Spring Pasta, and a Small Request

Well, friends, it's here! Memorial Day weekend! The start of SUMMER! Here in Boston it's supposed to be gorgeous: mid seventies, sunny, maybe a few showers on Sunday morning, but really a lovely long weekend. I am especially excited to have Monday off because it means the workweek will only be two and a half days long for me next week! That's right, friends, v-a-c-a-t-i-o-n starts on Thursday. Adam and I are taking off to the Pacific Northwest.

So while you look at pictures of the "living lettuce" and asparagus and the tasty pasta they went into, can I ask you a small favor? Can you help a girl out with travel planning? We'll be spending four days in Portland, OR and five in Seattle, WA, and I want to know: what should we not miss? According to Jeanette I have to try the Hedge House Pub's signature salad in Portland, and my mom says I should check out the library in Seattle. I want to drink the local IPAs, and order the pickle plate at Boat Street Cafe. Other plans include drinking boatloads of coffee, and Adam (excellent activities coordinator that he is) snagged us tickets to see Anthony Bourdain's lecture/talk/book promotion event at the Keller Auditorium. Please (please?) leave your suggestions in the comments. I would really love to hear them.

And while we're on the topic of suggestions, might I suggest you give this spring-on-a-plate pasta dish a try? Really, I mean, asparagus, pea shoots, LETTUCE? It's crunchy and delicious and good warm or cold. You could even take it with you to a barbecue this weekend!

Spring Pasta
Adapted from Bon Appetit

Ingredients
2 tablespoons butter
2 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil plus additional for drizzling
handful of spring onions or green onions (dark green parts discarded); white parts cut into 1/4-inch-thick slices, pale green parts cut into 1/2-inch-thick slices
1 small minced shallot
Coarse kosher salt
1/2 cup dry white wine
1/2 cup low-salt chicken broth
1 pound asparagus, cut crosswise into 3/4-inch pieces
a couple of handfuls of pea shoots, (or 2 cups fresh peas, cooked briefly with the asparagus)3/4 pound campanelle (trumpet-shaped pasta) or medium (about 1-inch) shell-shaped pasta
most of a head of butter lettuce or Boston lettuce, cored, leaves cut into 3/4-inch-wide slices
1/2 cup finely grated Parmesan cheese plus additional for sprinkling
1/4 cup chopped fresh Italian parsley
4 oz thinly sliced prosciutto, cut crosswise into 1/2-inch-wide strips

Bring a large pot of water to a boil, you'll need it in a minute.

Melt butter with 2 tablespoons oil in heavy large skillet over medium heat. Add onions and shallot. Sprinkle with coarse salt and pepper. Sauté until tender (but not brown), about 8 minutes. Add wine; increase heat to medium-high and simmer until liquid is reduced to glaze, about 3 minutes. Add broth and bring to simmer; set aside.

Cook asparagus in large pot of boiling salted water until just tender, 2 to 4 minutes, depending on thickness of asparagus, I usually put the stalks in first and the quicker-cooking tips a minute or two later. Using skimmer or slotted spoon, transfer the asparagus to large bowl of ice water and return the water to a boil.

Cook pasta until tender but still firm to bite, stirring occasionally. Drain, reserving 1 cup pasta cooking liquid. Meanwhile, reheat onion mixture. Add lettuce and stir just until wilted, about 1 minute. Add drained asparagus and peas; stir until heated through. Add pasta, Parmesan cheese, and parsley to skillet with vegetables; toss, adding reserved pasta cooking liquid by 1/4 cupfuls if dry. Season with salt and pepper.

Transfer pasta to large shallow bowl. Sprinkle prosciutto over; drizzle with olive oil, sprinkle with additional Parmesan cheese.

What do YOU do with marjoram?

Last week I bought some marjoram, and I have no idea why. Does this ever happen to you? I make a mental list of what recipes I want to try that week and then I take my mental list to the store and by the time I've gotten home I forget at least one of the things I was going to make. Something with chicken? I still don't know. When I did a little food blog search for marjoram I came across tidbit on SeriousEast called Marjoram: What is the Deal? My question is: what is the deal with this totally emo photo of marjoram? How did that happen?

