Funghi Trifolata with Pici Pasta: Stretching the Envelope -- and the Pasta

by BCD Dad

The recipe.

We ran across some semolina flour at the Amish Market in Easton, MD a few weeks ago and it rekindled an interest in making pasta from scratch using that flour. Unfortunately, our hand-operated pasta machine is still packed in one of fifty or so boxes in the garage, so we looked for a recipe that did not require a machine. Our web search turned up a recipe by Mario Batali called "Funghi Trifolata" that looked perfect: not only did it use a semolina flour dough and include instructions for the hand-made dough, but it also called for a pound of fresh mushrooms that coincidentally was in the refrigerator and eager to participate.


The “mis en place”

I think all of our previous pasta-building has been done using either the heavy-duty Kitchen Aid mixer, a hand-cranked pasta machine, or the Popiel Pasta Extrusion machine the BCD daughters gave us as a gift. So this was the first time no machines were used at all. And guess what? This is really hard work. The dough (just two flours and water) was so stiff that after the required ten minutes of kneading my hands were aching. That was just the beginning. We probably could have done a little more research into the actual process of shaping the dough, but instead faithfully followed Mario’s brief instructions. After kneading and resting (the dough, not me), I rolled it out into a sheet about 1/8 inch thick. Then using a pizza wheel, I cut strips about ½-inch wide.

The kneaded and rolled out dough, cut into strips with a pizza wheel.

The first two exemplars. This is our standard ½ sheet baking tray.

The idea now is to somehow take these flat, thin strips of pasta dough, and convert them into long snake (worm) like pastas. The first one took a couple of minutes to do, and was two feet long! After a lot of trial and error (like trying to make snakes the way we did with clay as children), I finally came up with a technique. I found that if I used a piece of dough about four inches long, and ½ inch wide, it would end up as a very thick spaghetti-like thing, about eight inches long. We probably made close to fifty strands of pici, all sitting on a tray waiting for their moment in the boiling water.

The End Result. Three layers worth.

The sauce itself was elemental. Onions, garlic and sliced mushrooms cooked in olive oil, add cooked pasta, add a little pasta water, some more sliced raw mushrooms right at the end. That’s it.

In the sauté pan for the final step, fresh mushroom slices on top. Look at those noodles. Remind you of anything?

Lessons learned: (1) This is surprisingly rich pasta dough. Although the recipe says serves 4, since this was our only course, we usually don’t have a lot of leftovers. Not this time. It was delicious but we just couldn’t eat more, it was so filling. (2) Making pasta shapes by hand is an extremely difficult think to do. There is a lot of technique involved, and having consistent thickness is obviously critical. Next time, we use the machine.

The completed dish with a slice of Emily’s wonderful rustic Italian loaf.

But there will definitely be a next time.

BCD Dad

Pantry Raid*: Bangers and Mash

by Erin

Last weekend, I spent a lot of time at school studying and doing work for my clients (yup, I have clients through clinic - weird!), so by the time Sunday evening came along, I was ready for some home cooking. (I also find cooking to be an incredible stress reliever, which I was also in need of!) I of course haven't been grocery shopping in an embarassingly long time, but I had been to the farmer's market with Xani recently, so I perused the cabinets and fridge and tried to come up with something. It was definitely another culinary adventure of a hungry law student.

I saw potatoes, garlic, onions, and Italian sausages, all purchased at the farmer's market, and therefore all local and/or organic. Yay!

What did I come up with? Bangers and Mash. Bangers and Mash is a classic English/Irish comfort food (and pub grub) comprised of mashed potatoes and sausages. When I was in Australia someone told me that the sausages are called "bangers" because back during WWII, there wasn't that much food around so they put more water than usual in the sausages, so when they cooked them, they went BANG.

Anyway, I just made the recipe up as I went, but it turned out to be mighty good. I started by boiling up some potatoes. I also tossed about 5-6 cloves of garlic (still in their skins) into the boiling water to cook, so I could have garlic mashed potatoes. (This is so much easier than roasting the garlic in the oven for 45 minutes!)

As the potatoes and garlic were cooking, I thinly sliced some onions and got them cooking in olive oil. Then I had the sausages. We have bought these sausages from the market in the past, and they are fantastic (perhaps because they come from happy pigs?). Although different from traditional English sausages, I had to work with what I had, and I knew they'd be good.

I am always concerned about cooking them long enough, so instead of tossing them into the frying pan, I added them to the boiling water with the potatoes to cook them almost completely. Then I tossed them into the frying pan with the caramelized onions to get browned up.

