Lake Lure Cottage Kitchen

Back in early June we attended a Blogger event put on by Larry of Big Dudes Eclectic Ramblings.  The theme was Italian. We dined waterside and pretended that we were on the Amalfi Coast.  Larry loaned me one of his Italian Cookbooks to take home so that I could test some recipes.  I almost didn’t want to return it to him.  The cookbook is Mamma Agata: Traditional Italian Recipes of a Family that Cooks with Love and Passion in a Simple Genuine Way.  I loved the cookbook for many reasons.  The recipes are simple.  There are many tricks revealed to make your food delicious and the illustrations are numerous and beautiful.

Mamma Agata is an institution on the Amalfi Coast of Italy.  She has cooked for many famous people including Humphrey Bogart, Richard Burton, Elizabeth Taylor and Jackie Kennedy.  In recent years Pierce Brosnan has found the delights of Mamma Agata’s simple but delicious Italian food.  As have thousands of others who have attended her fabulous cooking school.  Together, with her daughter Chiara and son-in-law Gennaro, they will spend a day with you at their breathtaking villa teaching you how to cook true Italian food and pairing it with just the right wine.

I decided to try this recipe using sausage and peppers and homemade tomato sauce because the farm stand that I visit is just now getting in local peppers and tomatoes.  Using the freshest ingredients possible really does make a difference on your finished plate.  One of the tips that Mamma Agata offers when making her fresh tomato sauce is to start with a pan off of the heat.  Add the olive oil, garlic and basil all at once and then put it on the heat.  As it heats, the oils from the garlic are released and they along with the basil infuse the oil with their essence.

Topped with shards of Parmesan, this really was one of the best pasta dishes that I have ever made.  If you want this cookbook it is probably best to go to Mamma Agata’s website to order it.  She ships worldwide and your copy will be signed.  When I tried to order it on Amazon the book prices started at $170.00.  What is up with that?  By the way, Larry made this dish also.  You can find his post about it here.

PAPPARDELLE CON PEPERONI E BALSICCA (SAUSAGE AND RED PEPPER PASTA)

Serves 4
1/2 lb. Pappardelle Pasta
2 1/4 lbs. of red and yellow sweet bell peppers
3 1/2 tablespoons butter
4 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil
1/2 small red or white onion, chopped
1 lb sweet Italian sausage
2 lbs fresh cherry tomatoes, quartered (I used only 1 pint)
5 fresh basil leaves, torn
2 pinches Sea salt
1 cup Mamma Agata’s Tomato Sauce (See Below)

Prepare Mamma Agata’s Tomato Sauce

Wash the peppers and remove the stems. Cut each pepper in half and remove and discard the seeds from inside the peppers.  Slice the peppers lenghwise, but not too thin and not to thick.

Saute the peppers in peanut oil for ten to fifteen minutes until soft.  This makes them easier to digest and also brings out the flavor.  Once the peppers are cooked, place them on a paper towel to soak up the excess oil.

Wipe out the pan and add the butter and olive oil to it.  Once melted add the chopped onion and cook until golden brown.  Remove the onion to a small bowl.  Add the sausage to the pan and cook and sear on all sides.  When nicely browned return the onion to the pan, prick the sausage all over to release the juices and cook for 2 minutes.

Add the peppers to the pan, lifting the sausage so that it is sitting on top of them.  Add the cherry tomatoes, torn basil leaves, salt and the tomato sauce.  Bring the mixture to a boil.  Reduce the heat to low, cover and cook the mixture for 30 minutes.  When done remove the sausage and cut it into rounds and return to the sauce.

Cook the pasta according to package directions to just the al dente stage.  Drain and add it to the pan with the sauce and cook gently for about 2 minutes to marry the flavors.  Serve in bowls topped with shaved Parmesan.

