Fiorentine with Allium Four Ways

Fiorentine, also called toscani and florentine, is a pasta not unlike a curved, open-ended, almost blooming penne. Hailing from Leonardo's Vinci, in Tuscany's Firenze, fiorentine is quite similar to torchio, a torch-shaped pasta, but longer. Torchio makes a fine substitute, as does penne rigate in a pinch.

Fiorentine (Toscani) Pasta

This dish includes four members of the Allium genus, part of the lily (Alliaceae) family: Vidalia onion, leek, garlic, and scallion. Each offers a unique taste, and each is cooked in a different manner, yielding contrasting texture. The result is both a depth and breadth of onion flavor that, unless you despise the things, add up to a delicious dish.

Fiorentine with Allium Four Ways

Makes 4 servings.

Ingredients:

4 tablespoons plus 1 tablespoon plus 1 tablespoon olive oil
2 large Vidalia onions, sliced
1 pound fiorentine (toscani)
2 tablespoons plus 1 tablespoon unsalted butter
2 medium leeks, white and light green parts only, sliced thin on a bias
4 cloves garlic, sliced thin
1 red habanero pepper, diced
6 scallions, green parts only, sliced
1/4 cup Italian parsley, chopped
1/2 cup Pecorino Romano, to garnish
sea salt, to taste
freshly-ground black pepper, to taste

Caramelizing the Vidalia Onions

Heat a large frying pan over medium-high heat. Add 4 tablespoons of olive oil. Once hot but not smoking, add the Vidalia onion. Lower heat to medium-low and cook, flipping occasionally, until the onions are soft, lightly caramelized, and a light brown, about 10 minutes. Add sea salt and black pepper, stir to combine, and remove from heat.

While caramelizing the onions, bring a large stockpot of heavily-salted water to a boil. Add the fiorentine pasta and cook until a minute before al dente. Drain, reserving 2 tablespoons of cooking liquid.

While cooking the pasta, heat a large saute pan over medium heat. Add the butter and 1 tablespoon of olive oil. Once hot, add the leeks and saute until tender but not brown, 4-5 minutes. Add the garlic and habanero pepper. Cook until fragrant but not brown, about 90 seconds. Season with sea salt and pepper.

Adding the pasta to the saute pan

Add the caramelized Vidalia onion, drained fiorentine pasta, scallions, remaining tablespoon of butter, and reserved cooking liquid to the pan. Cook, stirring often to thoroughly combine, for 60 seconds.

Remove from heat. Add the Italian parsley and remaining tablespoon of olive oil. Fold in. Taste and adjust sea salt and black pepper.

Plated

Serve into warm pasta bowls.

Garnished and ready to serve

Garnish with Pecorino Romano. Pairs well with a spicy, tobacco-noted, soft Grenache from McLaren Vale, South Australia.

Neua Tun: Thai Spicy Braised Beef Soup

This recipe yields a delicious, spicy, beefy soup. Use a good rib eye steak, serve the soup piping hot, and generously garnish with aromatics.

This recipe calls for beef stock. If you don't have quality, homemade stock, just use water and adjust your seasonings appropriately.

Neua Tun: Thai Spicy Braised Beef Soup

Makes 4 servings.

Ingredients:

1 pound rib eye steak, cut into 1-inch cubes
2 tablespoons grape seed oil
4 cloves garlic, smashed
4 red thai bird's eye chili peppers (prik ki nu), minced
one 1-inch stick cinnamon
one 1/2-inch piece galangal (kha)
2 tablespoons light soy sauce
2 tablespoons fish sauce (nam pla)
2 tablespoons fresh lime juice
2 teaspoons palm sugar (nam taan pep)
10 cups beef stock
1 red pepper, sliced
2 shallots, sliced
2 tablespoons celery leaves, chopped
4 tablespoons cilantro, chopped
4 tablespoons scallions, sliced
sea salt, to taste
freshly-ground black pepper

Let the rib eye sit at least 30 minutes at room temperature. Season the cubes on all sides with sea salt and black pepper.

