We Are Never Full » fennel

Fish Night Throwback: Seared Halibut Aiolli Garni

Jonny & Amy — Sat, 03 Dec 2011 16:18:28 +0000

I’m not very old, but for much of my youth in the north west of England, it was almost impossible to find fresh foods that weren’t local. Today such a statement seems like an echo of Victorian times, but, literally, that’s how it was until a supermarket was built behind the Knutsford courthouse in the late 80s.

I often tell my wife about the cheese stall at the weekly market only kept five kinds of cheese – Cheshire, Cheddar, Lancashire, and sage Derby were ever present, with perhaps a Wenslydale reasonably common too. If anything as unusual as a Stilton, from distant Nottinghamshire, appeared, it would generate as much commotion among the town’s housewives, who elbowed their way to the front of the queue to catch a glimpse of this highly perfumed foreigner, as if Julio Iglesias showed up sporting his tennis shorts. My wife usually responds that I should count myself lucky because when she was young there were only four kinds of cheese at her local supermarket: white American, yellow American, cheddar and Swiss and had anything else been available it would have been looked upon with extreme suspicion. Touché.

Making our weekly Tuesday rounds of the covered (indoor) market (the outdoor market sold mostly fruit and veg, bric a brac, and live pets, believe it or not) with my mother, on the cheese man’s left was the egg man, or “mister Chookie” as I knew him, on account of his perennial sales pitch “come tek a look at these lover-lee chookie eggs I’ve got for yuh!”. Unlike his fellow stall-holders, whose wares fell within a particular genre, the egg man also sold milk, orange juice and yogurt due to him being one of the younger siblings of the Sheldon family that owned the local dairy, and who, excepting market days, delivered these provisions to the doorsteps of the town’s residents.

Beyond Mr. Chookie was the fish man, Mr. Scales, as my mother used to call him, although at the time her pun was lost on me. Above his stall ran the legend “fresh daily from Fleetwood, Lancs”, referring to the port just north of blackpool where much of Britain’s catch was landed. That his stall was only open Tuesdays and Thursdays didn’t seem to matter. Whether it was due to her upbringing in blackpool where there is – rightfully – a great deal of local snobbery about the quality of the fish that goes into their fish n’chips, or whether because of an innate suspicion of fishmongers, my mother always eyed mr scales’s wares closely, casting a wary eye over his glossy fish, as if trying to discern if there was anything untoward hiding among the cockle-shells. Because we rarely had fish except on Fridays when we weren’t allowed anything else – even in our lunchboxes at school we had to mark the end of the week with evil-smelling “salmon paste” sandwiches – and because mum worked a full day on Thursdays, whatever we bought on Tuesdays had to last on ice in the bottom of the fridge until then (freezing fish made it taste all woolly, she always said), so freshness was absolutely crucial otherwise it/we wouldn’t survive.

Typically, the fish was cod, but often halibut or hake did service in the flaky white fish department. This was usually broiled and served with oven-baked chips, since as a nurse my mother couldn’t countenance deep-frying at home lest it give the townies the impression she was a hypocrite in her dietary exhortations, and homemade mushy peas, flecked with mint and tangy with a splash of malt vinegar. Apart from a distinctly non-traditional and rather dodgy-looking “curry” she made every so often, friday night fish suppers were my dad’s favorite – he still demands it to this day and he is about as agnostic an Anglican as you’ll find.

Instead of waiting for Friday, and going against my mum’s rubric of no-frying, but keeping with the buying of white fish on a Tuesday, we made a version of the Provencal classic, aioli garni, with a pan seared halibut fillet, steamed fennel and butter beans. Rather like much of the cooking I experienced growing up, it doesn’t look like much on the plate – the pale colors and the two sauces lapping against one another may seem bland – but the sharp tang of the garlicky aiolli with the surprising hot peppery-bite of the brown sauce against the muted flavors of the white fish and butter beans makes for an unusually rewarding dish. I am convinced that my mum would’ve enjoyed this dish a great deal, even though she would have asked why we didn’t save it for Friday night. As for my dad, well, sadly, he wouldn’t touch it on account of it humming with garlic. Too bad for him.

Pan-Roasted Halibut with Aioli Garni and Butter Beans (serves 2)
Adapted from Rick Stein’s Coast to Coast, BBC Books, 2008

Ingredients

1 8oz can butter beans
1/2 red onion, sliced finely
1 fennel bulb, sliced into 1/2 inch slices
2 fillets (white fish, halibut, code, hake, flounder)

For the brown sauce

2 carrots, 1 large stick celery, half spanish onion, 1 leek, all chopped finely
1/2 stick butter
handful of dried mushrooms
1 medium hot dry chile, whole
1 teaspoon thai fish sauce
1 pint fish stock
1/4 cup cognac
For the aioli
4 cloves garlic, peeled
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 medium or 2 small egg yolks
2 teaspoons lemon juice
6 oz best olive oil