Everybody in the hot tub

Meanwhile, I drained the potatoes and garlic. I peeled the garlic and added the cloves to the potatoes, along with some butter (okay, a lot of butter) and parmesan cheese. And voila! - garlic parmesan mashed potatoes!

Then it was time to plate. I finished browing up the sausages, put them on the plate with a pile of mash, then topped them both with the super-caramelized onions. Then I added a small pile of mesclun mix (also from the market) to add some freshness and green to the plate.

The verdict? Delicious and so comforting. And I was really proud of myself that I just made it up on a whim. Both the cooking and the eating were relaxing and took my mind off of my crazy life for an hour or so. Well worth it!

Coming up next: Xani's culinary adventures in the Windy City and Motor City!

Cheerio,

EP

* Pantry Raid - this was the name of our brilliant idea for a TV show, but then someone ELSE thought of it and put it on the Style Network! And it sucked. And now it's cancelled. So there. Ours would have been so much better! I figured if nothing else, I could turn it into a theme on our beloved blog.

Baba's Kitchen - It's Falafel-tastic

by Erin

Last week, I went to dinner with law buddies Jami and Melissa at a brand new Mediterranean restaurant in Federal Hill, Baba's Kitchen. We had these plans for a long time (need to plan ahead with our busy schedules!), and I was excited to try out the new place. But, I must admit, I sort of jumped the gun: while shopping for our ridiculous Halloween party, Xani and I went to Baba's for lunch! Oops! We had a great time - we met Farid, the owner of the place, and tried some of their awesome mediterranean eats. Also, we tried their coffee, with the amazing addition of cardamom! So delicious and interesting. So, I was excited to get back there and bring Jami and Melissa.

Melissa, Jami, and I met up at Baba's on a chilly weekday night and grabbed one of the (few) tables just in the nick of time. Since I knew Farid from my visit only a week earlier, we were treated as VIPs right off the bat!

As we were perusing the menu, we saw lots of people coming in and ordering/picking up take-out -- good thing to remember the next time I am tired of my local Chinese joint around the corner.

As is my custom, we ordered lots of things to share. We got the "Med-ley," with dolmas (stuffed grape leaves), falafel, hummus, spanikopita, and olives. We also got extra dolmas (love those things) and some baba ghanoush.

Extra dolmas - for good measure

Everything was amazing - almost as good as in Israel! The falafel was freshly made, crispy on the outside and tender and delicious on the inside. The dolmas were very flavorful from the mint, rice, and olive oil. The spanikopita was delicious and you could really taste the spinach and feta, plus the layers of buttery phyllo dough added a great bite and crunch. The hummus was smooth and classic; the baba ghanoush was also good, and had a good amount of tahini in it. A very good start to the meal.

Baba's baba ghanoush

We also got the Quinoa Tabouleh, made with quinoa, parsley, tomatoes, scallion, mint, olive oil, and lemon juice. This was a nice twist on the classic tabouleh, usually made with bulgur. Very fresh and refreshing.

Last, we got the Meditteranean (Pita) Pizza, with artichoke hearts, roasted red peppers, spinach, kalamata olives, feta, and basil.

I liked this pizza, but I definitely preferred the Syrian Pizza, which I got when I was there the first time with Xani. The Syrian pizza is made with oregano, sumac, English thyme, and sesame seeds. Farid gave us some fresh tomatoes and feta cheese to put on top. This pizza was really herby, and I loved the sesame seeds and olive oil. The pita underneath was crunchy, and the tomatoes and feta added texture, temperature, and of course taste. Yum!

At the end of the meal, Farid came over to chat with us since it was towards the end of the night. There had been a slight delay with our pizza, so he hooked us up with some fabulous baklava. It was sweet and crunchy and just the right little bite to end the meal.

Check out that crushed pistachio garnish

Mmmm flakes of deliciousness (and honey)

The food at Baba's is pretty spot-on if you are looking for some great Mediterranean fare. Since they have only been open for one or two months, they are still working out some kinks with their service, but that is to be expected with any new place. I am so glad to have this non-bar-food place around - we have plenty of those in this part of town and we need a little variety.

We had a lovely time at Baba's, eating, drinking (water), and of course gossiping. What better way to blow off some steam than with some hummus and really great gossip?? Thanks to Farid for a great meal, and to Jami and Melissa for the wonderful company!

Happy falafel-ing,

EP

Halloween 2008: Seven Deadly Sins

by Erin and Xani

As some of you long-time readers might know, we. love. halloween. And we don't eff around. From our Blood & Gore Gala in 2005 (including an indoor graveyard), to our haunted gingerbread house-making party of 2006, to spooky caramel apple ghosts last year, we love to cook and craft and top it all off with a fabulous costume (the gorier the better)!

