Build a better BLT (pasta)

BLT Bucatini.

Just the name sounds awesome. Maybe because "bucatini" itself is fun to say. And the recipe (from a sample issue of "Cuisine at home" magazine) brings together the main ingredients of a BLT (sort of) to make a fairly light pasta sauce. Who could resist?

OK, well technically, "BLT" is a misnomer here. The recipe I was working off used spinach, probably because it was going to be slightly cooked. I, however, am not a big fan of cooked spinach (except in spanakopita) and substituted basil for the substituted spinach. So technically, it was BBT Bucatini.

It still had the bacon -- turkey bacon at our house, but bacon nonetheless. It had the tomatoes, in the form of bite-sized grape tomatoes. It even had the toasted bread, namely garlic bread crumbs sprinkled on top. It did not have mayonnaise, but that's a good thing in my book. Especially in a pasta sauce.

I started by making the bread crumbs from a half of a French batard. I cut them into cubes, then put them into the food processor with some minced garlic. Then, I toasted them in a skillet with a little olive oil. Mmm.

Next, I cooked some diced turkey bacon in a separate skillet. The idea was to cook until crispy, but turkey bacon lacks the fat to get really crispy. I cooked it until it was close enough, then set the bacon aside.

At this point, I was supposed to leave about 1 Tablespoon of bacon pan drippings in the skillet, but as mentioned, turkey bacon lacks the fat. So I added a little canola oil and when it was heated, I tossed in the tomatoes and a little sugar for caramelizing.

I meant to add some sliced scallions when the tomatoes started to brown, but forgot that I had used up the scallions earlier in the week. Oops. After the tomatoes had been cooking about 7 minutes, I poured in some white wine to deglaze the pan. Meanwhile, I had started the pasta cooking in a pot on the back burner.

When the wine was nearly evaporated, I added some chicken stock, red wine vinegar and the teeniest shake of red pepper flakes. Maybe 10 flakes? Red pepper flakes are tough -- Will and I would have been fine with 1/2 teaspoon, but experience has taught us to go easy on the red pepper for the kids. We can always add more to our own plates.

I let the sauce bubble away for 5 or 6 minutes while the pasta finished. I stirred the reserved bacon pieces and some dried marjoram into the sauce, then took it off the heat while I added about 2 cups of basil leaves. I tossed the sauce with the drained pasta, and served it with bread crumbs sprinkled on top.



THE VERDICT: Mmm. The sauce was great to begin with, but the crunch of the bread crumbs made the dish. Of course, I committed my usual error of increasing the amount of pasta without proportionally increasing the amount of sauce, so it was perhaps a bit on the thin side and it could have used more bacon. Pancetta, if it's in the budget, would also work very well here.
  As for the family verdict... Will: "Saucy bucatini is delectable." Alex: "This is so good, they should serve it for first-grade lunch." Keith: "It's good."  A keeper.



BLT Bucatini (adapted from "Cuisine at home" magazine)
serves 4


2 c. cubed French bread
2 garlic cloves
2 tsp. olive oil
6 slices (or more) turkey bacon, diced
1 Tbsp. canola oil
1 pint grape or cherry tomatoes, halved
1 tsp. sugar
1/2 c. dry white wine
1 c. chicken broth/stock
2 tsp. red wine vinegar
1/2 tsp. red pepper flakes (optional)
pinch dried marjoram or thyme
2 c. basil leaves
bucatini or thin spaghetti for four

1. Mince garlic in a food processor. Add the bread cubes and pulse until coarse. Heat olive oil in a skillet. Pour in garlic bread crumbs and cook, stirring frequently, until golden brown. Pour onto a plate and set aside.

2. In a large skillet, cook diced bacon to desired taste. Set aside on paper towel-lined plate. Meanwhile, start heating water in pasta pot.
3. Leave 1 Tbsp. pan drippings, if any, in skillet. Add canola oil to bring it to 1 Tbsp. if needed. Add tomatoes and sugar, stirring frequently, until tomatoes begin to brown, about 5 minutes. Cook about two minutes longer, then add white wine to deglaze pan. Meanwhile, add pasta to boiling water in pasta pot.
4. Cook tomatoes until wine nearly evaporates. Add chicken broth, vinegar and red pepper (optional) to tomatoes and bring to a boil. Cook until liquid is reduced by one-third, about 5 minutes.
5. Drain pasta, and return to pot.
6. Stir bacon and marjoram into skillet with tomatoes and sauce. Remove from heat and add basil leaves. Quickly toss with spaghetti. Serve in bowls with bread crumbs sprinkled on top.