Anyway, it was some interesting reading, but not many recipes mentioned. I wandered over to epicurious.com instead and came across this little gem, Castellane Pasta with Sausage, Peppers, Cherry Tomatoes, and Marjoram. Oh man. There's certainly no way to make it look pretty (so I sort of quit trying... sorry, I was hungry!) but it tastes great. Kind of like the old standby of sausage and peppers, but punched up with tomatoes and marjoram and mellowed out with tangy goat cheese. If you grow marjoram or have some around, give it a try. Oh, and if you have a kick ass marjoram recipe, could you leave it in the comments, please? I still have tons of the stuff and I'd hate to let it go to waste now that I know I like it!

I made some substitutions, of course, based on what I had around the kitchen: sweet sausage vs. hot, whole wheat pasta vs. regular, adding a jalapeno because I only had sweet sausage. The link above will take you to the original, this is the way I made it.

Pasta with Sausage, Peppers & Marjoram
adapted from Bon Appetit

serves two

1 Tbsp olive oil
1/2 lb sweet italian sausages, casings removed (three links)
1 green bell pepper, chopped
1 jalapeno pepper, semi-seeded and minced (I like a little heat, remove all seeds and ribs if you don't)
1/2 medium onion or 1 large shallot, chopped
2 teaspoons chopped fresh marjoram
1 pint cherry tomatoes
salt and pepper
1 handful whole wheat spaghetti
3 ounces goat cheese

Start a large pot of salted water to boil.

Heat a large non-stick skillet over medium heat. Add the olive oil, then saute the sausage (casings removed, remember), breaking it up into bits, until browned, about 5 minutes. Add both peppers and the onion, then saute 10-12 minutes or until the peppers are soft and the onions are golden. Stir in the marjoram and tomatoes, and saute 5-10 minutes until the tomatoes get squishy, then crush them with your spoon.

Meanwhile, cook the spaghetti in the boiling water until al dente. Drain, reserving a little cooking water.

If the skillet is large enough, add the spaghetti to the skillet. If not, return the cooked spaghetti and sausage/pepper mixture to the pot. Add the crumbled goat cheese and stir to blend, thinning with cooking water if necessary. Transfer pasta to plates and enjoy.

Making Cassoulet With Regina

Oh, hi! I'm so glad you're still here, and I'm sorry I've been a bit of a slacker lately. It's just that So! Many! Exciting! Things! have been going on and I've been pretty busy. One of the exciting things was the visit of my good friend Regina aaaaall the way from Istanbul, Turkey. She had been planning a trip to the US and emailed me to ask if we could "hang out and cook something for the blog," so that is precisely what we did last Wednesday night. Before I tell you about it, here's Regina:
Isn't she cute? She's making garlic crumbs! Oh yes, delicious garlicky bread crumbs [Aside: I like how the word garlic gets a "k" when you turn it into an adjective.] And here we are waiting patiently for the deliciousness to come out of the oven:

But what deliciousness? A tasty, beany, sausagey, garlicky (!) cassoulet, which I adapted from four or five different cassoulet recipes I found on the interwebs. Traditionally cassoulet has duck breast AND sausage with the beans and vegetables, but just the sausage was puh-lenty of meat for me. Here's the basic process:

Cook the beans (do this the day before if you can, it'll save you HOURS, skip it if you're using canned).
Cook the bacon until fat is rendered thoroughly, remove from pot.
Cook the sausage in the bacon fat until browned, remove from pot.
Cook the vegetables in the remaining fat.
Add tomatoes, tomato paste, and beans, stir.
Crumble bacon, slice sausage, add to pot, simmer.
Add HALF the breadcrumbs, bake 10 minutes.
Squash breadcrumbs into the stew, sacrificing them to sogginess.
Top with the rest of the breadcrumbs. Bake 10 minutes, broil until browned.