Recipe

In a small saucepan on medium heat, sweat the red onion gently in olive oil until soft, but still pink and with some texture.
Add butter beans, season with salt & pepper and some chopped fennel tops, and another good jigger of olive oil. Keep warm until service.
To make the brown sauce, in a saucepan, sweat the carrot, leek, celery and spanish onion together in some butter until soft. Add hot pepper.
Increase heat to high and add cognac. Allow to reduce by half before adding fish sauce and fish stock. Simmer for 30 minutes.
Strain and stir in remaining butter, keep warm.
Either boil or steam fennel until soft – 5-8 minutes depending on technique.
Preheat oven to 360F/180C.
Crush and finely chop garlic with a sprinkle of sea salt. In a large bowl, mix with egg yolks and lemon juice, then whisking constantly, (or with a stick blender) begin adding the olive oil slowly. When you’ve got an emulsion going, you can add the oil more quickly, but if the whole thing breaks, have a glass of wine and start over again from scratch.
In saucepan over medium-high heat, add two or three tablespoons of olive oil, and, having seasoned the fish fillets with salt and black pepper, place them skin-side down in the pan.
Cook until skin releases from pan, 3-5 minutes depending on size of fillet, turn and place in oven for a further 5 minutes.
Plate beans, fish, fennel together with aioli and brown sauce. Soft boiled egg optional. Garnish with fennel tops and enjoy with a crisp white or Provencal rose wine.

Risotto di Polpette di Salsicce al Finocchio: Playing with your Sausage…

Jonny & Amy — Wed, 02 Nov 2011 23:30:27 +0000

I was recently introduced to an Australian with whom I had a number of interesting discussions (that is not meant as a joke). The first, an hour-long discussion of the age-old cricketing rivalry between England and his native land is of no concern here, but the second, a frank exchange of views about the quality of sausages to be found in the United States has rather more relevance to the subject matter of these here web pages. His view, that American sausages simply aren’t up to snuff compared to the quality and variety of those available in Australia – a country in which the mystery bag has achieved almost legendary status for its role in the great Aussie barbecue – is not one I share, even if there were no other examples of fine forcemeat here than the glorious boudin of Louisiana, although, in his defense, he was careful to exclude American-made Italian style sausages from this otherwise careless dismissal.

Two men arguing about the merits of their sausage could be opening line of a grubby joke, but in fact, it’s a highly meaningful topic. Pork sausage, as it’s widely-known, is the world’s greatest food. I can think of no other food stuff which provides a comparable level of variety and satisfaction. The range of flavorings to be added to the basic mixture of pork shoulder and fat is almost limitless and the unctuousness of pork seems to be the perfect canvas for sausage-makers around the world to demonstrate their flair. All of which means that unless one is sufficiently motivated, like my Antipodean chum, to make one’s own sausage from scratch, one can take one’s pick from the myriad sausages available to us these days.

However, if you’re either deliberately bloody-minded or just feel like gilding the lily, you can augment your local sausage-maker’s offerings with flavorings of your own, which is what I did. Taking inspiration, once again, from Maxine Clark’s “Flavors of Tuscany”, I embarked with six fennel-scented Italian “sweet” sausage, adding some hot pepper flakes, a finger-nail or so of sweet pimenton, a pinch each of fennel pollen and black pepper, plus a generous teaspoon of just-cracked fennel seeds to the sausage meat after extracting it from its casings. Between two moistened palms, I rolled myself some micro-meatballs so-seasoned, browned them off in olive oil and paired them with a risotto bianco, garnished generously with fennel seeds, and washed it all down with an unpretentious Chianti.

As a speedy weeknight meal, it had the twin virtues for the ambitious home-cook of being easy and delicious while making me feel like I’d embellished the store-bought ingredients rather more than I had, which together with the great potential for sausage-based school-boy puns almost justifies posting about it.

Fennel-spiked Sausage Meatball Risotto

Ingredients:
For the meatballs:

6 sweet Italian sausages
1 each of teaspoon red pepper flakes, cracked fennel seeds and black pepper
1/2 teaspoon each of sweet pimenton (paprika) and fennel pollen (optional)
2 tablespoons olive oil

For the risotto:

1 large onion, diced
3 cloves garlic, crushed and chopped
1 tablespoon olive oil
1/4 cup dry white wine
1/2 cup arborio or carnaroli rice
1.5 cups (approx) chicken stock
kosher salt
1 teaspoon fennel seeds

Recipe:

With a shark knife, slice open casings of sausages and turn them out into a bowl.
Add red pepper flakes, fennel seeds, fennel pollen and black pepper, and a splash of water, before combining together with fingers.
Moisten hands with water, roll cherry (or larger) sized meatballs in your palms. Reserve on a plate.
In a saucepan on medium high, sweat onions and garlic in olive oil until translucent. Add rice. Stir well.
After no more than 2 minutes, add white wine. Stir well.
Allow wine to reduce by at least half before adding 1/4 of your chicken stock. Stir well. Continue to add more stock when rice dries out until rice is al dente and slightly soupy.
When rice is about half done, in a saute pan, heat olive oil to medium-high, and brown meatballs well on all sides. Depending on their size they will either be fully cooked or require ten or more minutes in the oven to cook through.
When both meatballs and risotto is cooked, plate together, sprinkle with extra fennel seeds and a drizzle of some of your best olive oil.

