Bolognese

  
So, very cold weather here in January. My thoughts turn to one of my favorite comfort foods: Bolognese sauce. This is a slow-cooked, rich and hearty meat sauce, that has some tomato in it. Not a tomato sauce with some meat in it. I use a traditional recipe from Gourmet magazine, with just a little doctoring.

Onion, celery, shallots, garlic

You make a sofrito with your basic mirepoix: celery, carrots, and onion, a little garlic. The key is to dice/chop these ingredients as fine as your knife skills will allow. You do not want a chunky sauce. The vegetables should essentially melt into the sauce. In a fair amount of good olive oil, cook them on low to medium heat, just sweating them until translucent, no browning.

Then add the diced pancetta and/or prosciutto. Let that saute for a couple of minutes until it renders a bit.





 

Ground pork, veal, and beef

Turn up the heat a little bit. Then add the ground meats. I used all three: pork, veal, and beef. You want to break up the chunks, using the back of a wooden spoon or spatula,  constantly smushing the meat until it is all broken down and no longer pink.

 Now it's time for the tomato. I used a combination of tomato paste, and a few whole San Marzano tomatoes that I chopped myself. I have seen some recipes that just call for tomato paste, some that call for tomato paste and water, and other combinations as well. Whatever. Like I said, it's a meat sauce with some tomato, not the other way around.


Now for the liquids. I used an equal amount of white wine and whole milk. Again, you will see some recipes that call for red wine instead of white. Some that may call for cream instead of milk. Some that call for no milk or cream at all. Some will call for water. In any case, you need to add some liquids to the pot. I deglazed the pan with the white wine, and let it cook down for a couple of minutes. Then I added the milk.



 

Now you are ready to season it, and let it simmer for at least a couple of hours. Taste for salt and pepper; I used a little dried thyme in it too. Cover the pot and simmer on low for a couple of hours; it will thicken up as it cooks. Give it a stir every once in a while, and make sure it's not cooking too fast. Just a light simmer.

After a couple - three hours, you will be left with a really thick meat sauce, very dense.








I like to serve it with rigatoni; I think the pasta police would probably say it should be served with tagliatelle, but I like how the meat gets inside the hollow rigatoni. A little grated cheese, to gild the lily.

stuffed calamari

calamares rellenos. this was one of the best things my mother-in-law ever made. a fair amount of work, but well worth the effort. shopping for fish today, i saw these really big calamari, like 5-7 inches long. as soon as i saw them, i knew today would be a stuffed calamari day. it's almost impossible to stuff the ones you usually see, way too small. but when you find the big ones, it's time to stuff them.

this is not my mother-in-law's recipe. but this is what looked good at the market: sea scallops, nice orange sweet peppers, shallots, there's the basis for the stuffing. this recipe is for 4-5 large calamari, 2 entrees, or 4-5 1st plates

for the stuffing:
2 small or 1 medium orange peppers, diced. or whatever color looks good at the market
2 good sized shallots, diced
5-6 garlic cloves chopped (or to taste)
evoo to cover bottom of skillet
a handful of whole toasted pignoli
8 oz scallops, diced 1/4", left raw
2 tbs of smoked whitefish, just because i had it in the fridge
bread crumb, not much, like 1/3 cup max

for the sauce:
1-2 oz white wine to deglaze pan
1 cup fish stock, warmed
3/4 cup tomato sauce
packet tinta de calamares (or sepia, available from latienda.com)
pinch saffron
butter-flour mixture (beurre manié) to thicken sauce after calamari are cooked in oven, 1 tbs butter to 1 tbs flour mixed to a paste

sweat peppers, shallots, and garlic. you don't really want color on them, low and slow for 4-5 minutes. salt and pepper. remove from heat, put into mixing bowl. add scallops, whitefish, and pignoli. mix together. add breadcrumbs last, mix in a little at a time, until you get the right consistency, ie the liquid is absorbed. set stuffing aside.

preheat oven to 300 degrees. stuff the calamari. use an espresso spoon if you have to. get it all down in there. close with a toothpick.

in a big enough pan that you can put in the oven, 9-10 inches, heat a tbs evoo. add the stuffed calamari and saute on medium high heat for about 3 minutes on each side; they will get a little color on them. add the wine to deglaze the pan. after 2 minutes add the fish stock, back to a simmer, add the packet of squid ink and a pinch of saffron, add the tomato sauce, stir well and bring back to a simmer. total amount of liquid only needs to be about half-way up the stuffed calamari. not much more. we're braising, not boiling. when it is simmering, cover it and put it in the oven for 50 minutes.

after 50 minutes, take it out of the oven, remove the cooked calamari to a bowl and cover to keep warm. place the cooking pan with all the sauce back on the stove over medium high heat, and start to reduce and thicken. add the butter-flour mixture, and whisk it into the liquid well. simmer for about 12-14 minutes or so, and the sauce will reduce to a thick soupy mostly black liquid. that's what you want. when it has reduced to about 1/4 of the original volume, it's done. place the calamari back into the sauce to warm up for a few minutes. ready to serve.

