herbed lamb chops with pinot noir sauce

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I don’t even know how to describe to you how awesome this lamb was. I think Dave and I spent the whole meal exclaiming over it. We’d sat down to eat, thinking, sure, dinner, yum, should be good. We each poured ourselves a glass of the wine that was leftover from making the sauce, we were actually going to eat at the table, we had some music playing. It was nice.

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And then we started eating and realized that this meal wasn’t “nice.” This meal was amazing. We decided that the wine wasn’t rich enough to compliment the food and opened a different bottle. We ate seconds. We drank more wine. We started dancing in the living room. It wasn’t just the meal that went from nice to amazing when we started eating; it was the entire night.

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In retrospect, duh. If you’re making lamb broth from scratch for the base of the wine sauce that you’re serving over rack of lamb, it better knock some socks off. It did.

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One year ago: Caramel Cake

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Herbed Lamb Chops with Pinot Noir Sauce (from Bon Appétit through epicurious.com)

Serves 8

I couldn’t find any of the lamb parts suggested for the sauce and used shank instead, which isn’t the same thing at all, but worked nonetheless.

Sauce:
1 tablespoon vegetable oil
3 pounds lamb neck stew meat or lamb riblets
1 pound onions, coarsely chopped
1 large carrot, chopped
4 large garlic cloves, chopped
1 tablespoon herbes de Provence
4⅓ cups Pinot Noir or other dry red wine
3 cups low-salt chicken broth
1 tablespoon butter, room temperature
2 teaspoons all-purpose flour

Lamb:
1 cup finely chopped fresh Italian parsley
¼ cup finely chopped fresh thyme
¼ cup finely chopped fresh rosemary
¼ cup finely chopped fresh sage
1 tablespoon ground black pepper
5 tablespoons olive oil, divided
3 1½-pound well-trimmed 8-rib racks of lamb, preferably frenched

1. For the sauce: Heat the oil in a heavy large pot over medium-high heat. Add the lamb and sauté until deep brown, turning occasionally, about 18 minutes. Using tongs, transfer the lamb to a bowl. Add the onions, carrot, garlic, and herbes de Provence to the pot. Sauté until the vegetables are deep brown, about 8 minutes. Add the wine and broth to the pot; return the lamb and any accumulated juices to the pot. Bring to a boil, reduce the heat to medium-low, and simmer uncovered 1½ hours. Strain into a large bowl, pressing on the solids in the strainer to release all of the stock. Spoon off any fat from the surface of the stock; return the stock to the same large pot. Simmer until reduced to 1⅓ cups, about 15 minutes.

3. Mix the butter and flour in a small bowl to a smooth paste. Whisk the paste into the stock. Simmer the sauce until it’s slightly thickened and smooth, whisking constantly, about 1 minute longer. Season with salt and pepper. (Can be prepared 1 day ahead. Transfer to a small saucepan, cover, and chill. Rewarm before using.)

4. For the lamb: Stir the fresh herbs and pepper in a medium bowl to blend. Add 2 tablespoons oil and mix until the herbs stick together. Sprinkle the lamb racks with salt. Firmly press ⅓ of herb mixture over the rounded side of each rack to cover. (Can be prepared 1 day ahead. Place on large rimmed baking sheet. Cover; chill.)

5. Preheat the oven to 350°F. Heat 3 tablespoons oil in a large nonstick skillet over medium-high heat. Add 1 lamb rack to the skillet, herbed side down. Sauté until browned, about 4 minutes. Turn the rack over and sauté until browned, about 3 minutes more. Place the rack, herbed side up, on a rimmed baking sheet. Repeat, fitting the remaining racks on the same sheet.

6. Roast the lamb until a thermometer inserted into the center registers 135°F for medium-rare, about 25 minutes. Let the lamb rest on the sheet for 15 to 20 minutes. Cut the lamb between the bones into individual chops. Arrange 3 chops on each plate. Drizzle with sauce and serve.

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This would make a great main dish for a nice dinner party, not only because it’s so good, but because so much of the recipe can be completed in advance. I suggest serving the lamb over Soft and Sexy Grits with roasted root vegetables on the side. A rich red wine like cabernet sauvignon is a great accompaniment to the lamb; we found that the pinot noir used in the sauce simply couldn’t stand up to the powerful flavors.

deli-style rye bread

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Last week I was at the grocery store with my parents, trying to choose a dessert to bring home to share. My dad wanted strawberry cake, and my mom wanted German chocolate cake. I wasn’t going to get in the middle of this, and honestly, I don’t know why my dad even offers his opinion. Dessert is a decision that my mom will always get to make.

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Apparently that apple doesn’t fall far from the tree, because Dave and I were recently choosing a menu item to split to go with our pot of mussels – he wanted a reuben, and I wanted smoked duck salad. Of course we got salad, but only after I promised to make Dave a reuben at home.

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First I had to make rye bread. I was inundated with recipes – Peter Reinhart has several, and King Arthur’s Flour has far too many to choose between. I thought that Cooks Illustrated’s recipe would be a safe bet for my first time making rye bread.

