My "Go-To" Pasta Dish

I probably make orechiette with rapini and sausage more than any other pasta dish. This is an easy dish to make, which may be why I turn to it so frequently, but it also has a really nice balance of flavors. Another nice thing about this dish is that you can leave the meat out without losing too much flavor, making it a nice option for vegetarians.

You can make this dish with regular supermarket brocolli, and it is quite good, but I prefer the more bitter rapini, or broccoli raab. This is a classic dish that appears on numerous restaurant menus and on this blog here and here. Because I make this dish so frequently, I have had the chance to tweak the recipe several times. The main difference between this dish and the last version that I posted is the addition of oven roasted tomatoes. In my opinion, the "brightness" and acidity of the tomatoes is a welcome addition to this dish. I've made this iteration of the dish three or four times and am pretty pleased with it, so I thought I should include a step-by-step on how to make it.

First, we'll start with the necessary ingredients. This recipe makes two large servings or four to five servings if it is served as the pasta course for a multi-course meal. If you gather and prep your ingredients ahead of time, assembly is a snap.

You will need 2 cups of dried orechiette, 1/4 cup walnuts (toasted), 1/4 cup grated parmesan cheese, 3 cloves of roughly chopped garlic, 2-3 oven roast Roman tomatoes, 1/2-3/4 bunch of rapini, 1 Italian sausage, 1-2 anchovy fillets, olive oil, and red wine or balsamic vinegar. You may also add 1/2 to 1 tsp of red pepper flakes if you want to add a little heat.

Start by bringing a pot of water to a rapid boil. Salt the water and blanche the rapini for a little over a minute.

Remove the rapini and rinse under cold water. Set the rapini aside and let it drain in a collander. Bring the water back to a boil and add the pasta (you can add a little oil to the water to reduce foaming in the pasta water). The pasta will be done in about 10 minutes, and you can use this time to finish the other ingredients. First, remove the sausage from the casing and break apart into small chunks.

Cook the sausage with 1 Tbsp of olive oil for 2 to 4 minutes over medium high heat. When the sausage has browned, drain on a paper towel, leaving the oil in the pan. Add the garlic, anchovy, and red pepper flakes to the pan and cook over medium until the garlic just begins to change color.

Once the garlic begins to turn golden brown, add the rapini and the oven roasted tomatoes. Before adding these ingredients, cut the rapini into 1 inch length, and cut the oven roasted tomato halves (you will have 4 to 6 of these halves) into quarters. (To make oven roasted tomatoes, just cut the roma tomatoes in half, length wise, toss with olive oil and salt, and roast in a 200F oven for about 8 hours).

Toss everything together and let the mixture cook for another couple minutes.

Next, you will need to add the walnuts. Make sure to toast the walnuts in a dry frying pan, toaster oven, or oven before using them. This brings out the flavor a bit. If you don't toast the walnuts, they can have a sort of stale flavor to them, so this step is key. Roughly chop the walnuts and then toss them in with everything else.

When the pasta is al dente, add it to the pan with all of the other ingredients along with 1/4 to 1/3 cup of the cooking water.

Toss everything together, then add the parmesan cheese, 1 Tbsp vinegar, and season with a pinch of freshly cracked black pepper.

Sous-vide lamb loin with lamb jus, toasted orzo with sundried tomato and garlic confit, and broccoli raab with anchovies

This is my first foray into sous-vide cooking, and I am completely sold. I have never cooked something so perfectly. The difficulty with most cooking methods is that you are using a heat that is much higher than the temperature that you want to bring the meat up to. As a result, the outside of the meat may be a little too well done by the time the core reaches the desired internal temperature. With sous-vide, you get the water to the temperature you want to hit, throw the meat in a bag with some seasonings, aromatics, or a marinade, set it in the water and let it go. Since the temperature will never go above the desired internal temperature, you can forget about it for a while and not worry about overcooking. When you are ready to plate, remove the meat from the bag and give it a sear in a smoking hot pan. You want to use a super high heat so you can develop the Maillard reaction as quickly as possible. (The Maillard reaction occurs when you expose proteins to high heat. This is responsible for the nice crust associated with seared pieces of meat.) The end result is something that is cooked perfectly and consistently from the center to the very edge.

Here's the recipe for the meal that I made:

LAMB

-1 lamb loin

-6 cloves garlic confit*

-2 Tbsp chopped rosemary

-1 Tbsp thyme

-2 tsp lemon juice

-1/4 cup olive oil or canola oil

-salt, pepper

Blend together the garlic, rosemary, thyme, lemon juice, and oil. Season with salt and pepper. Cover the lamb loin with the marinade and let sit for a couple hours. Add the lamb to a plastic bag and vacuum out the air and place in a water bath set at 125 to 130 for rare or 130 to 135 for medium rare. If you like your meat well done, maybe you should rethink your preferences. The cooking time will vary depending on the thickness of the meat. I let my lamb loin sit in the water bath for about 2.5 hours.

