Bob Pastorio’s recipes

 

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Bob Pastorio: Restaurateur, Raconteur, Friend
By: Charles Culbertson – Bob Pastorio
Bob Pastorio died on April Fool’s Day 2007

Newspaper stories are sometimes maddeningly short, due mostly to space constraints. Such was the case a few days ago with a Leader article about Bob Pastorio, who died April 1 after a brief but intense bout with cancer. I supplied our reporter with reams of info about Bob, and what he was like, but of course only a smattering of it could be used.

That may be the nature of the biz, but it just ain’t enough. Bob came to local prominence about 1977 as the owner and chef extraordinaire of The Different Drummer, a high-end restaurant located on Central Avenue in one of the buildings later demolished by Community Bank. I had just rolled back into town after a four-year tour with the Marines and another picaresque year among the denizens of skid row, New Orleans, and met Bob on one of my nightly jaunts into the Drummer.

I wanted to be a published writer. Bob already was one, and we spent countless hours discussing the craft of what he liked to call “hanging words together.” His views were always incisive and sometimes merciless, but they never lacked an infectious humor. He made me laugh at being a failure.

And when I was on the verge of becoming the poster boy for starving writers everywhere, he gave me a job in the restaurant. During the day I hunched over an old Underwood manual typewriter hammering out short stories, one very awful novel and non-fiction pieces of dubious quality, and at night I washed dishes, bantered with Bob and flirted with waitresses at The Different Drummer.

I remember a particular night in which a party of eight people dined lengthily and noisily at the Drummer, and ran their waitress nearly to death. When they departed, they left nothing for a tip. News quickly spread to the kitchen where Bob, who was cooking that night, dropped everything, ran out onto Central Avenue and accosted them.

The leader of the party was big, drunk and belligerent, but Bob lit into him with complete disregard for his own safety. He not only berated the man and backed him down, but shamed the entire party, as well. When someone offered to fork over a tip, Bob refused it and said, “Just don’t come back.”

Then, out of his own pocket, he gave the waitress the sizable tip she should have received. That’s the kind of guy he was.

He was also opinionated, about everything. Ask him, “Bob, what do you think about the boiling point of hydrogen?” and he’d tell you. The chances were always good that he knew something about the boiling point of hydrogen, or anything else for that matter. I don’t think I’ve ever met a more knowledgeable man in my entire life, even though in 30 years we never agreed on anything political.

The images are as fresh as ever in my mind: The two of us, long kitchen knives in hand, creeping into the abandoned Whitmore Hotel above the Drummer when we heard suspicious noises late one evening; Bob, playing chess on a slow night, handily defeating four challengers one after the other; and Bob, exhausted, sitting asleep at his desk in the back office.

But I will always remember him best, and most clearly, like this:
Frequently, after hours, Bob would lock up and tape a piece of cardboard over the little window in the center of the front door. Then he’d whip up something simple yet elegant in the kitchen, open up the bar, and break out his guitar. No one went home on a night like this. The employees of the Drummer gathered in the dimmed lighting of the dining area and ate, drank, told jokes, whooped and hollered, and watched Bob be Bob until sometimes four in the morning.

I can see him now, guitar in hand, singing ribald songs, laughing boisterously at himself or someone else about every other minute or so. I’d give almost anything to relive one of those evenings.

That was the Bob Pastorio I knew. Funny, smart, warm, talented, generous and bursting with the kind of energy most of us only wish we had. We shall never see his like again.

E-mail columnist Charles Culbertson at mail@stauntonhistory.com

Anything Bread
3 cup flour
1 teaspoons salt
1/2 teaspoons baking powder
1 teaspoons baking soda
1 tablespoons cinnamon
3 eggs
1 cup oil
2 cup sugar
2 cup “Anything”
3 teaspoons vanilla
1 cup chopped nuts

Sift together flour, salt, baking powder, baking soda, and cinnamon and set aside. Beat eggs in large bowl.  Add oil and sugar and cream well.  Add “anything” and vanilla.  Add dry ingredients. Mix well. Add nuts.
Spoon into 2 greased and floured loaf pans or a large Bundt pan.
Bake at 350 F for 40 minutes (loaves) or 50 to 55 minutes (Bundt pan). Cool in the pan for 15 minutes and then turn out onto rack to cool completely.
Recipe Notes
The anything in this recipe can be one or any combination of: grated apples, mashed bananas, grated carrots, chopped dates, pumpkin puree, raisins, chopped rhubarb, chopped strawberries (or any other berry), grated squash or zucchini, etc.

Anything Quiche – Serves 6
1 pie shell baked
3 eggs
milk
3 ounces cheese
nutmeg
3/4 cup vegetables cooked
Quiches are subject to endless variation but there is a basis to launch from. I buy ready-made shells and bake them blind to start with.
For a filling, I start with three eggs in a measuring cup. Beat the eggs and fill with whole milk to 1½ cups. Grate a bit of nutmeg over it with salt and pepper.

I usually use Swiss/Emmentaler cheese….2-3 ozs?….grated. The last time it was Monterrey Jack.
For a meat….shrimp….bacon…leftover something….the last time I used cooked spicy bulk breakfast sausage.
Cooked spinach, broccoli, or cauliflower work wonderfully for a vegetable…..3/4 cup or thereabouts?
Set the oven to 350ºF after baking the shells. Sprinkle most of the cheese in the shell along with half of the meat and veggie. Pour most of the egg mixture over it and finish off with the balance of the cheese, meat, and vegetables and then use the balance of the egg mixture to moisten everything.
Bake for 35 minutes if it is to be cooled and warmed up later and 40 minutes if you are going to eat it right away.
Recipe Notes
I get a better texture baking this at 325F
If I don’t add the vegetable this mixture is just right for a 7″ pyrex pie plate.
If I want it in a 9″ pyrex, I add enough milk to make it 1 3/4 cups liquid. AND the vegetable.

Anything Risotto
5 cup chicken stock
1 tablespoons olive oil
4 tablespoons butter
2 shallots — minced
salt
1/2 cup Parmigiano Reggiano — grated
1 1/2 cup arborio rice
Risotto is a northern Italian approach to cooking rice. Reduced to its minimum, it’s a starchy medium-grain rice cooked over medium-high heat, constantly stirred with frequent additions of stock to result in a soupy finished consistency. It’s customarily flavored with a very wide range of additions. Sometimes basic risotto is flavored and colored with a few strands of saffron infused in maybe 1/2 cup of stock and added near the end.

Basic risotto
5 cups chicken stock (approximately)
1 tablespoon olive oil
4 tablespoons butter (1/2 stick)
2 shallots, minced
couple pinches of salt
1/2 cup grated Parmigiano-Reggiano
1 1/2 cups arborio rice
Bring the chicken stock to a simmer and hold it there. Put the oil, butter and salt into a saucepan and cook the shallots until soft, maybe 3 minutes. Add the rice and stir to coat with the buttery oil. Cook for about 2 minutes until shiny and translucent. Add a ladleful – about 1/2 cup – of hot stock, stirring to distribute evenly. When the rice has absorbed most of it, add another ladleful, stirring as before. Repeat this until the rice is almost tender with a slight firmness at the center. The rice should have a thin layer of stock over it all the while it’s cooking. The process will take 16 to 18 minutes and should result in a creamy, moist consistency. When done, remove from the heat and stir in the cheese. Cover and let stand for a minute or two and serve. Pass additional cheese at table.

Lemon risotto (Risotto al Limone)
to the basic ingredients, add:
a sprig of fresh mint
sprig of ropsemary
sprig of sage
grated zest of a lemon
3 tablespoons fresh lemon juice
Prepare risotto as above, adding additional ingredients to pan immediately upon removing from heat. Stir to combine, cover and let stand for a minute or two. Serve.

Port Risotto (Risotto del Porto)
to the basic ingredients, add
2 tablespoons olive oil
meat of 1 pound mussels, cleanded and cooked
1/2 pound squid, cleaned and cut into strips lengthwise
small bunch parsley, coarsely minced
1 clove garlic, minced
1green pepper, coarsely chopped
1/2 pound tomatoes, chopped
fish or seafood stock can be substituted from chicken stock, if available
Prepare rice as above. Meanwhile, heat oil in a skillet and add all but the tomatoes to saute and lightly brown. The add tomatoes and cook over medium-high heat for about 5 minutes. Combine with risotto. Remove from heat, cover for 5 minutes or so and serve.

Risotto with Four Cheeses (Risotto ai Quattro Formaggi)
To the basic ingredients, add:

4 ounces Gorgonzola
4 ounces mozzarella
4 ounces Fontina
1 cup lukewarm milk
30-35 shelled pistachio nuts
reduce broth to 3 1/2 cups
Begin preparing the basic risotto as above. Meanwhile, cut the three cheeses into small cubes less than 1/2 inch square. Put the cheeses into a non-reactive bowl and  add milk. Blanch the nuts in boiling water for a minute or two and rub off the skins. When all the broth has been absorbed, ad the milk and cheeses to the pan, continuing to stir until cheeses and rice are well combined. Add nuts and Parmesan, test for salt and pepper and serve.

Anything Triple-Nut Pie
1 Crust:
1 1/2 cup nuts — finely ground
3 tablespoons sugar
2 tablespoons butter — room temperature
Filling:
1 cup dark corn syrup
1/2 cupsugar
3/4 cup nut butter
1/2 teaspoons vanilla extract
3eggs
1 cup lightly salted nuts — chopped
whipped cream to garnish (optional but desirable)

For crust – Heat oven to 400, combine ingredients and mix well.  Press into bottom and up sides of pie plate.  Bake for about 9 minutes and cool on wire rack

For filling – Combine corn syrup, sugar, nut butter and vanilla in the top of a double boiler, over, not in, boiling water and, stirring often, mix well together until hot (200 degrees). Beat eggs and whisk about 1/4 cup of nut butter mixture into eggs to temper. Pour egg mixture into top of double boiler, whisking, and cook until thickened, about 10 minutes, but do not boil or eggs will curdle.  Pour into pie shell, sprinkle chopped nuts on top and chill for 4 hours before cutting.  Serve with too much whipped cream on top and running down the sides.  Makes one 9-inch pie

Recipe Notes
The idea here is to make a nut crust and fill it with any nut butter (creamy or crunchy) filling, and top it with chopped nuts.  It works with any kind of nuts (except black walnuts – much too strongly flavored unless used very, very sparingly) and even combinations of different kinds of nuts. Think of a macadamia, cashew, hickory pie. Peanut, hazelnut, Brazil nut pie. Walnut, almond, sunflower seed pie.  Or almond, almond, almond pie.

Anything”Fruit Dessert Souffle – Serves 6
for the mold:
butter
sugar
glaze:
2 cup ripe berries — mashed
3/4 cup preserves of same berries
1/8 cup fruit brandy or cognac
souffle:
6 egg whites
3/4 cup sugar
2 cup very ripe berries

Heat oven to 375. Butter and sugar the mold. Combine berries and preserves in saucepan over low heat, cover, bring to a boil and simmer for 5 minutes. Stir to mash the berries. Remove from heat and let cool for 5 minutes. Add brandy. In bowl of mixer, whip whites at medium speed until soft peaks form. Add sugar gradually while beating. Chop and crush 1/3 of souffle berries and add them with the remaining whole berries to the whites, gently folding them in. Pour into mold and bake for about 20 minutes or until puffed. Serve immediately.

Variations: Substitute any soft fruit for the berries like mango, persimmon, peach or plum. Use a combination of fruit. Add one teaspoon of grated lemon peel, orange peel or grapefruit peel. Add two tablespoons cocoa powder to the souffle.
I use a round, white, ceramic, high-sided, souffle mold that says “20 cm” on the bottom. My ruler says it’s about 7 3/4 inches.

Recipe Notes
This will work with any berry – raspberry, strawberry, blueberry – and is an example of the type of souffle made with a puree instead of Bechamel sauce. Serve with a dusting of powdered sugar or the glaze below. Serves 6 if you’re lucky.

Cream Of Anything Soup – Serves 12
1 large onion — coarsely chopped
2 rib celery coarsely chopped
6 ounces butter (1 1/2 sticks)
6 ounces flour (about 1 1/2 cups)
1 gallon chicken stock
1 pounds”anything” (see below)
1 Pint(s)heavy cream

Saute the onion and celery in butter in large saucepan or small stockpot until sweated. Add flour, stir in well and cook for about 5 minutes.  Whisk in stock and simmer for 30 minutes, skimming occasionally.

Add  solids, return to boil, reduce heat to simmer for 20-30 minutes. Add cream, correct seasonings. Leave chunky or puree with wand or countertop blender. Serve.
“Anything” can be sliced mushrooms, diced chicken or turkey, asparagus, green beans, broccoli, tomato pulp, cauliflower, artichoke hearts, shrimp, carrots, lobster, or whatever… Also can add rice or pasta to extend. Cheeses.

“Anything” Infused Vinegar
Our word “vinegar” comes from the French “vin aigre” or sour wine. Virtually every culture on earth uses vinegar as a flavoring (alone or blended with other flavors), as a preservative, or as a beverage.

