A few weeks ago we were lucky to receive a serious amount of free cheese from Ile de France. You’ve most likely seen their brie, goat cheese or St. André (which I could rub all over my body it’s that good) in your supermarket but they have so much more to offer. I only wish my grocery store carried all their cheeses. They also just redid their website and it’s an excellent way to get over 500 cheese recipes or just peruse the various cheeses they offer. After chomping down on the many cheese samples Ile de France mailed us (a vast variety including Chaumes, St. Albray, Goat and Brie) , we had alot left over. We’re kinda cheese fiends and when we’re feeling in the mood to eat cheese, we’ll go to our local shop and go a bit overboard. The cheese drawer will pile up until I can barely close it. This is never a good thing. Weeks later I’ll check out what’s at the bottom of the drawer to find shriveled bits of piave, way over-ripe, acidic smelling camembert or moldy tomme. I’ll often chop off mold or use the shriveled bitsto grate as pasta toppings, but often I’ll say a prayer, shed a tear and throw them into the garbage. It burns a hole in my heart every time!

But this time I just couldn’t see all that cheese go to waste, even if much of it was free. What about all the starving kids in China (Will that one work on my future child? Sure as hell didn’t work on me!)?! So I scratched my head and thought about what I could do. Mac and Cheese? No. Cheese Log? It ain’t Christmas. Mixed Cheese Tart? But I’ll have to use my oven and it’s so damn hot! Ok, let’s to a cheese tart. I am very glad I did and I highly reccommend you doing the same with all your leftover chese bits. Hard cheese, soft cheese, triple creams, stinky cheese – they’ll all go great in a cheese tart. Not to mention you won’t have to worry anymore about the starving kids in China.

Chicken and Waffles.  Two foods that many obsess over individually but wouldn’t even think to pair together.  Why, I wonder?  Have you ever dipped your crunchy piece of bacon into your pancake syrup, even if it’s accidental?  How about some fabulous thai sauces that have that sweet sticky flavor paired with some fried calamari?  What about any dish with sweet, salty and crunchy combination?  If you’re a nonbeliever, please, believe.  One taste of Chicken and Waffles and it quickly gained a top 10 spot on my “Death Row Last Meal” list.   You know you have one too.

The history of the beginnings of Chicken and Waffles is a perplexing one.  No one is really sure of its origins.  One of the original theories claims that Thomas Jefferson brought a waffle machine to the US from France in the 1790′s, thus beginning a waffle craze (even though the Pilgrims brought it to the New World back in the early 1600′s, we guess Tommy really sparked the interest). Soon after, being embraced by the African American community, Chicken and Waffles began appearing in cookbooks (although, curiously, it did not appear in the first cookbook written around 1880 by a Black former slave called What Mrs. Fisher Knows About Old Southern Cooking by Abby Fisher).  The Pennsylvania Dutch (the first Germans to have settled in the US) have been pairing chicken with waffles probably before Thomas Jefferson was a twinkle in his mother’s uterus.  Instead of frying their chicken pieces, the PA Dutch version uses shredded pieces of boiled or roasted chicken on top of waffles and top it with lots of creamy gravy instead of hot sauce and syrup.  You may think this either looks like sick on a waffle or, possibly, chicken pot pie over a waffle. The final and most common origin is that Chicken and Waffles began in the 1930′s during the Harlem Jazz hayday, specifically at a place no longer in existence called Wells Supper Club. When the Jazz musicians walked into Wells after a long night of playing, they wanted a combo of dinner and breakfast (dickfast?  dinfast?) and the staff created the crispy, crunchy, salty, sweet combo we love today.

Clearly we’re not the first to try making chicken and waffles at home.  I still remember drooling over our friend Heather’s version almost a year ago.  After our fun maple syrup taste-test, we figured it was the perfect time to make something we had wanted to make for a long time.  This experience also gave me a chance to finally give that damn supposedly amazing Thomas Keller fried chicken recipe a whirl.  I combined his recipe with some tips from Serious Eats supposed “Best Fried Chicken Recipe”.  The result?  Damn ass good.  If I could be guaranteed to not gain weight or get a major cholesterol problem, I could possibly eat this every day.  This recipe is hands down worth the time and effort if you’re going to bother doing your own fried chicken. Please, take my word for it – it was perfectly cooked, perfectly crunchy, and very, very moist inside.  If you don’t try the chicken and waffles, please use this recipe for some damn good fried chicken.  Make it with a side of  Lipitor.

PS: How awesome does that old Herbie Hancock album cover look against this “set”? I laugh every time I look at those gold medallions on his neck. By the way, we’re cheap – that’s one of Jonny’s shirts as our “faux country” tablecloth.  We’re professionals, folks.  Real professionals.

This meal was fabulous and so easy to make. It could wow dinner guests and, if you can find some cheap legs, will cost next to nothing per plate.  Crispy skin, sweet sauce, creamy side dish – what else could you ask for?

