Pappardelle with Veal Ragu

(adapted from the Chicago Tribune)

I was home a few weekends back for my best friend's wedding (hooray, Ali and Patrick!!), and Joef and I were lucky enough to enjoy a homemade meal with my parents while we were at it. My dad made something new for us - a recipe out of the Chicago Tribune newspaper. An unlikely source, admittedly - and it just goes to show that you shouldn't rule anything out, because this is fantastic. It's perfect for fall weekend evenings, when you have a little time and feel like filling your home with delicious aromas. And when it's time to eat, that's even better.

So this does have a slightly longer cooking time than most of my recipes. It's worth it, though. Joef scarfed it down both at my parents' house, and when we made it at home a week later. (So did I.) The veal makes it a little more delicate than beef (which you could use, if you wanted...ohhhh, or lamb...), but it's still very hearty. And even though it has a longer cooking time, it's mostly a prep-and-wait kind of thing - not too much to do once you've put it on the stove.

For six servings:
1/4 cup olive oil
2 carrots, finely sliced (or equivalent in baby carrots - 10 or so)
1 large onion, finely chopped
2 stalks celery, halved and finely sliced
4 cloves garlic, minced
1/2 tsp salt
Freshly ground pepper
1/4 pound pancetta, thickly sliced, and then diced
1 lb veal shoulder, cut into bite-size pieces (I actually could only find pre-chopped veal stew, which worked fine. I still cut the cubes into even smaller pieces - halved them, in most cases.)
1 cup dry red wine
1 28 oz can San Marzano whole peeled tomatoes
1 cup chicken broth
1 sprig rosemary (or equivalent dried)
1/2 tsp crushed red pepper flakes (I added another 1/2 tsp or so habanero flakes)
2 tsp balsamic vinegar
1 lb pappardelle
Freshly grated parmesan

Heat 2 tbsp of the oil over medium heat in a large Dutch oven. Add the carrots, onion, celery, and garlic, along with salt and pepper, and cook until softened. Set aside (you could also just leave it all in the pot and be fine). Add 2 more tbsp of the olive oil and add the pancetta, and cook, stirring, until it begins to brown. Add the veal and cook until browned on all sides, about 10 minutes.

Stir in the wine and cook, stirring, for about a minute before adding the reserved onions/carrots/celery/garlic, then the tomatoes, broth, rosemary, and red pepper. Season with salt and pepper and bring to a boil, crushing the whole tomatoes with a wooden spoon against the sides of the pot. Reduce the heat to low.

Simmer, stirring every now and then, for about 1 1/4 hours. Add the balsamic and taste for seasoning.

Cook your pasta and drain. When it's done, combine with the sauce and toss to coat. Serve with grated parmesan and enjoy!

Coconut-Lime Semifreddo

Man, I am behind on everything lately. Well, behind on Cucina posts, and behind on my "52 Weeks of Pancake" series on Flickr (contrary to what you might expect, not food-related).

Back when it was blazing-hot and The Bachelorette was still on (yes, I know, for shame), our friend Jessica invited the gals over for, what else, The Bachelorette - and some delicious eats. She had sangria made with rose, peaches, pears, etc.; salad with tzatziki dressing (best idea ever); slices of french bread, baked with slices of brie and topped with a sweet onion chutney; and this, coconut-lime semifreddo. Pretty damn impressive menu, right? I wanted to make everything - and so far, I've made this!

It's kind of a fascinating dish to make. I mean, it's like ice cream, but it's not. And even on that super-hot day when she made it, it hardly got melty. So it's a nice alternative to ice cream, in that season.

Her semifreddo turned out better than mine, I admit - I had a few spots where I didn't mix the condensed milk in quite enough and those spots got a tad sweet. Overall, though, it was delicious - a really yummy, different, refreshing, and impressive-looking dessert.

By the way, this makes enough for entertaining - you eat it in thin slices, and the recipe makes a bread-sized loaf. It was pretty hilarious making it for just Joef and myself.

So, here is Jessica's recipe:

1 can unsweetened coconut milk
1 can sweetened condensed milk
1 tablespoon finely-grated lime zest
1/4 teaspoon coarse salt
1 1/2 cups cold heavy cream
1/2 cup sweetened shredded coconut, toasted
1/2 ripe mango (the riper, the better)

Line a 4 1/2-by-8 1/2-inch loaf pan with parchment paper (I used aluminum foil - it works, but it's less than optimal - your semifreddo will come out crinkly). Toast coconut flakes by putting them in a frying pan over medium heat and tossing occasionally until they just start to get golden brown. Prepare a large bowl of ice water.

