PASTA POST! Playing with a New Kitchen Treasure

Last October, I started a feature on the blog called PASTA POST, and had every intention of sharing some of the many pastas I've bookmarked in various food magazines and Italian cookbooks.

Since that first post, I've fallen flat on my face. It seems we've become lazy, especially during the work week, tending to gravitate to the bar at Il Fornaio for a plate of Chef Marco's pasta. When we do make pasta at home, John routinely requests his beloved Ultimate Spaghetti Carbonara.

I rarely make homemade pasta, despite owning all the pasta attachments for our Kitchen Aid. There's really no excuse, especially now, since I have fallen in love with a beautiful artisanal pasta tool.



My quest for one of these tools began when I saw Fine Cooking's video series on handmade pastas (Fine Cooking Culinary School:  Handmade Pastas). One of the videos demonstrated how to make Corzetti pasta, with Pine Nut-Butter Sauce.

Corzetti are coin-shaped pasta dating back to the days of the Genovese Republic, when they were embossed with the family crest and served at festive meals.  I intently watched the Fine Cooking couple roll out the pasta and use a small round cookie cutter to stamp out the coins, about the size of silver dollars. In Liguria, they explained, there are special stamps used to imprint elaborate designs into the coins, but it is hard to find them in the states.

Plain, cookie-cutter pasta didn't excite me; I wanted one of those corzetti stamps so I could make the real thing. In less than five minutes on the internet, I was on Terry Mirri's web site, Fatto in America - Artisanal Pasta Tools.

Terry's vision is to "provide and encourage home chefs to explore food preparation with his unique line of handcrafted tools, rarely seen by the American consumer." Keeping with the Italian tradition of individuality, Terry started with the Corzetti Stamp, and has now expanded into polenta boards, cavarola boards, and garganelli-gnocchi boards.

I contacted Terry, told him about There's a Newf in My Soup, and asked if he would send me a Corzetti Stamp to try and feature on my blog. Terry graciously allowed me to chose from three design sets: Classic, Piccolini, or Michelangelo. I was also able to personalize my stamp with my choice of wood and imprint designs.

Just in time for Christmas, a package arrived in the mail with my gorgeous Michelangelo Corzetti Stamp, made of walnut, with the grape cluster design on one side and olive branch on the other.

Thrilled with my new treasure, I e-mailed Terry for sauce recommendations once I mastered the art of corzetti pasta-making. I asked him about Fine Cooking's brown butter and pine nut sauce. He agreed it was close to the classic, but encouraged me to try something different.

Terry shared his preference for making the dough with a ratio of one cup buckwheat flour to three cups all-purpose flour, with eggs and olive oil. He said "those buckwheat coins are big and beautiful, and you must find a sauce equal to its status." For the sauce, he "ruthlessly" sautes shredded cabbage, mushrooms, onions, garlic, and sage in olive oil and butter. He likes to add anchovies and capers to most of his sauces, but "not so much that you can taste either."  And black pepper, "with a large crack, big and plentiful." Terry apologized for his lack of specificity..."I was raised in a very Italian house and a piece of paper with instructions was Benedict Arnold territory. You could never be part of the kitchen intelligentsia with little pages flipping all over."

I tried the buckwheat pasta first, but rolled it too thin and was unable to achieve a clear imprint of the design. That's okay, it was a good test run. I tried again, this time making a basic egg pasta dough.

After making the dough, and allowing it to rest, I divided it into pieces and rolled each piece through the pasta roller, until I reached the next to last thinnest setting. I then cut the coins using the other side of the wheat design piece, and then pressed each coin between the two imprinted sides of the tool. A pound of pasta dough yielded approximately 50 coins.

For this batch of corzetti, I strayed just a little from Fine Cooking's recipe and made a brown butter and red walnut sauce with fried sage leaves, finished with some cracked pepper and a healthy grating of Parmigiano-Reggiano. The beautiful red walnuts are offered by Terra Bella Ranch, and available for the next few months from Little Italy's Farmers' Market.

Now that I've got this down, I'm ready to take another crack at the buckwheat pasta with Terry's sauce. Please take the time to visit two other blogs featuring Terry's cavarola board and corzetti stamp.

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Terry Mirri lives in Sonoma, California where he creates his hand crafted artisanal pasta tools. This interest stems from his Italian heritage as well as his longstanding love of Italian cooking and entertaining friends with multi course dining extravaganzas.

