Steamed Gulf Shrimp and Mahogany Clams in a Green Chile-Basil Brodetto

I hope all of you out there in blog-land have had a great holiday season. My wife and I enjoyed our record-breaking 70° Christmas. No, we didn't go to Florida. It really got that warm here in Mass! 

I enjoy watching my wife get as excited as a kid when it comes time to opening presents. I actually did well this year. Most years I kind of strike out with the gift giving when I try to surprise her with things that aren't on her pre-approved list. But this year she was thoroughly impressed which makes me happy and I got some sweet stuff too, including a new Shun slicing knife which I will be using a lot this coming year for Mario's fish chapter. 

This will be my last post of 2015, making a pretty dismal 12 recipes completed. Working long hours with barely any days off this year really got the best of me. My previous job certainly made having a life almost impossible, but my new kitchen is where I want to be professionally while allowing me the ability to have a life, take care of the baby when she is born, and hopefully work on one recipe a week out of the cookbook. That's my New Years goal. My work is very important to me, but the older I get I realize the importance of a work/life balance. 

I chose an antipasto to finish out the year. It's a great dish for the home cook in that it has a few easy to find ingredients, is made entirely in one pan, and only takes about five minutes to assemble. Busy restaurants like recipes like this for the same reason. It's a crowd favorite that takes pressure off the sauté station, which for an Italian restaurant, tends to be one of the busiest in the kitchen. 

As Mario mentions, the simpler a recipe is with only a few total ingredients, the more important it is to have each ingredient be a shining star. Good sourcing is really going to be my focus for 2016. My local sources didn't have the exact clams that Mario suggests to use so I had to substitute, but the dish is still essentially the same. 

First I prep all of the ingredients. I thinly slice fresh garlic, finely chop fresh jalapeños, chop fresh parsley, and chiffonade basil. 

Next up, the clams will need to be scrubbed under water which is simple enough. Because we're using raw shrimp they will need to be peeled and deveined. As shown, I run my pairing knife down the back, cutting through the shell enough to remove it, then I look for the vein and take that out as well. If you buy shrimp like this often enough, freeze the shells until you have enough to make a stock with them. 

Now I'm ready to cook. I heat olive oil until almost smoking and add the thinly sliced garlic. 

Once lightly browned I add the jalapeño, clams, shrimp, and white wine. It gets cooked over high heat and covered until the clams are opened and fully cooked. If you have a sauté pan with a cover please use it, I just do what restaurants would do, however, and place another sauté pan over the top to trap the steam. 

Once cooked, I put the shrimp and clams in a bowl and add parsley to the sauté pan. Then I swirl in some more olive oil until lightly emulsified and season with salt and pepper. 

This broth gets poured over the shellfish and it's ready to eat. 

This is a great example of good but uncomplicated Italian food. It's light, quick, and not intimidating. Add a salad and some grilled bread and the easiest dinner of your life is served. 

My wife liked this dish but wasn't overly impressed. Most restaurants that serve something similar actually finish the broth with butter and lots of it. That will, of course, add a richness that olive oil simply cannot do. But I liked the lightness of it. And of course, the home cook can tweak the broth very easily to include whatever flavor they want. 

Before I sign off for the year, I want to mention a little about Mario's philanthropic work with a charity that he founded called the Mario Batali Foundation. It's a charity that is child focused with an emphasis on making sure that kids in the NYC area are well fed, well read, and well cared for. The money donated goes to child literacy programs, local food banks to feed hungry children, and medical research to defeat childhood illnesses. It's something that sounded very special to me so they have received my donation. I don't get a kickback from mentioning this at all, I just wanted to bring awareness to his great cause. Maybe you donate to your local food bank or other favorite charity or you start your own, but I implore you to help out somewhere this holiday season. His website is www.mariobatalifoundation.org which has more details so be sure to check it out. 

Until next time...

Goat Cheese Tortelloni with Dried Orange and Fennel Pollen

It was my Wife’s turn to choose the subject of this next post, the decision of which was inspired by her inner child. Literally. 

Now that she is 5 months along in the pregnancy, the baby has learned that if ever she is hungry all she needs to do is kick my wife until she is fed. And the feeding better include some cheese. She is craving it fiercely. It’s our first child so of course we are going to spoil her with probably one of the cheesiest pasta recipes in the cookbook. 

Tortelloni are navel-shaped stuffed pastas. They have quite a celebrated history in Emilia-Romagna where they originate. The story goes that one night Lucrezia Borgia was staying at an inn in the small town and the owner of the inn was so smitten with her that he decided to go up to her room to get a peek at her by looking thru her door’s keyhole. The room was dimly lit and the only thing that the inn owner could make out was her navel. So he did what any Italian would do in that situation. He went right into the kitchen and made a pasta shape in her honor. And the rest is history.

I remember hearing that story told on Molto Mario years ago and I looked it up. Sure enough, Wikipedia can verify. 

As you can imagine, the shape of this pasta is very specific, so getting the end result to look as they should will require a little finesse on my part. This is not just a quick swipe with a ravioli stamp and you’re done. Mario gives exact instructions of their formation and it seems pretty clear, but do look up videos of the shaping on YouTube if you’re not quite sure of what to do.