In a medium saucepan, combine coconut and condensed milk and bring to a boil over high. Reduce heat and cook at a rapid simmer, stirring frequently, until thickened, 10 minutes. Remove from heat and stir in lime zest and salt. Place saucepan in bowl of ice water and stir until mixture is cool, 4 minutes.

In a large bowl, using a mixer, beat cream on high until stiff peaks form, 2 minutes. Gently fold whipped cream into the coconut milk mixture. Pour into loaf pan; evenly sprinkle coconut on top. freeze until firm, 6 hours (or covered up to 3 days). Let sit 20 minutes before serving (it's better this way, believe me). Invert onto serving platter. Layer mango on top. Enjoy!

Infusions: Arancello and Limecello

One of the nicest memories from our honeymoon in Italy a couple of years back is of sitting on our private roof deck in Vernazza, sipping locally-made limoncello. Fruit liqueurs and aperitifs are apparently de rigeur (my, what a lot of French words for a post about another country) in Italy - we found them everywhere, and all kinds - strawberry, lime, orange - and they were just perfect for sitting back in the late afternoon and taking everything in. They are inherently summery - sweet, best served chilled, and just...fun.

Joef is somewhat of a mixmaster...no, mixologist, that's it. He understands the ways drinks come together and is great at concoctions. He can taste a delicious mixed drink at a restaurant, then go make it from scratch at home. So, recently he decided to take a crack at making our own fruit liqueurs. He did an arancello and - something we'd never see before - limecello. They took patience - the peeling/grating of the fruit, letting it sit for weeks and checking it daily, adding sugar and letting it sit again - and the patience paid off. So delicious and fun. Now we have fruit liqueur of our very own, and can be tranported back to Vernazza - well, almost - any time we want. Here's how he did it:

ARANCELLO:
Peels from 10 oranges (with as little of the white stuff as possible)
1 liter vodka
Combine, and let sit in a cool, dry, dark place for two weeks. After two weeks, remove the orange peels, and add simple syrup:
2 cups water

15 spoonfuls of white sugar

(Combine water and sugar in a small pot over medium heat, and stir until dissolved. Reduce the mixture to about 1 1/2-3/4 cup.) Allow to cool before adding to vodka. Allow to sit for another week, then refrigerate and enjoy!

LIMECELLO:
Same instructions, but grate the peels of 10 limes.

See? We're back!

Chile Chicken with Lime and Coconut Milk

(adapted from Dave DeWitt's 1,001 Best Hot and Spicy Recipes)

Man, I am not doing so well on this whole blogging thing lately, am I? Somehow I've been having trouble coordinating the new recipe lookup with grocery shopping...and now I feel like I'm repeating myself from a previous post...rut, anyone? Well, this one snapped me out of it a bit. The best part is that I think it gave me a hint as to how to prepare one of my favorite restaurant dishes - a coconut curry that I've only been able to find at a Vietnamese restaurant, Pho Grand, in St. Louis (stay tuned for that one).

This was really good and really simple. All the ingredients just get thrown into a pan and left for awhile, and then you eat! It was so good that I actually enjoyed eating it with brown rice. Now that's a testimonial.

I think next time I'd either leave out the limes, or I'd certainly remove them before serving. And if the grocery store hadn't been out of lemongrass, that would've been a great addition. Even with that, it was tasty, satisfying, and a nice change of pace - especially with how little effort it required.

So:
5 chicken drumsticks (or equivalent chicken parts of your choice)
2 cups coconut milk (about 1 can)
1/2 tsp turmeric
4 shallots, peeled and chopped
1 clove garlic, peeled and minced
1 tsp salt
1 stalk lemongrass (optional, but preferred)
1/4-1/2 lime, slice in rounds
2-4 dried hot chiles (DeWitt calls for Santaka; I used tien tsin), crushed

Combine all of the ingredients in a large pan, spooning the sauce over the chicken. Cook, covered, over medium heat for about 30 minutes, stirring now and then, until the chicken is cooked and tender. The sauce will thicken. Remove limes and serve over brown rice.

