Zuppa di Zucca e Fagioli Bianchi (Butternut Squash and White Bean Soup)

This blog has been pretty much out of commission, lately. I've been cooking, and I've been trying some new recipes, but not as many as I had been. But my Aunt Marisa shared this recipe with me, and I finally tried it and just loved it. It is comforting and flavorful and full of good things. I made some small tweaks (adding pancetta and pasta, for example, which you could just as easily omit), but overall, it's Aunt Marisa's recipe. Great for fall/winter nights, especially if you don't live in constant 65-degree Bay Area weather (not that I'm complaining!).

Alrighty:

2 1/2 tsp (or so) extra virgin olive oil
1-2 thick slices of pancetta, diced
Salt, pepper
1 large onion, chopped
2 tsp dried Italian seasonings
1 lb butternut squash, peeled/seeded/cubed
3 garlic cloves, chopped
2 cans cannellini beans
About six cups chicken broth
Handful or so fresh spinach
1/4-1/3 lb pasta (orecchiette pictured)

In a large pot or dutch over, heat the oil over medium heat and add the pancetta, along with salt and pepper to taste, until pancetta starts to get crispy. Next, add the onion, squash, and seasonings. Add the garlic after about 3 minutes. Let the onion get soft and translucent. Add the beans, stir, then add the chicken broth. (I think it was six cups…make sure there's enough to cover AND to boil pasta in.)

Bring the soup to a boil, then turn heat to low. Cook until the squash is nice and tender. At the very end, bring to a boil, then add the pasta and boil until pasta is cooked. Add the spinach in the last five+ minutes so that it wilts.

Get cozy and enjoy!

The Pink Llama (White Rum with Rhubarb Simple Syrup, Grapefruit, and Rosemary)

(from http://theviewfromthegreatisland.blogspot.com: It's 5 O'Clock Somewhere Fridays) 

This is the drink that inspired Joef's homemade, fruit-based simple syrup craze (the originators call it a Spring Fling, but we've renamed it)! Once you start, the possibilities are endless! This one uses rhubarb for the simple syrup, and is then combined with grapefruit juice. This is maybe the best drink he's ever made - it's so refreshing, light, and, I might add, rather complex flavor-wise. Enjoy!

To make the simple syrup:
2 cups white sugar
2 cups water
2 large stalks rhubarb, chopped

Bring to a soft boil, and bLoil for about 10 minutes, stirring occasionally. Mash the rhubarb as it softens. Remove from heat and strain out the pulp, then return the liquid to a medium boil. Reduce the liquid for about 10 minutes, stirring to ensure it doesn't burn.

To make the drink:
2 oz fresh-squeezed pink grapefruit juice (1 grapefruit=about 5 oz)
1 sprig rosemary
2 oz rhubarb simple syrup

2 oz Cachaça (white rum works)

Ice

Remove the rosemary leaves from their stem and place in a cocktail shaker. Add just a splash of grapefruit juice, and muddle together. Add the remaining ingredients and shake. Pour over ice, and serve with a sprig of rosemary. Ahh!

Bourbon Old-Fashioned with Cherry-Orange Simple Syrup

It's a new twist on an Old-Fashioned! Har!

When it comes to our kitchen, Joef is our drinks, desserts, and spice guy (I really wanted that alliteration to work...). This weekend, he made two amazing drinks, experimenting with making his own naturally-flavored, fruit-based simple syrups. This one he made up on his own, after we had something similar at a restaurant in San Francisco, Agricole. The simple syrup takes a little time, but is easy...you might even call it simple...and it really gives a ton of flavor to the drink. Delicious!

To make the simple syrup (makes about 2.5 cups):
2 cups turbinado sugar (Sugar in the Raw)
2 cups water
15-20 pitted Rainier cherries
1 navel orange, peeled

Combine all the ingredients together in a small/medium pot, and bring to soft boil. Boil for about 10 minutes, mashing the fruit as it softens, and stirring.

Remove the mixture from the heat and strain out the fruit pulp (it's delicious, btw!). Return the remaining liquid to a medium boil for another 10 minutes, stirring frequently. (Reduce the liquid while making sure it doesn't burn.)

Remove from heat and allow to cool. (This makes much more simple syrup than you need for one drink - you can save it for a bit, and use it in other drinks, or in fizzy water to make frobscottle!)

To make the Old Fashioned:
2 parts bourbon to 1 part simple syrup (if you like it sweeter, you can do 1:1)
Ice

Stir and enjoy!

Pork, Plantain, and Mixed Bean Stew

(heavily adapted from Yotam Ottolenghi's Plenty)

I seem to have once again added pork to a vegetarian dish...but I swear this would've been just as good without it. Hey, I added plantains, too - that's definitively not meat. So there you go.

