I love this quote. I am thankful to have come across it years ago. I believe I have posted it before, but as I am just getting my fingers warmed up and my brain functioning again it is a wonderful happy place to begin.
Adventures in Doughnutland.
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© 2005-2024 Ideas in Food
Writing and Photographs by Aki Kamozawa & H. Alexander Talbot
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Lee, Lara: Coconut & Sambal: Recipes from my Indonesian Kitchen
Chauhan, Maneet: Chaat: Recipes from the Kitchens, Markets, and Railways of India: A Cookbook
McDermott, Kate: Pie Camp: The Skills You Need to Make Any Pie You Want
Lee, Lara: Coconut & Sambal: Recipes from my Indonesian Kitchen
Kimber, Edd: One Tin Bakes: Sweet and simple traybakes, pies, bars and buns
Clark, Letitia: Bitter Honey: Recipes and Stories from Sardinia
McDowell, Erin Jeanne: The Book on Pie: Everything You Need to Know to Bake Perfect Pies
Michael Solomonov: Federal Donuts: The (Partially) True Spectacular Story
Chris Cosentino: Offal Good: Cooking from the Heart, with Guts
Deb Perelman: Smitten Kitchen Every Day: Triumphant and Unfussy New Favorites
Samin Nosrat: Salt, Fat, Acid, Heat: Mastering the Elements of Good Cooking
Michelle Tam: Ready or Not!: 150+ Make-Ahead, Make-Over, and Make-Now Recipes by Nom Nom Paleo
Lee Brian Schrager: America's Best Breakfasts: Favorite Local Recipes from Coast to Coast
Jacqueline An: An: To Eat: Recipes and Stories from a Vietnamese Family Kitchen
Carolyn Phillips: All Under Heaven: Recipes from the 35 Cuisines of China
Alexandra Stratou: Cooking with Loula: Greek Recipes from My Family to Yours
Meathead Goldwyn: Meathead: The Science of Great Barbecue and Grilling
New-Don Revisited
"We shall not cease from exploration
And the end of all our exploring
Will be to arrive where we started
And know the place for the first time."
-T.S. Eliot
So I went back to our New-don Noodles. Where we were Chasing the chew.
The success of an idea is measured on whether it can be brought to life. I remade the recipe. As it was written. The recipe worked. I had achieved the success I was looking for years ago. But it took trying again to realize the greatness of the work we had already put in.
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Tinkering Troubles
I spent the afternoon revisiting an idea for noodles made with a glutinous rice flour starch paste. The difficulty with ideas that have been kicking around for awhile is the amount of hope for success I have. My plan was to create a thick noodle, in the style of udon, that could be kneaded relatively easily and could also cook quickly while producing a thick noodle chew. This was my third-ish attempt at this version of the noodle and I was anticipating a win. Despite all my hopes, and the visual cues of the dough kneading well and rolling how I wanted, the end result was a gummy mess.
I have some ideas on how to improve the noodles. The first is to use a harder wheat in the dough in conjunction with the rice flour.
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Smoked Ricotta Cavatelli
Sometimes, often times, all the time the good ideas are sitting in plain sight. The great ideas are usually right around the corner.
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Sourdough Pappardelle v#
Find an idea.
Picture it in your head.
Start tinkering.
Evaluate the results.
Make adjustments.
Try again.
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Building Blocks
I go to the grocery store a lot. I travel the aisles of ingredients. I leave empty handed because the ingredients don't look that great and I am not really inspired by anything. Have all the great ingredients disappeared? Do restaurants get the great stuff?
I am looking to spend the next couple of months, hopefully, shaping an idea. I am looking to put one of our side projects into production. The difficulty is my expectations of available ingredients and the accessibility of those ingredients to other people. This may influence how I approach the project, it may not. In the past I have allowed the availability of ingredients and there accessibility dictate my creative directions. I call this Alex's cookbook writers syndrome.
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Peanut Butterscotch
Looking at these butterscotch peanut butter cups sparked the idea of peanut butterscotch.
Time to start tinkering.
Years Past
April 28, 2005
Ideas in Food: Great Recipes and Why They Work
Maximum Flavor: Recipes That Will Change the Way You Cook
Gluten Free Flour Power: Bringing Your Favorite Foods Back to the Table
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Orecchiette
Making something by hand reminds me of the needs for practice and patience.
