Two-Minute Calamari Sicilian Lifeguard Style

Like Mario, I too have never met a Sicilian lifeguard, nor do I foresee myself ever meeting one in the near future. But our esteemed author felt that if one was to cook up a pot of calamari, this, as explained in this newest post, is how they would do it. 

Sicily is about as southern italian as you can get. So southern that geographically it is closer to Tunisia and Morocco than Milan. So the inspiration for this dish combined the spice of Sicilian food with the sweet ingredients of Northern Africa. 

I wanted to save this dish for the summer to match the warm climate and spicy food of Sicily, but with all of the single digit weather up here lately, I needed something to heat me up and make me long for warmer days.  

Calamari is not one of my favorite fish in the world either, mainly because it's so hard to find a place that can cook it properly. Thirty seconds too little or too much and the calamari may as well be rubber bands. Many restaurants around my neck of the woods bread and fry the tubes and tentacles and offer a tomato based dipping sauce. Regardless of how it is prepared, this Italian staple is a great fish to add to your repertoire. Mastering it's cookery will impress any dinner guest without killing your food budget. And because it cooks so quickly, it makes a perfect meal option for even the busiest of food snobs. 

Checking my ingredients, I see that the only real prep that i need for this recipe is to slice a few scallions, cut the calamari tubes into 1/4 inch rounds, and halve the tentacles.

I also need another batch of Mario's basic tomato sauce. This should be no problem for you following along with me at home because you made that big batch of sauce that I told you to make last week right? I saved what I had left from the last recipe in this blog series so I'm ready to cook. And the cooking will be quick. Surprisingly quick. 

I start by boiling some salted water and add Israeli couscous, cooking for two minutes and then blanching in an ice bath. 

Next I grab my sauté pan and heat olive oil until smoking. I then add pine nuts, currants, caperberries, and red pepper flakes and sauté until the pine nuts are golden brown. 

I now add the tomato sauce and couscous and boil. 

The calamari is now ready to be thrown into my sauté pan. It only needs two to three minutes to cook, or until the calamari turns opaque. I adjust the seasoning with salt and pepper. 

The dish is now ready to be plated with some sliced fresh scallions. 

Is that all? Is that really all I have to do? Easy peasy. 

I loved the taste and texture of the couscous with the calamari. There was a bit of a kick from the pepper flakes but nothing too overwhelming. When I watched Mario make this on YouTube with Eric Ripert, he added the jalapeño pesto that I made in the last recipe. I should have added that to this dish for more heat. The flavor would have elevated this recipe from an 8 to a 10. Still, you've got to love how simple it was to put this together. 

The next post is inspired entirely but my recent visit to Whole Foods Market. In fact, the main ingredient jumped out at me as soon as I walked through the front door. Until next time....

Baccala Mezzalune with Golden Tomatoes and Green Olives

Despite all of the rumors, I am still alive. I will say, though, it was a close one. In between my last blog entry and this one I have lived through 'Snow-maggeddon' or 'Snow-pocalypse', got crazy sick not once but twice to where my taste buds were nearly dead, and have snow-blowed measurable snow more times than I care to count. But it's great to be back. 

So far, my new year's resolution of four posts a month and 50 recipes completed by March is not looking so good. Two posts in two months is a poor showing. I need to get working here. The idea is not about rushing to get this project over with, but I do have a dinner at Babbo that my wife promised upon completion, which I would like to attend before 2077. 

I'm going to continue with the last posts main ingredient, baccala. I froze the left-over fish for this very purpose. I'm hoping that this recipe makes me love salt cod, because so far I'm not much of a fan. 

Looking at the mise-en-place for this recipe I see that I once again get to make the fresh pasta recipe. I used my KitchenAid mixer instead of the well method this time and it came out just fine. Call me old fashioned, but I still prefer using the well method. 

Next up is to make the jalapeño pesto that goes into the filling for the pasta. This is another signature Batali recipe that I've been dying to try. It's also used in a few other recipes throughout the book. It's easy to make so I thought that I would include the prep work here instead of devoting an entire post to it. 