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One of the reasons I like CI for my first time attempting something is the specific instructions they offer. Not just rye flour, but medium or light rye flour. If only I had had so many options. After searching my grocery store, the only rye flour I could find was organic and whole grain, and forget the rye flakes that the recipe also recommends.

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I was concerned that my bread would be a flop due to the whole grain flour, and it didn’t help that the dough’s texture was different from what I’m used to. It seemed heavier and less elastic. The rising times were longer than what the recipe indicates, which I’m attributing to the whole grain flour.

Fortunately, it all worked out, and this made some very good bread – a little bitter from the rye and scented from the caraway seeds, and firm enough to hold up to a sandwich without being unpleasantly dense.  It made for some exceptionally good reubens.

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One year ago: Lemon Poppy Seed Muffins – I have a batch of these in my freezer right now.  I had one yesterday.

Deli-Style Rye Bread (from Cooks Illustrated)

Makes 1 large loaf

This is half of Cooks Illustrated’s original recipe. I have no idea why their original recipe makes such a huge amount of bread. This seems more practical.

Sponge:
⅓ cup rye flakes (optional)
1⅞ cups water, at room temperature
¾ teaspoon instant yeast
1 tablespoon honey
1½ cups (7½ ounces) unbleached all-purpose flour

Dough:
¾ cups (3¾ ounces) unbleached all-purpose flour, plus more for dusting the work surface
1¾ cups (6.125 ounces) medium or light rye flour
1 tablespoon caraway seeds
1 tablespoon vegetable oil
1½ teaspoon salt

Glaze:
1 egg white
1 tablespoon milk

1. For the sponge: Heat the oven to 350 degrees; toast the rye flakes, if using, on a small baking sheet until fragrant and golden brown, 10-12 minutes. Cool to room temperature. Mix the water, yeast, honey, rye flakes, and flour in the mixing bowl of a standing mixer to form a thick batter. Cover with plastic wrap and let sit until bubbles form over the entire surface, at least 2½ hours. (The sponge can stand at cool room temperature overnight.)

2. For the dough: Stir the all-purpose flour, 1 ½ cups of the rye flour, the caraway seeds, oil, and salt into the sponge. Attach the dough hook and knead the dough at low speed, adding the remaining rye flour once the dough becomes cohesive; knead until smooth yet sticky, about 5 minutes. With moistened hands, transfer the dough to a well-floured work surface, knead into a smooth ball, then place it in a very lightly oiled large bowl or straight-sided container. Cover with plastic wrap and let rise at warm room temperature until doubled in size, 1½ to 2 hours.

3. Generously sprinkle the cornmeal on a large baking sheet. Turn the dough onto a lightly floured work surface and press it into a 6 by 9-inch rectangle. With the long side facing you, roll the dough into a 9-inch log, seam-side up. Pinch the seam with your fingertips to seal. Turn the dough seam-side down, and, with your fingertips, seal the ends by tucking them into the loaf. Carefully transfer the shaped loaf to the prepared baking sheet, cover loosely with oiled plastic wrap, and let rise until the dough looks bloated and dimply and starts to spread out, 60-75 minutes. Adjust an oven rack to the lower-middle position and heat the oven to 425 degrees.

4. For the glaze: Whisk the egg white and milk together and brush over the sides and top of the loaf. Right before baking, make 6 or 7 slashes, ½-inch deep, in the top of the dough with a single-edge razor blade or a very sharp knife. Bake for 15 minutes, then lower the oven temperature to 400 degrees and bake until golden brown and an instant-read thermometer inserted in the center of the loaf reads 200 degrees, 15-20 minutes. Transfer to a wire rack and cool to room temperature.

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pot roast

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Dave and I don’t eat a lot of beef; in fact, this is only the fourth beef recipe on my site. To us, there are environmental factors to consider with eating beef, as well as humanitarian, health, and cost issues. Plus we just plain like vegetarian food. So when we had pot roast in some form or another for dinner three out of four days last week, Dave was starting to question me. I blamed Kevin, who not only made a delicious-looking pot roast recently, but then made sandwiches and soup out of the leftovers, both of which I wanted to try.

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I got the pot roast recipe from Cooks Illustrated. I hadn’t made one of their recipes in a while, and I found that I missed pulling out their huge cookbook and turning the pictureless pages full of recipes that promise to teach me something as well as taste wonderful.

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For their pot roast, they brown the meat in a very hot Dutch oven, then sauté some vegetables and use broth to deglaze the pan. Then everything is cooked in the oven for four hours. They mention in their discussion about the development of the recipe that they tried adding red wine with the broth and found that it was good, but it wasn’t really pot roast. True – it’s beef in Barolo (or it would be if you were to use Barolo, which I never would because it’s too expensive), which I happen to love. So I added some red wine with the broth. When the roast is so soft it’s falling apart, it’s removed from the pot and the remaining liquid is boiled down to a sauce.