Adding the flavors is the simplest job in the kitchen. Combine the vinegar with the flavoring agents and wait a month. Want to shorten it to days? Stand the uncovered bottles of vinegar with their flavoring agents in a pan of hot water (180 degrees or so) for an hour or two, then let them cool, cap them and wait about three days for the flavors to develop. Store in the dark.

What flavors? How much to use? In which types of vinegar? What size bottles? Well, here’s some of what I have, in a wide selection of bottles, most of which hold 750 ml. As far as how much of the flavoring to use, I just put stuff into the bottles until I don’t think I should put any more. I find that three or four sprigs of fresh herbs is good. From one, up to a dozen cloves of garlic, but less if other flavors are to be emphasized. Peels of two citrus fruits. A cinnamon stick.

* Orange/white – distilled vinegar with the peel of one or two oranges. Peel the orange with a vegetable peeler so none of the white gets into the vinegar. The white (or pith) is bitter. Great for fruit salads or molds.

* Lemon/white – peel of two lemons. Does magic for oily fish like tuna or salmon. Two or three drops on ripe melon is a pleasant shock
* Grapefruit/cider – obviously citric but people look confused for a moment until they figure it out. Has a sharp edge that cuts through oiliness. Fresh tuna, salmon or, best, mackerel.

* Garlic/red wine – five or six peeled cloves of garlic on a skewer in a tall-necked bottle. Very decorative that way. Or, one clove of Elephant garlic in a large-mouth jar. Full, rich flavor and full scent. Mostly for salads and only with friends. Garlic/white wine is more subtle and somehow graceful although not as bold as the red.

* Cinnamon/cider – I first tried a tablespoon of ground cinnamon. One of my aesthetically less successful efforts. Tastes good, looks bad. The vinegar ends up cloudy and there’s a ring around the inside of the bottle at the top of the liquid. Now I use a large cinnamon stick and leave it on heat for about 3 hours.  Surprising what a tablespoon in an apple pie does; toss with apple slices before putting into the shell. Good in a Waldorf Salad.

* Peppercorn/cider – one of the best. A half cup whole, black peppercorns in the bottle. Open the bottle and smell the sweet, pure scent of fresh pepper. A few drops on a steak is terrific. Use it in a beurre blanc for meat. Add some to barbecue sauce or demi-glace.

* Shallot/cider – nasty tasting, stinky and an altogether, no-doubt-about-it failure. Despite the clear facts, I keep hoping it’ll improve with age but so far the hope is vain.

* Ginger/cider – a good one. One good sized hand (that’s what the full root is called) of fresh ginger, sliced thin and put into the vinegar for a week or so. Run it through a strainer before using to take the slices out. Use in fish poaching liquid. Makes a wonderful mayonnaise for tuna salad or anything like it.

* Anise/white – Anise seed tastes and smells like licorice. About a quarter cup of seeds. Good on fruit salads, white-fleshed fish, strongly flavored vegetables like broccoli.

* Mint/white – a couple sprigs of fresh or quarter cup of dried mint flakes – make a highly aromatic vinegar. Nice on salads, especially if there are fruit included. Add a few drops to marinade and/or gravy for lamb.

* Basil-Garlic/cider – Superb as part of an oil and vinegar salad dressing or a blended vinaigrette for cooked vegetables. Broccoli, cauliflower and cabbage work beautifully with this one. Five basil leaves and three cloves garlic.

* Honey/cider – Quarter cup honey – complete with tiny pieces of honeycomb. Very quiet touch of sweet and sour and the very small waxy pieces of comb add a nicely puzzling texture note to salads and fruit compotes.

* Jalapeno/Anaheim/Cayenne/Habanero peppers/cider – one or two of each type of pepper in the bottle. Bites the tongue hard if you’re not careful. Judiciously used, this one makes marinades, salsa, mayonnaise and salad dressings sing. The scent is rich and peppery and it makes sauces sparkle.

Beurre Blanc
There is a magical sauce called “Beurre Blanc” or white butter that’s an emulsion of white wine vinegar and butter. This forms a fast, silky and rich sauce. What it does for fish is amazing and chicken will never be the same after you try it once. If you use red wine vinegar, it’s called “beurre rouge” and it works with red meats and game.
The quantity shown in the recipe can be cut in half by just dividing. Same for doubling. Three sticks of butter makes enough sauce for 8 to 10 people
2 tbsp finely chopped shallots
1/4 tsp white pepper
1/2 cup white wine vinegar
3 to 6 sticks butter, cut into pats and chilled

Combine first three ingredients in saucepan (NOT aluminum, or it turns gray) over medium heat and boil to reduce liquid to about 2 tablespoons. Reduce heat to low and add 4 pats of butter and start whisking. This preparation will need to be whisked constantly but it should be done in less than 5 minutes. When the first 4 pats are almost completely melted, add four more and whisk to mix in. Continue doing the same until you reach the amount of sauce you want.
Left to cool, the sauce will separate but there is a way to reuse it. Leftover sauce should be refrigerated. When you want to use it, let it come up to room temperature and pull it back together with a mixer. The heat of the food will warm and melt it.

Seviche
Vinegar is strongly acid and will “cook” some seafoods without heat by firming the protein in the food, making it snowy white. Some recipes like this call for lemon or lime juice, either alone or with vinegar, for both flavor and effect. Some versions call for the food to be marinated in the acids and served as is, others marinate then cook more traditionally. In either case, it can be a very elegant treat.

Here are some I’ve had good results with.
Shellfish – scallops, shrimp and rock shrimp (if you can find them), lobster.
Fish – mackerel, orange roughy, salmon, tuna, red snapper, flounder and turbot.
Put down a layer of bite sized pieces of fish or shellfish in a glass or ceramic container. Next, a layer of thinly sliced onion seasoned with pinches of red pepper flakes, peppercorns and powdered bay leaf. Some cooks add diced bell peppers, pimentos, jalapenos, peas, carrot shreds or black olives. Repeat the layers and, finally, add enough of the pickling liquid to cover.

The liquid should be citrus juice (one-third, up to one half) and white or white wine vinegar. Hold for 24 hours refrigerated, then serve as an appetizer or party hors d’oeuvre with picks. You can also drain the mixture and toss the fish and onions with sour cream or yogurt. I add some thinly sliced cucumber when I do it this way. The Seviche will hold for 4-5 days in the fridge.

I like to use a blend of lemon, peppercorn, orange and ginger vinegars. Yellow onion, red pimento, green pepper and black olives with white fish, pink shrimp and creamy-gold scallops provide a visual treat as well as a festival of flavors and textures.

Banoffee Pie
2 cup cookie crumbs
4 tablespoons Butter — melted
1 can sweetened condensed milk
2 bananas
1/2 cup whipping cream
1 tablespoons sugar
1/2 cup toasted flaked almonds
Crush the cookies and mix with the melted butter. Spread to cover the bottom and sides of a tart pan with removable bottom or a low-sided (2-inch or so) springform pan.  Leave to cool and harden.  Without opening the can of condensed milk, simmer it gently – making sure it’s completely immersed – for 2 hours, turning over after one hour.  Take the can out of the water and let it cool for 15 or 20 minutes to relieve some of the internal pressure.
Once the milk toffee is ready, slice the bananas and arrange around on the cookie base.   Open the can carefully by putting a cloth over it as you open it.  It has turned to a gloriously brown, spreadable caramel.  Spread the caramel over the bananas and chill.  Once completely cold, whip cream and sugar together until it holds peaks.  Cover the caramel with the whipped cream and sprinkle with toasted flaked almonds.
Some recipes called for vanilla or other extracts to be added to the toffee.  It seems to end up thinner and even runny if you do that.  I omitted those references but, hey, it’s your dessert.  Most recipes called for a teaspoon or so of the vanilla, if you want to try it that way.
While it takes some time to make, most of the time is spent waiting for the milk to caramelize and the pie to chill. It’s actually about 15 minutes of light work.  Cookie crust rich with buttery goodness.  Ripe, perfumey bananas.  Brown caramel and clouds of whipped cream.  Enjoy very much

A column I wrote a decade ago…
Banoffee Pie
There’s a pie that I had in Scotland years and years ago. I was staying in a small hotel called the Friarshall outside of Glasgow, in Paisley, to be exact.   I know the name of the hotel because I still have the ashtray that mysteriously found its way into my luggage. Nearby, there was  a restaurant whose name I don’t recall that was run by three women.  One Scot, an Irishwoman and an Australian, I think.  They didn’t have ashtrays with their names on them.

I ate there several times and the food was always good, interesting and too much.  I had too much smoked Scottish salmon.  Until that time, I couldn’t imagine writing a sentence like that.  It was, of course, wonderfully beyond wonderful.  Made the mistake of going there for breakfast once.

Breakfast in the U.K. is a big deal.  I think there’s this unwritten rule that if you can still breathe and walk, you haven’t had enough to eat.  Of course, eggs, bacon, hot and cold cereals.  And meats, and fish, and breads, and gravies, and pies, and several beverages and a long list of things I’d only ever heard of.  Scotch Eggs.  Toad-in-the-hole. It’s not that you get to choose, you get them all.  And there’s no hospital nearby.

Most of the things, I said most, I ate there were familiar enough to be no novelty.  There was one dessert, however, that I’d never seen in this country.  The usual recipes call for you to boil a can of evaporated milk.  You just had a mental picture of yourself opening the can, pouring it into a pot and boiling it, right?  Nope.  You boil the milk while its still in the can.  Unopened.  For two hours or more.

A marvelous transformation happens.  The milk becomes this silken caramel that they call “toffee” and it becomes so thick that it actually sets enough to cut into slices.  As in pie filling.  The traditional recipe includes a cookie crust and bananas, hence the name “Banoffee Pie.” Banana-toffee pie.  It’s only slightly sweet but it’s so richly satisfying that it doesn’t take much to be enough. The whipped cream doesn’t hurt it, either.

The tradition can’t be so very old because both bananas and canned evaporated milk aren’t very old products for the U.K.  A tad over a century for the milk.  Bananas cheap enough for the common folk much more recent.  Still, Brits and Scots value tradition, even if it started last Wednesday.

So there I was crusin’ the net and found this whole discussion about Banoffee pie.  Not a single American in the lot.  There were several recipes citing ingredients or brand names we don’t have.  Using terminology we don’t use.  I translated.  This is the recipe I condensed from several others, simplifying as I went, leaving out ingredients that complicated it and, I think, diminish it.

Usually, the cookies are not very sweet or boldly flavored.  No sugar cookies or gingersnaps.  Maybe vanilla cookies or imported “digestive” cookies would more closely approximate the customary approach.  Boiling the can builds pressure inside it so you’ll want to open it carefully as explained below. Makes one 8-inch pie

Bagna Cauda (Bah-Nya Cow-Da)- Pastorio
This always becomes a small party. A crock or pot of a dip is put center table, and people help themselves, either dipping into it or taking some in a bowl for themselves. The accompaniments can include raw or cooked vegetables, breads, pasta, cooked shrimp or pretty much anything else. The last departs somewhat from tradition, but don’t we all?
The name means “warm bath” or, by extension, “warm sauce” in a northern Italian dialect. These came out on the big holidays to keep people busy and out of the kitchen where they’d only get in the way. There’s no one protocol for doing this. The more like family the diners are, the more that breaches in normal table manners will be forgiven. Even double-dipping. Kids love to do this and it gets messy. Disposable tablecloths for such occasions are good.

It will sound surprising to say that the flavors meld very nicely and the finished flavor is subtle. Not what you’d expect from this combination of ingredients. The anchovies disappear and provide a quiet background flavor. The garlic becomes mild and gives it a hearty sparkle. The butter and oil are a tasty carrier of all those other flavors. The creamy one coats the dips more fully. Both versions are best if served in a fondue pot or other dish that can be kept warm, but not boiling.

VERSION NUMBER 1
Amounts for 4 people:
Sauce:
5 cloves garlic
1 stick butter (½ cup)
1 cup oil, walnut or olive
1 tin anchovies, rinsed to reduce salt
vegetables:
raw or roasted peppers, white savoy cabbage leaves, Jerusalem artichoke, cauliflower, broccoli, carrot sticks, etc.
Breads:  crusty Italian bread, bread sticks (grissini)
pasta:  put some in a bowl, trickle the sauce over
seafoods, etc.:  you’re on your own.

Peel the garlic and put it in milk to cover for about 2 hours. Drain it, dry it and cut into thin slices or mince finely and combine all ingredients in a pan over low heat. Cook for about 15 minutes, stirring with a wooden spoon, over low heat (never at a boil). When it’s ready, bring to the table and keep warm using a hot plate or alcohol burner set to low flame.

VERSION NUMBER 2
This is a creamier variation on the idea of bagna caoda. I’ve seen it in Italy and, occasionally, in the homes of relatives. I’ve adapted it to crockpot preparation.

1 pound of butter
1 pint of heavy cream
1 tin of anchovies, mashed
20 cloves garlic that have been minced or put through a garlic press

Melt butter in a crockpot and add the garlic and anchovies, stirring to distribute. Add the cream, cover, and simmer gently for two or more hours, stirring occasionally. The garlic and anchovies should completely combine with the other ingredients. This can be made a day or two ahead and refrigerated. It will separate when it gets cold but will return to the original creaminess when gently heated and stirred. When the sauce is ready, bring it to the table and keep warm using a hot plate or alcohol burner set to low flame.

