udon carbonara

cross cultural carbonara

And so it is fitting that today, for my final blog post for the month, I finally am catching up with all the dishes I had cooked before November began. I don't think I can maintain this one a day pace for December, but it would be nice to get entirely caught up with everything I've cooked in November as well.

This recipe is for an Italian carbonara with Asian flavors. You've got the traditional salty bacon, (traditional for all intents and purposes; I know real Italians use guanchiale), the egg yolk, the garlic and the American addition of cream. Sounds pretty run of the mill, right? Not so fast– the ingredient list also includes bonito flakes, udon noodles, sesame seeds and miso paste, not to mention corn kernels, chives and crab. Needless to say, this is not your Nona's carbonara.

Nathan's mom Tenli got the recipe from SFGate, and we made it while she was visiting Halloween weekend. We were able to find all the necessary ingredients at the Chelsea Whole Foods, save for fresh Udon noodles. It was fun to explore an unfamiliar section of the grocery store, but it really threw into sharp relief just how difficult it is to find Asian food products outside of China Town. Tenli lives out in Oakland, and it probably would have been a safer bet if she brought some of the stuff with her! Luckily, we pulled it all together even without Bay Area imports.


serving up spaghetti– I mean udon

The recipe came together beautifully. I was definitely skeptical about the Japanese getting their hands on my beloved carbonara, but the chef really blended those flavors into something new and delicious. Even with all the add ons, the creamy sauce and the crispy bacon still were the predominate elements. That is not to say that the unusual ingredients did not make their presence known. The dashi seafood broth gave it a very rich umami flavor, which, combined with the miso paste, gave the dish definite Asian undertones. There were just so many more layers of flavors than this simple dish normally contains. It's certainly a little bit more complex than carbonara original flavor, but you can definitely taste the difference.

I particularly appreciated the addition of the corn and crab, which gave the pasta an unexpected sweetness. I also liked the bright green chives, although we actually used the tops of scallions, thinly sliced. The only thing I might change would be to add the egg white in addition to the yolk. It might not make as pretty of a picture, but there's really no reason to let it go to waste.


japanese inspired carbonara

I didn't think that the recipe was particularly well laid out on the SF Gate website, so I'm including a slightly adapted version for you here. If you like carbonara, you should definitely try making this. It was an awesome change of pace and a surprisingly happy marriage of the Eastern and Western flavors. Yum.

Udon Carbonara
(recipe adapted from executive chef Sam Josi, of San Francisco's Umami)

Dashi:
2 pieces kombu (dried kelp), each about 4-inches square
½ cup dried bonito flakes
Wipe the kombu clean; give it a few slits with a knife to open up the tough, rough exterior. Place the kombu and 2 quarts water in a sauce pan over medium-high heat; bring to just shy of a boil - just until small bubbles are fully formed along the bottom. Lower the heat, discard the kombu and add the dried bonito flakes. Keep the pan over the heat until the bonito falls to the bottom of the pan, about three minutes. Skim foam then strain with a fine mesh strainer or cheesecloth. This can be made ahead of time and kept refrigerated several days, otherwise freeze.

Sauce and Pasta:
2 slices thick cut bacon, cut crosswise into ¼ inch pieces
¾ cup yellow corn kernels (we bought ours fresh at the whole foods salad bar, but I'm sure frozen would be fine)
2 peeled garlic cloves, very thinly sliced
⅓ cup king crab or Dungeness crab meat, about 1½ ounces (optional)
⅛ tsp kosher salt
⅛ tsp ground white pepper + more to taste
1¼ cups dashi (see above, or substitute with instant dashi, water or shellfish stock)
1 tbsp miso paste
3 tbsp heavy cream
1 large egg yolk
2 individual 6-ounce packages fresh udon noodles (we substituted dry noodles, which worked but weren't as thick as the fresh ones would have been)
Lemon juice to taste
1½ tbsp chives, ¾-inch lengths
1 tbsp toasted black sesame seeds

Cook the bacon in large skillet over medium heat about 6-8 minutes, stirring occasionally until fat is rendered and bacon is somewhat crispy with some caramelization. Drain all but about 2 tablespoons of the bacon fat; leave the bacon in the pan. Add corn, sliced garlic, salt to taste, 1/8 teaspoon white pepper, and crab if using. Increase heat to medium-high and cook for a minute, stirring often. Meanwhile whisk the 1½ cups dashi and miso together, add to skillet and reduce by half. Add cream and reduce further until it resembles a loose cream sauce. Keep sauce warm, but do not simmer.

