Let’s talk about what else you can do to save money and get the most out of your food deliveries. Most restaurants offer side orders for delivery. This is a really great way to plan a meal for the following day. Let’s say you order a sautéed spinach side. One of my favorite pastas is rigatoni with a spinach cream sauce. It’s extremely nutritious. So as soon as the spinach arrives take the top off and cool it down in the fridge. Be sure to mix it up every 5-10 minutes until it is cool. If the spinach arrives in an aluminum container, as ours does, it’s best to transfer it to something else if you don’t plan on using it in three days. So we are ready to talk about our spinach pasta. The following day pull the spinach from the fridge and chop roughly. In a sauté pan (large enough to sauté your pasta and sauce,) add a lil’ smashed garlic & a lil’ EVOO & color lightly the garlic. Add your spinach & sauté lightly. Add some fresh heavy cream and put on the side. When your pasta is ready drain and leave a little wet. Immediately after draining pasta, add to your saucepan with cream and spinach and sauté over medium heat till sauce comes together and pasta is coated well. At the last moment, before you plate, add a nice handful of parmigiano cheese and a nice ribbon of EVOO and some cracked black pepper. Spinach pasta will suck up quite a bit a cream so don’t be shy. If you wanna lighten this recipe up a bit add some tomato sauce and less cream. The smashed garlic is made by putting a clove under a meat clever and smashing it till it is pulp under the knife. This releases all the oil. I will get into the PROPER use of garlic at a later date. After I teach you garlic your life will never be the same again.
Let’s Talk Leftovers! |  |
| May 20th, 2009 |
Let’s Talk Leftovers! | |
| May 20th, 2009 |
When ordering from delivery establishments I’m sure at times there are leftovers. What to do with them? What about planning ahead when you order? A lot of places offer side orders. A side order of steamed broccoli can easily be turned in to a lunch of spaghetti broccoli, garlic and oil the next day or a side of sautéed spinach garlic and oil with spaghetti. The charm of our delivery is that it can be even cheaper than making it yourself. Why you say? Well you can’t really buy less than a bunch of broccoli. So unless you are cooking for 3-4, you won’t eat it all at once. But you still have to shell out cash and do the work. Order an extra side order from us for dinner and all you need is some spaghetti & you got lunch. Or order an extra chicken Milanese and you have a chicken sandwich ready for lunch; all you need is bread and some lettuce, tomato and mayo.
Let’s Talk Leftovers! | |
| May 20th, 2009 |
Especially now in this time of great need following a period of great waste I think it’s important to keep leftovers. Any leftover pasta you have is best served “al forno” or baked in the oven. You can also do it steamed over a double boiler, or seared in a pan. To bake leftover pasta: the key is to remoisten & give color, add a lil’ water & mix it up with some cheese on top and bake at 450 till hot & brown. Too “fry” leftover pasta: get a wide pan medium hot with a little oil add pasta & sauté till desired texture. Add H2O and cheese while u sauté. Baked method works very well with all tomato based and cream sauce based pastas or any pasta that has significant sauce. Steamed method works well with ANY pasta period. It reconstituted while it heats up but it gives no color and will overcook the pasta a bit. Fry method is old school and close to my heart but the most difficult and messy of all. Nowadays a nonstick helps immensely. But part of the charm of the fry method is the stickiness and uneven coloring that can be achieved, and you won’t overcook the pasta at all. One more method to consider: put pasta in large thick bowl, add a lil’ water and parm cheese, cover with Saran wrap and cook on high in microwave for 4-6min. The microwave method is the simplest of all; works very well with all pastas and doesn’t make any mess. It’s also great for unequipped kitchens. For olive oil based pastas llike spaghetti garlic and oil or vongole (clams.) I like to fry them. Just adding a lil’ water to keep it fluid.
