Pork and Beans

Or Pancetta and Cannellini beans, courtesy of one of Cleveland's finest ex-restaurateurs. Happy West Virgina pork belly cured by Kris Kreiger over at Chef's Choice Meats. The beans are saved from a crop grown last year in the heart of Ohio City.

More carbonara? Not sure, I think the options are limitless. As for the beans, these are for growing, not eating. A little piece of Italy right here in Cleveland.

Can't be local all the time

A rainy day at the Shaker Market led to an impromptu trip to Gallucci's, an Italian import shop on the east side of Cleveland. The place is great with one of the most knowledgeable staffs out of any food place I've ever been to, even if they didn't know what bottarga (botargo) was. Don't let the Euclid construction put you off, just get on Carnegie and look for a small sign for the back entrance between E 69 and 65.

I picked up some bread, ridiculously good porchetta, and San Daniele prosciutto at Gallucci's. You can see alternating slices, starting with the porchetta on the left, pictured above. I dressed the bread with some Zinfandel/Thyme jelly from the Crocker Park Farmers Market and some French butter from The Cheese Shop, a place definitely worth stopping by when you're at the West Side Market.

That wine pictured above is courtesy of The Flying Fig, a restaurant discussed here all the time. and 55 Degrees, an Ohio wine distributor that, unfortunately, does not do retail sales. If you see a wine dinner that they're associated with I'd recommend going if you're a drinker. Last Wednesday they couldn't decide which of two wines to pair with the duck course at The Fig. Their answer, serve them both.

The sandwich was very good, although if I was doing it again I'd lay the slices out rolled thinly and going the long way, like sardines packed side by side. That way each bite would yield equal parts cooked and cured pork, both of which are delicious in their own right.

Nothing fancy

Soft Polenta with a Canned Tomato, Onion, and Sausage Sauce. Or, for those from the Cleveland area, Organic Polenta (Cornmeal) from the West Side Food Co-op, Big Daddy Onion and Organic Berkshire Hot Italian Sausage from the Shaker Square Indoor Winter Farmers Market (Not sure of the name of the folks selling the onion, but they're the only ones there with tons of onions and potatoes--the pork is from Country Gristmill, in the other part of the Market.).

For cooking the polenta, I just added cornmeal to water put on the boil with some salt. I cooked it down, stirring often, until the texture looked good. I added more salt, pepper, and butter to taste. The sauce started with sweated onions, to which I added the sausage. Once the sausage was cooked I added a can of tomatoes and cooked it all down, seasoning along the way. Added a quick garnish of chopped parsley and that was it.

Here are the leftovers the next day (after the polenta cooled I sliced and pan seared it, and cheese instead of parsley):

Can we get something like this in Cleveland?

[Plenty of great pictures in the link below]

I mean really, it's been several years since it hit the coasts. That should be long enough.

The San Francisco Chronicle

Crudo catches on
Chefs of all stripes are showcasing raw fish
Carol Ness, Chronicle Staff Writer
Wednesday, November 9, 2005

Crudo, ceviche, sashimi, tartare, poke, sushi -- it's all raw fish. And we are swimming in it.

Open just about any menu, from hipster bars to four-star restaurants, and raw fish will be right at the top. What once was the exclusive province of Japanese restaurants and sushi bars is now everywhere.

Rest of article here.

The Italians Enter the Fray

The Moka Pot (worth shopping around for). Here's some history.

It seemed like the war was over after the Vietnamese fired the first shot a few posts ago, but this entry opened things back up. I was introduced to the Moka Pot several years ago, and with it Lavazza preground coffee (gasp!) packaged in bricks. Lavazza has changed things up a bit since then as far as their offerings go, but it's enough to mention that I had been devoted to the bricks in black packaging and that this is the first time I tried the blue/red brick. I don't know whether it's the new blend, or simply opening up a fresh brick (I don't use the Moka Pot nearly enough, so sometimes the preground leftovers from the brick sit around in the back of the fridge for a bit too long), but this stuff was great, incredibly smooth with a natural sweetness and a strength that will likely take care of me for the rest of the day.

