It's been a while since I've made a good pasta. Considering how unbelievably cold it is here in Portland (Which I say, knowing that the rest of the country is in far, far worse shape than us. I spoke with a client this morning who said Houston is rocking a tepid 28 degrees. My sister in Butte told me not to complain, too; Western Montana is enjoying a brisk NEGATIVE 10 degrees.), I figured a nice steaming pasta would work as a great end-of-the-week tuck in.
While I first imagined making a kind of pesto sauce with the hazelnuts, I decided to head more North in my Mediterranean inspired sauce and land in Spain for Romesco sauce. Although it's usually made with almonds, many recipe variations -- including one from Portland's very beloved Vitaly Paley of, you guessed it, Paley's Place -- swap out almonds with hazelnuts.
So...recipe as follows:
Romesco with Hazelnuts (Thanks Vitaly Paley!)
Ingredients
8 Nyora Chiles
2 large red bell peppers
3/4 cups plus 2 TBSP extra virgin olive oil (See Clara? I didn't go all [ugh] Rachel Ray and evoo it there)
1/2 cup raw hazelnuts
2 TBSP fine breadcrumbs
2 cloves garlic, coarsely chopped
1 medium tomato peeled and deseeded (Or if you're super mature like me, dejizzed)
2 TBSP sherry vinegar
Coarse salt and freshly ground black pepper (But come on, it's me, those go without saying)
Directions
1. Preheat oven to 450.
2. Snap the stems of the Nyora peppers. Shake out and discard seeds. Like any pepper, DON'T GET THE SEEDS IN YOUR EYES PEOPLE! (Also, if you're like me, don't cut yourself while chopping them.) Put the peppers in a heatproof bowl and cover with 2 cups of boiling water. Cover the bowl with a plate and the peppers soften for about 20 minutes. CAREFULLY pour the liquid out and dry the peppers on a paper towel.
3. While the Nyora peppers are soaking, roast red bell peppers, for about 30 minutes on a roasting pan. Make sure to turn them every 10 minutes or so. Place in paper bag, close bag and let cool.
4. Heat 2 TBSP olive oil in small skillet over medium heat. Add hazelnuts and cook, shaking the pan, until browned; about 4 minutes. Drain hazelnuts and let cool. Remove as much of the outside paper coating as possible.
5. Combine Nyoras, roasted bell peppers, hazelnuts, breadcrumbs, garlic, tomatoes, sherry vinegar and 1/2 cup olive oil in food processor. Season with salt and pepper. Pulse until completely purees.
The good thing about the Romesco sauce is that it can be made the day before. While it'll go well with homemade pasta, it'd also serve well as a sauce for a mild white fish, prawns, chicken or eggplant stack.
Story to follow...
Showing posts with label food network. Show all posts
Showing posts with label food network. Show all posts
Thursday, February 3, 2011
Thursday, January 13, 2011
Culinary Concoctions Week Two: Bacon-Butter Braised Chicken with Celeriac and Roasted Root Vegetables
Last night's recipe using Pacific Village chicken from New Seasons and local celeriac, rutabaga, parsnips and beets.
Bacon-Butter Braised Chicken with Garlic and Celeriac
Ingredients
3 lbs. chicken parts (breasts, thighs or drumsticks with skin and bones)
1 head of garlic, minced
1 medium to large celeriac (About 1 1/2 lb)
5 strips bacon, cooked crisp and chopped finely
1/2 stick of unsalted butter, room temperature
2-3 cups of chicken broth
2 TBSP chopped fresh sage
2 TBSP olive oil
Salt and Pepper
Directions
Peel skin of celeriac with a paring knife. Slice into potato-chip size portions. Set aside with minced garlic.
Combine chopped bacon, sage and butter in container. Incorporate well. Set aside.
Rinse chicken. Pat dry. Carefully separate skin from meat. You can probably do this with your fingers but you might have to start it with a paring knife. Do not completely take skin off. Rub meat under skin with bacon-sage butter. (Call me Paula Deen, but you can't overdo this). Salt and pepper outside of chicken lightly.
Heat olive oil in 12 inch skillet on med-high.
When ready (You'll know it's ready when you splash a bit of water on the oil and it sizzles), place chicken skin side down into skillet. Fry up, about 9 minutes.
Remove chicken and place on plate.
Add garlic and celeriac to skillet. Fry for 8 minutes.
Return chicken, skin side up. Add chicken broth, reduce heat to simmer and cover. Dark meat takes about 23 minutes, white meat requires about 28.
You should have a lot of excess broth the chicken is done. Save this for stock! Place in container, let cool to room temperature and skim fat off before refrigerating.
Roasted Root Vegetables
Ingredients
2 carrots
2 parsnips
2 beets
1 rutabaga
1 butternut squash
Salt and pepper
2 TBSP balsamic vinegar
2 TBSP olive oil
Directions
Preheat oven to 425.
Peel and chop all vegetables to similar sizes except butternut squash. Cut slightly larger, as it'll roast faster.
Wash all chopped vegetables.
Place in large baking pan.
Douse in oil, vinegar, salt and pepper. Mix with hands.
