pecorino romano

About as Comfortable as it Gets: Rigatoni Carbonara with Guanciale

08 Oct 2011
rigatoni carbonara

I am spending the weekend in Palm Springs with friends. When I spend a weekend at someone's house I like to say and thank you with food. So I cook.

Currently I am cooking from a new cookbook by Lucy Lean. Made in America: Our Best Chefs Reinvent Comfort Food. I think it's a good choice for a weekend of cooking with really great friends. The kind of friends with whom you feel completely at ease. Your comfort friends.

On page 174 Lucy has a recipe for Rigatoni Carbonara (with guanciale) from Barbara Lynch the chef at No.9 Park in Boston. It's a great example of the wonderful food that bubbles up in our great American melting pot. Because Carbonara is a traditional Italian dish that has found its way into our comfortably full bellies here in America. As Lucy explains it, Carbonara as American comfort food, gets its power from our great American breakfast ingredients– bacon, eggs and cheese. Mmmm, feeling comforted? But as much as I love the big 'sit right down and say hello' creaminess you associate with Carbonara, the Italian version has a bit more restraint.

Carbonara may achieve comfort status because of its familiar ingredients, well that and the fact that it is so easy to make. In fact when I make this dish it usually falls into the category of what I call default pasta. In other words I make it on a whim– with my mood and my pantry dictating the direction I will go.

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Rigatoni Carbonara with Guanciale

Rigatoni Carbonara
By jgreghenry Published October 8, 2011
Prep time: 20
Yield:1 (Servings)

Ingredients:

  • 1 box (16oz) high-quality rigatoni
  • 2 large eggs
  • 4 large egg yolks
  • 0.25 lb guanciale, diced small and rendered
  • 0 salt as needed
  • 0.25 c pecorino romano, plus more for serving
  • 1 T assorted pepper corns, like green, pink, black & white, freshly ground

Directions

Bring a large pot of salted water to a rapid boil. Drop in the pasta and stir. Cook for about 12 minutes until al dente; reserve 1-cup of the cooking water and then drain.

Meanwhile, in a large mixing bowl, lightly whisk eggs and yolks with a fork and add the cooked guanciale. Gradually add the drained hot pasta and then the cheese. Mix until the pasta is thoroughly coated withthe creamy sauce. Ifnecessary, add a little of the reserved cooking water to thin the sauce to taste. Season with salt and the freshly ground peppercorn mix.

Source: Made in America, by Lucy Lean

Summer Salads Some Aren't- Grilled Radicchio Wedge Salad with Lentils, Honey & Spiced Walnuts

26 Aug 2011
grilled radicchio wedge salad

My week long series on Summer Salads marches on. Today I have a grilled salad. A grilled wedge salad. Afterall, it's summer.

Now I like a wedge salad. I even like a wedge salad with good old-fashioned iceberg lettuce. I really do. I don't understand why it gets such a bad rap.

But just because I like the classic wedge salad doesn't mean I can't play around with it some. Because I like fresh takes on the familiar. This Grilled Radicchio Wedge Salad with Lentils, Honey & Spiced Walnuts is just that. A fresh take on the familiar wedge salad. But it didn't start that way. I set out to make a lentil salad with chopped radicchio in it. But I made a wrong turn. That's what I like about wrong turns. They always lead somewhere unexpected.

But before I get too far along here I better bring up the obvious. Radicchio is a terrific vegetable. But many people don't really care for the particular brand of bitter that radicchio sports. So a lot of these folks end their relationship with it right there. But really, grilled radicchio is a whole other taste. Sure it's bitter. But it's a better bitter.

Now if my entire goal today was to introduce you to grilled radicchio then I would have simply advised that you grill it on each side, then sprinkle it with salt and fresh lemon. It would have made a fun, piping-hot alternative to a wedge salad.

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Grilled Radicchio Wedge Salad with Lentils, Honey & Spiced Walnuts

grilled radicchio wedge salad
By jgreghenry Published August 22, 2011
Prep time: 30
Yield:1 (Servings)

Ingredients:

  • 0.5 c honey
  • 0.25 t alpeppo pepper (or other type chili powder)
  • 0.5 t tummeric
  • 0 salt & pepper, as needed
  • 0.5 c walnuts, broken in large pieces
  • 1 c puy lentils
  • 0.25 t crushed red pepper flakes
  • 2 bay leaves
  • 2 T olive oil
  • 2 T red wine vinegar, plus more for drizzling
  • 1 head radicchio, left whole
  • 0 pecorino romano, shaved into thin shards, to taste

Directions

Prepare the walnuts: Preheat oven to 325 degrees F. In a bowl combine, honey, alpeppo pepper, tumeric and 1/4 teaspoon salt. Stir until well incorporated. Pour half the honey mixture into a new bowl and set aside for the lentils.

Add the walnuts to the remaining honey and mix to coat the nuts well. Spread the nuts onto a parchment lined baking sheet in as close to a single layer as possible. Bake the nuts 15-20 minutes, stirring once halfway through, until crunchy but still sticky. Set aside.

Prepare the lentils: Add the lentils to a medium saucepan, cover with about 2 inches of water, add the crushed red pepper flakes and bay leaves. Bring to a boil, then lower the heat and simmer uncovered 15-20 minutes, until tender but not yet mushy. Drain the lentils and return them to the pan. Discard bay leaves.

In a small bowl whisk together the reserved honey mixture, olive oil, vinegar, a pinch each of salt & pepper until the honey dissolves. Stir the mixture into the lentils while they are still hot, then set aside covered in a warm place.

Grill the radicchio: Heat the grill or grill pan to medium-high (indirect heat). Cut the whole radicchio head into 8 wedges. Brush the grates or the grill pan with a little olive oil. Grill, cut side down, about 3 minutes per side. Remove from heat and sprinkle with a little salt & pepper to taste.

Arrange 2 wedges per person on 4 plates. Set a large spoonful of lentils alongside the wedges. Garnish with reserved nuts, shaved pecorino romano and a drizzle of vinegar. Serve warm or at room temperature.

Source: The flavor combination was inspired by Yotam Ottolenghi

Default Pasta alla Carbonara

27 Oct 2010
Pasta alla Carbonara ingredients

Default pasta, we all rely on it. Even Judy Rogers of Zuni Cafe.

Hers seems to be a particularly well-construcred Pasta alla Carbonara. It's not quite the traditional version– at least in my mind, because it has peas, ricotta and good ole American bacon in place of guanciale. But its authenticty and simple perfection cannot be denied. Judy put her version together based on a memory of a meal she had in Rome, hence the authenticity. And once you see the list of ingredients, and the careful way it is prepared– using a low, slow heat to render the flavorful fat from the bacon and into the sauce. I know you'll agree with the notion of its perfection. So see, even classic Roman meals can be tweeked to become what I affectionately call Default Pasta here at Sippity Sup.

So what exactly is Default Pasta? Well, as the saying goes– "Quick boil some water!" No I'm not having a baby? It's Default Pasta Night!

At my house Default Pasta makes regular appearances. In fact I'd even go so far as to call these appearances star turns. That's because learning how to bring forth quick, flavorful weeknight meals can be a lifesaver, and a Tuesday toe-tapper as you will see.

Because there are a lot of good reasons to master the concept of Default Pasta. Maybe you have not been to the grocery store for weeks and the fridge and pantry are pretty bare. Maybe you just want something simple and satisfying without too much thought or preparation. But never fear, because if you follow my rules for Default Pasta you can make any meal special.

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