The CC is off to culinary adventures in California.
Back in three weeks.
Bon appetit!
Friday, September 26, 2008
Wednesday, September 24, 2008
A Farewell to Summer
A lovely and fitting end to summer.
Rustic or elegant, you have a taste of pure zucchini. A last high note to bid farewell.
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Zucchini Soup
Ingredients
2 large red onions (diced)
2 cloves garlic
2 zucchinis (cut into rounds)
2 yellow summer squach (cut into rounds)
1 zucchini (diced)
1 summer squash (diced)
1 large sprig basil
sea salt
black pepper
To serve:
dried bread slices
parmigiano-reggiano (grated)
black pepper
Recipe
Fry the onions and garlic languidly at a low heat. Add only the large zucchini and squash (retain the dices) and fry for quite a bit. This is where all the flavor comes in. Do not skimp on this step.
Add the water, salt and pepper. and let it simmer for 10 mins or so.
Blend the soup with the basil, and pass it through a fine sieve.
Add the diced zucchini and squash to the mixture, and bring to a boil again until they are cooked.
Serve over the bread sprinkled with parmesan and black pepper.
Rustic or elegant, you have a taste of pure zucchini. A last high note to bid farewell.
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Ingredients
2 large red onions (diced)
2 cloves garlic
2 zucchinis (cut into rounds)
2 yellow summer squach (cut into rounds)
1 zucchini (diced)
1 summer squash (diced)
1 large sprig basil
sea salt
black pepper
To serve:
dried bread slices
parmigiano-reggiano (grated)
black pepper
Recipe
Fry the onions and garlic languidly at a low heat. Add only the large zucchini and squash (retain the dices) and fry for quite a bit. This is where all the flavor comes in. Do not skimp on this step.
Add the water, salt and pepper. and let it simmer for 10 mins or so.
Blend the soup with the basil, and pass it through a fine sieve.
Add the diced zucchini and squash to the mixture, and bring to a boil again until they are cooked.
Serve over the bread sprinkled with parmesan and black pepper.
Sunday, September 21, 2008
Pasta with Sage Butter
This is as simple as a pasta sauce gets. Ten minutes of attention, and you could be in culinary ecstacy so why not try it?
For the record, this marries best with fresh pasta but even if you go with dried linguini (or similar), you're likely to have a foodgasm.
If you find the stuff impossibly rich (which it is), squeeze half a lemon into the sauce, and whip it into a (O+S)/W emulsion. (Yeah, this is pretty traditional too.)
Ingredients
1 stick unsalted butter (yeah, it's gotta be unsalted)
sage (lots)
black pepper
parmigiano-reggiano (grated real fine)
Recipe
Heavily salt the pasta water. Yeah, heavy salt. Cook the linguini al dente.
Meanwhile, melt the butter on low heat, and fry the sage. (If you really like sage, cut it into ribbons, otherwise just as is.)
When the sage turns "stiff", fish it out and toss it. Yeah, you heard that right.
Keep the butter (like duh!)
Toss the linguini with the "sage butter", toss the parm and black pepper on top.
Slurp.
For the record, this marries best with fresh pasta but even if you go with dried linguini (or similar), you're likely to have a foodgasm.
If you find the stuff impossibly rich (which it is), squeeze half a lemon into the sauce, and whip it into a (O+S)/W emulsion. (Yeah, this is pretty traditional too.)
Ingredients
1 stick unsalted butter (yeah, it's gotta be unsalted)
sage (lots)
black pepper
parmigiano-reggiano (grated real fine)
Recipe
Heavily salt the pasta water. Yeah, heavy salt. Cook the linguini al dente.
Meanwhile, melt the butter on low heat, and fry the sage. (If you really like sage, cut it into ribbons, otherwise just as is.)
When the sage turns "stiff", fish it out and toss it. Yeah, you heard that right.
Keep the butter (like duh!)
Toss the linguini with the "sage butter", toss the parm and black pepper on top.
Slurp.
Friday, September 19, 2008
Panzanella
The Italian "bread salad" redolent of poverty, and yet so delicious that the CC challenges any and all of you not to gobble up every morsel, and lick your plates.
For the record, you need "true" sourdough that has gone stale (= dried out completely.) These staled-out breads have very long shelf-lives and will not grow moldy (for reasons to be explained in a future post.)
Ingredients
staled cubed bread
4 tomatoes (as ripe as can be, diced)
1 large red onion (diced)
2 cloves garlic (minced fine)
6-8 tbsp capers (preserved in salt, soaked to remove salt)
anchovies (preserved in salt only if you have them.)
red-wine vinaigrette
sea salt
black pepper
lots of chiffonaded basil
Recipe
Salt the tomatoes; they will let out copious mixture. Separate and whip the liquid with the vinaigrette.
Mix everything together, and chill for just a tad. The bread should be both soaked in the liquid and crunchy.
Texture is as important as anything else.
For the record, you need "true" sourdough that has gone stale (= dried out completely.) These staled-out breads have very long shelf-lives and will not grow moldy (for reasons to be explained in a future post.)