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Oh my gosh, it was so good. I served it with boiled new potatoes and glazed carrots, and it was a meal that I couldn’t get enough of. Two days later, I put the meat and some sauce on pain a l’ancienne with swiss cheese and horseradish to make great sandwiches. The day after that, I added it, along with the rest of the sauce and some diluted chicken broth, to a pan of sautéed onions and mushrooms for a really good pot roast soup.

Because we don’t eat beef often, when we do, we like it to be a treat. This certainly was.

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One year ago: Salmon Pesto Pasta

Pot Roast (from Cooks Illustrated)

Serves 6-8

Cooks Illustrated recommends a chuck-eye roast, which is what I used. I’ve found that it can be difficult to find though.

I added about 1/4 cup red wine with the broths.

1 boneless chuck roast (about 3½ pounds)
salt and pepper
2 tablespoons vegetable oil
1 medium onion, chopped
1 small carrot, chopped
1 small celery rib, chopped
2 cloves garlic, minced
2 teaspoons sugar
1 cup canned low sodium beef broth
1 cup low-sodium chicken stock
1 sprig fresh thyme
¼ cup dry red wine

1. Adjust an oven rack to the middle position and heat oven to 300F. Thoroughly pat the roast dry with paper towels; sprinkle generously with salt and pepper.

2. Heat the oil in a large heavy-bottomed Dutch oven over medium-high heat until shimmering but not smoking. Brown roast thoroughly on all sides, reducing heat if fat begins to smoke, 8-10 minutes. Transfer the roast to a large plate; set aside.

3. Reduce the heat to medium; add onions, carrots, and celery to pot and cook, stirring occasionally, until beginning to brown, 6-8 minutes. Add the garlic and sugar; cook until fragrant, about 30 seconds. Add the chicken and beef broths and thyme, scraping the bottom of the pan with a wooden spoon to loosen the browned bits. Return the roast and any accumulated juices to the pot; add enough water to come halfway up the sides of the roast. Bring the liquid to a simmer over medium heat, then cover tightly and transfer the pot to oven.

4. Cook, turning the roast every 30 minutes, until fully tender and a meat fork slips in and out of meat very easily (3½-4 hours). Transfer the roast to a carving board and tent with foil to keep warm.

5. Allow the liquid in the pot to settle about 5 minutes, then use a wide spoon to skim fat off the surface; discard thyme sprig. Boil over high heat until reduced to about 1½ cups, about 8 minutes. Add the red wine and reduce again to 1½ cups, about 2 minutes. Season to taste with salt and pepper.

6. Cut the meat into ½-inch slices, or pull apart in pieces; transfer the meat to a warmed serving platter and pour about ½ cup sauce over the meat. Serve, passing remaining sauce.

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pan-seared steak with red wine pan sauce

I try not to participate in many blog events, since about a third of my entries are already committed to Tuesdays with Dorie and the Daring Bakers. But Elly’s Eat to the Beat is such a great idea, and I thought it could be a fun way to meld my favorite hobby with Dave’s, which is music.

Bustle

Dave learned to play guitar from his uncle, who plays lead guitar in this song. His best friend, Sid Faiwu, does the drums and synthesizer in this song. The three of them played together for years until Dave and Sid both moved away from their home town as well as from each other. Now they try to send around mp3’s of new songs, but that obviously doesn’t work well.

Dave wrote this song, Bustle, in grad school after a particularly stressful test. It’s one of my favorites. The song is very dark, and really not about food in any way. The only line that I could think to apply to food was “dripping red.” Because of the nature of the song, I wanted something that would look as bloody as possible. And what’s bloodier than red wine sauce dripping down animal flesh?

I know I’ve been overdoing the Cooks Illustrated recipes lately, but I can’t seem to stop myself. I turn to their recipes for classics, like this steak with pan sauce. I feel like their recipes are less mass-produced and therefore more carefully developed than a lot of those from the Food Network or epicurious. And I’m generally bad at cooking steak, so I needed as much detail as possible.

The steak came out really well. I only undercooked it a little, and at least I didn’t burn the outside like I often do. The sauce was good as well. I think next time I’ll reduce the sugar by half, but other than that, it was perfect with the steak. And it certainly looks as gory as the song sounds.

Pan-Seared Steak with Red Wine Pan Sauce for Two (from Cooks Illustrated)

Serves 2

CI note: Pan sauces cook quickly, so prepare the ingredients before you begin cooking the steaks. Use a heavy skillet with a nonreactive cooking surface.

Bridget note: I used strip steak, because it’s my favorite.

2 boneless 8-ounce rib-eye steaks or top loin steaks, 1 to 1¼ inches thick, thoroughly dried
Table salt and ground black pepper
1 small shallot, minced (about 2 tablespoons)
1 teaspoon brown sugar
¼ cup dry red wine , such as Cabernet Sauvignon
¼ cup low-sodium chicken broth
1 bay leaf
1½ teaspoons balsamic vinegar
½ teaspoon Dijon mustard
1½ tablespoons unsalted butter , cut into 3 pieces
½ teaspoon minced fresh thyme leaves

1. Heat heavy-bottomed, 10-inch skillet over high heat until very hot, about 3 minutes. Meanwhile, season both sides of steaks with salt and pepper.

