Wild Mushroom Pasta

We’re lucky enough to live across from a Whole Foods Market. Before you anti-establishment cooks ream me out for not shopping at a reeeeal market, I’ll tell you that I love buying the fresh, aromatic ingredients that any local purveyor has to sell me. Our weekends usually involve at least one trip to some destination food market; and NYC has no shortage of them. Any time we do end up at a food market, I tend to buy way too much of some obscure ingredient because it’s fresh, and then have to come up with something to do with it when I get home, and alas, I (often) manage. It’s one part of cooking that I love.

But, having a 62,000 ft² grocery store (I called to ask), complete with its own artisanal cheese shop, craft beer store and culinary education kitchen across the street makes for an easy decision. The selection of choice, locally grown organic ingredients is unbeatable. Actually, any time I’m in there it reminds me of Seinfeld’s bit about supermarkets. Funny stuff; http://thetravisty.com/Stand_Up_Comedy/wmv/Jerry_Seinfeld_-_Supermarkets.htm.

So, I thought I’d buy a pile of mushrooms and make wild mushroom pasta. If you can’t find some of the kinds listed below, don’t sweat it; just try and get a nice selection of fresh mushrooms. Try to avoid button mushrooms if you can…they don’t offer much flavor here.

Wild Mushroom Pasta:

½ lb whole wheat spaghetti

3 tbsp unsalted butter

Extra virgin olive oil

2 cloves garlic, minced

½ lb cremini mushrooms, brushed and quartered

½ lb mixed fresh mushrooms like chanterelles, bluefoot & royal trumpet, trimmed and sliced lengthwise

½ cup dry white wine

Ssea salt

Freshly ground black pepper

Small bunch chopped fresh thyme

Handful chopped fresh flat-leaf parsley

Zest and juice of a lemon

Handful each of fresh pecorino and parmesan cheese

2 Quail eggs

Heat 3 tablespoons butter in a 12-inch heavy skillet over moderately high heat until foam subsides, then sauté fresh mushrooms with garlic, salt, and pepper, stirring occasionally, until liquid mushrooms give off is evaporated and mushrooms are browned, 5 to 7 minutes. Stir in chopped soaked mushrooms and reserved mushroom-soaking liquid and simmer 1 minute, then remove from heat.

Cook pasta in a 6- to 8-quart pot of boiling salted water until al dente, about 5 minutes. Ladle out and reserve 1/4 cup pasta cooking water. Drain pasta in a colander, then add it to mushrooms in skillet. Add remaining 2 tablespoons butter and cook over moderately high heat, tossing and adding some pasta-cooking liquid if necessary to lightly coat, 1 minute. Add chives, parsley, lemon zest, and juice, then toss well.

While the pasta rests for a moment, heat a small frying pan to medium and add a splash of oil. When it’s hot, fry the quail eggs until the whites are cooked, but the yolk is still runny. Quail eggs are small, so this only takes about a minute.

Serve pasta with cheese and pepper and top with quail eggs.

Saucy Watermelon Coqtail

As I highly doubt The Saucy Coq has migrated very far yet, I’m going to assume that most of you have some kind of summer where you live. And, for those of you in the far North, peel off your snow suits and stoke the wood stove with one of these in hand.

NYC has had week after week of it’s signature Amazon-like heat this summer and this Watermelon Coqtail has yet to fail in keeping me cool. There’s just something about the cold, fresh watermelon juice and vodka that makes me want to put on some layers and keep trying to cool down with another pitcher.

Chances are, you’ll need to make a multiple of this recipe. It serves 2.

Saucy Watermelon Coqtail

1 cup watermelon juice

1/2 cup vodka (4 oz)

1/4 cup triple sec (2 oz)

1/4 cup simple syrup

juice of 1 lime

salt

sugar

ice

watermelon for garnish

Simple syrup is just sugar dissolved in water in equal parts. So, heat 1/4 cup of water, add in 1/4 cup of sugar and stir until dissolved. Make this first so that it can cool down before you mix the drinks. You’re amazing!

