Fifty Two Foods – Page 6 – Lucky Mike's The Good Life

July 9, 2011July 16, 2011

52 Foods Week Twenty Seven: Basil

This week’s post was guest written by my wife, Jen. As I mentioned a few months back, Jen is our resident pesto expert, so when it came time to whip up a batch of traditional basil pesto, it was obvious that she should take the reigns.
-Michael

When I was 17 I lived for a year in Italy with a couple who originally hailed from Genoa, the birthplace of all things deliciousâ€”including pesto. As my host mom, Graziella, whirred the sauce together in a food processor, my host dad, Alberto, would tell me about the traditional way to make pesto alla genovese, which is, of course, with a mortar and pestle. His own mother, he claimed, would pound away away at the basil, pine nuts, garlic and cheeses for hours until it was perfect. The pesto made in the food processor could not compare. Graziella would roll her eyes at Alberto and told him to go pound it himself. While I disagree that pesto made in a food processor is inferior, I do maintain certain tenets when it comes to making traditionalâ€”albeit, goodâ€”pesto alla genovese. I take my rules for pesto directly from the best pesto-maker I know, Graziella; Suor Germana, the celebrity cooking nun who was endorsed by Graziella; and hours of my own experimenting.

1. The cheeses must be an equal mixture of parmigiano reggiano and pecorino sardo. The pecorino sardo should be the skunkiest, sharpest pecorino from Sardegna you can find. If that is unavailable, a serious pecorino romano will suffice.

2. The only nuts that belong in pesto are pine nuts. They should be as fresh as possible and then toasted until they smell like bacon.

3. The pesto should be able to hold its form on a spoon when it comes out of the food processor. The pesto then gets placed in a bowl for mixing with the pasta. Right before the pasta is done cooking, you add a little pasta water to the pesto to liquify it a bit.

4. The basil should be as fresh and local as possible. I prefer to make pesto with basil from the garden. Unfortunately, we don’t have any this year, but the basil from Lloyd’s Produce does quite well.

5. There are no exact measurements of ingredients in pesto. You add and taste and add and taste. Ultimately, you are aiming for a complex sauce that hits sweet and full on the front palate, garlicky and smoky in the middle and has a long finish of spice.

To begin!

Pre-heat the oven to 350° and place the pine nuts on a baking sheet.

While the pine nuts toast until they smell like bacon (about ten minutes, but use your nose not the timer), wash and dry the leaves of at least one bunch of basil. I like to keep another bunch on deck just in case.

Pull the pine nuts and let them cool.

Meanwhile, shred about a cup of pecorino and a cup of parmigiano.

Peel four to six cloves of garlic.

Gather the rest of your ingredientsâ€”olive oil, sea salt, pepperâ€”and pull out the food processor.

For the first round, throw in two fistfuls of basil leaves, a handful of each cheese, a small handful of pine nuts, a pinch of salt, a pinch of pepper and about two tablespoons olive oil.

Whir it all together. I found that after my first round, the pesto was thin and in need of more everything except olive oil. So, I added more of everything except olive oil whirred. Then tasted again.

Needed more cheeses, pine nuts, garlic and olive oil the second time. Whir. Then, taste again.

Lacked spice, so more pecorino, garlic, salt and pepper. Whir. Taste. The rest of the basil dumped in plus more cheeses, garlic and a few more pine puts. Whir. Taste.

The rest of the pecorino. Whir. Taste. A tad more pepper and the last garlic. Whir. Taste. A little more salt. Whir.

Taste. Notice heft, complex flavor, beautiful finish. It’s ready.

Fill large pot with water. Add a small fistful of sea salt. Boil. Add a dash of olive oil to water. Then, add pasta of choice. The traditional pasta for pesto alla genovese is trenne, but any medium-sized pasta shape will do in a pinch. This particular day, we had orecchiette, which would probably make my host parents groan.

Really, truly traditional pesto alla genovese also includes boiled potatoes and green beans. I tend to think of the full-deal pesto dish as a cold day food, because it is quite filling. You boil a few potatoes in the water then add the pasta then a handful of green beans. All then gets mixed with the pesto. Because it was 100 ° out the day we made pesto last week, I stuck to just pasta for a lighter meal.

So, our pasta water is boiling and we’ve added the pasta to it and are conscious not to overcook said pasta by even a second. We transfer the pesto from the food processor to a large bowl (in which we eventually mix and serve the dish). Notice how lovelily the pesto stand up on the spoon. It is dense and flavor-packed!

About thirty seconds before pulling the pasta, we grab one large spoonful of pasta water and mix it into the pesto to heat it up and liquify it a bit. mix the hot pasta water with the pesto until smooth.

Drain and quickly cold rinse the pasta then dump into the bowl and mix vigorously with the pesto until all coated.

Serve immediately. Or, as Graziella would say, “A tavola!”