DUCK LEGS WITH PEAR, CURRANT AND BALSAMIC SAUCE (serves 2)

• 2 juicy, deliciously plump duck legs
• 3/4 cup, white wine
• **2 cups stock (chicken or veggie)
• 3 tablespoons balsamic vinegar
• 1 bay leaf
• 6 whole stems of thyme
• 3 shallots, minced
• 2 garlic cloves, minced
• 1/2 cup dried craisins/dried cranberries (currants would work too)
• 2 teaspoons sugar (optional)
• 2 pears, peeled and chopped into squares

**RE: Amount of Chicken Stock: You may need more or a little less stock depending on the size of your dutch oven/pot.  The key to keeping the skin of the duck legs crispy is to not allow the level of braising liquid to go over the skin.***

What to do:

1. Trim some of the excess fat off the leg. Score the fat on the duck legs to create “diamonds” (meaning, cut 3 lines one way and 3 intersecting lines the other way – but do not cut deeply into the meat, only score the fat).  Rub salt  and pepper all over the legs.
2. In a dutch oven or heavy-bottomed pot, cook the duck legs, skin/fat side down until lightly browned, about 3 or 4 minutes.  Turn over and brown on the other side for one minute.  Remove legs and allow to rest on a plate for a few moments.
3. Add garlic and shallots along with a bit of olive oil (if not enough fat rendered out of the duck legs) and allow to cook for one minute. Deglaze the pot with the wine and add the balsamic. Scrape up the bits off the bottom of the pan with a wooden spoon and allow the wine to reduce for a minute or two.
4. Add the thyme, pears and craisins and stir.  Put the legs back, skin side up, into the pan along with any accumulated juices. Add the stock, but do not allow the liquid level to go above the duck leg skin. You don’t want to lose the crispy skin. Bring to a boil and then lower to a gentle simmer. Cook at a low simmer for 1 1/2 hours, uncovered.
5. Take the legs out and skim as much of the accumulated fat off the sauce – a lot will have risen to the top!
6. Run the sauce through a sieve and smush down all the good bits (cooked pear, garlic, shallots) to get as much of the flavor out as possible.  Return the sauce to the pot, add the sugar (leave out if you feel it is sweet enough!) and boil sauce for 3 minutes to thicken it.
7. Plate the duck with the sauce and a side of celeriac mash (if you wish).

The Italian region of Liguria is famous for its dramatic landscape of mountains plunging into crystal clear waters, and narrow terraced fields leading down to tiny, colorful villages precipitously perched on the edges of cliffs of which the Cinque Terre (five lands) of Monterosso al Mare, Vernazza, Corniglia, Manarola, and Riomaggiore in La Spezia province are the most famous. It’s a region of hot, dry summers and cool, wet winters, though the rugged terrain creates many tiny sub-regional micro-climates, and driving through it, you can go from dry scrub oak and wild thyme to olive groves to chestnut forests and back again in half an hours’ journey.

So it is that Ligurian food, like all Italian regional cuisine, reflects the landscape from which it comes, and because of this much of the local food has traditionally come from the few plants that are able to withstand the poor, dry soil, the salty air at low altitudes, and the cold at higher elevations, supplemented by seafood and, occasionally, game and poultry.

**Sorry for interrupting your reading, but I had to find a place to put this picture in. No lie, we passed this goat going about 45 mph in the Ligurian countryside and I thought I was hallucinating. I made Jonny reverse about 1/4 of a mile down a very winding, thin road to find out if I really was on drugs. This Gandolf-looking creature was smiling from behind a very primitive and small barn about 5 inches off the side of the road. I fell in love at that moment. He looked mythical!

In her recent paean to the Liguria of her ancestors, The Lost Ravioli Recipes of Hoboken, author Laura Schenone recalls that while things have changed in modern times, for millenia the fortunes of most of the region’s inhabitants have been directly related to the availability of chestnuts from which many staples were made — including the ubiquitous gnocchi and pasta.

Another plant that grows very successfully in Liguria’s poor soils, as they do a few hundred miles west in the rocky garrigues of Provence where they remain the principle diet of many peasant farmers and, indeed, their livestock, is the chick pea (ceci/garbanzo), and like the chestnut, Ligurians pound the dried cecis into a flour which they use to make a kind of flat bread found nowhere else in Italy save certain parts of Sicily (which is deep fried chickpea dough often used in between bread or as a snack called Panelle – we hope to make this version soon), farinata. The French have their own version of this called Socca, but today we will focus on farinata. Farinata is a kind of street food found in Liguria and can often be treated like pizza as it is often cut into wedges and can come with various toppings like onions.

While we were in Genoa last summer, we saw farinata in bakeries all over the city but, curiously, found that it wasn’t offered in restaurants, though it was probably because of the glut of delicious seafood and various pesto preparations we gorged ourselves on rather than this reason, that we missed out on trying farinata in the region of its origin. Not to be denied though, we sought out some chick pea flour (yes, I know, if weren’t such post-modern bourgeois slacker-tourists we would have pounded our own from dried beans…) at a wonderful gourmet grocers in Park Slope and proceeded to use the wonderful invention that is Babelfish to translate any number of recipes on Italian websites to find out how to make it authentically. If you can not find chickpea flour in your local grocery store, check out some health food shops, Indian and/or Middle Eastern specialty stores. Chickpea flour is a key ingredient to many Indian and Middle Eastern foods.