In a food processor I combine jalapeños, sliced almonds, and a diced red onion. It gets pulsed until puréed, then I drizzle in some extra-virgin olive oil to emulsify. The key point to making this pesto pop is to leave the pepper seeds in to give it the heat. 

The pesto tastes amazing, and now I need a batch of tomato sauce. I've already covered the making of this in a previous post so I won't waste any blog real estate covering it again. 

Now I can begin actually making the recipe. Mezzalune refers to the shape of the pasta meaning 'half-moon' in Italian. The filling is almost classic Portuguese. I start by breaking the baccala into small chunks and add it to a sauce pan with diced potatoes, the pesto, water, and milk. This gets simmered until tender enough to resemble a thick Ragu. Once finished, the filling gets chilled. 

Next I get to roll out the pasta dough into thin sheets using my new pasta rolling set for the KitchenAid that my wife got me for Christmas. OMG it's so much easier to make pasta now! 

I now use a round biscuit cutter to cut circles out of the dough, put a spoonful of the cod filling in each circle, and fold them all in half to resemble a half moon. Mario notes that you'll want a tight seal on these because any open space will allow the pasta cooking water to get in and destroy your rav's. 

Speaking of pasta water, I put a pot on the stove and bring it to a boil. 

I then put a sauté pan on high heat and put in some olive oil and cook the golden tomatoes and green olives until the tomatoes start to burst. 

Next, some of the tomato sauce goes in the pan while I drop the mezzalune in the boiling water. They should only need about four minutes to cook being fresh pasta and all. 

The mezzalune are now done and I toss them in the sauté pan and add more extra-virgin olive oil and shredded parsley to the mix off the heat and toss. 

Time to plate. 

The smell is amazing. 

Okay Mario you have converted me. I am now a fan of salt cod. 

My wife and I loved these pastas. There was the saltiness of the cod, brininess of the olives, acid from the tomatoes, and just a slight kick from the addition of the jalapeño pesto. The smell from these cooking brought me back to the dining room of my great-grandmother's house all over again. Outstanding!

I am keeping some of these in my freezer for dinners. The prep involved in making this particular shape of ravioli was a little labor intensive, so if I had to do it over I would probably make a different shape. But all together, this was an amazing recipe!

I don't want to make any food promises for my next post that I can't keep right now, so I'll leave by saying that the next post will be.....a surprise. Until next time... 

Marinated Baccala with Baby Fennel and Aceto Tradizionale

My great-grandparents immigrated to this country from Portugal many moons ago. I never had the chance to meet my great-grandfather because he passed away before I was born. But I remember stopping over to my great-grandmother's house as a child, usually right after seeing my grandmother who lived just up the street. 

My brother and I loved going over to see her because she always had treats for us, mainly cookies and Tang (hey, we were easy to please back then). But she also had plenty of snacks for any of the adults in the family that would pop over unexpectedly too.  

She was famous for her rice pudding, which to this day has yet to be duplicated exactly by anyone. She could make a killer vinaigrette. And she used a Portuguese staple, baccala, the main ingredient in this next recipe, to make her amazing cod-fish fritters which always went fast. 

Sundays used to be the day where everyone in the family would drop in to feast on her traditional Portuguese cooking, my grandfather's homemade wine, and to catch up on family gossip. Her cooking was by feel and sight, with no measuring, and it came out perfect and consistent every time, something that everyone can envy, chef or not. Pretty impressive for a woman that joined my great-grandfather in marriage and calling a new land home at the young age of 17. She kept on cooking until her passing well into her eighties. Seeing an ingredient like baccala in the book makes me nostalgic and I hope that Mario's preparation and handling of this ingredient pays her the homage that she deserves. 

I want to get started with the prep, but as the recipe notes mention, baccala needs to be soaked in water for 48 hours before it is used, making sure that the water is changed every 12 hours or so. 