Pesto alla Genovese

(measurements are approximate; add or subtract to taste)
3-4 tablespoons olive oil
1 “bunch” fresh basil (about ten stalks with plenty of leaves)
1/2 cup parmigiano reggiano
1/2 cup pecorino from Sardinia
3-6 cloves of garlic
1/4-1/2 cup toasted pine nuts
1 teaspoon sea salt
1/2 teaspoon pepper

Combine ingredients in a food processor until well blended.

Cook pasta according to directions for al dente. While pasta cooks, mix one large spoonful of pasta water with pesto in a large bowl. Stir to combine.

Drain cooked pasta and transfer to bowl with pesto. Stir to coat and serve.

Checkout all the photos here.

July 2, 2011

52 Foods Week Twenty Six: Sweet Onion

Ever since the weather got nice in May, we’ve been grilling regularly. A few weeks back, we cooked up some skirt steak and a salad of onion and chard. It was such a success that I sought out the ingredients again, with an eye towards featuring it on Fifty Two Foods. We picked up some golden chard at the Davis Co-Op and I got this week’s food, a large sweet onion from Towani Organic Farm, a Farmers’ Market vendor from Butte County.

Towani has one of the broadest selections of produce at the Davis Farmers’ Market, and last Saturday their tables were brimming with assorted onions, herbs, greens and fruit. I grabbed one of the largest sweet onions they had. For my salad, I peeled the onion, and sliced it into fairly thick rounds.

I put the onion slices into a bowl, and covered them in olive oil, then placed them onto a hot grill, directly over the coals.

I cooked the onions for about 10 minutes, until they were soft and translucent with a lot of charring on the bottoms.

In the meantime, we washed and trimmed the chard, then covered it in fresh lemon juice, olive oil, salt and pepper.

After the onions came off the grill, I threw the chard on for a few minutes.

I flipped each leaf once, and pulled them off when they had wilted and looked a little papery—about 3 or 4 minutes.

I chopped both the onions and chard roughly, and tossed them together with some French sheep feta, then drizzled some more of the olive oil and lemon juice over them.

The charred sweetness of the onions melds wonderfully with the tang of the lemon juice and feta. The salad was a wonderful complement to the grilled salmon we had alongside it.

All the photos are here.

June 25, 2011June 25, 2011

52 Foods Week Twenty Five: Apricots

About a month ago, I picked up some slightly tart, first of the season apricots. This was one of my quick Wednesday market missions, and I regret to admit that I’ve forgotten from which vendor I purchased them. Apricots have always been one of my favorite fruits. My family used to make two road trips every summer—one north and one south—and we would often stop at farm stands to buy fresh fruit. Apricots and Santa Rosa plums were my weaknesses on these stops, and I’m fairly certain my mother had to meter my consumption, at times, to prevent me from getting sick. Apricot was and still is my favorite jam flavor, and dried apricots are probably my favorite dried fruit. The orange glow of their flesh is even reflected in a significant portion of my wardrobe, as well as the color accents on this site.

The weekend after I got these apricots, we hosted a friend for burgers—with beef from the same cow as the ribeye—and I wanted to make a little appetizer for us to enjoy while the grill heated up, and decided on baked apricots with Manchego and pancetta, drawn to the pork and apricot interplay that later worked so well in my pork belly.

I halved the apricots and removed the pits, then arranged them in a baking dish, cut side up.

I sliced small squares of Manchego, a firm, nutty Spanish sheep cheese that goes marvelously with cured meat, and placed one on top of each apricot.

Finally, I cut thick slices of the same Bledsoe pancetta I used in the Roman style fava beans and placed them on top of the Manchego.

I baked the apricots at 350° F for 45 minutes, until the cheese had browned slightly and the pancetta was slightly crispy. The apricots were a bit soft and messy, but the combination of smokey and salty pork, nutty, creamy cheese and tart apricot was simply delicious. In the future, I might try to cook these in a muffin pan with a little savory pastry to hold the bottom all together.

Baked Apricots with Pancetta and Manchego

All the photos are here.

June 18, 2011July 10, 2011

52 Foods Week Twenty Four: Pork Belly

When I began Fifty Two Foods, there were a few foods I knew I would include. Some of those, such as walnuts, I covered early. Others, like cherries, I needed to wait on until they were in season. This week’s food, pork belly, was another that I knew I would cook from the very start, and while it has been readily available, I’ve held off cooking it, because I really wanted to get it right. Towards this end, I took a first run at it a few weeks ago, and much like collard greens, I learned a few things that have informed my second attempt—a slab of pork belly that is in the oven as I write this.

I’ve enjoyed lots of pork belly in the last couple years, thanks to what seems to be a love affair between it and Portland’s new crop of chefs. One of my favorite preparations comes courtesy of Beaker & Flask, where it is served as a large, tender steak nestled among an ever-changing line-up of vegetables and fruits (my favorite was cabbage and pomegranate, if I recall correctly). This is, in my mind, the high watermark of pork belly. Soft and charred, with fat that melts away and flavor the veggies below. I won’t aspire to achieve this so early in my pork belly career, but keeping it in mind will hopefully guide me towards my perfect home cooked belly.