Regular readers will know that we strive to find and make the most authentic preparations we can, but you will also know that this kind of research often leads to the unfortunate conclusion that there is rarely only one “authentic” version. Referring again to Laura Schenone, who describes farinata as almost like a chick pea flour focaccia – crispy on top and soft and chewy underneath and baked in a wide, shallow pan in a brick pizza oven, we found that this conflicted with our recollections and other recipes we had come across for thinner, almost completely crispy flatbreads. In fact, what we discovered was that the longer the cooking time and the less batter you add to your skillet, the crisper the farinata. Like, duh, right? For a more baked polenta-like consistency underneath with a crisp top, I would recommend pouring enough batter so that it is 1/2-deep and cooking our recipe for 1/2 the time, possibly finishing it off under the broiler for a few minutes. The recipe below will be for a crispy version of farinata – one that almost can crack like a cracker.

**Window shopping in Genoa – check out the farinata being served in the upper right-hand corner

We would like to try the softer version so we can decide which we prefer. Regardless, we thoroughly enjoyed the crispy, thinner and darker bread with its nutty, salty flavor that we made and are enthused to attempt the latter as soon as possible.

Typically, farinata is eaten either alone or dipped in good Ligurian olive oil and sprinkled with sea salt, whereas we decided to use it almost as a canvas for a rather overly decorative carpaccio of zucchini (courgette) with pine nuts, shaved pecorino, and lemon juice. We encourage you to make yourself a farinata or two (preferably not in the hot months as we did, unless you have a good AC!) and eat it anyway you like, reminding yourself, yet again, that peasant food made from humble ingredients is almost always good, and because that’s often all there was/is to eat, it has to be.

CRISPY FARINATA (LIGURIAN CHICKPEA FLATBREAD) WITH ZUCCHINI CARPACCIO SALAD – (makes about 1 12-inch farinata)

Ingredients for farinata:

• 1 1/4 cup of chick pea flour
• 1 1/2 cups of water (maybe a bit more to get the consistency somewhere between whole milk and lite cream)
• 1 teaspoon kosher or sea salt
• 1/4 cup extra virgin olive oil (or enough to cover your pan)
• plenty of freshly ground black pepper
• 6 sage leaves, thinly sliced
• 1 teaspoon of chopped rosemary (optional)

Ingredients for zucchini salad:

• 1 large zucchini, sliced into paper-thin slices using a mandoline
• 1 ripe roma tomato, sliced into small dice
• 2 tablespoons pignoli nuts (pine nuts)
• 1 scallion (spring onion), sliced into thin rings
• 3 tablespoons good extra virgin olive oil
• 1 teaspoon whole grain mustard
• 1 salted anchovy filet
• 1 tablespoon fresh lemon juice
• pinch of salt and black pepper

What to do:

1. Sift your chickpea flour in a bowl and add your salt, pepper, sage and rosemary. Stir generously.
2. Slowly add your water, whisking the whole time allowing everything to be incorporated (again, you want the batter to be about the consistency of whole milk/light cream).
3. Allow your batter to rest for at least 1 hour or as long as overnight.
4. When you are ready to cook, preheat your oven to 425 degrees. If any foam has surfaced on your chickpea batter, remove with a spoon.
5. Pour olive oil into your 12-inch baking pan – preferably a cast iron skillet. You want the olive oil to generously coat the bottom and sides of your skillet.  Add your batter until it is about 1/4 of an inch  if you want it super crispy or  1/2 inch deep if you want it thicker and possibly softer.
6. For a crispier farinata, bake for about 30 minutes. Check on it, though, as ovens differ and you do not want the batter to burn! If you want it a bit softer, I would recommend baking for about 15-17 minutes and then finishing it under the broiler for a minute. Allow to cool before cutting!
7. Slice zucchini into very thin, long slivers using a mandolin or a very sharp chef’s knife and thinly slice/dice your other veggies. Arrange everything on top of your farinata and sprinkle with pine nuts.
8. Using a mortar and pestle, pound the anchovy and the mustard together and squeeze in the lemon juice and then mix well. Immediately before serving, whisk in the olive oil to make the vinaigrette. Season with salt and pepper and drizzle all over the zucchini carpaccio and farinata.

Check out some other posts you may enjoy:

• BEET AND RICOTTA FILLED RAVIOLI WITH BROWN BUTTER AND POPPY SEEDS
• ITALIAN-STYLE SLOW ROASTED PORK SHOULDER WITH SALSA VERDE
• FUSILLI WITH SALSA DI NOCI AND MUSHROOMS (WALNUT PESTO)
• European Roast…? (Why Coffee Tastes Better There)
• Drink of the Month: Vin Santo (May, 2008)

Nothing says summer to this Philly girl more than ‘going down the shore’ (translation: heading to southern New Jersey to go to the beach), grilling, horseshoes, and soft shell crabs. The first time I was asked to taste a soft shell crab I had to ask my dad what the f it meant. “You mean to tell me that seemingly normal-looking crab doesn’t need to be cracked and the meat picked out? You’re telling me I just eat the freaking shell? I take a bite out of it?” It was just difficult to wrap my head around this idea. I moved in cautiously… very cautiously. I could begin to hear imaginary bits of my teeth chipping off as I bit into it. But then it happened – I bit and my love affair with this seasonal delicacy officially began.