As for technique, I filled the base of the Pot up to the line that's in there and filled the filter with grounds that I barely tapped down and smoothed over. The assembled Pot then went on the stove over pretty good heat, and once the coffee started filling the upper chamber I turned the heat down a bit. The Pot was removed from the stove once brewing stopped (If the coffee boils in the Pot it's not so good.). After pouring the coffee into the mug I added a little sugar--very little was necessary with the Lavazza.

Not true espresso, but very good strong coffee. For the time being, I'm leaving pulling shots to the pros. But for home use this little machine is perfect, even if it is a little bit of a pain to clean it up.

I had high expectations for Italy, and they were exceeded here. Next we'll see what the French have to offer.

Any thoughts on this design?

Pasta, pancetta, and Brussels sprouts

Besides not spending enough time properly rendering the pancetta, the dish came together well, and no trichinosis, at least not within the first 24 hours. I cooked the pancetta and sprouts together, but in hindsight should have waited for the pancetta to really get going before browning the sprouts. When I put the sprouts in the pan I added a drop of water so they got some steam before slightly browning. As for sauce, just some pasta water and a good heaping of grated parm. Two posts in a row with water based sauces--it's time to make some stock, buy some cream, or something.

From Columbus to Carbonara in 24 Hours

Less than 24 hours ago I was enjoying a great meal with great company at Dragonfly in Columbus, Ohio. For a city touted as being comprised of citizens of such average taste that major chain restaurants use them as a test market, the meal was a marvel, and it would have held its own anywhere I've been. On a side note, while I've only had about half a dozen dinners in Columbus, they've all been very good, including one here, and another here.

The vegan, but more upscale new agey than hippie, restaurant was recommended to be me by a friend who has compared the pictures on this blog to unattractive women. With such honesty, he is someone who I'll readily take suggestions from.

As for the food itself, the amuse buche was standard enough--very solid (good) bread with a simple but incredibly light and enjoyable butternut squash puree. We then shared an appetizer of vegan pates, one based on the perhaps overutilized butternut squash (the place is big on seasonal, and it is the season), and the other on French lentils--that is correct, it was a French lentil pate; no Frenchmen were around to be offended. The pates tasted great, plus they were garnished with marinated mushrooms, huckleberries, and two sauces, but the name pate was one of several loose usages of culinary terms. The pates were made of the respective item pureed and congealed to make a very even color and consistency, similar to that of the filling of a well chilled pumpkin pie, but a bit firmer. Picture a rich and heavy jello and you're close. The taste was great, but it was bit too Food 2.0 for the setting.

The main courses all looked great and we each enjoyed our dishes, an olive and pesto pizza, a mini burger made with black truffle, and my choice, trumpet mushroom confit. The simple titled trumpet mushroom confit (I think the formal name was different, but not much so) had confited trumpet mushrooms (not actually cooked in fat), perfectly fried mushrooms (likely indeed cooked in fat), dumplings with some more of the ubiquitous butternut, and a clean and slightly spicy tasty green curry. A great mix of flavors, and there was no sense of anything lacking, as can often be the case with vegetarian, and especially vegan, dishes.

The dessert also was very good--three tarts and a scoop of green apple sorbet. The sorbet was incredible, like the best sour apple blow pop ever (without the gum). The tarts were good too, but is it really a custard without eggs? Here they were missed.

The meal was accompanied by a very drinkable and very reasonably priced Rioja. Overall the meal was great. Rereading what I wrote maybe I was a bit too critical--the meal had a great flow, the space was great, and the food was presented impeccably. I'd certainly go again and recommend it to anyone who likes good food, vegan, vegetarian, or otherwise. Still, with the folks who joined me it would have been hard to find a place where we wouldn't have enjoyed dinner.

