Almond Biscotti

Yes yes, this is yet another almond cookie. But this time, we're travelling from, erm, Chinatown to Italy for biscotti. This twice-baked cookie is crunchy and perfect for dipping into coffee or wine. The recipe I used incorporates butter so it deviates slightly from traditional recipes which don't use any fat. The added butter gives it the perfect not-too-hard texture so you can enjoy it sans dunking.

Contrary to my earlier advice, I find it is actually easier to get nice slices without crumbling if you use a serrated knife and a sawing motion. Also, chopping up the nuts a bit before adding them allows the dough to hold together better, again minimizing crumbling. It's a good idea to toast the nuts before adding them for maximum crunch, but they will toast up a bit more during the final (second) baking.  

Recipe after the jump!

Bucatini all'Amatriciana

I've always found it kind of cool how distinct the myriad of pasta shapes are, despite being made of the same ingredients. A pasta dish can be completely transformed just by changing the shape of noodle used. I can't think of another food that is like this! 

The pairing of pastas and their sauces are usually based on how the shape interacts with the sauce. For instance, short, tubular pastas like penne and rigatoni work well with hearty, chunky sauces, whereas thin noodles like spaghetti and capellini  are often served with thinner, smooth sauces. That being said, when I was little, I couldn't care less about the art of pasta-sauce pairing. All that mattered was that the pasta shape was fun to eat. The right shape made dinner infinitely tastier. Shells and scoobi-doos were my shapes of choice. And I can't forget Zoodles--the safari in a bowl! 

Some of the more unusual shapes I have come across include radiatori (which look like little radiators) and the rather creatively-named Lingua di Suocera ("Mother in Law's Tongue"!). Today I used bucatini, which is a fat noodle with a hole in the center. It used to be a "specialty pasta" but it's becoming easier to find in regular grocery stores. It's Roman in origin and is quite a hearty, chewy pasta. I prepared it with a sauce made from tomatoes and pancetta to make a dish called bucatini all'amatriciana. It's topped with a little basil for extra flavour and served with mozarella stuffed meatballs. 

Recipe after the jump!

I Spy a Pizza Pie

Okay, so after an inexcusably long break from this blogging business, I'm back! A couple of updates from the past few months:

-I graduated (yay!) and moved away from New York City (boo.)
-I had to fortune of dining at Per Se. A culinary dream come true. 

Behind the scenes. There's a live feed to the French Laundry on that TV screen.

-This post was Certified Yummly
-There's a new resident in my kitchen. It's pretty and shiny. Look! 

This has been on my wishlist for quite a long time but my trusty hand mixer has proven itself to be the little mixer that could so I never really needed a stand mixer. I still use it often since sometimes bigger is not necessarily better (like stove top mixing for hollandaise sauce? More on that in a later post...) However, its bigger, more powerful sibling makes baking as easy... as pizza pie. 

If you're a pizza aficionado, there are a few extra steps you can take to make a stellar pizza. The dough can be made with a special flour and the pizza can be baked on a pizza stone in a blistering hot oven. I don't make pizza often though, so bread flour and a plain ol' pizza pan on the bottom rack of my oven will do. I made half barbeque chicken (barbeque sauce+grilled chicken+caramelized onions+mozzarella) and half margherita (tomato sauce+fresh basil+mozzarella). 

Tips and recipe after the jump...

Lemon Panna Cotta with Blueberry Sauce

I bring odd souvenirs home with me when I travel. A tube of curry ketchup and a box of coconut "sheets" studded with raisins (to be eaten on toast) from Amsterdam. A little bottle of pandan extract from Singapore. Pearl sugar from Belgium. And, amongst other things, sheet gelatine from Barcelona. This last one is a bit strange, because sheet gelatine isn't even unique to Barcelonan cuisine. It's a little hard to find in North America and I'd never worked with it before, so I thought why not?

I finally used this gelatin to make a simple but sophisticated Italian dessert: panna cotta (or "cooked cream"). It's important to add just enough gelatin to make it set, but not so much that it's bouncy and flubber-like. Heavy cream is used to lend a silky, luxurious texture to the finished dessert. There are dozens of ways to flavour panna cotta, from simple vanilla to earl grey to rosewater. Since I had plenty of great blueberries to make a sauce with, I thought of the classic pairing with lemon. 

