Olive Oil and Fresh Rosemary Cake

For this next post, I finally get to use something from my garden. That's right, this guy has a garden and it's really taking off. It's nothing too large, in fact I have it on the side of my house, but it's manageable for me and loaded with great stuff that I can't wait to cook. I may expand the garden in size next year, but I digress. I snipped some sprigs from my rosemary bushes that will be used in this cake and finely chopped them. 

Rosemary and olive oil aren't two ingredients that you would normally find in a dessert, so once again I was hesitant about just how good this would actually taste. But if I have learned anything by now, it's that I should just let down my guard and put my full faith and trust in the All-Mighty Mario. 

I started by heating my oven to 325° and spraying a loaf pan with non-stick spray. 

Yeah I'm sure you know what a sprayed loaf pan looks like, but I'm really stretching for content here. This is such an easy and fast moving recipe that it'll all be over before you can finish polishing your orange kitchen clogs. 

Some eggs are beaten in the mixer for about 30 seconds and then sugar is added and mixed until very pale and foamy. 

With the mixer going, once the egg mixture is pale, the olive oil is drizzled in slowly. 

Next was to beat in some of the finely chopped rosemary, flour, baking powder, and salt. 

The cake batter goes into the loaf pan and is baked for about 45 minutes. 

It's done when a skewer comes out clean when inserted in the middle. 

In the recipe notes, Mario states that 'this is a perfect example of what Italians really eat in the late afternoon,' and that is when I decided to have it as well. My wife, parents, and I had been rebuilding our front steps at the house and needed an afternoon break when the work was completed. I served this cake with butter and jam which paired well. Everyone seemed to like it, including me. Once again Mario, I was pleasantly surprised. Although, if I could change one thing, I would add lemon zest to this cake. I felt like lemon would make this cake perfect. 

It's not an overly sweet cake, which may not spark the interest of the American pallet, but it is a great afternoon snack or accompaniment for breakfast fare. Is it 5-star restaurant worthy? Probably not. But sometimes after a meal you don't want an overly sweet dessert either. I guess it's all a personal preference. 

The recipe notes seem a bit dated, however, because Mario notes that this is served at Babbo with either braised figs or sorbet, and I'm pretty sure that you'll still find it on the menu but with olive oil gelato, for which the recipe is thankfully included in this book. The cake batter is also baked in individual round molds for a better presentation. Check out yelp.com for pictures of it. 

Until next time...

Lemon Goat Cheese Cake

Originally, the goal for this post was to prepare one of the drinks that Mario has in the beginning of the cookbook (yes there is a whole section on mixed drinks) that used blood orange juice as an ingredient. I, however, missed blood orange juice season by nearly a week and was quite disappointed when I saw the empty spot on the shelf at Whole Foods. But no worries though, I chose something else to make instead. 

I found myself having some family over in the beginning of the week for a grilled dinner. I wanted to make something for dessert out of the book. Now I could've played it safe and went for either one of the cookie recipes or perhaps the olive oil cake (which I will be making soon), but I decided to test not only their dessert boundaries but mine as well. Hence, I chose this dessert, the lemon goat cheese cake. 

Now even on a good day, goat cheese is a really hard sell for me. So you will have to understand why my guests and I balked at the sound of this dessert. But one of the things that I like about this project is that I constantly find myself trying new ingredients or new combinations. It's something that I encourage you all at home to try with any one of your cookbooks. I'm sure many of you out there in home-cooking-land have at least several cookbooks in your house that you have cherry picked recipes from that are well inside of your comfort zone. So I propose that every once in a while we step out of our comfort zone and make something that we normally wouldn't ever try. There's a good chance that you might just like it and you would be asked to make it again. So here goes. 

I start by heating my oven to 325° and I spray my springform pan with non stick cooking spray and coat the bottom and sides with sugar. 

Next, I take out my kitchen aid mixer (one of my favorite tools) and beat some egg yolks (making sure to reserve the egg whites) and sugar until pale. 

Once there, I slowly mix in some of the goat cheese. 

Then, I add rum, flour, lemon zest, lemon juice, vanilla and salt and mix until creamy. 

I then took the egg whites and whisked them with a pinch of salt until it started to foam. After it foamed, I added sugar and kept whisking until it reached the soft-peak meringue stage. By the way, having an electric mixer makes this part effortless. Otherwise, it would be a good arm workout. 

The whipped egg whites then get carefully folded into the cheese mixture. 

The spring form pan goes into a baking dish large enough to hold it so that hot water can be added, coming halfway up the side of the springform pan. The cheesecake mixture gets put into the spring form pan. 

The whole thing gets wrapped in foil and put in the oven for about 35 minutes. Then the foil gets removed and the cheesecake continues to cook for about another 10 minutes or until set. 