Heat a dutch oven or large stock pot over medium-high heat. Add the grape seed oil. Once hot, add the rib eye and quickly sear on all sides, about 1 minute total. Add the garlic and thai chili peppers, and cook until the garlic is fragrant, about 60 seconds. Season with sea salt and black pepper.

Add the cinnamon stick, galangal, soy sauce, fish sauce, lime juice, palm sugar, and beef stock. Stir well. Raise heat to high and bring to a boil. Once boiling, lower heat to a gentle simmer and cover. Cook until the beef is tender, about 1 hour.

Remove the garlic cloves, galangal, and cinnamon stick. Add the red pepper. Cook for 1 more minute. Add the shallot. Taste and adjust salt.

Done cooking and plated

To plate, ladle into warm soup bowls.

Garnished and ready to serve

Garnish with cilantro, celery leaves, and scallions. Pairs well with a spicy, low tannin Zinfandel from California's Sonoma County.

Updated Recipes

I am off doing culinary research on an undisclosed Leeward Island in the West Indies, thus there will be no new recipes this week.

Not that they are a substitute, but I updated five existing recipes:

• Gnocchi, Butternut Squash, Mushrooms, Fried Sage
• Spicy Carrot Purée with Toasted Almonds
• Roasted Bone Marrow
• Pesto alla Genovese
• Wagyu Strip Steak Tagliata with Arugula

And do check out last week's perfect steak via sous vide if you haven't already.

Buon Appetito!

Perfect Steak: Sous Vide Strip Steak

I promise this won't become a sous vide blog.

Thomas Keller's Under Pressure: Cooking Sous Vide

Sous vide, French for under vacuum, is a method of cooking that applies precise, low heat to food for relatively-long durations. The heat is transferred to the food through a water bath kept well below the boiling point; in professional applications, the water bath is accurately and precisely maintained at a given temperature via a thermal immersion circulator: essentially a heating element, thermometer, circulating pump, and a logic board to tie it altogether.

The food is not added to the water bath directly; instead, it is vacuum packed (cryovacked) in a food and heat-safe plastic bag. The seal is airtight, even pressurized.

Every other form of cooking centers on how long heat is applied to the food. The heat is hotter than the food needs to cook: meat might need to reach an internal temperature of 135°F, but boiling water is 212°F (at standard atmosphere), your saute pan might be 300°F, your oven 400°F. Thus, to perfectly cook something is to time its subjection of high heat down to the second. Even still, to get the inside to a safe 135°F, the outside is going to be 250°F, with a "bulls-eye" gradation in temperature from the over-cooked surface to the (hopefully) properly-cooked interior.

Harold McGee: "This book introduces American cooks to one of the most important culinary innovations of modern times. A way of heating foods precisely. At last!"

Sous vide turns that calculus on its head. With sous vide, the question isn't how long at this too-hot temperature but simply to what temperature? You can cook pork to a perfectly uniform medium-rare—say, 142.0°F. Vacuum seal the pork, perhaps with some herbs, set your thermal immersion circulator to 142°F, and drop the bag in the water bath. Two hours later, every cubic inch of the pork is exactly 142°F. Of course, it will take some experimentation (or handy premade sous vide charts) to find out how long it takes a given thickness and type of food to reach uniform temperature. But with sous vide, you can overshoot, as it is hard to overcook food. As any first year chemistry student can tell you, once the food and the bath are equal temperatures, cooking stops. (I say it is hard, but not impossible, to overcook with sous vide because not all elements of the food actually reach temperature, and after 48 hours of cooking you'll start to unacceptably break down the food.)

Sous vide is not perfect. As with any anaerobic environment, vacuum sealing poses a risk of botulism. And the temptation to scantly cook meat should not override the need to bring it above the "danger zone." Yet the biggest flaw is texture. That over-application of heat, while a problem, does give food a wonderful char, caramelization, and the Maillard reaction. So we often finish food cooked sous vide on the grill or in a saute pan, not to cook it further but to lend texture and caramelization to the exterior.