2. Lay steaks in pan, leaving ¼-inch of space between each; reduce heat to medium-high, and cook without moving until well browned, about 4 minutes. Using tongs, flip steaks; cook 4 minutes more for rare, 5 minutes more for medium-rare, and 6 minutes more for medium. Transfer steaks to large plate and tent with foil to keep warm.

3. Off heat, add shallot and sugar to empty skillet; using pan’s residual heat, cook, stirring frequently, until shallots are slightly softened and browned and sugar is melted, about 45 seconds. Return skillet to high heat, add wine, broth, and bay leaf; bring to boil, scraping up browned bits on pan bottom with wooden spoon. Boil until liquid is reduced to 3 tablespoons, about 4 minutes. Stir in vinegar and mustard; cook at medium heat to blend flavors, about 1 minute longer. Off heat, whisk in butter until melted and sauce is thickened and glossy. Add thyme and season to taste with salt and pepper. Remove bay leaf, spoon sauce over steaks and serve immediately.

pigs in a blanket

Dave’s co-workers tease him about how he always gets to eat gourmet food. “So she makes gourmet lunches for you to bring to work, and then you go home and eat gourmet dinners, and before bed have a gourmet dessert.” Um. Not always. I wonder what they’ll have to say about the leftovers from this meal?

I wasn’t sure what to do with the hot dogs leftover from the franks and beans. In my opinion, the only good way to eat hot dogs is crispy and a bit blackened from a grill or fire, preferably topped with chili. Since I don’t have a grill, my options were limited. Boiled (or worse – microwaved) hot dogs didn’t sound appetizing.

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Lemontartlet inspired me to wrap them in bread and bake them. It solves the problem of how to cook the hot dogs indoors, and I guarantee that my homemade bread is far tastier than a storebought hot dog bun. (Lemontartlet used biscuit dough, but I made a yeast bread.)

I based the bread recipe on a recipe for Parker House rolls, thinking that the butter in the recipe would give make it nice and tender, while the sugar would provide the flavor I wanted. It was a perfect match. The bread did expand more than I was expecting when I baked it, and I might (if such a thing is possible) have ended up with too much bread per dog. I’ll adjust the recipe and give better proportions below.

I found that the best method for rolling out the dough was to use my fingertips to flatten the dough balls a bit, and then roll in only one direction. I was using Nathan’s Beef Franks (recommended by Cooks Illustrated and definitely the best hot dogs I’ve had), which I think are a little shorter than most. Most of my rolls ended up just the right width to almost-but-not-quite coat the whole dog.

If you’re a perfectionist and want your pigs perfectly wrapped in those blankets, which I did but I didn’t figure out this trick until the last one, you can roll the bread dough out a little wider than the dog, then fold in the edges and roll a few times in the other (long) direction. You’ll have a more perfect rectangle, which will more perfectly coat your hot dog and evenly distribute your bread. And look a teensy bit better.

Either way, these are super fun, and other than roasting them over a fire until they’re slightly blackened, this has to be my favorite way to eat hot dogs!

Pigs in a Blanket (bread recipe adapted from Ultimate Bread, by Eric Treuille and Ursula Feriggno)

This is enough bread dough for 10 hot dogs.  If your package only has 8, you can make dinner rolls out of the remaining dough.

Bread dough:
3 tablespoons unsalted butter
¾ cup milk
1½ tablespoons sugar
2 eggs
3½ cups (17½ ounces) unbleached flour
1½ teaspoons instant yeast
1½ teaspoons salt

10 hot dogs
2 tablespoons milk

1. Heat butter in small saucepan over medium heat until just melted. Add ¾ cup milk and sugar. If butter re-solidifies, heat until it’s completely melted. Remove from the heat and beat in the eggs.

2. Mix flour, salt, and yeast in bowl of standing mixer fitted with dough hook. Turn machine to low and slowly add milk mixture. When dough comes together, increase speed to medium (setting number 4 on a KitchenAid mixer) and mix until dough is smooth, shiny, and elastic, stopping machine two or three times to scrape dough from hook if necessary, about 8 minutes. Knead in extra flour, 1 tablespoon at a time, if the dough is too sticky. The dough should be not be dry, but soft. Turn dough onto lightly floured work surface; knead to form smooth, round ball, about 15 seconds. (Alternatively, you can knead by hand for 10 minutes.)

2. Place dough in very lightly oiled bowl, rubbing dough around bowl to lightly coat. Cover bowl with plastic wrap; place in warm, draft-free spot until dough doubles in size, about 1-1½ hours.

3. Divide the dough into 10 pieces. Shape each piece into a smooth ball. Let rest 10 minutes. Line baking pan with silicon baking mat or parchment paper.

4. Flatten each piece into a rough rectangle using the tips of your fingers. Roll in one direction until dough is ¼-inch thick. Roll in opposite direction (across shorter width) a few times, then fold in long edges to make perfect rectangle. Roll in long direction until dough is 1/8-inch thick. Place 1 hot dog near a short end, then tightly roll, keeping the tips of the hot dog exposed. Place seam side down on prepared baking pan. Repeat with remaining dough and hot dogs.