Baked Potomato Salad – Serves 4
1 1/2 pounds russet potatoes — baked
1 clove Garlic — finely minced
1/4 cup pitted green olives — coarsely chopped
1 tablespoons Capers
1/4 cup olive oil
1/4 cup white wine vinegar
2 medium ripe tomatoes (still firm)
1 green tomato or a few tomatillos
1 small sweet onion
salt and pepper
Bake the potatoes for about an hour, until the insides are soft.  Peel (or not), cut into 1 inch cubes and put into a bowl large enough to hold all. Let cool for 15 minutes or so. Combine garlic, olives, capers, oil and vinegar; pour over and stir gently to mix. Let cool to room temperature. Core tomatoes, cut into 1 inch cubes and put into potato bowl. Slice the onion about 1/8 inch thick and add to bowl. Salt and pepper to taste. Serve chilled or at room temperature. serves 4 to 6
Recipe Notes
Yes, the name is silly, but the dish is wonderfully shocking with interesting, bright flavors.  To keep the salad from being too moist and to concentrate flavors, I use baked potatoes rather than boiling them. Bake potatoes at 400F right on the oven grates – no pan. Poke lots of holes in the spuds with a fork to let out the steam.
8/12/06
I made this recipe for lunch today. It was very tasty. Well recieved.

Column about Beans
Here’s a column I wrote a few years ago that says some things I wouldn’t say today, but what the hell….
Bean trying some new ideas?  Here’s a flash for most people. You don’t have to soak dry beans before cooking them. Yeah, I know. For the last 40 years, that’s what you’ve been doing. Sorry. It’s not necessary. We’ll see later.

One day I started wondering about beans and went off to the store to see what was what. I bought a lot of different beans. Here’s the list: Cranberry (sometimes called October beans), Red Kidney, Great Northern, Navy, Black, Garbanzo, Black-eyed Peas, Yellow-eyed Peas, Pinto, Baby Lima, Green Split Peas and Lentils.

And here are some other kinds I didn’t buy – green (also called snap, pole, field, string or french), wax (called yellow pole or string), crowder peas, soybeans, butter beans, snow peas (The French call snow peas butter beans and the British call them by a French phrase that means “eat it all.” Go figure.) Green limas, favas…

The news about beans not needing to be soaked. If you soak beans to plump them, they take anywhere from 45 minutes (lentils) to 3 hours (chick peas) to cook. If you don’t soak them, they take a tad more than that. The only other reason I’ve heard to soak them is to get rid of some of those troublesome oligosaccharides, the indigestible stuff that gives us gas. The theory is that soaking beans in a few changes of water gets some out – it does. But just a little.

So, the beans have been cooking for a while and they should certainly be done, you think. How to test? You dip up a spoonful of them and blow on them. If the skins break and peel back, they’re done. Too easy.

Anyway, after simmering, my tasting began. I wanted to see the differences, find out which I liked best. First reaction: not much difference. Then I noticed a characteristic I’ve never heard discussed about beans: waxiness. Several of the beans had a waxy quality, notably the kidney and cranberry beans. Others lacked it, like black-eyed peas and lentils.

Food service people use a term that we need here: mouthfeel. How does it feel in the mouth? This waxy feeling is not at all unpleasant and could add a nice texture to some mixtures. Three bean salad is popular, probably for that reason, among others. Beans absorb flavors from the liquids they are cooked or stored in. That’s why my mother put ham bones in to simmer with split peas. And my grandmother chilled and marinated kidney beans for a few hours with vinegar and oil after cooking them in plain water.

Tips: start beans in cold water without soaking for more tenderness. Don’t add much salt until late in the cooking process because the beans can get too salty. There’s another untrue notion around – that if you put any salt in the water, they won’t cook tender no matter how long you cook them. Not true, either. Country ham meat and bones have plenty of salt.

Slow cookers are wonderful for beans – put in enough water to fully cover by an inch or a bit more, a little salt or salty ham and whatever other seasonings you like and leave them low heat on all day.

Add fresh herbal flavorings when they’re tender. Simmer briefly to  blend.
Beans add a pleasant thickness to stew or soup liquids because of the starches they contain. Some people take some beans out, mash them to a puree and stir them back into the soup or stew for thickness. They can add volume to foods like chili, and meat loaves for both flavor and cost savings.

Nutritively, beans are a wonderful source of protein, carbohydrate and soluble fiber. To get full benefit from their amino acids, beans need to be served with another food that provides what beans are missing. Interestingly, rice and corn will both do it and virtually every culture that eats beans has traditional dishes that feature these mixtures. Folk medicine that has a basis in science.

Black Beans and Rice
Black beans are really purply-black and make a pretty decoration on plates. A few drops of vinegar in the cooking water will turn them a rich burgundy color. If you cook the beans in a beef or chicken stock, so much the better.
Makes about 6 servings

1 pound dried black beans (or 2 cans)
water (if using dry beans)
1 or 2 bouillon cubes (optional)
1 large onion, halved and thinly sliced
1 large green pepper, thinly sliced
2 cloves garlic, crushed
1 medium tomato, ripe, chopped
2 tablespoon olive oil
1/4 cup vinegar
1 teaspoon dried oregano
1 teaspoon dried basil
3 cups cooked rice (1 1/2 cups raw)
Fresh ground pepper
Salt (optional)

Put beans in saucepan with water to cover by at least an inch with bouillon cubes, bring to a boil, reduce heat and simmer until tender, anywhere from 1 1/2 to 2 1/2 hours. Heat skillet over medium heat, add oil and sauté onion, green pepper, garlic and tomato until softened without browning. Raise heat, add vinegar, oregano and basil, stirring to mix flavors. When vinegar is reduced to half, add beans, gently stirring to mix well. Reduce heat. Add fresh ground pepper to taste.

More olive oil may be added for flavor and creamier mouthfeel. Either add rice to beans and stir together or put a bed of rice on plates and top with bean mixture.

Variations: Add shreds of cooked meat, poultry or fish. Shrimp works well. Pineapple chunks and other not-too-sweet fruit mix in nicely.

Pasta e fagioli
…pronounced pas-tah eh fah-joe-lee if we’re speaking Tuscan Italian. My grandparents called it “pasta fazoi” (fah-zoh-ee) in their dialect. This is a treasure of my youth and an Italian specialty. It’s
like so many other good peasant recipes. Ask three different people how to make it and you get five different opinions. It’s a hearty soup that was sometimes served as a whole meal. As a soup, the amounts
below are right. As a one-pot meal, double the meat, beans and pasta or throw in some compatible leftovers.
Makes about 6 servings
1/4 cup olive oil
6 pork country spareribs, chops or loin slices, trimmed
1/4 cup each, chopped: carrots, celery, onions
1/2 cup canned whole tomatoes, chopped
2 cups dried cranberry beans, cooked (or 2 cans)
3 cups beef broth
1/2 pound ditalini – little pasta tubes (or substitute)
2-3 tablespoons fresh grated parmesan
Fresh ground pepper
Salt (optional)

In a stockpot, sauté pork in oil until lightly browned. Add celery, carrot and onion to pan and sauté until tender but not browned. Pour off about half the fat and add tomatoes. Simmer for 10 minutes. Add beans and broth and bring to a simmer. Add pasta to pot, stirring to prevent sticking together. Cook for 4 or 5 minutes and take off the heat. Let it sit for 15 or 20 minutes, stirring occasionally, and serve. Top with Parmesan cheese and pepper.
Variations which are, of course, sacrilegious because this recipe is how my grandmother did it: different pastas make it interesting, rotini spirals, flat egg noodles, elbows. Use other meats than pork.
Small meatballs. Chicken broth. Other beans.
Many-bean salad
The more kinds of beans the prettier. This one works both hot or old. I use four kinds, Black, Navy, Kidney and Pinto. The sweet and sour dressing is tasty.
8 to 10 servings
2/3 cup brown sugar
1/2 cup cider vinegar
1/3 cup pineapple juice
2 teaspoons corn starch
1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1/4 teaspoon ground nutmeg
pinch ground cloves
1/4 teaspoon ground pepper
3 cups cooked beans, drained
1 cup cooked brown rice
1 cup cooked corn kernels
1/4 cup each, minced and sautéed: onion, green pepper
1/2 cup chopped apple
1/2 cup pineapple chunks (with juice)
Combine first 8 ingredients in a saucepan, mix well and bring to a boil, stirring. Reduce heat and simmer for three minutes. Combine remaining ingredients and pour dressing over. Stir to mix. To serve hot, warm over low heat gently stirring occasionally.
Variations: Serve garnished with sliced apples, pears, peaches, pineapple. Sprinkle chives on top for pretty green accents. Scatter maraschino cherries on top.

Recipe Notes
This is a column my friend Bob Pastorio wrote about beans. I always listen to anything Bob has to say about food. He really knows his stuff.

Anything Triple-Nut Pie – Pastorio
1Crust:
1 1/2 cup nuts — finely ground
3 tablespoons sugar
2 tablespoons butter — room temperature

Filling:
1 cup dark corn syrup
1/2 cup sugar
3/4 cup nut butter
1/2 teaspoons vanilla extract
3eggs
1 cup lightly salted nuts — chopped
whipped cream to garnish (optional but desirable)

For crust – Heat oven to 400, combine ingredients and mix well.  Press into bottom and up sides of pie plate.  Bake for about 9 minutes and cool on wire rack.

For filling – Combine corn syrup, sugar, nut butter and vanilla in the top of a double boiler, over, not in, boiling water and, stirring often, mix well together until hot (200 degrees). Beat eggs and whisk about 1/4 cup of nut butter mixture into eggs to temper. Pour egg mixture into top of double boiler, whisking, and cook until thickened, about 10 minutes, but do not boil or eggs will curdle.  Pour into pie shell, sprinkle chopped nuts on top and chill for 4 hours before cutting.  Serve with too much whipped cream on top and running down the sides. Makes one 9-inch pie
Recipe Notes
The idea here is to make a nut crust and fill it with any nut butter (creamy or crunchy) filling, and top it with chopped nuts. It works with any kind of nuts (except black walnuts – much too strongly flavored unless used very, very sparingly) and even combinations of different kinds of nuts. Think of a macadamia, cashew, hickory pie. Peanut, hazelnut, Brazil nut pie. Walnut, almond, sunflower seed pie.  Or almond, almond, almond pie.

Boursin-Ish Cheese – Pastorio
1 clove garlic — finely minced
1 pounds cream cheese — room temperature
2 stick(1 cup) butter — room temperature
1 1/4 teaspoons dried oregano
1/4 teaspoons dried basil
1/4teaspoonsdried dill weed
1/4teaspoonsdried thyme
1/4teaspoonsfresh-ground pepper

Put everything in the processor bowl, and run until smooth. Scrape down sides and run again until it looks like its uniformly mixed. Put into another container and chill for 2 hours or more.

Variations can be made by altering the balance of ingredients or adding others. Sun-dried tomatoes; roasted peppers; finely chopped rosemary; anchovies; wasabi.

Recipe Notes
It’s close enough.  Food processor makes short work of it. Everything in the bowl from the beginning, process for a few seconds, scrape down the sides and run it for another little while. Yield: around 3 cups.

Bob Pastorio’s Prime Rib Ala Pastorio
as heard on WSVA  Middays with Jim Britt
Figure 3/4 pound raw, boneless meat per person.

For good results, the roast shouldn’t be smaller than 4 1/2 or 5 pounds
* Time will be somewhere between 15 and 30 minutes per pound, depending on several variables: the temperature of the meat being put into the oven, the shape of the piece of meat, the accuracy of the oven thermometer.

* Seasoning: Equal parts of each ground white pepper (or black pepper)
garlic powder seasoning salt (McCormick’s or Lawry’s or similar)

* Take meat out of the refrigerator at least an hour before cooking to warm a bit. It will shorten cooking time and result in a more moist piece of meat.

Heat oven 250° to 275° in a conventional oven, or 205° to 225° in a convection oven.
Coat meat generously on all sides with seasoning. Put the meat on a rack in a roasting pan (nothing else in the pan, and uncovered) on the center rack of the oven. Use a quick-read thermometer to determine degree of doneness – insert into the thickest part of the roast, into the middle of the meat to check – don’t leave it in the meat during cooking. Pull the roast out of the oven when it reaches the degree of doneness you want, and let it rest for 15 to 30 minutes before carving.
rare – 115° to 125°
medium rare – 125° to 130°
medium – 135° to 140°
I don’t recommend cooking it to more than medium. It will toughen and dry out. If you must, here are those temperatures.
medium well – 150°
well – 160° and up

Bite-You-Back Texas Chili – Serves 15
5 poundslean beef; preferably chuck
1/2 cup olive oil
5 clove garlic; minced or crushed
1 large onion; minced
1 green pepper — minced
1/2 cup chili powder
2 teaspoons coriander; ground
2 teaspoons cumin; ground
2 teaspoons oregano; dried
1/4teaspoonscayenne
1/2 teaspoons hot sauce
2 can plum tomatoes
3 cup beef stock
2 envelope Knorr demi-glâce mix
Method:  Trim all fat off meat and cut into 1/2 inch cubes.  Heat the oil in a pot large enough to hold everything and brown the meat.  Add onion, garlic and pepper and sauté until slightly browned.  Add spices and hot sauce, stirring to mix throughout.
Combine tomatoes, stock and demi-glace mix and add to pot.  Bring to a boil, stirring constantly.  Reduce the heat and simmer, uncovered, gently for 3 to 4 hours, stirring occasionally to make sure it doesn’t stick.  If it thickens too much, add more stock.  Serve alongside a handful of cooked [pinto] beans, a basket of corn chips, a plate of shredded cheddar and a bucket of hot sauce.  Let those cowpokes help themselves.  Cold beer works here.