Sous Vide Strip Steak with sauteed pea shoots

Sous vide is nothing new, having been invented in a French kitchen in the 1970's, but it hit a sort of apex over the last year or two, culminating in the publication late last year of Chef Keller's Under Pressure. Today, you'd be hard pressed to find a serious restaurant that doesn't employ sous vide in some form for many, if not most, of its dishes. That's right: This weird bag thing is how they cook in professional kitchens. The ease and flexibility of cooking, the leeway in cooking times, the ability to consistently cook meat and vegetables perfectly, and the new found creative outlet, have all cemented sous vide into the arsenal of the professional chef. As with the immersion blender, its popularity is now gaining in home kitchens.

While you can do sous vide at home with a stockpot, stove, candy thermometer, and ziplock bags, professionals kitchens use an accurate thermal immersion circulator and a chamber-based vacuum sealer. Almost universally, chefs choose the PolyScience Thermal Circulator. For chamber vacuum sealers, Koch, Multivac, and PolyScience all produce popular models. For home use, a FoodSaver vacuum sealer works quite well, although it is hard to vacuum seal liquids without a chamber-based model.

For me, sous vide is exciting because it opens up a new method of cooking: One that brings an engineer's level of precision to the table. I've braised every tough cut of meat I could find; now I have a new skill to perfect. Sous vide, for example, let's you cook short ribs to barely medium rare. Or cook delicate fish without fuss. Or get creative, as in Under Pressure's "Vegetarian Steak Tartare:" Compressed Watermelon and Hayden Mango Yolk.

As with any tool or technique, sous vide has its place. Not to be overused, but not to be outright rejected, either. One excellent application is the precise cooking of thick cuts of steak to a perfect, uniform medium-rare, without the addition of any fat or the loss of any juice. This recipe is for just that: the perfect steak.

Makes 1 steak.

Ingredients:

1 top-loin strip steak, about 1.5" thick, preferably dry-aged, trimmed of gratuitous fat
1 tablespoon grape seed oil
1 teaspoon fresh thyme
kosher salt, to taste
freshly-ground black pepper, to taste

Two top-loin strip steaks

Let the steak sit at room temperature for at least 30 minutes. Liberally season with salt and pepper.

Vacuum packed on medium

Vacuum pack the steak on medium.

Set to 130.9°F (not 134.1°F)

Set your thermal immersion circulator to 130.9°F.

Cooking in a pot with the thermal immersion circulator

Once to temperature, add the steak and cook for 90 minutes.

Out of the thermal immersion circulator

Remove the vacuum bag from the immersion circulator and remove the steak from the bag. Reseason both sides of the steak with salt and pepper.

Flipped, topped with thyme, and searing on the other side

Heat a skillet over medium-high heat. Add the grape seed oil. Once very hot, add the steak. Raise heat to high. Sear 60 seconds per side, until nicely browned. When you flip the steak over, garnish the just-seared side with fresh thyme.

Plated with sauteed pea shoots and ready to serve

Serve immediately, with greens of your choice. Pairs well with a big, bold, dusty Cabernet Sauvignon from the Rutherford district in California's Napa Valley.

La Stracciatella alla Romana: Italian Egg Drop Soup

Stracciatella, from stracciato, Italian for torn apart, is an Italian egg drop soup at once both similar to the Chinese soup (and its Americanized counterpart) and decidedly Italian. Like the more common egg drop soup, stracciatella is a thin broth into which beaten eggs are whisked. Differentiating from the Chinese version, stracciatella offers plenty of familiar Italian tastes with Parmigiano-Reggiano, Italian parsley, semolina, and nutmeg. The result is a delicious, warming, comforting soup that takes only minutes from prep to plating. This dish won't win awards for aesthetics—it is what the Italians call brutto ma buono, ugly but good—but while it looks odd, it tastes great.