Let’s Talk Insalata Mista! | |
| May 20th, 2009 |
Let’s talk insalata mista, one of my favorite contorni (side dishes). Many in Italia have a salad with or right after their main course. “Insalata Mista” literally translated means “mixed salad.” The key to a great mixed salad is texture and balance. Crunchy, leafy and juicy greens and vegetables need to be soaked in ice cold water before use to “crisp them up” for the salad. A mista should always be served without dressing, only slightly coarse sea salt, lemon or vinegar and a killer quality EVOO on the side.
Let’s Talk Olive Oil! | |
| May 20th, 2009 |
Extra Virgin olive oil is the first cold pressing of the olives. There are two methods to do this, one ancient and one modern. The ancient method is still used today. It is a stone and wood machine that in the old days was pushed by a donkey. The old method “grinds” the olive stones a bit which creates a more spicy and robust oil. It is not an exact science like the modern method. Throughout Italy there are relics of ancient oil mills that you can visit. Many of them are tourist attractions and are hundreds of years old. The modern method is more precise and does not grind the olive stones at all. It creates a more delicate and refined oil. We use both these oils for different things. The more robust oils do very well with meats and cheeses. The more delicate ones lend themselves to vegetables & not so spicy greens. Extra virgin oils of the highest quality have low melting points.
Let’s Talk Tomatoes! | |
| May 20th, 2009 |
In season you should always use fresh tomatoes for everything. Ripe Plum tomatoes make a great passato. Passato di pomodoro is a tomato sauce that has been “passed” through a food mill on the fine whole. A good mill is that funnel shaped metal contraption with a hand crank on top. Also called moulin legume or vegetable mill. It’s great for purées. For real easy blanche tomatoes remove the skin and then “pass” them through the fine hole on the food mill. Add some whole basil and simmer done his is a neutral tomato sauce. I put nothing in it until I know what I am gonna use it for. My other favorite tomato sauce is to use cherry tomatoes. Sear them split in half in medium hot EVOO with garlic and allow them to burst into a sauce. The cherry tomato sauce works amazing with spaghetti and bucatini. In the same cherry tomato sauce you can add capers, rough chopped olives and/or melted anchovies for a quasi “Puttanesca”. Nonna loves puttanesca. When I say “melted anchovies,” I mean you put them in EVOO and slowly crush them with a wooden spoon into the oil while heating slowly. Always use Anchovies packed whole in sea salt. Recca is a good brand. Otherwise the anchovies have already lost their natural texture and are pasty. It’s just commonsense really. Anchovy fillets packed in oil have already lost their texture and flavor so much into the oil. It’s night and day. The reason being there is nothing to protect them. Whole packed in salt have the natural fish skin 2 keep the flesh from bleeding out flavor.
Let’s Talk Ragu! | |
| May 19th, 2009 |
My Ragu is a combination of hot and sweet fennel sausages, my famous polpette (meatballs) strained fresh tomatoes and a lot of LOVE. My Ragu: I make Passato Pomodoro first. It’s blanched plum tomatoes run through the fine hole on food mill then brought to boil and add basil reserve. I then make my meatballs. 30% Ground pork, 70% ground beef mixed with moist bread; 1 to 4 bread to meat. Add parm cheese, sautéed onions and garlic, rough chop parsley, dried oregano, 1 egg for every pound of meat, sea salt & pepper. Mix all ingredients together in a metal bowl over an ice bath then roll meat into bite size balls. On a sheet pan add 1″ of water and bake till brown on the top of a 400 degree oven Take your hot and sweet sausages and lay them on a sheet pan like soldiers in 1″ of water. Bake at 400 till golden brown and reserve. In a thick bottom saucepot sauté some garlic and onions in some olive oil till almost brown. Add tomato passato and bring to boil and then simmer. Then take all meat, liquid and fat from sheet pans with cooked sausages and meatballs and add to tomato passato. Simmer till semi thick. Be sure to stir sauce from the bottom up consistently while simmering. When done, the sauce keeps for a week in the fridge or months in freezer! Serve with Rigatoni, penne or a thicker spaghetti. We serve the meat on a separate platter when doing family style.