So, if you’ve never really had a fresh soft-shell or even saw one in person before (and if you are still reading), you may be curious as to what the hell is going on here. Well, a soft-shell crab is a crab that has been caught right after they have molted, or shed, their hard shell in order to grow a new, bigger one, and this only happens during a very short time each year. For a really intelligent explanation of this, please listen to our brilliant podcast associated with this post (note: we were a bit drunk on wine when we recorded this one).

Even though I feel that soft-shell crabs are all for me, only available in my neck of the woods (the Mid-Atlantic US), I am happy to report to all of you that they are also available in many parts of Asia. There is one big difference – the crab. Here in the Mid-Atlantic, our soft-shells are from the sweet, meaty and popular blue claw crab. In Asia, soft-shells mean using the mangrove crab.  Maybe you’ve been offered various types of fried soft-shells at your local Thai or Japanese restaurant?

When you buy a fresh soft-shell crab, you will notice that it has either been cleaned or not. If you’re squeamish, stop reading now. Basically the fishmongers remove their gills and (gasp!) cut off their faces. Ok, they cut off their face first in order to kill them – poor soft-shells. If you can’t get your fishmonger to do this for you, follow these instructions and do it yourself.  Do you have the heart? According to this article, people don’t often make soft-shells at home because they think it takes a long time to prepare. I’m here to assure you, they don’t. Grab your sharp knife or you kitchen shears and git down to cuttin’ off some faces!  Go on, girl (or boy)!

As I mentioned earlier, soft-shell crabs are very seasonal as their molting time only happens between May and July (at the latest). So, hurry and get yourself some fresh soft-shell crabs soon and please give this dish, one I consider one of the best and most simple preparations, a try.  Serve it with a side of long pasta – our choice is olio e aglio, or pasta with olive oil and garlic. Just make sure to slowly infuse your garlic on medium-low heat in the olive oil for about 20 minutes or more for the most strong garlic flavor!  You could also give our Soft Shell Crab Sandwich with Pepper Aioli and Capers a try!  We used our leftovers from this dish to make it.  Now, get out and ask for soft-shells!

SOFT-SHELL BLUE CRABS IN BUTTER AND GARLIC (Serves 2)

Ingredients:

• 4 soft-shell blue crabs, cleaned
• 3 tablespoons unsalted butter
• 3 tablespoons olive oil
• 5 -8 cloves (depending on your love of garlic) of garlic, thinly sliced
• pinch of salt
• 1 cup of flour
• some pepperoncino

What to do:

1. Dredge your crabs in a bit of flour and pat excess off and allow to rest until needed.
2. Put butter and olive oil in a pan and heat on medium to medium-low.
3. When butter melts, add your thinly sliced garlic and saute lightly until the garlic gets a bit golden in color. Remove garlic with a slotted spoon and reserve on the side.
4. Add your soft-shells to the pan with the butter/oil mixture and saute on medium until the crabs are red all over. Make sure to flip them on to both sides to allow to evenly cook – about 4 or 5 minutes each side.
5. Remove crabs from oil and place on plate. Add the garlic back to the pan, add a pinch of salt and then drizzle the crabs with the garlic/butter and oil. Sprinkle with some peperoncino.
6. Serve with some pasta olio e aglio (spaghetti with garlic and olive oil) or pasta with red sauce. Enjoy!

****Stay tuned for another recipe using the soft-shell leftovers!

• FRITO MISTO DI MARE (FRIED MIXED SEAFOOD AND VEGGIES)
• POLLO EN PEPITORIA “KINDA” (HAZELNUT CRUSTED CHICKEN IN A FINO SHERRY, SAFFRON AND HAZELNUT SAUCE)
• CUBAN SANDWICH
• MORCILLA (SPANISH SAUSAGE) STUFFED GRILLED SQUID WITH A SPICY SAUCE

In celebration of the start of Euro 2008 – the European soccer/football championships – yesterday, and in light of the fact that England failed to qualify because they were awful, I am in need of a team to follow, so have decided to become an honorary Spanish soccer fan for the next month, or however long it takes for them to get knocked out.

The reason for this, you see (and yes, I’ll get to something actually food-related soon, so please be patient), is not just because I love Spain and am fascinated by nearly all things Spanish, it is also because historically, the Spanish team has always been long on potential but very short on delivery. And as an English football fan, I can appreciate this complex psychology of pitting hope against realistic expectations, and the likelihood of some great moments followed by the depths of despair.

So, to get into the spirit, I decided to watch the opening games of the tournament (neither of which actually featured Spain – they don’t play until Tuesday against Russia, but I’ll be at work then) with a couple of cold beers and, fittingly, a “seleccion de pintxos/pinchos” (small tapas on rounds of bread and often eaten off a toothpick) – the Spanish national team are known as “La Seleccion.”