Ok, so that summary didn't turn out quite as succinct as I thought, but you get the idea. The best part about this is that it's just one pot which makes clean up pretty straightforward. If you've got a stock of delicious dried beans, they really shine here - I used Rancho Gordo runner cannellinis which are just HUGE and delicious. And you definitely want to use fresh bread crumbs rather than boxed. Just save stale bread in the freezer and when you have a bag full, zip it through a food processor. The crumbs will keep fine in the freezer too, and I think coarse crumbs are important here.

Cassoulet with Beans and Sausage

1 lb hot Italian sausage links (use sweet sausage if you don't like spicy food)
2 strips bacon (optional)
3 medium leeks (white and pale green parts only), halved lengthwise, chopped into 1/2 inch pieces, washed and dried (use a salad spinner)
4 medium carrots, halved lengthwise and cut into 1-inch pieces
3 celery ribs, cut into 1-inch pieces4-6 garlic cloves, chopped
4 thyme sprigs
2 parsley sprigs
1 Turkish or 1/2 California bay leaf
4 1/2 cups cooked dried beans (or 3 cans cannellini or Great Northern
beans, rinsed and drained)
1 15-ounce can diced tomatoes, with their juice3 tablespoons tomato paste1 quart chicken or vegetable stock
salt & pepper

For crumb top:
4 cups fresh bread crumbs
1-3 cloves garlic, chopped (or to taste)
small handful parsley, chopped
1/4 cup olive oil

In a medium dutch oven (I think mine is in the 4-6 quart range), cook the bacon to desired crispiness to render out the fat. Remove and set aside, leaving fat in the pan. If you don't want to use bacon, just heat a little olive oil on medium - add the sausage (still in casing) and brown on all sides over medium heat. Remove from pan and set aside.

Add the leeks, carrots, garlic and celery to the fat remaining in the pan, stir to coat. Add 1/2 a teaspoon each of salt and pepper, and add the herb sprigs. Sauté until vegetables are becoming tender, 10-15 minutes. Stir in beans, tomatoes, tomato paste and stock, and simmer, partially covered, about 20 minutes (make sure the carrots are tender).

Combine the crumbs, chopped garlic, chopped parsley and olive oil in a bowl and stir to coat crumbs.

Preheat the oven to 350. Slice the sausage links on the diagonal into 1/2 inch slices. Add the bacon and sausage back into the stew and simmer another 5-10 minutes until the sausage is heated through. Add 1/3 to 1/2 the crumb mixture to the top of the stew, bake for 10 minutes uncovered. Remove from the oven and use a spatula to squish the crumbs into the stew - this creates a soggy layer of crumbs on which to build your crispy top. Add the rest of the bread crumbs, and bake for another 10-15 minutes, uncovered until the crumbs are golden brown. If not browned to your liking, switch on the broiler for a couple of minutes, but stand near the stove and watch it carefully - you don't want your cassoulet spoiled by a burnt top!

Let stand 10 minutes before serving.

Serves 4-6, or 8 if you like small servings.

Monday Meatloaf

So, it's fall. Ok. I addressed that the other day so you know how I feel about it. I am trying to cook my way out of this malaise using cold-weather favorites. At Hugh's request this week, we had Meatloaf Monday.

We also had Martini Monday, but that's another story.

[Aside: Look at my pretty new knife! It made all the chopping so much FUN. That boy knows just what makes my heart go pitter pat... cutlery, apparently. Thank you!]

Knowing we would be at the supermarket Monday evening, I perused epicurious for meatloaf recipes Monday morning. When you search "meatloaf," this one from February's Gourmet is the second 'loaf listed, and the reviews are mostly favorable. Though I was hesitant about the prunes, it seemed this was the meatloaf for me. I started when we got home from the store and the groceries were put away around 6:30, so we ate quite late, but we were entertained! T^2 was around and... there were martinis. With garlic stuffed olives. Mm hmm.

