Noodles are loved and worshipped the
world over as the ultimate comfort food. They are also extremely versatile and
can be eaten practically every day, with all kinds of sauces and toppings,
mostly cream or olive oil based, including sophisticated ones good enough for a
dinner party. Cooking pasta itself is easy. You can use dry, fresh, home-made
pasta according to your preferences and urges. They are all good.
At last, they are ideal for these
impromptu meals with minimal toppings, provided your kitchen is not totally
empty. Actually it is an opportunity to try out new taste combinations.
There are countless recipes
everywhere you look. I am just indicating some that we tend to overuse
ourselves, starting with very simple ones.
No need for a recipe to add good
butter or good olive oil to a batch of al dente spaghetti. No need for a recipe
to volunteer additional fresh herbs and/or Parmesan or Swiss gruyere shavings.
And what about a diced raw tomato?
So simple, so unpretentious, and so
cheap… how can it be so good?
Quickly stir-fry 4 or 5 scallions
(cut in 1-inch pieces) in olive oil, with a few tsp. of jalapeno or chili
pepper slices. Add chopped parsley or cilantro, bits of prosciutto or bacon,
salt and pepper.
Turn off the heat, add a ribbon of
fresh olive oil, and pour the spaghetti into the pan.
Mix well and serve.
Shell and chop walnuts so that you
obtain ½ cup and mix in 4 or 5 oil-packed anchovy fillets, finely minced.
Quickly stir-fry that mix in olive
oil.
Add a few chili flakes, salt and
pepper.
Turn off the heat, add a ribbon of
fresh olive oil, and pour the spaghetti into the pan.
Mix well and serve.
Quickly brown some chopped pancetta
(or bacon). Pour the spaghetti into the pan and pour 1 or 2 raw beaten eggs.
Stir vigorously and serve.
We associate this recipe with
summertime. It does require much more time to prepare, essentially the time for
tomatoes to caramelize somewhat. It must
be “made to order” for each meal, as its taste will not keep properly.
You will need:
×
4 or 5
vine ripened tomatoes, with a skin which will hold when cooking
×
1 or 2
cloves of garlic, minced
×
½ cup of
minced parsley
×
Olive
oil, salt, and pepper
Put some oil in a pan over
low/medium heat
Cut the tomatoes in half and place
these halves, skin side down in the pan.
Salt them slightly to make them
release their water.
Wait and wait for the tomatoes to
start cooking. Make sure they do not burn.
After 25 to 30 minutes, when they
look half cooked, turn the tomatoes over.
Add olive oil if the pan looks too
dry.
At this stage, if you cannot watch
them constantly, you can reduce the heat and cover the pan.
After 10 minutes, turn the tomatoes
over again.
You will know the tomatoes are
cooked when they are shriveled and slightly caramelized.
Put them on a serving dish, salt and
pepper to taste, and cover them with minced garlic and parsley.
Pour the spaghetti in the pan to
coat them with the cooking juices.
Serve the spaghetti in soup plates
with 1 or 2 tomato halves on top. Everyone must cut up his own tomatoes and
fold them into the spaghetti, revealing the combination of sweet, caramelized
tomatoes and the freshness of raw garlic and parsley.
Make sure you have enough for
seconds.
Pour some sauce (see the Vegetable
section) over a fresh batch of spaghetti.
Mix, salt, and pepper to taste.
Serve in a bowl with a sunny side
fried egg on top.
Pierce the yolk with your fork, roll
up your first mouthful and start moaning.
This dish is easily prepared in no
time, practically the time it takes to cook spaghetti. You just need:
×
12 to 15
little neck clams or whatever clams are available (1)
×
½ cup white wine
×
1 minced clove of garlic
×
4 or 5 tbsp. minced parsley
×
Olive oil and 2 tbsp. butter or more
×
Pepper, and possibly salt
Cook your
spaghetti as usual but slightly undercooked because you will want them to
absorb some of the clams’ cooking liquid. Meanwhile…
Pour the
wine into a separate pan, add the clams, cover and cook them for 3 minutes.
Check the
liquid in the pan to make sure it is not overly salted.