This one is red, thick and aggressive.  If spicy food is to your liking, this one should get your attention.  It’s very richly flavored with an intensely beefy taste.  It freezes well. This recipe, unlike what is usually found in this column, calls for a packaged convenience product – Knorr brand dry Demi-glace sauce mix.  The classic demi-glace is a days-long simmered beef sauce.  This is an example of a convenience food item that comes decently close to the flavor of a well-made real demi-glace and exceeds the usual restaurant attempt.  If you can’t find the demi-glace, a good brown gravy mix will come a fair part of the way to what this should be.

Carla’s Sauce – Carla Pastorio
1 tablespoons balsamic vinegar
1/3 cup mayonnaise

Mix and use on Tortilla Wraps or any sandwich.

Carla’s Tomato Stuff – Bob Pastorio
2 tomatoes  or 3 large (or 10 plum) diced
1 large cucumber — peeled and diced
1 large green pepper — diced
1 medium onion — diced
4 tablespoons each — minced, oregano, basil, tarragon (or more or less)
2 clove fresh garlic — mashed and very finely minced
1/2 cup light olive oil
1/2 cup herbal vinegar
1/2 cup tomato juice (optional)
pinch of sugar (optional)
salt and pepper to taste
1 pounds macaroni — cooked and hot
4 tablespoons butter (1/2 stick) to coat pasta
Parmesan — Romano or Asiago cheese

Cut vegetables to similar sized chunks, add herbs, oil and vinegar and stir. Let sit at room temperature for a while – couple hours is good – for flavors to mingle. Stir occasionally and taste. Add whatever you think it needs – more salt or pepper, vinegar or oil or whatever.

Cook pasta, drain. Drop butter into empty pasta pot to melt. Return pasta to pot and toss with butter to lightly coat. Spoon pasta onto plates, top with vegetables and serve immediately with a dusting of grated Parmesan cheese.
Recipe Notes
The Kid and I did a cooking demonstration at a farmers’ market. She walked around, picked up some things and we made a  wonderful dish out of it. Cucumbers. Huge red tomatoes heavy with their ripe juices. Tiny yellow plum tomatoes. A few Roma tomatoes. A new variety to me called Rose tomatoes. Elephant garlic and two other kinds of real garlic; Music and Italian red. Peppers so big and perfect that look like they should be in a museum. A big bag of basil with full, delightful perfume. We cut the veggies into pieces and popped them into a big bowl. She tore up some of the basil leaves and the perfume was maddening. The luxurious, heavy richness of the scent of basil blending with the pungent garlic, peppers.

I splashed in some of my own home-infused (Parsley, Sage, Rosemary and Thyme) vinegar, my home-infused olive oil (with  lemon and garlic), salt, and a few cranks on my pepper mill. We also brought a chunk of wonderful old, hard Asiago cheese and an antique cranked cheese grater. I cooked some rigatoni pasta to combine with whatever we came up with.

After she chopped, diced, minced and stirred, I heated the pasta and dumped it onto a tray for the folks to help themselves.  pasta, a little tomato stuff (and make sure you get some of the juice), a sprinkling of cheese. We made several more  batches because they disappeared so fast. After the demonstration was done and the last of the folks had departed, she asked if we had any left. I said that all we had were empty bowls with a bit of juice and very little veggie stuff in the  bottom. “May I dip slices of bread and let the juice soak in?” She ate the soggy, wonderful bread and left the bowls clean.
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This might be called an uncooked pasta sauce, or a salad or a vegetable medley, but the name wouldn’t capture the spirit of it. Add, subtract or substitute ingredients to your heart’s content. Macaroni (ziti, rotelle, rotini, wheels, rigatoni, cavatappi) works better than spaghetti in this one simply because you can spear the chunks of pasta with your fork as you pick up the chunky vegetables. They should be cut into pieces a half inch or bigger. If you use smallish macaroni, it can all be eaten with a soup spoon and I guarantee you’ll like it even better that way. You get more of the juices in each mouthful, and that can only be good.

The vegetables can be served as soon as they’re cut, but they taste better if they have a chance to sit for a while. Throw everything into a bowl and stir it gently now and again to let the flavors mix. You can add cooked or raw peas, spring onions, hot peppers, roasted peppers, water chestnuts, grapes, nuts, raisins, hearts of palm, cooked carrot circles or raw shreds, artichoke hearts, raw zucchini, bleu cheese crumbles… anything you want. (After dinner, if there’s any left, combine the pasta and the vegetables and refrigerate. Leftovers are tomorrow’s very tasty macaroni salad. Tastes great the second day. Add some flaked fish or ham shreds. Shrimp. Leftover lobster (very likely, huh?).) Serves at least 4, up to maybe 8

Bob Collins
3 slices of cucumber — mulled (crushed) slightly.
2 ounces gin
ice to top
7-Up or equivalent
sour mix to fill – Daily’s or similar
grenadine inside around the rim
Maraschino to garnish

Mull two slices of cucumber in the bottom of a tall glass. That means to drop them into the glass and smoosh/crush them with a wooden spoon, just enough to release a little juice. Add two ounces of gin (don’t rush to a judgement yet…) and fill nearly to the top with ice. Pour on about 3 ounces 7-Up and fill to the top with sour mix. To garnish, pour a circle around the top of the glass with grenadine and drop a cherry on top.
To make it in pitcher quantity, assuming a 64 ounce pitcher (1/2 gallon):
About 5 inches of cucumber sliced 1/4-inch thick and mulled. A pint of gin poured in and sloshed around a bit to mix with the cucumber juice. Fill with ice to about 3-inches down from the top. Add 1 1/2 to 2 cans of 7-Up leaving enough room for sour mix. Add sour mix to fill. Run either a circle of grenadine around the top, or creme de cassis which will sink and make it look pretty. Drop on a handful of cherries and put a bowl of them next to the pitchers. For a party, you can make a punchbowl of this stuff. Float cubes of frozen sour mix with cherries frozen into their centers in the bowl. Top it up with more gin and 7-Up as it goes down.

The sour mix will take care of itself. You can lighten the gin content as the evening wears on so you can send a relatively sober group home.

Recipe Notes
It’s a very unusual drink yet very familiar for a few reasons. Refreshing, light in the mouth, complex. Easy to make. Let’s build one up from the bottom; this can be scaled up for a pitcher. Here’s a place where the booze is absolutely there, but it will absolutely stump the drinkers. It doesn’t taste like there’s gin in it. The combination of flavors blends so completely that lemon is about the only clear flavor anyone will identify. to be made in a tall glass – 10 ounces or so

Bob Pastorio’s Angel Food Cake – Serves 12
Wet ingredients
1 1/2 cup room-temperature egg whites (about 12 large eggs)
1 tablespoons water
1 tablespoons fresh lemon juice
1 teaspoons cream of tartar
1 teaspoons vanilla
1/2 teaspoons almond extract (optional)
3/4 cup sugar
Dry ingredients
1 cup sifted cake flour
3/4 cup sugar
1/2 teaspoons salt

Use an ungreased 9 or 10 inch tube pan. Don’t use a non-stick pan. It won’t work.
Heat oven to 350°. Beat together wet ingredients except sugar on low speed until well-mixed, 1 1/2 minutes. Increase speed to medium and beat until the volume increases 4 or 5 times and it looks like a soft foam. Gradually add the sugar, continuing at medium speed until it becomes white and creamy-looking. It should hold a soft peak. Sift sugar-flour mixture over whites 1/4 cup at a time and gently fold in. Pour batter into tube pan, passing a knife around a couple times to even it and get any large bubbles out. Bake until cake is light golden, a toothpick inserted into the middle of the cake comes out clean, and the cake begins to pull away from the sides of the pan, 35 to 45 minutes. Remove cake from oven.

Turn cake pan upside down and place center tube of pan over narrow bottle neck. Cool cake completely, at least 1 1/2 hours. With a knife or very thin metal spatula, cut around sides and center tube of pan to loosen. Remove side of pan. Cut cake from bottom of pan. Put on plate or tray. Sprinkle powdered sugar over or frost.

Beer Bread – Pastorio
3 cup self-rising flour (about 1 pound)
3 tablespoons sugar
1 teaspoons salt
12 ounces beer (one can or bottle)
Heat oven to 350°. Combine dry ingredients and mix to combine. Add beer, mix and pour/scrape into bread pans. Bake for 45 to 55 minutes, depending on any additions. The top should be lightly browned. Turn out onto a rack to cool.
Beer bread with fruit
Same as above with the addition of two more tablespoons of sugar, some spices (cinnamon, ginger, nutmeg, allspice or whatever you like) and chopped dried fruit. I’ve used cherries, mangoes, apples, pears, apricots, cranberries and raisins. I’ve rehydrated the dried fruit in the beer and I’ve done it without rehydrating. Works both ways. Grand.
Beer bread with bacon
Cook a pound of bacon (and save the fat for making your hair shiny or cooking other things). Chop it into fingernail-sized pieces. Stir into the dry ingredients. Finish as above.
Beer bread with three onions
Same bread recipe as above, but add some sauteed onions (I used two medium onions cooked low and slow until they were nicely browned and very sweet), some chopped chives and some dehydrated chopped onions. A total of about 3/4 cup.
Beer bread with…
I’d say, try it with anything that sounds good to you with a few considerations:
1) Nothing too wet. Nothing that will give off juices. Soggy up the bread.
2) Nothing too dry. Consider how much liquid they’ll soak up in the baking. Dry out the bread.
3) I’d stay under a cup of total additions.
4) Have plenty of butter on hand.
5) Make more than one at a time. Otherwise you won’t get any.
Recipe Notes
This basic recipe came from a caller to my radio program and it sounded so good and so simple that I felt the need to make and eat a lot of bread over a couple weeks. It was a hard job, but I did it in the interests of science, furthering human culinary knowledge, and because I’m just that kind of giving person. Seriously.
This can be done with any kind of beer. I’ve done it with a range of them from a very light American-style lager to a medium-weight lager like Yuengling all the way to Guinness Stout. They were all wonderful. And I made several variations, see below.

Bob And Carla Pastorio’s Wraps – Serves 2
2 Sun Dried Tortilla Wrap
Lettuce
Shredded cheddar cheese
Ham
Carla’s sauce
1 tablespoons balsamic vinegar
1/3 cup mayonnaise
1. Lay tortilla on a flat surface.
2. Spread ingredients down the middle of the tortilla. Leave room at either end of the tortilla so ingredients won’t spill out. Don’t overfill or you will not be able to roll it up without making a mess. Remember, you can always make another one!
3.If you are using small tortillas: Fold bottom end up to make a pocket. Fold one side over, making sure the bottom stays tucked underneath it. Then, fold the other side over, wrapping it around the outside.
4. If you are using large tortillas: Fold bottom end up to make a pocket. Starting at one side, roll tortilla to other side, making sure the bottom stays tucked in.

Beurre Blanc
2 tablespoon finely chopped shallots
1/4 teaspoon white pepper
1/2 cup white wine vinegar
3to 6 sticks butter
There is a magical sauce called “Beurre Blanc” or white butter that’s an emulsion of white wine vinegar and butter. This forms a fast, silky and rich sauce. What it does for fish is amazing and chicken will never be the same after you try it once. If you use red wine vinegar, it’s called “beurre rouge” and it works with red meats and game.
The quantity shown in the recipe can be cut in half by just dividing. Same for doubling.
Combine first three ingredients in saucepan (NOT aluminum, or it turns gray) over medium heat and boil to reduce liquid to about 2 tablespoons. Reduce heat to low and add 4 pats of butter and start whisking. This preparation will need to be whisked constantly but it should be done in less than 5 minutes. When the first 4 pats are almost completely melted, add four more and whisk to mix in. Continue doing the same until you reach the amount of sauce you want.
Left to cool, the sauce will separate but there is a way to reuse it. Leftover sauce should be refrigerated. When you want to use it, let it come up to room temperature and pull it back together with a mixer. The heat of the food will warm and melt it.