Pasta con le Sarde: Sicily on a plate

Jonny & Amy — Tue, 05 Apr 2011 14:20:26 +0000

Greeks, Romans, Moors, Normans, Spaniards, Garibaldi and his thousand, and finally hordes of tourists have visited Sicily over the milennia. Some stayed for centuries, some only for generations, but even those whose sojourn was comparatively brief played a role in the island’s blending of cultures and traditions.

If this human concoction can be distilled into a single dish, it might be pasta con le sarde. A strikingly simple plate of spaghetti, fennel, onions, and sardines garnished with golden raisins (sultanas) and pine nuts, but its layers of flavor and texture speak of Sicily’s multifarious heritage. Grapes, introduced by the Greeks in the 7th century BC, combining with the tradition of using dried fruit in savory dishes adopted from the Moors, the abundant use of saffron borrowed from the Spanish Bourbon monarchy, and the native reliance on cheap and readily-available ingredients of the highest quality in the onions, foraged wild fennel, pine nuts and the island’s golden olive oil.

And, just like the variegated Sicilian identity, the disagreements over what constitutes a real pasta con le sarde are multihued. Some prefer a thicker long pasta like perciatelli or bucatini over spaghetti, some add breadcrumbs, some refuse to add anchovies, others only saute half the sardines with the sauce, breaking the other half into mix after the pasta has been added to the pan, and yet others would crumble almonds over the assembled dish and bake it in a moderate oven for 20 minutes. The biggest philosophical difference though, lies in the presence of tomato paste. Palermitano’s typically leave it out altogether, whereas cooks further west and south in Trappani, Marsala and, particularly Agrigento, would claim it as an essential ingredient.

Ever the diplomats, we (probably to the aggravation of native Sicilians) chose the middle ground, and elected to use anchovies and bucatini, leave out the tomato paste, cook all the sardines in the sauce, and add both breadcrumbs and broken almonds, but we chose not to bake it. It was wonderful: crunchy, salty and sweet, and with a profound maritime flavor overlaid perfectly by the fennel.

Those of you with an aversion to small oily fish should probably avoid this dish completely for substitutions of whiter, milder species cannot be recommended, unless even greater Sicilian wrath is desired. And, if encouragement to try something different is needed, look no further than the twin factors of wholesomeness and economy. Sardines and pasta are still very affordable, and, for us, halfway through a month-long meatless regimen ahead of a warm weather vacation, it checked all the taste and healthful boxes.

It also checked the seasonal box, for, strictly-speaking, this dish should only be eaten between March and September when wild fennel can be found extending its spidery fronds all over the island’s uplands. For those of us without wild ingredients to hand, or such a favorable climate, cultivated fennel plus a scant 1/4 teaspoon of ground fennel seeds (or a smaller quantity of fennel pollen), provide a similar perfume.

Please note that one should always use the freshest possible sardines, and not just for this recipe. The oilier the fish, the shorter the shelf life – hence why anchovies are so often salted and in oil – and the general rule of thumb is 8-12 hours out of water is about as long as it takes for sardines to go from glorious to gory mess. You can certainly freeze them too, but like most fish, especially small ones, the defrosting process has to be slow and delicate to prevent them from getting mushy.

Pasta con le Sarde (Long pasta with sardines) (serves 4)

Ingredients

1lb (1/2 kilo) dried long pasta (spaghetti, bucatini, perciatelli)
1 fennel bulb, tops removed and reserved, sliced wafer thin
1 medium yellow onion, sliced thinly
3-4 cloves garlic, finely sliced.
4-6 medium sardines (1lb / 1/2 kilo), cleaned and boned
handful golden raisins (sultanas)
handful pine nuts (pignoli)
1 small glass dry white wine
2 handfuls day-old bread crumbs
1 handful roughly chopped almonds
3 salted anchovies
1 pinch saffron
freshly ground black pepper
sea salt to taste
good quality olive oil
chopped flat leaf parsley (optional)

Recipe:

Bring a large pot of salted water to a rolling boil
In a saute pan, bring 3 tablespoons of olive oil to medium heat
Saute onions, garlic and fennel (not including reserved tops) until softened.
Add sardines and anchovies, stir to break up anchovies.
Turn heat to high and after 30 seconds add white wine and saffron.
Stir again, reduce heat to low after 1 minute. Cover for 5 minutes and allow to steam.
Add pasta to large pot of salted water.
Remove of saute pan lid, stir sardines so fish starts to flake and fall apart into the sauce.
Add golden raisins and pine nuts. Taste for seasoning, correct accordingly.
When pasta is done – around 7 minutes – scoop a ladle of pasta water into sardine sauce before draining pasta and adding it to saute pan.
Stir pasta well to coat with sauce. Allow to cook for another minute
Kill heat, and sprinkle in breadcrumbs, chopped almonds, fennel tops and chopped parsley (optional).
Stir well and serve with a chilled glass of the same wine.