Perhaps unsurprisingly, I found that this is the perfect kind of sports-watching food. It’s easy and cheap to make, with four or five ingredients plus a couple of staples from your fridge, you can make a variety of pinchos to suit the tastes of any friends you’re watching it with, and best of all, they are much, much healthier than the conventional bags of chips and salsa, cheetos, or miscellaneous frozen things with dip. This last one is important, because should your team lose, disappointment and self-loathing will be all because of the game, not the snacks!

These pinchos were made from, variously: manchego cheese, piquillo peppers stuffed with meat and cheese, cured anchovies, lettuce, lemon peel, leftover morcilla stuffed-squid, grilled Spanish mackerel, capers, olives, and the very wonderful thing that is leftover Rioja-style chorizo and potatoes (a dish Paul Bocuse declared to be one of the greatest dishes created by man).

You should give sports and pinchos a try, they really are a “match” made in heaven.

Check out these other posts you may enjoy:

A lot of people love Jamie Oliver for his informal, cheekie-chappie attitude and antics, which they welcome as a nice break from the seemingly unapproachable TV chefs of the past. Personally, I find his mockney styles and instant familiarity grating, and have let this issue influence my opinion of his cooking. However, I’m big enough of a man to concede that, off-screen, he’s almost certainly a guy I would like, that I have great admiration for his efforts at giving low-income, disadvantaged kids opportunities to work in his restaurants, and, more recently, I’ve come to terms with the fact that he’s a pretty good cook too.

From the first, fateful occasion I ate morcilla I was hooked, and since finding a reliable source of it close by us in Brooklyn, I’ve been looking for ways of including it in my cooking. So, giving credit where it’s due, Jamie Oliver’s recipe for squid stuffed with black pudding was just the inspiration I needed. To the naked eye what follows might look like a simple execution of his recipe, but as I say, his recipe was just inspiration. I read the recipe, but did not follow it. I added a degree of chipotle heat to the sauce and switched the white wine for plenty of lemon juice, and to my mind, the addition of some spiciness and acid is what elevates this dish beyond its already delectable level, cutting, as it does, the richness of the blood sausage.

Where this dish would sit in terms of global cuisine, I’m not sure. Its inspiration was British, its sauce Mexican-influenced, and its stuffing almost Spanish in flavor, but the dish really worked well regardless of its provenance. We made it as a tapa, but it would work perfectly as a first course, as a light main course, or even cold as part of a salad, and because the squid look really cool, but are really simple to make, they’d impress the hell out of dinner guests, providing, that is, they were adventurous enough to eat blood sausage.

Morcilla-Stuffed Squid (Calamares Rellenos con Morcilla)

Ingredients (serves 4)

8-10 squid (bodies, not tentacles)

2 small morcilla links, or 6oz of your favorite black pudding/blood sausage, casings removed

1/2 spanish onion, diced finely

2 cloves garlic, crushed & chopped

1tsp sweet paprika/pimenton dulce

1tbsp lemon juice

1tbsp finely chopped flat-leaf (Italian) parsley

1tbsp olive oil

8-10 toothpicks

For the sauce

2 plum tomatoes, diced finely

3 tsp chipotle powder

1/2 clove garlic, finely diced

2 tbsp olive oil

2 tbsp water

1 pinch salt

1 squeeze lemon juice

Recipe

• Rinse out your squid with cold water and remove any cartilidge or other crap if you bought them whole.
• Add oil to saute pan and, when at medium heat, add onions. Allow to sweat for 3-5 mins until soft.
• Break up morcilla/sausage with your fingers and add to pan. Continue to break up with a spoon while it cooks.
• When onions and morcilla are well combined, add garlic and paprika/pimenton, and mix well.
• Increase heat to medium high and add lemon juice.
• When ready, mixture should be well-combined and pretty coherent rather than loose or solid.
• Allow to cool enough so you can handle it.
• Fire-up your grill/barbecue to medium-high.
• Salt interior of squid lightly and stuff with mixture and “sew” top closed with a toothpick.
• Do not overfill. Squid shrinks when cooked and too much filling will cause it to leak and make a mess of your grill.
• Oil your grill so squid don’t stick and grill them for 2-3 minutes per side or until grill-marks have developed and squid are nice and firm.
• Remove from grill and allow to come to room temperature.
• Slice and serve with sauce.

The sauce

• Heat saute pan to medium. Add half olive oil and garlic.
• When garlic is lightly colored, add tomatoes.
• Tomatoes should melt into a sauce texture with a little stirring.
• Add water, salt, parsley and chipotle powder. Combine well.
• Reduce heat. Add lemon juice and remaining olive oil.
• Serve over and under the stuffed squid.
• Enjoy!

I think the title of this post says it all about my feelings (and others) about the famous Romans dish of pasta, traditionally spaghetti, with pecorino cheese and a good amount of freshly ground pepper.  The name says is all – cacio, meaning cheese, and pepe meaning pepper.  We’re not breaking any new ground here because I’m sure there’s about 50 other food blogs that have made this dish.  I’m just here hoping that if anyone does make it, they try to make it the freshest and best way they can. 