Ingredients
staled cubed bread
4 tomatoes (as ripe as can be, diced)
1 large red onion (diced)
2 cloves garlic (minced fine)
6-8 tbsp capers (preserved in salt, soaked to remove salt)
anchovies (preserved in salt only if you have them.)
red-wine vinaigrette
sea salt
black pepper
lots of chiffonaded basil
Recipe
Salt the tomatoes; they will let out copious mixture. Separate and whip the liquid with the vinaigrette.
Mix everything together, and chill for just a tad. The bread should be both soaked in the liquid and crunchy.
Texture is as important as anything else.
Tuesday, September 16, 2008
Simple Tomato Sauce
In this modern fast-paced world, who doesn't crave ease, simplicity, convenience?
Enter the simplest tomato sauce that the CC can provide.
Please not that simplicity does not equal speed. It means not doing much hard work.
It's as easy as recipes on this blog are going to get. Deal.
Ingredients
2-3 cloves garlic (crushed)
2 lbs tomatoes (halved lengthwise)
olive oil
sea salt
black pepper
Recipe
Heat the olive oil to medium heat. Fry the garlic until golden. Make sure you don't burn it.
Add the halved tomatoes, salt and pepper. Let the mixture reduce for 20 minutes.
Pass through a food mill. (Yeah, this is the hardest part.)
Add back to the pan, and reduce on a low heat for 30 minutes or so. (Check and add some water to prevent sticking towards the end.)
Enter the simplest tomato sauce that the CC can provide.
Please not that simplicity does not equal speed. It means not doing much hard work.
It's as easy as recipes on this blog are going to get. Deal.
Ingredients
2-3 cloves garlic (crushed)
2 lbs tomatoes (halved lengthwise)
olive oil
sea salt
black pepper
Recipe
Heat the olive oil to medium heat. Fry the garlic until golden. Make sure you don't burn it.
Add the halved tomatoes, salt and pepper. Let the mixture reduce for 20 minutes.
Pass through a food mill. (Yeah, this is the hardest part.)
Add back to the pan, and reduce on a low heat for 30 minutes or so. (Check and add some water to prevent sticking towards the end.)
Sunday, September 14, 2008
Fried Zucchini Blossoms
Delicious and easy but attention to detail is key.
Use the "female" blossoms if you have a choice rather than the ones attached to the zucchini.
Does this matter? Yep.
Ingredient
zucchini blossoms
mozzarella (grated coarsely)
parmigiano-reggiano (grated coarsely)
2 eggs
sea-salt
black pepper
breadcrumbs
Recipe
Wash the zucchini blossoms, and dry. They will contain insects who love the blossoms as much as you do so deal. Remove the stamen without damaging the delicate flowers. This is way harder than you think it is.
Stuff each flower with the mozarella-parm mixture, and twist the top to seal.
You can either deep fry this, or shallow fry this with at least 1/2" of oil.
Whip the eggs with the salt and pepper in one bowl. Put the breadcrumbs in the other bowl.
Dip each blossom in the egg mixture followed by rolling them with the breadcrumbs, and fry them. Drain on paper towels.
Like all fried stuff, this has a shelf life of minutes. So gobble, gobble.
Use the "female" blossoms if you have a choice rather than the ones attached to the zucchini.
Does this matter? Yep.
Ingredient
zucchini blossoms
mozzarella (grated coarsely)
parmigiano-reggiano (grated coarsely)
2 eggs
sea-salt
black pepper
breadcrumbs
Recipe
Wash the zucchini blossoms, and dry. They will contain insects who love the blossoms as much as you do so deal. Remove the stamen without damaging the delicate flowers. This is way harder than you think it is.
Stuff each flower with the mozarella-parm mixture, and twist the top to seal.
You can either deep fry this, or shallow fry this with at least 1/2" of oil.
Whip the eggs with the salt and pepper in one bowl. Put the breadcrumbs in the other bowl.
Dip each blossom in the egg mixture followed by rolling them with the breadcrumbs, and fry them. Drain on paper towels.
Like all fried stuff, this has a shelf life of minutes. So gobble, gobble.
Thursday, September 11, 2008
Farmers' Market Lunch
Inspired by the farmers' market, and a bit carried away while reading Julia Child's memoirs, the CC made probably the largest lunch he's had in a decade.
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Fried zucchini blossoms
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Panzanella
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Linguini with sage butter
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Tuesday, September 9, 2008
Buñuel's Food Satire
A preoccupation with food, and discussions on food is a marking trait of the bourgeoise. Nobody understood better than Buñuel that food isn't just nourishment but an external symbol of attitudes of a society.
Virtually every movie he made included vicious satire on the strange relationship between the two. Needless to say, the food was always deliciously filmed.
The best scenes in the oeuvre:
The Exterminating Angel The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoise Viridiana
Virtually every movie he made included vicious satire on the strange relationship between the two. Needless to say, the food was always deliciously filmed.
The best scenes in the oeuvre:
Magnificent dinner scene with the waiter stumbling. Revealed as "modernist theater". Slow devolution of civilized society into animalistic eaters. Bonus scene: the lamb.