*Credit should be given to Ferdinando’s Focacceria for inspiring us to cook this dish.

Baby Octopus a la Plancha with Citrus and Fennel

Jonny — Mon, 28 Jun 2010 18:32:11 +0000

“Reach into your memory and come up with … what food actually regenerated your system, not so you can leap tall buildings, but so you can turn off the alarm clock with vigor.”
- Jim Harrison, The Raw and the Cooked

We’re certainly not the first bloggers to find ourselves stretched thin between the demands of our regular working lives and the rather strange, post-modern existence we eke out on the interwebs, and, as happens to us every now and then, we’re kind of in the middle of one of those periods right now. Combine that with the fact that it’s been crazy hot here lately — making the prospect of getting creative in the kitchen of our sweat-lodge-like four-story walk-up apartment distinctly unattractive — and our resulting culinary output has been truly meager.

On the few occasions we have been behind the burners, it’s only been for short periods, and, in this case, just long enough to cook marinaded baby octopus a la plancha in a cast-iron skillet. This is the result. It was delicious, and, yes, our apartment was a few hundred degrees for the rest of the evening. Seeking to avoid these sauna conditions, we have recently resorted to the dangerously illegal practice of grilling things over a tiny fold-up barbecue on the roof of our apartment building. With a bit of luck, the steamy conditions will break before repeated exposure to grilling temperatures melts a sink-hole into the ceiling above us.

Marinated Baby Octopus with Roasted Fennel and Citrus (serves 2)
Ingredients:

1lb baby octopus, cleaned and sliced down one side to open them up.
6 cloves garlic, minced
1/2 teaspoon ground fennel seeds
1/2 teaspoon kosher salt
1 teaspoon crushed red pepper flakes/chili flakes
1/2 teaspoon ground black pepper
1/2 cup extra virgin olive oil
1 orange, supremed, and juiced
1 head fennel, leafy tops removed and chopped finely
2 tablespoons kalamata olives, halved
2 tablespoons pistachios, bashed up a bit

Recipe:

In a non-reactive bowl, place octopus, salt, ground fennel seeds, black pepper, red pepper flakes, olive oil, orange juice and chopped up fennel tops. Stir well and leave covered for up to 1 hour.
Pre-heat oven to 350F/175C.
Slice fennel bulb into 1/4 inch slices, long-wise and arrange on a baking sheet. Anoint generously with salt, black pepper and olive oil. Put in oven for 15 minutes, turn slices over and repeat until they start to get crispy.
Pre-heat cast-iron skillet to high
Shake marinade off octopus, and place in hot pan.
Cook each ‘pus for around 3-4 minutes per side, before turning over.
After first side is done, you’ll notice a reddish brown gunk on your pan, before turning over, scrape as much of this off as possible, as it’ll start to burn and give your octopus a bitter flavor otherwise.
Remove cooked octopii to a plate until all are done and then serve with roasted fennel, supremes of orange, kalamata olives and pistachios.
We added boiled potatoes to make it into a main course, but feel free not to if you’re making it as a first course.
Serve with a chilled white wine, an albarino would be rather nice.

A Challenge with Challenge Butter: Baked Chipotle Wings

Amy — Tue, 10 Nov 2009 03:36:51 +0000

We’re going to make this one short and sweet — the Phillies, my beloved Philadelphia Phillies, just couldn’t do it this year. What was even worse was that they played the Yankees and I live in New York City in a new apartment building surrounded by Yankees fans. I just couldn’t face to finish watching the final game as the Phillies handed their World Championship title to the team with not only the richest ball players (who have won the World Series 26 times before) but also to a team filled with wanna-be celebrities (ahem, A-Rod – here doing what he does best, looking in a mirror and kissing himself and, ahem, Jeter) and actual celebrity “fans” and girlfriends (if I had to see stupid Kate Hudson, Jay Z or Rudy Giuliani one more freaking time…).

Even though I slept with ear plugs in the night the Yankees won, despite my disappointment, I fell into a deep slumber with a belly full of smoky, spicy Chipotle Wings. A few weeks ago, Challenge Butter convinced us to take on some samples of their unsalted butter and create an appetizer using their product along with some Spice Island and OXO products that they so generously gave us. It was a way for them to not only get the word out on their amazing product (unfortunately, it’s only available to buy in the Western part of the US) but also on a great sweepstakes they are running until December 31st, 2009 to win a 7-day trip to Montana.