Years Past
April 19, 2019
April 12, 2006
Ideas in Food: Great Recipes and Why They Work
Maximum Flavor: Recipes That Will Change the Way You Cook
Gluten Free Flour Power: Bringing Your Favorite Foods Back to the Table
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Miso Pasta Water
We have flavored our pasta for years. We have flavored the liquid we use to hydrate noodles. But for some reason we have not done much with the pasta cooking water. It took a what if moment to add miso to our pasta water. The miso added some savoriness to the noodles and the water itself was a flavorful addition to finishing the pasta in sauce. Is miso necessary in pasta water? Not at all. It's a delicious small touch.
Years Past
April 9, 2005
Ideas in Food: Great Recipes and Why They Work
Maximum Flavor: Recipes That Will Change the Way You Cook
Gluten Free Flour Power: Bringing Your Favorite Foods Back to the Table
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Pasta and Eggs
I made a habit of cooking too much pasta. At first it was the result of poor planning. That and the fact that I refused to scale down portions from a restaurant mentality to that of a family of three. It took time for me to realize that great at the moment leads to good the next day and drudgery dining in the days that followed. After too many years of pushing through and eventually throwing away vast quantities of leftover pasta I began to learn.
As I got my pasta problem in check I observed, well heard about, an interesting eating situation. I don't particularly care for angel hair pasta. Aki and Amaya have a fetish for the stuff. When I travel, they eat daddy's away pasta. It is usually angel hair with butter and cheese or perhaps with red sauce and vegetables. The two of them end up with a small amount of leftover angel hair. It's the coveted portion of the daddy's away pasta. The following morning Aki sautes the noodles in a pan and cracks a few eggs on top. She puts a lid on the pan. The pasta caramelizes, the eggs gently cook. The result is eggs on a rosti-esque nest of noodles. Amaya loves it. Aki hopes Amaya doesn't finish. I don't really get to experience the creation.
After hearing about the fried pasta and eggs one to many times I became envious. I asked Aki to make daddy's away pasta. She made a delicious batch of angel hair, coated in garlic bread butter and enriched with cheese. We crushed the noodles. She made sure to make enough so that there was enough for breakfast noodles. The following morning Amaya went to the fridge and pulled the eggs and the noodles out and placed them on the counter. She looked at me as if of course I knew what to do. I set about following Aki's model. I had to make sure the yolks were runny. Amaya does not do anything but runny yolks. I nailed it. Amaya crushed it. And now I too have a fetish for angel hair pasta.
Years Past
Ideas in Food: Great Recipes and Why They Work
Maximum Flavor: Recipes That Will Change the Way You Cook
Gluten Free Flour Power: Bringing Your Favorite Foods Back to the Table
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Stamps
I have found that the smoked pasta dough recipe from our first book Ideas in Food: Great Recipes and Why They Work is an excellent model for a filled pasta dough. I made a batch of the dough, un-smoked, and rolled it into sheets. I spread the sheets with a mixture of ricotta cheese, sour cream and Parmigiano Reggiano. I topped the sheets with pasta and stamped out these anolini. We ate them in a quick sauce made with brown butter, miripoix, ham, red pepper flakes, broth and cream.
Years Past
February 26, 2009
February 26, 2005
Ideas in Food: Great Recipes and Why They Work
Maximum Flavor: Recipes That Will Change the Way You Cook
Gluten Free Flour Power: Bringing Your Favorite Foods Back to the Table
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Pasta Tools
When the designs of the tools evolve so do the creations.
Years Past
February 15, 2005
Ideas in Food: Great Recipes and Why They Work
Maximum Flavor: Recipes That Will Change the Way You Cook
Gluten Free Flour Power: Bringing Your Favorite Foods Back to the Table
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Ricotta and Cream Cheese
(pictured: black truffle ricotta-cream cheese tortellini filling)
Cream cheese is magical. It is not talked about nearly enough. It is culinary duct tape. We have found that combining equal parts ricotta and cream cheese creates an incredible foundation for pasta fillings.