Meanwhile, cook noodles in well-salted water. Drain and add to skillet; toss until well coated; warm over medium heat until the sauce thickens and the noodles are heated through. Taste and toss with lemon juice, 1 tablespoon of the chives and more pepper and salt if needed. Take off heat.

Place all the noodles in one large bowl, garnish with remaining chives and sesame seeds. Make a small indentation in the middle of the noodles for the egg yolk. Stir at the table before serving.

If dividing into smaller portions, let noodles cool for two minutes, then stir in egg before serving. Garnish with remaining chives immediately.

cheesy stuffed acorn squash/squash seed pesto with lime

baked acorn squash stuffed with bread and cheese

Finally, something a bit more seasonal! Of course, now that it's nearly December, the time even for winter squash is passing. I hope there is room in your post-Thanksgiving stomachs for more than just gingerbread and Christmas cookies, because you are going to love this.

The recipe is by Dorie Greenspan, but I first ate the sadly belatedGourmet Magazine version at Thanksgiving at Nathan's stepmother's friend's house in both 2008 and 2009. We were all blown away by how good it was, and I was pleased to discover how easy it was to prepare!

Take a nice winter squash, like a pumpkin or an acorn squash, like I used. Cut off the top and scrape out the seeds, which can be reserved for a later use. Now comes the fun part. Fill up that little squash cavity with whatever deliciousness strikes your fancy. I used cheddar and mozzarella and gouda and crispy bacon bits and minced garlic and cubes of whole wheat bread and a generous sprinkling of basil. Once you've got everything nicely mixed in there, pour in a little cream so that everything gets nice and moist and melds together.


cheesy stuffed squash

You stick the top back onto the stuffed squash and then pop it in a 350˚ oven for an hour or two, based on how big your squash is. You just need the squash to get nice and soft and squishy. When its almost done, you can take off the squash lid and let the cheese get crisp and golden bubbly on top. Then you can dig in, scraping the fleshy squash away from the skin, and mixing it up with all that fabulous rich stuffing. It's sinfully good.


basil lime pumpkin seed pesto

And what of all those seeds? Well, obviously you can toast them with salt and sugar and butter and whatever spices strike your fancy– Lord knows I've toasted enough seeds in my CSA days. If you're looking for something a little different, you might try making basil pesto sauce, substituting the usual pine nuts or walnuts with an equal measure of the toasted seeds.


try seeds instead of nuts

I found an actual recipe for this, which also called for lime juice, which gave whole thing a strange but not altogether unpleasant acidity. It also didn't have any cheese, which was probably good given the addition of the lime juice. Of course, I ended up shaving a little parmesan over the pasta anyway, for a more or less successful dish. Ultimately, this was an interesting way to use up the acorn squash seeds, but was not as good as pesto, original flavor. You've got to try baking a cheese stuffed squash, but you can probably skip the seed pesto unless you find it particularly intriguing.

tomato basil tart

I was really excited to share this dish with you guys. Of course, now that I've finally gotten around to it, here it is, late November, with nary a tomato in sight, and no prospect of decent ones until next summer. I cook seasonally, but I'm definitely having a tough time keeping the blog up to speed.

So yeah. Even though it is nearly December, I am going to tell you about one of my favorite dishes: Tomato Basil Tart. My mom has been making this for parties since the mid-nineties, and it is totally, wonderfully, unbelievably delicious. It's creamy and cheesy, with plenty of basil, garlic and sweet juicy tomatoes. Since it's so impressively festive in its little tart pan, mom would never ever make it just for the family. There were years of frustration, as she would whisk the finished tart off to parties, leaving me behind to salivate over the lingering aroma.