Seviche
Vinegar is strongly acid and will “cook” some seafoods without heat by firming the protein in the food, making it snowy white. Some recipes like this call for lemon or lime juice, either alone or with vinegar, for both flavor and effect. Some versions call for the food to be marinated in the acids and served as is, others marinate then cook more traditionally. In either case, it can be a very elegant treat.
Here are some I’ve had good results with.
Shellfish – scallops, shrimp and rock shrimp (if you can find them), lobster.
Fish – mackerel, orange roughy, salmon, tuna, red snapper, flounder and turbot.
Put down a layer of bite sized pieces of fish or shellfish in a glass or ceramic container. Next, a layer of thinly sliced onion seasoned with pinches of red pepper flakes, peppercorns and powdered bay leaf. Some cooks add diced bell peppers, pimentos, jalapenos, peas, carrot shreds or black olives. Repeat the layers and, finally, add enough of the pickling liquid to cover.
The liquid should be citrus juice (one-third, up to one half) and white or white wine vinegar. Hold for 24 hours refrigerated, then serve as an appetizer or party hors d’oeuvre with picks. You can also drain the mixture and toss the fish and onions with sour cream or yogurt. I add some thinly sliced cucumber when I do it this way. The Seviche will hold for 4-5 days in the fridge.
I like to use a blend of lemon, peppercorn, orange and ginger vinegars. Yellow onion, red pimento, green pepper and black olives with white fish, pink shrimp and creamy-gold scallops provide a visual treat as well as a festival of flavors and textures.
Recipe Notes
Three sticks of butter makes enough sauce for 8 to 10 people

Beef Tenderloin Information
1 beef tenderloin

You did get a tenderloin, including the “side piece” called the “chain.” Just not a “peeled” one. Costco tenders are choice-grade, uncertified Angus and are wonderful. You need to peel the silverskin off, the tough, gelatinous muscle sheath that’s, well, silver. You want to slip a knife just under it, taking almost no red meat with it, and push the knife along immediately under the silverskin. Throw away the trim. You’ll likely have to do it several times to get it all. The silver will disappear into the meat partway along toward the thick part. I leave it on. Sirloin tips are make from sirloin. On occasion some demented chef will consider the end trims as “waste” and prep them as small pieces of meat buried in a sauce with some fancy name. Smack him and remind him that they’re pieces of tenderloin and need no extra anything to make them palatable. Use that meat for steak tartare.
Use the thick end for the wellington. I tie them so they stay round and have no bits sticking out. Then I sear them to get a nice Maillard crust. Chill them and prep the rest of the fixings, untying after it’s chilled. A good pate, some mushrooms and puff pastry. If I’m doing individual Wellingtons, I freeze the meat, wrap them and  bake in a 425 oven. I make the pastry decorative so I can stick a thermometer into it without messing up the appearance. Pull at 120F and they’ll go up to about 135F – low medium. I serve them on a yin-yang puddle of Bearnaise and Demi glace.
For the sandwiches, Sear/grill the meat to about 125F and pull.. Let it cool down and slice across. Should be about 2.5 to 3 inches across. Serve with appropriately sized breads.
I went looking for a diagram for trimming the tenderloin and found this instead. Clearer and with pictures. Happy meat…
<http://www.epicurious.com/gourmet/kitchen_notebook/beef>

Chocolate Coated Wine Poached Pears
1 cup White wine
1/2 cup Sugar
strip Lemon Peel
3 whole Cloves
1/2 cup Water
Sauce ingredients:
2 ounces Milk Chocolate — chopped or chips
2 tablespoons Heavy cream
2 tablespoons Creme De Menthe liqueur or mint syrup
Peel the pears and take a thin slice off the end opposite the stem  so they’ll stand upright.  Stand them up in a saucepan.  Add wine, sugar, peel, cloves and water to saucepan, cover and bring to a low simmer.
Poach until the pear halves are tender, about 10 minutes.  Test with the point of a small paring knife: it should penetrate the pear easily.  Lift the pears out of the pan with a slotted spoon and put into individual bowls or stemmed goblets.  Combine chocolate sauce ingredients in a small saucepan, melt, stirring constantly, or do it in a microwave.  Pour over and serve.
Variations: Instead of water, add creme de menthe to the poaching liquid.  Instead of chocolate sauce, boil the poaching liquid until it’s reduced to about half its original volume, discard peel and
cloves and pour over the pears.  To make the sauce differently interesting, add about 1/4 cup of bleu cheese to the pan after removing the pears and reducing the liquid.  Stir to mix and pour over.  Or, put the pear on a slice of toasted pound cake.  Or in a mound of chocolate mousse.  Serve with a crisp cookie.

Clafouti Or Clafoutis, Depending… Pastorio
1 tablespoons butter (or more to fully coat the baking dish)
1/2 cup AP flour
pinch of salt
1/3 cup granulated sugar
4 eggs
2 egg yolks
1 cup milk
1 cup heavy cream
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
3 tablespoons kirsch
1 1/2 pounds cherries — pitted
Confectioners’ sugar — for dusting
Heat oven to 350F. Generously butter a tart pan. Put flour, salt, sugar, eggs, yolks, milk, cream, vanilla and kirsch in a blender and mix thoroughly, about a minute. Spread cherries evenly in the tart pan. Pour the batter through a sieve over the cherries. Bake until the top is puffed and uniformly golden-brown. Test with the point of a paring knife. It should come out clean when stuck into the center. Cool for few minutes, shake a generous dusting of confectioners’ sugar over and serve. Ice cream or whipped cream optional.
Variations, all of which use about 3 cups prepared fruit: peeled, cored and sliced pears; peeled plums; sauteed peeled, cored and sliced apples; blackberries or blueberries.
Recipe Notes ..on whose cookbook you’re reading. The traditional preparation uses cherries with the pits still inside them. It’s good, but I don’t see much flavor difference (actually, I see no flavor difference, but I don’t want to admit that), and I’d rather avoid the dental bills from an inadvertent molar-pit encounter. I prefer large, sweet cherries like Bing, Queen Anne or Ranier cherries.
Any nine- or ten-inch baking dish or pie plate will do just fine. The batter will puff while baking and settle back down as it cools. Best served just warm. A dab of vanilla ice cream doesn’t hurt it a bit.
Baking time will vary from about 40 minutes on up to about 55 minutes, depending on the size and type of baking dish. Smaller-diameter ones will take longer because the batter will be deeper.
There are two different techniques used to make them. One simply pours the batter over the fruit and bakes it. The other puts a little bit of the batter into the dish, bakes it until set, scatters the fruit over it (sometimes with a bit of sugar sprinkled over), pours the rest of the batter over, and finish-bakes it.  I prefer the second way, but it takes more time and attention, so if that’s a problem, the simpler method works just fine.
Brining for Beginners
This is one of those “gotta have faith” pieces. I want you to sink meats, birds and seafoods in some salty water so they’ll cook faster, be better tasting, more tender and more juicy. Yeah, I know. Sounds absurd. But it really works and now it’s all the thing.
About a year ago, I told you about this new twist on a technique that’s very old. Time was when there were no refrigerators. Meat spoils quickly. All kinds of meats – four-legged, winged and the ones with gills. What to do? Well, there were several choices for storage. Put it under cold water. Store it hanging in a cold root cellar or springhouse. You could hang the meat over a slow, smoky fire. Anything else?
The other major way to store meat was to pickle it; to brine it. Sink it in a flavored brine and in fairly short order, you have a piece of meat that won’t spoil any time soon. We still have some being produced like that nowadays. Corned beef. Pastrami. Many different kinds of hams. You know them.
That’s the new-old method, but with some modern changes. Brining the meats. Here’s what happens. The salt and sugar act to draw moisture out of the meats. Then a kind of balance is struck where no more juices come out of the meat. Then, in a funny reversal, the brine is taken up by the meat bringing moisture and flavoring into the meat. It makes the meat plumper and juicier. It makes it more forgiving in cooking. It makes your dinner a bit more tender. What’s to not like?
We aren’t going to pickle them, just soak them in a light brine solution. Stay with me here. We aren’t making the meats taste salty, just better. And cook more quickly.

Poultry, pork, lamb, beef and game meats can all be brined and I guarantee they’ll be tastier, juicier and more tender than without brining. Brining will also shorten cooking times. Cook as you always do, just check on the progress of the meats a bit earlier and more often than usual until you get the sense of it. And this isn’t just for special occasions. Every time you cook meats, they can benefit from this approach. Discard the brines after using once.

BASIC MEAT BRINE
This much brine will take care of a 3 or 4 pound piece of pork loin, a chicken (or chicken pieces), a 3 or 4 pound beef, lamb or veal roast. How long to leave the meats in the brine? Depends. For poultry, at least 24 hours. Up to about 36 hours. Roasts benefit from 3 days or more. Since I first started doing this, I’ve evolved my recipe. This is the one I’m working with now.
1 quart water
1/4 cup salt
2 tablespoons sugar
1/2 tablespoon black pepper
1 teaspoon fresh thyme leaves
2 teaspoons fresh oregano leaves
4 or 5 bay leaves, crumbled
4 cloves garlic, smashed
2 tablespoons vinegar
Heat the water and add the remaining ingredients. Bring to a low simmer, stir a few times and remove from the heat. Let cool.
That’s the brine. How to use it? One very easy way is a gallon freezer bag. Put the meat in the bag and pour the cooled brine over it. Squeeze out much of the air, put the bag in a container and refrigerate. Just in case of leaks.
Variations: Well, for the basic brine, you can add or subtract any flavorings you want. The amounts of water, salt and sugar should remain fairly constant, but the other ingredients are variable.
For duck, goose and other oily birds, add 2 tablespoons ground ginger, a cup of soy sauce and 1/4 cup orange juice concentrate. Stick the duck all over with a fork and brine for 3 or 4 days. Roast in a 400 oven for about an hour.
Chicken pieces benefit from the juice of a lemon and a tablespoon of rubbed sage added to the brine.

BRINED PORK AND VEAL CHOPS
These chops will be rosy inside like a good cured ham and very tender. Don’t try to cook the wonderful pink color out, you’ll ruin them.
1/ 2 cup brown sugar
1/4 cup salt
10 black peppercorns
5 bay leaves
2 tablespoons mixed dried herbs (rosemary, oregano, thyme, and sage)
1 quart hot water
3 quarts ice water
12 chops, 1 inch thick
olive oil or cooking spray
Put sugar and salt in a large nonreactive container – plastic, glass or stainless steel. Add the hot water and stir to dissolve. Add other seasonings and let sit for a few minutes to rehydrate herbs. Stir in the ice water. Submerge the pork chops in the brine. Cover the container and refrigerate for 24 hours or more. Or use the freezer bag technique. To cook, remove the chops from the brine, pat dry and lightly brush or spray with oil. Grill, broil or pan-fry. Figure 7 to 9 minutes per side.

FISH FILLETS IN A MAPLE AND DILL BRINE
This brine works well on fillets of tuna, salmon, orange roughy and trout. Brining fish is faster than meats. You need real maple syrup for best results.
1 quart water
21/4 cup salt
2 tablespoons maple syrup
1 tablespoon brown sugar
1 bunch fresh dill, coarsely chopped (about 1/ 2 cup)
3 garlic cloves, smashed
1/4 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
fish fillets, about 2 pounds total, center cuts if possible
Combine the water, salt, maple syrup and brown sugar in a large nonreactive container. Stir to dissolve the salt. Add dill, garlic, and pepper. Submerge the fish skin side up in the brine. Cover the container and refrigerate for 8 to 10 hours.
To cook, remove the fish from the brine and pat dry. Brush or spray with oil. To broil, put the fish on a foil-lined baking sheet, skin side down and broil for about 10 minutes per inch of thickness at the thickest point, or until just cooked through. To grill, put on a sheet of foil directly on the grill rack over medium heat for about 10 minutes per inch of thickness.
And don’t forget that turkey or the venison leg. Got a really big bucket? Enjoy very much.
Recipe Notes
Many test cooks here find that plastic wrap will not stay in place no matter how hard they press on it. To provide an extra measure of security against spills and splashes, Greg Case of Cambridge, Mass., has devised a way to secure plastic wrap over the mouths of containers.
1. Tear off a piece of plastic wrap long enough to fit around the mouth of the container, plus about 12 inches. Roll the sheet of plastic lengthwise into a rope. Pull on both ends to make it taut.

  1. Cover the mouth of the container with a second sheet of plastic wrap, coil the plastic wrap rope tightly around the sheet of plastic at the top of the container, and secure it by tying the ends into a knot.

Deep Fried Turkey Parts
2 turkey legs
2 turkey thighs
I deep fry chicken at 350F. With turkey legs, I’d plan on using a thermometer now and again. Pull it up and stab it with a quick-read. Pull at 155F. Depending on size and starting temp for the pieces, and the amount of oil (lots of oil in a pot will cool down less and therefore take less time to get back to optimum temp), I’d say from a low of 20 minutes up to maybe 30.

