Friday Dinner: the Amazing Macaroni and Cheese, Oven Ribs and Creamy Coleslaw

I don't make mac and cheese or any pasta at home, nor do I order it in restaurants. Why? Because the angel on my shoulder reminding me that, "It's not as much about what you eat, it's about portion size." gets smacked into oblivion by "want". However, Friday dinners cooked with my amica in cucina, Lynn are the exception and boy-oh-boy this mac and cheese was fun, easy and delicious.

We compare notes on cooking shows we've watched, or recipes found and this one (Maccheroni al Formaggio) came from Lidia Bastianich and Tanya Bastianich Manuali's cookbook, "Lidia's Italy in America". I don't post recipes if they are not original, unless we've made significant changes in ingredients, preparation or sometimes both. With the exception of the cheeses and our choice of pasta (shells over the recipe's called-for "pipette"), we made this exactly as written, cutting the amounts in half.

Generally, when we find a new recipe, we do some research but we've never been steered wrong by Lidia - "In Lidia We Trust".

Why did we get so excited about this recipe? There is no Mornay sauce (a béchamel or "white sauce" to which grated cheese is added). The sauce is cheese, milk and two sage leaves. I've seen references to this type of sauce, but hadn't seen any recipes. Another big plus is the topping. Day-old Italian (we used a baguette) bread is hand-grated using the large holes of a box grater, lightly toasted in butter, cooled completely and the crumbs are combined with Grana Padano or Parmigiano-Reggiano (we used Romano) cheese. The variation in the crumb size really contributes to the topping's crunchiness.

Oven Ribs and Creamy Coleslaw - oh yeah, we did have a couple of other dishes and they were delicious, too. Lynn made a rub with brown sugar, paprika, onion, garlic, salt and thyme, rubbed down the ribs (1 rack of pork spareribs), wrapped them and refrigerated them for 24 hours and then we cooked them, covered in foil with a little white wine in the bottom of the baking sheet for 3 hours at 250 F, then broiled them for a total of 5 minutes right before serving. We made Al Bergez' sauce to accompany the ribs.

My creamy coleslaw dressing wasn't too creamy or sweet (I never add sugar to my coleslaw dressing) and one important thing to remember - unless you like too much dressing - is to under-dress the coleslaw and let it rest in the refrigerator for a couple of hours. The moisture released from the coleslaw as it breaks down a little will add to the dressing and the salad remains crunchy without a soupy mess of dressing in the bottom of the bowl.

RECIPES: MACARONI and CHEESE and CREAMY COLESLAW

Roasted and Stuffed Prosciutto-Wrapped Pork Loin, No-Name Potatoes and Citrus Salad

I swear that this is (probably nearly) the last post for things made in 2011, but it's a great dish that we made for our 2011 New Year's Eve dinner. We'd been planning to make this pork loin roast since October 2011 when Lynn saw it in Bon Appetit. None of the components are difficult for the pork loin but there was a serious error in the original recipe when it came to cooking temperature and time - which I address in the recipe's head notes after the jump. 

Fortunately, others had gone before and there was very good information in the reviews. Ours looked like the roast in the magazine's picture and tasted like something you'd gladly open your wallet to pay for in a restaurant. It was all kinds of awesome.

A pork loin is butterflied, a layer of pre-wilted kale is spread on top, and on top of that a mixture of pork sausage, reconstituted dried mushrooms and apples, thyme and rosemary. The loin is then rolled and wrapped in a layer of prosciutto, tied and garnished with rosemary, browned briefly and roasted.

I was at Sur La Table looking to buy some kitchen twine because Lynn was out. All they had were ridiculously expensive (and small) packages of kitchen twine and these re-usable silicone bands for about the same price.  I have poo-pooed these in the past because tying your own roast or other cut of meat when called for is something you should know how to do.  However... the bands work beautifully, are easy to remove and easy to clean. These bands wouldn't work for every application, but they were perfect for this roast. Yay, technology!

Hello luv-ah!