served with wild rice, a spoonful of clementine-saffron allioli (from last week) and lots of black sauce for the bread. vinho verde. yes.

scallops wrapped in bacon with allioli

this is more about the allioli than the scallops. although the scallops on their own are pretty, pretty, pretty good. but the allioli - mayonnaise, finely chopped garlic, clementine (or orange) juice and saffron. wow, a revelation. not my recipe, just saw it on epicurious.com. sounded like something that would change up the routine scallops and bacon. not that there is anything wrong with them. we are talking fresh NJ sea scallops, local seafood, that are probably as fresh as the vigilant consumer can get. bought in point pleasant nj at one of those fish markets next to the river. i actually ate one raw, very very sweet and succulent, that's the word. so here it is. served for a first plate tonite, an appetizer really. 

8 sea scallops, as big as you can find them. these were actually a little on the small size, a quarter to a silver dollar in diameter.
4 strips of applewood-smoked bacon, or any other premium bacon of your choice.
4 heaping tbs of hellman's olive oil mayo
1 clove of garlic chopped very fine
juice from 1 clementine, or half a full size orange, maybe an oz or two
a pinch of saffron threads, crumbled in your fingers
a dash of evoo

make the allioli: at least an hour or two before you serve it, squeeze the juice from a clementine. add the crumbled saffron threads to the oj and stir. put in the microwave for 15 seconds only. no more. you just want the barest element of heat to help the saffron release its flavor and color. very important, no more then 15 seconds on the juice. set aside and let it steep for at least 15 minutes. add the chopped garlic to the mayo and mix thoroughly. add the oj/saffron mixture a spoon at a time. taste it as you go. when you have the right balance of garlic to mayo to oj and saffron, stop adding the juice. i didn't use all the juice. i think i added 4 spoons of it and then it was ready. set aside, in fact put it in the fridge to chill a bit.

with a very sharp knife, cut the bacon strips in half lengthwise, so you wind up with 8 slices. wrap each scallop and secure with a toothpick. season both sides with salt and pepper. 

when you are ready to cook the scallops, heat a 9 inch skillet over medium heat. film it with evoo. maybe a 1/2 teaspoon does it. you want the pan almost dry. when the pan is hot, add your scallops. they will cook about 4-5 minutes on the first side. a little less on the other. for a total cooking time of about 8-9 minutes. they should have a nice sear and be pretty brown when you turn them the first time.
                              

nice color after turning                                              

serve immediately with the allioli on the side. the sauce is what's different. nice addition.

brussels sprouts with gorgonzola & pancetta

make more than you think you'll need. they will be eaten. or you'll have leftovers for yourself. this recipe served 8, and there were still leftovers.

2 of those round containers of brussels sprouts, maybe a pound i guess
about 3 oz of pancetta diced (or bacon, or prosciutto, or salami, or pepperoni, or any other pork product)
sliced garlic, at least a couple of cloves, more if you like
evoo
about a half a cup of crumbled gorgonzola
1 oz or so of cream

in salted water, boil the sprouts til tender, maybe 5 minutes. drain and cool. cut off the bottoms and cut them in half. set aside. in a skillet, heat a little evoo, add the pancetta; after a couple of minutes add the garlic. cook on medium heat til the garlic is softened, maybe another 3 minutes. add the sprouts to the skillet, toss it all together, and cook for a couple of minutes. remove from heat, dump into a big mixing bowl, and set aside.

grease a roasting dish with butter or a little evoo, and preheat the oven to 375.

add the gorgonzola to the brussels sprouts and mix together. dump it all into the roasting dish. drizzle the cream over the top of everything, this will help to keep it all nice and moist. put it in the oven for about 15-20 minutes, until it is sizzling and the top has browned a bit. keep an eye on it.

let it cool for a minute before you serve it. even people who don't like brussels sprouts will enjoy this. served with roasted pork tenderloin.

Mushroom-Artichoke Casserole

this is not my recipe. first time i had this my sister-in-law donna made it, a long time ago. i've made it many times since.

1 or 2 small jars of marinated artichokes. 2 if you like it more “artichoke-y”, but 1 jar is ok too. Drain them in a colander, you don’t want that nasty cheap oil and vinegar they pack them in. If the chunks look too large, cut them in half if you want. Set aside.

About 24 oz of fresh mushrooms, whatever kind you like. You can mix different kinds too. Or not. It looks like a lot, but they shrink down. 24 oz would be probably 3 of the medium size containers. If you buy them already sliced, that’s fine too.

