Category Archives: cook

Feeding you until you’re full.

Abbacchio Brodettato

The other night we made a little Abbacchio Brodettato, a stovetop quick braised lamb leg with an egg based sauce.

You will need:

  • a leg of lamb in pieces or sliced into thick piece you can cut into smaller pieces
  • oil, salt, pepper
  • white wine, about a cup
  • garlic cloves 4-6
  • white onion, small diced
  • rosemary
  • thinly sliced prosciutto
For the Brodettato, mix the following:
  • 2 egg yolks
  • 1/3 cup peccorino grated
  • a handful of finely chopped parsley
  • 2 tablespoons lemon juice
  • 1/2 tablespoon flour
Here’s how you do it:
  • Get a lamb leg, cut it into pieces about 2 inches square and season the pieces with salt and pepper.
  • Brown the lamb in olive oil on all sides in a heavy, high sided skillet.  And really brown them.
  • Remove them when they’re GOOD and brown and then sweat some diced onions in the lamb fat and then some garlic, whole cloves are fine
  • Deglaze with a bit of white wine
  • Add the lamb back in, put in some rosemary and thyme and marjoram still on the stems
  • Add some hot water, lay prosciutto slices over as much of the lamb as you can
  • cover the pot and let the lamb cook slowly, at a simmer
  • When the lamb is tender, temper your brodettato mixture with some of the hot liquid in the skillet
  • Toss the lamb with the brodettato and serve it!

Sicilian fennel sausage with potatoes

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Sausage and Potatoes Recipe:

Cut potatoes into little wedges and blanch them in salted water.  You want them to be fuzzy on the outside and just barely not raw on the inside; it usually takes a few minutes.

Cook your sausage in a bit of oil.  Let it render and brown on both sides.  Remove it and drain some of the fat from the pan.  Clean out any burnt bits left in the pan and add a little oil if necessary. Fry your potatoes in the pan on very high heat, salting as you go.  Don’t be afraid to let them sit in the hot oil over the hot eat and brown.  Taste the sausage to see how much salt to add.

When the potatoes are crisp on a few sides, add your sausage back in and toss together.

 

Salad recipe:

Slice chery tomatoes in halves, chop your almonds, slice your fennel thin and slice your zucchini on a mandolin.  Dress these items with salt and red wine vinaigrette and then toss with arugula.  You can also substitute the cherry tomatoes with ground cherries which are more tart but give the salad an extra kick.  A kick in the tastebuds.  Fasho.

Pasta a la chitarra with Porcini, Roast Lamb with Potatoes, and Broccoletti

Finally got to use my chitarra.  Very exciting.  Invited some friends to come help and we made pasta for four with a flour egg dough.

For the dough I used a 40 gram liquid to 100 gram flour ratio.  Here are the numbers but I had to adjust slightly and it was a very wet dough so we added flour while rolling it out.

  • 100g Semolina Flour
  • 300g 00 flour + about another 100 grams
  • 5 eggs (about 200g measured)

I sliced the porcini into thick chunks, sautéed them very hot in a sofrito of garlic and peperoncino and then turned the heat down and simmered, adding a splash of dry white wine whenever the pan dried out.

The broccoletti was sautéed very hot with garlic and hot pepper.

37th Anniversary Meal

For my parentss 37th anniversary I made them saltimbocca, carciofi a la Romana, brocoletti and a radicchio shaved fennel salad with a balsamic garlic vinaigrette. Flourless chocolate cake for dessert.

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Fava Bean Flour Cavatelli with Nettles & Ricotta (No Gluten!)

If you can eat gluten, I would suggest using regular flour to make cavatelli.  That said, this is a great non-gluten dish.  Fava bean flour adds a different element to the pasta — it’s less like pasta, almost like hardened fava bean paste — and of course it adds the flavor of fava without any actual visible fava beans.  This recipe is pretty simple and takes about 2 full hours to complete, from mixing the dough to plating a hot steamy mound of cavatelli smothered in nettles.

I used Bob’s Red Mill Fava Bean Flour.  I actually couldn’t find it at any stores in the Bay Area including Berkeley Bowl, the Pasta Shop or Andronico’s.  So I ordered it from Amazon.com.  A 4-pack costs around 30 bucks.  So it’s not cheap.

You will need (feel free to scale this however you want):

  • 630 grams fava bean flour + flour to dust with
  • a pinch of salt — maybe 2 teaspoons
  • 180 grams water (preferably from EB Mud)
  • a stand mixer
  •  about a pound or more of nettles (more is better because they cook down a lot)
  • 2 cloves garlic
  • more salt
  • ricotta salata or fresh ricotta — whichever you prefer
  • oil, about 2 tablespoons

The following is a rough description of how I made the cavatelli.  I would go really low on the water to start and add more as needed.  You want the dough to be fairly dry and definitely not wet or overly sticky.  Somewhere in between is best.  More toward the dry side.  Holding together but not wet.  Okay.

Mix 630 grams fava bean flour with 180 grams water and a pinch of salt.  Mix on the lowest mixer setting for about 15 minutes.  Remove the dough and work by hand until smooth and firm.  Wrap it in plastic wrap until you’re ready to roll it out.  Since there’s no gluten in the dough you could start rolling it out right away but if you’re going to let it rest (for whatever superstitious reason you might have) wrap it up first so it doesn’t try out.

Meanwhile, clean your nettles by stripping them off the stems and soaking them.  Then drain them.

When you’re ready to begin making the pasta, cut off a small slice from your roll and wrap the larger part back up.  Roll the slice into a very small diameter cylinder, maybe 1/4 inch thick.  Cut 1 inch to 1 1/4 inch pieces and then roll them, either with two or three fingers or with a butter knife.  That’s how you make the indents and the grooves where the sauce will sit.

Start sautéing the nettles in a lot of very hot oil. You’ll have to keep adding oil if the pan starts to look dry.  Salt them once they’ve all been coated and let them sweat and sauté.  When they’ve cooked down more, make a well in the middle and add your minced garlic.  Let it sweat and cook more.

Meanwhile, drop your pasta in salted water.  It’s hard to overcook cavatelli but I found the right amount of time for fava bean flour cavatelli to be around 5 minutes.  When they’re ready, drop them in the pan with the nettles and toss it all together.  Add pasta water to loosen it up and toss more.  Dot in some ricotta, toss and add more pasta water if necessary until it’s all mixed and the pasta is all coated.  Serve the pasta and dot more ricotta on top.  That’s it! 2 hours, done.