Once that is out of the way I can start with the marinade for the fish. In a casserole dish, I combine the baccala, olive oil, champagne vinegar, thinly sliced red onion, lemon zest, red pepper flakes, peppercorns, and fennel fronds. I make sure the fish is well coated. The baccala gets marinated for four hours, turning after two hours for even marinating. 

Next is to bring some salted water to a boil and to set up an ice bath nearby. The baby fennel bulbs get blanched for almost a minute then removed and shocked in the ice bath. I then heat up the broiler, brush the fennel bulbs with olive oil and seasoning, and then broil the fennel until they are slightly charred and cooked through. Now the recipe calls for baby fennel bulbs but I was unable to find any babies at the market, so I bought the smallest ones that they had and cut them up smaller than I normally would have. You do what you have to do to make things work sometimes. 

Once the fennel is cooked, the fish is removed from the marinade and sliced very thin as if you were slicing a carpaccio. You'll need an extra sharp knife for the step which I am sure that by now is already in your arsenal. 

The marinade is strained and reserved. 

I am now ready to plate. The thin slices of baccala are placed on the plate with the fennel, the marinade is spooned over the fish and fennel, then the fish is drizzled with some really good extra-virgin olive oil and Aceto Tradzionale, or aged balsamic vinegar. I was able to get the aged balsamic that Mario recommends in the liner notes that is made by a friend of his in Italy. This stuff is quite expensive at $40 a bottle, and Mario notes that a small vial of aged balsamic vinegar is usually included in a brides dowry. I can understand why as a little goes a long way. 

Overall I didn't hate the dish is much as I thought that I would, but that's a far cry from me wanting to ever make this again. The marinade really made the fish pop and helped to cut some of the richness of the baccala, but I felt like the fennel was just 'there' and didn't really contribute much to the dish. Overall it's a little too light and skimpy in order for me to consider it an appetizer. Sorry Mario, but I much rather prefer my great-grandmother's way of handling baccala. 

Until next time...

5 Autumn Vegetables with Goat Ricotta and Pumpkinseed Oil

Happy new year! 

I'm back from my brief hiatus away from the blog and ready to dive in feet first. I hope all of you in blog-land had a great holiday season and are enjoying the new year. I certainly had a great Christmas with my wife and pet rabbit, and even scored some sweet gifts that'll make completing this blog all the more easier. My wife gets me so well that I even found a pair of these under the Christmas tree:

This time of year tends to be very busy for me at work. Add to that, my February cold came early this year, but regardless I'm excited to be continuing on with this project. We are rapidly approaching the 1-year anniversary of Babbo-at-home, and are nearly 50 recipes into the book. Not including my text books from culinary school, this is the most that I have ever cooked out of any one cookbook before. 

I'm starting to reach a point to where I am showing up to Whole Foods with book in hand and am checking out what's fresh and available and proceeding from there as opposed to picking my recipe ahead of time and hoping that my ingredients are on the shelf, which is kind of the main point of the book. Shopping as Italians would, with an open mind, a good eye, and no preconceived notions about what's going to be for dinner is Mario's main mantra. 

I also find that I am going to have to factor more time into the pre-planning of cooking these recipes as there are more and more specialty products popping up that need to be sourced out. If Whole Foods doesn't have it, shockingly so, then I have to hit up Google and go from there. So between allowing for sourcing, shipping times, and longer preparation of more complex recipes, my pace may slow a little, but this is where the real learning will kick in. With the exception of the drinks, many of the preparations from now on will be more complex. 

This inaugural 2015 post wasn't complex per se, but it did have quite a few ingredients that I was shocked to find available all in one convenient location. It's a beautiful looking appetizer that's vegetarian friendly. I let my wife pick this one out for me to make so let's see how it scored. 

I start by preheating my oven to 475°. Sharpen you knife because we're in for some chopping. I peel some butternut squash and cut it into 1/2 inch cubes. It gets tossed with some extra-virgin olive oil, salt and pepper, and some finely chopped sage, then put in the oven. 