Spring salad

One of my favorite, never-remember-it ingredients is goat cheese. I love its creaminess and its slight tang. But when I don't have it, I forget to buy it; when I do, I forget to use it.

So, I thought ahead this time and picked out a recipe that featured it: salad with raspberry-poppy seed dressing and almond-crusted goat cheese. It looked like a nice accompaniment to grilled chicken, or a way to spruce up the usual mixed greens.

The dish started inauspiciously. First, Will couldn't find either mesclun mix or goat cheese while he was at the grocery store. I didn't mind the mesclun so much -- I prefer mixing up my own greens anyway, and suggested he just grab some romaine -- but the goat cheese was a must-have, necessitating a side trip to the upscale grocery. There, I found some goat cheese that was already sliced into rounds, so I figured the signs were right to proceed now.

When Will was ready to start grilling, I started to put together the salad dressing. This was easy: Throw some (thawed) frozen raspberries, sugar, red wine vinegar, dry mustard, minced red onion, salt and lemon juice into the food processor and blend. Slowly blend in a copious amount of olive oil. Add a tablespoon of poppy seeds. Then pour into a funky little salad dressing bottle and set aside.

Meanwhile, I prepared the goat cheese. While I was gathering the ingredients, I discovered that what I thought was a bag of sliced almonds was actually slivered almonds, which seemed thicker than the recipe intended. So I threw the almonds into the nut and spice grinder with a little flour, which keeps them from turning into paste.

I squashed the goat cheese into thinner patties. Then I dredged them in flour, turned them in an egg wash, and coated them with the ground almonds. I put the cheese into a glass baking dish, then drizzled a little melted butter over the cheese and baked it for 10 minutes.

While that was baking, I hurriedly threw together a meager salad of romaine, plum tomatoes and red onions. I didn't want too hearty a salad because I wanted the warm goat cheese to be the centerpiece. When the cheese came out of the oven, I put it on top the salad and drizzled the raspberry vinaigrette over it.

THE VERDICT: Most excellent. The cheese was just the right temperature and consistency, with a nice crunch from the almond crust. The sweetness of the raspberry dressing was an excellent complement to the tang of the cheese. Will, Keith and Alex all had seconds. The recipe makes a lot of dressing, so I'm looking forward to salads all week.

Getting down to business

Generally, I don't watch cooking shows. I'm in too much trouble collecting recipes already. Oh, sure, I'll stop and watch an episode of "Good Eats" if it happens to be on opposite a "CSI: NY" episode I've already seen. I might pause in my champion channel surfing if I hear someone utter a magic phrase such as "now add the melted chocolate..." or there's an immensely appealing visual. But I never actively seek them out, which is why this next recipe is an anomaly in my collection.

A few years ago, on a dreary Sunday afternoon, I lay on the family room floor, aimlessly flipping channels and avoiding all sense of productivity. It was that awful time of year, when football season was over and baseball hadn't started yet. I was giving each of our 107 channels approximately two seconds to catch my attention when I heard the magic phrase: "homemade pasta."

This magic phrase coincided with both an immensely appealing visual of fresh eggs being cracked into a large pile of flour, and my recent receipt of a pasta machine. I hadn't tried the machine out yet and I was more than happy to get a televised demonstration from what appeared to be an Italian grandmother. It was: The show was "Ciao Italia" and the host was getting a fettucine lesson from her mother. At the end, they tossed the pasta in a walnut-parsley sauce, the mom sent the host (and probably the crew) off with plenty of noodles to take home, and I copied down the show's Web address.

I have made fresh egg pasta many times since, usually a mixture of 4 c. flour and six eggs. This makes about 2 pounds; it takes forever, but it's too good to make only a pound at a time, and the results don't suffer any if I use the food processor to make the dough (I do it in two batches). The walnut-parsley sauce, however, was on the back burner until this weekend.

The original recipe for the walnut-parsley sauce dressed a pound of fettucine. As I mentioned, I make 2 pounds at a time, and we cook at least 1.5 right away. My first thought was to double the recipe, then I realized that might be too much sauce. Then I took a closer look at the ingredients and decided I was just going to have to mess with it.

The original started with 2/3 c. extra-virgin olive oil, which didn't seem like a big deal until I measured it out. But doubling it brings you to 1 1/3 c., which is insane, even for heart-healthy olive oil. So I went with just under 1 c. The garlic I upped from three to five cloves -- well, four, but one was gigantic, a big, big clove -- and the walnut and parsley I increased to 1 1/3 c. each.

I sauteed the garlic in the olive oil, then Will stirred in the walnuts and parsley. At this point, the fresh pasta went into boiling water elsewhere on the stove; it cooks in about three minutes, so it's done just before the walnut-parsley sauce, which cooks in five. Drain the pasta and toss with the sauce.