Years Past
February 13, 2007
Ideas in Food: Great Recipes and Why They Work
Maximum Flavor: Recipes That Will Change the Way You Cook
Gluten Free Flour Power: Bringing Your Favorite Foods Back to the Table
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Gochujang Mustard
We combined equal parts gochujang and mustard. The two made each other better. The mustard added a sharpness. The gochujang provided a full rich foundation of sweet heat. It's honey mustard with character.
Years Past
Ideas in Food: Great Recipes and Why They Work
Maximum Flavor: Recipes That Will Change the Way You Cook
Gluten Free Flour Power: Bringing Your Favorite Foods Back to the Table
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Ground Hog Day
Everyday may appear the same. It is improving and discovering in the ordinary where we can learn and make breakthroughs.
Years Past
February 2, 2005
Ideas in Food: Great Recipes and Why They Work
Maximum Flavor: Recipes That Will Change the Way You Cook
Gluten Free Flour Power: Bringing Your Favorite Foods Back to the Table
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Ricotta Ravioli
I am now tinkering with our yeasted dumpling dough.
I rolled the dough out into a thin sheet. I spread a mixture of ricotta and cream cheese over half the dough and folded the dough over the top. I punched the dough into ravioli.
Years Past
Ideas in Food: Great Recipes and Why They Work
Maximum Flavor: Recipes That Will Change the Way You Cook
Gluten Free Flour Power: Bringing Your Favorite Foods Back to the Table
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Yeasted Dumplings
I have become smitten with yeast leavened filled dumplings. In Chinese they would be sheng jian bao. A yeasted dumpling dough adds flavor, lightness and substance to the dumpling. There is an excitement surrounding this dumpling. There is the potential for variety in flavoring the dough. There is the need for mastery in folding the dumpling. There is the insane potential for fillings.
Years Past
January 29, 2006
January 29, 2005
Ideas in Food: Great Recipes and Why They Work
Maximum Flavor: Recipes That Will Change the Way You Cook
Gluten Free Flour Power: Bringing Your Favorite Foods Back to the Table
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Seasoned Shoulder
I cubed up the remaining meat after I removed the coppa from the pork shoulder. I seasoned the meat with 0.75% salt and 0.25% gochugaru, Korean chile flakes. I refrigerated the meat for 48 hours to allow the salt and chile to penetrate the meat. I ground the meat, twice, through a 1/4 inch size meat grinder die. The meat is now ready to be put to use.
Years Past
January 27, 2005
Ideas in Food: Great Recipes and Why They Work
Maximum Flavor: Recipes That Will Change the Way You Cook
Gluten Free Flour Power: Bringing Your Favorite Foods Back to the Table
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Oven Broth
I enjoy the deep rich flavor of a roast chicken. I appreciate the gelatinous mouth feel that a pork shank can add to a broth. I do not enjoy de-glazing roasting pans to capture the fond for making broths.
I coated chicken bones and pork shank with a mixture of sunflower seed oil and soy sauce and roasted them in a deep roasting pan for 2 hours. I added water and cooked the broth for 3 more hours. The result was a clean and rich broth that was made in one vessel.
Years Past
January 25, 2009
January 25, 2005
Ideas in Food: Great Recipes and Why They Work
Maximum Flavor: Recipes That Will Change the Way You Cook
Gluten Free Flour Power: Bringing Your Favorite Foods Back to the Table
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Pork Shoulder Roast
I cut the coppa off of a bone in pork shoulder. I seasoned it with salt and refrigerated the shoulder overnight. I roasted the shoulder roast for 4 ish hours at 300°F. I cooked the meat until it was tender but not falling apart. I sliced it and served it along cream smashed potatoes and a crisp salad.
The roast tasted of pork. It was caramelized, juicy and rich. The shoulder roast was a first step in maximizing the eating experience of a pork shoulder and utilizing the entire shoulder.
Years Past
January 24, 2005
Ideas in Food: Great Recipes and Why They Work
Maximum Flavor: Recipes That Will Change the Way You Cook
Gluten Free Flour Power: Bringing Your Favorite Foods Back to the Table
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Braised Beef Ribs
Years ago we made beef rib ramen. I wanted to revisit the element of the beef rib. We salted racks of ribs and cooked them in a chicken and pork broth. We cooked the ribs at 300°F for 4 hours. The meat was tender with a juicy bite. I let the ribs cool for 30 minutes in the broth and then cut the meat free from the bones. It is destined to be folded into a rich bowl of noodles.