La Stracciatella alla Romana: Italian Egg Drop Soup

This recipe is nearly identical to tens of other stracciatella recipes prepared by grandmothers across the Apennine Peninsula (although often written alla Romana, this dish is popular throughout Italy). My tweaks are slight: An extra tablespoon of Parmigiano-Reggiano, plus more as a garnish, and pancetta. Although it adds a welcome textural contrast, you may omit the pancetta, but I suspect Italian cooks are always generous with the king of cheeses, and you should be too.

Makes 4 large servings.

Ingredients:

1 cup cold plus 5 cups chicken stock
1 teaspoon grape seed oil
1/4 pound pancetta, batoned into lardons
3 eggs
1/3 cup freshly and finely-grated Parmigiano-Reggiano, preferably stravecchio, plus more to garnish
3 tablespoons semolina
1 tablespoon Italian parsley, finely chopped
1/8 teaspoon freshly-grated nutmeg
1/8 teaspoon sea salt, plus more to taste
1 teaspoon freshly-ground black pepper, plus more to taste

If not already, place 1 cup of your chicken stock in the refrigerator until cold.

Meanwhile, in a medium saute pan over medium-high heat, add the grape seed oil. Once hot, add the pancetta and cook until brown and rendered, about 6 minutes. Using a slotted spoon, reserve the pancetta to a paper towel-lined plate.

In a large saucepan over high heat, bring the remaining 5 cups of chicken stock to a heavy boil.

In a mixing bowl, combine the cold chicken stock, eggs, Parmigiano-Reggiano, semolina, Italian parsley, nutmeg, sea salt, and black pepper. Whisk together very well.

Once the stock is at a heavy boil, slowly whisk in the egg mixture. Lower heat to low and continue whisking about 2 minutes, until the eggs cook and form stracciatelle, little threads.

Add the reserved pancetta. Cook 1 more minute, until heated through. Taste and adjust sea salt and black pepper.

Plated, garnished, and ready to serve

To plate, ladle into warm soup bowls. Garnish with a little mound of Parmigiano-Reggiano in the middle of the bowl. Pairs okay—I would love to hear suggestions on better matches—with a dry sparkling wine from Champagne, in northeast France.

Torching your Sashimi

Quick tip: For the win, when preparing sashimi, or any other raw fish dish, briefly sear one side of the fish with a kitchen torch.

Torching Tuna (Maguro)

The intention is not to cook the fish, but to add the smallest amount of caramelization and differentiated texture.

Spicy Tuna Sashimi: Maguro, Avocado, Spicy Aioli

To torch raw fish, set your flame to small, hold your kitchen torch close to the fish, and run the flame across one side of the fish for a few seconds, just until the color begins to change.

Purée of Celeriac Soup, Glazed Granny Smith Apples, Black Lava Salt

This recipe yields a delicious, creamy soup, not unlike potato leek, but with delicious celery notes. The Calvados glazed apples and black lava salt are great pairs and yield a visually striking dish. This soup is a great first course, particularly in the fall and winter.

Purée of Celeriac Soup, Glazed Granny Smith Apples, Black Lava Salt

Celeriac, also called celery root, is the large, hard root of a specific cultivar of the celery plant, Apium graveolens. Celeriac has a texture not unlike other root vegetables, but with significantly less starch, and a pure, yet subtle, celery taste. The root, which can be mashed like potatoes, puréed into soup, or eaten raw, is an infrequent ingredient, perhaps because of its hideous appearance. Sometimes referred to as a vegetable octopus, the root has a tough, wrinkled surface, is often quite dirty, and sports odd, unattractive rootlets shooting forth from its top.

Celeriac

To prepare celeriac, use a heavy knife to completely slice off the tough surface, leaving only the whitish interior, but do not slice too deep as the flesh nearest the skin is tender and delicious.

