Chestnuts

... roasting on an open fire!

A bit early, but what the heck? It's getting cold out here in New York.

Here's something to keep you warm...

Chestnut Soup

Ingredients

1 large onion (roughly chopped)
8 cloves garlic (roughly chopped)
2 celery stalks (roughly chopped)
1 large carrot (roughly chopped)
3-4 cups broth (homemade, but use commercial, you wimps!)

fresh sage
fresh rosemary
2 bay leaves
salt
fresh pepper (lots!)

30-35 chestnuts (read below why!)

Recipe

It's all going to get pureed so don't waste time cutting it in detail.

Incise the chestnuts with a large X. Roast at 375F for 15 minutes or so. The X will peel off, and you can pull them out, and deshell them. They need to be deshelled while they are still warm.

Some fraction will be moldy. Toss them. You won't be able to resist eating a few. So you will end up with roughly 24-26 which is the correct number for the recipe. See my point?

Fry the onion and garlic soffrito. Toss in the everything but the chestnuts, and fry for a minute or so. Toss in the broth. Let it simmer for 10 mins.

Toss in the chestnuts, and let it all simmer for 15 minutes.

Puree it, and serve with some crusty bread.

Scaring up a meal

Every home cook has faced this problem before.

It's Sunday, you're too lazy to go shopping, you need a tasty but simple meal that you need to scare up before the evening is over but the larder is bare (or as bare as the CC's larder ever gets.)

What was at hand?

5 tomatoes (from the farmer's market.)
onions and garlic (staples at the CC's.)
the usual arsenal of dried ingredients and spices
the usual arsenal of frozen stock, and pastes in the freezer.
a quarter-chunk of parmigiano-reggiano (a miracle!)

All this inevitably pointed towards pasta, and out came Marcella Hazan. Jump to the section on tomato sauces, a little poking around, and what do you find?

Tomato Sauce with Porcini Mushrooms

A slight modification was made (no pancetta) but it was relatively insignificant.

Ingredients

1 small onion (finely diced)
1 tbsp olive oil
5 large tomatoes (skins removed, passed through food mill.)
1 oz dried porcini mushrooms (+ filtered water from mushrooms)
salt
black pepper
freshly grated parmigiano-reggiano

Recipe

Reconstitute the mushrooms.

Fry the onions (or shallots) till it becomes a pale gold. Add the tomatoes, the mushrooms, the strained liquid from the mushrooms, salt, and several grindings of pepper. Adjust heat so that the sauce bubbles at a gentle but steady simmer. Cook in the pan for 40 minutes (yes! this is correct) till the fat and the tomato separate. Skim.

Toss in the pasta, and serve with freshy grated parmigiano-reggiano.

Note: This sauce is surprisingly "rich" (not in the traditional high-fat sense.) It could easily pass as a meat sauce even though it's totally vegetarian.

Marcella Hazan has been beatified, while Julia Child can cry herself to sleep on the bookshelf!

Kitchen Instruments

On my vacation, the CC was asked if he was a "gadget freak" by the sister of the mother of the wife of this dear friend of mine.

"Absolutely not!", cried the CC in alarm, at the risk of being classified along with the Williams-Sonoma freaks!

"In that case," she retorted, "tell me what kitchen instruments you find indispensable."

So the CC hied himself on a mental walk around his kitchen (we were greedily gorging some lamb (cooked deliciously rare) laced with rosemary, and spanakopita on their familial farmhouse at the time.)

Blender, and food-processor

Big duh there!

Coffee grinder

The CC actually uses it to grind fresh spices (both roasted, and unroasted.) Even Indians don't understand good Indian cooking until you have it made with freshly ground spices. (If the CC had to pick just one instrument, this would win hands down!)

Pressure Cooker

Everything from beans to conch!

Juicer

The CC never knew how much he would miss it until he had one. Juice of forty limes? Not a problem!

Food mill

Ditto! Where have you been all my life?

Cheese plane grater

You don't understand until you own one. Trust the CC on this one.

Mortar and pestle

The CC is "old school". Some things cannot be improved upon.

Sure the CC would miss the stones in the oven, and the pizza peel, or the steamers, and the zesters but they are not indispensable. The above constitute "basic necessity", at least in the eyes of the CC.

So, gentle readers, are there things you find indispensable?

Lobster

So the CC has never much cared for lobsters. However, the recent vacation to Maine has changed all that.

Fresh lobster is as delicious as they say. The CC has OD'ed on both lobsters, and lobster rolls, and is eagerly looking forward to his next Maine vacation.

The CC is delighted to learn that some things are distinctly geography-laden, and that even New York's proximity to Maine can change the potential of an edible that much.

Which brings the grand total of things that the CC does not care for down to one : brussel sprouts. However, on the vacation, the CC gathered a crackling new recipe for it, and is raring to try it out. Here's hoping...

Corn Salsa

So the CC is invited to the birthday party of some friends, and was charged with making a bunch of salsas for the occasion.

Over the years, this corn salsa (yes, I'm using the term loosely) has been one of the biggest hits at the CC's parties.

Truth be told, the CC doesn't even remember where he got this recipe.

Ingredients

8-10 cobs of fresh corn (or 2 packages frozen)
6 sun-dried tomatoes (reconstituted with hot water, and then diced)
2-3 chipotles en adobo (diced)

Recipe

Place the corn on a baking sheet, and roast it in the oven at 300F for roughly an hour. Check towards the end, otherwise the corn might get burnt.

Mix the three things together, and add a bit of the sun-dried tomato water.

That's it! The simplicity belies the brilliance of flavors. Only problem? The dried corn sticks to your teeth. Heheheheh.

Vacation

The CC will be taking a much needed vacation, initially to go visit the wedding of a very close friend in Massachussetts.

Also featured on this trip will be culinary adventures of the seafood kind up and down the Eastern Seaboard.

I promise interesting posts about the trip when I return.

Clam Pizza

Ever since spending his waking hours in Connecticut, the CC finds himself addicted to clam pizza?

"Where have you been all my life?"

Is the CC turning into an East-coaster? (Apologies to all of you on the wrong coast!)

Comments, please!