Years Past
January 23, 2005
Ideas in Food: Great Recipes and Why They Work
Maximum Flavor: Recipes That Will Change the Way You Cook
Gluten Free Flour Power: Bringing Your Favorite Foods Back to the Table
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Butter Chicken Bolognese
I have a thing for the sweet aromatic sauce for Indian buttered chicken. I also have a noodle fetish. Tonight we married the two. I started with ground chicken, peppers and onions. I added a butter chicken simmer sauce and crushed tomatoes. I boosted the sauce with some curry powder and some richness with buttermilk.
The simmer sauce allowed me to test my idea quickly. I am glad I did. The sauce is delicious. Now we can go about making the idea distinctly our own.
Years Past
January 20, 2005
Ideas in Food: Great Recipes and Why They Work
Maximum Flavor: Recipes That Will Change the Way You Cook
Gluten Free Flour Power: Bringing Your Favorite Foods Back to the Table
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Stuffed Ricotta Dumplings
I do not have a ton of sauces on hand. And frankly, since I do not have a pasta project, currently, I tinker when time allows. Our newly developed ricotta dumplings are special. Their full body and lightness make them crushworthy. But I did not want to leave them alone to my laziness and eating them with a browned butter sauce.
I took the dumplings down to our friends at Charcoal BYOB. They have an insane pasta program and plenty of sauces to play with. On the drive I started thinking more about our dumplings. I figured their texture would easily allow for me to stuff them. This was a thought I most likely would not have tripped over had I not had time to ponder during the drive.
When I arrived we started cooking the dumplings and I set to stuffing a few with a delicious nduja. The dumplings behaved wonderfully and perfectly resealed around the filling. We ate the stuffed dumplings with a coarse red sauce. The other tests, beautiful plates of pasta, were equally delicious, thanks to the synergy of the sauce and the dumplings.
Years Past
January 17, 2005
Ideas in Food: Great Recipes and Why They Work
Maximum Flavor: Recipes That Will Change the Way You Cook
Gluten Free Flour Power: Bringing Your Favorite Foods Back to the Table
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Ricotta Dumplings
Most ricotta gnocchi are so light they have no structure. I wanted to create a ricotta based dough that had structure and some substance. In my mind and in my mouth I needed to differentiate what we were making. I blended ricotta, cream cheese, non-fat milk powder, flour and salt into a wet dough. I scooped the dough and rolled the scoops in flour to create a presentable shape.
The dumplings cook in 3 minutes. The have a light spring and a tender bight. They are not clouds. They are ricotta dumplings.
Years Past
January 12, 2005
Ideas in Food: Great Recipes and Why They Work
Maximum Flavor: Recipes That Will Change the Way You Cook
Gluten Free Flour Power: Bringing Your Favorite Foods Back to the Table
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Perfecting Pate Choux Gnocchi
Years ago, for our book Maximum Flavor, we created a BBQ potato chip gnocchi, built on the foundation of pate choux. We used the same model for our smoked masa gnocchi with oat mole. In recent years my connection to pate choux has been tied to our insanely delicious Curiosity Cruller.
What we learned from these experiences is that pate choux is a fantastic model that consistently can be built upon. Today we revisited our pate choux gnocchi, using semolina as the flour. I borrowed the idea of piping the gnocchi onto a sheet of parchment paper sprayed with pan release as we do in the doughnut shop. I chilled the strips of dough and cut them into gnocchi. I then went to our cream cooking crutch and cream seared the gnocchi, finishing them with some stock at the end to enrich the glaze.