Pesto-Baked Chicken

(adapted from Saveur magazine)

I'm super-excited right now because I just ordered a subscription to Saveur magazine. I've clearly missed the fact that magazine subscriptions don't make a ton of sense in a world where you can find nearly-identical content online, but hey, why not buck the trend? I picked one up for a flight home, found a coupon for a cheap subscription, and there you go. I mean, the feature was pesto. Pesto, people! Pages and pages of pesto...

Among those pages I found this recipe for pesto-rubbed chicken. The recipe is really intended for the grill (which I do think would kick it up a notch, as they say), and they offered a baked alternative for those of us without a backyard. It's a nice variation, and an easy variation to make - just whip up some pesto, spread it under the chicken's skin, bake, spread a little on top of the chicken, bake a little more, and serve. I omitted the pine nuts, since I am just not a fan.

(The magazine also had a one-page photo and story of the Oak Park Farmers' Market donuts, which is SO awesome, because my mom and I used to ride our bikes there every Saturday morning and eat donuts and fresh raspberries on the curb while listening to the live bluegrass band. Once we even volunteered and helped to sugar the donuts in the basement kitchen!)

Also, this recipe marks Joef's and my official transition to adulthood, as we accompanied this chicken with...wait for it...brown rice. That's right, folks, we've officially made the switch. I sort of love white rice (esp. with a little parmesan cheese), but you know, sometimes you have to move on. Whole grains and all that business. Yes, it's brown rice from here on out for Joef and Julia.

So:

2 cups packed basil

1/4 cup extra-virgin olive oil

1/4 cup grated parmesan

1 clove garlic, quartered

4 chicken thighs

Salt

Pepper

Preheat oven to 475.

Using your fingers, loosen skin from meat on chicken and spread half the pesto in between skin and meat. Transfer chicken to a baking sheet and season generously with salt and pepper.

 

Cook chicken in the oven, skin side up, for 25 minutes; rub with remaining pesto and cook until chicken is cooked/juices no longer run pink.

Serve with brown (!) rice and arugula salad.

Infusions: Fire Oil

Let the Naga Saga continue! Har!

Joef's next creation in this series was Naga-Jolokia-infused oils. We made three types: olive oil, sesame, and peanut. We used slightly different proportions in each one - olive oil was mildest, peanut the hottest. In general, we used two ghost peppers for two cups of oil, and then added a few bird peppers for some more flavor. 

The oils turned out great, and to be honest, not as hot as we expected. For example, I used the infused olive oil to make a white clam sauce (and added shrimp - SO good!), a fairly oil-intensive dish, and it wasn't spicy at all. However, if you use it as a dipping sauce, there's more heat. So, next time we do this, we're going to add more peppers per cup of oil, and we're also going to leave the peppers in the oil for a couple of days before removing them - as we learned from the vodka, it takes a little time for the heat to seep out.

 So, for two cups of oil:

2 ghost peppers, halved

4 or so bird peppers, halved

Heat the oil in a wok. When the oil is hot, drop in the peppers. Let them cook for about 10 minutes, then remove the oil from the heat. Let the oil cool, then pour into glass containers (containers should be boiled before use).

The peppers are very, very, very hot - so take the proper precautions. We probably overdid it a little with the face masks, but the latex gloves were definitely a good plan. And don't touch your face!

Looking forward to using these oils in stir fries and more!

Infusions: Fire Vodka

Joef's dreams came true this past week when our friend Jonathan brought back a bag of Naga Jolokia peppers from India. Apparently, he got past security, who told him it was a biological weapon, by telling them the peppers were for "research". And in a way, they were.

We spent the weekend experimenting with these peppers and another bag of what we think are bird peppers, and Joef was in heaven. We made (spoiler alert!) three types of oil, and this vodka, which eventually we'll use for Bloody Marys.

This pepper was really interesting, because so far it's interacted really differently with the vodka than, say, the habaneros and jalapenos we usually use to make homemade pepper vodka. It's taken more time for the color of the peppers to start to bleed out into the vodka, and it's been flavoring the vodka much more gradually. We take a little sip every other day or so, and it is starting to kick up considerably.

As for the recipe: one handle vodka, four naga jolokia peppers with the tops cut off. Pop 'em in and wait for the fun to start.