Make a tent with aluminum foil over the pan, making sure there are no air gaps.
Roast in oven for 45-60 minutes, depending on preferred tooth. I found that 55 minutes was perfect!
Plating
Pile middle of plate with celeriac (Use slotted spoon to plate)
Scoop roasted vegetables onto one side of celeriac.
Place chicken resting perpendicular onto both vegetables.
If desired, spoon 2 TBSP of garlicky-chicken stock over chicken and onto plate.
Dig in!
Bacon-Butter Braised Chicken with Garlic and Celeriac
Ingredients
3 lbs. chicken parts (breasts, thighs or drumsticks with skin and bones)
1 head of garlic, minced
1 medium to large celeriac (About 1 1/2 lb)
5 strips bacon, cooked crisp and chopped finely
1/2 stick of unsalted butter, room temperature
2-3 cups of chicken broth
2 TBSP chopped fresh sage
2 TBSP olive oil
Salt and Pepper
Directions
Peel skin of celeriac with a paring knife. Slice into potato-chip size portions. Set aside with minced garlic.
Combine chopped bacon, sage and butter in container. Incorporate well. Set aside.
Rinse chicken. Pat dry. Carefully separate skin from meat. You can probably do this with your fingers but you might have to start it with a paring knife. Do not completely take skin off. Rub meat under skin with bacon-sage butter. (Call me Paula Deen, but you can't overdo this). Salt and pepper outside of chicken lightly.
Heat olive oil in 12 inch skillet on med-high.
When ready (You'll know it's ready when you splash a bit of water on the oil and it sizzles), place chicken skin side down into skillet. Fry up, about 9 minutes.
Remove chicken and place on plate.
Add garlic and celeriac to skillet. Fry for 8 minutes.
Return chicken, skin side up. Add chicken broth, reduce heat to simmer and cover. Dark meat takes about 23 minutes, white meat requires about 28.
You should have a lot of excess broth the chicken is done. Save this for stock! Place in container, let cool to room temperature and skim fat off before refrigerating.
Roasted Root Vegetables
Ingredients
2 carrots
2 parsnips
2 beets
1 rutabaga
1 butternut squash
Salt and pepper
2 TBSP balsamic vinegar
2 TBSP olive oil
Directions
Preheat oven to 425.
Peel and chop all vegetables to similar sizes except butternut squash. Cut slightly larger, as it'll roast faster.
Wash all chopped vegetables.
Place in large baking pan.
Douse in oil, vinegar, salt and pepper. Mix with hands.
Make a tent with aluminum foil over the pan, making sure there are no air gaps.
Roast in oven for 45-60 minutes, depending on preferred tooth. I found that 55 minutes was perfect!
Plating
Pile middle of plate with celeriac (Use slotted spoon to plate)
Scoop roasted vegetables onto one side of celeriac.
Place chicken resting perpendicular onto both vegetables.
If desired, spoon 2 TBSP of garlicky-chicken stock over chicken and onto plate.
Dig in!
Wednesday, July 28, 2010
Culinary Adventures of a Saucier
Okay...it's time to humbly brag about my latest culinary adventure: Sauces.
If I were a chef, I'd be a saucier (Pronounced sauce-ee-ay). At least, that's where my cooking prowess shined through on Sunday. Even though hot July temperatures warmed up the apartment to a toasty 90 degrees, I spent the majority of my afternoon in our teeny kitchen, sweating over (but not into) steaming sauce pans making two very different yet pretty dang good sauces.
The first was just my typical tomato sauce for a farfalle (bowtie) noodle "lasagna" I made for Clara's friend. I spent a solid 45 minutes dicing onions, garlic, shallots, basil, parsley and chopping tomatoes, bell peppers an mushrooms. Next, I sauteed my aromatics (plus salt, pepper and chili flakes) until the apartment teems with an olive oily-garlic aroma before dropping in two jars of Trader Joe's plain tomato sauce and once can of diced tomatoes, turned down the heat to medium-low then letting that baby simmer for a solid three hours. When it comes to tomato sauces, the longer, the better.
The second sauce is what I'm most proud of (I sort of have the consistently delicious tomato sauce down. Sure, sometimes I make it a titch too salty or tad too runny but those occasions happen about as often as Valentine's Day...once a year, and I'm typically the only one who really rues it), mainly because I totally made it up all on my very own.
The previous Sunday I had purchased a package of bone-in pork chops from Zupan's ($4.36 for 5 ounces of high-quality, lean protein per person? How could I pass that up?) and wanted to use them for dinner for Walker and myself. We still had a ton of berries from our Saturday trek out to suburbia to the Beaverton Farmer's Market that neeeeeeeeeded to be used. So...what did I do? I made a savory sauce for the pork, of course:
Blackberry Mint Red Wine Reduction
1 1/2 pints blackberries
1/2 bottle of cabernet sauvignon
2 cups vegetable or pork stock
1/3 white onion, finely diced
2 cloves garlic, minced
Aromatics: Mint, rosemary, tarragon, finely diced
2 TBSP rendered bacon grease
Salt, pepper
Heat bacon fat in medium sized sauce pan. Once melted and giving off smoky aroma, add aromatics, garlic, onion, salt and pepper. Sautee until you get the heavenly smell of garlic, onions (which should be translucent) and mint swirling in your nostrils (Mixed with the smokiness of the beacon, these aromas are to freaking die for). Add berries. Sautee and coat the berries with aromatic bacon grease, but don't let the berries caramelize...coast them just enough to them sigh, for about two minutes. After two minutes, add wine and stock. Bring to a boil. Reduce heat, cover and let simmer until the sauce reduces to a near-syrupy consistency. The berries won't totally break down, which is good, because it gives your sauce a bit of a thickness.