This was a minor tragedy for me, but a minor culinary triumph for mom. The dish is actually quite easy to prepare, but the end result is both polished and rustic, making it the perfect dish for company. For years, friends and family members would specifically request that she bring her tomato basil tart round to dinner parties and picnics. Just this past summer, her former volleyball coach's wife called up looking for the recipe years and years later. I told my mom this was quite the compliment, but this tart is just that good.


the greatest tomato dish

This recipe dates from 1994, when a Ms Kathleen M. Bonerb, of Glen New Hampshire, entered it in the Pilsbury Bake Off under the Fresh Tomato Ideas Category. I am not sure what the prize levels were, but I assure you that the tomato basil tart, (or Basil-Tomato Tart as she actually called it) was well worth the $200 prize it picked up. This little tart is so perfectly fantastic that I'm frankly shocked that it did not go home with the Grand Prize, which even in 1994 had to have been more than a couple Benjamins.

Anyway. You should make this. When my mom finally turned a worn photocopy of the recipe over to me, I was surprised to learn that it called for ready made pie crust and mayonnaise. I would have never thought that one of my favorite dishes could have sprung from such humble ingredients, but I wasn't about to mess with success. Ok, so I made my own pie crust. But other than that, there's very little to tinker with in this baby.


a gooey slice of tomato basil tart

I know I usually do not include full recipes on here, but today I am making an exception, because I so want you to try this for yourself. I figured this would be the rare entry that is more than a rehash of something that's already been all over the interwebs, but of course I found it on some allrecipes clone in about 10 seconds of searching. Bummer.

Anyway, I am still proud to present a family favorite, the dish that my mother is so famous for, the tomato basil tart. Here she is in all her glory, and with a couple notes from mom and from me.

Tomato Basil Tart
recipe b Kathleen M. Bonerb, winner in the 1994 Pillsbury Bake Off
Be ready. Your friends will request the recipe for this garden-fresh appetizer or entreé.

½ of a 15 oz. pkg. folded refrigerated unbaked piecrust (1 crust)
1½ cups shredded mozzarella cheese, 6 oz
5 Roma tomatoes, about 12 oz
1 cup loosely packed fresh basil, leaves only
4 cloves garlic
⅓ cup mayonnaise or salad dressing*
¼ cup grated Parmesan cheese
⅛ t. ground white pepper **
Shredded fresh basil, optional

Unfold piecrust according to package directions. Place in a 9-inch quiche dish or glass pie plate. Flute edge; press with the times of a fork, if desired. Pre-bake according to package directions. Remove from oven. Sprinkle with ½ cup of the mozzarella cheese. Cool on a wire rack.

Cut tomatoes into wedges; drain on paper towels. Arrange tomato wedges atop melted cheese in the baked pie shell. In a food processor bowl, combine basil and garlic; cover and process until coarsely chopped. Sprinkle over tomatoes.

In a medium mixing bowl, combine remaining mozzarella cheese, mayonnaise or salad dressing, Parmesan cheese and pepper. Spoon cheese mixture over basil mixture, spreading to evenly cover the top.

Bake in 375˚ oven for 35 to 40 minutes or till top is golden and bubbly. Serve warm. If desired, sprinkle with basil leaves. Makes 8 appetizer or 4 main-dish servings.


Says Sarah: * we only ever use mayo
** I always sub in black pepper to no ill effects
Says Mom: "I have used strips of aluminum foil on pie crust edge after its partially cooked and remove when tart is cooked.

tomato soup with grilled cheese

big bowl o' soup

I can't believe how quickly this year is just flying by! Thanksgiving has come and gone, this is my 27th consecutive day of blog posting, and I've been at this since January! I am surprised at how long I've stuck with this, to be perfectly honest. A hundred and fifty three entries! I think it's about time I make up a logo and dress this baby up a bit. Some actual site design is long overdue.