While that's going, I take some scrubbed Jerusalem artichokes and slice them into 1/8 inch disks. I take the butternut out of the oven, which has now been in for a few minutes, and put the artichokes on the same sheet tray as the squash. The two should now cook at the same time. When done, they are set aside. 

Next I peel some parsnips, slice them into 1/4 inch disks, toss with olive oil, cumin, and seasoning, and roast them for about 7 minutes until they are cooked. The parsnips are set aside when fully cooked. 

I then bring some water up to a boil and set myself up with a water bath to blanch some julienned leeks. The leeks need only a few minutes in the boiling water before being shocked into the ice water. 

Sage oil is needed for the plating, so I took out my food processor and puréed sage leaves with olive oil, then strained it out. 

My last real prep work for this recipe is to julienne some celery root. It stays raw for this preparation. 

Okay now it's assembly time. The squash, artichokes, parsnips, leeks, and celery root get added to a mixing bowl with mizuna. Whole Foods didn't have any fresh mizuna for me, but luckily in the recipe notes Mario suggests frisée as a substitute, so I used that. The salad gets tossed with olive oil, sherry vinegar, and salt and pepper. 

The finished salad gets plated with a goat cheese smeared baguette slice, and drizzled with homemade sage oil (recipe on page 51) and pumpkin seed oil which Whole Foods had in their flavored oil aisle. 

My wife found this dish to be boring and uneventful. I thought that it was a nice salad. If we ate it in October our opinions might be better, but it served its purpose as a light, fresh, veggie starter. I'm not a fan of the goat cheese and probably never will be. But the rest of the dish is a keeper and something I may revisit next year when poking through a farmers market. 

Next up is a dish with a main ingredient close to my heart. Some that my Portuguese great-grandmother used often in her cooking. Until next time...

Penne with Zucca, Onions, Anchovies, and Breadcrumbs

I find myself alone for dinner tonight while my wife is out celebrating her friend's birthday (Happy Birthday Vy!), so I thought that it would be a perfect opportunity to cook another blog post. After getting in to the kitchen at work this morning at 5 AM and leaving at four in the afternoon, I didn't really have it in me to delve into a drawn out recipe, but I know there has to be something savory in this cookbook that I could make for a quick supper tonight. As I've said before, when in doubt turn to the pasta chapter. 

I've been sweating a good plate of pasta for two weeks now, and having good luck in the past with Mario's pasta recipes, I knew that I was in good hands with whatever I chose. Which brings me to this next post. 

This penne recipe is quick, simple, cheap to make, has only a few ingredients, and as Mario points out in the recipe notes, there is a wonderful harmony between the sweetness of the squash and the brine of the anchovies. It wouldn't be the first time that I have made a pasta that combines vegetables and anchovies. I once worked at an Italian restaurant where we used to make a killer puttanesca sauce. 

What I have come to love about the Italian way of cooking, though, is the simplicity behind every dish. Bold flavors through the use of superior product versus some flashy technique is quickly becoming my new mantra. But is this recipe perhaps a little bit too simple? I couldn't wait to find out. 

My first order of business is to check my recipe mise en place to see what needs to be prepped. Because this is such a fast moving recipe, I won't want to prep any of the ingredients on the fly. So I finely chop some red onion, thinly slice garlic, I dice some butternut squash, and chop some flat leaf parsley. 

I will also need to soak some anchovy fillets in milk for about 20 minutes and then rinse and drain them well prior to starting the recipe. 

I'm now ready to start cooking. I bring a pot of salted water to a boil for the pasta. Then in a sauté pan I heat some extra-virgin olive oil and add the onion, garlic, and anchovies to the pan. I cook this mixture over medium heat until the onion and garlic are softened and the anchovies have started to break apart. 

Once at that stage I'm now ready to toss in the butternut squash. I raise the heat up a little bit to get some caramelization on the squash. 

While this is working I add my penne to the boiling water. I'm sure all of you out there have your favorite brand of pasta, but mine is Barilla all the way!

