The Spaghetti Alle Vongole

Late last month the Thrifty Sifter and I took off to Tuscany for a week of fun in the hills and walking the streets of Florence. We also made a pit stop in Ferrara to see some old family friends. I'll do a feature on some of the food we had there in a future post.

Of course, I brought back about ten pounds of Tuscany near my middle and still had a hankering for pasta. It's also the case that I eat entirely too much pork and beef and wanted something non-chicken. Enter the desire for a clam sauce.

This recipe was adapted from the May 2011 issue of Bon Appetit. About the most difficult part of it is waiting for the clams to open.

Ingredients:
- Kosher salt
- spaghetti
- 4 tablespoons of extra virgin olive oil, divided
- 1 garlic clove, thinly sliced
- 1/4 teaspoon of crushed red pepper flakes (I used my own dried chilis.)
- 1/4 cup of dry white wine
- 2 pounds of littleneck clams, scrubbed
- 2 tablespoons of flat leaf Italian parsley, roughly chopped

First hint: really scrub those clams under cold running water. I worked in a seafood restaurant for several years and I can tell you this is hugely important. You want to get all the nooks and crannies so you don't end up with grit. Who likes grit? Not me!

Here you can plainly see I went and used way more than two tablespoons of parsley. I like parsley. While you're prepping this, bring about 3 quarts of salted water to a boil in a 5 quart saucepan. If you don't know the measures, put enough water in a big one to cover the pasta. The cooking time will vary, but boil the pasta for about six minutes, which is a few minutes from tender. This is your second hint: really do this. Otherwise you'll overcook the pasta. Then drain and keep a half cup of the liquid in reserve. 

These are my temporary scrubbed clam friends hanging out in a coffee mug. No grit. No brains, neither.

While you're boiling up the pasta, you should get started on the clam sauce. Pre-heat a large skillet on medium, add three tablespoons of the olive oil once it's piping. Add the garlic and stir until it's on the golden side of golden brown. Then add the red pepper flakes and stir for another 15 seconds or so. Add the wine, then the clams, and crank the heat up to high. Cover and cook until the clams opens to release their briny juices. That's probably about six minutes. As the clams open and give up the ghost, use some tongs to pull them out and set aside. 

Here are several other things you can do with tongs. 

Hello clams!

Add 1/4 cup of the reserved pasta liquid to the skillet, bring it to a boil, and add the pasta and continue to cook on high. Toss the pasta to coat thoroughly while it cooks until the pasta is al dente and absorbs some of the flavour of the liquid. 

Put the clams back in along with any juices and the parsley. Combine thoroughly. If it seems a little dry, add some more reserved pasta liquid. Transfer to bowls and drizzle with remaining olive oil. 

I'm quite pleased with this dish. 

Your soundtrack for this entry: Garbage - Big Bright World. 

The Time I Made Breakfast

This one's actually a bit of a mistake on my part, though well-intentioned. On hand were:

- three slices of prosciutto coated in fines herbes

- two slices of rye bread

- rhubarb preserves from France (courtesy of the Thrifty Sifter)

- a fresh jalapeno

Don't give me that look. Jeremy loves hot food and the jalapeno sounded good at the time. In practice, though, it was simply overwhelming for the dish. Next time I'd probably both seed it and maybe puree it into a second layer and less toxic spread for the toast. However, without this was still quite tasty. 

Your soundtrack for this entry: Teenage Fanclub - The Concept.

And yes, I've made breakfast way more than once. 

The Next Try at Pork Chops

After the first try at pork chops, it's taken some reading to get me on to my next try at pork chops. I got a little recipe. Wanna hear about it? Here we go!

Ingredients:
1 - one teaspoon white pepper
2 - one tablespoon hot paprika
3 - two tablespoons salt
4 - two tablespoons fresh ground pepper
5 - one teaspoon fresh sage, chopped
6 - two boneless center cut pork chops
7 - four tablespoons olive oil
8 - half cup all purpose flour

Mix the first five ingredients in a large bowl. Brush the pork chops with two tablespoons of olive oil total. Coat with the spice mixture. Put the flour in a large plate and dredge the chops.

Pre-heat oven to 400 degrees. Also heat the other two tablespoons of olive oil in a large skillet on high. Brown the pork chops two minutes per side. Transfer chops to the oven and cook for ten minutes. Remove from oven and let rest.

Am I going to fry up the chops or my fingers?

Okay, it's just the chops.

I served the chops with some scallion kimchi. In the end the chops were great, though I'm still not ready to make them for other people. I also would use scallion kimchi sparingly. It's very strong.

Your soundtrack for this entry: Ghost Brigade - Clawmaster. 

The Watermelon Eating Contest

So technically this was Labor Day and technically I didn't actually eat any watermelon. Well, it weren't technical, I just didn't participate. Vikings don't get melon pulp in their beards.

Many of my friends did, though, and technically Sal won. The winner of the contest threw up afterward, while Sal came in second place and did not. If I were judging, keeping it down would be an important factor.

Leandra begins failing after three bites.

