Before my first stint in a professional kitchen I had no idea what it meant to “deglaze” a pan.  This is one little trick that transforms mediocre meals into vastly tastier cooking.  Here’s a quick video with a good explanation on how to deglaze.

P.S. I started writing this post on June 7, 2004 and figured it was about time to finish it…

A couple weekends ago on a trip to the mercato (farmer’s market), I ran into a Sardinian guy selling artichokes at the can’t-be-beat price of €7,00 for 20 artichokes (that’s about .46 american cents each).  The only stipulation was that you had to buy twenty – or ten for €5,00, but why get 10 when you can get 20 for €2,00 more?!?  Needless to say, we were eating artichokes all week – and loving every minute of it.  Here’s what we made:

Artichoke Pasta

Pasta with artichokes

Orecchiette with sundried tomates, toasted pinenuts, basil, capers, olives, mozzarella

Directions:  toast pinenuts in a dry frying pan, swirling frequently.  Add a little oil, garlic, onion and sweat till transparent.  Add finely sliced artichokes, chopped sundried tomatoes, olives, capers and a couple ladles of pasta water.  Cook on low till desired consistency and artichokes have cooked through.  Add more olive oil if sauce seems dry.  Stir sauce into cooked, drained pasta and add diced mozzarella.

Artichoke Risotto

Slice artichokes finely and cook in a pan with garlic, onion, and olive oil, adding a cup or two of stock or water as onion starts to brown.  You can use whatever kind of rice you prefer and either prepare it separately, or add it to the artichokes and cover with stock or water until rice is cooked.  Serve with plenty of grated cheese.

Pan Roasted Artichokes

Prepare as above, adding pinenuts and olives if desired and serve as a vegetable side dish.

Steamed Artichokes with Hollandaise Sauce

Steamed Artichokes with Hollandaise Sauce

Steam whole artichokes, almost covered with salted water in a large pot for 30-40 minutes or until soft.  Meanwhile, prepare hollandaise sauce.  I know that seems like a lot of butter, but trust me, it’s worth it!  I like my hollandaise extra lemony.  The real fun of this dish is in how  it’s eaten:  Dip artichokes leaves in sauce and scrape the meat off each leaf with your teeth.  To die for!!

Cold Artichoke Salad

Hard boil eggs and separate the yolks.  Slice raw artichokes on a mandolin, add crumbled egg yolks, flakes of parmigiano (parmesan cheese), dress with lemon juice, olive oil, salt and pepper.

Pictured above is Luca’s Dad, Franco with his harvest of the day (our dinner tonight!)  It’s mushroom season here in Piedmont and we’re lucky enough to have an expert scavenger in the family.  Not to brag or anything, but these were the most flavorful mushrooms I’ve ever eaten.  They were so freaking good (of the porcini variety).  We’ve actually been eating them all week (apparently when the mushrooms are out, they’re OUT).  On Monday with steak, on Tuesday in Ratatouille, and tonight baked in the oven with sliced potates, onions and rustic pancetta.  Too bad for you that Internet isn’t more multi-sensorial, or I’d send you all a whiff and a taste.  You’ll just have to use your imagination (or come visit!).

The area we live in is actually internationally reknowned for it’s mushrooms – we’re five minutes outside of Alba in the Langhe region, which is the White Truffle Capital of the World.  It’s always pretty easy to get truffles around here in season – they’re still expensive, but in these parts there are no added shipping fees, so that helps.  There are actually two truffle seasons – Fall is the more important White Truffle season (late September through mid December) while Summer is the Black Truffle season.  Experts say that the white truffles are more fragrant and flavorful, but we’ve had some extremely awesome black truffles that were much better than many of the more expensive white truffles.

Here’s Franco in October of 2005 with the fruits of a successful mushroom scavenge:

One of the best things about living abroad is the old-country ambiance that seems to have infiltrated the entire nation. Admit it, when you think “Italy” you think stone streets, gondoliers in Venice, old people with gold teeth and spaghetti with meatballs.  And to an extent these American stereotypes of the Italian way of life are on target: most roads in city centers are stoned and not paved, there are an awful lot of rowed boats in Venice, 4 out of 5 people have at least one gold tooth if not a whole set, and…well, I hate to break it to you, but nobody actually eats spaghetti and meatballs in Italy.  It can be romantic, but in many aspects, Italy is a backward country.

Take the mail for instance, I only get one English language magazine subscription, but in the two years that I’ve subscribed, it hasn’s once arrived on time.  Now, you may think that getting culinary news a month late could be a real disaster, but it’s really a blessing in disguise because by the time you get your Bon Appetit or Cook’s Illustrated, all of the featured foods are in their prime!

This was definitely the case this month when I tried out Bon Appetit’s recipe for Salad with Avocado-Lime Viniagrette and Spicy Pumpkin Seeds.  It is so incredibly awesome that I’ve already made the salad twice and the spicy pepitas four times in the last two weeks.  Their “viniagrette” is more like a garlicky spicy green goddess dressing than a viniagrette.

