Chef Dave Pasternak dropped by CBS to give tips on how to put together an authentic
Christmas Eve Feast of the Seven Fishes with only $80. Let it roll...
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December 23, 2008
Christmas Eve 2008 Recipe: Stuffed Calamari - Stuffed Squid
We're posting this in response to a request from one of our readers who needed a stuffed calamari recipe for Xmas Eve. This is Mom G's recipe which is influenced by Marcella Hazan's version from her masterpiece "The Classic Italian Cook Book". Hope it works out for you Joe!!!!
Stuffed Squid or Stuffed Calamari
Serving - 6 people
6 large squid - sac should measure 4.5-5" not including tentacles
The Stuffing:
1 tablespoon olive oil
2 tablespoons finely chopped parsley
1/2 teaspoon finely garlic
1 whole egg
2.5 tablesppns freshly grated Parmesan Cheese
1.4 cup fine dry unflavored breadcrumbs
1/2 teaspoon salt
Freshly ground pepper about 6 twists of the pepper mill
(MOM G ALSO LIKES TO ADD 1/2 CUP FINELY CHOPPED MILD MUSHROOMS - NOT PORCINI!)
The Braising Liquid:
Olive oil - enough tom come 1/4" up the side of the skillet
4 whole cloves of garlic peeled
1/2 cup canned Italian tomatoes coarsely chopped with their juice
1/2 teaspoon finely chopped garlic
1/4 cup dry white wine
Directions:
1. Clean and prepare the squid (you'll have to look this technique up online folks)
2. Chop the squid tentacles very fine. In a bowl mix them with the stuffing ingredients until smooth, even mixture. Should be just enough olive oil to make it slightly glossy.
3. Divide stuffing into 6 equal parts and spoon it into the squid sacs -DO NOT OVERSTUFF0 b/c squid shrinks when cooking and the sac will burst. Sew up each opening with a toothpick o two.
4. Grab a skillet and coat with olive oil that comes 1/4 " up the side of the pan. Heat the oil over medium-high heat and saute the garlic cloves until golden brown. Discard the garlic and put into the stuffed squid. Brown the squid well on all sides then add the chopped tomatoes with their juice, the chopped galric and the wine. Cover tightly and cook over low heat for 30-40 mins. The squid is done when it feels tender at the pricking of a fork.
5. Remove the squid to a cutting board and let it settle for a few mins. Cut into slices 1/2" thick. Arrange the slices on a warm serving platter so that each squid sac is recomposed. Warm up the sauce in the skillet, pour over the sliced squid, and serve immediately.
December 21, 2008
Christmas Week 2008 - Revisiting Xmas Eve 2007 Photo Gallery
While we round up content for this week, let's take a trip back in time to
Mom G's Seafood Salad!
Christmas Week 2008 - Let the Feast of the Fishes Begin!
We've been getting a bunch of emails requesting various Xmas Eve fish recipes so we are going to consult with Mom's B and G and post some by Monday night, which should give our fans enough time to have a dish created by Xmas Eve. To start with, here's Mom B's Seafood Salad recipe again...
Mom B's Prep Station for her Seafood Salad
December 14, 2008
Sunday Sauce Without Meatballs - THUMBS UP!
Nikki's still sick so I needed to step up in the kitchen again. It's Sunday, it's cold, and there is lots of football on, so that meant another Sunday sauce (gravy). However, I was going to change things up a bit this week, thanks in part to readers of our blog. We received a bunch of emails after last week's
post on my version of Sunday sauce/gravy, and one in particular stood out:
From San-Man:
"Seriously, I rarely put meatballs in my gravy (yes, I said gravy, sorry) mainly because I know I could never come close to the ones my late Aunt Annie used to make...They were sheer perfection as far as meatballs go - crispy/crunchy on the outside yet moist inside...sigh..."
Considering Nikki is the meatball-maker in this family and she's out of commission due to her cold, this represented an opportunity to drop the meatballs from the gravy.
Jonny Mangia's Sunday sauce cooked without meatballs.
So, this week's version consisted of:
- Beef braciole (yes, after swearing this off I'm using it again)
- Pork sausage with and without fennel
- 2.5 cans of whole peeled tomatoes
- Pinch of sugar
- 3 tablespoons Pecorino Romano
- Salt/pepper to taste
- Tomato paste
- Onions
- Garlic
- Extra virgin olive oil
- Red wine
A Yule Log...err...beef braciole from Biancardi's of Arthur Ave.
This is quite different from last week and not only due to the ingredients, but also due to the method of cooking. The big difference was the balancing act btw the braciole and sausage due to their "baggage" - excess water and grease from the sausage, and the potential to turn the braciole into something akin to a horse's saddle by overcooking it. Here's what I did to avoid these pitfalls.
1. The First Hour...
Nothing changed here as I just cooked the tomatoes, olive oil, garlic and onion. At the :45 minute mark, I start browning the meat in a frying pan.
2. The Second Hour...
I add the sausage to the sauce. Since I don't want to overcook the braciole, I put them aside. At this point I also de-glazed the frying pan with red wine and then poured that into the sauce.
3. The Third Hour...
In goes the braciole.
4. The Fourth Hour...
Sauce is looking kind of watery so I PULL OUT ALL OF THE SAUSAGE save for one link and add some tomato paste to thicken things up.
I let it cook for one more hour after this.