As for the picture above, the only thing vegan in there is the pasta, obtained by way of the food buying group from the usual purveyor. I forgot where the parmesan cheese came from, but likely the same place as the pancetta--my favorite import shop in town (the website doesn't do them justice). Despite it being an import shop, the pancetta is from here (I could take their web tour over and over). Parsley is from a little windowbox that is still producing, and garlic from the farmer's market. And eggs, as always, from here--the best poultry and related products in the area bar none, and now available at the Shaker and Crocker farmers' markets. Here's the recipe, a not too loose adaptation from The Silver Spoon:

Ingredients:
- Pasta
- Eggs (1 or two per serving)
- Pancetta, relatively big dice (Lardons work very well too. Regardless of how the linked English gentleman complicates things, starting with thick sliced bacon works great.)
- Hard cheese, grated (I used all parmesan.)
- Garlic, halved
- Parsley, chopped
- Olive oil
- Salt and pepper

Method:
- Cook pasta in boiling salted water
- Add olive oil to a heated saute pan (Just enough to get the pancetta to start rendering--the pork will produce quite a bit of liquefied fat.)
- Add pancetta and garlic
- While that's cooking beat together eggs and half of the cheese
- Stir pancetta and garlic occasionally
- When garlic turns brown remove it and discard
- When pancetta is how you like it turn off heat (don't drain)
- Add drained pasta to pancetta and fat, still in the warm/hot pan and mix well
- Add egg/cheese mixture to pasta (You don't want the eggs to scramble, but they should cook slightly--adding a drop of cream to the egg/cheese mixture provides a bit of a safety net.)
- Once it's all mixed well add the rest of the cheese and mix again
- Season appropriately (The pancetta and cheese are salty, so there's no need for too much salt, but a good dose of pepper is a nice addition.)
- Plate and top with parsley
- Serve immediately

That's it. The pork fat, eggs, and cheese were a welcome treat when I returned to Cleveland and it's awaiting showers of hail.

A simple meal

It may look a bit lopsided, but it tasted good. I stuck to the game plan mentioned in the previous post. The fresh-frozen pasta from Ohio City Pasta is always a treat. Even though it's vegan, there's no missing the egg. Also, the whole wheat is perfect for the wide ribbons of pasta. There's no hint of the mushiness that could be present with similarly shaped fresh pasta noodles, and it had a great texture to the bite. It's a pretty straightforward meal, so there's not much else to say about it.

Ingredients:
- Pasta (I like the wide noodles with the large broccoli florets.)
- Broccoli, cut to your liking (Fall garden broccoli is great where available. It's a small silver lining to the fast approaching Cleveland winter.)
- Butter
- Parsley, chopped
- Parmesan
- Salt and pepper
Method:
- Bring a good amount of salted water to a boil
- Once the to be pasta water is about at a boil, preheat a pan large enough to hold all the ingredients
- Once the pan is hot, add enough water to make a small puddle in the pan and add the broccoli and some salt
- Turn the broccoli to get it wet all around
- Cover the pan and steam the broccoli until it just short of where you want it
- Remove broccoli from pan, but leave the small amount of green tinted water remaining
- If/when the big pot of water is boiling, add the pasta (Straight from the freezer in my case.)
- Add butter to the pan of broccoli water and mix together
- Add some hot, starchy pasta water to butter/broccoli water mix
- Drain pasta when ready and add it to starchy water/butter/broccoli water mix over a medium heat
- Add broccoli to mix and stir
- Add parsley to mix and stir again
- Turn off heat and grate Parmesan into the pan with everything in it
- Add salt and pepper to taste
- Mix well and serve

With a good pasta and large pieces of broccoli this makes a very satisfying meal. Also, the sauce is just to coat--there should be none left in the pan and none draining off the pasta on the plate. With fresh pasta, and the addition of the starchy pasta water to the sauce, it shouldn't be a problem for the sauce to hold together and cling well.

And the winner is . . .

Carnaroli. Very few food blogs are without at least one risotto recipe, and why should The CFT be any different. This started with me running out of rice, and reading Janet Fletcher's Risotto Revelation in the San Francisco Chronicle's archives (linked below) before restocking. The article is great and seemingly as timely today as it was when written nearly four years ago. I had always used Arborio and never gave it too much thought. It worked well, and was always readily available. But the article sparked my interest, and I knew other varieties would be available at Urban Herbs, an herb/legume/spice mixture purveyor at the West Side Market.