Once finished cooking, the cheesecake goes in the fridge to cool completely. 

This cheesecake comes with a lemon syrup glaze that Mario describes in the recipe notes as so tasty that it 'would make gym shoes taste delicious.' To make it, I just boiled lemon juice and sugar in a small saucepan until reduced and thickened. It gets set aside and cooled when finished. 

I'm now anxiously waiting to plate this thing because I know what's coming next...I get to try it. I removed the sides of the cake pan, pour the lemon glaze on top, and garnish with fresh raspberries. I had some leftover glaze and saved it for the individual plates. 

It looked beautiful. But it was goat cheese after all. So let's see what the official tasting standings were:

Wife: Didn't like it

Sister-in-law: Spit it out

Mother-in-law: Liked it

Father-in-law: Loved the glaze, not too keen on the cheesecake

Me: Liked it, but not enough to make it again

I really do have to give my family props for trying such a funky dessert. I promise I won't put them through that again. Overall, if you really like goats cheese, then you'll probably love this dessert. It's luxurious, sweet, and pretty. But if you're used to traditional cheesecake, then you'll probably hate it. Not to mention that with the amount of goats cheese you'll need to make this recipe, it can get quite pricey to make. The maple cheesecake from my first month of posts was received much better. 

I'm really going to keep plugging away at this and try to get more recipes knocked out this month. It should be an uneventful week so let's see what else I can make. Until next time...

Duck Bresaola with Borlotti and Red Onion Jam

With the debacle over from the last post, I was eager to try another recipe from the cookbook would hopefully lift my spirits. Truthfully, I was disappointed and still a little bit bitter about the Panna Cotta not working out. But I am here to blog about the good, the bad, and ugly. I am here to make everything in this cookbook the way Mario says to make it. This blog has to be a truthful expression of the process of me working through the entire cookbook, and I can't let a little misprint get me down. So here goes nothing. 

I'd like to say that I whipped up this next recipe with the same vigor and speed as the previous ones, but the truth is that the making of this recipe took three weeks to complete. It involved doing something that I have never tried before in my career. That is, making my own cured meat. 

In the recipe notes, Mario Batali calls this recipe a 'simple and virtually foolproof way of curing meat at home'. I would say that is a very accurate description. The hardest part was having to wait three weeks for the duck breast to fully cure. 

Salumi and cured meats are a staple in Italian cuisine, as in many other cultures. The image of homemade sausage making and meat curing probably makes you think of those old world charcuterie stores with meat hanging from the ceiling, but turning your home into a deli counter was not needed. I was excited to add something new to my culinary repertoire. 

I first started with that beautiful duck from a few posts back.

Here, I had previously separated the thighs, wings, and breasts from the carcass. I've used the thighs last time, and this recipe will use the breasts exclusively. 

My next step was to mix salt, pepper, sugar, rosemary, and thyme in a bowl.

This mixture is then put on the duck breasts in a heavy coating. 

The breasts get wrapped separately in wax paper like a Christmas present for 4 days. 

After 4 days, the breasts get unwrapped and then tied with butchers twine, where they will hang (yes, literally hang) in the refrigerator for 3 weeks. You read that right. 3 weeks. I hung these at work in our walk-in cooler with a container underneath to avoid any possible mess. 

Next up was making the onion jam. Olive oil gets heated in a sauté pan until very hot and diced red onions get sautéed until golden brown. 

Orange juice is then added to the pan. 

The orange juice gets reduced until it coats the onions. Once at this stage, the jam gets cooled. 

In another mixing bowl, I combine borlotti beans, olive oil, garlic, red pepper flakes, and vinegar and mix well. Now, I couldn't for the life in me find borlotti beans in any store near me. So I substituted roman beans instead. I could have ordered some thru amazon.com, but they sold way more than what I would have needed for this recipe so I felt like using the roman beans instead.  You could use almost any bean you want really. It's up to you. Just give the mix about an hour to absorb flavors. 

Next, it was time to plate. The bean mixture gets spooned onto the plate, with some of the jam off to the side, and I placed very thin slices of the duck 'prosciutto' over the beans. If you don't have access to a deli slicer like I do at the restaurant, you can use a very sharp knife to slice it thinly. 

Just what I needed. This tasted amazing, and my boss agreed. It was so worth the wait. The orange in the jam paired perfectly with the duck and the beans. The duck tasted just like prosciutto. I kind of wish that I had some crusty peasant bread to go with it. 

I would certainly recommend making this at home. It was easy, and if you can make it thru the 3-week curing process, you'll be left with the most amazing, freshest, and light tasting cured meat that you've ever had. The extra that I have left will be going in some of my salads this week for sure.