LAMB JUS

-4 cups chicken stock

-lamb bones

-2 sprigs rosemary

-2 tsp sherry

-1.5 Tbsp red wine vinegar

-1 Tbsp sugar

-1 tsp salt

Try to buy the lamb loin on the bone so you can use the bones and scraps to make a lamb jus. Add the bones and scraps to the chicken stock and bring to a gentle simmer. After about an hour, add the rosemary sprigs. Lighly crush the rosemary with your knife handle to help release some of the oils. Turn the heat up a little bit and simmer for another 30 minutes. Remove the bones and rosemary and strain out any impurities. Add the remaining ingredients and then turn the heat up and reduce the mixture until it gets down to about 3/4 cup.

ORZO

-1 cup orzo

-2 cups chicken stock

-4 sundried tomatoes, diced

-6 cloves garlic confit

-1/4 cup white wine

-1 Tbsp olive oil

-chopped parsley

-salt, pepper.

Heat the oil in a saute pan. Add half the orzo and the garlic confit. Cook until the orzo begins to brown. Add the wine to stop the browning, and then add the rest of the orzo. Add the sundried tomatoes and begin adding the chicken stock a little bit at a time and stirring as if you are making risotto. Keep adding liquid and stirring until the orzo is just al dente. Remove from heat, stir in about a tablespoon of chopped parsley and season with salt and pepper. This dish is also good with pine nuts and artichoke hearts.

BROCCOLI RAAB

-1/2 bunch of broccoli raab

-2 anchovy fillets

-2 tsp olive oil

-1 tsp lemon juice

- clove garlic confit, smashed.

-pinch of red pepper flakes

-salt, pepper

Bring a pot of salted water to a boil and prepare an ice bath. Chop the broccoli raab to the desired size and add the thick stems to the pot. About 30 seconds to a minute later, add the rest of the broccoli and cook for another minute. Remove the broccoli to the ice bath to stop the cooking and set the color. Set aside in a strainer. Heat the oil in a saute pan over medium high heat. Add the smashed garlic confit, anchovies, and red pepper flakes and stir/smash everything together. Add the broccoli raab and cook, stirring frequently until the broccoli is cooked to your liking. Remove from heat, add the lemon juice, and season with salt and pepper.

*To make garlic confit, add peeled garlic cloves to a pot with enough olive oil to cover by about an inch. Heat up the oil enough so that small bubbles just begin to rise to the surface (about 180F to 200F). Let the garlic cloves cook for about 20 to 30 minutes. Turn the heat off and let everything cool down. The garlic confit should keep for about a month.

Cold weather food

We're in the dead of winter here in Chicago, and while it hasn't been that bad, it's still cold enough to warrant some good, cold weather comfort food. So, last week, a few friends came over and we all put together a nice winter meal of leg of lamb, polenta with broccoli raab, pine nuts, and sundried tomatoes, roasted root vegetables, cahldo verde, some berries with balsamic vinegar and mascarpone whipped cream for dessert, and plenty of wine. This dinner party also gave Abby a chance to test out a camera lens that she's borrowing from our friend, Archie.

We started with a some of Mike's cahldo verde, a Portuguese soup with potatoes, kale, and chorizo or linguica. Here's the chorizo, served on the side.

and here's the soup.

I was thinking of just roasting the leg of lamb, but the butcher I got it from butchered the leg so poorly that I decided to go for a braise instead. Here's the braising vessel, our dutch oven, sealed off to keep everything inside during the cooking process.

And here's what the lamb looked like after a good sear (~8 minutes on medium high heat) and 7 to 8 hours in the oven at 275.

You can strain and degrease the braising liquids, reduce it a bit, and serve it with the lamb. Polenta is a great accompaniment for braised dishes since it soaks up all of the braising liquid.

Mike also whipped up a little brocolli raab dish to serve on top of the polenta,
and we also made some roasted root vegetables (celeriac, turnips, carrots, and parsnips).
Finally, here's a couple pics of the berry dessert that another one of our guests put together.

Orechiette, the sequel

I've already included a post on orrechiette with sausage and rapini, but I've changed my recipe a bit, so I thought an update would be in order. This is one of my favorite quick dishes; it has a really nice combination of bitterness from the broccoli raab, a savory note from the sausage, and hits of spiciness and sweetness from the red pepper and balsamic vinegar. I've spent a lot of time tweaking it and have landed on what I think is a pretty good recipe. The key to this dish is finding a really high quality pasta to start with. Maestri Pastai makes the best orechiette that I've been able to find, so I would recommend that brand. You can order it online here.

INGREDIENTS (2 servings)

• orrechiette
  
• 1 sweet italian sausage, removed from casing
• 1/2 bunch broccoli raab, thick stems removed and cut into bit sized pieces
• 1/2 small onion, small dice
• 2 cloves garlic, minced
• 1/8 to 1/4 cup almonds or walnuts, ground in a food processor or coffee grinder.
  