Both were good additions, actually, depending on what you're going for. In my case, Joef issued the challenge of making something with Plantains, Pork, and Peppers. I found a recipe for "Mixed Beans with Many Spices and Lovage" in Plenty that seemed flexible, and came up with this dish. It's hearty, flavorful, and delicious.

A note on fava beans, another reason I wanted to try this recipe. They're yummy and pretty, and they are a pain to prepare. There's a whole double-shelling, parboiling process (see link below). That being said, it's worth giving it a try.

For four:
3 tbsp olive oil
2 boneless pork cutlets, cubed
1 medium onion, finely chopped
2 garlic cloves, chopped
2 tsp tomato paste
1/2 tsp ground cumin
1/2 tsp ground turmeric
1/2 tsp ground coriander
1 tsp ground ginger
1 tsp ground cardamom
Pinch of ground cloves
1 manzano pepper, sliced thin
A few Thai green chiles, chopped
Salt and ground pepper, to taste
1 14-oz can chopped tomatoes and juices
1 tsp sugar
1 1/2 cups sugar snap peas, halved at an angle
1 cup green beans, sliced at an angle
Shelled fava beans, as many as you can stand to shell...
2-3 plantains, sliced into thick rounds
2 tbsp chopped lovage, or cilantro, or tarragon
Rice

Heat the oil in a large, deep frying pan, and brown the pork on all sides. Add the onion, manzano pepper, and Thai chiles. Sauté on medium heat and stir around a from time to time until they start to soften, then add the garlic and cook for another minute. Next, add the tomato paste, all the spices, and some salt and pepper, and stir and cook for another minute or so.

Next, add the tomatoes, sugar, and all the peas and beans. Stir to mix, then bring to a boil. Lower heat and cover (or partially cover, depending on how thick you want it) for 15-20 minutes, until the sugar snap peas are cooked through, and still crunchy. About halfway through cooking, add the plantains - you want them to soften and take on flavor, but not turn to mush. Add salt and pepper to taste. Stir in the lovage-or cilantro-or tarragon just before serving. Serve over rice.

Ossobuco

(adapted from Marcella Hazan's Essentials of Classic Italian Cooking)

Ready for a serious meal? My dad made this for me when I was home in February, and I've been wanting to make it ever since. Ossobuco is a classic Italian dish (as the cookbook's title would suggest), and is basically veal shank (if you're opposed to veal, you could easily go with beef) simmered in a hearty tomato sauce. There are two things that I think make it unique - one, an "aromatic mixture" of citrus and herbs called gremolada that you add at the end, and two, the fact that it's traditionally served over saffron risotto, if you go Milanese style (you can also just serve it over regular white rice, and it'll still be delicious).

Marcella adds a whole step where she puts the veal in the oven. This recipe has enough steps (although, it's really not too complicated) without adding an oven, so I skipped that.

The risotto takes at least a half an hour, I'd say, so start that a half hour before the veal is done. You have some wiggle room, since the veal is simmering at that point.

Here we go. I kept the sauce at the amount recommended for 6-8 servings, but only used two veal shanks:
OSSOBUCCO
1 cup onion, chopped fine
2/3 cup carrot, sliced thin
2/3 cup celery, sliced thin
2-4 tbsp butter
1 tsp garlic, chopped fine
2 strips lemon peel (avoid the white stuff inside)
Vegetable oil
2 veal shanks (or beef) with the marrow bone, cut no thicker than 1 1/2 inches, ideally
Flour, spread on a plate
1 cup dry white wine
1 cup chicken or beef broth
1 1/2 cups imported Italian plum tomatoes, or San Marzano, with their juice
1/2 tsp thyme
2 bay leaves
2-3 sprigs parsley
Fresh-ground black pepper, to taste
Salt, to taste

In a large dutch oven, add 2-3 capfuls of vegetable oil and the butter, and turn the heat to medium high. Let the butter melt. In the meantime, turn the shanks in flour and coat on both sides. Shake off the excess flour and add the shanks to the pan. Brown the meat on both sides, sprinkle with salt and pepper, turn the shanks, and add the wine. Let the wine boil off a bit, and deglaze the pan, scraping up the brown bits with a wooden spoon. Remove the shanks from the pan, and add the carrots, celery, and onion to the pan, along with the thyme and parsley - you can add more butter and/or vegetable oil if it's try. Let the veggies soften, then add the chopped lemon peel and parsley and stir for about a minute. Add the shanks back to the pan. Finally, add the tomatoes, pressing the tomatoes against the side of the pot to crush them. Bring the sauce to a boil, turn down to low, and let simmer as long as you can stand it - at least an hour. 

