the rest of the clan to spend a few days in Bisbee. While I was there, I vowed to learn how to make tamales a la Castañeda, and so Elsie and I set out to get the job done. After getting a couple of big chuck roasts and some chile paste, we went to a nearby tortilleria, watched them grind some fresh masa, and brought it home. The next day, under her watchful eye, my wife, older daughter, mother-in-law, and I mixed the masa with lard, stock, and salt, prepared the corn husks, and made 12 dozen tamales in the middle of her 106F kitchen. They were amazing. Of course, we then brainstormed obsessively about how I could get fresh masa in Providence. Unlike the grocery stores in Tuscon, Bisbee, and probably most of the southwest, you can't buy bags of fresh masa out here anywhere. We concluded that my best shot would be hitting our local tortilleria here in Providence (Tortilleria Pixatla at Sanchez Market, for those who care). No dice: when I went there yesterday, the proprietor pointed at a bag of Maseca tamale masa harina and said, "That's what every tortilleria on the east coast uses, including us. You can't find fresh masa even in NYC." Not willing to accept defeat, I then contacted Steve at Rancho Gordo, who sells his heirloom beans and other fine stuff at farmers' markets out west. Unfortunately, he can't sell his fresh masa (which I'm salivating about as I type) via the mails, since he doesn't have the set up to do that at this time. So now I turn to you, dear eGulleteers. How can I solve this dilemma? I'm willing to go to pretty extreme lengths, I will say. You gotta help me. Puh-leeez!

Owen, if I'm not mistaken, the chapter on McDonald's in Fast Food Nation references a statement by the CEO or COO of that mega-corporation saying that McD's is exactly that, a real estate company that leases space at exorbitant rates to burger flippers.

Give that woman a hearty pat on the back and make a promise to fire up a reciprocal roast -- in mid-November, natch.

That was one of White's additions, along with a number of non-New England seasonings, wider variety of fish and seafood preparation, and a great seaweed salad.

Couldn't find a Legal Seafoods thread around here, and after I read this post by The Hersch, I thought it was high time to do so: Some things to talk about: The Hersch, what do you mean by your "...er..." above? I used to go to the original Legal back when I was a wee lad, and have had some fine meals there in the past. Jasper White's tenure there seemed to lively up the place, too. But lately they have been mediocre to (here at the Warwick RI venue) bad; I wouldn't send my most mudmouthed enemy to eat there. Shall we discuss and debate all things Legal?

I have okra envy...