• 1/4 cup white wine
• 2 anchovies (optional)
• 1/2 tsp red pepper flakes
• salt, pepper
• pecorino romano cheese
• high quality, sweet balsamic vinegar
• regular olive oil for cooking
  
• high quality, Tuscan olive oil for finishing
  

Prep all the ingredients and heat 1 T olive oil in a large saute pan over med-high heat. Break apart the sausage into small pieces and add to the pan. After about 1 minute, add the onions and garlic and cook until the onions become translucent. You don't want them to burn, so turn the heat down if you need to. At this time, you should add the pasta to a pot of heavily salted water. It should take about 10 to 12 minutes to cook. Next, add the brocolli raab. Once this starts to wilt, add the anchovies and break apart. These should dissolve fairly quickly. Add the wine and turn the heat down to medium after it has reduced a little. Add a bit of water from the boiling pasta and toss everything together. Throw in the red pepper flakes and the ground almonds or walnuts, toss again, and let everything simmer. At this point, add salt and pepper to taste.

Once the pasta is done, add it to the saute pan. Make sure to reserve some of the pasta water. The pasta should be pretty al dente and be able to withstand another minute or two of cooking while still keeping its bite. If the sauce is too thick, add a bit of pasta water to loosen it up. Letting everything cook together in the pan allows the pasta to absorb a lot of the flavor from the sauce. As the pasta is cooking in the saute pan, add freshly grated pecorino romano to taste.

Plate and garnish with extra grated cheese, balsamic vinegar, and Tuscan olive oil.

Cumin crusted lamb with pomegranate sauce and basmati rice

INGREDIENTS:
Lamb loin (1 per person)
Cumin
Salt, pepper
Demi glace
Pomegranate molasses
Basmati rice
Butter
Onion
Chicken stock
Bay leaf
Slivered almonds
Sumac
Broccolli
Garlic
Red pepper flakes
Lemon juice
Olive oil

Begin by toasting ground cumin in a hot pan until it become aromatic. Rub the cumin into the lamb with salt and pepper and set aside.
Next, get started on the rice. For two servings, finely dice one quarter of an onion and a clove of garlic. Cook in a medium sized pot with 1/2 Tbsp butter. Add a cup of basmati rice and cook over medium heat for another minute. Add 1.5 cups chicken stock and a bay leaf and bring to boil. Lower heat and simmer, covered, for 20 min. When the rice is done, add onions sumac, and additional cumin to taste.
Once the rice is going, cut the broccoli into florets and steam for 5 to 6 minutes and then get the sauce started. For the sauce, you want to just combine a bit of demiglace and pomegranate molasses. I don't remember the ratios, so just adjust this to taste. If you don't have demiglace, just mix two parts beef stock to one part red wine and reduce to about one quarter of the original volume.
Now you can cook the lamb. Sear it for about 2 minutes on each side over high heat and finish in the oven at 400F for about 5-6 minutes (it might need longer, but check it at this point). When the lamb is done, it will need about 5 minutes to rest. Use this time to finish off the broccoli by sauteing it with sliced garlic, red pepper flakes and olive oil. After the broccoli is reheated, hit it with a dash of lemon juice. When you initially steam the broccoli, it isn't cooked through, so this step finishes the cooking. It should still have a bit of bite to it though.

Grilled swordfish

Earlier in the summer Abby and I ate at this great restaurant in New York called Esca. We both love seafood and the food at the restaurant was really good, so we decided to get the cookbook. This week I've been going through the cookbook and making some of the recipes. This one is really simple. Its just a swordfish steak that's breaded and grilled. You can make breadcrumbs by running some stale bread through a food processor and seasoning with various herbs, or you can just buy some italian style bread crumbs from the store. Start by trimming the skin off of the sword fish steaks. Then season with salt and pepper and dredge in bread crumbs. If you have a charcoal grill, use that. If not, you can do what I did and use a grill pan. Cooking time depends on the thickness of the steak. I cooked it between 4-5 minutes on each side. The cookbook suggested serving this with a blood orange salad. I didn't have any blood oranges, and I usually stick with a protein/starch/veg. combo for my dinners, so I made brocolli with lemon, garlic, and red pepper, and a brown rice pilaf for the side dishes.

Orrechiette with Sausage and Rapini

I make this dish fairly often. I've always used boxed pasta for this (I think the DeCecco is the best of the widely available pastas), but this time a tried to make pasta from scratch. The ingredients for orrechiette are flour and water. That's it.
After kneading the dough and letting it rest for a while, roll it out into tubes, cut it into disks, and shape them into little cups. I found that the dough puffs up quite a bit while cooking, so its best to cut the disks as thin as possible (unless you want think chewy pasta, which isn't necessarily a bad thing). The other ingredients in this dish are olive oil, garlic, sausage, red pepper flakes, and rapini. Stem the rapini and cook the leaves and florets by placing them in water and bringing it to a boil. When the water starts steaming, the rapini is done. Cook the sausage separately in olive oil with garlic and a dash of red pepper flakes.

Once the sausage is mostly cooked, add the rapini along with some of the water used to cook the rapini. Combine the mixture with the pasta, let it cook for a while so the pasta absorbs some flavor, serve with freshly grated parm, and enjoy.