Luca mixing things up

The method for the pumpkin seeds is so much easier than the oven-baked version I usually make – BA made the recipe way more complicated than it needed to be – I mean who has chiles de árbol laying around in their pantry?  I used some cayenne and a mix of other random spicy things I found in our spice cabinet and they came out great.  I made the same substitution in the salad had great results too.  I also switched the cilantro that the dressing called for with parsley, which is way easier to find here.  Had to leave out the cucumber (Italians DON’T do cucumbers, at least in our neck of the woods) and the jicama (yeah…never seen that around here either…), and I switched the cotija cheese to parmigiano instead.

I guess I made more changes than I thought, but it was still an incredibly wonderful salad – the dressing and the spicy pepitas are the key ingredients, you can change up the other ingredients without any real problem.

I’ve also made some interesting crepe recipe discoveries lately, but that’s another story…

My Finished Avocado Pepita Salad

We went to Torino last night to participate in the Gusto del Territorio – an iniziative to promote typical products from various regions of Italy and unite chefs young an old for an exchange of innovative ideas.  In short, we ate and drank for four hours.  The event (part of a series) was hosted by the restaurant L’Birichin with guest chef Walter Miori from Trentino.  It was an awesome night.  Here’s what we had (I’ll let you use your imagination): 

Menu

Aperitivo Welcome  -  Isac Le Baladin e Super Baladin – Birrificio Le Baladin

Spuma di seirass (see below) ed agro di mosto San Giacomo

Polentina di Storo con sarda in saor 

Tartare di “carne salada” con verdurine e bavarese agli asparagi

Canederlotti alla verza e puzzone di Moena su burro e tartufo del Baldo

Pancia di maiale con polenta di patate porri alla crema con tartufo nero, salsa al miele Valdivia

Guayaba, frutto della passione ed Olio Terre Rosse

La torta sbriciolina con zabaione al Maso Grill

Bicchierino alla cioccolata modicana Quetzal, grappa Solera Selezione e gelatina al tabacco 

Wines

Ferrari Perlé

Ferreri Perlé Rosè

Tenuta Podernovo Tenuto igt Toscana

Lunelli Maso Grill

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Seirass -
Cow’s, Goat’s & Ewe’s Milk Whey

The name Seirass, Seras derives from the Latin Seracium and is the local name for Ricotta in Piedmont and Valle d’Aosta. The product has many different forms in the region, ranging from rounded cones to cylinders or an upturned basketshape. When dried and salted, it may have a roundish shape and varies in weight. The cheesemaking technique is the classic Ricotta method – the whey is heated to 90°C – with the difference that Seirass del Fen whey comes from mountain dairy milk used to make Toma cheese.  As is well-known, the whey of soft cheeses produces soft Ricottas while whey from cooked cheeses gives a more solid product. It is also difficult to obtain ricotta from pasteurised milk naturally. After 12-36 hours, the Seirass is taken out of its moulds or cloths and kneaded by hand with white salt. It is then exposed to the atmosphere. This operation is repeated several times. The cheeses are then placed in a dry, well-ventilated room to dry, after which they are wrapped in freshly cut hay (fieno or fen). In some cases, the Seirass is also lightly smoked.

Body: the fresh cheese has a delicate, lumpy body while the mature version has a firm, translucent, brownish-white or straw-white body.
Height/weight: varying from 2-5 kg
Territory of origin: Seirass is made almost everywhere in Piedmont, but hay maturing is typical of the valleys around Pinerolo.

Rosanna, Luca’s mom has been making this AWESOME sweet/hot red pepper marmalade lately that I am totally addicted to.  Though pepper season here just about ended with our first big snow this weekend, I’m looking forward to making it next fall (and eating my way through Rosanna’s stock in the meantime).

It’s best with caprino or robiola cheese on bread or grissini, I think.  Luca likes it with drier, aged cheeses, but I think it covers up their flavor too much.  I like the contrast of the hot spicy marmalade and the cool creamy soft cheeses.  It’s so beautiful, you can’t help but fall in love.  Sometimes (okay, only when I don’t have either cheese or bread on hand), I open up the jar just to look at the shiny red pepper gem-iness.

Ingredients

1kg Red Bell Peppers

2.5 hg Hot Red Peppers (the little, perfectly round ones)

1 cup Vinegar

1 kg. sugar

Method

1.  Clean and weigh ingredients.

2.  Dice the peppers into small pieces and cook for 10 – 15 minutes with the vinegar and sugar.

3.  Transfer the mixture to the mixer and blend.  Replace the mixture on the stove and cook until it’s dense.  Transfer to sterilized glass jars while hot.  Close the jars and turn on their tops for ten minutes.  Place jars right side up and let cool.

 These pictures don’t do the marmalade justice, but maybe you can get an idea…