5. Cover with plastic wrap and let rise until dough is slightly inflated, about 30 minutes. Meanwhile, heat oven to 375 degrees.

6. Brush the dough with milk. Bake for 20-25 minutes, until golden. Let cool 15 minutes before serving.

spaghetti and meatballs

I actually made this dish a couple of months ago, but never got around to putting it in my blog. There’s not much to say about it, other than that spaghetti and meatballs are delicious. What’s not to love about pasta, sauce, and dressed-up meat?

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Of course, not all spaghetti and meatballs are created equal. But I’ve had my share of meatballs, and I’ve never had any better than these. This dish is a classic that will always please.

Classic Spaghetti and Meatballs (from Cooks Illustrated January 1998)

Serves 4 to 6

CI note: This streamlined recipe can be on the table in under an hour.

Bridget note: I find that recipes almost always call for more pasta per sauce than I prefer. Therefore, I would serve this with 12 ounces pasta instead of the 1 pound that the recipe calls for.

Meatballs
2 slices white sandwich bread (crusts discarded), torn into small cubes
½ cup buttermilk or 6 tablespoons plain yogurt thinned with 2 tablespoons sweet milk
¾ pound ground beef chuck (or 1 pound if omitting ground pork below)
¼ pound ground pork (to be mixed with ground chuck)
¼ cup grated Parmesan cheese
2 tablespoons minced fresh parsley leaves
1 large egg yolk
1 small clove garlic, minced (1 teaspoon)
¾ teaspoon table salt
Ground black pepper
vegetable oil for pan-frying (about 1¼ cups)

Simple Tomato Sauce
2 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil
1 teaspoon minced garlic
1 can (28 ounces) crushed tomatoes
1 tablespoon minced fresh basil leaves
Table salt and ground black pepper
1 pound spaghetti
grated Parmesan cheese
1. For the meatballs: Combine bread and buttermilk in small bowl, mashing occasionally with fork, until smooth paste forms, about 10 minutes.

2. Mix all meatball ingredients, including bread mixture and pepper to taste in medium bowl. Lightly form 3 tablespoons of mixture into 1½-inch round meatballs; repeat with remaining mixture to form approximately 14 meatballs. (Compacting them can make the meatballs dense and hard. Can be placed on large plate, covered loosely with plastic wrap, and refrigerated for several hours.)

3. Bring 4 quarts of water to boil in large pot for cooking pasta.

4. Meanwhile, heat ¼-inch vegetable oil over medium-high heat in 10- or 11-inch sauté pan. When edge of meatball dipped in oil sizzles, add meatballs in single layer. Fry, turning several times, until nicely browned on all sides, about 10 minutes, regulating heat as needed to keep oil sizzling but not smoking. Transfer browned meatballs to paper towel–lined plate; set aside. Repeat, if necessary, with remaining meatballs.

5. For the sauce, discard oil in pan, leaving behind any browned bits. Add olive oil along with garlic; sauté, scraping up any browned bits, just until garlic is golden, about 30 seconds. Add tomatoes, bring to boil, and simmer gently until sauce thickens, about 10 minutes. Stir in basil; add salt and pepper to taste. Add meatballs and simmer, turning them occasionally, until heated through, about 5 minutes. Keep warm over low flame.

6. Meanwhile, add 1 tablespoon salt and pasta to boiling water. Cook until al dente, drain, and return to pot. Ladle several large spoonfuls of tomato sauce (without meatballs) over spaghetti and toss until noodles are well coated. Divide pasta among individual bowls and top each with a little more tomato sauce and 2 to 3 meatballs. Serve immediately with grated cheese passed separately.

the real deal (marcella hazan’s lasagne bolognese)

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I’ve been kept away from cooking for too long. Between holiday traveling and moving, it’s been at least a month since I did any serious cooking or baking. Every time I have a cooking dry spell like this, I end up thinking of food constantly. I start to make lists of what I want to make. And it seems like the dish that occupies the most of my thoughts is always lasagna.

I love lasagna in all of its forms – meat, mushroom, spinach, artichoke, tomato, béchamel. This time I wanted to make a classic meat lasagna. I keep trying new recipes because I haven’t yet found one that I love. I decided it was high time to try Marcella Hazan’s recipe. I coveted Hazan’s Essentials of Classic Italian Cooking for several years before receiving it as a wedding gift from my sister-in-law. Yay! This is the first recipe I’ve made from it.

I’ve often heard about those lasagna recipes that take all day. Most modern recipes are trying to simplify and shorten the process, but I’ve always been curious about the original. If someone spends all day on a recipe, it must be worth it, right?

I was about to find out. Reading Hazan’s recipe for Baked Green Lasagne with Meat Sauce, Bolognese Style, was like the Choose Your Own Adventure books I read as a kid. Turn to page 129 for pasta made with the machine method, or page 143 for the hand-rolled method. On page 129, I was directed to page 89 for instructions on cooking the spinach. Yeesh. I took the recipe(s) one step at a time, and everything really did go without a hitch.

