Monthly Archives: July 2012

07.23.12
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Go Do Spaghetti Sauce

[Editor’s Note: Ironically, I was writing this when Eric called his mom to interview her about her handed-down Sugo (The Whole Recipe – Sugo). These sauces are different, but not so much; and both are worth cooking and worth eating… maybe the best two sauces you’ve made.]

I have a “Go To” sauce for spaghetti, been cooking it for years. I got it from Nancy Harmon Jenkins book, The Mediterranean Diet Cookbook. (That’s “diet” as in “cusine, the diet of the Mediterranean culture,” not “diet: to lose weight.”)

MITA’S TUSCAN SUGO
“Mita Antolini, my Tuscan neighbor, uses this sauce to dress pasta or gnocchi di patate, little potato dumplings, that she makes for Sunday lunch.” [See full recipe at the end.]
— Nancy Harmon Jenkins

Uncharacteristically, I never transcribed this recipe into my computer files. After I made it a few times from the book, I knew it and just cooked it. Anyway, this is how I cooked it last Friday — I call it “go do” because I just go and do it, varying it a bit each time.

celery and spring onions

I rough chopped a few spring onions and tossed them into my mini-food processor — the Breville “Control Grip.”
I chopped some celery from the top of a head, leaves and all and threw that in.

Normally, I would put in a carrot, but I had two small pasilla chilis I got at the farmers market. This will make the sauce a bit “Southwestern”-Italian for a change of pace. [NOTE] (These are actually the dark green poblano chilis, often called pasilla chilis in the US.).

the Breville Control Grip: chopper/processor, motor and immersion blender

So, I fine chopped those in the mini-processor and got them going in olive oil in my skillet over a very low flame. These will need to cook for a while – at least 15 minutes – until beyond soft. Ideally, the vegetables will disappear into the sauce.

Added some white wine and cooked that down to nearly dry.

Sliced two Niman Ranch Spicy Italian Sausages in half lengthwise, cleared a space in the center of the skillet and added a little olive oil, fried those, cut side down, until browned.

Tomatoes: Normally, I use a can of San Marzano tomatoes, but I have these pickled tomatoes that I canned last fall. Why not process those — basil and peppercorns and garlic and all — in the mini-processor, since I have it out.

Added the tomato sauce and some dried Italian Seasoning, and slowly cooked that down, seasoning with salt and pepper. That sauce is good.

the sugo cooks

The Pasta
When I don’t make pasta or buy fresh pasta, I like thin spaghetti, its very comforting to me. Scanning the Barilla shelf in the supermarket, I saw Spaghetti Rigati. Hmmm. Its thin, has ridges to hold sauce, and I’ve never tried it… three good reasons to buy. For just me and Carol, I use a third of a pound of pasta for a meal. I cooked that, tossed it with the sauce, and served.

That’s darned good. Yum. (Otherwise, I wouldn’t be writing about it.) I served it with tomato and cucumber salad with fresh mozzarella balls, dressed with a balsamic vinaigrette, and Bonny Doon Le Cigare Volant red wine. Yum. Continue reading →

07.23.12
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The Whole Recipe — Sugo

Sugo alla South Roanoke Apartment Villages Pool

Every family has a few recipes that are ALWAYS served. For us one of those is a spaghetti sauce that was handed down to my mother almost directly from a buonafide Italian grandmother. It was referenced in a very early Eats article on different kinds of tomato sauces, which even has a comment that echos a very important part of this sauce: you add the tomato paste to the onions and garlic in oil and “fry” the paste a bit to caramelize some of the concentrated sugars before adding the wet tomato sauce and plum tomatoes to simmer.

With this communal nature of recipes in mind I thought it would be interesting to learn more about this “handing down” of food knowledge because the process of teaching cooking has always (and continues to be) one of master-and-apprentice. This model is codified in the culinary world where every serious chef has worked their way up from dishwasher to prep to line, but that’s just a reflection of how humans have always learned to cook: watching someone with more skill, and listening to them explain why they are doing it. Since I knew a bit, but not the whole story, about how this family favorite was acquired, I decided to capture the Whole Recipe for anyone who is interested in it, not just the ingredients and preparation.

As you can see in the photo at the top, I made a batch of this over the weekend — a bit for dinner and mostly to freeze for many easy future dinners. I was inspired to make it because I had defrosted our kitchen freezer and found some frozen spare ribs hiding in the drifts of ice in the back, and I was sure they were dried out, but would still be able to flavor a long cooked dish, and pork-on-the-bone is a critical component of this dish, in my opinion. The great thing about using spare ribs in this sauce is that by hour four or five the meat falls off the bone and pretty much melts into the sauce — you don’t really see chunks of meat in your sauce (unless you add it to the end as Carol recommends) — which I’ve learned is one of the characteristics of a classic Italian sugo. Continue reading →

07.11.12
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Finally, Fresh Pea Soup Defined

Peas loving their own pods with a potato sidekick.