Cream Of Anything Soup – Serves 12
1largeonion — coarsely chopped
2ribcelery coarsely chopped
6ouncesbutter (1 1/2 sticks)
6ouncesflour (about 1 1/2 cups)
1gallonchicken stock
1pounds”anything” (see below)
1Pint(s)heavy cream
Saute the onion and celery in butter in large saucepan or small stockpot until sweated. Add flour, stir in well and cook for about 5 minutes. Whisk in stock and simmer for 30 minutes, skimming occasionally. Add
solids, return to boil, reduce heat to simmer for 20-30 minutes. Add cream, correct seasonings. Leave chunky or puree with wand or countertop blender. Serve.
“Anything” can be sliced mushrooms, diced chicken or turkey, asparagus, green beans, broccoli, tomato pulp, cauliflower, artichoke hearts, shrimp, carrots, lobster, or whatever… Also can add rice or pasta toextend. Cheeses.
Dry Aging
I would think dry aging would be wonderful for any tender cuts like prime rib or tenderloin while brining would be good for tougher cuts but I’m anxious to hear from Pastorio if that’s correct and why.
Bob How about an explication of the relative merits of brining and dry aging? Is there a contradiction?  Does one suit some cuts and the other others. Am I coherent? Matthew
I used to brine beef, but I don’t anymore. I found that it improved the flavor, but did nothing for tenderness as it does in other meats.
Actually, I think it might have contributed some small increase in toughness because of cellular turgidity. I can’t prove it, but that’s my impression.
Dry aging does several things including reducing cellular turgidity by facilitating evaporation – it makes the meat softer to the touch. If you poke aged meat with a fingertip, it’s noticeably more giving.
Aging also lets the digestion enzymes work longer to tenderize the meat.  Wet aging permits this, as well, but the “meaty” flavor of dry-aged meat is missing. It really tastes “bloody” to me rather than the intense beefiness that the dry-ager meats carry.
Cautionary note: Dry-aged beef tastes different than “green” (freshly killed) beef. Or wet-aged beef. The flavor changes come from the concentration of flavor elements when juices evaporate and enzymes break
down connective tissue. To some people, it has the hint of a slight “spoiled” taste, distantly suggestive of wet-aged beef that’s been kept too long. For my palate, it has an tiny extra “gamy” taste that I find pleasant. Chacun a son gout…
Dry-aging works well for top rounds, loin cuts and even chuck roasts. Not much benefit for clods and bottom rounds which, IMO, are best suited for either long, moist cooking or grinding. Filets simply don’t need it.
Even select grade filet will be tender and just as lacking in flavor as prime grade filets.
Pork isn’t aged. Lamb and mutton better cuts may be dry-aged, and that can run up to 6 weeks. Poultry shouldn’t be aged at home (English hunting practices notwithstanding). Game meats can benefit from aging, but the gamy flavor will be intensified – if you don’t like game emats, don’t kill the critters. Goat may be aged, but only for a few days.

Cocoa X 3
5 tbsp dutch process cocoa powder
2 tbsp sugar
2 cups milk
6 oz bittersweet chocolate; finely chopped
chili powder; optional
Place the cocoa powder, sugar, and 2 tablespoons of the milk in a
saucepan and heat until the sugar melts, stirring well to remove any
lumps. Boil and add the remaining milk. Heat to steaming, always
whisking to incorporate the chocolate mixture. Turn off the heat and add
the chopped chocolate. Stir to melt the chocolate and let it sit. Reheat
to serve, stirring well before serving.
—————————
1/2 cup unsweetened cocoa
1/3 cup sugar
1 teaspoon cornstarch
1 cup milk.
1 cup water stirred in 1/2 cup at a time
Cook over low- or medium-low heat, stirring, until thickened.
—————————————-
2 ounces dark chocolate.
2 cups milk
5 egg yolks
1/3 cup sugar
Melt the chocolate in 1/2 of the milk and then add the rest of it. Whip
the yolks with the sugar. Add the chocolate to the yolk and cook in a
water bath or double boiler, or on a low burner, always stirring without
letting it boil until it thickens
Try one of these. Italian hot chocolate – I promise you these are the
best ever…

Apple Dumplings In Puff Pastry
4 ea apples
4 bn cranberries; dried
4 tbsp brown sugar
4 tbsp butter
4 tsp cinnamon
1 cup apricot preserves
1 batch puff pastry; rough
1 ea egg; w/ water for wash
Made apple dumplings last evening with Ginger Gold apples. Extraordinary.
Baked the apples first, filled with dried cranberries. Sprinkled brown
sugar, cinnamon and butter on top and poured apricot preserves softened
in water around the bottom. Baked until tender. Chilled. Made a rough
puff paste cut to size and egg washed. Wrapped the apples, egg washed
the outside and sprinkled cinnamon sugar on it. Baked until golden.
Poured the pan juice over the apples at service.

Asparagus, Poached *
1 loaf french bread; sliced 1 inch thick
2 lb. asparagus
1 cup cream; or more
2 ea. eggs; hard boiled
1 bunch caviar; for garnish

The quantities listed are the way I would do it today. Tomorrow it would
most likely be different. What a country. Milk is good in this dish, but
cream (the heavier the better) is heavenly. Serves several
Butter and toast the bread. Lay out the bread slices closely on a platter
large enough to handle the whole batch of asparagus.
Over medium heat, put the asparagus, milk or cream and salt in a skillet
and cover. Bring to a low simmer and cook until fork-tender, about 8
minutes. Lift out the asparagus (I use two long-bladed spatulas) and lay on
the bread.
Turn the heat up and rapidly cook down the cream until it will coat a spoon
dipped into it. Pour over the asparagus, sprinkle on caviar (two or three
tablespoons) and/or eggs. Serve with an icy, fruity white wine.
If you steam or boil, what would be good with the asparagus? Here’s a list:
Hollandaise sauce. Biarnaise sauce. Crumbled bleu cheese. Cook 12 strips
of bacon, discard all but a tablespoon or two of fat; crumble the bacon and
sprinkle fat and crumbles over. Chopped shrimp and mushrooms (1/2 cup of
each) sauteed in lemon butter, tossed over. Shreds of boiled country ham
(1/3 cup) and grated cheddar cheese (1/2 cup) on top, briefly broiled to
melt the cheese and served.

Bagna Caoda
5 cloves garlic
1 stick butter
1 cup oil; walnut or olive
1 tin anchovies; rinsed to reduce salt
—-2nd version in directions—-
vegetables: raw or roasted peppers, white savoy cabbage leaves, Jerusalem
artichoke, cauliflower, broccoli, carrot sticks, etc.
Breads: crusty Italian bread, bread sticks (grissini)
pasta: put some in a bowl, trickle the sauce over
seafoods, etc.: you’re on your own.
Peel the garlic and put it in milk to cover for about 2 hours. Drain it,
dry it and cut into thin slices or mince finely and combine all ingredients
in a pan over low heat.
Cook for about 15 minutes, stirring with a wooden spoon, over low heat
(never at a boil). When it’s ready, bring to the table and keep warm using
a hot plate or alcohol burner
set to low flame.
VERSION NUMBER 2
This is a creamier variation on the idea of bagna caoda.
I’ve seen it in Italy and, occasionally, in the homes of relatives. I’ve
adapted it to crockpot preparation.
1 pound butter
1 pint cream
1 tin anchovies, mashed
20 cloves garlic; minced
Melt butter in a crockpot and add the garlic and anchovies,
stirring to distribute. Add the cream, cover, and simmer gently for two or
more hours, stirring occasionally. The garlic and anchovies should
completely combine with the other ingredients. This can be made a day or
two ahead and refrigerated. It will separate when it gets cold but will
return to the original creaminess when gently heated and stirred. When the
sauce is ready, bring it to the table and keep warm using a hot plate or
alcohol burner set to low flame.
Pastorio
This always becomes a small party. A crock or pot of a dip is put center
table, and people help themselves, either dipping into it or taking some in
a bowl for themselves. The accompaniments can include raw or cooked
vegetables, breads,
pasta, cooked shrimp or pretty much anything else. The last departs
somewhat from tradition, but don’t we all?
The name means warm bath or, by extension, warm sauce in a northern Italian
dialect. These came out on the big holidays to keep people busy and out of
the kitchen where they’d only get in the way. There’s no one protocol for
doing this. The more like family the diners are, the more that breaches in
normal table manners will be forgiven. Even double-dipping. Kids love to do
this and it gets messy. Disposable tablecloths for such occasions are
good.
It will sound surprising to say that the flavors meld very nicely and the
finished flavor is subtle. Not what you’d expect from this combination of
ingredients. The anchovies
disappear and provide a quiet background flavor. The garlic becomes mild
and gives it a hearty sparkle. The butter and oil are a tasty carrier of
all those other flavors. The creamy one coats the dips more fully. Both
versions are best if served in a fondue pot or other dish that can be kept
warm, but not boiling.
VERSION NUMBER 1
Amounts for 4 people:
Batter-Dipped Chicken Fingers
1/2 cup bisquick
1/4 cup cornstarch
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon ground white pepper
1/4 teaspoon ginger
water; (like, 1/2 cup)
2 ea. chicken breasts; cut into 8 strips
So the first night, we had the floured fingers.  Carla said she liked the
crunchy coating on the apples and could I do that with the chicken.  Of
course I said sure.  As in the case of the apples above, the quantities are
waaay approximate.
Makes 8 chicken fingers
Heat the oil to between 320 and 340.  Combine the dry ingredients and add
the water to make a thick batter.  Drop the chicken into the batter and
coat fully.  Stick a fork in the end of each chicken strip and lift it out
of the batter.  Let the excess run off.  Lower into the oil.  Fry until
golden.  Serve immediately.

Beef Roasting Technique
1 ea. beef roast
2-3 cloves garlic
1 large onion
bay leaf
2 cups beef stock
beurre manie
Okay, I’ll put my two cents in!  I always select a cut that has fat
through it – chuck – shoulder; pepper it real good, brown it in a little
bacon grease.  Put a rack in bottom of dutch oven and put roast on rack,
put a cut onion and couple of cloves of garlic and bay leaf.  Cover and
cook in slow oven (300) for 2 -2Ω or so hours (depending on size of roast).
No liquid.  The onion provides the needed moisture.  The rack keeps the
bottom from burning and doesn’t “stew” the beef.  When fork tender, remove
from oven and you’ll have pure beef drippings with which to make your
gravy.  I always use beef broth for the gravy (instead of water).
This is a marvelous variation on the usual pot roast. It’s technically a
poele (poh-el) and will provide the most concentrated flavors of any of the
covered roasting techniques.
I’d put in a mirepoix, but it’s only a matter of taste. Splash of wine
to deglaze…

Beyond Basic Butter
1 qt. heavy cream
3 tablespoon plain yogurt
One of the more remarkable butters I’ve ever made goes like this:  Take a
quart of heavy cream (at least 36% milkfat) and heat it to 180F.  Cool to
110F and stir in about 3 tablespoons plain yogurt.  Pour into a thermos jug
or some other container that you can keep at about 110F for 24
hours.  At that point, put it in the fridge to cool thoroughly.  It will
gradually become thick.  Let it rest 24 hours in the fridge.  (You might
want to taste yogurt with some serious sensuality.  The mouthfeel is
astonishing and a shake of sugar on a strawberry dipped in it makes it a
personal
moment.)
Whip it with a mixer until you have butter.  Let it drain in a colander in
the fridge over a bowl to collect the buttermilk.  Spread that on a piece
of toast and have a whole new idea of what butter is.
The buttermilk is wonderful in soups, breads or even as the liquid in
pasta.

Bleu Cheese Dressing
1 cup cream
1/2 cup bleu cheese
The simplest and  most astounding bleu cheese dressing is this:
whipping cream and cheese chunks. Whip the cream and fold in crumbled
blue-veined cheese.
I usually do about a cup of cream whipped (with nothing added) to a
relatively stiff whipped cream. I crumble 4 or 5 ounces of cheese (I
prefer gorgonzola, but any kind you like will do) and gently fold them
together. Refrigerate for a few hours or overnight. Stir gently (to
mix back in any water that has separated out, but not enough to
deflate it) and put a little in any salad or use it as a dip for
buffalo wings.
It’s intense and rich with an amazingly rounded flavor. It’ll be
almost as though you’ve never really tasted bleu cheese before.
Yeah. I like it. Why do you ask?

Breadcrumb And Flour Coatings
1 bunch flour
1 bunch bread crumbs
1 bunch stuff to put it on
1 cup milk
1 ea. egg
I don’t know logically if it makes a difference but you brought back
memories.  As I was growing up my mother used to make the most delicious
breaded veal chops (and other breaded and fried foods, like salmon and tuna
croquettes).  She always let the food sit on a plate for a while (most
likely not in the refrig) until she fried them maybe a half hour later.
Whenever I made the same dishes, I never let them sit after coating.  They
just never tasted as good, didn’t have that wonderful crust, etc.  BTW, she
always (and I, too) always let them sit for a few minutes on
paper towels to take away excess oil.  Years ago when I had Sunday dinner
with my Italian in-laws, I would usually prepare the fried and breaded
eggplant.  I had to prepare it the way they wanted and we never let it sit.
It just wasn’t as good as when I prepared it a couple of times by letting
it sit after coating.  But since egglant prepared this way, esp. if you
use two or three eggplants, takes so much time, we didn’t do it that way.
But speaking about eggplant, a chef I knew at one of the restaurants here
prepared eggplant by coating it with egg and flour, letting it
sit for a minute or two, then coating it with milk and flour, placing it in
on a baking sheet that had been oiled, letting it sit for a while and
placing it in a hot oven to bake. When finished, he assembled the eggplant
with the tomato sauce and topped with mozzarella and grated Parmesan,
for a delicious eggplant Parmesan. That dish is delicious, although I must
admit I haven’t made it in a very long time.
That drying step makes an enormous difference in the adherence of the crust
as well as its integrity.  It doesn’t break off or stick to the pan.
For those things that benefit from a good crust of breading, I even go so
far as to double-dip. Pork chops, dredged in seasoned flour, then into a
seasoned egg wash, into seasoned crumbs, back into the egg, back into the
crumbs, on a tray on wax (greaseproof) paper for an hour or
more, turning once after a half-hour or so.
Typically, I pan fry the chops in a very uncharacteristic way for me. I
guess when they’re done by looking at the color of the breading.  It should
be a good gold color on both sides.  The meat is effectively steamed
inside the crumb crust.  It’s very good.
The seasonings are:  flour – salt, pepper and a bit of garlic powder. Egg
wash – Tabasco sauce, salt, white wine, a few eggs.  Crumbs – salt, pepper,
oregano, basil, rosemary, sage, ginger all whirled in the blender to make
a fine powder.  Mix with crumbs.