I can't figure out what to name the potatoes. The closest I've come is "French-Fried Potato Columns" (not entirely accurate and kind of uninteresting), or maybe, "Potatoes Cooked Three-Ways". Ugh. My sister Chris served these a couple of years ago for our family's Christmas Eve dinner and I've been periodically obsessing over them since then.They taste  like french fries on the outside (but are not deep fried) and inside, but are approximately 2" high by 2 to 3" diameter "columns" and so there is a lot of fluffy potato in the middle. I don't eat potatoes very often and when I finally got around to asking her how she made them she didn't remember, didn't know where she'd found the recipe or even if there was a recipe. My research proved fruitless - I couldn't find anything exactly like what I remembered.

The potato "columns" drying after being boiled. After they've dried, the tops and bottoms are sauteed until they're a deep golden brown and then they're popped in the oven for about 15 minutes..

When we were out picking up the roast at Tacoma Boys (on 6th Ave. - great store) and other ingedients for the 2011 Christmas Eve dinner, I cornered her in the cracker aisle and wouldn't let her leave until she'd remembered how she made them. Which she did. I made a test batch for my sister Sara's family and got a unanimous thumbs up.

.The citrus salad was all Lynn's idea: a variety of greens, grapefruit supremes, toasted pecans and avocado in a grapefruit and Sherry vinegar vinaigrette. It was a perfect balance to the rich pork.

It was truly a wonderful way to mark the end of 2011.

RECIPES (after the jump):
- Roasted and Stuffed Prosciutto-Wrapped Pork Loin
- No-Name Potatoes
- Salad with Grapefruit, Toasted Pecans, Avocado and a Grapefruit Vinaigrette

Friday Dinner: Tuscan Pork Stew and Polenta

Tonight, with rain coming down in buckets, it was a perfect night for a warm, aromatic stew over creamy polenta cooked with milk and finished with some Asiago cheese and parsley. When Lynn, my cooking partner extraordinaire, suggested that we make this I was immediately all-in but since polenta's not her favorite thing, I was a little puzzled. She found a recipe on the Food and Wine site and  and thought that polenta was just the thing. It looked great to me, too - pork shoulder marinated in wine, aromatics, rosemary, sage, bay, and cloves! ... and juniper berries! According to the writer, it was developed by Chef Joe Sponzo to be made with wild boar.

...not that we don't have feral pigs with a little wild boar in the historical breeding mix here in Northern California. When I lived in Clayton for a little while (in Contra Costa County), I would read news reports of the wild/feral pigs that are the scourge of parks in and around Mt. Diablo, but no... we used pork shoulder.

One thing that struck both of us about the recipe is that it seemed like it hadn't been adapted for pork instead of wild boar. Some of the aromatics (juniper berries, cloves) and methods (boiling the meat before searing and braising it - don't do it) seemed more oriented towards game so we made some changes that I'll pass along in the recipe. In addition to the stew and polenta - we went a different direction with the polenta - we had roasted asparagus (Spring!) with garlic, salad and we drank a San Giovese with dinner.

RECIPE: TUSCAN PORK STEW WITH POLENTA

Chile Verde

Sometimes it's hard pretending that it's summer and I should cook summer meals when I look out the window in the evening and see fog blowing up my street, my visibility is limited to two blocks and the wind is howling.  Okay I know, "Wah, wah, wah!" </end bitch session> Welcome to summer in San Francisco. At least in my neighborhood.

Last week I made chile verde and appreciated the warmth. Actually, I made it twice. The first time (a small batch with chicken) it was wimpy with absolutely zero heat. I used four jalapenos and I might as well have left them out. Coincidentally, a few days after I made it, I saw this article on CookThink. Demand for chiles has resulted in prettier, shipping friendly, but milder jalapenos.

"To meet the demand, jalapeno breeding has promoted varieties that are flawlessly pretty, easy to ship and easier to grow in cooler climates. Jalapenos used to be grown mostly in the high deserts of New Mexico, Arizona, and Northern Chihuahua and Sonora, Mexico. Hot, dry climates promote the production of capsaicin, the chemical that makes a hot pepper hot. Now, some varieties can be grown in wetter, cooler climates that don’t create enough heat for a spicy chile pepper."