To buy celeriac, choose large roots that feel solid, are heavy for their size, have no tender or damp spots on their surface, and are aromatic, with the subtle scent of celery. I have read elsewhere that smaller celeriac taste better, but I cannot confirm this—as the best flesh is under the skin, and peeling the root is a pain, I would buy one or two large roots over many small.

also known as Celery Root

Hawaiian black lava salt is a finishing salt made of sea salt and activated charcoal, which supposedly comes from lava. The activated charcoal adds an interesting mineral and sulfur component, but its raison d'être is to add dramatic and contrasting colors to dishes. When using black lava salt, you will want to add it à la minute.

Makes 4 servings.

Ingredients:

3 tablespoons unsalted butter
2 large leeks, white and light green parts only, sliced
1 medium Spanish yellow onion, chopped
1 large (about 3 lb) celeriac (celery root), peeled and cut into 1" cubes
2 cloves garlic, sliced
3 cups chicken stock
1 cup heavy cream
1 batch Calvados Glazed Granny Smith Apples (recipe)
2 teaspoons Hawaiian black lava salt
gray salt, to taste
freshly-ground white pepper, to taste

Heat a dutch oven or heavy stock pot over medium heat. Add the butter. Once bubbling, add the leeks, onion, and celeriac. Season with gray salt and white pepper. Sweat, stirring occasionally, until the vegetables are tender but not brown, about 8 minutes. Add the garlic and cook until fragrant, about 60 seconds.

Simmering the celeriac until tender

Add the chicken stock. Raise heat to high and bring to a boil. Once boiling, lower heat to a simmer. Cook until the celeriac is tender, about 20 minutes.

Remove from heat. Using an immersion blender, purée the soup until smooth.

Add the heavy cream and mix well. Taste and adjust gray salt and white pepper. Return to heat and simmer for 3 minutes, until incorporated and cooked through.

Plated, garnished, and ready to serve

To plate, ladle into warm shallow soup bowls. Place some glazed apples in the center of the plate. Drizzle some of the apple glazing liquid around the apples. Sprinkle black lava salt around the soup's perimeter. Pairs well with a dry Chenin Blanc from Vouvray in the Loire Valley.

Calvados Glazed Granny Smith Apples

Glazed apples are a great treat. This recipe prepares a batch that are not overly sweet, highlighting the apple and Calvados, an apple brandy from Basse-Normandie.

This dish also serves as a great garnish on soups and other savory dishes. As a variation, if using in something savory, a little curry powder would be a lovely addition.

Calvados Glazed Granny Smith Apples

Makes 4 servings.

Ingredients:

3 Granny Smith apples, or other firm cooking apple
3 tablespoons unsalted butter
2 tablespoons light brown sugar
1 teaspoon cinnamon
3 tablespoons Calvados (apple brandy)

Peel and core the apples. Cut each apple in half vertically. Cut each half into 1"-thick wedges. Cut each wedge in half. You should now have 1" thick half wedges.

Heat a saute pan over medium-high heat. Add the butter. Once bubbling, add the light brown sugar. When the sugar is dissolved and beginning to caramelize, add the apple and the cinnamon. Cook, stirring and flipping the apple often, until the sugar is fully melted and the apple is tender but not mushy, 6-7 minutes.

Remove from heat. Add the Calvados. Return to heat and deftly tip the pan into the flame or light with a stick lighter. Flambé, swirling the pan, until the flame subsides.

Serve warm, as either a savory garnish or sweet dessert. Pairs well with more Calvados, preferably an XO grade from the Pays d'Auge AOC.

Lumache, Green Peas, Pancetta, Bufala Ricotta

Lumache, Italian for snails, is a shaped dried pasta resembling snail shells. Called chiocciole in some parts of Italy, it makes an excellent pair with thicker sauces that fill its shell. With this dish, lumache works great because the cavity scoops up the peas. Lumache is not the most common pasta, but you can find it at bigger markets or specialty shops. If unavailable, the more available conchiglie, seashell-shaped pasta, is nearly as good a fit.