ANYWAY. I didn't take very good pictures of this meatloaf, because frankly, it's hard to photograph a lump of meat. A delicious, slightly sweet and tangy, pleasantly chunky lump of meat it may be, but photogenic it is not.


Some notes: It is a slightly crumbly loaf. That may be because I didn't chop anything too finely, even the prunes. (The original recipe says to chop them in a food processor, but I just chopped finely with a knife.) It was MUCH easier to slice the next day out of the fridge, and might I suggest that you save it for meatloaf sandwiches? Because WOW. And might I also suggest that you wait a few days on the sandwich, because my next post is going to be about the most delicious sandwich bread ever? Because YOWZA.

The final note is about loaves and is prompted by some confusion in the epicurious reviews. Some meatloaves (meatloafs?) are cooked in an actual loaf pan, but this one is formed into a loaf shape and then baked in a rectangular baking dish. This ups the surface area to the max, so you get that delicious crunchy crust on more of the meatloaf. It stands to reason that the ends are the best part.


Monday Meatloaf
adapted from Epicurious

feeds 4-6 or 2-4 with leftovers for sandwiches

1 cup fresh bread crumbs
(Stale bread + food processor = fresh bread crumbs. Make them when you have stale bread, keep them in the freezer)splash of milk3-4 slices bacon, chopped
1 medium onion, chopped3 garlic cloves, minced1 celery rib, chopped1 carrot, chopped2 tablespoons Worcestershire sauce1 tablespoon cider vinegar1/4 teaspoon ground allspice
salt and pepper1/2 cup pitted prunes, finely chopped1 1/4 ground beefscant 1 lb ground pork (not lean)2 eggshandful finely chopped flat-leaf parsley

Preheat oven to 350.

Add milk to breadcrumbs in a large bowl, just enough to get them wet, and set aside.

Heat a large nonstick skillet over medium high, and add the chopped bacon. Saute until cooked through (or crispy, if you like), then add bacon to breadcrumbs in bowl. Drain all but a tablespoon of bacon renderings from pan, then add onion, celery, carrot and garlic and saute 5 minutes. Cover, turn heat to low, and cook 5 minutes more or until carrots are tender. Turn off the heat and add the Worcestershire sauce vineger, allspice, 1 1/2 teaspoons salt and 1 1/2 teaspoons pepper. Stir to combine, then add to breadcrumbs and bacon.

Add finely chopped prunes, beef, pork and chopped parsley to bowl and mix it all together with your hands until combined. Form it into an oval loaf approximately 9 x 5 in a 13 x 9 baking dish. Bake 1 hour to 1 hour 15 minutes, or until a thermometer registers 155 in the center of the loaf. Let stand 10 minutes before serving. And don't be scared of the liquid in the pan.

Don't be afraid to make this if you are only cooking for two, because the leftovers make amazing meatloaf sandwiches.

Potstickers!

A few weeks ago I had a particularly rough Thursday; things just didn't go my way. I was supposed to meet Adam at my house to make dinner and needed a few things at the market, but since I had such a crappy day and groceries are my retail therapy of choice, I ended up bringing home some semi-strange things we didn't *really* need. Six pounds of chicken. Two sizes of freezer bags. Wonton wrappers.

I don't know about you guys, but I love Alton Brown. I think he is the coolest, nerdiest, most awesome Bill-Nye-meets-Food-Network host of all, and I am really enjoying his Feasting on Waves series (so is Hugh). I dvr Good Eats on the regular. I got his first cookbook, I'm Just Here for the Food, as a Christmas gift two years ago and I had read the whole thing by the 27th. His turkey brine method is brilliant, and I trust him for a LOT of other methods.

So back to the wonton wrappers. Last year I made Alton's Perfect Potstickers from the Wonton Ways episode of Good Eats and they were delicious. But Alton has been ousted in the potsticker world, because these are better.