THE VERDICT: Fast. Simple. Tasty. But, too much oil and not enough garlic -- I pressed it instead of mincing and I think the flavor got lost. Keith, who apparently had his heart set on tomato sauce, wouldn't eat it until we offered him Parmesan on top. Alex, with the unfathomable logic of the 6-year-old, said, "I don't know about this sauce... This pasta is tasty because the sauce is so good." He also liked Parmesan on top. Will said he likes walnuts with pasta and said he'd eat it again. I have to make some more adjustments for next time. An easy keeper.



Walnut-Parsley Sauce
adapted from "Ciao Italia"
3/4 c. extra-virgin olive oil
5 large cloves garlic, finely chopped
1 1/3 c. chopped walnuts
1 1/3 c. minced parsley
grated Parmesan (optional)

Heat oil in deep skillet or wide saucepan. Saute garlic until golden. Stir in walnuts and parsley. Cook five minutes, stirring occasionally. Toss with pasta.

The Irish Potato Candy Famine

St. Patrick's Day is one of the toughest holidays for me, culinarily-speaking. Being one-eighth Irish, we dutifully cook our corned beef (a.k.a. New England boiled dinner), although sans cabbage in deference to my cruciferous vegetable problem. That main meal poses little difficulty.

The difficulty is what else to serve with it, or, rather, what to serve to two elementary-school children. For instance, the last couple of years I've had my eye on a chocolate-Guinness pudding. Serves 6. Maybe Will and I can eat three apiece, but I think that recipe is going to have to wait a bit longer. So will others of its kind.

So in the quest for suitable Irish-related sweets, I remembered potato candy. This seems to come in many forms, but the basis is the same: a large mashed potato, an insane amount of confectioner's sugar, and lots of coconut. Will once made a chocolate-coated version, which are called Needhams and apparently pretty popular in Maine. These weren't so bad (I think), and were what I had at the back mind when I set out to make this batch, which I planned to shape into balls and roll in cocoa powder.

There would be some chilling involved, so I planned to start them the night before. Unfortunately, I also had to go to a meeting, so I asked Will to peel and boil a large potato for me to mash when I got home. What neither of us expected was the meeting dragged for more than two hours and by the time I got home, my potato was pretty cold... but still mashable.

This was OK, or so I thought, because the recipe I was using said it was crucial to let the mashed potato cool completely before mixing in the sugar. Unfortunately, what it also said was to mash in some butter while it was still hot. So we melted some butter and mashed it into our cooled potato. It still seemed pretty cool, so Will went ahead and mixed in the first four cups of powdered sugar and a little vanilla.

We got an interesting soupy texture at first... and it thickened a little bit, but not a lot. We were supposed to be achieving a slightly stiff mixture we could shape into balls. No such luck. So Will and I added more sugar. Slightly stiffer, but nowhere near what we expected and neither of us wanted to add any more sugar. We tried mixing in the coconut and it firmed up a little more, but was still much too pourable.

Decision-making time. This recipe was not working. Will and I started tossing around ideas. Add still more sugar? No. Pour it into a pan, try chilling it, smear with peanut butter and roll it up like they do in the South? No. Pour it in a pan, try chilling it, and pour melted chocolate on it kind of like a Needham? Yeah.

THE VERDICT: Nil.
    I shouldn't say that, really, because I think something threw off the consistency with this batch. It could have been the potato (a russet, I believe), it could have been our misstep with the butter or the inclusion of butter itself. Chilling helped. So did pouring a a cup of melted chocolate chips over the top, although two cups would've been better.
     As for flavor, this was a plus. Keith and Alex both liked it, because "it tastes like Nanaimo bars." Will thought it tasted kind of like Mounds bars, but wasn't crazy about the amount of powdered sugar we had to put into it. It's possible I'll try it again, but then again, maybe not.

Crusty cooking

The last couple of weeks I fell out of the habit of trying new recipes. There was a week I was sick, then a period when we needed to fall back on speedy comfort food, and so on.

This week, the binder re-emerged. Actually, a new binder emerged, as I've been periodically sorting recipes by seasonal appropriateness, with a fifth binder for those recipes that really can be served any time of year. This binder has a larger proportion of desserts, I've noticed. It's also the go-to binder for this in-between period, when it's not spring yet but one is weary of winter. This recipe, for Parmesan and sage-crusted pork, comes from that binder.

It also originally comes from Cooking Light magazine a couple of years ago. (Why, yes, I do sometimes cook light.) I changed it slightly, so my adaptations follow.

First, dredge the pork in flour.