My next post is a very simple and quick 'recipe' that almost everyone over the age of 21 can enjoy. Until next time...

Saffron Panna Cotta

I'm going to put the following statement out there and you can do with it what you wish. Are you ready? Here goes.

I hate saffron. 

There, I said it. 

Now before you send the saffron mafia after me, let me at least explain how I came to this conclusion. 

Saffron adds a metallic-like aftertaste to whatever recipe it is used in that does nothing for me. It also tends to turn the ingredients that it's used in yellow. And did I mention that it is expensive? This little baggie cost me $15. 

Yes I know it comes from the crocus flower, is very popular in the Mediterranean, and needs to be handpicked. But I don't like it. I'm sure you're thinking, 'but what would happen to Paella or Risotto Milanese if we didn't have this spice?' I agree, it is a necessary component to those dishes. I just can't get past the metallic, burnt plastic like taste that saffron imparts. So you can understand my reservations for making this next recipe, a dessert nonetheless, with an ingredient that normally never pops up in desserts. 

I may not be the best advertiser for saffron, and I don't want you to think that this is something that is really putrid or sickly. I would prefer it if you would be the judge on that and try it yourself. But I chose this recipe because I had some leftover saffron from the Seabass recipe that I made a few weeks ago, and I figured why not use up what's left of it. Plus I kind of had a craving for a dessert, but because it is been so humid here this week, I didn't feel like firing up the oven and heating the house anymore than it already is. So I thought 'what have I got to lose?' with this very simple, no bake dessert. 

First, I combined cream, sugar, lemon zest, and saffron threads in a sauce pan. This mixture gets whisked lightly and brought to a boil. 

After it has boiled, I took it off the stove and let it rest for 10 minutes to develop flavor and color. 

I then added some powdered gelatin to this cream mixture. It needed to be whisked until it was fully dissolved. 

I then strained it and added some cold milk. 

The finished mixture then gets poured into foil cups, where it will need to chill until the custard had set. 

I let these set up overnight. A note of caution though for those that are following along with their own Babbo Cookbook, there is a slight omission here in the instructions for this part of the recipe. In the recipe, Mario said to pour the mixture into chilled dessert cups and that the mixture can be unmolded by running the tip of the knife around the edge of the cup when ready to plate. This is all true, however, he never mentions that this mixture will still be warm when poured and will need time to set up in the refrigerator, otherwise you would be left with a liquid mass that would just ooze all over your plate. It's kind of confusing if you have never made something like this before. Luckily I caught it and for those that are following along with this blog and cookbook, hopefully this will save you much frustration and disaster. Especially given the expense of saffron. 

Once these chilled overnight, it was time to run a paring knife around the edge of the mold and plate the dessert. In the recipe notes, Mario suggests that you switch up the type of fruit that is paired with them as he does at Babbo. He recommended using grapefruit segments and that is what I was prepared to do. But as you can see from my final product, I wasn't able to get that far. 

Epic fail number one. I'm not sure what happened, but even after allowing these to set up overnight, I still wound up with a runny, oozing mess that never set. I was even very cautious to make sure that I followed the recipe to the tee. 

Overall, I think that there must have been a misprint or it was just a plain old bad recipe that slipped through the eyes of the food editor. After all, there was the omission that I mentioned several paragraphs ago. This was the first recipe in this cookbook that did not work out at all. 

This was rather disappointing. As I said, I'm not a big fan of saffron, but I was kind of looking forward to tasting the contrast of flavors in this dessert to see if it would somehow change my perspective on saffron. Nope. I did end up tasting my runny liquid, as a chef you should taste everything that you make, and the flavor was actually not too bad. Of course it is not supposed to be a runny liquid. 

Would I try making this again? No. With the expense of the saffron I was quite pissed off that this was a complete waste. I may in the future try making this again but omit the saffron and just use the lemon zest and increase the amount of gelatin to see if it would work. But I won't be doing that any time soon. 

Lesson learned. Chock one up to experience. So far this journey has been quite amazing and has allowed me to taste some amazing food. But this one was a bonk. Sorry Mario I guess you are not quite the superhero that I have made you out to be. 

Okay maybe that last line was a little harsh. 

I'm sorry. 

But now I am going to have to try something super spectacular in this book to get back into a better frame of mind. 

Until next time...

Duck Braciole with Favas and Pecorino

Here's another example of that Batali simplicity that is found throughout the entire cookbook. You take a wonderfully rich duck, stuff it with a minimal amount of ingredients, and serve it simply with some fresh produce and olive oil. Nothing overly complicated here at all. And yet it all manages to come together in perfect harmony. 