GREMOLADA
So, I didn't have any fresh parsley, which is really how you want to do it. So instead, I used dried. It worked, but it wasn't nearly as good - so go with fresh if you can. Really, what's delicious about this is the garlic and the unexpected citrus taste from the lemon. It cuts the heaviness of the rest of the dish.
1 tsp grated lemon peel (again, avoid the white pith)
1/4 tsp garlic chopped very, very fine
1 tsp chopped parsley

Combine all the ingredients, and sprinkle over the veal shanks while they're still cooking, about two minutes before you're ready to serve them.

SAFFRON RISOTTO
Pinch saffron threads 
1.5 tbsp olive oil
1/2 white onion, chopped
1 clove garlic, finely chopped
1 cup arborio rice
1/4 cup dry white wine
3-4 cups chicken stock, reduced sodium, simmering
1/3 cup freshly grated parmesan cheese

Start the broth boiling, then turn the broth down to a simmer. Place the saffron in a small bowl and cover with 1.5 tbsp hot water (this is the part where it turns bright yellow!). Let it sit for about 20 minutes, or until needed.

Combine the oil and onion in a large, deeper sauce pan and stir over medium heat until the onion is soft, about 5 minutes. Add the garlic and stir another minute. Add the rice and stir until all the grains are coated, about 2 minutes.

Add the wine and stir into the rice until it's been absorbed. Add a ladleful of the simmering stock and stir that in until it's been absorbed. Continue this process for about 20 minutes, or until the rice is al dente or the stock is used up (do reserve a few tablespoons for later). About halfway through, add the saffron and its liquid along with a ladle of stock. Season lightly with ground black pepper after you add the saffron. 

When the rice is cooked/you're done with the stock, add the parmesan and the remaining couple tablespoons of the stock. Stir it over the heat, then serve with a veal shank and the ossobucco sauce!

Royal Potato Salad

 (from Plenty, by Yottam Ottolenghi)

Contrary to what the infrequency of posts lately might indicate, La Piccina Cucina is still alive and well. At least, still functioning. I've been cooking plenty, just not many new things. And I have a long list of recipes I haven't gotten around to yet, because, well, there's just an awful lot of fun, new things to do here in California. There is also a lot of incredible food to be eaten. Hooray!

Anyway, this I actually made tonight! And it was good enough that I wanted to go straight to the computer to write it up. It's from this amazing vegetarian cookbook, Plenty, which has the most beautiful, interesting, I-want-to-try-that recipes. Seriously, I want to make like everything in that book.

So first, I made this. At its most basic level, it's potato salad with pesto sauce. That already would be great. But it also adds quail eggs, and whaddya know, Berkeley Bowl sells them. And we pass by them every week, and want to buy them but have no idea what to do with them, until now.

Served this with broiled pork chops that sat in a nice sugar-salt-balsamic brine (brine recipe here) all day, then got popped in the oven with some mini lemon slices from the tree out back (eeee!!!).

For 4-6 (I halved it, ish):
15 quail eggs
1 cup petite peas (frozen)
1 3/4 lbs new potatoes, washed (I don't know what "new" potatoes means. I just bought small ones.)
1 cup basil leaves
1/2 cup parsley leaves, plus some extra for garnish
1/3 cup pine nuts
1/2 cup grated Parmesan
2 garlic cloves
1 cup olive oil
1/2 tsp white wine vinegar (I completely forgot to add this, btw)
1 bunch sorrel leaves, finely shredded (he says you can also use mint, which I think would be really interesting - I couldn't really taste the sorrel)
Salt and black pepper

Place the quail eggs in a small pot, cover with water, and bring to a boil. Simmer between 30 seconds and 2 minutes, depending on if you want them soft- or hard-boiled. Put them in cold water; peel them when you have a pause in the action.

Start the water boiling for the potatoes. When it boils, blanch the peas in the water for about 30 seconds, then drain and run under cold water. Set them aside for now.

Cook the potatoes until they're soft, about 15-20 minutes. You want them warm, ideally, when you put them in the sauce.

Make your pesto sauce while the potatoes cook. Put the basil, parsley, pine nuts, Parmesan, and garlic in a food processor and process to a paste. Add the olive oil and blend in the processor. Pour the pesto into the bowl in which you'll serve the salad.

Drain the potatoes, and cut in halves as soon as they won't scald you to touch (this can be a good time to peel the eggs). Add the potatoes to the bowl with the pesto, and toss with vinegar, sorrel, and peas. Mix well. Salt and pepper to taste.