MAMMA AGATA’S TOMATO SAUCE

1 quart of vine-ripened roma tomatoes, pureed
10 fresh cherry tomatoes
5 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil
2 cloves of fresh garlic
3 fresh basil leaves

Mamma Agata’s Secret
The Roma tomatoes used to make this sauce should be vine-ripened so they are sweet.  Sweet tomatoes are the key ingredient in many Italian dishes.  If the tomatoes are not ripe and sweet, we recommend adding a spoonful of sugar to sweeten the sauce.

Add the olive oil, garlic and basil to a large saucepan.  NOTE: When you add the olive oil, garlic and basil to the pan, do so all at the same time.  Do not heat the oil first, then add the garlic and basil to the pan, but rather place all three ingredients into the pan at room temperature and then heat the pan.

Heat the ingredients over a high flame to release the natural oils contained in the fresh garlic, greatly enhancing the flavors of the tomato sauce.  Be careful not to allow the garlic to burn or the oil to smoke.  If this happens, you must throw it out and start over.  The garlic and oil should only be on the high flame for one to two minutes before proceeding to the next step.

When the temperature of the oil begins to rise, add the tomato puree and fresh vine-ripened cherry tomatoes to the pan.  Be careful not to burn yourself or let the oil or tomatoes splash on you.  You should hear a nice sizzling sound and soon you’ll enjoy a wonderful aroma from the fragrant ingredients releasing the oils and combining.  Bring to a boil and then reduce to a simmer and cook gently for 30 to 45 minutes.  MY NOTE:  My sauce was a little thin so I added about 1/2 of a jar of a purchased spaghetti sauce (Rao’s Marinara Sauce).

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I have been a faithful follower of all of Julia Child’s recipes for a long time.  Every one of them works well if you follow the instructions.  As Julia and her collaborators Simone Beck and Louisette Bertholle devised Mastering the Art of French Cooking, nothing was left to chance.  Each recipe was meticulously tested and refined.  When volume two of their book came out, sans Louisette Bertholle, both Julia and Simca (as Simone Beck was affectionately known) scored another fine publication.  But, by this time, tempers were flaring between the two dear friends.  Simca was very opinionated about the superiority of French cuisine and argued with Julia about cooking methods needed to translate recipes to the American kitchen.  She was also beginning to feel slighted by the popularity and recognition that Julia was receiving because of The Mastering books and her television show.  Simca had her own way of doing things and felt that many of her recipes were left out of the second volume of Mastering the Art of French Cooking.

One of the recipes that she wanted included in Mastering II was a Pork Roast that she had developed.  Julia, knowing that the book was too far along in the publication process, had to veto the recipe.  There was no time for testing and preparing it for inclusion.  After Mastering the Art of French Cooking Volume II was published, in part to placate Simca,  she was offered the opportunity to publish her own cookbook called simply Simca’s Cuisine.  One of the first recipes in the book is Pork Braised with Bourbon and Prunes.  I am assuming that this was the recipe that she had wanted to include in The Mastering volume.

I made this pork roast recipe last week.  I give Simca high praise for the flavor combinations in this dish.  The pork is slathered with Dijon mustard and rolled in brown sugar before being sauteed and then braised in bourbon that is first flamed in the dish.  The prunes are a perfect accompaniment.  But I did not lard the dish with pickled tongue as suggested.  Who of us home cooks has a larding needle or has easy access to pickled tongue?  She did offer the alternatives of prosciutto or smoked ham, but I was still put off by this step.  I also found the cooking time of 1 3/4 hours much too long for the pork.  It was dry.  Maybe the larding would have made a difference. The sauce made with the bourbon juices offset the dryness.  To me it was a good recipe that needed tweaking.  You can find my version of the dish here.

The second recipe that I tried, Molded Casserole of Ham and Mushrooms with Macaroni, Cheese, and Cream, did not work at all.   It had such promise.  I was excited about cooking the quiche-like filling in my charlotte mold.  It was supposed to be unmolded onto a plate and then drizzled with a tomato cream sauce.  One of the instructions was to cook the macaroni and then chop it up, after draining well.  This made absolutely no sense to me, but I did it anyway.  After baking everything in the charlotte mold, I flipped it over onto a plate and it had not set up.  Everything just puddled out.  Since this was supposed to be dinner last night, I just put it all into a casserole, rewarmed it and served it.  The flavors were great.  I would make this again as a casserole.  It is like a sophisticated macaroni and cheese with ham, mushrooms and Gruyere cheese.