I’m going to get my food snob on here – please do not make this dish soley with parmigiano reggiano and that crappy, old shaker filled with pepper that you may only bust out when laying out your fine china on one or two holidays a year.  The pepper most likely has zero flavor anymore – if you do, please name the dish whatever you want.  I personally think “Pasta with Parmigiano Reggiano and Crappy Old, Non-Spicy Pepper from the Depths of My Cupboard” works great!  If you go to the store and spend $4 you can get some black peppercorns.  Just put them into a pepper grinder or, if you don’t have one, throw the peppercorns in a plastic baggie and grab a meat mallet or a hammer and get out your aggressions.  Keep hammering until you’ve produced some nice, ground pepper.  Make a lot if you’d prefer to not have to go through this exercise again and freeze the extras to prevent the pepper from going bad (ie: flavorless).

The reason I’m so passionate about this is because you can not recreate the amazing flavor of this old, traditional dish if you do not have good pepper.  When freshly ground, pepper is very spicy and full of flavor.  It is not supposed to just produce a nice contrast of color to a boring meal – although the beauty of it is it does that too!  Research taught me that in ancient Rome pepper was extremely popular and was used for medicinal reasons by the ancient Greeks.  It was revered as a very valuable spice.  As for the cheese, I’ll go a bit easier on you if you don’t use the Pecorino cheese, but I’ll give you a light tap on the bum so you’ll remember to try it with that cheese next time.  Pecorino would only be used in this dish in Rome because, well, that’s the regional cheese in that area.  If you look close at the label, it’s really called Pecorino Romano, right?  Parmigiano and pecorino are two very different tasting cheeses.  In fact, there are many varieties of pecorino in Italy ranging from soft to hard versions of the cheese.  For this discussion, we are generally talking solely about Pecorino Romano – the hard cheese that is able to be grated. If you do a comparison, I’d imagine you’d notice that pecorino is much sharper in taste where parmigiano is more nutty and mellow in flavor.  Both are pretty nice and salty, which is why you should not have to salt this dish.  Some people feel very strongly about choosing one of these cheeses over the other.  Because of this, we have chosen to use a mixture of the cheeses for this version of cacio e pepe.  This way you get a blend of the cheese.  But in Rome, you will most likely find the dish made only with pecorino. 

When made correctly, you will not believe how unbelievably creamy and spicy this dish is.  I felt like we were back in Rome (of course only if I closed my eyes VERY hard and did not open them to reveal a very closet-like, dirty Brooklyn apartment).  This dish is so quick and easy, I’m sure Rachel Ray couldn’t even make it because she’d only fill 1/8 of a show.  Give it a try – you won’t be disappointed.

Also, months ago we wrote a post on a great NYC restaurant with the same name as this dish.  If you’re ever in New York, I’d advise you to give this awesome restaurant a try… and order their signature dish made in a hollowed out wheel of pecorino!

So, rather like the DJ I never was, but always secretly thought I could be if I could just get my hands on 1,000 records, 2 gold Technics 1200s, and 5 years to practice in my bedroom, I’m starting this post, or jam, if you will, by giving a series of shout outs. The first big shout goes out to Steven “Steve” Raichlen of the seemingly discontinued, but wrongfully so, PBS show Barbecue University for initially encouraging us to give this a try and then providing us with a couple of simple and tasty variations. And the second holla is at Peter of Kalofagas who reminded us that we had been meaning to write this post for quite a while with his recent, delicious-looking piece on churrasco chicken.

You see, for a while now we’ve been convinced that the problem with so much chicken, like many kinds of poultry, is that when cooked whole, some parts end up perfectly cooked and other parts under-done, or in order to remedy this, some parts get overcooked and dry, so that the other bits are done right. It’s a dilemma which faces every American household at Thanksgiving every year, and frankly, I’ve yet to eat a turkey anywhere that was cooked in one piece that didn’t have dry breast meat. In fact, it gets even worse in the summer when you’re over at the neighbors’ house and they stick a load of chicken drumsticks in bbq-sauce on the grill. 20 minutes later they’re black on the outside and bloody and gross on the inside. That’s really quite unpleasant. However, we think we’ve found a solution to these common problems in spatchcock. Yes, you heard it right, spatchcock.

The derivation of the term is uncertain. Some suggest it is a contraction of the phrase “dispatch the cock” but I’m not sure about that. It just sounds unlikely. Similarly, the inventor of this technique is also unknown, but it is used widely throughout the world in recipes that call for the grilling of a whole bird because it results in deliciously moist flesh throughout, every time. And I mean, every time. It’s almost a fool-proof recipe providing you have a moderate level of control over your limbs and have some concept of fire-safety. Here’s how to do it:

Spatchcock Chicken (with adobo rub)

1 large oven-roaster chicken (about 3-4 lbs)
5-6 tbsp adobo seasoning/rub (this can either be store bought adobo – Goya brand – or you can make your own (see below)
2 tbsp olive oil

Adobo Rub
3 tbsp kosher salt
1 tbsp black pepper
1 tbsp dried oregano
1 tbsp lemon pepper
Combine dry spices in a bowl or make double/triple quantities and store in an airtight jar for later.