Furthermore, the author provides information on varieties to look for if you want hotter or milder chiles. When I'm cooking and using chiles, I'll taste each one to get a sense of its heat - I should have followed my own advice on my first batch. Chiles are hotter at the stem end than the tip so I usually go for the middle. The ribs, core and seeds of the chile is where the majority of the heat is so if you taste the flesh and it's kinda wimpy, just trim off the stem and use the rest of the chile.

When I cook with chiles, my goal is to find the balance between enough heat without losing the taste of the other ingredients and the dish, overall.

Online Chile Resources:
Cook's Thesaurus: Fresh Chiles and Dried Chiles
Wikipedia: Scoville Scale (common method for categorizing a chile's heat)

I'm declaring my love for tomatillos. There, I said it.

Tomatillos (unrelated to tomatoes) are a fruit, related to the Cape Gooseberry. Green tomatillos are more tart than the purple-ish varieties. Raw, the taste of a green tomatillo is reminiscent of a Granny Smith apple. Tomatillos can be used raw or cooked. To prepare, remove the paper husks and rinse them in warm water to remove (most of) the sticky stuff which can be somewhat bitter. You don't have to completely remove it, so don't fret if there still some on the surface of the tomatillo.

Out of the broiler.

Sauce ingredients ready for the blender.

After blending.

Recipe: Chile Verde

Friday Dinner: Barbecued Country-Style Boneless Pork Ribs + Al Bergez's Sauce

I wrapped-up some of the warmed-up leftovers and sauce in a slightly crisped 4" corn tortilla for lunch.

(Another catch-up post) Back in early May, I was (as I am quite frequently) at my best friend and cooking partner-in-crime's (a/k/a Lynn) house for dinner. We barbecued country-style boneless pork ribs. No biggie, except... EXCEPT... we were done before dark - which is a giant improvement and the ribs were especially good. Her method for prepping the pork resulted in very, very good barbecue.

I acquired one of these for each of us earlier this year. Many a night we have barbecued well after dark, with one of us holding a flashlight. The ones I bought were through woot.com, but you can get your own here. They are fantastic. The light can be adjusted so that (in our case) what you're cooking, or checking on is brightly lit and you have both hands free.

...and no, there shall be no pictures.

One note - it's a really bright light and you need to be careful not to temporarily blind your cooking partner by looking up too quickly.

She made, not for the first time, a very good sauce, by way of Mike's friend Al Bergez. It's on the vinegar-y/tangy side (which we all like). I'm pretty happy with any kind of sauce or mop, except the mayonnaise-based sauces which I find to be kinda nasty. This sauce isn't hot (but it could be made hotter) or too sweet.

We had a problem keeping a consistent temperature - definitely user error. Sometimes our barbecue temperature control mojo is very strong - but not that night. Our overall karma came through like gangbusters though because when we were going to take the pork off to finish it in the oven, we found that it was done perfectly. This recipe/method requires some time before you fire up the coals (or turn on the gas) and I'm convinced it that the pork was even better than usual because of the order in which Lynn prepared it prior to grilling it.

Recipe: Barbecued Country Style Boneless Pork Ribs + Al Bergez's Sauce

Friday Dinner: Crispy Taco Shell U - starring Carnitas SUPER STAR!

This is a salute to my non-bio sister Lynn's Mexican food that I've been eating happily for years. It's always delicious and I've learned a great deal from her as well. We won't be talking about the chile verde in this post... but we'll get to that on a later date.

Last Friday as we were cooking, I told her that years ago the first time I saw her making crispy taco shells I was blown away: in a room full of people, she was holding down a conversation, grooving to music, drinking a glass of wine and smoking (she no longer smokes) all the while turning out beautifully formed U-shaped shells while seemingly paying no attention to the process.

We talked about that, and she told me that a couple of decades-ish ago a house mate's chef girlfriend taught her to fry tortillas with two forks and she never looked back.

What We Ate

Ha! I had to hide the beans and rice with a
Chimichanga because I'd
already shoved a bunch in my face

Last Friday we ate crispy tacos, NFNG rellenos (see: below), Chimichangas (Mike's favorite), rice and beans and salsa. Sadly, our avocado was sub-standard and we had no guacamole (I KNOW - so sad!). I gave one of the leftover rellenos to my housemate who, when she had eaten one for dinner a couple of nights later, texted me, "That was an AMAZING relleno!!!!" Yeah, they were that good and my housemate knows her stuff.  The starring roll in this was pork carnitas. I was in charge of the first half of the carnitas, and Lynn took over the shredding, final seasoning and making them crispy - the recipe/method we used is after the jump.