I was able to pick up an entire duck, which will be useful because I will be using the remaining pieces of the duck throughout the blog for other recipes. 

If you have a little know how, you can butcher the entire duck yourself as I did. Any good butcher, however, would be more than willing to do this for you. The legs, breasts, and wings all get separated from the carcass, making sure to reserve the liver, breasts, and carcass for later uses. 

Next is to debone the leg.  With a sharp boning knife, you just follow along the bone and remove the meat in one piece. It's rather hard to describe just by through a blog, so if this is something that you are thinking of doing yourself, I would recommend watching a YouTube video on how to do it. 

After that, I combined orange zest, breadcrumbs, garlic, parsley, and olive oil in a mixing bowl. This will be used to stuff the duck leg. 

Then with the skin side down, the stuffing gets placed in the duck leg and rolled over. To hold it's shape, the stuffed duck leg gets tied with butchers twine. 

I then roasted it in the oven for approximately a half an hour, getting a nice crispy skin on the outside. 

Once it cools down to room temperature it is time to plate. The leg gets sliced and placed on the plate, with some fava beans, Pecorino Tuscano, and some extra-virgin olive oil. 

This was another very tasty meal. It was a perfectly light springtime dish. It was hard to believe that it would be from the utter simplicity of it all. The orange in the breadcrumbs really popped through, which of course pairs perfectly with duck. Perhaps I've been over complicating things over the years. Perhaps great food really can be this simple. 

Even with quite a few more recipes left in this cookbook, I am already starting to see a series of reoccurring themes. This cookbook flows so much smoother than any other cookbook that I have owned. It is clearly not a collection of just some random recipes thrown together for the purpose of selling a book. Common ingredients are used in various courses throughout chapters. The ingredient overlapping it's useful for home cooks in the sense that they don't have to continually go out and buy a bunch of ingredients that will be used solely for one recipe. One could just look around in the various chapters of the book, see that ingredient that they bought a couple of weeks ago, and find a creative use for it. Genius!

I can't wait to keep digging through this encyclopedia of modern Italian cuisine. Until next time...

Grilled Baby Chicken al mattone with Panzanella

May can sometimes be a crapshoot for weather in New England, but we've been lucky here in Holyoke to have some nice grilling nights this month and I wanted to take full advantage of them. I realize that when you read this that we will be fully immersed in June. My apologies. Work has been hectic this week, and even though I have completed several recipes from the book, I have been procrastinating on writing and posting them. 

Of the recipes that I have made from the book so far, this one is the most summer-like. I know it's not 'officially' summer, but it sure looks and feels like it is. You would probably feel the same way after eating this dish. There's something about grilling chicken, or any meat really, over a hot flame and pairing it with a light salad that just screams summer to me. 

There's a few 'scary' looking Italian words in the title of this recipe that may turn people away, but I assure you that this was easier to make than it was to pronounce. 

'Al mattone' means under the brick in Italian. The chicken was literally cooked this way, having a heavy brick weighing it down on a very hot grill. This helps to ensure even cooking in all of the crevices of the chicken. So that was my first step, to find a few clean bricks and wrap them in foil. Luckily there were lots of leftover bricks on the side of the garage from when we bought this house that were the perfect size. Score! 

Next was to remove the backbone from the chickens without touching the front breast plate. This will make the chicken easy to butterfly and flatten out on the grill for even cooking. 

The chickens then get seasoned with salt, pepper, and olive oil. 

I then put them on the grill and weigh them down with the bricks. Considering the weight of the bricks and high heat, you'll want to turn them every few minutes until cooked thru and the skin is crispy. The recipe said this process will take approximately 15 minutes, but not all chicken is created equal. Yours might take a little longer, depending on the size, like mine did. 

Next was to make the Panzanella salad. It has it's origin from Tuscany and is a great way to use leftover bread. In a bowl I mixed sliced red onion, diced tomato, diced cucumber, and cubed day old bread. I tossed it with red wine vinegar and olive oil. It won't need much of the oil/vinegar mix, but just enough to moisten the old bread. I threw in some fresh basil and oregano as well. 

Once the chicken is cooked its time to plate. Just spoon the salad on the plate with the chicken. I put a slice of lemon on there as well because a squeeze before eating helped bring some more acidity to the rich chicken. 

In the recipe notes, Mario said that this is something that you would never see at an Italian restaurant, but that you're likely to find it at a small Tuscan countryside celebration. Regardless where you find it, it tasted amazing. This was probably my favorite so far. I know I will probably wear that phrase out but what can I say? It's so simple to make and tasty enough that even the most finicky of eaters will love this. My wife has requested that I make this again and I can see that happening very soon. 

Be on the lookout for more posts. With some days off in my future I should be able to catch up on this blog. Until next time...