*Please note that adobo doesn’t necessarily have a set recipe. It has commonly recurring ingredients, but like many recetas de abuela each one is slightly different.

How to “spatch” the cock: (follow the illustrated step-by-step)

1. Take a pair of good, strong scissors or kitchen shears. Pat your chicken dry with some kitchen paper/towels and place it breast side down on a cutting board.



2. With your scissors cut along one side of the backbone – breaking through the ribs with a satisfying “snick” – all the way through to the other end. Turn the chicken around and cut along other side of the backbone, so you’re left with the intact backbone in one hand, the scissors in the other, and a chicken with long gap in its back.









3. Now press down on the sides (ribs) of the chicken either side of the breastbone until you hear another little crunch. Feel free to slice open the membrane surrounding the breast bone and remove that too, but it’s kind of a pain and I nearly always end up savaging the breast meat by being clumsy. Anyway, what you get is a chicken that’s now mostly flat.



4. Take your scissors again and trim off the wing tips at the first joint. These tend to burn when cooked.



5. Next, make two small incisions into the flaps of skin below the breast (at the leg end) and poke the legs through these holes. This will help keep your bird flat. Be careful not to rip these holes as you do this, as you want your first spatchcock to look as good as it tastes, right?







6. Then, you’re almost ready. (see how simple this is?) Rub your bird very lightly with olive oil – do not drench it or the spices will all just slide off. Then sprinkle very liberally all over with the adobo rub, patting it on to make sure it sticks. It might look like you’ve used a lot of rub here, and you have, but some will fall off during cooking, and you’re not flavoring the chicken with anything else, so you can afford to be generous. Let your chicken sit with the rub on it, at room temperature for at least fifteen minutes before cooking.



7. Now, you need to prepare your grill. And this must be done on a grill. Okay, it can be done in the oven and turn out well, but with spring approaching you just can’t beat the al fresco cooking experience.
8. Before igniting anything, make sure your grill is clean. Remove the grate and fire up the grill – charcoal or gas, is fine. You want the grill at around 350F. If you’re using charcoal make sure you can rearrange the coals once they’re ready. And if you’re using gas, make sure you can control which burners are on or off – this is crucial to success here because the perfect spatchcock chicken is cooked using indirect heat.
9. When grill is up to temperature, rearrange charcoal (or turn burners on or off) so that you can fit a 10-inch aluminum baking pan containing about an inch of water in the middle of the grill so that it is not directly over the heat source. Replace your grate and brush with oil. Close lid of grill and allow to return to 350F – about five minutes. If you’re using gas you might have to fiddle with the temperature a little because you’ll almost certainly have to turn off at least one of the burners.
10. Anyway, when the thermometer reads 350F place your chicken breast-side up on the grill directly over the baking pan and let it cook for at least 25 minutes. All the while making sure the temperature remains at least 350F. Do not peek at the chicken. It’s doing fine by itself. Every time you even crack the lid a little you add five minutes to the cooking time!
11. Then after 25 minutes, turn your chicken over and cook for another 25 minutes. Depending on your grill you might want to power it up a bit here. You’ll know how it’s doing by how well colored the skin has become. If it’s still looking a bit pale it might either need longer at 350F or a bit more heat. We typically crank it up to a shade over 400F for the last fifteen minutes to make sure the skin gets crispy, which, apart from moist flesh, is the principal requirement of any roasted/grilled poultry.



12. When your chicken is looking golden brown or perhaps a shade or two darker, take it off the grill and tent it lightly in foil for around fifteen minutes. We rarely use our meat thermometer because it’s not accurate, but if you have one you trust, now would be a good time to give it blast. Remember, always check the bit between the breast and the thigh. Generally speaking though, if the juices in the leg are running clear at this point, you’re in a good shape.

We ate our adobo spatchcock chicken with some roasted potatoes and a mixed green salad, but frankly these accompaniments are just gilding the lily. If you’ve done this right, the chicken itself will be almost too delicious to adulterate with any side dishes.

Naturally, you can flavor your chicken with anything you like. We’ve made north African-spiced chickens, Pollo alla Diavola (Tuscan-style chicken with red pepper flakes), Thai-perfumed birds, and “summer chicken” rubbed with thyme, rosemary, sage, salt and butter, amongst others. Again, the point is not the flavorings you use, but how perfectly this technique cooks chicken. The breast stays moist, the legs are cooked perfectly and the skin gets crispy. And it works every time. I’m planning to spatchcock a chicken every week now it’s getting warmer.

It’s the Thursday after Easter and most people out there are still picking the candy and chocolate out of their teeth having just gorged themselves on all manner of Easter Bunny-shaped confectionery. Ever the destroyers of convention, we have been doing something altogether more real and, some may say, sinister. Yes, friends, cover your children’s ears, for over the weekend, we — like Glenn Close in Fatal Attraction — put the Easter Bunny in the pot.

