Green bean and potato torte, Genovese style

The Genoa area of Italy is mostly famous for pesto and basil. With that said, Liguria is famous too for using green beans and new potatoes in many of its dishes (see for example, this lasagna recipe). I made this pie from Marcella's book, and it turned out tasty - it'd go great alongside a hunk of meat and its drippings. It's probably not something that can serve as a main dish like her swiss chard torte.



The recipe goes as follows: 1/2 pounds of new potatoes, boiled then mashed. 1 pound of green beans, boiled in salted water, then chopped very fine. Combine in a bowl. Add to this 2 eggs, 1 cup parmigiano cheese, and 2 teaspoons chopped marjoram (if fresh, 1 tsp if dried). Mix well. This mixture goes in a springform pan that has a) been lubricated with olive oil and then b) breadcrumbed evenly to act as crust. Top with more breadcrumbs and drizzled olive oil. Bake for 1 hour, top rack of oven, at 350 degrees. Let stand 10 minutes before serving.

The crust! Frank Pepe's pizzeria, New Haven (CT)

Frank Pepe's pizzeria in New Haven is an institution, and probably the most famous pizzeria between New York and Boston. Sometimes these ancient (by American standards) pizzerie maintain their fame moreso due to their longevity and history than their actual pizza making ability. So I went into Pepe's a bit skeptical, expecting something good but probably not worth the fuss people make about it.

We went over at 4:30 in order to beat the rush and power up for an evening shopping at Ikea. We had to wait 15 minutes in their salon to get a table. Not bad. I'd skip from here directly to the pizza but for a wonderful throwback codger of a waitress that was fun in her own brusque way. She kept everyone on their toes. Anyway, the pizza. The two things I immediately noticed were the quality of the ingredients and the perfect doneness of the crust. I'd heard that Pepe's is prone to blackening your crust. Perhaps this happens, but in my case the crust came out spot on:


Slightly crispy on the outside edge, chewy everywhere else, with a slight char. Ideal. They call themselves a Napolitan pizza place, and their crust is in the Naples style. Not exactly what you'll get in Napoli, but enviably close. Back to the ingredients: it's refreshing to get a pizza where the mushrooms have flavor and the salumi aren't the overspiced pepperoni and salami that tend to dominate most pizzas in America.

In other words, Frank Pepe's is the real deal and I'll be going back for sure. Yet another reason to travel the I-91 corridor, aside from the Tim Horton's in Hartford.

Chicken alla diavola

Getting grilled meat in the dead of winter (particularly the New England winter) is a nice treat, so I put my broiler to the test. Results: positive.
















This was my first time dealing with a whole chicken. A bit of an adventure, but all turned out as it should. I was instructed to butterfly the chicken, which at first had me going $#@*%$, but with the help of Alton Brown and this video it was accomplished. Once butterflied, it got a bath of lemon juice and olive oil, and a rub of freshly cracked pepper (courtesy of my mortar and pestle) and sea salt. It then went in the broiler, lower rack, for maybe 45 minutes, turned over once.

Served with a side of nutmeg sweet potatoes, mashed again in the mortar.

Chilean sea bass with carrots

My lovely significant other cooked up this one. Chilean sea bass in a browned butter and lemon sauce, with scallions. Side of braised carrots with capers. Delicious!

Crespelle

Today's yum were crespelle filled with spinach, ham, bacon, onion, parmigiano reggiano and bechamel. Topped with more bechamel and parmigiano. In essence, these are Italian crepes (crepe:France = crespelle:Italy) with sauteed goodness added to them, rolled, and placed in an oven (top rack) for 5 minutes at 450 degrees. Then they go in the broiler for a minute or two to brown the top. Rich as hell, delicious, not at all healthy.

Puttanesca

The following photo probably looks like every other tomato-based pasta dish. But this sauce is serious. In addition, it's probably better than any puttanesca in your local Italian joint, and definitely better than what comes out of the can.













"Traditional" puttanesca doesn't call for rosemary or lemon, but I like them in this dish. They brighten it up and complement the anchovy and red pepper. This is a dish with big flavors. One big flavor I omit are olives, I don't find them necessary and they are overly salty in this already rather savory sauce. Be very careful with salt here - capers and anchovies are very salty. I don't add any salt to the dish, but your tastes may vary...

Nuts and bolts of it (no exact measurements really): olive oil and anchovy fillets go in a skillet, heat medium-low. As the anchovies soften, mash them into a paste. Add garlic and cook it until light gold, do not brown it. Add tomatoes, capers, black pepper, red pepper flakes, and rosemary. Mix well and cook at a very lazy simmer for 20 minutes or so. Before combining with your favorite pasta (spaghetti is traditional here), add lemon juice. It's important to add the lemon juice at the end or the lemon flavor cooks out and only the acidity remains.

Roast lamb with juniper berries (arrosto di agnello al ginepro)

Continuing the winter roast kick featuring Marcella Hazan. This delicious Lombard recipe featuring lamb shoulder and juniper berries. Recipe is simple: roast 2.5 lbs of lamb shoulder (bone in, 3/4" slices) with carrot, celery, and onion (2 part onion to 1 part the carrot/celery), 2 garlic cloves smashed (not chopped), 2 teaspoons of juniper berries (lightly crushed), 1 cup of white wine. Put it in a dutch oven or heavy pot, cook for 2 hours on medium low heat with lid on, turning the meat every 30 minutes. At this point my meat was done so I pulled it, and deglazed the pan with red wine. This turned into a fantastic sauce, the red mixing with the blackened lamb bits and the juniper.

Marcella instructs to cook another 1.5 hours with lid askew, but my meat was already finished at the end of the second hour. She makes no mention of the red wine reduction, but I'm sure she wouldn't mind.