After reading the article, I was ready to give Carnaroli a try. It was about 25% more expensive than the Arborio, but since I was only buying a pound of rice the actual dollar difference was not too significant. Inspired by a great picture of Milanese Risotto in The Silver Spoon Cookbook, the creeping fall weather, and a freezer bag full of over six months of chicken parts, it was time to put something together.

A quick word about the chicken parts. While I like the Carnaroli and believe it made a slightly better risotto than Arborio, I think the differences between the varieties of rice have a lot less to do with the quality of the end product than the cooking liquid. I made a quick, simple stock with my frozen chicken part cache. While well schooled chefs might cringe at the stock making method described below, it worked well and is much preferable to anything from a can or box.

Stock
Ingredients:
- Chicken Parts (I had collected bones, ends of wings, backbones, necks, and even some leftovers in a freezer bag for a long time. There may have even been giblets and livers in the mix.)
- Onion, roughly chopped
- Bay Leaf (I highly recommend keeping a potted Bay Laurel plant for you Bay Leaf needs. I leave mine outside in the summer, and during the winter just forget about it in a barely lit part of the kitchen.)
- [Carrot and Celery chopped -- Bracketed because I was out of, and therefore omitted, them]
Method:
- Put the chicken parts and onion in a pot big enough to hold them comfortably and cover generously with water
- Bring pot with chicken parts, onion, and water to a boil
- Once everything is at a boil reduce heat to simmer everything
- Add more water to cover if necessary (You can always boil the stock down to concentrate the flavor, so there's no need to worry about too much water.)
- In about two hours you should have a decent stock
- Strain out chicken parts and onion, give pot a quick rinse, and return stock to pot
- Keep the stock hot

Risotto
There are a lot of great risotto recipes and methods elsewhere on the web, so this is by no means definitive. It works, but it's worth taking a look around at some others.
Ingredients:
- Risotto Rice (Besides Carnaroli or Arborio, Ming Tsai suggests using sushi rice, http://www.ming.com/, and while I'm sure it works, there's something to be said about tradition. When Mario Batali, http://www.mariobatali.com/, recommends sushi rice, or if it's all I have around when craving risotto, I'll give it a try.)
- Onion, diced
- White Wine
- Butter
- Olive Oil
- Saffron (From the Spice Hound at the Coit Road Farmers Market, the great, but neglected, year round market in East Cleveland. Definitely optional.)
- Parmesan Cheese
- Salt and pepper
- Parsley, chopped
Method:
- Sweat onion in mixture of olive oil and butter
- Once onion is soft, add rice and stir well
- Cook like this until rice is well coated with the fats and the rice is clear with an opaque spot in the center (This was less pronounced with the Carnaroli than with the Arborio, but noticeable nonetheless. The opague spot has been referred to as the soul of the rice grain.)
- Now add a good glug of wine (White was used here, but red is good, especially if you want a reddish risotto, which looks nice with some meats.) and stir well
- Once the white wine is absorbed (and boiled off) add a good ladleful or two of hot stock and stir well
- After the rice has absorbed the stock (again, some of it's boiling off) repeat with one or two more ladlefuls of of stock, this time adding the saffron if you have it
- Keep repeating adding stock, stirring very regularly (If you are running out of stock get some hot water ready. The stock should be flavorful enough that adding some water towards the end shouldn't make too big a difference.)
- Keep tasting the rice to see where it's texture is and seasoning with salt and pepper
- When rice is just about getting there, add more stock, turn off the heat, and cover the pan for a few minutes
- Lift cover, add some butter, Parmesan cheese, and parsley and stir well (If the rice is too tight add some more stock.)
- Serve as a side or on it's own

Vegetables could be added, either cooked with the risotto or separately. Just about anything could work. Leftovers are nice formed into a patty, coated in bread crumbs, and sauteed in butter in a nonstick pan. Add a poached egg on top and it's a great breakfast.


Janet Fletcher, Risotto Revelation, SF Chronicle, Oct. 22, 2003:
http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/chronicle/archive/2003/10/22/FDGH12D7IN1.DTL