Years Past
January 8, 2005
Ideas in Food: Great Recipes and Why They Work
Maximum Flavor: Recipes That Will Change the Way You Cook
Gluten Free Flour Power: Bringing Your Favorite Foods Back to the Table
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Meatball Improvements
I have always mixed meatballs by hand and done so gently. Today I did the opposite. I added the meat, ricotta, eggs, locatelli cheese and seasonings to the bowl of a stand mixer. I paddled the ingredients together until it became a semi-homogeneous mixture. The paddling helped bind the meat and cheese. I roasted the meatballs to brown them and added them to our sauce to simmer and braise. The meatballs had structure that could handle the mishandling of being overcrowded in the simmering sauce. The meatballs cooked and became tender and rich, bathed in sauce and bursting with savory flavor.
Years Past
Ideas in Food: Great Recipes and Why They Work
Maximum Flavor: Recipes That Will Change the Way You Cook
Gluten Free Flour Power: Bringing Your Favorite Foods Back to the Table
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Slap Noodle Prep
I love slap noodles. But the seemingly essential last minute slap, stretch and cook and assembly process has had me avoiding them. The other day I saw a picture or slap noodles stretched and arranged on a sheet pan. The noodles were prepared in advance. Today I tried it out. Having the noodles stretched and ready to go allowed me to have the slap noodle experience on demand. I was not struggling to slap stretch and cook. The fresh noodles were still precarious to work with. They needed to be dropped into the water one noodle at a time. The noodles ate wonderfully. Though, I really need to work on my slap noodle sauce game. One step at a time.
Years Past
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Dump Your Dough Hook
We have found that the paddle attachment rather than the dough hook mixes and kneads dough more efficiently and more consistently. That is all.
Years Past
Ideas in Food: Great Recipes and Why They Work
Maximum Flavor: Recipes That Will Change the Way You Cook
Gluten Free Flour Power: Bringing Your Favorite Foods Back to the Table
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Re...
Re-starting
Re-imagining
Re-purposing
Re-mixing
Re-inventing
Re-mastering
None of this is useful if we have not first started, imagined, mixed, purposed, invented and mastered.
Years Past
Ideas in Food: Great Recipes and Why They Work
Maximum Flavor: Recipes That Will Change the Way You Cook
Gluten Free Flour Power: Bringing Your Favorite Foods Back to the Table
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Rigatura
The form changes the results when the ingredients remain the same. Rigatura, from Arcobaleno, is a shape in the style of rigatoni with wider sloping ridges. We tested this smaller diameter rigatura. It's diameter is more like a ziti or penne. The wider ridges allow for sauce to flow and larger inclusions like soffrito to be captured in them. I think of it as a more delicate, in appearance, version of a rigatoni. We made these noodles with our recent adjustments: eliminating baking soda and using 0.5% salt. These noodles also cooked in 60 seconds for our ideal version of al dente.
Years Past
Ideas in Food: Great Recipes and Why They Work
Maximum Flavor: Recipes That Will Change the Way You Cook
Gluten Free Flour Power: Bringing Your Favorite Foods Back to the Table
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Roasted Pork Shoulder Soffrito
We brined the hunk of boneless pork shoulder in allium infused apple cider for a couple of days. We patted it dry and nestled it on a bed of store bought, diced mirepoix that we seasoned with salt. We tucked the shoulder into a 300°F oven to roast. After an hour or so we added some chicken broth to the bottom of the pan to deglaze the vegetables roasting in rendered pork fat and juices. We flipped the shoulder 3 hours into the roasting and added some additional broth. The shoulder roasted for another two hours. The mirepoix braise-roasted in the broth and fat. The shoulder browned and transformed from tough to tender. We removed the shoulder, covered it, and let it rest for thirty minutes. Then Aki put it on a cutting board and surgically disassembled it. She removed and discarded large pockets of fat, sinew and gristle. (I was just going to hack up the meat, gristle, fat, sinew and not worry about a thing. Aki, thankfully, intervened.) She cut the meat into a large-ish dice and added it back to the decadent vegetables. We stirred the meat and coated it with the juicy soffrito. The meat and vegetables were rich, melting, and crush-worthy. We served half the shoulder soffrito as tacos. We reserved the other half for an otherworldly pasta sauce still to come.
Years Past
Ideas in Food: Great Recipes and Why They Work
Maximum Flavor: Recipes That Will Change the Way You Cook
Gluten Free Flour Power: Bringing Your Favorite Foods Back to the Table
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Seeing Stars
Pasta is my distraction.