So I guess the moral of this story is that Julia Child knew what she was talking about.  When you publish a cookbook it is best to test and retest.  Simca’s recipes are inspiring.  They have great flavor, but the techniques do not always work.  Here is my version of her macaroni and cheese.  I hope my techniques and flavors work for you.

HAM AND MUSHROOM MACARONI AND CHEESE

1 cup Macaroni
2 cups diced ham
8 ounces mushrooms, sliced
Juice of 1/2 a lemon, strained
2 tablespoons butter
3/4 cup half and half
4 eggs
1 cup heavy cream
1 cup Gruyere cheese, grated
Salt and pepper to taste
Nutmeg, freshly grated

Heat oven to 350 degrees F.

Butter a heavy casserole dish.  Cook the macaroni in a large quantity of boiling salted water until barely tender.  Refresh under cold running water, drain, and dry on paper towels.  Combine with the diced ham.

Clean the mushrooms and slice.  Sprinkle them with the lemon juice.  Melt the butter in a large frying pan, add the mushrooms, and saute, stirring, for 2 to 3 minutes.  Salt lightly, pour in the light cream, and simmer for 15 to 20 minutes until the mushrooms are tender and the cream has almost evaporated.  Drain if necessary.

Beat the eggs thoroughly with the heavy cream and the grated cheese.  Add the mushrooms, macaroni, and ham, and season highly with salt, pepper, and nutmeg.  Mix thoroughly and put mixture into casserole.  Cover casserole with lid or foil.

Bake casserole for about 30 minutes.

Printable recipe

One of the most trusted and influential food authorities of our era is Alice Waters.  Her innovative Chez Panisse restaurant set the bar high for high quality seasonal food provided by local sources.  One of her latest books, The Art of Simple Food, is a classic for our time.  So many new cookbooks have overblown recipes and complicated fey ingredients.  The beauty of this book is that it offers basic techniques that can be expanded upon.  It is perfect for the novice cook or for old hands like me, who want definitive recipes for classic dishes.  I have been searching for a great Bolognese sauce.  I found it in Alice’s book.

Bolognese Sauce is a rich vegetable and beef studded mixture that relies more on beef broth, wine and milk than on tomato sauce.  Waters’ classic rendition uses skirt steak, pancetta and ground pork for the meat mixture.  She suggests that the sauce is time consuming to make and recommends doubling the ingredients so that you have some sauce in reserve for a future meal.  I did not find it too time consuming.  I just pictured myself as an Italian Signora making her Sunday gravy.  Nothing to it really.  Of course if I had made my own Pappardelle pasta by hand, I might have felt overwhelmed.  But we have a wonderful Italian Market in town that has authentic egg pappardelle pasta.

This was a satisfying simple meal.  Alice Waters’ credentials are impeccable.  I may try her version of Minestrone next.  See my Favorite Reads on the sidebar if you are interested in getting The Art of Simple Food.  I will be ordering copies as wedding gifts for future weddings to which we are invited.  This generation of cooks deserve the best advice and Alice Waters delivers.  What cookbook would you recommend for a novice cook?

We will be traveling to Washington DC this week.  Among other things, I plan to visit Julia Child’s kitchen again at the Museum of American History.  It has been moved and updated.  We have rented a small apartment in Dupont Circle and plan to also visit lots of good restaurants in the area.  I will try to keep you updated on our trip.  I hope we do not get stuck in a blizzard on The Mall.