Today's entry is actually a bit of a throwback. The blog's third entry was for tomato soup with grilled cheese, and so again we have this classic combo. A nice creamy soup with a gooey sandwich is always a winner, but there are about a million ways to put such a meal together. Last time we used a Cook's Illustrated recipe, but this time I pulled up a recipe from the Food Network's Tyler Florence.


cheddar monterey jack grilled cheese

And believe it or not, oven roasted tomatoes with homemade chicken stock, bay leaves, onions, butter, basil and a splash of cream makes for a pretty damn good tomato soup. Who'd've thuk, huh? And a buttered grilled cheese sandwich pressed on a griddle? Divine. There's a reason it's called comfort food, my friends.

The Tyler Florence recipe calls for fresh tomatoes, but our first go around of tomato soup came from Cook's Illustrated or America's Test Kitchen, (I can't remember which), and that only used canned tomatoes, so you don't have to wait until good tomatoes roll around to make a soup like this.


pot o' soup

There's not much else to say, except that I am watching Julie and Julia while writing this post, and I am starting to feel bad for poor Nathan. I'm not nearly as awful as Amy Adams was to her husband, but I know that he's getting a bit impatient with me writing these entries every night. I plan to continue to with writing regular entries come December, (and it can't come soon enough), but without the daily deadlines I hopefully won't be accused to ignoring him any longer.

So, in summary: tomato soup = yum, grilled cheese = it's perfect mate, and blogging every day = good for the three people who actually read this, but bad for the boyfriend. It's all about balance, and come December, I hope to find a better one.

brown butter cauliflower with capers, anchovies and breadcrumbs/hasselback potatoes

breadcrumb topped cauliflower

Today I have two things to talk about: cauliflower and potatoes. The first turned out quite delicious. The second just didn't cook all the way through and was as such, quite a disappointment. Anyway.

Cauliflower. A great way to make it is by browning lots of butter and then cooking lots of cauliflower, anchovies and capers in that nutty toasty liquid. Once it's starting to get soft, sprinkle on a bunch of breadcrumbs and then pop it in the oven til it gets nice and crispy. Salt, crunchy, crispy delicious. The anchovies and capers really gave it a nice bite, and the breadcrumbs gave it a great texture.


cauliflower, potatoes and salad

I served it with a leafy green salad and a basked hasselback potato. I was really excited about making that when I read about it. Unfortunately, even sliced super thin and laced with butter and herbs, it just refused to cook, and I ended up eating slightly raw potato. Nasty. I will just have to try this again, with more patience. I definitely cooked it for over an hour though, so I don't know what went wrong.

Luckily, the cauliflower was especially delicious– Even Nathan thought it was good!


undercooked potato

tomates farcies/sausage with arugula

breadcrumb topped baked tomatoes

Happy Thanksgiving, and greetings from Boston!

I know that I am supposed to be writing about squash and turkeys and things, because it's Thanksgiving, but I'm not going to to do that. Sorry. You're probably sick of those things anyway; perhaps even literally. Instead I am going to bring you back to those warmer days of early fall, with late tomatoes, for this recipe that Nathan's mom, Tenli, gave us for baked tomatoes.


our french tomato dinner plate

Nathan's stepmom, Marie, is French, and her very French mother, Jackie, gave this recipe to Tenli, who passed it along to us. It's very easy and a great way to serve a ripe, juicy tomato. Just promise me you won't try to make this with the mealy pink type you're likely to find in the grocery store this time of year. It's just not worth it.

Once you've got your hands on some good tomatoes, say like next July, this is what you're going to do: cut a beefsteak tomato in half, and cover the cut surface with a mix of breadcrumbs, minced garlic, parsley, salt and pepper, moistening the mixture with a drizzle of olive oil. Bake it at 425˚ for about 12 minutes. I put it in the toaster oven, which worked pretty well, but it got a little crispy on top being so close to the heat. With that, you've got yourself a great little side dish!


sausage and wilted arugula

We ate our tomatoes with some ravioli with butter and cheese, chopped up sausage, and arugula that I briefly sauteed in the sausage fat. It was super delicious. Thanks to Tenli for hooking us up with such a brilliantly easy and yummy meal!