So with sports on the brain and the cooler weather coming in, we dusted the wings with some of the Spice Island spices and baked them Alton Brown-style till they crisped up, then tossed them in a blend of my obsession, La Morena Chipotle Sauce, some Tabasco chipotle-flavored hot sauce and some melted Challenge Butter. Dipped in some fennel-seed spiked Ranch dressing and the worries of my team losing the big game began to fade away – even if it was only temporary.

BAKED CHIPOTLE CHICKEN WINGS (serves 3 to 4 appetizer-style)

12 chicken wings
1 tablespoon Spice Island fennel seed, ground in spice grinder
1 tablespoon Spice Island chipotle powder
1 tablespoon Spice Island Beau Monde seasoning
salt and pepper
1/4 cup melted, unsalted butter (like Challenge Butter)
1/4 cup La Morena Chipotle Sauce
2 tablespoons Chipotle Hot Sauce (like Tabasco)
Ranch Dressing and/or Blue Cheese Dressing (homemade or favorite bottled)

What to do:

Mix the spices together along with a pinch of salt and a pinch of pepper. Sprinkle on both sides of the wings.
Follow Alton Brown’s directions for steaming and then baking the wings.
Continue following his directions, but toss the chipotle sauce along with the Tabasco Hot Sauce and add to the melted butter. Finish by tossing the baked wings in this delicious mixture. Serve with some dipping sauce of ranch or blue cheese dressing and some celery. Also serve with copious amounts of beer.

Spring Meets Summer: Pasta con Granchio e Finocchio (Pasta w/ Crab and Fennel)

Amy — Fri, 29 May 2009 02:16:33 +0000

This dish was so easy, I could have cried as I cut my onions. I had a hankering for fresh crab and, because it was a weeknight, I saved time and energy by purchasing already shelled crab (not to ever be confused with something that makes me want to gag called krab). This dish actually raised my mood from not-too-hot (about a 3 on a scale from 1 to 10) to feeling incredibly good (a good 9/9.5). Sometimes a good dinner can just do that. The lemon brightened the finished product up, the fennel gave it a bit of crunch and sweetness. Crab and fresh cherry tomatoes always remind me of warm summer days which, naturally, make me smile.

If we had any leftovers I would’ve loved to have tasted it cold. I actually think it could make a great may0-less pasta salad. You could also chop up some sauteed softshell crabs and use them instead of the fresh crab. Maybe I’ll wait for a real summer day to give that a try. Until then, I urge you to give this a try!

PASTA CON GRANCHIO E FINOCCHIO (serves 4)

1 lb of pasta, your choice
2/3 cup of extra virgin olive oil (use a bit less if you prefer, i like to taste my oil)
6 cloves of garlic, minced (again, use less if you’re not a huge garlic lover)
1 teaspoon peperoncino
1/2 fennel bulb, sliced
1/2 onion, sliced
1 pint cherry tomatoes (about 2 cups)
2 cups fresh lump crab meat
juice of one lemon
salt and pepper
fennel fronds and/or fresh basil, chopped

What to do:

Add the minced garlic (minus the reserved 1 tablespoon), a pinch of peperoncino and olive oil to a pan. Slowly heat it on low (or medium low) to infuse the oil with the flavors of the garlic. I usually allow it to lowly and gently warm for about a half hour. (NOTE: **You can also take a short-cut and skip to Step 3 if you choose to. The longer way takes more time, but the flavor intensifies if you give the oil time to gently warm.)
Boil salted water for your pasta. Cook pasta.
While pasta is cooking, in a new pan, add a few tablespoons of the infused oil and saute the fennel and onion and tomatoes for a minute or two on medium heat. Add the garlic and peperoncino-infused oil to the pan and allow the garlic to get some color and is lightly browned. Kill the heat until the pasta is ready.
When pasta is done, turn heat back on low, and add it to the oil mixture. Toss in the crab meat and lemon juice. Toss pasta. Add some salt and pepper to taste. Toss again. Plate up and sprinkle some chopped fennel fronds or basil on top (or fry up some slices of leeks if you feel like being fancy). Enjoy!

Perfect Dried Pappardelle for Your Sausage Ragu

Amy — Sat, 28 Feb 2009 17:36:50 +0000

Around the same time we were asked to test-drive a rich, decadent cheesecake, we were also asked to try pasta from a company called Garofalo. Now, dear readers, I really hope you don’t think we would sell out and become a blog purely about taste-testing and dedicated to kissing bum to those who dare to send us free stuff. We will not ever become that type of blog. We will always be willing to try free food stuff (I stress the word free) but we will never, and I repeat NEVER say good things about something we hate. I will not lie about free food products we receive and would rather, instead, just not waste my time writing about it. But this pasta test-drive ended up being a way different experience than I thought it would be.