Corn Meal Dumplings (The Way I Faked Them, If Memory Holds)
1 cup yellow corn meal
º cup all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon baking powder
Ω teaspoon salt
2  eggs
Ω cup milk
2 tablespoons butter; melted
Sift together dry ingredients, combine wet ingredients and stir them all
together.  Drop by
tablespoonfuls onto hot broth or stew so they aren’t touching.  Cover and
cook for about 15 minutes.  Spoon them off the liquid onto a platter and
serve immediately.

Two kinds of dumplings, roughly divided by geography in the US.  In the
north and west, drop dumplings – dough dropped in spoonfuls onto a
simmering broth or stew.  In the south, cut dumplings – dough rolled out,
cut into squares, strips or diamonds and laid on top of a stew to finish.
Both types are poached/steamed and can be light and delicate or heavier
than granite.  Testing them for doneness is the same as for cakes – a
toothpick poked into them.  If it comes out clean, it’s done.
Most recipes call for butter or bacon fat, flour, egg, baking powder, salt
and milk.  There are also dumpling recipes that use corn meal, farina or
crackers.  Some use cake flour, others all-purpose. There are others that
incorporate liver or other meats.  Still others incorporate potatoes, bread
crumbs and cheeses.
For chicken and dumplings, I’d do a very savory white chicken stew (with
plenty of cream and dashes of cinnamon, nutmeg and ginger) and do drop
dumplings.  Light and airy.  Might even put a bit of parmesan in them for a
bit of interest.
One of our family traditional meals was a creamy chicken stew with generous
slices of polenta that had been smeared with cream cheese.  I did some
corn meal dumplings a while back as an accompaniment to a stew and it was
wonderful.  Reminded us all of those long-ago meals without the work of
stirring the polenta for a half hour and developing Schwartzenegger arms.

Cranberry-Orange Relish
1 bag cranberries
1 cup Sugar
1  orange
Zest the orange and section and seed it. Run the cranberries, the zest, and
the orange sections through a meat grinder.
Stir the sugar in and you are done.

Cream Sauce W/ Citrus
1 cup cream
1 ea. citrus; juiced
Any of several ways:
1) Reduce the cream to about half and whisk in the citrus. This usually
works.
2) Reduce the cream a bit, add some corn starch (or other thickener) and
whisk in the citrus.
3) Heat the citrus with some corn starch to thicken, whisk in the cream and
reduce.
He probably started with 40% cream.

Decorative Pickled Vegetables
1 bunch cauliflower
1 bunch broccoli
1 bunch red peppers
1 bunch pearl onions
1 bunch baby carrots
I’ve done a very similar brine (5% white wine vinegar in slightly higher
ratio – more like 30% than the 25% in this recipe) for mixed veggies to
make an Italian-style
“giardiniera” to include cauliflower, broccoli, peppers (sweet and hot),
baby green tomatoes, pearl onions, baby carrots (split lengthwise), whole
elephant garlic cloves,
and very small cucumbers (split into spears).
Also have sometimes included celery (strings removed), fennel bulb slices,
sundried tomatoes, and already pickled things like mushrooms, artichoke
hearts and olives. Cut everything to expose interior surfaces and to let
the brine in. I didn’t use dill or sliced onions, but I did put in a
single, small slice of beet to give it a pink cast. Once.
After that, I left the beets out. Pink cauliflower, garlic and onions
aren’t as appetizing as they sound, and don’t get me started on carrots in
some unearthly hues. I process longer than the suggested time, below, up to
20 minutes. Just because it makes me feel better to overdo the safety
aspects.
Usually put in a sprig of rosemary, some black peppercorns, a few fennel
seeds and some strips of lemon zest.
Made ’em up for X-mas gifts maybe 2 weeks ahead of time. Arrange the stuff
in pretty combinations around the inside of the jars. Everybody is terribly
impressed and I get good
karma points. Oh, BTW, it all tastes good, too.
Pastorio
dill heads — washed          onion slices — 1/2-inch thick
garlic cloves             carrot slices — optional for color
BRINE:   6  cups  water
2               cups  vinegar — 4-6 percent acididty
1/3           cup  canning salt — to retain firmness
Wash and scrub the cucumbers carefully. Place 1 or 2 garlic cloves,
slice of onion, carrot, and head of dill into the bottom of a quart
canning jar. Put the cucumbers into the clean, hot jars. Place two-piece
lids, lid and screwband, in boiling water. Cover cucumbers with boiling
hot brine to within 1/2 inch of the top of the jar. Wipe rim of jar.
After removal from water, place lid on jar and tightly screw on metal
band by hand. Have water boiling in water bath canner. Process jars in
simmering water bath at 200 to 205 degrees F for 10 minutes. Count
processing time when water returns to simmer. Remove jars. Do not
tighten screw bands. Set jars upright several inches apart on wire rack
or wooden board to cool.
There is no quantity of pickles given as this method may be used
for several quarts or several dozen quarts of pickles. The amount of
brine given is sufficient for about six quarts of pickles. Larger or
smaller amounts of brine may be prepared, but be sure to keep the
correct proportions of water, salt, and vinegar intact. Use pickling

Deep Fried Stuff Or Tempura
appetizers, vegetables, fundamentals
1 bunch vegetables
1 batch oil
1 bunch flour
Tempura batter is: one egg, one cup of flour, one cup of water. It isn’t
intended to cover fully like a corn dog or an American-style fried shrimp.
The crust should be lacy and crisp. The veggies should be dry before
dipping.
Tempura batter should be *just* blended and maybe not even that much. When
I make tempura, there’s a ring of dry flour around the bowl.
If you want full coverage, tempura batter isn’t what you want.
More like a beer batter, it sounds like. The general rule for full-coating
batters is: if it’s dry, wet it; if it’s wet, dry it. Moist foods like
shrimp should be floured before dipping. Dry veggies should be egg-washed
before dipping.

Delightful Pear Dessert
desserts, fruits
4 each pretty pears; should be firm – we used
1 each bottle of white wine
1 each wedge of saga blue cheese
1 handful mint leaves; finely chopped
—-whipped cream (optional)—-
—- CINNAMON, GINGER, NUTMEG—-
I removed most of the core of the pears so I could pack as much of the the
blue cheese inside them as would fit and stood them in a pan deep enough to
cover and not hit the pears.  I poured most of the bottle of wine into the
pot, dropped the rest of the wedge of cheese into the pot, sprinkled the
mint on the pears and covered it.  Heated to a simmer and let them cook
until the point of a paring knife penetrated the pears easily – maybe 20
minutes.
Took the pears out of the pan and cranked the heat to reduce the juice.
One of my eager students made an executive decision and poured about a half
cup of heavy cream into the pot while it cooked.
I reduced it all until the coating on the back of a spoon would hold a
line when swiped with one finger.  The line didn’t close up. Then I poured
the reduction over the pears and sprinkled a little cinnamon, ginger and
nutmeg on top.  Just enough to barely see it.  Then we ate.  If you’d like
it sweeter, drop in some sugar or use a sweet wine.

Escargot En Croute
appetizers, fundamentals
1 bunch snails
1 bunch puff pastry
1 bunch butter
Actually did them a few different ways.  Puff pastry and snails
somehow seem sympathetic.

I did individual bouchees at one point, but I can’t recommend that
unless you have some prisoners of war hanging around.  About 1 out of
3 actually worked the way I wanted.  The presentation was 6 snails,
each in its own small pastry case with too much butter and seasoning.
Gorgeous but very labor intensive.

Then I did pastry boxes and dumped a dozen of them in at service.
Sautied the snails in garlicky butter with tarragon and mint and
poured them in and replaced the pastry cover.  Shipped on hot pewter
plate for some outrageous price.  They were wonderful.
The last and best was to lay out a sheet of pastry, egg wash and put
the snails down on it 3 rows, 4 columns – a dozen – separated like
ravioli filling.  Egg wash another sheet and lay over top, pressing
between snails to seal.  Crimp edges, bake at 450F and serve.  The big
deal was to put the snails in small molds, one per cup, and fill the
cups with about a tablespoon of seasoned (description above) butter.
Chill to harden and put that inside the pastry, butter and all.  It
leaks and who the hell cares.  Served on a bed of fresh herbs –
oregano, thyme, rosemary.  The hot pastry makes the herbs give off
their scents.  Maddeningly lush.

French Onion Soup – Pastorio’s version

1/2 gallon beef stock; defatted, unsalted
1/2 gallon chicken stock; defatted, unsalted
7 pounds onions; (yellow and white mixed)
1/2 cup marsala wine
2 tablespoons worcestershire sauce
salt to taste
Combine the two stocks and bring them to a very light simmer. Let them cook
for the whole time the onions are browning and reduce no more than 10%.
Peel and slice the onions thinly (1/8″) and put into a non-stick skillet on
low-medium heat. Stir every few minutes until the onions are well-browned,
up to 45 minutes. Dump the onions into the stock. Deglaze the skillet with
the marsala scraping up and brown bits and add to the pot. Add
worcestershire. Let simmer for at least Ω hour. Taste and adjust salt, if
necessary. Serve.
The most extravagant French onion soup service ever goes like this: Heat
oven to 400F. Put a slice of toasted and buttered French bread in the
bottom of an individual-service soup crock. Break an egg onto it. Gently
pour on hot soup to fill the crock. Top with another crouton and cheese.
Swiss if the classic, but I prefer provolone. Pop into the oven to melt and
very slightly brown the cheese. Serve. To eat, poke through the topping of
cheese and bread and stir the egg yolk into the soup to thicken. Drink a
bit of crisp white wine. Take a nap afterward.
###############################
My recipe for onion soup is a little different than the traditional
approach. It’s that philosophical desirable condition: the irreducible
minimum.
No butter or fat of any kind. Onions cooked until they’re dark brown.
No “sweet” onions because it’s a waste of good onions to cook them;
eat them raw for good effect. Vidalia and other such onions aren’t
more sweet than others; they’re all sweet. All onions have a lot of
sugar in them. The “sweet” ones just have less of the irritant chemicals.
Pastorio

Gilded Lily Grilled Cheese Sandwich

3 slices bread; most any kind
2 oz. blue cheese
2 oz. cheddar
2 oz. jarlsberg
3 slices tomato; nice ripe ones
1 slice ham; bread sized
1 dab horseradish mustard
And in the spirit of “If it’s worth doing, it’s worth overdoing,”
here’s  the archetypal, overdone, gilded-lily, over-the-top, grilled
cheese sandwich. Just posted info this on rec.food.cooking the other
day.[May 2004]
3 slices of bread (they don’t all have to be the same kind of bread)
buttered on one side. Put them, butter side down, in a medium-hot
skillet. Quickly put cheese on each. They must be cheddar, Jarlsberg
and crumbled blue cheese, respectively. Simultaneously with one of
your other hands, put down three slices of ripe, succulent tomato on
some other part of the skillet. With the remaining hand, put a slice
of ham (your choice) in the skillet. When the breads are nicely
browned, pick up the blue cheese one and put it on a plate. Put the
tomatoes on top and give it a quick grind of pepper. Put another slice
of the grilled and cheesed bread (either side up) on top and do a dab
of horseradish mustard spread lightly side to side. Lay the ham slice
on that. Close by putting the remaining slice of bread, cheese side
down, on top of the stack. Cut into quarters from corner to corner and
stand them up, crust side down on the plate. Like a little
cheese-filled mountain range. Run and hide before anyone knows what
you’ve done and wants some.
Grilled Cheese a la Pastorio Club Sandwich
We did this in one of my restaurants and sold a lot of them.
Typically, two slender women would order one and split it. Still left
room for dessert. <LOL>

Gravy Tactics

1 bunch flour; and/or
1 bunch corn starch
1 bunch pan juices
Flour and corn flour (or corn starch in the US) will clump when they’re
added to liquids that are hot enough to cause the starch to agglutinate
(clot).
If adding flour to hot fat with no water-based liquids (like meat juices)
in it, just dump it in and whisk.  It’ll mix in easily and forms a roux.
If adding flour to a hot mixture of fat and juices, the flour needs to be
mixed with something else cool first, whether fat or juice.  Add and whisk
and it’ll combine.
For pan gravies that use the fat and juice residue of roasting, a slurry
(water and flour) will work best.
For making gravies from fat drippings like bacon or sausage fat, just
mixing the flour with some room-temperature butter (called beurre manie in
French)and whisking that in will work.
Flour gives an opaque gravy.  Corn starches give a shiny, translucent or
even transparent gravy unless milk or cream is added.
Using stock as the liquid to extend it to a gravy adds a huge flavor boost.
Almost no matter what kind.  Any kind of rich stock added to any basic
gravy mixture will make a good gravy.
Notes:  Pastorio

Grilled Cheese Club Sandwich
cheese, ham
3 slices bread; asst.
3 slices cheese; asst
In all my operations, from fast food to white tablecloth, grilled cheese
held an honored place at the table and in the cash register.
The one that really sparkled (and was a good seller) was the grilled
cheese club sandwich. Three slices of bread, each with a different kind of
cheese, buttered on one side and grilled with the cheese
melting on top. Put slices together with all cheeses inside. Cut into
diagonal quarters and stand them points up. Pickle and chips.
Lovely.
We also did more conventional ones with two different kinds of bread or
with additions like tomato, bacon, ham, turkey, pepperoni, etc.
Pastorio

Lemon Curd

1/2 cup lemon juice
1/2 cup sugar
2 tablespoons butter
1 bunch zest of two lemons
3 egg yolks
1/2 oz orange liqueur

Put the juice, sugar and butter into a double boiler over, not in simmering
water. Heat to about 180F.   Whip the yolks and make a liaison – take a
couple tablespoons of the hot juice and whisk it into the eggs.  Dump the
egg mixture into the pan of warm juice and whisk to mix thoroughly.
Stir often. It should thicken in a few minutes.
Remove from heat, pour/spoon into a bowl and put into the fridge to cool and set.