ALICE WATERS’ BOLOGNESE SAUCE

Heat in a large heavy-bottomed pot:
1 tablespoon olive oil
Add:
2 ounces pancetta, diced fine
Cook over medium heat until lightly browned, about 5 minutes.  Add:
1 small onion, diced fine
1 celery stalk, diced fine
1 carrot, diced fine
2 garlic cloves, finely chopped
5 sage leaves
2 thyme sprigs
1 bay leaf
Cook over medium heat, stirring occasionally, until tender, about 12 minutes

While the vegetables are cooking, heat in a large heavy-bottomed pan, preferably cast iron:
1 tablespoon olive oil
Add and brown over medium-high heat, in two batches:
1 pound skirt steak, cut into 1/8-inch cubes
4 ounces pork,ground
Cook until the meat is a nice chestnut color.  Once all the meat is browned, pour in:
1 cup dry white wine
Reduce the wine by half, scraping the brown bits off the bottom of the pan.  Add the browned meat and the deglazing juices to the tender vegetables with:
2 tablespoons tomato paste
Salt
Measure and stir together:
2 cups beef or chicken broth
1 1/2 cups milk
Pour enough of this liquid into the pot to bring it to the level of the meat and vegetables.  Simmer gently until the meat is very tender, about 1 1/2 hours.  As the liquid reduces, keep topping it up with the rest of the broth and milk, and skimming the fat that rises to the surface.

When the meat is tender, remove the sauce from the heat and season to taste with more salt, if needed, and:
Fresh-ground black pepper

Variations:
Include 1/4 cup dried porcini, soaked, drained, and chopped fine, with the diced vegetables.

Other cuts of beef can be used instead of skirt steak.  Chuck or hanging tenderloin will make a delicious sauce, although hanging tenderloin will require at least an hour more of cooking time to become tender.  During the additional cooking time it may be necessary to add more broth or milk to keep the sauce from becoming too dry.

Printable recipe

The greens of winter reach their peak during the frigid months of the year.  Collard greens, kale and cabbage are all in season right now.  We drove to the panhandle of Florida for our New Year’s celebration with friends and the backroads were lined with fields of greens.  Workers were bent to the task of picking the leafy foliage. These inexpensive, calcium and vitamin A rich vegetables add a vitality to our winter fare.  I plan to make full use of them in my meal planning this month.

Every year, we get together with our friends of many years for a New Year’s celebration.  We have met at each others’ homes, but have also rented houses or condos in interesting places.  Last year we rented a house on Tybee Island.  This year we rented a condo in Destin, Florida.  The above picture is the view of the Gulf of Mexico from our balcony.  The locations may change, but the food is always the same for New Year’s Day.

We roast a pork butt long and slow until it falls apart.  We have garlic mashed potatoes, collard greens, black-eyed peas, pea salad and Rosa’s cornbread.  This year we made corn muffins because Jackie forgot her iron skillet and the condo kitchen had only a muffin tin.  It was a fine meal.  The best ever.  You can find some of the recipes in one of my previous posts here.  David has taken over the making of the collard greens.  He loads them up with two ham hocks and cooks them for hours.  The recipe came from his secretary Rosa, who also gave us the cornbread recipe.  I wrote about her in this post.

David made such a big pot of collard greens that we came home with leftovers.  Not one to waste a good thing, I made a pasta dish incorporating the greens.  The original recipe came from Gourmet Magazine.  Since my greens were already cooked, it was easy to throw together.  We loved it.  I will give you the recipe as written in Gourmet and Rosa’s recipe for collard greens.  The Gourmet recipe did not call for a long cooking of the greens.  Either way, I think you would enjoy this.  Happy New Year everyone.

FUSILLI WITH COLLARDS, BACON, AND GARLIC ( Adapted from Gourmet Magazine )

1 pound collards, coarse stems discarded and the leaves washed well and chopped coarse
1/4 pound sliced bacon, cut into 1/2-inch pieces
4 large garlic cloves, chopped fine
1 large onion, sliced thin
1/4 teaspoon dried hot red pepper flakes
1/3 cup olive oil
3/4 pound fusilli (spiral-shaped pasta)
1 tablespoon red-wine vinegar
freshly grated Parmesan as an accompaniment

