Chengdu meets Paris: Pork Chestnut Kale Stir Fry with Fried Soba Noodles

Ginger, garlic and chili paste flavor pork stir-fried with chestnuts and kale and served over gently fried soba noodles. Recipe below.

We’ve often talked about our love for Chinese food, which for us is the ultimate in comfort food. In the last year or so, our adventures have led us away from our friendly old favorites in the kitchen, but some recent enjoyable dinners in Chinatown, and a memory of past pleasures, put it front and center for us again. Continue reading “Chengdu meets Paris: Pork Chestnut Kale Stir Fry with Fried Soba Noodles” →

Shrimp Fideos: Short for little Spanish toasted noodles and shrimp

Toasting uncooked pasta with olive oil in a skillet before adding liquid gives it a pleasingly nutty taste in this globe-trotting, Spanish-inspired dish with shrimp, red bell pepper and edamame. Recipe below.

One of the things I love about cooking is how recipes for the same essential dish can be so different. For fideos—short, thin noodles toasted and then cooked into Spanish (and Italian and Mexican) stews and soups, this is spectacularly so.

Fideos is actually the name of a specific type of thin noodle, most often short, slightly curved pieces. According to Joey Campanaro, chef/co-owner of The Little Owl in New York, fideos is the Catalan word for noodles, and many Spanish cooks use it instead of rice to make paella. Typically, English-language recipes call for using vermicelli, cappellini or spaghetti and breaking it into short pieces. Continue reading “Shrimp Fideos: Short for little Spanish toasted noodles and shrimp” →

Herb? Vegetable? Both: Caramelized Fennel with Fettuccine and Goat Cheese

An Italian favorite, sliced fennel bulb is sautéed until lightly browned, then served over pasta with goat cheese, lemon zest and fennel fronds. Recipe below.

The idea for this dish began with two words on a restaurant menu. We were having dinner a few weeks ago at Telegraph Restaurant and Wine Bar in our neighborhood, and Marion chose seared escolar with stuffed cherrystone clam, uni butter, caramelized fennel, orange vinaigrette and tarragon from chef Johnny Anderes’s inventive, seasonally driven menu. Caramelized fennel. It was buried in the middle of the description, but a standout on the plate.

This wasn’t the first time we’d eaten fennel (yes, I got a bite too). In fact, Marion has occasionally used it raw in salads. But caramelizing it—cooking it in a skillet until it browns, bringing out its natural sweetness—was something we hadn’t tried. Over the next couple of weeks, caramelized fennel kept popping up in our conversations as we tried to figure out what to do with it. We thought it deserved more than its usual side dish treatment. Marion suggested pasta, and a meal was born. Continue reading “Herb? Vegetable? Both: Caramelized Fennel with Fettuccine and Goat Cheese” →

Globetrotting flavors and history: Lamb Meatballs with Saffron, Lavender and Paprika

Lamb meatballs are seasoned with a global mix of flavors and served over pasta—or made smaller and served as a canapé. Recipe below.

Terry’s comment last week about always liking the flavors of a braise, whatever the weather, had me asking myself how to achieve that depth of flavor without several hours of stoveness. At the same time I happened to be reading Roger Crowley’s City of Fortune: How Venice Ruled the Seas, about the way Venice was a prime mover in the growth of global trade, “the first virtual city,” “the central cog that meshed two economic systems—Europe and the Orient—shunting goods across hemisphere, facilitating new tastes and notions of choice.” And reading about this adventurous time, when “Venice was the middleman and interpreter of worlds,” started me looking at medieval recipes that involved great wallops of flavors like saffron and combinations that are unfamiliar to us today.

This dish is about travel and the global economy. It is a hat tip to the Venetian merchants of the Middle Ages, when trading could mean being gone for years, at enormous personal risk; when the great empires, so long in isolation, were getting their first little views of each other; and when cooks boldly began mixing together newfound flavors, in part seeking cures and in part because they came to love these daring new tastes. These were the first fusion cooks, picking and choosing flavors from a lush global toybox. Continue reading “Globetrotting flavors and history: Lamb Meatballs with Saffron, Lavender and Paprika” →

It’s too darn hot: Six cool recipes for when it’s just too hot to cook

With temperatures hovering around 100º for the foreseeable future, I’ve dipped into the Blue Kitchen archives for some no-cook and minimal-cook recipes.

THE RECENT HEATWAVE HAS THE COLE PORTER CLASSIC “TOO DARN HOT” running through my head—as sung by Ella Fitzgerald, of course. What the heat doesn’t have me thinking about, despite my best intentions, is the kitchen. Here are a few ideas for some cool foods that require little or no cooking. A couple are complete meals. Others can be paired with sandwich makings—cold cuts or a store-bought roast chicken, for instance—so you can eat well without overheating. Continue reading “It’s too darn hot: Six cool recipes for when it’s just too hot to cook” →

Butter + leeks = delicious: Scallops with Melted Leeks and Egg Noodles

A recent dinner out brought home a new cooking technique for us—“melting” leeks by cooking them slowly in butter. They’re a sweet complement to sautéed scallops and pasta. Recipe below.