Food, pretension, death; more food, more pretension, more death; embarassment while eating, dying while eating, embarassed dying while eating.
The beggars enacting The Last Supper. Photograph taken by the beggarwoman with her "winking" pudendum. Banned by the Church. Need the CC say more?
Monday, September 8, 2008
Hasta la Pasta, Baby!!!
Since the CC was down in the Village to watch a matinée (Carl Dreyer's Day of Wrath, in case you were wondering,) he decided to stop by his favorite place in New York for fresh and dried pasta: Raffeto's.
The owner has seen the CC before, and for once, he was not surprised at the size of the order (10 pounds of pasta total, give or take.)
"Are you a chef?" he said in an Italian accent clearly sensing a business opportunity since they source the pasta to most of the restaurants in New York.
"Only in my own house", said the CC, "but your pasta is so good that it runs out, so whenever I'm in the neighborhood I make sure to pick up enough till the next trip."
"Good plan", he replied, "I would do the same."
Lots of discussion of Italian cooking later, the CC lugged his pasta home on the subway. The fellow subway riders looked vaguely amused.
The owner has seen the CC before, and for once, he was not surprised at the size of the order (10 pounds of pasta total, give or take.)
"Are you a chef?" he said in an Italian accent clearly sensing a business opportunity since they source the pasta to most of the restaurants in New York.
"Only in my own house", said the CC, "but your pasta is so good that it runs out, so whenever I'm in the neighborhood I make sure to pick up enough till the next trip."
"Good plan", he replied, "I would do the same."
Lots of discussion of Italian cooking later, the CC lugged his pasta home on the subway. The fellow subway riders looked vaguely amused.
Thursday, September 4, 2008
"It's a bird, it's a plane, look, ..."
"... it's Tomato Man!", yelled out the exuberant farmer at my farmer's market.
"Gather around, folks," he continued, "he's here to get his fix, and I'm his dealer."
As the heads swivelled to see who the farmer was talking about, the CC blushed furiously while the crowd started laughing, pointing, and one even applauded.
It looks like "Tomato Man" is now a known fixture at the market.
Of course, the Culinary Muses being suitably capricious, that was the day the Tomato Man did not purchase tomatoes because the muses had cast their lovely eyes upon the zucchini.
"Gather around, folks," he continued, "he's here to get his fix, and I'm his dealer."
As the heads swivelled to see who the farmer was talking about, the CC blushed furiously while the crowd started laughing, pointing, and one even applauded.
It looks like "Tomato Man" is now a known fixture at the market.
Of course, the Culinary Muses being suitably capricious, that was the day the Tomato Man did not purchase tomatoes because the muses had cast their lovely eyes upon the zucchini.
Wednesday, September 3, 2008
Cooking Myths (Part 1)
Welcome to a new series on pervasive cooking myths.
One of the biggest ones is that since alcohol has a lower boiling point (78.4°C) than water (100°C), all the alcohol must evaporate first when added to a dish.
Sorry, folks, it doesn't quite behave that way as every physicist and chemist possibly knows.
Firstly, in general, you need multiple distillations to separate two liquids. This is just a consequence of how molecules behave. Energy transfer and evaporation are statistical in nature not deterministic.
Secondly, ethanol and water form an azeotrope so you can never truly separate them using just distillation.
So while the rate of evaporation of alcohol is higher than that of water at 100°C (cooking temperature), there's always going to be alcohol left behind in the mixture even after extended cooking. Particularly in a closed vessel where you have both evaporation and condensation taking place.
(Source: US Dept. of Agriculture Nutrient Data Lab.)
Note that we're talking miniscule amounts because generally only a small amount of alcohol is added to the dish but the myth that there is none left behind is just that.
One of the biggest ones is that since alcohol has a lower boiling point (78.4°C) than water (100°C), all the alcohol must evaporate first when added to a dish.
Sorry, folks, it doesn't quite behave that way as every physicist and chemist possibly knows.
Firstly, in general, you need multiple distillations to separate two liquids. This is just a consequence of how molecules behave. Energy transfer and evaporation are statistical in nature not deterministic.
Secondly, ethanol and water form an azeotrope so you can never truly separate them using just distillation.
So while the rate of evaporation of alcohol is higher than that of water at 100°C (cooking temperature), there's always going to be alcohol left behind in the mixture even after extended cooking. Particularly in a closed vessel where you have both evaporation and condensation taking place.
| Method | Percentage alcohol remaining |
| Added to boiling liquid + removed from heat | 85% |
| Alcohol flamed | 75% |
| Alcohol simmered 15 minutes | 40% |
| Alcohol simmered 30 minutes | 35% |
| Alcohol simmered 1 hour | 25% |
| Alcohol simmered 1.5 hours | 20% |
| Alcohol simmered 2 hours | 10% |
| Alcohol simmered 2.5 hours | 5% |
(Source: US Dept. of Agriculture Nutrient Data Lab.)
Note that we're talking miniscule amounts because generally only a small amount of alcohol is added to the dish but the myth that there is none left behind is just that.
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