After that kick-a$$ cheesecake we devoured I figured that free pasta would pale in comparison. Boy was I wrong. As most of you know, we prefer savory food over sweets and I’d take a big, steaming bowl of perfectly al dente pasta over a cheesecake any day. I’m serious here. Garofalo’s pappardelle from their “signature line” did the trick. We paired this fabulously tasty pasta with a hearty Sausage Ragu and it held up while adding that perfect chew to the dish.

I know I go on and on (and on) about how important perfectly al dente pasta is to me, but I can’t imagine wasting a fabulous sauce on a crappy, soggy bit of pasta. Too often if you follow the instructions on the back of a box of pasta you’ll be left with it way overcooked. My rule of thumb is to always subtract two minutes from the given instructions and usually I get the perfect chew. This time I decided to test Garofalo’s (hey, it was free) to see if their instructions were bang-on. 8 minutes is what it said and 8 minutes was all it needed. Maybe they got it right because this pasta is actually made in Italy, “near the ruins of Pompeii”. It actually tastes like it is made in Italy. The other thing I love about Garofalo pasta is that they offer “different” pasta shapes besides the obvious penne, spaghetti and linguine. Some of these specialty cuts include schiaffoni (large oval-shaped noodle) and calamarata (like thick-cut calamari rings). These are the types of shapes I want to eat when I’m bored of the norm.

No lie – I highly recommend this pasta, especially along with our deliciously hearty sausage ragu. In fact, I’m writing the rep from the company to ask where I can get some in Brooklyn. I have a feeling I’ll have to harass the manager at my local grocery store to order some, but it will be worth it.

PAPPARDELLE WITH SAUSAGE AND PEA RAGU (serves 4)

Ingredients:

1 lb. pappardelle (dried or homemade)
1 lb. ground sausage meat (or sausage links taken out of the casings)
1 onion, finely diced
3 cloves garlic, finely minced
1 teaspoon fennel seed, crushed
1 28-oz. can of crushed tomatoes (preferably San Marzano)
1 cup of red wine
1 cup of peas (I used frozen)
basil
salt and pepper

What to do:

Saute your onions and garlic in some olive oil for a few minutes to get some color on them. Add the sausage meat and break up with a wooden spoon. Allow to brown for 2 to 3 minutes and then add the fennel seed and stir.
Add in the red wine and stir into the meat. Allow to cook down for a minute. Add the whole can of tomatoes. Let this cook on medium-low and stir. It will cook for about 20-30 minutes until all the flavors come together.
While the ragu comes together, boil some salted water. About ten minutes before you’re ready to eat, boil your pasta till al dente and add directly into the ragu along with a 1/4 ladel-full of pasta water. Add peas. Cook for 30 seconds, toss in some basil and plate. Serve with parmigiano reggiano. Enjoy!

Welcoming in 2009 with Salmon Rillettes.

Amy — Mon, 05 Jan 2009 02:14:27 +0000

It’s been a nice, long and relaxing break. We hope you all had a wonderful holiday season! It’s good to be back, but it’s difficult to write about food when all you can think about is avoiding it for a bit to detox from the holidays. This holiday season we ate like kings, we drank a lot of booze and we took very little exercise. We also played plenty of Boggle, Trivia Pursuit and Clue (hey, we were holed up on a family vacation in the mountains). The few times I have sweated in the last few days, it has been thick and almost seems as though animal fat was seeping out of my skin. Basically, it’s time for a break.

But, reminiscing about skinnier times, I must say that Christmas Eve and Christmas Day were very delicious. And, as Heather says, “Catholic much?”. Yes, we try to incorporate as much fish into our Christmas meal as possible and one starter we had on Christmas Day was this fabulously easy and mildly decadent Salmon Rillettes. Many know this traditional French “spread” to be made primarily with pork but also with duck, rabbit, chicken or other types of meat, and is often made with tuna or salmon. Meat rillettes are made by cooking the meat slowly in fat so that it is so tender it almost melts or shreds and is then blended with the cooking fat so that is is able to be spread, once cooled, on pieces of bread. One day we’ll do a meat rillette for the blog but, until then, give this tasty (and easier to make) salmon version a whirl. Don’t be afraid of the butter content and ease your worries about eating raw egg by buying cage free and organic. It needs fat and is supposed to be eaten in small quantities, so enjoy it – but maybe you should wait until after your post-holiday purge?

SALMON RILLETTES (adapted from Bistro by G. Hiriqoyen) - serves six to eight

Ingredients

1 3/4 pound (or 12 oz.) piece of salmon, skin removed
7 oz. of smoked salmon
1/2 cup (4 oz.) of unsalted butter at room temperature
2 eggs (the freshest possible), beaten
1/2 fennel bulb, chopped very fine using a blender or food processor
juice of 1 lemon
2 tablespoons fresh chives
optional: 2 tablespoons chopped fennel fronds
1 tablespoon chopped capers
salt and pepper

What to do:

Season your salmon filet with salt and pepper, place in a steaming basket, cover and steam over gently boiling water. You could also poach the salmon in a few inches of water, covering the salmon. Cook salmon until it is firm to the touch, about 9 minutes.
Remove salmon and put in a bowl and shred the salmon with a fork. It may be easier to just use your fingers, but shred so that pieces are not shredded finely but will give the rillette some texture. Cover and refridgerate to cool.
Place the room temperature butter in a bowl and, using a rubber spatula, “work” it till it’s smooth and creamy. Add the lemon juice, chives, capers, fennel and fennel fronds and mix together well. Now add the beaten egg, only adding half at first, then mixing. If you feel it’s still kind of “dry”, add 1/4 more of it. Personally, I thought it was too wet with 2 whole beaten eggs, so see what works best for you.
Cut the smoked salmon into small pieces, about 1 inch “strips” so that they are similar in size to the shredded pieces. Add the cooled fresh salmon and the smoked salmon pieces to the butter mixture and mix together thoroughly until it is completely incorporated together. Taste for seasoning and add salt and pepper and more lemon juice if necessary.
Put in one big ramekin or individual ramekins (about 2 tablespoons per ramekin) and allow to chill in the fridge for at least 3 hours. Bring to room temperature before serving and serve with toasted slices of baguette.

Is It A Bird, Is It a Plane? No, it’s a Fried Skate Wing!

Jonny — Fri, 08 Aug 2008 14:34:24 +0000

Please forgive the headline — I couldn’t resist, but in all honesty, there are some similarities between the subject of this post and Clark Kent’s alter-ego. You see, the skate is to the world of fish what the nerdy-looking Kent is to the Daily Planet –a journeyman, overlooked and underrated by those who should know better, and under whose dowdy exterior, there beats the heart of a superhero. Of course, this is where the similarities end because neither are skate found on Krypton nor was Superman a noted contributor to delicious and easy-to-prepare dinners, so I will have to henceforth dispense with the erstwhile theme of this post.

Nonetheless, the skate and its delicious wings are definitely worth appreciating. A comparative rarity on menus this side of the Atlantic, skate wing is fairly common in French bistrots and used to be a regular on the menus of fish restaurants across the UK, but the common and white skates are now critically endangered in UK waters and are officially listed by the Marine Conservation Society as “fish to avoid”. In the Americas, almost the reverse is true, at least for the time being, as meatier fish tend to dominate fish menus at the expense of the more delicate white fish, the Pacific coast from Mexico to Alaska is full of the big (or giant – it can grow up to 8 feet in wingspan!) and longnose skates which make for some fine dining.

Skates are a cartilaginous fish in the ray family (you know, stingrays, manta rays, etc.) which is linked comparatively closely (in evolutionary terms) with the shark family, meaning that they are relatively slow breeding and give birth to live young, and are therefore more susceptible to overfishing than the more prolific egg-producing gill fish.

But don’t let this put you off trying skate. Just make sure to ask your fishmonger where the skate he’s selling comes from, and if he doesn’t know, make him find out for you. All good butchers know the provenance of their meats, so why should fishmongers not be as knowledgeable about their wares?

When purchasing skate, make sure it’s fresh and without any ammoniacal odor, as for some reason I could find no explanation for they tend to go off faster than normal white fish. Also, you should ask your fishmonger to remove the “bones” from the skate for you. This makes it easier to cook and eat because the wings contain a fan of bones that can otherwise be a chore to remove with a knife and fork.

The classic preparation is pan-fried au beurre noisette, or with a brown butter and caper sauce, which adds richness and acid to what is basically a flaky white fish, but because for us a fish meal tends to be a cathartic measure (albeit an enjoyable one) designed to make us feel healthier, we combined our pan-fried skate wing with a salad of finely-sliced fennel, fennel tops and tomato, and some steamed asparagus with a simple vinaigrette. However, feel free to also enjoy it in the typical manner as a little fat not only helps the fish remain moist, it brings out the best flavors of the delicate skate flesh.

Pan-Fried Skate Wing with Fennel & Tomato Salad (serves 2)

Ingredients:

1 whole skate, bones removed (8-10oz, uncooked)

1cup regular (not extra virgin) olive oil, or canola/vegetable oil

1 fennel bulb, sliced finely. Reserve fennel tops and chop finely also.

1 large tomato, diced

1/2 fresh corn cob, boiled and kernels removed

3tbsp good olive oil

1tbsp lemon juice

1tsp smooth dijon mustard

3tbsp plain flour

salt & white pepper to taste

Recipe:

Put fennel (including tops), tomato and corn into a non-reactive bowl and mix well with vinaigrette. Allow to sit and steep for at least 30minutes or as long as overnight.

Heat oil in a frying pan to medium-high, around 350F.

Dust skate with flour and season with salt. Pat off excess and gently lay in the hot oil until nicely browned and crisp all over (2-3mins per side, approx.)

Remove fish to a plate and gently pat dry with paper towels. Dress with the fennel salad and add an extra splash of olive oil to moisten the whole thing a bit, then serve.