Normally, I don't bother trying to write up a recipe, but since Tenli took the trouble of sending this one to us, I'm going to pass it along to you readers directly. Don't get used to it!

Tomates Farcies
serves 2 as a side dish, 4 as a starter

Preheat oven to 425, and put one of the oven racks at the top of the oven.

Take two large tomatoes in season (beefsteak or a large heirloom variety are both delicious!) Cut in half and place cut side up on a baking sheet covered in foil.
Combine:
3TBS bread crumbs
2 cloves garlic, minced
2 TBS parsley
Salt and fresh ground pepper to taste

Distribute crumb/garlic/parsley mixture evenly between the tomato halves, then drizzle each one with +/- 1 TBS olive oil

Bake in top of oven for around 12-15 minutes.

Very tasty!

roasted potato salad with poblano mayo

poblano potato salad with bacon crumbles

Today I drove 4 and a half hours, largely in stop and go traffic on a stick shift. There were serious leg cramps involved, and I am tired and not exactly in the mood to blog about some potato salad I made over a month ago. But here I am, blogging just for you. And National Blog Post Writing Month, obviously.

There is a common thread in much of my writing here on the blog– "I got x vegetable, so I made x." This will start to trail off in the weeks to come, as I only have two more pick ups before the end of the season, but today's entry is another one in that mold.

I had a) potatoes, b) cilantro, c) poblano peppers and d) garlic. The obvious solution to the problem is Rick Bayless's potato salad. The potatoes and garlic are roasted, and then mixed with an olive oil based roasted poblano pepper mayo that you make in the blender. Then you add chopped scallion and cilantro, and plenty of crumbled bacon.

Of course, this was way way too spicy for me because I am a wimp, even though I used far less poblano than the original recipe called for. Also, the mayonnaise totally broke. So much for the foolproof blender method. Personally, I've never failed with a whisk and a slow drip of oil, but this go around with the blender totally confounded me. There was definitely a big puddle of oil on the bottom of my salad. I love Mexican genius Rick Bayless, but I count that as two big problems with this recipe, or at the very least my rendition of it.

Of course, there were a lot of things that were yummy tasty about this dish. Crispy potatoes and bacon, bright green scallions and plenty of roasted garlic. All good things. But the overly spicy peppers and too much slick and oily dressing really killed this potato salad. Don't get me wrong; I still ate it, but I felt like my own parent, bribing myself to eat just three more bites before I could have a cookie.


Rick Bayless's roasted poblano potato salad

Rick Bayless is still the man, but I definitely need to adjust his recipes to better suit my wimpy palate.

milk baked fennel

finocchio con latte al forno

So I was a little disappointed to only get one bulb of fennel this year from the food co-op. And then it came to actually cooking that fennel and I remembered I don't really know what to do with it, haha.

Luckily, I found a great recipe from that issue of Saveur with all the Roman food. I blogged about the pork chops and pepperonata from the same article earlier this year. With my fennel, I made this traditional Roman dish where the fennel bulb is sliced into wedges and baked in milk.

Not wanting to waste anything, I decided to try and include the fennel stalks as well as the bulb. This led to mixed results. The bulb was meltingly tender and delicious. The stalks were another story. Some of them got really soft and yummy, but some of them were very fibrous and stringy. I definitely think there's a reason people don't usually eat them. Although some of them turned out okay, I think ultimately that the stalks are not really meant to be eaten. They'd probably season a soup or a fish stock just fine, but you don't want to bite into one of those chewy stringy ones. Yuck.


crispy baked fennel

The basic gist is to cook the fennel with plenty of milk on the stovetop until it starts to get soft, and then you finish it off in the oven with a topping of parmesan cheese, which becomes nice and crispy. When I put everything in the oven, it looked like a loose, soupy mess, but the milk really cooked down and became av very thick and delicious sauce. And the fennel itself was just so soft and delicious, and surprisingly flavorful with just the milk, cheese and some seasoning.