Lumaste (chiocciole) pasta

Ricotta di bufala is a ricotta—the recooked leftover whey from producing mozzarella and other cheeses—made not from cow, as is common in North America, but from water buffalo. Compared to bovine ricotta, bufala ricotta is nuttier and grassier in taste, with a drier texture. Where one is smooth, with only the subtle notes of fresh milk, the other is complex, slightly grassy, and delicious. The best ricotta di bufala I have had is made not in Italy, but in Vermont, at Bufala di Vermont.

Lumache with Peas, Pancetta, and Bufala Ricotta

The goal of this dish is to create a single, harmonious condimento from the peas, pancetta and pancetta renderings, and the ricotta. Simple and delicious, this is one of my favorite pasta dishes.

Makes four servings.

Ingredients:

1 pound lumache
1 teaspoon grape seed oil
1/4 pound pancetta, batoned into lardons
1 cup frozen green peas, thawed and drained
1 tablespoon unsalted butter, diced
1/4 cup freshly and finely-grated Parmigiano-Reggiano, preferably stravecchio
3/4 pound ricotta di bufala, crumbled
2 tablespoons chive, chopped
sea salt, to taste
freshly-ground black pepper, to taste

Pancetta Arrotolata

Bring a large pot of heavily-salted water to boil. Add the lumache to the pot and cook until a minute before al dente. Drain, reserving 1/2 cup of the cooking liquid.

While the pasta is cooking, heat a large saute pan over medium-high heat. Add the grape seed oil. Once hot, add the pancetta and cook until it is lightly brown and rendered, about five minutes.

Adding the peas, pasta, cooking liquid, butter, and black pepper

Lower heat to low. Remove all but 3 tablespoons of fat from the pan. Add the peas, pasta, 1/4 cup of cooking liquid, and diced butter to the pan. Season with black pepper to taste. Cook, stirring, for 60 seconds.

Remove from heat. Add the Parmigiano-Reggiano and toss to coat. Gently fold in the ricotta di bufala. Taste and adjust seasoning.

Plated, Garnished, and Ready to Serve

Serve in warm bowls, garnished with chopped chive. Pairs well with a Barolo red wine (Nebbiolo grape) from in and around the village of Barolo, Cuneo province, Piedmont region, in northeastern Italy.

How to Warm Bowls

Many of my recipes suggest serving the dish in a warm bowl or on a warm plate. This easy step adds a note of professionalism and really refines the meal—particularly with pasta condimenti that do not get über hot, such as olive oil.

To start, your bowl must be ovenproof. Preheat your oven to 200°F. At least ten minutes prior to plating the dish, place your bowls or plates in the oven. Lower the temperature to the oven's minimum. The moment before plating, remove the bowls or plates from the oven and place on un-warmed plates. Serve as usual.

Happy New Years

Hello, 2009!

For the new year, Food & Love rolls out a new look, less minimalist in style and more green in color. Surprising in number even to me, 2008 bore witness to 112 posts, including 90 recipes. I hope you all enjoyed seeing the dishes, if not preparing a few, as much as I did creating, cooking, and consuming them. As always, I welcome comments—each post has both a five star rating widget and a comments form.

To mark the end of one year, and get me thinking about new dishes for the next, here are my ten favorite recipes from 2008, in no particular order:

• Crispy Duck Confit
• Mushroom Ragù
• Carnitas
• Tom Kha Gai
• Chinese Chicken Noodle Soup
• Ragù alla Bolognese
• Braised Short Ribs
• Lobster and Sweet Corn Chowder with Truffled Potato Chips
• Thai-style Nantucket Bay Scallop Ceviche
• Wild Mushroom Risotto

Food should taste good, derive from fresh, local ingredients that themselves resemble food, and be a labor of love, bringing together friends in the kitchen and around the table. In less time than it takes to drive to Applebee's, you can put together a wonderful meal, and have fun doing so. I hope this blog conveys that message. All my best for 2009.