Cross-section of Biancardi's beef braciole. Lots of cheese,
breadcrumbs and a little parsley.
CONCLUSIONS -
- This sauce was magnificent. It is BETTER than the version I posted last Sunday.
- Was sweeter and boasted a beautiful red color, even with the beef braciole (which in the past has made my gravy's darker in color).
- Consistency was PERFECT (i.e chunky) even with the inclusion of the water-emitting sausages.
- Beef braciole from Biancardi's of Arthur Ave. was INCREDIBLE. Look at the above pic for the beautiful color of the meat as well as its ample stuffing. He is now our preferred meat vendor on Arthur Avenue.
Bottom line - I'm not using meatballs in my gravy for the foreseeable future folks.
The Italian Combo: A New Twist
I was at A&S Pork Store earlier this week and noticed one of the counter guys constructing one of the most beautiful and unique Italian combo sandwiches I had ever seen.
It consisted of:
- Hot Soprassata
- Cracked Pepper Turkey
- Hot Cherry Peppers
- Mozzarella
- Shredded Lettuce
- Oil and Vinegar (just a pinch)
- Pepper
I decided to try one for lunch on Friday and it was one of the better sandwiches I've had in recent memory. It had the flavor of the traditional Italian combo b/c of the soprassata, oil/vinegar and peppers, yet it wasn't overly saturated with sodium so as to dehydrate you. It also wasn't as HEAVY b/c of the inclusion of turkey as opposed to other cured pork-based meats.
One piece of advice if you're going to order one of these: make sure to have an ice cold drink nearby as the combination of the cracked pepper turkey, hot soprassata and cherry peppers made this "fra diavolo".
December 10, 2008
December 07, 2008
Sunday Sauce Recipe I Sunday Gravy Recipe from Jonny Mangia
This Sunday I promised to cook for Nikki again and decided that it was time to bust out the Mom G version of Sunday Sauce (gravy). This is different from Nikki's version, as it's more of a ragu and is darker (my mom cooks it for much longer - up to 4-5 hours) and thicker. It's definitely a seasonal dish as my family would never have this in the Spring and Summer months - it demands a brisk, cold day with NFL games on the tube and a glass a of red wine in hand while it bubbles away in the kitchen.
Jonny Mangia's Sunday Sauce Gravy with Malfada pasta,
a pork braciole and sausage.
The recipe is simple and is listed below. Before you get started here are a few points to note:
1. It's All About the Meat
Only use quality meat. Last time we bought meat it was of a lower quality and it ruined the sauce. You can tell the quality of the meat by the way it looks (don't get anything that looks grayish) and when making meatballs how "fluffy" it is in your hands. Nikki can provide more info on this...
2. Thick Sauce - Limit the Sausage
If you prefer a thick sauce, limit the amount of sausage you use as it produces water and will make the sauce runny. If you do use sausage, brown them a bit more than the other meats as this will remove some of the water.
3. Favor Pork Braciole Over Beef
Try to avoid beef braciole if you are cooking for over 2 hours. We've found that beef braciole
tends to get very tough after a few hours cooking in a sauce.
4. Other Things to Add - Skin Braciole and Spare Ribs
Two other popular items to include for flavor are beef spare ribs and skin pork braciole (a favorite of my grandparents). The skin braciole provides MAJOR flavor but is laden with fat. If you have a cholesterol issue I would avoid it.
Sunday Sauce alla Jonny
- 2 Pork bracioles
- 3 Italian sausages - combination of hot and sweet (no fennel)
- Nikki's meatballs (using ground beef and pork)
- Salt and pepper to taste
- 3 cans of Italian whole tomatoes - NOTE - these do NOT have to be San Marzano, which we have come to the conclusion is nothing short of a marketing gimmick. (More on that from Nikki in a future post)
- A pinch of grated Pecorino Romano
- 1 cup of Red Wine
- Pinch of sugar
- 2 large cloves of garlic
- 1/2 white Onion- Extra Virgin olive oil
Directions
- Pour olive oil into pot
- Dice the onion, mash and dice the garlic and add them to the olive oil
- When onion and garlic is translucent, add your tomatoes (we SLIGHTLY pureed tomatoes in a food blender. Just a few pulses though or the tomatoes will turn pink!)
- Add salt, pepper, sugar and the grated cheese (just a pinch folks)
-Cook sauce for one hour on a low simmer
- In a separate frying pan, brown all meat
- Add meat when sauce has cooked alone for 1 hour
- Deglaze meat in frying pan with red wine, then add that mixture to the sauce
- Let it cook at a simmer for 4hours, intermittently stirring so nothing sticks to bottom
DONE!
Pasta with Broccoli Rabe and Sausage
Here's what we've been eating....
On Wednesday I promised Nikki a pasta dinner so I revisited one of my trusty recipes - orechiette with broccoli di rabe and sausage. The twist with this one was that I used mezze rigatoni instead of orechiette (be sure to use hollow tube pasta so it can capture the pieces of crumbled sausage). The other twist was that instead of using Italian sausage, I opted to use chicken sausage stuffed with roasted peppers.
December 03, 2008
Salumi Holiday Photo Gallery
Sticking to the Salumi theme, here is a brief photo gallery from SFgate.com with some of our favorite cured meats dressed up for the Holidays.
And you'll enjoy the accompanying article by Georgeann Brennan, where she waxes about creating her own salumi during the Holiday (errr...Christmas!) season.