Cut the eggs in half and gently mix them into the salad. Garnish. Eat.

French Toast with Cherry-Mandarin Jam and Mascarpone

(adapted from Mark Bittman's How to Cook Everything app)

My first post from our new computer...we've made the switch to Mac and are loving it!

In other exciting news, it was French toast for breakfast this AM...and, Joef made a new batch of jam! We're calling it "Old Fashioned" - it's cherries, satsuma mandarin oranges, and bourbon. And it is incredible.

Other than that - and the mascarpone cheese spread on top, a trick our friends Sanjin and Mary taught us - it's just your typical French toast. I've just never made it before. But it'll be on the Sunday breakfast roll going forward. Absolutely delicious.

2 cups milk
4 eggs
2 tsp vanilla
Dash of salt
8 or more slices French bread/baguette
Butter
Mascarpone cheese
Old Fashioned jam (or other)

Preheat your oven to 250. Mix the milk, eggs, salt, and vanilla together in a large, wide bowl. Slice your bread to the desired thickness, and let the bread soak in the batter. In the meantime, butter a griddle (or a pan on the stove), and let it get nice and hot and sizzling.

Place each piece of bread on the griddle. When it gets nice and browned, flip to the other side, and let it get nice and brown, too. Continue to flip for up to 10 minutes or so. To make sure the egg has cooked all the way through, you can pop the pieces into the oven and let it cook 10-15 minutes.

Spread with mascarpone and jam. Happy Sunday!

AND SPEAKING OF JAM:
4 pounds of cherries, pitted
3 pounds satsuma mandarins, peeled and chopped
7 cups sugar
1 1/4 cups bourbon
Juice of 4 lemons

For instructions on how to put these ingredients together for amazing jam, see: http://piccinacucina.blogspot.com/2012/10/homemade-jam.html.

Vietnamese Five-Spice Chicken and Coconut-Mango Rice

(adapted from Williams-Sonoma's San Francisco: Authentic Recipes Celebrating the Foods of the World, and Fred Thompson's Grill Master: The Ultimate Arsenal of Back-to-Basics Recipes for the Grill)

OK, so I'm not even going to tell you the first time I made this. I'm that behind. I can't even remember. BUT! I've made it three times since that first attempt, because it is so, SO good. I mean, crazy-delicious, finger-licking good. I made it around Thanksgiving for the fam, and it was a hit - even my one-year old nephew was smacking his lips. It might just be my favorite grilled chicken recipe. And I've always been a fan of coconut rice.

I hadn't really heard of five-spice till we moved to the Bay Area. You can make your own, or you can buy it from the grocery store (win!). To me, the ingredients are surprising - star anise, cinnamon, cloves - sweet stuff - but in this recipe, you add fish sauce, which combines to make this sweet, salty, savory, marinade. Mmm.

So, here's what you need (this should be enough marinade for a whole chicken, but I use the same amount for five-six drumsticks...):
6 cloves garlic, halved
1 large shallot, quartered
1 tbsp peeled ginger
4 tsp sugar
1/4 cup soy sauce
1/4 cup fish sauce
1/2 tsp five spice powder
Freshly ground pepper
5-6 chicken pieces - thighs or drumsticks

And here's what you do:
Combine the garlic, shallot, ginger, and sugar in a small food processor, and process to form a paste. Transfer to a bowl and whisk in the soy sauce, fish sauce, five spice powder, and a few grinds of black pepper. This is your marinade.

Rinse the chicken pieces in cold water and pat dry with paper towels. Place in a shallow dish, and pour in all the marinade. Turn the pieces in the marinade to coat, cover, and refrigerate for as long as possible, up to 8 hours (2 hours work in a pinch). You'll want to turn the chicken a few times. Keep the marinade.

Set up your grill!

Remove the chicken from the marinade (don't throw it out), grill the chicken, and baste it with a marinade a few times. Turn the chicken, baste again, grill until juices run clear. Don't baste the chicken in the final 10 minutes.

Done!

And for the rice (from Grill Master):
1 tbsp canola oil
1 large shallot, minced
1 tsp peeled, grated fresh ginger
2 cups jasmine rice (brown rice works, too)
1 cup coconut milk
Salt
1 (or 2) mango, cubed

In a large saucepan over medium-high, warm the oil. Add the shallot and ginger and saute for about 30 seconds. Add the rice and stir to coat and mix. Add 2 cups water, the coconut milk, and salt. Bring to a boil. Reduce heat to low, cover, simmer for about 20 minutes - just like you'd normally cook rice.

When done cooking, stir/fluff with a fork, then add the mango and stir that in, too. 

(Green beans - blanched, with olive oil, salt, pepper.)