If it is
fine, it will be the basic flavoring for your spaghetti.
Add the
garlic, parsley, olive oil and butter.
Add the
spaghetti, stir them, and let them sit for a while so that they absorb some of
the liquid and its flavor.
Pepper to
taste.
Serve as is,
with shells. Each guest will have to do some sorting out.
If the
cooking liquid is clearly too salty, it would be necessary to discard part of
it and complement the topping with olive oil and butter. Also discard any clam
which would not open naturally.
This indicative recipe is just one
example of a delight you can prepare easily, provided you have the ingredients
of course: spaghetti, fresh leeks, ham or prosciutto or bacon, and cream (crème
fraîche or whipping cream). If you think of other ingredients which would lend
themselves to the same process, try them until you find your favorites.
Clean some fresh leeks (see
Vegetable section) and mince them.
Have them melt in a sauce pan with
some butter for 3 or 4 minutes. They must start to soften but you will want to
keep them nice and green.
Chop the ham and add it to the pan.
Pour the cream and cook until it
starts boiling.
When you have reached the desired
consistency, it is ready.
Salt, pepper, and stir in your
spaghetti for a few seconds.
It is good like that and you can
serve, unless you still want to enrich it with another ingredient, a diced
tomato, some lemon thyme, or a tablespoon of Parmesan cheese shavings.
This would be the same with smoked
salmon instead of ham.
If a Valentine dinner is coming up
and you have no money to eat out, why not celebrate at home with pink
spaghetti?
You probably have a veal scallopini
left over in the refrigerator. Just cut it in strips, salt it, and sauté it in
a tiny bit of butter with a lot of paprika. Add cream and boil it until thick
enough.
When your spaghetti are ready, mix
them in. Salt, pepper to taste, add some chopped parsley or tarragon for visual
contrast. This may keep your love alive until next year.
See Fish and Shellfish section.
Rice comes in many shapes, textures,
and tastes and we will probably never taste them all. In our home, easily found
Basmati or Thai Jasmine rice are longtime favorites and we also regularly eat
fragrant sticky rice. After being relatively immune to the risotto’s charms for
most of my life, I have now fallen for it, and for the Carnaroli or Arborio rice that makes this creamy
miracle possible. I would also like to broaden my experience and, for example,
would welcome an initiation to the subtleties of Japanese rice varieties.
White rice can be a basic
accompaniment of many dishes, if those provide a sauce or topping which will
complement rice’s neutral taste and alleviate its dryness.
If you do not have a rice cooker,
you can achieve the same fluffy result with a simple sauce pan and a tight lid.
Select the amount of rice you want
to make, e.g. 1 cup.
Rinse it for 5 minutes.
Pour it in the sauce pan. It should
ideally occupy a third of that pan or less.
For 1 cup of rice, pour 1 ¼ cup of
water.
If the pan’s lid isn’t tight enough,
you can fashion one with aluminum foil that you will tighten over the edges.
Put the pan on your high heat burner
until you hear the water boiling (this will take 3 or 4 minutes; the aluminum
foil should expand slightly).
Switch the setting to low simmer.
25 minutes later your rice is ready
for use, fragrant and appetizing. (2)
Sticky rice is traditionally
prepared differently and in a more time consuming way (in Laos, for example,
where it is the choice staple). However, the technique above applies very well
with 2 differences: rice should not be rinsed and the proportion of water
should be lower (1 or 11/8 cup of water to 1 cup of rice).
This fried rice was originally
inspired by a stay in Singapore, and an urge to mirror the ethnic composition
of this city by adding curry to a traditional ubiquitous Chinese dish. It
evolved along the years, far from Singapore’s origins, but kept its name in our
family.
It is a great way to use leftovers,
including rice left from a former meal. The core taste comes from the sweet
pepper, onion, curry, soy sauce combination. Many ingredients can be included,
from mushrooms to broccoli. It can be prepared in a wok or any kind of large
pan, with burner set on high.