The recipe involves a lot of patience. Hazan is not much into modern tools that make life easier; she’s all about doing things the hard way. I’ve made béchamel sauce many times, always by melting butter, stirring in flour, whisking in cold milk, stirring until it boils. Hazan instructs this all to be done over low heat, and the milk is pre-heated, then added to the butter-flour mixture 2 tablespoons at a time. Then this mixture is stirred, of course constantly, over low heat until it thickens. Over low heat, it takes a long time to thicken. But once it does, it makes the smoothest béchamel sauce I’ve ever made, albeit one that tastes somewhat of raw flour.

The bolognese sauce is similar in that there’s a lot of “gentle simmering.” Hazan is very specific that the sauce must simmer for at least 3 hours after the tomatoes are added. What she fails to mention is that the recipe takes about an hour even before that point. One cup of milk takes quite some time to completely bubble away at a gentle simmer.

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Of course the pasta dough could not be made in the food processor, it must be done by hand. I was determined to follow the recipe exactly, so I trudged on. And this is what I got…

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Obviously the egg is supposed to stay in the well in the center of the flour, not glop out a breach in the side. Next time I’ll mix the egg and spinach together in a bowl, even add some flour to it before I move to a flat work surface to complete the additions of flour.

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This is the first time I’ve rolled out pasta without wanting to scream! Really, rolling out the pasta just went splendidly, and I’m so glad that I finally learned a good technique for this.

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The two sauces are mixed together and alternately layered with pasta. Hazan specifies that there should be at least 6 layers. I lost count, but I know I had more than that, and I only used probably 2/3 of the pasta sheets before I ran out of sauce.

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All in all, the lasagna took about 7 hours, keeping in mind that I was taking my time. Was the recipe worth all this? Well…the short answer is no. It was good, but not that good. Dave and I agreed that it tasted somewhat meatloaf-ish. The long answer is that I was fairly certain going in that there would be things I’d want to change in the recipe for later editions. For one thing, the only cheese in the entire recipe is 2/3 cup of parmesan. I gather (from wikipedia) that this is the traditional Bolognese method for lasagna. But I’m an all-American girl, and I want mozzarella! I’d also like less carrot and celery to counteract the “meatloafness”, and more onion. I want to try adding some flavorings to the béchamel as well.

So I will be attempting this recipe again, but probably in a less authentic Italian form. I trust that it will go much faster now that I understand the methods involved. If nothing else, I’m grateful to have learned how to roll out homemade pasta to the thinnest setting without any swearing.

I’m typing out the whole recipe for you below, so you can see for yourself the pickiness that is a Marcella Hazan recipe. I followed the recipe just about exactly.

Baked Green Lasagne with Meat Sauce, Bolognese Style

Serves 6

Bolognese Sauce
Béchamel Sauce
Green pasta dough
1 tablespoon salt
2 tablespoons butter, plus more for greasing a 9- by 12-inch bake-and-serve lasagna pan, no less than 2½ inches high
2/3 cup fresh grated parmigiano-reggiano cheese

1. Prepare the meat sauce and set aside.

2. Prepare the béchamel, keeping it rather runny, somewhat like sour cream. When done, keep it warm in the upper half of a double boiler, with the heat turned to very low. If a film should form on top, just stir it when you are ready to use it.

3. Make green pasta dough. Roll it out as thin as it will come. Leave the strips as wide as they come from the rollers, and cut them into 10-inch lengths.

4. Set a bowl of cold water near the range, and lay some clean, dry cloth towels flat on a work counter. Bring 4 quarts of water to a rapid boil, add 1 tablespoon salt, and as the water returns to a boil, slip in 4 or 5 of the cut pasta strips. Cook very briefly, just seconds after the water returns to a boil after you dropped in the pasta. Retrieve the strips with a colander scoop of slotted spatula, and plunge them into the bowl of cold water. Pick up the strips, one at a time, rinse them under cold running water, and rub them delicately, as though you were doing fine hand laundry. Squeeze each strip very gently in your hands, then spread if flat on the towel to dry. When all the pasta is cooked in the manner, 4 or 5 strips at a time, and spread out to dry, pat it dry on top with another towel.

*Explanatory note: The washing, wringing, and drying of pasta for lasagna is something of a nuisance, but it is necessary. You first dip the partly cooked pasta into cold water to stop the cooking instantly. This is important because if lasagna pasta is not kept very firm at this stage it will become horribly mushy later when it is baked. And you must afterward rinse off the moist starch on its surface, or the dough will become glued to the towel on which it is laid out to dry, and tear when you are ready to use it.

5. Preheat the oven to 400 degrees.

6. Thickly smear the bottom of a lasagna pan with butter and about 1 tablespoon of béchamel. Line the bottom of the pan with a single layer of pasta strips, cutting them to fit the pan, edge to edge, allowing no more than ¼ inch for overlapping.