Old subject, new take…
My take on peas and fresh pea soup has been evolving over the years as chronicled on eats…

 

June 2006

Sweet Pea & Green Garlic Soup by Janet Fletcher, SF Chronicle — where chicken (or vegetable) broth makes the soup soupy…

May 2009

English Peas and…
in this case, pasta, inspired by Tom Colicchio’s book, “Think Like a Chef.”

April 2010
Fresh Peas and other fresh things… where I took off from a recipe sent by son Eric:

Fresh Pea Soup
“Here’s what we’ve been serving on our table recently. Recipes from Eric & Alison’s Tilth Table, November 1998 (From the River Cafe Cook Book)”

It is real good, but fairly standard, using chicken broth as the soupy vehicle.

December 2011

carrots x 3 + peas
I made this dinner back in fresh English pea season, but then got involved with going to Kyiv and so on. I finally got around to publishing it because the colors are so fresh and beautiful.

tri-colored carrots

May 2011

Fresh Pea Soup
I’ve been working on the perfect fresh pea soup for some time. After a few tries, I found one from The Washington Post that made some sense to me.

“A surprising amount of flavor can be coaxed from spent pea pods by simmering them in water.”

Why wouldn’t anybody think of that? Continue reading →

07.10.12
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A New (for us) Farmers Market

How ‘bout a pair…

peas and pods on table

I cannot resist taking this picture — peas and pods — I’ve done it nearly every spring when the peas come in, by my count. This one is different, though, it’s on our newish dining table — another story — and the peas were purchased at the California Street Saturday Farmers Market in Reno.

In the previous edition of eats… (Some Fine Grilled Chicken) I said, “[Pictures next time, I promise.]” Well, this is next time, and here’s a picture.

that car has no plates — another story…

Prime time parking space nestled between the ubiquitous Nevada pick-ups and SUVs. Guy on the left said, “Cute little red car y’got there.” I said, “We like it.”

The big Farmers Market in Reno closest to our house is just south of downtown on California Street. It occupies the edge of the CVS Pharmacy strip center parking lot.

Its a nice market. A double row of stalls stretches on a few hundred feet and finally  and appropriately bumps into The House of Bread — an actual bakery in the shopping center making breads, cakes and pastry (sorry, no french or Italian).

We got a loaf of brown bread — it’s way good toasted — I had them slice it for me.

what color are your tomatoes?

“Mine are all red,” said Carlee in the green shirt, “and I have peaches and cherries, as well.”

Oh my, some nice English peas. I cannot pass those.

This stall is so orderly it doesn’t look like food, so I passed it by.

Passed by this stall with yellow corn, as well. Make an effort, mate.

Here is the white corn we bought… it is so sweet and fresh and chars up nicely on the grill.

We’re on the home stretch.

Flowers are a good way to complete one’s market trip. These are very colorful and seasonal.

And finally, some of the stuff we brought home.

Cherries, sweet onions, tomatoes, peaches, red and white potatoes, bok choi, English peas, red, yellow and green cherry tomatoes. White corn is not pictured. What’s missing from the market? Any other potato varieties; and most of the heirloom vegetables that I’ve grown used to. The artichokes are the HUGE globe variety… similar with the broccoli and cauliflower. But what we got will keep us nicely and happily fed for a week.

But what about those peas? Continue reading →

07.05.12
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Some Fine Grilled Chicken

Shopping
A new tool
Finding a recipe
Cooking and eating

We went Saturday to the Farmers Market on California Street. It is good; a double row of stalls strung out across a shopping center parking lot. [Pictures next time, I promise.] There are plenty of fruits and vegetables to choose from, but only one meat source: Hole-in-One Ranch with a great selection of grass fed beef, but no other meat varieties.

On the way home, we stopped at Raley’s to scout their meat department. Well, its a supermarket and 99 percent of their meat is precut and wrapped, just like any supermarket. The meat guy did point out that certain chicken was organic. We bought a pack of 4 thighs, not knowing what we would do with them. (I look forward to reporting our success in finding good meat and seafood sources in Reno, but we’re not there yet.)

For the chicken, I hit my “to cook” files on the computer, looking for some kind of grilled chicken. As previously noted, we have a rekindled love affair with our grill, and this has been exaggerated by a housewarming gift from Carol’s brother Mark and Jannie of Keystone Tomato and Big Green Egg fame: a Technique Grill Pan.

Wow. That sucker sits on your grill and on one side imitates the grill and on the other presents a griddle. And it’s non-freakin’-stick!! Swordfish has a good chance of sticking on your grill, right?

Look at that baby, when I went to turn it, it slid across the grill. And look at those vegetables… Squash, ok that grills up nicely, but carrots? Who would put carrots on a grill? These turned out just crunch tender and tasty. And cherry tomatoes? Didn’t burst, didn’t stick. Did delight.

But I digress… back to those chicken thighs. “Chicken with White BBQ MB” looked interesting, and it had the “MB” suffix, meaning Mark Bittman, an even better chance to be interesting. And it was real simple: Grill your chicken, serve with the sauce.

That’s just what I did, substituting bone-in chicken thighs for breasts. Continue reading →