Basic recipe:
×
2 cups of
steamed rice
×
½ of
green pepper
×
½ of
sweet Mayan onion
×
¼ to ½ lb
of ham
×
1 egg
×
2 tsp of
curry
×
4 tbsp
soy sauce
×
Salt,
pepper
Cut up all ingredients in small
pieces.
Sauté green pepper for 10 minutes,
salt, then add the onions and stir until golden.
Throw in the ham, and then all the
rice.
Keep stirring. Add oil if needed.
Throw in the egg and the curry.
Keep stirring for a while to mix all
ingredients.
As soon as you can see that the egg
is cooked, you can stir from time to time only, so that the rice can get that
“fried” quality.
Stop cooking. Pour the soy sauce.
Salt and pepper to taste. Serve steaming hot.
Proper risotto generally
incorporates by permeation the tastes of white wine and stock, a combination
which was long prevalent in Western cooking. It is prepared according to
precise specific stages which will deliver in the end the texture and richness
of taste you will be looking for.
The first stage is to choose the
right kind of grain, selected to give off starch when cooked. Arborio rice is
probably the most easily available outside Italy.
The second stage involves slightly
frying up the rice in melted onions and butter or olive oil, until all grains
are coated with fat.
In the third stage, wine is poured
over the rice and absorbed.
In the fourth stage, stock is added
slowly while stirring constantly, until the rice is globally creamy while each
grain is locally “al dente”. It is also when all the planned ingredients, from
asparagus tips to shellfish, are incorporated .
The fifth stage is at hand: adding a
good measure of grated Parmesan cheese and possibly some butter, stirring
actively, and serving at once. (3)
There are countless recipes for
risotto. I propose just one, most austere and simplified, which captures the
essence of risotto with 3 ingredients only. Wine and stock are replaced by pure
water. It does demand the highest quality for all ingredients in order to
guarantee a delightful result:
×
2 cups
Arborio rice
×
1 cup
shelled spring peas, as sweet as you can find
×
¼ cup
freshly grated Parmesan cheese
×
Olive
oil, salt and pepper
Pour the rice into a pan over olive
oil on low/medium heat. Make sure each grain is properly coated: It will become
translucent.
Pour water over the rice by batches,
stirring constantly. Salt and pepper.
Throw in the peas after 5 minutes
and continue adding water.
Stop when the rice is cooked, creamy
but firm, with practically no liquid.
Add the Parmesan, still stirring
constantly.
Salt and pepper to taste.
Serve immediately.
No meaty taste. No buttery taste.
Pure bliss.
This dish, emblematic of the
Valencia region in Spain, exists in many variations, taking its name from the
pan in which it was usually prepared. As usual with this type of dish, a small
coterie of local purists can tell you which paella is authentic and which one
should be excommunicated. This should not concern us much as we are driven by
our taste buds, more than an ill-placed sense of history.
You will find countless recipes for
paella, most containing meat or poultry and seafood. The goal is to cook rice
in a broth until this broth is absorbed (or evaporates). Part of the pleasure
is to admire the whole dish before anyone is served. This means that in any
case, you will have to bring the pan you have used for cooking to the
table.
For cooking paella, problems start
with the container. The traditional paella pan is a wide shallow carbon steel
dish with 2 handles. It was well adapted to old outside gas burners but is
unfortunately too wide for most modern range burners. Therefore, you must
choose between 2 solutions:
1. Either cooking in that pan, which looks so impressive
and festive when you bring it to the table, but will impose some form of
rotation over your stove top to make sure that everything is evenly cooked.
2. Or cooking in a standard carbon steel pan, which will
be easier to work with, maybe less shallow thereby allowing for a moister
result but far less exceptional when you bring it to the table.
Brown the meat pieces over medium
heat (chicken, duck, rabbit, chorizo, squid, cuttlefish, possibly pork?)
Throw in the vegetables you want to
use (onion, bell pepper slices, runner beans, white beans). Sauté for 5
minutes.
Add tomatoes, garlic, some ground
paprika.
Cover with water.
Cook for 10 minutes on high heat.
Add a good pinch or two of saffron. Salt and pepper to taste
Spread the rice out evenly in you
pan and start cooking on high heat for 5 minutes and then low heat for the next
20 minutes until the rice is practically cooked. The actual time necessary depends on the depth
of the pan you have chosen to use and the quality of your rice.