7. Combine the meat sauce and the béchamel and spread a thin coating of it on the pasta. Sprinkle on some grated parmesan, then add another layer of pasta, cutting it to fit as you did before. Repeat the procedure of spreading the sauce and béchamel mixture, then sprinkling with Parmesan. Use the trimmings of pasta dough to fill in gaps, if necessary. Build up to at least 6 layers of pasta. Leave yourself enough sauce to spread very thinly over the topmost layer. Sprinkle with parmesan and dot with butter.

*Ahead-of-time note: The lasagna may be completed up to 2 days in advance up to this point. Refrigerate under tightly sealing plastic wrap.

8. Bake on the uppermost rack of the preheated oven until a light, golden crust formed on top. It should take between 10 and 15 minutes. If after the first few minutes you don’t see any sign of a crust beginning to form, turn up the oven another 50 to 75 degrees. Do not bake longer then 15 minutes altogether.

9. Remove from the oven and allow to settle for about 10 minutes, then serve at table directly from the pan.

Bolognese Sauce:
1 tablespoon oil
3 tablespoon butter
½ cup chopped onion
2/3 cup chopped celery
2/3 cup chopped carrot
3/4 pound ground beef chuck
salt
black pepper, ground fresh from the mill
1 cup whole milk
whole nutmeg
1 cup dry white wine
1½ cup canned imported Italian plum tomatoes, cut up, with their juice

1. Put the oil, butter and onion in the pot, and turn the heat on to medium. Cook and stir the onion until is has become translucent, then add the chopped celery and carrot. Cook for about 2 minutes, stirring the vegetables to coat them well.

2. Add the ground beef, a large pinch of salt, & a few grindings of pepper. Crumble the meat with a fork and cook until beef has lost its raw, red color.

3. Add the milk and let simmer gently, stirring frequently, until it has bubbled away completely. Add a tiny grating – about 1/8 teaspoon – of nutmeg and stir.

4. Add the wine, let simmer until it has evaporated, then add the tomatoes and stir thoroughly to coat all ingredients well. When the tomatoes begin to bubble, turn the heat down so that the sauce cooks at the laziest of simmers, with just an intermittent bubble breaking through the surface. Cook, uncovered, for 3 hours or more, stirring from time to time. While the sauce is stirring, you are likely to find that it begins to dry out and the fat separates from the meat. To keep it from sticking, continue the cooking, adding ½ cup of water whenever necessary. At the end, however, no water at all must be left and the fat must separate from the sauce. Taste and correct for salt.

Béchamel Sauce:
3 cups milk
6 tablespoons butter
4½ tablespoons flour
¼ teaspoon salt

1. Put the milk in a saucepan, turn the heat to medium-low, and bring the milk just to the verge of boiling, to the point when it begins to form a ring of small, pearly bubbles.

2. While heating the milk, put the butter in a heavy-bottomed, 4- to 6-cup saucepan, and turn the heat to low. When the butter has melted completely, add the flour and stirring it with a wooden spoon. Cook, while stirring constantly, for about 2 minutes. Do not allow flour to become colored. Remove from heat.

3. Add the hot milk to the flour-and-butter mixture, no more than 2 tablespoons of it at a time. Stir steadily and thoroughly. As soon as the first 2 tablespoons have been incorporated into the mixture, add 2 more, and continue to stir. Repeat this procedure until you have added ½ cup milk; you can now put in the rest of the milk ½ cup at a time, stirring steadfastly, until all the milk has been smoothly amalgamated with the flour and butter.

4. Place the pot over low heat, add the salt, and cook, stirring without interruption, until the sauce is as dense as thick cream. If you find any lumps forming, dissolve them by beating the sauce rapidly with a whisk.

Pasta:
6 ounces fresh spinach, cooked, or 1/3 package frozen leaf spinach
2 large eggs
1½ cups unbleached flour

Pour the flour onto a work surface, shape it into a mound, and scoop out a deep hollow in its center. Break the eggs and add the chopped spinach into the hollow.

Beat the eggs and spinach lightly with a fork for about 2 minutes as though you were making an omelet. Draw some of the flour over the eggs, mixing it in with the fork a little at a time, until the eggs are no longer runny. Draw the sides of the mound together with your hands, but push some of the flour to one side, keeping it out of the way until you find you absolutely need it. Work the eggs and flour together, using your fingers and the palms of your hands, until you have a smoothly integrated mixture. If it is still moist, work in more flour.

When the mass feels good to you and you think it does not require any more flour, wash your hands, dry them, and run a simple test: Press you thumb deep into center of the mass; if it comes out clean, without any sticky matter on it, no more flour is needed. Put the egg and flour mass to one side, scrape the work surface absolutely clear of any loose or caked bits of flour and of any crumbs, and get ready to knead.

Return to the mass of flour and eggs. Push forward against it using the heel of your palm, keeping your fingers bent. Fold the mass in half, give it a half turn, press hard against it with the heel of your palm again, and repeat the operation. Make sure that you keep turning the ball of dough always in the same direction, either clockwise or counterclockwise, as you prefer. When you have kneaded it thus for 8 full minutes and the dough is as smooth as baby skin, it is ready for the machine.