This year we were able to carry out an idea we've had for quite some time: a Seven Deadly Sins party! We were inspired by an episode in season 2 of Top Chef, were there were 7 contestants and each had to design a dish around one of the sins. We decided to do each sins as a different hors d'oeuvre (except one that one ended up being a drink), and also ask each of our guests to either come dressed as their favorite sin or in their "goth finery." As this party also served as Xani's first major party in her new home ("Clementine"), we decided to invite LOTS of folks. To our surprise, many, MANY of them showed up!! We approximate about 60+ people came to the party to eat, drink, walk the runway, dance, and otherwise sin it up-- that is a lot for one rowhouse!

Here was the menu, by sin (but to see some REAL insanity, check out our ridiculous planning document here.):



GREED: 20+ spice-rubbed pork shoulder, and greedy for more spices!

Admittedly, we started out with an idea for mini pulled pork sandwiches as the sin of sloth because it's slow-roasted, but we switched it to greed so we could rub it with an obscene amount of spices. We actually started this dish the weekend before the party while we were out at Blackacre making Dad's birthday dinner. We used this Tyler Florence recipe for the technique, but basically did our own thing for the rub and the BBQ sauce.

Mom picked up the pork shoulders (14 lbs in total!) for us and we rubbed them down with lots of spices, including chili powder, cumin, cayenne, oregano, brown sugar, paprika, garlic powder, onion powder, ground mustard, turmeric, etc. etc. etc.

Then we roasted them for about six hours at 300 degrees until the thermometer read 170 degrees (basically until they were falling apart). This was the first time we used the convection oven function at Blackacre, and it was a big success. Then we let them cool a bit, and then got to shredding! Once it was all shredded, we put it into bags and froze it until we needed it for the party.

The day before the party, we defrosted the pork and made up the BBQ sauce. Instead of starting from scratch and making the BBQ sauce in the same Tyler recipe, we took prepared sauce (gasp!) and added the things in the recipe that the prepared sauce didn't have, such as cider vinegar, hot sauce, and cayenne. We ended up with a pretty vinegar-y sauce that nice and tangy; not too sweet.

We served this with the....

SLOTH: "Cole Sloth" to go with the pork

We again used the Tyler Florence recipe for this cole slaw, which turned out to be really delicious. Again, instead of shredding a bunch of cabbage and carrots from scratch, we just bought the prepared cole slaw mix (which is just shredded cabbage and carrots-- go figure) and jazzed it way up. We added red onion, scallions, and red and green peppers to the mix, and then made the dressing from mayo, Dijon mustard, cider vinegar, lemon juice, a pinch of sugar, celery seed, and hot sauce, plus of course S&P to taste. We let it sit for approximately 3 hours before the party started.

It turned out really crunchy and spicy and tangy, and great with the BBQ sauce-dressed pulled pork on a mini potato roll. Yum - never knew greed and sloth could be so delicious, did you??

PRIDE: Prideful mushroom stuffed brie en croute...stuffed full of itself

Next up we have Pride. We really struggled with what to make for this. We wanted to do something "stuffed full of itself" and thought of stuffed mushrooms, deviled eggs, and other adorable hors d'oeuvres, but then we remembered there would be MUCHO people at the party, and we were not interested in making 180 deviled eggs (3 each?). So, we did one of our classic dishes: a baked stuffed brie filled with a delicious mushroom filling. We use an Epicurious recipe by Sarah Moulton. For this recipe, you saute up some onions in butter, then add chopped mushrooms, sherry, nutmeg, and salt and pepper and cook until the mushrooms have given off their liquid and it is evaporated.

Once the filling was done and cooled, Xani assembled the brie. She split the huge 2-lb brie horizontally, placed the filling on one half and added the other half. Then she rolled out some puff pastry dough and wrapped it around the brie. Now, you'd think we would stop there, right? Wrong. We of course had to cut out the letters P-R-I-D-E out of puff pastry and put it on top, just so everyone would know what it was. Duh.

It was, as always, so delicious - how can you go wrong with brie, mushrooms, and puff pastry??

ENVY: Green goddess sauce with green crudites - green with envy!

For Envy, like Pride, we turned to another one of our tried and true favorites: Green Goddess Sauce. Like hollandaise and bearnaise, GGS is a classic sauce, typically served with cold shellfish. It's so good, though, we chose to serve it with veggies - green veggies, in particular.