We’ve used leeks any number of ways here. Sautéed, puréed in soups, braised with duck legs, baked into tarts and quiches, even cooked almost whole as a side dish. But melted?

That’s how they were served with a nicely cooked piece of halibut when we ate at Frontier in Chicago’s West Town neighborhood recently. As delicious as the fish was on its own, the melted leeks took it to a whole new place. We knew we’d be trying something with them here soon. Continue reading “Butter + leeks = delicious: Scallops with Melted Leeks and Egg Noodles” →

Sweet, savory, quick, delicious: Sweet Potato Sage Pasta with Chicken

A handful of fresh ingredients—sweet potato, sage, onion, garlic and chicken—make a sweet/savory pasta dish that’s weeknight quick. Recipe below.

With holiday excesses behind us, it’s good to get back to quick, simple, everyday cooking. This dish is one of my favorite examples of that kind of cooking, in that involves fresh ingredients, using up leftovers and unexpected synapses firing.

One thing I’ve noticed in writing about food for the past five years or so is that it makes me think about food, a lot. Sometimes it seems that everything I see or read or hear or smell or taste has the potential to inspire some cooking idea. Continue reading “Sweet, savory, quick, delicious: Sweet Potato Sage Pasta with Chicken” →

Summer on a plate: Grilled Peaches and Tomatoes with Whole Grain Pasta

Pan-grilled peaches, cherry tomatoes, scallions and Parmesan create a satisfying, summery, sweet/savory vegetarian meal—Grilled Peaches and Tomatoes with Whole Grain Pasta. Recipe below.

We’re always looking for ways to mix sweet and savory in our kitchen. When Marion first described the idea for this dish, I knew it would be delicious. I was right. I’ll let her tell you about it.

Who doesn’t love a peach? And already this year we are getting some really luscious ones, sweet, tart, juicy, fragrant beauties that always seem to be sneaking into my lunch bag or onto my breakfast cereal. They are the best 4 PM pick-me-up and the perfect weekday dessert, all on their lonesome. I may not be having my lunch on a faded old sheet spread in the shade of a tree at the edge of a humming, warm meadow, but with a perfect ripe peach in my hand, I am almost there. There are so many ways to cook them, but when they are so brilliant on their own, why?

Then Terry’s PBJ on the outdoor grill a few weeks back got me thinking. At this time of year, I am always insincerely chattering about making things like peach pie, peach cobbler, peach tart, poached peaches. But how about peaches in a savory entrée? Continue reading “Summer on a plate: Grilled Peaches and Tomatoes with Whole Grain Pasta” →

Beef and Pork Ragù: A hearty, meaty meal for yet another chilly weekend

Ground beef and chunks of pork are slow cooked with tomatoes, peppers, carrots, mushrooms and paprika to create a hearty, rustic ragù. Recipe below.

IT IS FLAT-OUT REFUSING TO STAY WARM HERE. We have these occasional days that are, frankly, just hot, where after days of unseasonable cold it suddenly, spitefully, turns 85 for like one day. The warm weather comes on too abruptly to be any fun at all. We are inevitably at the office wearing too much, too thick clothing. We get home and the apartment is stuffy and hot. The cats stagger around, collapsing randomly here and there and glaring at us: I can go no farther—you did this to me. Then within a few hours huge storms wash through and the weather turns crazy cold again and just. stays. that. way. Tomato planting? Forget it. Continue reading “Beef and Pork Ragù: A hearty, meaty meal for yet another chilly weekend” →

“Go east, young man”: Fragrant, flavorful Chinese Duck Pasta with Mushrooms

Steaming duck legs with ginger, garlic, star anise and Chinese five-spice powder before roasting them infuses the meat with flavor and moisture for this Chinese pasta dish. Recipe below.

“Marco!” “Polo!” Before becoming an annoying swimming pool pastime, Marco Polo was an Italian merchant and explorer who, as popular myth has it, brought pasta back from China in 1295. Unfortunately, pesky facts have long ago proven otherwise. But since the journey for the creation of this dish went in the opposite direction—from Italy to China—for the sake of symmetry, I’m going to pretend that Signor Polo did indeed introduce the noodle to Italy.

The journey began as many of my food adventures do, with an offhand comment. This time it was on Grub Street New York: “…chef Jonathon Sawyer (who, by the way, makes a mean duck pasta)…” Continue reading ““Go east, young man”: Fragrant, flavorful Chinese Duck Pasta with Mushrooms” →