Check out these other posts you might enjoy:

Orecchiette with Sausage and Kale

Lebanese Food in A Small Brooklyn Kitchen

Another Easy Meal – Tortilla Soup

Something’s Fishy ‘Round Here: Livornese Fish Stew (il cacciucco alla Livornese)

Chicken Gravy & Fennel and Potato Dauphinoise (A Gratin): The Cure for Sunday-Night Fear

Jonny — Fri, 02 May 2008 13:40:51 +0000

Jeffrey Steingarten famously declares in It Must Have Been Something I Ate that every time he is bored, he roasts a chicken. Calculating that he gets bored approximately once a week, this translates into 52 roast chickens a year and more than one thousand since he began as food critic at Vogue. That’s a lot of chicken, but it’s also a lot of practice in the art of roasting. Now, Steingarten goes on to say that roasting a chicken in the oven is little more than baking it, and that real roasting can only be done on a spit over a flame, which is perhaps true, but in the absence of a spit and fire, I think oven-roasting (baking) can produce a perfectly delicious roast chicken, and would refer you to the recent post “How to Spatchcock a Chicken” for a quick step-by-step.

Indeed, to my mind, (and to disagree with Mr. Steingarten, for once) there is one distinct advantage to oven-roasting vs. spit-roasting, namely, drippings, and drippings, like the crumbles in the corner of a bag of chips (crisps), are where the flavor is at. These drippings, you see, can be made into one of the most sublime of all cooking by-products, the gravy.

So, after washing and patting dry my bird, I stuffed its cavity with carrots, celery, onions, garlic, thyme, and lemon, before giving it a good rub all over with olive oil and a healthy sprinkling of salt. I then placed said bird in a dutch oven (le creuset) and leaving the lid off, put it in a 420F oven for forty minutes. After forty minutes, and with the bird looking perfectly golden and crispy, I turned the heat down to more placid 350F and let it roast for another hour before removing it and letting it rest a while out of the oven.

Before carving it, I removed the bird from the pot and took out the stuffing from the cavity, then drained all the juices out of the cavity into the pot where they mixed with roasting juices. Adding the cavity stuffing to the juices, along with about a pint of tap water, I turned up the heat and scraped the burnt bits off the bottom of the pan. I let the liquid reduce by about a third, stirring occasionally and crushing some of the vegetables a bit with my wooden spoon.

Nicely brown and beautifully redolent of chicken, thyme, lemon and the sweetness of roasted carrots, I strained the gravy and then pushed the solids through a sieve to add some body and flavor back in to it. Seasoning only slightly with salt and fresh pepper, I was proud to have made an absolutely fantastic, honest-to-goodness chicken gravy without recourse to stock, bouillon cubes or thickeners like corn starch. It was a moment in which I realized that just by following my instincts I had recreated the kind of gravy you’d commonly find at a good English restaurant or pub, or indeed, a good country French restaurant.

It was really quite an ordinary dinner – roast chicken, dauphinoise potatoes and a warm asparagus salad with fennel and celery tops, but with this gravy it became extraordinary — exactly the kind of restorative elixir that my body needed. “They” say that chicken soup contains something that makes you better when you’re sick, and I am sure that this chicken gravy had some of that goodness in it too. It was freshly made, flavorful and, well, chicken-y in a way that only chicken can really taste like chicken, and it made me feel wholesome without resorting to wheat germ, lentils and colonic irrigation.

Another interesting by-product of this dinner was a rather toothsome recipe for a potato and fennel gratin that I’m also inordinately proud of, perhaps because I didn’t work from a recipe, perhaps because I’m an asshole. Anyway, here’s how to do it:

Potato & Fennel Gratin
Ingredients

2 large or 3 medium waxy potatoes (yukon gold are best here) peeled, but left whole
1 large fennel bulb with tops trimmed and reserved for fennel salad
1/2 to 2/3 cup milk
2-3oz low moisture mozzarella, sliced thinly
salt & pepper to taste

Recipe

Preheat oven to 350F.
Using a mandolin on the middle thickness setting, slice your potatoes and fennel.
Lay out potatoes overlapping one another by about 3/4 slice (see photo below) in a layer in a baking dish.
Then do the same thing with your fennel slices. This second layer will probably not be as neat as the first one, but that doesn’t really matter.
Pour the milk over the vegetables but make sure milk does not cover them. Depending on the size of your dish, you may need a bit more or a bit less milk, but it should only come up to the bottom of the upper-most layer of vegetables.
Season with salt and pepper.

Cover dish with foil and place in oven for about half an hour.
After this time, remove from oven and lay your mozzarella slices on top. Do not add too much cheese – be a little sparing.
Return to oven and allow to bake for another twenty minutes or so, until cheese begins to puff and brown.
Remove and allow to cool a bit before serving (cutting is easier when vegetables and cheese have firmed up a little).
Serve with roast chicken on a Sunday night and calm the weekly apprehension at your impending return to work.

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