Cut the ball of dough into 6 equal parts.

Spread clean, dry, cloth dish towels over a work counter near where you’ll be using the machine.

Set the pair of smooth cylinders, the thinning rollers, at the widest opening. Flatten one of the pieces of dough by pummeling it with your palm, and run it through the machine. Fold the dough twice into a third of its length, and feed it by its narrow end through the machine once again. Repeat the operation 2 or 3 times, then lay the flattened strip of pasta over a towel on the counter. Since you are going to have a lot of strips, start at one end of the counter, leaving for for the others.

Take another piece of dough, flatten it with your hand, and urn it through the machine exactly as described above. Lay the strip next to the previously thinned one on the towel, but do not allow them to touch or overlap, because they are still moist enough to stick to each other. Proceed to flatten all the remaining pieces in the same manner.

Close down the opening between the machine’s rollers by one notch. Take the first pasta strip you had flattened and run it once through the rollers, feeding it by its narrow end. Do not fold it, but spread it flat on the cloth towel, and move on to the next pasta strip in the sequence.

When all the pasta strips have gone through the narrower opening once, bring the rollers closer together by another notch, and run the strips of pasta through them once again, following the procedure described above. You will find the strips becoming longer, as they get thinner, and if there is not enough room to spread them out on the counter, you can let them hand over the edge. Continue thinning the strips in sequence, progressively closing down the opening between the rollers one notch at a time. This step-by-step thinning procedure, which commercial makers of fresh pasta greatly abbreviate or skip altogether, is responsible, along with proper kneading, for giving good pasta its body and structure.

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second chances (chicken spiedies and philly cheesesteaks)

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There are so many mistakes in life that can’t be undone. Sharp words to a friend, a poor job interview, even a stubbed toe.

But when mistakes are made in the kitchen, there’s always the opportunity to try it until we get it right.

And thus it was that I found myself making more sandwiches this week. And this time-I nailed it.

The spiedies were made just the same as the original recipe, except I didn’t broil them until they were dry as a bone! I also saved a bit of unused marinade to toss over the cooked chicken pieces. These sandwiches were all that I had hoped for-juicy and flavorful.

And, as Sara’s advice came a bit too late, in that I’d already purchased the steak for the next set of cheesesteaks, I had to do some more pounding. However, this time I cleverly cut the steak in half crosswise, so I wasn’t trying to flatten an inch and a half thick steak down to a quarter inch thickness. This was indeed far easier. I didn’t spend 10 years in college for nothing, folks! I spent less than five minutes flattening my steak this time, and maybe it’s just me, but it didn’t sound nearly so loud and abrasive.

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I also layered on some more onions and cheese, and this was a sandwich worth eating twice within a week!

And-the cheesesteak bonus? The next day we found at that we’re moving to Philadelphia!

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the short train to philly; or, why I microwaved filet mignon (philly cheesesteaks)

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The final installment to sandwich week didn’t go well. (Neither did the second installment, if you recall.)

The cheesesteak recipe comes from Alton Brown’s Good Eats. The Food Network’s write-up of it wasn’t very clear, so I even rewatched the segment of the show where Alton makes them.

Of course, in the happy land of TV cooking, someone else takes your chunk of beef and pounds it into a sheet of beef. In the land of apartment cooking, you piss off the neighbors. And the husband.

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I only got my beef tenderloin steak down to about ½-inch thickness before my somewhat-ill husband beseeched me to stop with the pounding. I heated up my All-Clad stainless-steel skillet for a couple minutes on the highest heat possible, threw on my oiled steak, and rushed around the apartment turning on fans and opening windows before the fire-alarm went off. Notice that I didn’t say anything about salting the steak, which I forgot to do.

By the time I got back to the stove after trying to dissipate the smoke, the first side was turning fairly black. So I flipped the steak, then took the hot pan and stood outside to let the second side’s allotment of smoke disperse out there. When the pan got too heavy for me to hold anymore, I came inside and wrapped the steak in foil while I cooked up some onions.

After a few minutes, I unwrapped the and started cutting it up. And, it was totally uncooked on the inside. Yes, I realize that people eat steaks rare, but they don’t eat cheesesteaks rare. And that’s where the microwave came in. I’m so ashamed.

Cheesesteaks
Makes 2 sandwiches

1 beef tenderloin steak, 6-8 ounces
salt
pepper
1 tablespoon olive oil
1 yellow onion, sliced thin
2 ounces cheddar cheese, grated
2 hoagie rolls

Let the meat sit at room temperature for 1 hour.

Pound the steak to ½-inch thickness. Season liberally with salt and pepper, and rub with 1 teaspoon of oil.  Heat a heavy-bottomed skillet over medium-high heat for a few minutes. Cook until cooked through, about 3-4 minutes per side. Wrap the meat in foil. Heat the remaining 2 teaspoons oil in the same skillet. Cook the onions over medium heat until browned.

Slice the meat into small strips. Divide evenly among the rolls. Top with any remaining juice from the meat, then onions and cheese. Wrap in foil for 10 minutes to let the flavors meld; serve.