I am fascinated with the shapes we can extrude, the textures we can create and the flavors that we can transform all within a noodle. Today I was working with die 72-02, a new shape in the Arcobaleno catalog. It resembles a star with rounded edges. I modified our base pasta recipe, omitting baking soda and using 0.5% salt. Salt, in contolled amounts, has wonderfully beneficial attributes on the texture of noodles. The noodles formed beautifully and retained their shape through the cooking process. The stars cooked in one minute. The increased salt in the dough seemed to give the dough more resiliency with an excellent bite and chew.
Years Past
Ideas in Food: Great Recipes and Why They Work
Maximum Flavor: Recipes That Will Change the Way You Cook
Gluten Free Flour Power: Bringing Your Favorite Foods Back to the Table
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Milk Braised Pork
We braised pork shoulder pieces in milk seasoned with soy sauce with miripoix and garlic. It took about 3 hours for the pork to become tender and the milk to curdle and caramelize. The braised meat was tender, soaked in a flavorful sauce of its own juices and caramelized milk. What occurred to me as I was eating the meat was how we could customize this dish. On the front side a dry rub of endless options would add character to the meat. And a flavorful pesto, paste or aromatic condiment added on top of the meat when serving it would transform the dish. Finally, while typing, it dawned on me that the milk and what could be milk would add its own unique characteristics to the dish. Tonight we ate simply. Tomorrow we can begin to explore the potential.
Years Past
Ideas in Food: Great Recipes and Why They Work
Maximum Flavor: Recipes That Will Change the Way You Cook
Gluten Free Flour Power: Bringing Your Favorite Foods Back to the Table
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Discovering Noodles
I came across a collection of new to me noodles while walking the aisles of a local Asian Market. I have no idea what the names mean, but the names spark thought. They make me curious about the origin of the names. They also make me wonder about influences on our own creations, noodles and beyond.
Years Past
Ideas in Food: Great Recipes and Why They Work
Maximum Flavor: Recipes That Will Change the Way You Cook
Gluten Free Flour Power: Bringing Your Favorite Foods Back to the Table
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Chasing the Chew
The success of an idea is measured on whether it can be brought to life. Our new-don noodles are tender, chewy, and slightly slippery. They have a distinct resiliency. The noodles can withstand the rough dressing of a dry stir-fry style as well as a saucy sauce. They are not like any udon I have eaten. They eat like the udon I wish existed.
Years Past
Ideas in Food: Great Recipes and Why They Work
Maximum Flavor: Recipes That Will Change the Way You Cook
Gluten Free Flour Power: Bringing Your Favorite Foods Back to the Table
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New-don Noodles
Years ago we used a starch paste in making our masa cavatelli. For some reason we did not think to make the connection to apply it to long noodles. Until recently. We are currently exploring thick, chewy, and slurpable udon noodles. We make a starch paste with cornstarch and use that paste to hydrate and make the noodles. The results are tender, chewy and crushable. We shall continue to tinker as we work towards a recipe we can leave alone.
Years Past
Ideas in Food: Great Recipes and Why They Work
Maximum Flavor: Recipes That Will Change the Way You Cook
Gluten Free Flour Power: Bringing Your Favorite Foods Back to the Table
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Cavatelli Clicker
I was first introduced to the cavatelli machine when working at Park Avenue Cafe. A signature appetizer was black pepper cavatelli with a ragout of mushrooms and truffle beurre fondue. Ever since then cavatelli have been part of our playbook. Over the years we have explored numerous ways to shape cavatelli. But over those years we have drifted away from what I know as the classic cavatelli clicker. We have extruded versions of cavatelli as well as shaping them by hand using knives and gnocchi boards. But there is something remarkable about the consistency in size and texture made with the cavatelli clicker.
Years Past
Ideas in Food: Great Recipes and Why They Work
Maximum Flavor: Recipes That Will Change the Way You Cook
Gluten Free Flour Power: Bringing Your Favorite Foods Back to the Table
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Everything Cavatelli
Everything always comes around again.