Tips and recipe after the jump...

Tiramisu Redux

Tiramisu is one of my go-to desserts. It is definitely a crowd pleaser with its luscious layers of chocolate, espresso, and mascarpone cheese. In fact, it was the very first food post on this blog.

This time, I made it as a charlotte. The cake mold was lined with ladyfinger biscuits and then filled with the custard. This recipe made a filling that was firm enough to be free-standing when unmolded. This version of tiramisu makes a delicious and unexpected birthday cake.

It's Aliiiive! (the blog.) and Mushroom Risotto (the food.)

Greetings, food fans! I'm back and I apologize for being rather remiss in terms of updating this... The lack of any October entries in the archive is rather sad, but I'm going to start off November correctly! I think it appropriate that the start of the month signals the beginning of the season for comfort food. The best comfort food should be both comforting to make as well as to eat. I find risotto, a traditional Italian rice, plays both roles quite well.

Making risotto is a bit of a process. It takes about 20 minutes of continuous stirring to release the starch that creates that crucial creamy consistency. The cooking liquid (broth or stock) is gradually added as the rice cooks; simply dumping it in will not result in the right texture. (I unfortunately speak from experience...) Risotto is not something to stress over (it is comfort food, after all) but it requires some patience. The slow stirring of a bubbling pot is really all that is required, and the effort is well rewarded in the end.

Risotto cannot be rushed, but once it is made it needs to be consumed while it retains the perfect slumped-on-the-plate, neither-gluey-nor-soupy texture. (I remember hearing that many Italians refuse to eat leftover risotto as-is, which led to the invention of those delicious fried risotto balls, arancini.) When done right, fresh risotto can be a big bowl of bliss.

Today, I made the classic mushroom variation. Dried porcini mushrooms give the risotto a warm earthiness and "mushroominess", while the fresh wild mushrooms are dressed with a zesty lemon vinaigrette. The contrast of the two preparations is genius, to which I must credit Jamie Oliver. Here, I used portobello and crimini mushrooms, but if you have access to other varieties of mushrooms then I can think of very few better ways to use them.
(On a side note, Whole Foods would be a good place to look; I recall seeing golden chanterelles, speckled lobster and black trumpet mushrooms the last time I checked. It was rather exciting.)

On an unrelated note, a new website has wandered onto my radar: cookstr.com. It boasts an extensive collection of recipes from famous chefs and cookbook authors. The recipes span all skill levels and cuisines, and many are accompanied by the all-important hunger-inducing photos.

Grilled Mushroom Risotto

Ingredients

• 6 1/3 cups chicken stock
• Handful dried porcini mushrooms
• Olive oil
• 1 small onion, peeled and finely chopped
• 2 sticks celery, trimmed and finely chopped
• 14 ounces risotto rice
• 2/3 cup vermouth or white wine
• Sea salt and freshly ground black pepper
• 4 large handfuls wild mushrooms (try chanterelles, shiitake, black trumpet or oyster - definitely no button mushrooms, please!), cleaned and sliced
• Few sprigs fresh chervil, tarragon or parsley, leaves picked and chopped
• 1 lemon, juiced
• 2 tablespoons butter
• 2 handfuls freshly grated Parmesan, plus extra for serving
• Extra-virgin olive oil

Directions

Heat stock in a saucepan and keep it on a low simmer.

Place the porcini mushrooms in a bowl and pour in just enough hot stock to cover. Leave for a couple of minutes until they've softened. Fish them out of the stock and chop them, reserving the soaking liquid.

In a large pan, heat a glug of olive oil and add the onion and celery. Slowly fry without coloring for at least 10 minutes, then turn the heat up and add the rice. Give it a stir. Stir in the vermouth or wine - it'll smell fantastic! Keep stirring until the liquid has cooked into the rice. Now pour the porcini soaking liquid through a sieve into the pan and add the chopped porcini, a good pinch of salt and your first ladle of hot stock. Turn the heat down to a simmer and keep adding ladlefuls of stock, stirring and massaging the starch out of the rice, allowing each ladleful to be absorbed before adding the next. Carry on adding stock until the rice is soft but with a slight bite. This will take about 30 minutes.