In a big enough skillet, heat a couple tablespoons of olive oil, then add the mushrooms. Add chopped garlic to taste if you like it. Or chopped shallots are good too. Sometimes I add a little pancetta or bacon or salami to the mushrooms while they are cooking. Pork = flavor. Cook the mushrooms on medium high until they have given up their water and they are done. It should be pretty dry when they are done.

In a mixing bowl, put the cooked mushrooms and the drained artichokes. Add maybe a half a cup of bread crumbs, more or less, and mix it. You don’t want too many bread crumbs, but you need some. After adding the bread crumbs, if it looks too dry, add a tablespoon or so of olive oil to the mix.

At this point you could eat it right away, as it will be warm. I think it’s better if you bake it in the oven though. So put the mixture in a Pyrex oven dish or something like that, and put a couple of pats of butter on the top, and cook it at 350 or so for maybe another 20-25 minutes.

Options: you can add anything you like to it: pignoli nuts, a little roasted or fresh red pepper, onion, whatever you have around that you want to use up.

rolled & tied pork tenderloin

so this is a copy mostly of a recipe i saw in some italian cookbook, and i remember making it for the first time for a new years eve dinner that we had here. back maybe 20 years ago or so. the stuffing or filling can be as changeable as whatever cold cuts and cheese you have in your house. first time i made this it was a large enough roll of meat - maybe it was beef - that i had a hard-boiled egg in the middle so when you cut the slices, everybody had a little sun in the middle of the meat. i believe that first recipe was probably in gourmet magazine. anyway i made it again and wrote it down in my notebook in september 2007. then i used mortadella, salami, and provolone. this time, tonight 2-20-10, i used smoked ham instead of the salami, plus the other two ingredients. in addition, i slathered the inside of the two butterflied tenderloins with grey poupon dijon mustard. just enough to flavor it, and add a little moisture. then a thin layer of mortadella, then the ham, then the provolone. then roll it up tight and tie it. refrigerate until 1 hour before cook time.

so to assemble the roll: two pork tenderloins, close to the same size and weight. remove the silverskin and trim the ends to match up. season with your house dry rub, all sides. refrigerate for a half a day at least. remove from fridge. butterfly from the side so that you wind up with a piece of meat about 8-9 inches long, about 4-5 inches wide, and about a half-inch or less thick. set the two tenderloins next to each other on a clean cutting board or counter. fit them together into a pretty even rectangle, with a slight overlap. cut your butcher's twine into 5 pieces each about 15 inches long. slide under the meat into 5 equidistant places. roll the meat as tight as you can, making sure to pick up the 2nd tenderloin half-way through. tie the first string in the middle, tight as you can. good time for a third hand. finish tying up the meat roll. cut horizontally into 5 pieces. each should have a string around the middle. the slices will be an inch or two thick. 

in your skillet, heat a small amount of evoo. when hot, add the slices you want to cook. you should hear a real good sizzle when you put them in the pan. if not, your pan isn't hot enough. heat the friggin pan! so after about 4 minutes of not moving the meat around, you should have a real good sear on the bottom; done so you can keep the melting cheese inside the meat. flip it over, another 3 minutes or so, still sizzling real good. then into your preheated 350 degree oven. set timer for 12-13 minutes. when it buzzes, take a look. if you think it needs another 2 minutes, put it back in. i would say 15 minutes maximum though. out of oven, to the plate. let it sit for a minimum of 5 minutes before you serve.

served with sauteed crimini mushrooms and piquillo pepper strips. and tempranillo. oh yeah

morcilla crostini

morcilla is a spanish black sausage. a rich earthy taste, made with onions and/or rice. this is a very easy to make tapa. cooked sausage on a slice of toasted crusty bread, garnished with a strip or two of piquillo pepper. the dijon allioli is optional but recommended.

4 morcilla sausages, casing removed
16 quarter- to half-inch slices of good bread, about 3" x 4", toasted
4 piquillo peppers, quartered lengthwise
a little evoo
salt & pepper
a little dijon allioli (see below) to spread on the toast

in a 9-10 inch non-stick skillet over medium heat, place the sausages into the pan and start breaking them up with a wooden spoon. as they start cooking they will continue to break up until you have a pretty fine mix of meat. you can lower the heat a bit once the morcilla is broken up. add a little evvo, maybe a tablespoon as it cooks, to keep it moist. continue cooking the morcilla for a total cooking time of about 5-6 minutes. that's it. take your toasted bread, spread a small amount of the allioli on each piece. use a big spoon to top each slice with some of the morcilla. top each one with a piece of the piquillo pepper. you're done. should be enough to make 16 pieces. enough for 8.

to make the allioli: in a small bowl, about 3 tbs of mayonnaise, about 1 tbs of dijon mustard, 1-2 garlic cloves finely chopped., a pinch of pimenton. mix well.

morcilla is a little hard to find. i get it from latienda.com. any good spanish food store will have it. day-old bread is fine too. enjoy.