So what's a married guy to do when he finds himself all alone at home while his wife is off at a college reunion? If you guessed 'make himself a five-star meal at home', then you would be correct.
Making a wonderful and composed meal doesn't have to be saved just for when a large dinner party pops up. Often times I hear those who need to cook only for themselves or for one other person say that they don't feel like going through the trouble or bother of making something for dinner from scratch. While it is more convenient to just go out and grab something from a local restaurant, there's something to be said about going to the market, finding something unique, and then taking it home with you and transforming it into an amazing meal. This is something that should be done on any night of the week regardless of the number of occupied seats at the dinner table.
Perhaps this week you leave the familiar and venture into trying a new ingredient or two. Something out of the ordinary. Maybe you shut out the voice in your head that says 'oh you will never like that' and let it be okay that there is something different looking on your dinner plate.
This is what, I think, will be one of the biggest benefits for me in completing this project. It's the ability to work with ingredients that are a little unconventional or out of my normal culinary comfort zone. This next dish was a prime example.
My wife hates mushrooms and I am not the biggest fan of them either. So I went into the making of this dish with a strong prejudice against it. But after going to the market and seeing that the prep for this recipe was looking really nice, I decided to bring home the ingredients and give it a try.
Upon looking through the ingredients list, I noticed that I will need to start off by making basil oil which will act as a sauce for this appetizer. The recipe for the oil is on page 50 of the Babbo Cookbook, along with several other recipes for flavored oils. Flavored oils work well as a quick sauce because they are creative, light, and can provide an intense flavor.
To make the oil, I took some basil leaves and put them into a food processor.
I then slowly drizzled in some extra-virgin olive oil and added a pinch of salt. Very simple
Next up was to remove the stems from the shiitake mushrooms.
Once the stems were removed from the shittakes, they get placed in a bowl with some olive oil, sage, rosemary, and chopped garlic. They get seasoned and roasted for approximately 20 minutes.
Once the shiitake mushrooms are finished cooking, the oil that they were cooked in gets strained and reserved for later, and the mushrooms get set aside in a different bowl to cool.
The next step is to make a marinade for the mushrooms. The marinade ingredients include sliced garlic, anchovy paste, balsamic vinegar, and salt-and-pepper. A little bit of olive oil is then slowly whisked in to this marinade, making a vinaigrette. Once it's made it can be poured over the mushrooms which have been allowed to cool to room temperature.
The grill then gets fired up. When hot, drizzle some sliced red onions with a little bit of olive oil and salt-and-pepper, and cook them for several minutes per side making sure to get nice grill marks.
It's now time to plate. Spoon some of the barbecued onions on the plate, remove the shiitake mushrooms from the marinade and place on top of the onions, then drizzle some of the basil oil around both.
I love surprises. Even more, I love food surprises. As I said earlier, I was never a big fan of mushrooms. However, I completely devoured this dish. The marinade combined with the oil and the onions gave those mushrooms so much flavor. It was a perfect light appetizer. It was quite the flavor bomb for not having a ton of components on the plate.
Mario notes that shiitake mushrooms are not an Italian staple, but what he tries to do at Babbo is to combine offbeat ingredients with a 'trattoria-style simplicity' that meets the needs of New York City eaters who are not afraid to venture out and try something new. His antipasti not only contain some of the finest of sliced meats, cheeses, and homemade salumi, but as we see here, they also pay a wonderful homage to the local farmers and farmers markets.
Coming up I will post what else I made out of this cookbook for dinner that night. Until next time...
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