Tonight, and Tomorrow. Or tomorrow. Or tomorrow. Who can be sure?.
Monthly Archives: March 2010
Tonight & Tomorow
March 29, 2010 – 11:38 pm
Make This Tonight: Emasculated Linguine
March 28, 2010 – 11:05 pm
So… We’re all friends here, right? Good. Because I have a confession. I, me, Matthew Conrad Good, a man, willfully and knowingly subscribed to Rachael Ray’s magazine for a couple of years. I did. It is true.
I had used some of her 30 minute meals cookbooks, and liked them. I still think that, nevermind you crazy foodie gourmand hippies, they are pretty good. Having never seen the show, the cookbooks were a pretty good introduction into this thing called “making food and not wasting your entire life doing it.” And while I may have moved on to greener cookbook pastures by now, I can’t fault her for getting people to cook. It could be worse. She could be Sandra Dee.
So without fail, every month for two years I would get her magazine. And sandwiched in between articles on trendy-thrifty makeup tips and articles on how to throw the best theme dinner party *ever* were a couple of good recipes. Even to me, with all my progressive gender politics, it was a bit emasculating – not gonna lie.
But every now and then, there were a couple of wins in the food department. And I’ve never been one to let my manly pride get in the way of my stomach. Whatever that metaphor means. So, I present to you..
Make This Tonight: Linguine with Bacon and Onions
(from *cough* Everyday with Rachael Ray, March 2008 Issue)
1 lb. linguine pasta
3/4 lb. bacon, chopped
2 large onions, sliced thinly
2 large egg yolks
parmesan cheese, for sprinkling
So, here’s what you do:
Cook the linguine in boiling salted water until al denta;, reserve 1.5 cups of the cooking water (important). In a large deep skillet, cook the bacon over medium heat until crisp. Discard all but 3 T bacon fat, then add the onions to the skillet and cook over medium-high heat, stirring, until softened (that means kindof medium-low heat. Don’t burn the crap out of it.) Add the pasta cooking water and bring to a boil. Stir in the linguine and remove from heat. Stir in the egg yolks, one at a time (I whisked these up first and kindof tempered them in with the liquid first. You DON’T want them to scramble here, so be a bit careful). Add the bacon, season with pepper and springkle with parmesan. Okay, so I did a lot more than “sprinkle.” And I suggest you do the same.
That’s the original recipe – I pan-fried some Sole (fish) in butter and put that on top of the thing. It’s not much extra work, because you can be cooking the fish while you make the pasta, and it’s a nice touch. Six ingredients. It. Was. Awesome. Kristin will attest to this.
In fact, it was so great, I really don’t understand how it was that good. What I mean is that I don’t understand the physics of the dish. Look at the ingredients. Where does the creamy sauce come from? There’s no butter… No flour… The egg yolks? Maybe. But there are only two of them. Seems pretty odd to me. I do know that it was DELICIOUS.
Bottom Line: Easy, delicious. Not terrible for you. Next time, I’m going to make my own linguine, with white whole wheat flower. I’ll be sure to report back.
Angelz Foodz Cakez
March 28, 2010 – 10:11 pm
Kristin bakes stuff. She made Alton Brown’s angel food cake, which is, even to the sweets-challenged, incredibly good. Make some.
Super Hydrated Doughs, Focaccia, and yum
March 22, 2010 – 1:31 am
So I have recently been experimenting with some higher hydrated doughs. Normally the breads I make are somewhere around 60%-70% hydration. This mean there is 60% of water to flour. For example in a 500 gram loaf I would have 310 grams of flour and 185 grams of water. The texture of a 60% hydrated dough is nice, it is slightly sticky but easily comes off your hands and the bowl. It is easy to form into a dough and knead. It is slightly softer than the play-dough you played with as a kid. The crumb on this type of dough tends to be tight and uniform. Perfect with a pad of butter and good for sandwiches. The bread you see above is closer to 90% hydration. It was a sticky wet mess and ended up being this beautiful focaccia.
I used this recipe http://veganyumyum.com/2008/05/poolish-focaccia/ I added garlic from a garlic press, sliced tomatoes and sea salt to the top. It ended up being great and you would do yourself a favor by trying your hand at it. (I didn’t use the full cup of olive oil for the top, only about 1/3 of cup)
In highly hydrated dough you get more of that artisan look, with large bubbles and un-uniform crumbs. They are pretty bread and the textures tend to be soft and chewy. The downside is they are pain to handle. They don’t really form into dough and instead you have to try some other techniques to make them into bread. One technique that is used in this recipe is folding. Folding and waiting allows the gluten to develop on its own as the flour continues to absorb the water and it hydrates. The gentle folding allows it to continue to stretch like you do when you knead. Some people don’t like this method because you end up using a lot of bench flour and flour that doesn’t get entirely incorporated is noticed. Additionally, as you add more flour you reduce the hydration and there is no exact way of knowing what hydration you end up at with this method. I just found this method which I think is called a french fold and looks fantastic.
I am going to try this next. See if it works. Since my last post I also have made beautiful sourdough loafs. The secret to a great crust on sourdough, a spray bottle at the beginning and middle of the baking process. The more I make bread the more I realize this simple fact: flour+water+time+yeast=yum.
Broth. Bean Broth.
March 15, 2010 – 6:35 pm
Bean broth?
I was reading this recipe for Drunken Beans from my favorite food porn radio show, The Splendid Table, and I got myself all confuserlated. It calls for four cups of cooked beans, in their broth. I guessed correctly that the broth means “liquid you cooked the things in, dummy,” but was confused by the absence of any sort of quantity. I guess whatever fills in the cracks of 4 cups of beans. But I wasn’t sure, so I did some Googling.
And came across this fascinating article about bean broths or bean stocks on a site called Culinate. The article takes the idea of a bean stock to a more elevated level, suggesting that perhaps you add in some carrots, onions, bay leaves, and the like to the beans while they cook, as if you were making a more conventional vegetarian stock.
This is a real win, guys. A twofer. While you’re making beans for a recipe, you can add a few more ingredients (with no extra work), and end up with more flavorful beans, and a delicious, useful, and unknown byproduct! Fantastic. Again, measure out the stuff into bags and freeze for later.
I’m going to have to start reading Culinate, I think…
In the words of Pepin, Happy Cooking.