Meanwhile, get a dry griddle pan hot and grill the wild mushrooms until soft. If your pan isn't big enough, do this in batches. Put them into a bowl and add the chopped herbs, a pinch of salt and the lemon juice. Using your hands toss everything together - this is going to be incredible!

Take the risotto off the heat and check the seasoning carefully. Stir in the butter and the Parmesan. You want it to be creamy and oozy in texture, so add a bit more stock if you think it needs it. Put a lid on and leave the risotto to relax for about 3 minutes.

Taste your risotto and add a little more seasoning or Parmesan if you like. Serve a good dollop of risotto topped with some grilled dressed mushrooms, a sprinkling of freshly grated Parmesan and a drizzle of extra-virgin olive oil.

Serves 4-6

Recipe courtesy of jamieoliver.com
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Lasagna and 9 Other Bolognese Reincarnations

Leftovers are great. They mean quick dinners and food often tastes better because flavours can mingle and mellow. But because the food police say that leftovers should optimally be consumed within four days (and it usually takes me longer than four days to want to eat the same thing again), sometimes a little leftover magic is called for.

The bolognese recipe from Monday made a pretty generous vat of sauce. After freezing some of it, I still have one dinner's worth of sauce left. And while serving it over piles of pasta again is fine, I decided to make a lasagna instead.

I used half whole wheat and half white pasta sheets. Although I want to make a nutritious dinner, I must admit that I'm not a fan of the brittle graininess of whole wheat pasta. So, a compromise had to be made.

Rather than buying a hunk of mozzarella cheese and having even more leftovers sitting in the fridge, I layered bechamel sauce (same recipe as in the moussaka!) with the meat sauce. I sprinkled the top with some parmesan (freshly grated, please) and it browned very nicely. I liked the milky creaminess of the bechamel against the meatiness of the bolognese, but if you prefer the stringy gooeyness of an extra cheesy lasagna, then by all means, go for it.

And if you don't want to have anything pasta-ish and you aren't a bolognese purist, then I present...

9 More Dishes to Make with Leftover Bolognese Sauce:

1. Pizza: Delish with store-bought or homemade crust
2. Calzones: Stuff a half-moon of pizza dough with it
3. Stuff bell peppers of zucchini with pasta sauce and rice
4. Serve over soft polenta (one of my favourites)
5. Serve over rice
6. "Shepherd's Pie": Top with mashed potatoes and cheese
7. Chili con carne
8. Hot sandwich: Spread over crust French bread, top with cheese and broil
9. "Enchiladas": Roll up in a tortilla, top with cheese and bake

and of course...

Lasagna Bolognese:
Serves 8

Leftover bolognese sauce (about 5 cups)
1 lb dry lasagna noodles
1/4 cup parmesan cheese, grated
Bechamel Sauce (recipe below)

Preheat oven to 350F.

Cook lasagna noodles until very al dente (should still be a little crunchy in the middle). Butter a 9 x 13 inch baking dish.

Spread 1/2 cup sauce on the bottom of the dish. Lay out 1 layer of noodles. Spread about 1 1/2 cups sauce over and pour over 1/3 of the bechamel. Repeat with two more layers of noodles and end with a layer of bechamel. Cover the top with parmesan cheese.

Bake, uncovered, for 40 minutes or until bubbly and golden brown.

Bechamel Sauce:
5 tablespoons unsalted butter
6 tablespoons all purpose flour
3 cups whole milk
1 1/2 teaspoons kosher salt
Pinch ground nutmeg
2 large eggs

Melt the butter in a medium saucepan over medium heat. Whisk in the flour until smooth. Cook, stirring, for 1 minute. Remove the pan from the heat and add the milk, salt, and nutmeg. Return to the heat and while whisking constantly, bring to a boil. Simmer 2 minutes. Transfer the sauce to a bowl and stir to cool. When the sauce is cool, whisk in the eggs.