I should also note that these are not to be confused with Tortellini. Those are just the smaller version of what we have here. Let’s begin.

I always look at my ingredient list first as it sometimes will include a little extra prep work and sure enough I first have to zest an orange and dry the strips out in a 200° oven for about 30 minutes.

Next I start to make the filling. In a bowl I combine milk with some quality goat’s cheese to soften. Mario recommends goat’s cheese from Coach Farm, but I went to my local market and picked up what they had. There will be plenty of other opportunities to special order the cheese for other posts, as the cheese pops up in several recipes in the book. 

I then add fresh rosemary, thyme, parsley, sage, nutmeg, Parmigiano cheese, and salt and pepper. The filling is now complete.

Now to make the pasta dough. I really enjoy making it and so far it is one of my favorite things about this book. 

After letting the dough rest for 30 minutes, I roll it out to the thinnest setting on my pasta roller. The sheets get cut into 4-inch squares, and a little of the goat cheese filling gets placed in the middle.

Here is where the shaping takes place. I fold two opposite corners together making a triangle and firmly seal.

The longer points of the triangle join together in a ring around your finger.

There we have the finished shape. Not too hard. I made a bunch up and put them on a sheet pan and into the freezer. Not as precise as I would have liked but I just have to shape a few hundred more to practice.

The hardest part is over and it’s almost dinner time! I bring my pot of salted water up to a boil and drop in the Tortelloni’s. They take about 5 minutes to cook thoroughly. 

The pan sauce is real simple. I melt butter in a sauté pan and add a little bit of the pasta cooking water, swirling as I do to make an emulsified sauce. The orange zest and fennel fronds go in the pan along with the cooked pasta.

The pasta gets plated with a little grating of Parmigiano cheese and a dusting of fennel pollen, or finely ground fennel seeds.

To say that this was a hit is an understatement. My wife had two servings! The herbs and nutmeg flavored the goat’s cheese so well and the orange zest was perfect. This dish worked on so many levels. Both Wife and Baby are happy as am I. This will be another recipe that I make again in the future. 

I should probably take a little break from the pastas even though I love making them so much. But it’s hard to decide what I want to make next. There are so many good options. The weather has definitely affected what I cook seeing how it’s been the warmest December on record here in H-town. I’m talking about not needing a jacket weather. So I may have to go with lighter options until the cold creeps in. Until next time…

 

 

Duck Liver Ravioli

It's a girl!

I'm sorry for keeping you waiting on the edge of your seats all week, but we finally opened our box in front of family and friends and we're having a girl! 

My wife and I are both very happy. Yes I was in the minority for my support for 'Team Blue', but 'Team Pink' won out and as long as our baby is healthy, it can be whatever gender it wants to be. 

Moving on in the cookbook, I've decided to make another pasta. I know, I know, I've made lots of pastas so far. But I figured as a penance for taking so long between posts, I'd eat a little humble pie and make this next recipe. Actually, humble pie sounds much more appealing than liver!  

Duck liver ravioli is not a recipe that's very high up on my bucket list to try in this cookbook. In fact, the last time that I had liver was way back in culinary school when we made chicken liver pate. I'll be honest it nearly made me gag so I don't have high hopes for this one. 

This is mainly an important recipe because of what was hammered home in previous posts, that every part of the animal is used. There is no waste. Whether it's a Michelin-starred restaurant or the kitchen of a grandmother in Sicily, there is no waste. So far, Mario has shown us creative ways to use the most common parts of the duck, now we'll look at the often discarded parts and see what he does with them. 

I start out by making a batch of fresh pasta dough. It's actually a half recipe because I don't see the family beating down my door to try these and I really don't need a freezer full of them. But there I am making the dough. 

For the filling, I heat a sauté pan with olive oil and slowly cook thinly sliced red onion. 

After about 10 minutes, I add the duck livers and red pepper flakes and cook for about 8 minutes until they are browned. 

Next, I add red wine and simmer until the liquid is almost completely reduced. 

This mixture is now ready for the food processor. Mario instructs us to pulse the mixture until puréed but still a little bit lumpy, making sure not to make a perfectly smooth purée. 

I then take the liver mixture out of the food processor, put it into a mixing bowl, and fold in some butter until fully incorporated. I never let the liver mixture completely cool so the butter will fold in nicely. 

At this point the recipe instructs to fold in some cubed foie gras. My wife and I, being very much against the use and making of foie gras, decided that it was best if I left it out. Sorry Mario, but principles are principles. It's sad that some restaurants are still putting it on their menu. So inhumane. I get it, Michelin likes to see it on menus that it hands stars out to. But this is one house that won't be buying it. 

The liver mixture is done when seasoned, so I start rolling out my pasta dough into long sheets. I place small spoonfuls of the liver mixture on the sheets. 

Then another sheet goes on top with a tight seal. For this shape, I just use my square ravioli cutter to do the job but you could very well cut them free form.  