Once the penne is cooked to al dente, I add it to the sauté pan and toss with a little more extra-virgin olive oil and the flat leaf parsley. 

The pasta is seasoned with salt and pepper and then plated. Once plated I sprinkle some fresh toasted breadcrumbs over the top of the pasta. 

That's really all there is to it. This was another solid recipe and an overall tasty meal. I highly doubt that this is something that would pop up on a Michelin-starred restaurant like Babbo. This is probably something that you would see in a less formal Trattoria in Italy, perhaps for lunch paired with 'a powerful young southern Italian red wine' as Mario suggests. Regardless of when and where you eat this, you won't be disappointed, but I also don't feel that you will be overwhelmed either. Like I said, it's a really simple dish and the addition of the anchovies are a 'love it or hate it' dealbreaker for those would consider eating this. 

I can't believe that there's only a few weeks left of the year. I should be able to knock out at least one more recipe for this month in between all of the Christmas shopping, gift wrapping, and craziness at work. Until next time...

Mascarpone Jelly Thumbprints

Drumroll please. Here I am with the last cookie recipe in the cookbook. Okay so maybe it was a small chapter anyway. But I do feel a certain sense of accomplishment knowing that I am closing out an entire chapter in the cookbook already. Is this how it is going to feel when I finish the other chapters? 

Sometimes I look at the sheer number of recipes that are left and it feels a little overwhelming. But I have to look back at what I've completed this year so far, over 40 recipes now or roughly a third of the book, and it further motivates me to continue on with this fun project. 

I like how there's a little something for everyone with this cookbook. If you're looking for a light and quick meal or appetizer for dinner during the week, it's in there. If you're looking for a challenge or to learn something entirely new, it's in there. If you're looking to bring a touch of elegance to an upcoming dinner party and you need ideas, it's in there. There is even challenges for industry professionals such as myself with a culinary school background and professional cooking experience. 

I really do revere this cookbook and Mario Batali's teaching style, even if there are a few mistakes or misprints along the way. It's not the only cookbook of his that I own nor will it be the last. Cooking from it has so far been more of a joy than I initially ever expected it to be. 

So let's start this recipe already. Once again I preheat the oven to 325°, and I use my KitchenAid mixer to cream some butter and sugar. 

Next is to add an egg, vanilla extract, and mascarpone cheese. I make sure to scrape down the sides of the bowl while mixing. 

I'm now ready to add the dry ingredients to the bowl. I add flour, baking powder, baking soda, and salt. 

Once it is mixed and forms a dough,I wrap it in plastic and refrigerate it for about 30 minutes. 

The dough is then divided into four equal portions. Keeping each portion wrapped up until ready to use, I start working with one section at a time. I break off pieces of the dough and roll them into about a half inch ball. Okay I may have made mine a little bit larger than that, but I like a big cookie. Each ball is placed on a lightly greased baking sheet an inch apart. I use the end of a wooden spoon to make a deep hole into each of the balls using a circular motion to widen the opening at the top. 

The cookies get baked for 12 to 15 minutes or until they just begin to turn a pale golden at the edge. 

I set my timer, I patiently wait, I take my cookies out of the oven, and this is what I find:

These cookies look like a hot mess! They are not even close to the picture in the cookbook! I'm not really sure what went wrong here, but I'm going to officially put these on the bonk list. To finish these off I'm supposed to heat up a little bit of raspberry jam so that it spoons easily into the little pocket on the top of the cookie to finish it off. But as you can see there was no pocket left that was available to me so I skipped it. It's kind of a shame that this didn't work out, because after tasting the final product I did like the taste of the cookie. 

So far this makes the third recipe that hasn't worked out for me. I am going to officially move on the next one, however I may revisit some of the bonk list entries in a post towards the end of this blog project to see if maybe giving them a second try and perhaps a little tweak or two might do the trick.

It's getting really close to Christmas time and I still have some last-minute shopping and giftwrapping to finish, but I'm hoping to make at least another blog post entry before the end of the month. Until next time...