To juice the watermelon, I puree it in a blender, then squish it through a fine sieve. Try to really work it through the sieve and even squeeze the pulp with your hand to get every drop of juice out. If you happen to have a juicer, well, use it! And, please bring it over here so I can use it.

To make the rim salt, mix the sugar and salt 2:1 on a plate. Wet the rim of some chilled cocktail glasses of your choice with a piece of watermelon and dip in the rim salt.

Mix the watermelon juice, vodka, triple sec, simple syrup, lime juice and ice in a shaker and do your best. If you’ve done this before, flip the cocktail shaker around in the air for your guests. If your charm isn’t intoxicating enough, pour the drinks in to the cocktail glasses and garnish with a piece of watermelon.

These Coqtails are quite sweet, so if you’re serving them with a snack, make it a salty one.

Enjoy!

‘Champagne’ Risotto with Seared Sea Scallops

Although a rice, risotto is soooo much more than a side dish. It’s creamy, comforting texture and it’s ability to hold flavors and ingredients grant risotto admission to almost any party.

Having missed about 25 good years of risotto eating, I’ve been trying to make up for lost time. In the grand scheme of things, risotto takes a bit more effort than you might be willing to invest for a home cooked meal. But, give it a few goes and you’ll quickly have it down to a science…promise! Once you’ve got the basic technique down, you’ll have a whole new arsenal of dishes to impress your guests (or yourself) with. The possibilities are about as varied as a sandwich!

I say that there is a “technique” to making risotto, because there are a couple of broad strokes that have to be followed each time. In short: sautee your base flavor (onion, celery, garlic, herbs, etc), stir in the rice, add alcohol (white wine, vermouth, bubbly) and add stock a ladle-full at a time until cooked. The rest is up to you.

I saw a recipe for a Champagne risotto. C’mon. I don’t buy Champagne to drink, let alone to pour in to a pan. I’m in the Prosecco league, at best. If you have the luxury of using Champagne instead, please be my guest, and, let’s hang out. But, add some asparagus, prosciutto and sea scallops and Robin Leach will have your number.

Prosecco Risotto with Seared Sea Scallops

4 thin slices prosciutto
3 cups reduced-sodium chicken stock
12 asparagus spears, cut diagonally into 1-inch pieces
1 tbsp olive oil
2 tablespoons unsalted butter, divided
1 shallot, finely chopped
1 stick celery, finely chopped
3/4 cup Arborio rice
3/4 cup Prosecco (vermouth or dry white wine will work as well)
1/4 cup freshly grated Parmesan
sea salt
freshly ground black pepper
zest and juice of 1/2 lemon

4 large sea scallops
1 tsp unsalted butter
1 tsp olive oil
sea salt
freshly ground black pepper

Place the slices of prosciutto on a non-stick baking sheet. Bake about 6 minutes at 350 degrees until the prosciutto is almost completely crisp. Reserve for garnish.

In a saucepan, bring the chicken stock to a boil. Reduce heat to a simmer. Blanch the asparagus in the chicken stock for 2 minutes. Remove the asparagus with a slotted spoon and set aside. Keep the chicken stock at a low simmer.

In another medium saucepan, melt 1 tablespoon of the butter. Add the shallot and celery and sweat over moderate heat until tender, about 6 minutes. Be careful not to color the shallots as they will become bitter by the end. Add the Arborio rice and stir to coat in the butter. Continue toasting the rice, stirring constantly, for about 5 minutes more. Add the Champagne, turn up the heat and simmer until the liquid has almost evaporated, about 3 minutes. Add a ladle-full of the simmering broth and stir until almost completely absorbed, about 2 minutes.

Continue cooking the rice, adding the broth a ladle at a time, stirring constantly and allowing each addition of broth to absorb before adding the next, until the rice is tender but still firm to the bite and the mixture is creamy, about 20 minutes total. Remove from the heat. Gently stir in the asparagus, remaining butter, Parmesan, salt, and pepper. Put a lid on the pan and leave the risotto to rest for a minute.