Then, in egg whites mixed with a little mustard. An interesting combination, I think.

Finally, coat it in a mixture of panko, grated parmesan cheese, too-coarsely chopped sage and some store-bought breadcrumbs. Someday, I will get around to making my own breadcrumbs, which so many professionals swear by. Seeing as I killed the can of store-bought breadcrumbs in this dish, that day may come sooner than later. In the meantime, I like the texture I get from combining panko and breadcrumbs.

Let the pork rest while heating a pan over medium heat, swirl in some canola oil, and then fry away. Meanwhile, I cooked a pot of polenta on the back burner, and mentally cursed the poor selection of green things at the grocery store this week.

THE VERDICT: I cooked the pork longer than suggested in the recipe to ensure it was cooked through. As a result, the crust was a little darker in spots than I would've liked for presentation. However, it was a really nice, crispy crust. Still, the whole thing didn't wow me. Will said, yeah, he'd eat it again, but he also didn't seem very enthusiastic (possibly because he's also not wild about soft polenta). The boys didn't say much at all, which makes it sort of in-between.
   I like the technique on the crust and the flavor combination. If I were to make it again, I'd either look for a thinner cut of pork or maybe even try it with chicken. But it's on the fence.

Parmesan and sage-crusted pork
(adapted from Cooking Light magazine)

4 boneless pork loin chops
3/4 c. panko
1/2 c. bread crumbs
1/4 to 1/2 c. Parmesan cheese, grated
6 or 7 large sage leaves, finely chopped
salt and pepper to taste

2 egg whites
1 Tbsp. yellow mustard
flour for dredging
1 Tbsp. canola oil

Trim fat from loin chops. Set aside.
Combine panko, bread crumbs, Parmesan and sage leaves in a wide bowl or plate. Add salt and pepper to taste.
In a separate wide bowl, whisk together egg whites and mustard.
Working with one chop at a time, dredge pork in flour, shake off excess. Then coat it in egg-mustard mixture, let excess drip off. Coat with panko mixture. Set aside.
Heat large skillet over medium heat. Add canola oil. Add the pork chops, cook 3 to 4 minutes each side until cooked through. Serve with polenta.

Drinkable pudding

We've been home a lot lately. We were snowed in early in the week, and roads cleared just in time for the schools' four-day President's Day weekend break. Plus, it's cold. For someone who considers herself a New Englander, I don't do cold well.

On the bright side, I do hot chocolate well. Usually from a mix. Sometimes I dress it up with leftover candy canes, a dash of cinnamon or some vanilla bean. I've got some intriguing recipes with orange peel. But what I usually long for is the thick sipping chocolate that crops up all the time in Hercule Poirot mysteries, but that doesn't seem to exist on this side of the pond.

Imagine my delight, therefore, when I was organizing recipes last week and came across a printout for something called "Castillian Hot Chocolate" and described as having the consistency of "pudding that didn't quite set." The big difference in this recipe was everyone's favorite thickening agent, cornstarch. Maybe this was what I was looking for.

So, on a snowy, cold day, while Will was out shoveling the driveway for the second time already, I set to work on the superthick cocoa recipe.

The ingredients in this recipe weren't just measured by weight instead of volume, they were in grams and milliliters. (U.S. Customary conversions below.) Fortunately, my kitchen scale switches to and from metric, but unfortunately, it looked like it was weighing in kilograms. No sooner did I get my son Keith to double-check my conversions than I discovered that the scale was, in fact, working in grams. First I weighed out some unsweetened cocoa powder (Dutch cocoa would have been ideal, but I ran out) and sugar, then threw them in a saucepan.

Next, I measured some cornstarch into the bowl I used for weighing. It still had a little trace of cocoa powder in it, so when I added in some water to dissolve the cornstarch, it took on a light brown color but I knew it wasn't going to make any difference in the long run.


Once the cornstarch (and trace of cocoa) was dissolved, I poured it into the saucepan with the cocoa and sugar and stirred it into a nice sludgy paste.

Then I gradually whisked in some milk (1 percent, for what it's worth) and stirred frequently while I waited for it to come to a simmer. And waited. And waited. And waited. For a looooong 10 minutes. Or maybe it was 15?

Eventually, the cocoa started rolling in that way that, say, pudding does when you cook it on the stove. All of a sudden it got appreciably glossy and thickened up so much I needed to use a soup ladle to pour it into mugs. Then I topped it with whipped cream, and voila!

THE VERDICT: Definitely a thick sipping chocolate, not unlike a pudding that hasn't quite set. Will said, "You know in 'The Polar Express' where they drink the thick, rich hot chocolate like melted chocolate bars? I imagine it tastes like this." Keith and Alex didn't say much more than "Mmm, this is good," but Alex walked around for quite a bit with chocolate smudges around his mouth. A keeper.