Easter traditions have a lot to answer for in the removal of rabbit from the American table. It is no coincidence that around the turn of the 19th century, fifty years or so after German immigrants had brought the habit of fashioning rabbits out of chocolate and sugar to the New World at Easter-tide, the amount of rabbit being eaten in the US fell into an almost terminal decline. It is only really in the last fifteen years that it has returned, and even now is commonly regarded with suspicion and, in many cases, horror. For what could be crueler than eating a lovely, cute and furry bunny?

Now, lest you think us heartless carnivores, I should point out that I am a big fan of rabbits – and I mean live ones. Not only did I have rabbits as pets for many years as a child and have very fond memories of how much fun they were, but I also believe that contrary to public perception, rabbits are in fact quite intelligent creatures with individual personalities and do make excellent pets.

So, you ask, how could I possibly, as my vegetarian sister puts it, “eat my friends”? Well, readers, first of all, sadly, my rabbits both died nearly twenty years ago, so I am not (and would not) eat the rabbits that were my friends, and secondly, we did not put a pet rabbit in the pot as Ms. Close did, but rather we bought two skinned, headless and footless rabbits (at quite a hefty price) from a local butcher, rather like you would a couple of chickens. And, few, save perhaps fellow poultry, mourn the passing of a couple of chickens.

Then, to immortalize this fortunate (it was making an important contribution to our dinner – what an honor!) and extravagantly-priced creature, we prepared a delicious Provencal-style stew with olives, capers and tomatoes, the making of which we recorded to fashion our first We Are Never Full podcast! What better way to give thanks for the life of a noble beast than to prepare it for the hereafter with a savory, herby sauce and record this event for posterity in mp3?

But, regardless of your feelings about eating rabbits, it really was a truly memorable meal and an excellent recipe (see below). We hope you’ll listen to the podcast and let us know what you think about our first, amateurish foray into the world of multimedia production. We’re planning more podcasts for the future and expect to get much better at it with every attempt.

Provencal Rabbit Stew with Olives and Capers (serves 4)

Rabbit can dry out quickly when cooked because it lacks fat, so this stew works perfectly to keep the meat moist and to tenderize it through long, slow cooking. We ate it with some boiled potatoes for the first meal, then over some tagliatelle as a ragu the second time. Either way it’s delicious and would also work well over rice or just served with some crusty country bread.

Ingredients

1 large rabbit (2-3 lbs)
2-3 tbsp olive oil
½ cup plain flour
½ cup smooth Dijon mustard + 2 tablespoons extra
2 cups coarsely chopped onion
½ cup coarsely chopped carrot
1 cup white wine (whatever you plan to drink with the meal)
1 large sprig thyme
1 medium sprig rosemary
1 bay leaf
1½ tsp tomato paste
5 finely chopped garlic cloves
3-4 cups chicken stock
1 16-0z can of whole, peeled tomatoes (tomatoes only, no juice)
¾lb brine-cured green olives (without pimentos)
1 can black olives, drained
¾ cup capers (large, not nonpareils)
¼ cup finely chopped/chiffonaded parsley

Recipe
1. Preheat oven to 375F
2. Cut rabbits into 6 pieces: hind legs (2), forelegs (2) and center-loin/spine (cut in half) or have your butcher do this for you.
3. Brush the rabbit pieces with mustard and then dredge them lightly in flour, shaking off excess.
4. Put a large, high-sided ovenproof pot (we used our big enameled cast-iron Le Creuset) over medium heat and add olive oil.
5. Add rabbit and brown on both sides – 2-3 mins per side or until golden brown. Remove and set aside
6. Add the onions and carrots to the pot and cook over a slightly higher heat until onions have some color. Sprinkle in the leftover flour, if any remains, and stir well into onion. (Additional oil may be necessary here if pan is dry.)
7. Deglaze pot with white wine over high heat and mix well to get all the crusty bits off.
8. Add the thyme, rosemary and bay, extra two tablespoons of mustard and tomato paste and garlic. Mix well.
9. Return rabbit to pot. Add plum tomatoes, olives and capers and add enough chicken stock to cover meat and vegetables by about an inch. Bring to a boil. Cover and braise in oven for 1½ hours or until meat has begun to pull away from bones.
10. Return pan to stove top and reduce sauce by about half. You may also thicken sauce with flour, if desired.
11. Check seasoning and sprinkle with the parsley.
12. Serve. Bowls are best, we found. Enjoy!

Thanks to Dean & DeLuca for the base of this recipe.

Please note that we are FINALLY up on iTunes. Check out all our podcasts

CHECK OUT SOME OTHER POSTS YOU MAY ENJOY:

• Spanish Easter Bread – Hornazo
• The Wrong Message from a Former Prophet (Delia Smith Jumps Ship)
• Fabada: A Mortal and Corporal Sin – But Worth It!
• Jamon, Jamon
• FRITO MISTO DI MARE (FRIED MIXED SEAFOOD AND VEGGIES)
• PERFECT BROCCOLI DI RAPE WITH SWEET SAUSAGE
• ROASTED PORK SHOULDER (Pernil) – The Low and Slow Method
• PAPPA AL POMODORO (Tuscan Tomato and Bread Soup)