Meanwhile, heat a cast iron pan (or any heavy bottom pan) to high heat and add the butter and oil. Salt and pepper the scallops. Once the pan just begins to smoke, add the scallops and sear on each side for 1 1/2 minutes, until you have a golden crust on each side, but the center is transleuscent.

Spoon the risotto into serving dishes and drizzle with olive oil and lemon zest.  Break up the crisp prosciutto into smaller pieces and scatter over the top of the risotto. Top with seared scallops.

Peach Radish Salsa

In the mid-16th century, a tomato and chili sauce was given the name salsa. In 2000, salsa surpassed ketchup as America’s favorite condiment. In fact, the study that garnered this data went even further to show that Salsa lovers may, loosely translated, be more exciting people than ketchup enthusiasts. They tended to be more extroverted, sociable, competitive and athletic; in short, risk takers. So, naturally, I’m making a salsa.

Somewhere between the early 1500′s and now, somebody decided that salsa could stretch beyond tomatoes. Good for them. And, good for us. The peaches here can be substituted with any pitted fruit (mangoes, apricots, plums, nectarines) and be just as delicious and versatile.

I served this particular salsa with some fish tacos that I made, but I can almost taste how great it would be with grilled shrimp or jerk chicken. Oooo, I’m gonna write that down…

Peach Radish Salsa

1 lime

3 ripe peaches, diced

2-3 red radishes, diced

1/2 red onion, diced

1 Serrano chili, finely diced

1 tsp chili powder

handful fresh cilantro leaves, chopped

1 tbsp olive oil

1 tbsp orange juice

sea salt

freshly ground black pepper

Remove the peel and pith from the lime and cut between the membranes to remove the segments. In chef-speak, this is called “supreming”. Put the supremes into a bowl and squeeze over the juice from what’s left of the lime. Add the remaining ingredients and mix. Season with salt and pepper and refrigerate until ready to use.

The Inaugural Bite

Everybody eats. This is a blog for everybody.

I have no idea where my passion for food was born. I don’t come from a rich history of family chefs. I wasn’t raised on particularly exquisite cuisine (although both of my parents were great at what they did cook). I spent my childhood and adolescence wrinkling my face at every dish put in front of me, uttering profanities at anything with flavor. Pepper terrified me. Spinach literally made me sick. Vegetables were French fries and tomato ketchup.

Ironically, this may actually be why I love food so much now. I can’t say that there was a moment in my life when my taste buds actually woke up and I had a new 5th sense, but I do remember some stepping stones. Dragging my feet around Western Europe for a year in my early 20′s bred a certain craftiness in me. I couldn’t afford a haircut for a year and I certainly wasn’t eating in any restaurants with this so called “table service” (at least, not on my own dime!). Fortunately for my free-loading ass, European food markets and street vendors are unparalleled in their quality and abundance.

Learning to make a kind of Egg Foo Young in exchange for a bed in Barcelona; wolfing down Vacherin Mont d’Or like it was a Kraft cheese string as a guest in Lyon; wafting the scent of Haggis baked in yellow pepper like it was a chemistry experiment before I tore through it in Inverness. These new floozies made an honest man out of me.

With a new appreciation for taste, but next to no knowledge of food, I started experimenting with meals in college and pumping up my palette, 3 sets of 15 reps, 5 times a week. I started to develop some culinary intuition. When you’re guessing, dissapointment should be reserved if the final product does not taste like the sum of its parts. Meals tasted, looked, or felt wrong. But, that’s how I learned. Since then, I’ve worked in no more than 1 kitchen and have taken a total of 3 hours of cooking lessons. Nothing to blog about. But, I’ve made a point of exposing myself to everything food. Food TV; food blogs; kitchen stores; cookbooks; textbooks; restaurants, restaurants, restaurants.

Eight years and a couple of meals later, I live in New York City. New. York. City. $#@% is this place a culinary juggernaut. What inspires me most about food is the reaction it invokes. And that is the reason for this blog.