Although Terry grew up in an Italian American household, his travels to Italy further exposed him to techniques and tools of making a wide variety of hand made pastas. It is this craft he has personally mastered and hopes to share with others.  His passion for his parent’s food centric culture and the hospitality and warmth it engenders led him to this pursuit.

Although Terry has been retired for several years, he developed an interest in woodworking. After learning and practicing this craft, he tried his hand at reproducing and creating antique style pasta tools. His natural talent as a craftsman is reflected in the beauty and art of the wooden tools he produces.  Fatto in America - Artisanal Pasta Tools.

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A Spring Version of Brunswick Stew, for The Daring Cooks' Challenge

The 2010 April Daring Cooks challenge was hosted by Wolf of Wolf’s Den. She chose to challenge Daring Cooks to make Brunswick Stew. Wolf chose recipes for her challenge from The Lee Bros. Southern Cookbook by Matt Lee and Ted Lee, and from the Callaway, Virginia Ruritan Club.

Brunswick stew is a traditional dish from the southeastern United States. Debate exists as to the origin of the dish. Brunswick County, Virginia, claims to be the home of the original, created in 1928.  A plaque on a pot in Brunswick, Georgia, states the first Brunswick stew was cooked in that pot in 1898, on nearby St. Simons Island.

Recipes vary, but it is usually a tomato-based stew, containing lima beans, corn, onions, potatoes, and one or more types of meat. Most authentic recipes call for squirrel or rabbit, but chicken, pork, and beef are also used.

I've prepared Mario Batali's Braised Stuffed Rabbit Legs with Walnuts, Prosecco, Dried Cherries and Apricots, and it was quite delicious.  I have not yet prepared any recipes calling for Squirrel, and don't think I will anytime in the foreseeable future.

For this Daring Cooks' Challenge, I chose to adapt the recipe from the Lee Bros. Southern Cookbook, into a lighter, Italian-inspired, Spring version, using chicken and a few different varieties of vegetables.

We are enjoying beautiful Spring weather, and I wasn't in the mood for a thick, hearty, bowl of stew.  Can you blame me, when these beauties were calling out to me during our Saturday morning stroll through the Little Italy Farmers' Market??  I also found some fresh, white corn and sweet, baby Roma tomatoes.

Spring Brunswick Stew, for two...

Spring Brunswick Stew
Serves 4

Ingredients:

4 slices bacon, cut into 1/2 inch pieces
6 bone-in, skinned, chicken thighs  (rinsed and patted dry)
Kosher salt and freshly ground pepper, for seasoning
Pinch of red pepper flakes
1 cup low-sodium chicken broth
1 cup Italian white wine
2 celery stalks, chopped
2 carrots, chopped
4 cloves garlics, peeled and crushed
2 cups fresh corn kernels, cut from 2 ears of corn
1 cup fresh shelled favas
10-12 small Cipollini onions, outer skin peeled and hard roots cut off
1 package, about 2 cups, fresh baby Roma tomatoes
8-10 assorted small fingerling and baby potatoes
A few drizzles of olive oil
1 Tablespoon Sherry or red wine vinegar
Juice of 1/2 lemon
Dash of Chipotle Tabasco, to taste
2 Tbsp. Chopped Italian parsley for garnish

Preparation:

In a Dutch Oven, fry the bacon over medium-high heat until it just starts to crisp. Transfer to a paper towel to drain.

Season chicken thighs with salt and pepper.  Brown chicken in rendered bacon fat, over medium-high heat, about 5 minutes per side.  Remove from pan and set aside.

Add pinch of red pepper, carrots and celery to the pan, and cook over medium-high for about 5 minutes.  Add garlic and cook for another 30 seconds.  Add chicken broth and wine, scraping up any brown bits from the pan, and simmer for about 5 minutes, allowing to reduce slightly.  Return chicken thighs to the pan, reduce heat to low, cover, and simmer 45 minutes.

This is before covering and braising (meaty side down)

While the chicken is cooking, preheat oven to 375 F.  Place cipollini onions and tomatoes on one side of a baking sheet, and place the potatoes on the other side.  Drizzle with olive oil, season with salt and pepper, and toss gently to coat.

Roast for 30 minutes, keeping the potatoes separated from the onions and tomatoes.