For my first pork belly attempt, I followed a simple recipe where the pork belly cooked slowly, with a minimum of spices. Reflecting on the finished product, I noted a few places where I thought it could be improved. I cooked my pork belly for 3 hours, but felt that it hadn’t really cooked as long as it should have. There was still a lot of fat under the skin that could have melted and basted the pork, and the flesh was not yet as tender as I wanted it. I also felt like it was a little under spiced, and that the onions imparted very little flavor. My solution to these issues was threefold:

I rubbed spices on both the skin and meat sides of the pork.

I set the pork on a layer of onions and apricots.

I’m cooking it much longer, 5-6 hours, than last time.

My apricots are Royal Blenheims from SunBlest Orchards in Patterson, CA. SunBlest’s representative at the Davis Farmers’ Market is consistently one of the cheeriest vendors, always good for a big smile and often a friendly comment or two. I was more than happy to pickup 2 pounds of apricots, especially after he gave us a sample—a perfect balance of sweet and tart—that confirmed apricot season has arrived.

I quartered a large, yellow onion, then sliced it into thin strips.

I made a spice rub of salt, paprika, cumin and white and cayenne peppers.

My pork belly, as before, came from the Bledsoe Meats, in Woodland, CA, surely the nearest and best pork producer to Davis. It’s a 3+ pound slab of hog, with the skin intact. Sitting on the cutting board it was pure pork potential—ready to be slow roasted or made into bacon, pancetta or another smoked marvel. I scored the skin on both diagonals, so the fat could bubble up and create crispy cracklings.

I covered both sides of the pork belly with my spice rub and laid it atop the apricots and onions, which were doused with a helping of silver tequila to keep things moist. Then I placed the pan in the oven to cook slowly at 250°F.

Update at 5pm: Just passed the three hour mark, and I’m kind of shocked that this was about when the last pork belly came out. The skin is definitely starting to get crispy, and a lot of fat has melted out to mix with the tequila, apricot and onions.

It took about an hour for the fat to start melting. Then another half hour before there was evidence of cracklings forming.

I’ve raised the oven temperature to 275° to encourage it to cook a little faster, and to make sure the fat simmers enough to keep basting the pork.

Update at 10:30pm: The pork belly took about five and a half hours to complete. I pulled it out around 7:30, and the moment I peeled the skin off the meat, I could tell it was a success. Great roasted pork belly tends to pull apart along the muscle grain, and this was definitely happening.

I strained the apricots and onions out of the roasting pan, and put them in a skillet on the stove to make a chutney to go alongside the pork. Much of the spice was in this mixture, so it made a wonderful and very welcome complement to the belly, which had taken some of the flavor, but was still relatively lightly spiced.

I cut the pork belly into inch and a half wide slices and layered them on a platter to serve.

The skin had a nice snap to it, but I wanted to get it a little crisper, so I threw it back in the oven for a few minutes. Five minutes later, I had wonderfully crisp, but still slightly toothsome pork cracklings to serve alongside the pork belly. They were very well spiced from the rub.

All the photos are here.

June 12, 2011

52 Foods Week Twenty Three: Ribeye Steak

I’m a strong proponent of the Good-Food-Starts-with-Good-Ingredients school of cooking, and for no food is this truer than beef. Thanks in large part to Portland’s excellent Laurelhurst Market, I’ve gone from being somewhat nervous about finding a good steak to cook at home to shopping and preparing all manner of beef with confidence, whether it’s a large roast or a quick-cooking skirt. My quest for great beef in California led me to go in with some friends on the purchase of a whole, grass-fed cow. We got about 22 pounds of meat, in a variety of cuts, including two handsome half pound ribeye steaks.

Our cow, from Nevada County Free Range Beef, was raised entirely in the hills of Nevada County, CA, and slaughtered and processed at the University of Nevada, Reno. As the New York Times recently noted, California has a severe lack of slaughterhouses, which especially impacts small ranchers. Nevada County Free Range Beef sells directly and doesn’t deliver, focussing on providing high quality, local beef.

Earlier in the week, I had purchased some strawberries at the Farmers’ Market. While our mesquite charcoal lit, I sliced a few of the strawberries and placed them in a bowl with balsamic vinegar and some crushed red pepper.

We also made up some bleu cheese butter by churning Straus whipping cream into fresh butter, then mixing in bleu cheese in equal proportion.

Once the grill was hot, we put some salt and pepper on the steaks, and threw them over the hot coals.

I flipped them after about 30 seconds, and grilled the other side over high heat, before scooting them over a couple inches to a slightly cooler spot.

I cooked them for 6 minutes, flipping them every minute, then removed them and let them rest for a few more minutes, aiming for a nice medium-rare.

I strained the strawberries and placed them in a dish, then splashed a little more balsamic on them. We placed a healthy scoop of strawberries and butter onto each steak, and served them with a little grilled kale and corn.

Ribeye steaks don’t need much to be delicious—particularly intensely flavored grass-fed steaks—but adding a little sweet-savory interplay with the balsamic strawberries and bleu cheese butter was a great way to dress them up without interfering with the beef’s natural flavor.

All the pictures are here.