I was a bit afraid that the sauce might be too sweet but, surprisingly, the smoky flavor of the beacon grease, the savory stock, the full-bodied wine and the refreshingly savory profiles of the aromatics harmonized nicely together and served as a nice sauce for the pork chops which I left very simple: Sprinkled with salt and pepper, I performed a quick sear on both sides, about two minutes each, before finishing the chops in the oven, topped with some sauce and mint sprigs. Grilling the chops would have added another smoky profile to the palate which, indeed, would have been divine.
At any rate, I'm pretty happy with this sauce because it's one of the first I've ever made without first scouring my cookbook, Epicurious or the Food Network for hours, looking for inspiration. And it turned out to be a success (Well, according to Walker anyway).
The next big culinary test is quickly approaching...cooking a once-tried (though ravely reviewed) menu, not for two, but for 15 people. Dun, dun, duuuuuuuuuun.
To be continued...
If I were a chef, I'd be a saucier (Pronounced sauce-ee-ay). At least, that's where my cooking prowess shined through on Sunday. Even though hot July temperatures warmed up the apartment to a toasty 90 degrees, I spent the majority of my afternoon in our teeny kitchen, sweating over (but not into) steaming sauce pans making two very different yet pretty dang good sauces.
The first was just my typical tomato sauce for a farfalle (bowtie) noodle "lasagna" I made for Clara's friend. I spent a solid 45 minutes dicing onions, garlic, shallots, basil, parsley and chopping tomatoes, bell peppers an mushrooms. Next, I sauteed my aromatics (plus salt, pepper and chili flakes) until the apartment teems with an olive oily-garlic aroma before dropping in two jars of Trader Joe's plain tomato sauce and once can of diced tomatoes, turned down the heat to medium-low then letting that baby simmer for a solid three hours. When it comes to tomato sauces, the longer, the better.
The second sauce is what I'm most proud of (I sort of have the consistently delicious tomato sauce down. Sure, sometimes I make it a titch too salty or tad too runny but those occasions happen about as often as Valentine's Day...once a year, and I'm typically the only one who really rues it), mainly because I totally made it up all on my very own.
The previous Sunday I had purchased a package of bone-in pork chops from Zupan's ($4.36 for 5 ounces of high-quality, lean protein per person? How could I pass that up?) and wanted to use them for dinner for Walker and myself. We still had a ton of berries from our Saturday trek out to suburbia to the Beaverton Farmer's Market that neeeeeeeeeded to be used. So...what did I do? I made a savory sauce for the pork, of course:
Blackberry Mint Red Wine Reduction
1 1/2 pints blackberries
1/2 bottle of cabernet sauvignon
2 cups vegetable or pork stock
1/3 white onion, finely diced
2 cloves garlic, minced
Aromatics: Mint, rosemary, tarragon, finely diced
2 TBSP rendered bacon grease
Salt, pepper
Heat bacon fat in medium sized sauce pan. Once melted and giving off smoky aroma, add aromatics, garlic, onion, salt and pepper. Sautee until you get the heavenly smell of garlic, onions (which should be translucent) and mint swirling in your nostrils (Mixed with the smokiness of the beacon, these aromas are to freaking die for). Add berries. Sautee and coat the berries with aromatic bacon grease, but don't let the berries caramelize...coast them just enough to them sigh, for about two minutes. After two minutes, add wine and stock. Bring to a boil. Reduce heat, cover and let simmer until the sauce reduces to a near-syrupy consistency. The berries won't totally break down, which is good, because it gives your sauce a bit of a thickness.
I was a bit afraid that the sauce might be too sweet but, surprisingly, the smoky flavor of the beacon grease, the savory stock, the full-bodied wine and the refreshingly savory profiles of the aromatics harmonized nicely together and served as a nice sauce for the pork chops which I left very simple: Sprinkled with salt and pepper, I performed a quick sear on both sides, about two minutes each, before finishing the chops in the oven, topped with some sauce and mint sprigs. Grilling the chops would have added another smoky profile to the palate which, indeed, would have been divine.
At any rate, I'm pretty happy with this sauce because it's one of the first I've ever made without first scouring my cookbook, Epicurious or the Food Network for hours, looking for inspiration. And it turned out to be a success (Well, according to Walker anyway).
The next big culinary test is quickly approaching...cooking a once-tried (though ravely reviewed) menu, not for two, but for 15 people. Dun, dun, duuuuuuuuuun.
To be continued...
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