In a kettle of boiling water boil the collards for 10 minutes, drain them in a colander set over a large bowl, and return the cooking liquid to the kettle.  In a large skillet cook the bacon over moderate heat, stirring, until it is just browned and transfer it with a slotted spoon to a small bowl.  Pour off the fat from the skillet and in the skillet cook the garlic, the onion, and the red pepper flakes in half the oil over moderately low heat, stirring, until the onion is softened and the garlic is golden brown.  Bring the cooking liquid to a boil, in it boil the fusilli until it is al dente, and drain the fusilli well.  To the skillet add the collards, the bacon, the fusilli, the remaining oil, and the vinegar and toss the mixture well.  Season the fusilli with salt and pepper, divide it among 4 bowls, and sprinkle each serving with some of the Parmesan.  Serves 4.

ROSA’S COLLARD GREENS (This is a very loose recipe)

Put your ham hocks in water and cook on top of the stove.
Then cut the greens up, cut bottom stems off.  Do not cook stems, then wash greens 4 times in the sink.
Then put more water in the pot with the meat, add the greens.
Add hot peppers, salt, pinch of sugar.
Let cook about 1 hour and 1/2.

Printable recipe:  Fusilli with Collards, Bacon, and Garlic

Printable recipe:  Rosa’s Collard Greens

I received a new cookbook for Christmas.  To me, that is the best gift under the tree.  I look forward to it every year.  Every year I research the new crop of books available and find the one that appeals to me most.  This year I chose a cookbook that is both visually inspiring and full of recipes that are new to me.

The book is What Katie Ate by Katie Quinn Davies.  Katie is a food and lifestyle photographer and blogger whose blog of the same name has become an internet phenomenon.  She is Irish and lives in Australia.  I have been following her blog for a couple of months and am amazed by her photography.  She has a huge collection of vintage cooking utensils and her photo shoots are all about rustic presentations; not the prettily posed perfect shots.  There are crumbs and sauces dripping everywhere.  The photos in her cookbook are just as stunning and almost life size.  It is worth owning for its artistic merit alone.  But add to that the delicious recipes and you can’t go wrong.

The first recipe I tried was Fettuccine with Shrimp, Cream and Sun-Dried Tomatoes.  The ingredients were simple and in combination made a great weeknight meal.   Because January 2013 marks the 5th Anniversary of my blog, I want to share this lovely cookbook with you.  Please leave a comment and I will select one lucky winner by random generator to receive a copy of What Katie Ate.  Comments are open until Tuesday January 8th.  Thank you for all of your support over the years.

FETTUCCINE WITH SHRIMP, CREAM AND SUN-DRIED TOMATOES

3 tablespoons olive oil
3 cloves of garlic, crushed
1 1/2 pounds uncooked jumbo shrimp, peeled and deveined
2-3 scallions, trimmed and finely sliced
2 tablespoons shredded basil, plus extra to garnish
1/2 cup drained sun-dried tomatoes, cut into strips
pinch of ground white pepper
1 cup chicken broth
3/4 cup dry vermouth
1 cup heavy cream or half and half
1/2 cup grated parmesan, plus extra to serve
11 ounces fettuccine
Freshly ground black pepper
Crusty bread, to serve

Heat the olive oil in a large skillet over low heat and saute the garlic until softened but not colored.  Add the shrimp and cook for a few minutes, stirring frequently, until the shrimp are opaque.  Remove the shrimp from the skillet and leave to cool, then chop into thirds.

Add the scallion, basil, sun-dried tomato, pepper, chicken broth, vermouth and cream to the skillet, and cook over medium-high heat for 20 minutes or until the sauce has reduced by about half.  Stir in the parmesan and cook for a further 1-2 minutes until melted and combined.

Return the shrimp to the sauce to heat through, and keep warm.

Meanwhile, cook the fettuccine in a large saucepan of salted boiling water for 10-12 minutes or until al dente.  Drain well.

To serve, add the pasta to the sauce and toss together with two forks.  Garnish with extra parmesan, basil and a grinding of black pepper, and serve with crusty bread.

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