Last week Bitten ran a post by Ed Schneider in which he used chard in lieu of Napa cabbage and made his wrappers from scratch. I had this beautiful ruby chard from the farmer's market and my wonton-wrappers-bought-in-frustration in the fridge, so I followed his suggestions and made APPROXIMATELY THREE THOUSAND potstickers. Ok, sixty, but still Hugh and I only ate twenty and there are tons in the freezer now. Heads up guys, this makes a lot of food. It's also assembly-heavy, but if you need a project or have a bunch of people helping, it's fun!

Potstickers with Chard
adapted from Ed Schneider and the New York Times

For potstickers:
1 bunch swiss or ruby chard, finely chopped
6 or 7 shiitake mushrooms, finely chopped
1 inch knob of ginger, finely chopped
4 green onions, whites and greens, finely chopped
1/2 cup cilantro, finely chopped
1 poblano pepper, finely chopped
1/2 lb ground pork
1 egg
1 Tbsp cornstarch
1 Tbsp soy sauce
a few drops sesame oil
salt
1 package of round wonton/dumpling wrappers
water for sealing the wrappers

For dipping sauce:
1/3 cup soy sauce
1/2 tsp sesame oil
1/2 inch grated ginger
1/2 tsp aleppo pepper or red pepper flakes
1/4 cup finely chopped cilantro

I did all of the chopping by hand because I needed a project, but you could also use a food processor. Chop the chard first, then salt it well and let it sit in a colander for 15-20 minutes while you chop the rest of the ingredients. When you're done practicing your knife skills, wrap the chopped chard in a clean towel or cheesecloth (I used a paper towel, but it tore) and squeeze as much liquid out of it as you can.

Combine all the filling ingredients in a bowl and mix together using your hands. Stick this in the fridge for 20-30 minutes. Make the dipping sauce while you wait - just combine all the ingredients in a bowl and whisk/fork it together a little bit. Take the filling out of the fridge and put the little buggers together.

I will now commence using a clock analogy: to assemble the wontons, hold a wrapper in the palm of your non-dominant hand. Put a little bit of filling (about a tablespoon, but you'll get a feel for the right amount as you keep making them) in the center of the circle, and wet the edge of the wrapper at about twelve o'clock. Bring six o'clock up to meet 12 and seal them by squeezing. Now we are looking at the top half of a clock: Wet 1 o'clock and bring 2 o'clock up to seal it. Wet 11 o'clock and bring 10 o'clock up to seal it. It's ok if you make just one dart per side, that's how I started (first photo) and they taste just as good, but you could also make two darts per side (second photo) and you'll get a curvier dumpling that stands up better in the pan.

Is this not making any sense? Watch this video and I think you'll see what I mean. Jayden of Steamy Kitchen also has some helpful photos in this post. As you assemble, be sure to keep the wrappers and just-constructed wontons under a damp towel so they'll be easier to work with. Also be sure to seal tightly - you don't want the filling to come out in the pan.

Once you've made your million dumplings, now you get to cook them! I could fit twenty in my 12 inch skillet (non-stick, unless you're insane) and that was perfect for 2 people for dinner. Put a couple of tablespoons of vegetable oil in a 12 inch (non-stick, unless you are crazy) skillet and place the wontons in - stand them up on their flat little butts (the way they are sitting on that cookie sheet, please). Now add about a 1/4 inch (3/4 cup or so) of water, cover the pan, and turn it to medium-high. Once it boils, turn it down to low for 7-8 minutes. This gives the dumplings chance to steam to done-ness. Once they're steamed through, take off the lid and let the water cook off - probably another 5-10 minutes. Here is where the magic happens: all that's left in the pan is the vegetable oil, so the bottoms (the aforementioned flat little butts) get nice and crispy and golden brown.

Serve the potstickers crispy side up with dipping sauce.

Serves 6, but you can freeze them - place the assembled but uncooked potstickers on a cookie sheet so they are not touching. Freeze for 30 minutes, then take them off the cookie sheet and put them in a plastic freezer bag. This way you can take out as many as you need instead of a giant frozen clump.