In a saute pan, add another drizzle of olive oil and saute the favas and corn together for about 5 minutes.  When the tomatoes and onions are roasted, add them to the fava and corn mixture and gently combine.

These are the favas beans after removing from the pods and blanching.  You then must shell them again to pop out the bright green, sweet, inner bean.  Here's a link on how to shell fresh favas, here.

When chicken is done braising, remove it from the Dutch Oven and tent with foil to keep warm.

To the braising liquid, add Sherry vinegar, a squeeze of lemon, and a dash of Chipotle Tabasco, and simmer for another few minutes.  Carefully pour liquid into a blender and blend until smooth.  Pass through a fine mesh sieve, discarding the solids, and reserving the sauce.

To plate, spoon the fava, corn, tomato and onion "succotash" into shallow serving bowls, top with 1-2 chicken thighs, arrange a few potatoes around the edge, spoon sauce over the top of the chicken, and garnish with bacon and chopped Italian parsley.

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You can find the original Challenge recipes in The Daring Kitchen Recipe Archives, here.

Thank you, Wolf, for hosting this month's Daring Cooks' Challenge!  The flavor combinations in this dish were wonderful, and I hope you find my Spring version an interesting variation of the Lee Bros.' recipe.

Gnocchi Verdi al Gorgonzola

Inspired by Il Fornaio's Festa Regionale Lombardia menu, offered through March 14, and some very special walnuts we found at the Little Italy Farmers Market, John suggested making homemade gnocchi for our rainy weekend culinary entertainment.  John has made gnocchi a couple of times, and favors the Ricotta-Spinach Dumplings Baked in a Creamy Porcini Mushroom Sauce, from our Il Fornaio Pasta Book.  My man loves his potatoes and fattening cream sauces with pasta!

We followed Il Fornaio's recipe for the spinach ricotta gnocchi, and then created our own gorgonzola cream sauce with toasted red walnuts.  To read more about these beautiful red walnuts from Terra Bella Ranch, visit The Vegetarian Guy.

Gnocchi Verdi al Gorgonzola
Serves 4

Ingredients:

1/4 cup olive oil
1 garlic clove, mashed
6 ounces baby spinach leaves
2 1/2 cups ricotta
1 cup freshly grated Parmigiano-Reggiano
1/4 teaspoons sea salt
1/4 teaspoon freshly ground pepper
1/4 teaspoon freshly ground nutmeg
1 large egg, beaten
1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour

3 tablespoons unsalted butter
1 medium shallot, minced
1/2 cup toasted walnuts, coarsely chopped
5 oz. gorgonzola cheese
1 cup  whipping cream

Heat olive oil in a large saute pan over medium-high heat.  Add the garlic and cook one minute.  Add the spinach and cook until tender, about 5 minutes.  Transfer to a colander and let cool.  Squeeze the spinach between your hands to eliminate any excess liquid.  Transfer to the bowl of a food processor and puree.

Combine the ricotta, parmigiano, salt, pepper, and nutmeg in a bowl.

 Add the egg and mix well.

Add the spinach and flour and mix, using your hands.

On a flat, four-dusted work surface, roll the dough into a cylinder 3 1/2 inches in diameter and 5 inches long.  Cut into five 1-inch-thick slices.

Working with one batch at a time, set a slice on its edge and press it down to flatten it.  Sprinkle with flour.  Roll the dough with the palms of your hands in a forward motion, similar to moving a rolling pin, until you have formed a cylinder 13-15 inches long and 3/4 inch wide in diameter.

Cut each length on the diagonal into 1/4 inch thick slices. Press each piece against the tines on the back of a fork while gently rolling it down. Transfer to a flour-dusted plate with a spatula.

Bring 5 quarts of water, with 5 teaspoons salt, to a boil in a large stockpot over high heat. Add the gnocchi and cook until they rise to the top, about 5 minutes. Transfer to a colander to drain.

To make the sauce:  Melt the butter in a medium saute pan.  Saute the shallots and walnuts for about 2 minutes. Add the cream and bring to a simmer. Whisk in the gorgonzola and season with salt and pepper. Cook, over low heat, until the cheese is melted and the sauce is smooth.

Combine the gnocchi and cream sauce and toss to coat lightly and evenly. When plating, garnish with a few more toasted walnut pieces.

Suggested Wine Pairing from What to Drink with What You Eat: Chardonnay, especially a lighter-bodied Italian, Pinot Grigio/Pinos Gris, or Chianti