For the recipe, we turned to Craig Claiborne's The New York Times Cookbook, also a classic. The sauce is very simple: put mayonnaise, parsley, tarragon, green onion, garlic, lemon juice, anchovies, salt, pepper, and white wine vineagar in a food processor and process until smooth. Fold in sour cream. Then we got all of our very green crudites together. We had broccoli, sugar snap peas, green beans (which we blanched and then shocked in cold water), asparagus (ditto), and cucumber.

Keep it green!

The sauce turned out really delicious, with lots of bite from the garlic and anchovies, and a nice herbiness as well. It went well with the veggies, as predicted, and everyone really seemed to like this dish!

WRATH: Wrathfully spicy Thai curry soup

We have always toyed with the idea of doing a soup at our parties, to be served in small cups. We thought a super-spicy curry soup would be a great dish for Wrath. We ended up finding a recipe for a roasted red pepper soup with red curry. We charred the red peppers over the gas flame and let them steam in a paper bag. Then we removed the charred skins of the peppers, meanwhile we cooked some chopped red onion, ginger, garlic, and of course red curry paste in a little butter. Then we added lime zest and juice, the chopped peppers and lots of vegetable broth and let it cook for a while. Then we busted out the immersion blender (aka "boat motor") to blend the soup until it was smooth. Then we added the best ingredient ever: coconut milk.

During the party, it took a while for the soup to heat up in the crock pot, but once it did, it was pretty tasty. However, it was not as spicy was we wanted and it was outshined by some of our other, more fabulous dishes.

GLUTTONY: Every dessert you can think of...feast you gluttons!

For Gluttony, we wanted to have a ridiculous spread of dessert, displayed on Xani's dining room table and therefore one of the first things guests would see. It was a bit of a "show piece" but it was comprised of lots and LOTS of delicious treats! We purchased everything instead of making things from scratch to save time and money. We had quite a spread: we had brownies, cookies, cupcakes, lots of halloween candy, donut holes, cream puffs, whipped cream, chocolate sauce, and peanut butter. It was VERY gluttonous and a great success!

LUST: Lusty Shooters a la "lick it, slam it, suck it": lick off some chocolate sauce, do a shot of Cosmopolitan-esque shooter, and down a maraschino cherry

We added a shooter to the menu instead of another food dish, and we brought it old-school with the "lick it, slam it, suck it" format, originally for tequila shots. We used BCD Dad's cosmopolitan recipe for the shooters, which was 2 parts vodka, 1 part triple sec, 1/2 part cranberry juice, and the juice of one lime. We then got some chocolate fudge sauce and paintbrushes so people could paint either themselves or a friend with chocolate for licking. Finally we had a huge bowl of maraschino cherries for the last step of the process.

The shooters were a hit! And we saw more than one sinner drinking them by the glassful-- lusty, indeed.

Signature Cocktail: 7 & 7s, of course! One part Seagram's 7 Whiskey, one part 7-Up.

In addition to our delicious overly-themed foods, we also had lots of decorations! Most important: signs for our food (see above), a fog machine, a very spooky mantle, and of course: jack-o-lanterns!

Our "7" Jack-o welcomed our guests

Spooky Clementine Jack-o!

Finally, we had our costumes! EP went as Vanity, and was a beauty queen who had lost her tooth so she killed herself (very straightforward, I know). Xani did not go as a sin but went as a Goth princess, and she put a LOT of thought into her costume!

Most everyone showed up at the party in costume, including BCD Mom and Dad! They brought friends Deb and Allan (also in costume) and helped us out in the beginning as we were putting the finishing touches on everything. Here are some shots of the sinful costumes!

The BCD Family

Xani and Jessica goth it up

Sinful runway show

Whew! It was a lot of work but it was lots of fun! Thanks to all who could make it!

Keep on sinning,

EP & X

ps. We went to another Halloween party on actual Halloween, where we brought to life one of EP's greatest ideas for a group costume: the cast of Clue, each murdered by a different weapon!! It was very gory and everyone looked great! Xani was Mrs. Peacock, killed by a lead pipe in the conservatory; EP was Ms. White, killed by a candlestick in the dining room. See also Mr. Green, killed by a rope; Ms. Scarlett, killed by a wrench; Professor Plum, shot in the face with a pistol; Colonel Mustard, stabbed by a dagger, and Yvette, the maid, who was the murderer. Thanks to Kim and Ben who throw a super-spooky party!

EP holding our "Best Group Costume" prize-- Alas, poor Yorick, Halloween is over! 'Til next year!