Darren takes a break while Ethan enjoys free watermelon.

If you're down for watching a bunch of people you don't know much watermelon, here's a video. USA courtesy of George Rallis.

Your soundtrack for this entry: Lamb Chop - The Song That Doesn't End.

The Chargrilled Steak

Toward the end of August I went out to the West Coast to visit my Mother at my Aunt's place for the former's birthday. My Aunt lives south of Portland, Oregon in some righteous farm country. Blueberries, pumpkins, corn...hops. It's beer central there. Walking into a grocery store beer section there is akin to walking into the world's greatest beer distributor.

We took a drive up to White Salmon, Washington on one of my last days in town for a family reunion of sorts. I met numerous cousins of various degrees and removals. Each and every one was impressive. Hoofing it back to Oregon in the evening, we were somewhat vexed as to what to do for dinner. I wanted steak. More importantly I wanted to take my first opportunity to cook steak on a grill and I wanted to do it in my Aunt's beautiful back yard.

Picked up a pair of fantastic chops at the grocery store.

Mom sautéed fresh jalapenos, onions, and mushrooms.

One of the wickedest beers I've ever had I picked up at the grocery store. The Deschutes Hop in the Dark was a taste bud tap dance inducing ambrosia of sensation. Looks like a porter because it's dark, but hoppy like a double IPA. Please bring this to Astoria! I can't get it here.

Here's the final table set. That's the Hop in the Dark in the foreground, the sautée in the mid-ground, and our steaks in the centre of the table. Overall my first steak grilling experience worked out well. I got one steak to a medium rare and one to a medium. Rare is what I prefer, but I had no experience cooking steak over charcoal, so I wasn't too fussed.

Your soundtrack for this entry: Dot Allison - Colour Me.

The Basil Stuffed Chicken Wrapped in Bacon

This one was delicious, but unfortunately the photo series is marked incomplete. Jessica and Mike came over, as did the Thrifty Sifter, and eventually upstairs neighbour Michael, everyone got to talking, and I forgot to take pictures. Hey, I can talk with the best of them!

Still, these did come out extremely well, pan fried in the skillet until the bacon was brown, then baked in the oven at 400 degrees for 20 minutes. I sliced the chicken crosswise for the plates and had trouble not drooling into the food. Served with black quinoa mixed with a dollop of bacon fat and a fantastic romaine salad, this meal was a winner. 

Ingredients:

- 3 boneless, skinless chicken breasts (tender removed and breasts butterflied)

- 20 basil leaves (washed thoroughly, blanched and shocked)

- 12 uncured, hickory smoked slices of bacon

- salt

- fresh ground pepper

I already went over the cooking above. To prepare the breasts first season with the salt and pepper. Next cut off the tender (the strip of meat along the side that attaches to the rib cage). Wrap the tender in basil leaves (5 - 7). 

Some breasts are large enough that you wouldn't need to butterfly them to accomplish the stuffing, but not most of the ones in my local grocery. Once you have the tenders wrapped, place them in the center of the butterflied breast, then wrap the breast in 3 - 4 slices of bacon, taking care to tuck in your loose ends. Spiral patterns help here, but we'll also accept Möbius strips.

You're all set to cook and enjoy!

Your soundtrack for this entry: Van Halen - Jamie's Cryin.

The Bison Ragu Try Two

I want to perfect bison ragu. Perfection is the theme of the next several entries because in the past I've made entries that needed work and not put in that work to show you. The bison ragu shows so much promise that it's the first recipe to go through the refining wringer.

Preparing for this version involved some research into a traditional ragu. Many different meats show up in ragu, but they almost always involve a pork product and beef. Apart from cheese they usually take dairy in the form of milk. Of course wine gets involved in many recipes as well.

Bison ragu is not new, but most recipes I've found take off from a Classic Ragù recipe in Bon Appétit. This takes the Italian version of a mirepoix, a soffritto, as a base, adds the meats and other ingredients, and allows to stew.

Essentially I feel a ragu is a stew over pasta and I'm trying to find my way to a recipe that emphasizes the meat, melds it with the pasta, and gives it a chunky (yet soft) texture. Think of a hearty stroganoff.

Interestingly enough the two bison ragu recipes I found seem to take off directly from Bon Appétit's. It might be a consequence of most ragu being made that way, but still interesting. The most-direct contributor to this recipe was from Foodie Reflections. I found that recipe through Whipped the Blog, whose recipe helped me find my way through what I wanted to do.

 

Here I cooked the soffritto next to the ground bison. 

 

You can see the payoff when mixing the bison and soffritto. It looks inviting, I'm sure you can guess it smells great through the picture, and onions and garlic obviously can help make anything taste great. 

 

Here we've added the fresh tomatoes, some beef stock, and some peppers.

 

The final product found great success with my guests, who brought me the fantastic cabernet sauvignon below.

For the next iteration of the bison ragu I do think I need to add some creaminess and a more reduced texture. For that I think I'll need cheese and time. Hope you stick with me!

Your soundtrack for this entry: Van Halen - Running with the Devil.