Add water sparingly if needed.
If you have quickly sautéed shrimps
or mussels in the beginning and reserved them for later, now is the time to
spread them out on top.
You can let it rest for five minutes
to make sure all the broth is absorbed. Serve to Ahs! and Ohs!
Using good saffron is
critical for this dish’s taste, more than for its color which could be obtained
in many other ways and is mostly irrelevant. It is the aroma and flavor of
saffron we want to find when we eat a paella. Regardless of the specific cost
for the very large pinch you will use, it will remain minimal compared to the
rest of the dish.
Rice and pasta are clear winners in
the cereal race. However, it is interesting to explore other grains,
technically cereals or not, which can be used on a dinner plate as a natural
complement to richer ingredients.
This is still made from durum wheat,
like pasta. Making couscous properly the way the natives do involves a number
of operations designed to reach a fluffy consistency where all the grains stay
separate. It also requires a specially designed steamer and the attendant
storage space in your kitchen. In general, the steam comes from the meat and
vegetable stew simmering in the lower container.
I propose a much easier way using a
non-stick pan and the method used for kasha in the next recipe. Stir it from
time to time to make sure the semolina grains do not stick. It will be ready in
no time and can be reheated by just adding a bit of water and steaming again.
Only seasoned couscous specialists may identify a difference with the original
ways, and probably because you have used olive oil to coat the grains, instead
of butter!
Among historic comfort foods, often
grown in soils too poor or climates too cold for actual wheat, buckwheat has
inspired a devoted following, going from venerated soba noodles in Japan to kasha
porridge or buckwheat flour blinis in Russia and to
the traditional Breton galette in France. (4)
You will need:
×
1 ½ to 2 cups of buckwheat (the toasted brown kind,
not the green one!)
×
Olive oil, salt and pepper
This very versatile accompaniment can be prepared in
advance and reheated at the last minute.
Drop a ribbon of olive oil in a heated non-stick pan
and pour in the buckwheat grain. Stir for one or two minutes until grains are
well coated with oil. This will ensure that, when steamed, grains will be whole
and detached. The original Russian or Ukrainian recipe calls for butter instead
of oil.
Then, cover with water and salt slightly. Cook on low
heat, covered, letting buckwheat grains absorb the water. Taste to make sure
grains are cooked, meaning soft but not mushy at all, like rice or bulgur. Add
water if needed and let it simmer at very low temperature.
You can also reserve for later use. Cooked buckwheat
keeps very well in the refrigerator for several days. Before serving, just add
a little bit of water, cover, and steam it at low temperature. You can serve as
is or with a spoonful of butter.
Kasha goes well with most fish or meat preparations,
alone or mixed with sautéed wild mushrooms.
Polenta is another of these original
Italian peasant foods, prepared from time immemorial with available cereals of
the time. Today, it is synonymous with corn, although subject to many
variations. It can be prepared from fine or coarse, yellow or white corn
semolina, and achieve any state between creamy and much denser. Its preparation
resembles risotto: many flavors can be added to its rather bland texture, and
it can even be made into patties and refried.
It can be an accompaniment to
Mediterranean-type preparations as well as cream-based dishes.
Many other cereals are available,
often in bread or breakfast specialties.
You can also find them easily now in
health food stores and use them in your cooking instead of the more ubiquitous
rice or pasta. If they are part of your heritage or personal story, like pearl
barley in Ashkenazi soups, you owe it to yourself.
(1) Mussels
could work too. In the South of France, I often use local tellines, very small
bivalves of the Donax genus, which are inherently messy to eat (Use your
fingers!) but very flavorful.
(2) Actually,
the cooking time can vary slightly according to the rice you have purchased.
Only trial and error will lead you to the best result.
(3) To
avoid any off-taste, this Parmesan must be freshly grated from a piece of
freshly cut cheese. No shortcut here.
(4) Word
of caution: Wikipedia was warning its readers in 2010 about the risk of
possible anaphylactic reactions for sensitive people. This is not part of the
latest entry
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