Crispy Taco Shell U
Lynn cooked up the first one with commentary while I observed and I was responsible for the rest - a taco shell refresher course (I had already passed the entry level class a year or so ago but I don't do this very often).  She is a very good teacher. Oh - if you're using tongs with channels make sure the business end remains below the the level of the hinge end so that hot oil never cascades out of the hinge end onto your hand. On my eighth shell, I learned that lesson the hard way. The two little spots of burned skin on my palm say, "Holla!" to that.

Swish and Flick - Okay, Don't Flick, Just Swish and How to Avoid the V

Lynn's about to slug me after I made her move
around the kitchen about a million times
to find decent light to photograph a black pan.

Someday I'm going to film it because I'm pretty sure my description won't do it justice, but the basics are an inch of oil (something neutral with a high smoke point - we used canola) in a pan, a pair of tongs, newspaper or a deconstructed paper bag to drain them on, and a stack of corn tortillas. Having a pan - the one in the picture is a mini-paella pan - with rounded sides helps but isn't a requirement.The oil should be at/around 365F. If your heat's too low, they'll be leathery and not crisp and bubbly. The other big secrets are to keep them moving, keep the part you are cooking submerged, keep the open end open, learn to recognize (by sound) when the oil has stopped bubbling and finally, try to keep the open end facing you.

Slide the tortilla in the oil and swish it around (gently). Pick up one end with tongs so that about 60% is out of the oil and is at (about) a 90% angle. Swish back and forth gently for a seconds until the 40% in the oil kind of holds its shape.

Switch your tongs to the other side and do the same.  It's all abut the U shape.  If the open end starts to close - and, like a clam, it WANTS to close - keep the open end open with your tongs. Once it has a U shape, swish it (slowly and gently on all sides, keeping the part you're frying submerged.  When it is bubbly, and a pale golden brown, remove it and set it on the aforementioned newspaper or flattened paper shopping bag open end down to drain.

Oh - if you end up with a V shape on a couple, as long as the top is open, it's not a bad day. We reused the oil for the Chimichangas which are not deep fried but pan fried. (Mmm... fried!)

The Truth About Roasting Chiles and NFNG Rellenos

Lynn is also the the one who suggested the "No Fry, No Guilt Relleno". Don't get me wrong, fried things are a wonder but the NFNG Relleno has all the benefits and none of the guilt and you don't have buckets of oil to deal with afterwards. She taught me how to roast chiles.  If you have a gas range, you don't need to do them in the oven, broiler or put them in paper bags to steam.  Just roast those babies over the fire until the skin is completely - I mean completely - black and let them sit a few minutes.  Pick them up at the wide end and scrape them with a dinner knife until all of the skin comes off easy as pie. Oh - do not rinse them.  Do. Not. What? Do you want to rinse off all of that beautiful smoky flavor? Just make sure you scrape off all of the burned skin, take out as many of the seeds as you can manage, and you will have a delicious roasted chile

Do Not Wear Poblano Chiles as Gloves

A couple of years ago, I had the bright (read: stupid) idea to drape the poblanos over my fingers while I was scraping off the skins. Poblanos are generally mild, like any chile, there can be a range of heat.  In this case, they had more than a little heat and by the time we sat down to eat, the top side of the first three fingers of my right hand looked like a cooked lobster and felt like I was holding them over a lit match. Multiple applications of aloe and the miraculous but sadly discontinued Johnson & Johnson First Aid Cream helped but to this day the tops of those three fingers are still very heat sensitive.  Oh - now I leave the tops on and make a long slit in one side of the chile and take out the seeds - much better for stuffing.

We stuffed the poblanos with a mixture (I just eyeballed the amounts) of pork, rice and cheese and I topped them with some salsa and more cheese.  We cooked them just to warm them up and melt the cheese - 350F for about 25 minutes, +/- a few.

Ingredients for the braise.

RECIPE: CARNITAS SUPER STAR!