Castilian Hot Chocolate
converted from a recipe by Tovah Hollander

6 Tbsp. unsweetened cocoa powder

1 c. sugar
3 Tbsp. cornstarch
3 fl oz. water
4 c. milk
Whipped cream (optional)

Mix cocoa and sugar in a small saucepan, set aside. In small bowl, combine cornstarch and water until cornstarch dissolves. Pour cornstarch liquid into cocoa mixture, stir into a paste. Heat over medium heat, gradually whisking in milk. Continue stirring frequently while cocoa comes to a simmer. Simmer for 10 minutes or so until cocoa thickens and becomes glossy. Pour into mugs and top with whipped cream. Serves 4.

O Canada

It's an emerging tradition in our household that we celebrate the start of the Olympics with food from the host country. This officially started in 2008, with sesame noodles to kick off the Beijing Olympics. I don't remember doing anything specific for Torino in 2006, but then again, we eat a lot of pizza and pasta so it's possible.

So here it is, 2010, the Winter Games are in Vancouver, and I have no idea what would be considered Canadian food. The problem, I think, is that like the United States, Canada is a melting pot of cultures and it is as hard to identify a quintessentially Canadian dish as it is to name one that is strictly American. To make it more difficult, I wanted something from the western provinces to keep as close to the Vancouver theme as possible. This ruled out the only dishes I could think of -- tourtiere and maple syrup pie -- because they were from Quebec and too far east.

After trawling the Internet, I came to a few conclusions: our entree might have to rely on indigenous ingredients (something like bison burgers); fiddlehead ferns are probably unattainable in the Mid-Atlantic states; and if I wanted a truly Canadian dish, I needed to focus on desserts. Desserts like Nanaimo bars, a three-layer no-bake treat that not only originated in British Columbia, but made an Ontarian friend's mouth water when I mentioned I was thinking of making them. Maybe this was a quintessentially Canadian dish.



I started out crushing some graham crackers -- I needed 10 to get the required 1 1/4 c. -- and then chopping the almonds in the food processor. Chopping nuts is always tricky, because if I go too fast I end up with nut paste, but careful pulsing yielded excellent results this time.

I also added a cup of shredded coconut and set it aside.






Then I melted a stick of butter, 1/4 c. sugar, and 5 Tbsp. of cocoa powder in my makeshift double boiler. I don't own a real double boiler, so I usually stack a bowl or a small saucepan on top of another small saucepan and it does the trick. Eventually, I'll get a real one, but this works pretty well.

Next, I needed to combine the melted chocolate with a beaten egg. I followed the advice of The Eclectic Cook, who suggested adding the chocolate to the egg instead of the other way around to avoid curdling. I was still a little worried about whether the egg would be heated enough, so I added a little melted chocolate to warm the egg and then returned it to the makeshift double boiler. This was a mistake: It didn't curdle so much as it mysteriously separated, and after some cursing I scrapped it and started again. This time, I added all the mixture to the egg and used a thermometer to check it was at a safe temperature to proceed. It did make a nice custardy chocolate mix (which also tasted excellent).


Said custardy chocolate mix was then combined with the graham crackers crumbs, finely chopped almonds and coconut. This smelled great, kind of like Girl Scout Samoas.

It also turned into a nice, thick dough, which pressed so easily into an 8 x 8 baking dish. So easily, in fact, that there wasn't any left over to sample.

On to the second layer. I was at first baffled: I had it in my head that this was a custard-like layer, probably because one of the ingredients is 2 Tbsp. of vanilla custard powder (or pudding mix, in the States). But I wasn't thinking straight. Because what do you get from a stick of butter, roughly 3 Tbsp. cream, pudding mix and 2 c. icing (confectioner's) sugar? Holy buttercream, Batman!

I'm not crazy about frostings with lots of confectioner's sugar, so I had some doubts as I spread the buttercream across the base. Keith and Alex, however, were busy licking the frosting off the beaters and assuring me that it was very good.

The last step was to melt 4 oz. of semisweet chocolate with 2 Tbsp. of butter and pour that on top of the buttercream layer, then throw the whole thing in the fridge to chill. Some recipes said for an hour, others said for several. I went with several.

THE VERDICT: An excellent, tasty combination of flavors. I couldn't taste the confectioner's sugar at all. The bottom layer may have smelled like Samoas, but it tasted even better. Four thumbs up. And, when the kids weren't looking this morning, I snuck another one for breakfast. A gold medal winner, indeed.