Recipe adapted from Food Network Kitchens
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Ragu Bolognese with Pappardelle: Not Your Typical Chef Boyardee

Spaghetti and meat sauce is one of those classic dishes that everyone loves; it's simple and satisfying. I wanted to change things up a bit, so I used pappardelle instead of spaghetti. These flat, wide pasta ribbons complement the meaty richness of the sauce very well. I find it so mysterious how virtually all pasta is made of the same ingredients, yet different shapes somehow manage to taste different. If you can't find pappardelle, you can always slice some fresh lasagne sheets into wide strips instead.

The recipe below does look a bit intimidating; there are tons of ingredients and long cooking times. But there's a difference between a time consuming recipe and a difficult one. All you do is chop ingredients and open cans, then you can pretty much forget about it and the stove does the rest of the work. On top of this, you get to appear very domestic as there's something quite homey and impresive about a big pot bubbling on the stove for a few hours.

With all the work that the recipe calls for, I will admit that I was expecting something that tastes knock-your-sock-off incredible. Don't expect that from this recipe. It pretty much tastes like meat sauce is supposed to taste. This isn't to say that it isn't delicious, but bolognese sauce is about subtle but complex and harmonious flavours. This is why it needs to bubble on the stove for so long. The fragrance of the herbs, vegetables and wine combine with the meatiness of the pancetta, the sharpness of the tomatoes, and the butteriness of the cream. The recipe makes a very nicely balanced sauce which tastes about a thousand times better than anything out of a can. And with some of the leftovers parked in the freezer, future pasta dinners are almost just as easy.

Fun Fact: Unlike Aunt Jemima and Betty Crocker, Chef Boyardee is a real person (Mr. Ettore Boiardi)...

Spaghetti Bolognese

Serves 6-8

Ingredients

• 1 tablespoon olive oil
• 4 ounces bacon or pancetta, diced
• 1 1/2 cups chopped yellow onions
• 3/4 cup diced carrots
• 3/4 cup diced celery
• 1 tablespoon minced garlic
• 1 teaspoon salt (add at the end...bacon is already quite salty)
  
• 1/2 teaspoon ground black pepper
• 2 bay leaves
• 1/2 teaspoon dried thyme
• 1/4 teaspoon dried oregano
• 1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon
• 1/2 teaspoon ground nutmeg
• 1 pound ground beef or ground veal
• 1/2 pound pork sausage, removed from the casings, or ground pork (I used ground turkey instead)
  
• 2 tablespoons tomato paste
• 1 cup red wine
• 2 (14 1/2-ounce) cans crushed tomatoes and their juice
• 1 (14 1/2-ounce) can tomato sauce
• 1 cup beef or chicken stock or broth
• 2 teaspoons sugar
• 1/4 cup heavy cream
• 2 tablespoons unsalted butter (I omitted this; the sauce is plenty rich)
  
• 3 tablespoons chopped fresh parsley leaves
• 1 pound spaghetti
• 1 cup freshly grated Parmesan

Directions

In a large pot, heat the oil over medium-high heat. Add the bacon and cook, stirring, until browned and the fat is rendered, 4 to 5 minutes. Add the onions, carrots and celery and cook, stirring, until soft, 4 to 5 minutes. Add the garlic, salt, pepper, bay leaves, thyme, oregano, cinnamon, and nutmeg and cook, stirring, for 30 seconds. Add the beef and sausages, and cook, stirring, until no longer pink, about 5 minutes. Add the tomato paste and cook, stirring, for 1 to 2 minutes. Add the wine and cook, stirring, to deglaze the pan and remove any browned bits sticking to the bottom of the pan, and until half of the liquid is evaporated, about 2 minutes.

Add the tomatoes and their juices, the tomato sauce, beef broth, and sugar and bring to a boil. Reduce the heat to medium-low and simmer, stirring occasionally, to keep the sauce from sticking to the bottom of the pan, until the sauce is thickened and flavorful, about 1 1/2 hours. Add the cream, butter, and parsley, stir well, and simmer for 2 minutes. Discard the bay leaves and adjust the seasoning, to taste. Remove from the heat and cover to keep warm until ready to serve.