Everything Cavatelli
400 grams ap flour
25 grams everything bagel seasoning
2 grams baking soda
400 grams whole milk ricotta
Combine the flour, everything seasoning and baking powder in a medium bowl. Add the ricotta and use your fingers to combine. Continue to bring the mixture together until it forms a dough. Put the dough onto a lightly floured counter top and knead until smooth and silky. Shape the dough into a ball, wrap with plastic or vacuum seal, and let it rest for at least 30 minutes before shaping pasta.
You will need a rolling pin, flour for dusting, and a butter knife or a bench scraper to shape the cavatelli by hand. Have a floured sheet pan at the ready on which to rest the finished pasta. Roll the dough out to a thickness of about 1/4". Cut them into strips approximately 1/2" thick. Cover the extra strips with a damp towel so the dough doesn't dry out while you are making the cavatelli. Cut 1/2" squares using a butter knife or bench scraper. Turn each square diagonally and then drag your butter knife of bench scraper at a 45-degree angle along the square, from left to right, The pasta will curl along the edge of your implement, leaving you with a beautifully shaped cavatelli. It may take a few tries to master the technique, once you develop a rhythm things move quickly.
Lay the finished pasta out on a lightly floured sheet tray and cook immediately or freeze. Once frozen, transfer the cavatelli to a plastic bag and keep frozen until ready to use, up to 1 month. You can cook the pasta directly from the freezer.
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Summer Gruel
We have been making fresh corn polenta for 10 years now. We have a fun recipe for it in Maximum Flavor. Today I wondered what would happen if we added a few tablespoons of instant masa to the polenta. I was hoping to add the toasted and round richness of nixtamilized corn to the fresh sweet corn. I was also looking for a small amount of thickening. The instant masa achieved both. I believe next time we will add a bit more masa to our scraped corn. For a first run it was a delicious evolution.
Years Past
Ideas in Food: Great Recipes and Why They Work
Maximum Flavor: Recipes That Will Change the Way You Cook
Gluten Free Flour Power: Bringing Your Favorite Foods Back to the Table
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Playing With Pierogi
It is difficult to begin tinkering without a strong point of reference. I have eaten pierogi in modern American restaurants and purchased frozen pierogi to cook at home. But I do not have an authentic experience to copy and build upon. I started with a sour cream based pierogi dough. The dough was extremely tender and doughy. It had a dumpling like quality that I wrapped around a horseradish cheese filling. I used our pot-sticker style cooking method. The top was soft and the bottom was crispy.
But really, the whole thing from was a nightmare. The dough was too tender and while it kept the filling in place it did not make for an enjoyable eating experience. And my "on the fly" horseradish cheese filling was a creamy disaster with too much heat and an overly fluid cheese.
Now that I have my own baseline, I have a point of reference to build upon.
Years Past
July 17, 2009
Ideas in Food: Great Recipes and Why They Work
Maximum Flavor: Recipes That Will Change the Way You Cook
Gluten Free Flour Power: Bringing Your Favorite Foods Back to the Table
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Everything Furikake
Proximity leads to breakthroughs.
Years Past
June 19, 2005
Ideas in Food: Great Recipes and Why They Work
Maximum Flavor: Recipes That Will Change the Way You Cook
Gluten Free Flour Power: Bringing Your Favorite Foods Back to the Table
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Sake e Pepe
Our sake strozapreti take time to cook. They took a good 13 minutes in this shape. To me that was too long. I need to roll the dough thinner to shorten the cooking time. But when they were cooked they had a fragrant aroma and delicious chew. I dressed them with salted butter and black pepper. The combination of the three was delicious. So delicious that I didn't even miss the cheese.
Years Past
Ideas in Food: Great Recipes and Why They Work
Maximum Flavor: Recipes That Will Change the Way You Cook
Gluten Free Flour Power: Bringing Your Favorite Foods Back to the Table
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Sake Strozapreti
Sake Strozapreti
450 grams durum flour
6 grams salt
230 grams sake
Put the flour and salt in a medium bowl. Pour the sake into the flour and use your fingers to disperse the water and bring the flour into a crumbly mass. Keep working it with your fingers, squeezing the flour into a rough and shaggy ball. Fold the mass onto itself, beginning to knead the dough. It will feel both dry and moist. Keep kneading the dough until it forms a ball and all of the flour is absorbed. Put the ball on the counter and continue to push, pull, and rotate the dough. It will resemble a rough semi-smooth pasta dough. Put the pasta dough into a vacuum bag and seal on high pressure.