If you've got fennel, this is a very easy and satisfying dish to prepare. Well worth trying out!

roasted delicata squash

baked squash with garlic and oil

Have you ever had a delicata squash? Before this fall, I don't think I'd ever seen one, let alone eaten one. When you get strange vegetables in your food co-op share, google is definitely your friend. One quick search gave me the confidence to prepare this unknown veggie.

It turns out that the delicata squash is sweet, and like most other squash, gets nice and soft when you bake it. What makes it a little bit different is that you can actually eat the skin, which doesn't stay tough and chewy, the way pumpkin or acorn squash skin does. That means that once you scrape the seeds out of a delicata squash, you can pretty much eat the whole thing, and it's all delicious.

I've made two delicatas this year. The first time, I just smeared on some butter, sprinkled on some salt and pepper and then roasted it until soft. The second time I got a little more creative, filling the center cavity with olive oil, garlic cloves and basil. This gave it a distinct savory quality that countered its natural sweetness.

If you are a squash fan, the delicata is definitely one worth seeking out!

tortilla espanola

spanish potato and egg omelet

So check this out. Tortilla espanola, prepared in my very own kitchen by a real life Spaniard!

My roommate Laura spent junior year abroad in Spain. After we graduated, we found a place in the Bronx, but I didn't want to move in until I had found a job, so Laura needed to find someone to sublet my room for the summer. Conveniently, Laura's Spanish host family happened to put her in touch with a friend of theirs who was in New York for a few months. Katia was about to start college, and was in the US for the first time, hoping to improve her English. She was working as an au pair, but the family she was with spoke mainly Russian and she was very unhappy with them. In other words, Laura and Katia were a perfect fit.

The two of them hung out all summer, and Laura showed her all around our old neighborhood in the Bronx. Katia revealed that her guidebook told her to stay out of the borough in general. Even though I was living on Long Island at the time, I was able to spend time with the two of them whenever I was in the city that summer, which was pretty much as often as I could afford. We always had a lot of fun. Fordham had a pitiful number of foreign students, and I really only met other Americans when I studied briefly in Italy, so it was very cool to hang out with the genuine European article. Katia went home after September was over, but for that brief summer, she was an important part of our post-collegiate circle of friends.

Last month, Katia was back in New York for the first time in over two years. She came over our apartment for dinner, bringing a massive and delicious block of Manchego cheese, and her boyfriend Sergio, who cooked us this impressive tortilla espanola.

Laura, Sergio and Katia cheerfully chattered away in Spanish. In response, I lamely offered a word or two like "manana" or "necessito," generally butchering the language. (I took 8 years of Spanish, so I know how pathetic that is.) Sergio expertly sliced the cheese, spreading it with strawberry jam. Laura chopped up the potatoes and Sergio fried them until crisp in a skillet full of vegetable oil. He scrambled the eggs and then cooked them with the potatoes like a big omelet. Expertly, Sergio flipped the skillet over and the egg potato mixture out onto a plate, so he could slide the uncooked side back into the pan. It turned out perfectly golden brown and cooked all the way through. Just beautiful.

I was very impressed with this little slice of Spain being served up in Harlem, but Sergio was very critical of his work. He found the tortilla to be bland, since he had neglected to season it. I offered to bring in the salt shaker, but he urged me not to, because he thought it was too late to add salt. If I salted the dish at the table, the salt would merely coat the food, remaining a separate element instead of permeating the eggs and potatoes as they cooked. Regardless of the salt issue, I thought it was pretty good, and watching him cook for us was so cool– like the Spanish version of that Take Home Chef show!

Having Sergio and Katia visit us reminded me just how much I love Spanish food, and how little I know about cooking it. Hopefully I will branch out in that direction soon, because I don't anticipate friendly foreigners coming over to make me dinner again anytime soon!