Meanwhile, bring a large pot of salted water to a boil. Add the pasta and return the water to a low boil. Cook, stirring occasionally to prevent the noodles from sticking, until al dente, 8 to 10 minutes. Drain in a colander.

Add the pasta to the sauce, tossing to coat. Add 1/2 cup of the cheese and toss to blend. Divide among pasta bowls and serve with the cheese passed tableside. (Alternatively, toss only the desired portion of pasta with a bit of the sauce at a time in a serving bowl, reserving the remainder for another meal.)

Source: Food Network and Emeril Live
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What do you get...

...when you blend cream cheese, whipped cream, cake, and coffee?
Possibly the most delicious dessert ever to come from that boot-shaped country, Italy.

Interestingly, tiramisu is a dish that actually originated in the country that it is associated with--Italy (Treviso, to be precise). (For examples of "impostor" dishes, see chicken parmesan, chicken tikka masala, and fortune cookies). The dessert is traditionally composed of a velvety custard layered with sponge cake soaked in espresso and alcohol, granting it the name "Tiramisu" or "pick me up."

One defining ingredient is mascarpone cheese. It is decadent in every way: buttery (it is a triple cream cheese), velvety smooth, delicately flavorful, and... expensive. One tub can set you back $10. I will be making a version that is a little more wallet and waistline friendly (if only marginally).

Since I have had a hankering for a big bowl of this creamy goodness all day, I highly doubt I will have the discipline to wait for it to sit in the fridge overnight. This express version I am making does not use whipped eggs for the zabaglione custard, and substitutes light cream cheese (boosted with good quality vanilla) for the mascarpone. I am not claiming that it will be identical to Italian restaurant quality ones, but once assembled and laced with espresso and Kahlua, no one would be the wiser...

Express Tiramisu

Serves: 8

• 1/2 pound light cream cheese, softened (1 ~ 8 ounce packages)
• 1 cup sugar
• 2 tablespoon milk
• 2 teaspoons vanilla
• 2 tablespoons brandy
• 1 tablespoon instant espresso
• 1/4 cup room temperature water
• 3/4 cups Kahlua
• 2 cups heavy whipping cream
• 7 ounces ladyfinger biscuits
• 1/4 cup cocoa powder

1. Lightly spray 9 X 9 inch glass Pyrex baking dish with vegetable spray.
2. Count the ladyfingers and divide in half.
3. Spoon cocoa powder into a sugar shaker, or when ready, use a small strainer or sieve.
4. Using beater attachment of a high-speed mixer, beat softened cream cheese and sugar on medium to high speed until smooth and creamy. Add milk, vanilla and brandy. Beat again until fluffy. Transfer to large mixing bowl and set aside.
5. In a small bowl, dissolve instant coffee in room temperature water. Add Kahlua, stir and set aside.
6. Whip heavy whipping cream on high speed until stiff. Fold whipped cream into cream cheese mixture with spatula and blend well.
7. One at a time, quickly dip only the bottoms of the ladyfingers into Kahlua. Place the soaked side down and line the entire bottom of the pan with ladyfingers. The ladyfingers soak up the Kahlua very quickly, so be careful not to dip them too long. Just the bottom half should be dipped in Kahlua.
8. Spread half the cream cheese over the ladyfingers using an off-set spatula or plastic spatula.
9. Sprinkle or dust with 1/4 cup cocoa.
10. Repeat with the rest of the ladyfingers in Kahlua and place on top of the cream.
11. Spread the remaining cream cheese mix evenly on top.
12. Sprinkle remaining cocoa over the tiramisu.
13. Cover loosely with plastic wrap and chill for 6 hours or overnight. You may need to use a few toothpicks to keep the plastic from sticking to the tiramisu.
14. Use a sharp, thin knife to cut into pieces. Dive in.
15. Refrigerate any leftovers.

Adapted from: http://bakingdesserts.suite101.com/article.cfm/easy_kahlua_tiramisu_recipe

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