When the dough is vacuum sealed it becomes fully hydrated and ready to roll.
Years Past
Ideas in Food: Great Recipes and Why They Work
Maximum Flavor: Recipes That Will Change the Way You Cook
Gluten Free Flour Power: Bringing Your Favorite Foods Back to the Table
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Brown Butter Cacio Pepe
Whenever we are teaching pasta workshops and demonstrating the benefits of a pasta extruder we make cacio pepe. It is a dish with just a few ingredients and that means we need to pay attention when we cook it. It took a moment of inattention, letting the butter brown in the olive oil as we toasted the pepper to create browned butter cacio pepe. The additional nuttiness and richness from the toasted milk solids added a deep complexity to the sauce. It has me thinking in a few directions. The first is revisiting brown butter stock, simplifying it by pureeing toasted milk solids and pasta water, to make a foundation. The other is leaving well enough alone and enjoying the simplicity of browning the butter and making the sauce. Both paths have merit and are worth traveling. The choice will depend on where we want to go with the bowl of noodles.
Years Past
Ideas in Food: Great Recipes and Why They Work
Maximum Flavor: Recipes That Will Change the Way You Cook
Gluten Free Flour Power: Bringing Your Favorite Foods Back to the Table
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Motivation
Clearly I need the doughnut version of this shirt. To go along with the pizza. And a noodle version as well. We have plenty of ideas and they are what motivates us.
Years Past
March 15, 2011
Ideas in Food: Great Recipes and Why They Work
Maximum Flavor: Recipes That Will Change the Way You Cook
Gluten Free Flour Power: Bringing Your Favorite Foods Back to the Table
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|
Ric-Cottage Cheese
Adding the cottage cheese to the ricotta creates a richer product with a complex texture. The two together become an exceptional ingredient.
Years Past
March 1, 2011
March 1, 2009
March 1, 2007
March 1, 2005
Ideas in Food: Great Recipes and Why They Work
Maximum Flavor: Recipes That Will Change the Way You Cook
Gluten Free Flour Power: Bringing Your Favorite Foods Back to the Table
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Miso Meat Sauce
I mixed miso into ground beef and let it sit in the refrigerator for a couple of hours. I made a soffrito with red onions, garlic and grated carrots. I added the miso marinated meat and red pepper flakes and browned it in the soffrito. When the meat was lightly browned I added several additions of red wine, reducing after each addition. I added a can of plum tomatoes and a dose of salt. I let the sauce simmer and cook down to thicken and allow the flavors to blend.
I thought that adding the miso to the meat before cooking and giving the two time to come together would allow for a more flavorful sauce. After using the technique, I am not sure the extra step is actually necessary. I believe adding the miso to the sauce as it cooks is improvement enough. Either way, it adds a savory depth to your tomato sauce that will make your pasta that much more delicious.
Years Past
Ideas in Food: Great Recipes and Why They Work
Maximum Flavor: Recipes That Will Change the Way You Cook
Gluten Free Flour Power: Bringing Your Favorite Foods Back to the Table
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Slap Noodles
Slap Noodles
350 grams flour
3 grams salt
20 grams sunflower oil
180 grams water
Mix the flour and salt. Add the oil and evenly coat the flour with the oil. Add the water and knead into a silky dough, 3-5 minutes. Wrap the dough in plastic wrap and let rest for 15 minutes. Knead the dough again. Repeat twice more and finally let dough rest an hour or more. Cut the dough into pieces. Flatten the pieces on a lightly oiled counter. Use a pulling and slapping motion stretch into noodles. Adhere the noodles in place with pressure on the end of the noodle strands. Allow the noodles to rest as you stretch the remaining noodles. Cut the noodles in half and stretch them further, about another doubling in length. Use pressure on the noodle ends to secure them to the countertop. Trim the ends and boil for 2-3 minutes.
Years Past
Ideas in Food: Great Recipes and Why They Work
Maximum Flavor: Recipes That Will Change the Way You Cook
Gluten Free Flour Power: Bringing Your Favorite Foods Back to the Table
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