I now am ready to get my pasta water boiling and start the pan sauce. I drop my ravioli into the salted cooking water and melt some butter in a sauté pan. Once the butter stops bubbling it's ready to have a few drops of that aged balsamic vinegar swirled into the pan. Yup, thats really all it is. 

Once the raviolis are finished cooking I add them to the sauté pan. My sauce was a little tight, so as Mario suggests I added a little bit of the pasta cooking water to the pan to loosen. Now that it's complete, the ravioli are taken off the heat and I throw in some fresh chopped parsley and grate in parmigiano-reggiano. 

I plate the ravioli. And now for the moment you've all been waiting for...

It actually tasted pretty good. I ate the whole plate. The vinegar, butter, cheese combination helped distract me from the fact that I was eating fricken' liver. I was pleasantly surprised by this dish Mario. Not enough to make it every other week, but overall I didn't hate it which is like a huge thing coming from me. My wife, forget it. She wasn't even going to stay in the same room as the ravioli. Your loss. I'm sure that including the foie gras would have added more richness and a more pronounced 'liver taste', but honestly it was fine without it. 

I'm going to probably let my wife pick out the next recipe. She's been missing out on the fun for a few posts now. She's just very picky on what she tries out of the book, but I will let the future mother of my daughter have a turn. Until next time...

Sweet Pea Flan with Carrot Vinaigrette

Welcome back! I trust that you all had a great Thanksgiving. Jess and I certainly did. As usual I had almost zero self control when it came eating moderately. My wife needs extra calories for the baby, me I'm just a glutton.  But I'm cool with that. 

It's very important as a chef, or any busy professional really, to stop and take a moment to reflect on all of the positive things in your life. I know I am certainly thankful for where I am today and for all of those who have helped me get there. And I thank all of you who read this thing. It keeps me going! 

Considering my recent feast, I picked out a lighter recipe for our next installment. It's a vegetarian antipasto, Babbo's version of peas and carrots. 

Carrots were my favorite veggie as a child. Peas, not so much. 

I'd like to paint you this inspirational picture of how we had a bounty of fresh vegetables growing up, but almost all of them were canned. Which is probably better than nothing. But watching my mom cook army green peas to oblivion did not help sell me on the health benefits of eating your vegetables. It's not her fault, it's what she grew up on as a child. The carrots were always fresh, though, and she made sure they found their way onto the dinner table at special meals. 

I really don't remember any farmer's markets in town as a child. Sure we had farms in town but we never shopped there. We went to the grocery store and picked out what they had out of convenience. Canned veggies were easier to deal with seeing how they needed almost zero prep, which for busy wives/moms is the reason they became so popular. 

It's great that there is a reemergence of local farms and fresh veggies. Babbo certainly gets their pick of the best being in the heart of New York City. So Mario, let's see what you can do to elevate peas and carrots. 

I start by bringing a pot of salted water to a boil and blanch frozen green peas, which Mario said are acceptable when you can't get fresh, and fresh mint. 

The oven then gets preheated to 350° and I coat 6 ramekins with cooking spray. There's a great side note at the end of the book that talks about essential kitchen equipment and how it's much more convenient to use foil ramekins for recipes like this. I totally agree. You can find them on Amazon.com and they're cheap. No need to clean after using, just throw them out. You'll thank me later. 

The peas and mint when fully cooled go into a food processor and get puréed. The mixture then gets passed through a food mill to smooth out.

Once passed through the mill, the peas get mixed with eggs, cream, lemon juice, salt, and pepper. 

This mix gets spread among the ramekins. They get put into a pan with water halfway up the sides of the ramekin and covered with foil. It took about 30 minutes to set in my oven. 

Now for the vinaigrette. Carrot juice gets reduced down in a saucepan until thickened. 

Once reduced, it gets combined with honey, champagne vinegar, and raw carrot juice. 

I then emulsify olive oil into the carrot mix using my trusty hand blender which, if drizzled slowly, helps to make a beautiful vinaigrette that rarely breaks. The finished vinaigrette gets seasoned with salt and pepper. 

Looking at the ingredient list I see that I have to make parsley oil for the finished plating. This is very simple. Oil, a bunch of parsley, and salt gets blended and the mix gets strained. 

Now for plating. I had a little fun with it, but you can keep it simple like Mario outlines. Drizzle the parsley oil and carrot vinaigrette around the plate. Unmold the flan onto the plate. Top with pea vines that have been tossed with the vinaigrette and shave some Parmigiano-Reggiano over the top. 

I substituted pea shoots for the vines because that's what was available. Overall this was an impressive appetizer. My wife devoured it and I'm sure most vegetarians would follow suit. The presentation is elegant enough for a classy dinner party. Two thumbs up. 

That was a fun little recipe. The next one will involve a little more labor. And a strong stomach. 

In closing, I want to leave you with a picture from the gender reveal party my wife and I threw this past weekend. Inside the box are either pink or blue balloons to let us know what sex our baby is going to be. It was lots of fun! Which do you think it'll be, boy or girl? The box will be opened on the next post. Until next time...