I must give away a small secret:  put a dash of orange liqueur in there.
Maybe a half-ounce or so. It will astonish you.  Don’t tell anyone…
Pastorio

‘Member when I said I was making samples of several different curds and
would like some feedback on them.  That I’d send them to you at my cost?
‘Member that?
Funny thing.  I’ve been selling everything I could make and in a couple
flavors, am out of stock. Today, I made cases and cases of cranberry-orange
curd (cranberry juice with chopped fresh navel and chopped dried mineola
oranges) and orange-cranberry (orange juice and chopped dried mineola
oranges with chopped cranberries).
I’m producing 11 different flavors of curds and haven’t been able to stop
production long enough to make the small bottles I wanted y’all to try.  I
think I’ll be out of the woods in a few weeks. Getting a new kitchen with
considerably better production facilities.  That should help.  I’ll let
you know. <pant pant>

Lots Of Appetizers
appetizers
1 pkg tortellini
2 ea. pears; ripe
1 lb brie
Remember when Pastorio told us about his terrific clam chowder…canned
potato soup and canned minced clams? Well here are a few quick items to
consider when company drops by this weekend. These are a few of super easy
items and are my fall back things to serve if I have unexpected cocktail
company or just for us.
Tortellini skewers with Lemon Parmesan Aioli.
Cook purchased fresh tortellini, then skewer, 2 to 3 per skewer. Serve with
a dipping sauce of lemon parmesan aioli (prepared mayo, lemon juice, lemon
zest, a little minced garlic, and freshly grated Parmesan cheese whipped
together). these can be tray passed or presented on a platter on a buffet.
Warm Brie and Pear Tartlets.
Fill purchased mini tart shells with a slice of brie and finely diced ripe
pear. Sprinkle a little minced fresh thyme or lavender on each and drizzle
lightly with honey. Bake in a 375F oven for 7 to 8 minutes, until the
cheese is bubbling. Serve immediately.
Skewered Bocconcini with Prosciutto.
Start several hours before
serving. Cut thick rosemary stems (stripped of leaves) into 3 inch lengths.
Use the rosemary to skewer 1 to 2 bocconcini (fresh mozzarella balls).
Wrap and set aside for 1 to 2 hours in the fridge. Cut very good procuitto
into strips. Arrange on a baking sheet in a single layer and drizzle with
olive oil, dash of balsamic vinegar, and ground black pepper. Wrap and
refrigerate for 1 to 2 hours before using. To serve, wrap each bocconcini
with a marinated prosciutto strip.
Warm figs with gorgonzola and pecans.
Cut ripe, fresh figs in half. dust
lightly with sugar, place on a greased sheet pan and bake in at 400F oven
for about 7 minutes, until the sugar begins to color. Remove from the oven.
Use the back of a spoon to press a hollow in the center of each half. fill
the hollow with crumbled Gorgonzola cheese and top with a pecan half. When
ready to serve, return to 350F oven for 5 minutes, until the cheese begins
to melt. Serve immediately.
I also cut fresh figs into either halves or quarters depending on size and
wrap in procuitto and either saute till procuitto is crisp or do under the
broiler. These are always a hit.

Smoked Salmon and Avocado Rosettes
Mash a ripe avocado with a squeeze
of lemon juice, salt, and pepper and 1 to 2 tablespoons cream cheee or
mascarpone. Set aside in the fridge. Cut very good smoked salmon into 4 x 1
inch strips. cut firm dark bread, such as German rye, into small squares.
Wrap each salmon strip around the end of your finger, then sit this roll,
standing upright on the bread. Drop a spoon of avocado mousse in the middle
and gently spread the edges of the salmon back to form a “rosette.”
Garnish with a sprig of dill or a sprinkle of cumin seeds.
Corn Muffins with smoked turkey and Jalapeno Jelly.
Purchase mini corn muffins. Slice almost in half and spread one side
generously with japapeno jelly and the other with softened butter. Fill
with finely sliced smoked turkey breast and some watercress.
Domades (Stuffed Grape Leaves) Drain purchased dolmades. Drizzle with
fresh lemon juice and extra virgin olive oil. season with black pepper
and minced cilantro, mint, or parsley; toss to coat. Garnish with
roasted red peppers and pine nuts.

Lemon Basil Crostini
Slice a baguette into very thin rounds. Dry out on a sheet pan in a 300F
oven for about 10 minutes. Meanwhile, in a food processor, puree 2
tablespoons cream cheese, 1/4 cup soft unsalted butter, 1/3 cup grated
Parmesan cheese, 1/4 cup fresh lemon juice, pinch lemon peel, pinch sugar,
pinch granulated garlic, 1 tablespoon minced basil, and salt and white
pepper to taste. Spread generously on baguette slices and bake in a 350F
oven about 10 minutes, until bubbling and crispy.

Olivada with focaccia
In a food processor, puree 2 to 3 cups of plump pitted black olives such as
kalamata. When smooth, drizzle in 2 to 3 tablespoons EVOO. Add a splash of
Cognac and a generous amount of coarsely ground black pepper. Serve with
sliced focaccia or baguette.

Mafalde w/ Seafood · la Bob Pastorio
1 bunch home made pasta; prepared as below
1 grupo mariscos mezclados
1 litro court bouillon; o mas
1 bunch sherry
1 bunch butter
Use semolina flour to make the pasta with sherry wine which has been
reduced by about one third. Roll it out to maybe the middle thickness, lay
it out on a tabletop and arrange parsley leaves (no stems) about an inch
apart on half its length. Fold the other half back over it and run it
through the machine, thinning it to about 2 or 3 thicknesses from the thin
setting. Cut it with a sharp knife or a pizza cutter into strips about an
inch wide. Cut diagonally to pappardella width.
Poach the mariscos in court bouillon for their average times. Meanwhile,
melt some butter and whisk in some sherry or marsala and a bit of salt and
pepper. Lift the seafood out of the poaching liquid and drop into the
butter. Toss and hold just warm (about 140∫ F) until the pasta is ready.
Toss the pasta with the mariscos and portion out. Garnish with finely
chopped parsley.

Mayonnaise (discussion thereon)
1  egg
1  oil
1/8  vinegar
Chloe Parrott wrote:
>
> I would imagine that one of the main issues here is that food
> processor/hand blender mayonnaise is easier made with whole eggs
> and hand-made mayonnaise (whisk, fork, spoon, finger if you’re
> desperate 🙂 ) can *only* be made with egg yolks. Correct me if
> I’m wrong, but that has been my experience. How easy is it to make
> *real* (egg yolk) mayonnaise successfully in a food processor?
Easier than using traditional methods. And with more control over
thickness of the finished product.
Either one can be made either way. I like whole egg mayonnaise better.
Broader flavor and texture profile.
> I would also consider egg yolk mayonnaise and whole egg mayonnaise
> to be very different sauces. I make both, but for quite different
> purposes. I always make mayonnaise with 100% olive oil – about
> 3-quarters a very light oil that I buy in Spain and 1-quarter
> normal good Portuguese oil – I’ve given up buying non-olive oil,
it tastes so horrid. Then again, I do have a good local supply … :-)))
Different applications call for different oils. A full-flavor garlic
mayonnaise (aioli and the like) demand fruity olive oil. A lighter
mayo for, say, a grilled fish salad suits my tastes better if made
with an oil with more mild flavor notes. Walnut oil or maybe a
grapeseed/canola combination.

Mayonnaise ..Pastorio’s
1 ea. egg
1 ea. oil
1 ea. lemon juice
1 ea. mustard; dry
The Kid and I make ours. Whole eggs, salt, dry mustard, lemon juice, oil.
It’ll last months in the fridge.
Sometimes, vinegar instead of lemon juice. Other times, pureed garlic or
pureed roasted peppers added. Different oils. Last time, I used a dash of
truffle oil with the walnut and olive oils.
We use our wand blender to make it. A minute and 30 seconds start to
finish.
Clarification:
Yep. One whole egg, tablespoon lemon juice, teaspoon salt, teaspoon dry
mustard, cup oil.
If using a wand blender, add all the ingredients in that order to a tall,
narrow vessel (mine came with one – holds maybe 3 cups and is about 3 1/2
inches across the bottom). Put the blender end all the way to the bottom
and turn it on. Leave it there for about 10 seconds, then slowly pull it
up. Mayo. If you want it thicker, add another egg (or just a yolk) or cut back on the
oil.

Meringue Rounds
2 ea. egg whites
1/3 cup nuts, pecans or almonds
3 tablespoons sugar
1Ω teaspoons corn starch
º cup sugar
1 pinch cream of tartar
If I make plain meringue rounds, I generally figure about 3 1/2 whites from
large eggs (a tablespoon or two less than 1/2 cup) plus twice the volume
of sugar and a pinch of cream or tartar per layer. If I do the classic
recipe with finely  ground nuts (1/3 cup plus about 3 tablespoons sugar and
about 1 1/2 teaspoons corn starch)), I cut it back to about 2 whites and
1/4 cup sugar per layer.
So five layers will need about 17-18 whites from large eggs, if plain
meringue. 10 whites if nutty. I usually use a pastry bag with a 1/2″ tip to
pipe it out. Draw an 8″ circle on a piece of parchment and turn it over.
Pipe out the round starting in the center and piping a widening spiral
until the circle is filled. I bake them in a 200F oven  for a couple hours
and then turn the oven off and leave them in there. If I’m not using them
within about 18 hours, I put them into bags and vacuum seal them.
The nutty one is more interesting.

Morels In Puff Pastry
1 bunch morels; sliced
1 bunch puff pastry
1 bunch beef stock
1 pinch marsala wine
1 pinch cream
Recipe is like this:  Morels (however many you have), sliced and simmered
in beef stock.  I added a bit of Marsala wine.  If you want to get crazy,
add some cream.  Chill.  Put into bowls, brush the rims with beaten egg.
Brush a sheet of puff pastry with egg and stretch it across the top of the
bowl (egg side in) and press firmly around the edge to weld it on.  Brush
it with egg on top and pop into the fridge.  After about 20 minutes, pop
into a 400F oven and bake for about 20 minutes.  The puff pastry will
inflate into a dome.  You’ll smell nothing. Bring to the table and sit each
person’s bowl on a trivet or potholder.  Poke a hole in the pastry and the
whole neighborhood will smell like mushrooms.  Eat the soup and sit and
talk to yourself.  The rest of the evening will be anticlimactic.

Old-Style Beignets
1 cup milk
2 tablespoons butter
4 tablespoons sugar
1/2 teaspoon salt
1  egg, beaten
3 cups flour
1 package yeast
oil for frying
Heat milk over low heat in a saucepan and add butter, sugar, and salt,
mixing well to dissolve. Remove from heat and cool to lukewarm. Stir in
egg. In a large bowl or the bowl of an electric mixer, mix together half
of the flour and yeast. Add milk mixture and beat for 5 minutes or so.
Gradually add remaining flour. When the dough forms a ball, put it in a
greased bowl, turning dough to coat. Cover and chill in the refrigerator
for 4 hours or overnight. Pat dough onto a floured pastry cloth or
wooden board. Cover and let stand for 10 minutes. Roll out dough and cut
into rectangles (2X2, 3X3, etc.). Cover and let rest for 15-20 minutes.
Deep fry dough in 365∞F oil, a few at a time until golden on both sides.
Drain on paper towels and finish with powdered sugar.
**Dough may be kept in the fridge for a few days or cut and frozen.
Pastorio
Makes about 2 dozen)
** Exported from Now You’re Cooking! v5.87 **
@@@@@ Now You’re Cooking! Export Format
One Potato, Two Potato, …….
vegetables, fundamentals, side dish
1 lb. russett potatoes; cut up
1 lb. sweet potatoes; cut up
1 pint chicken stock
1/2 cup cheap white wine
Riced potatoes have a splendidly different texture.  I like to use the
ricer when I’m adding stuff to the potatoes like roasted garlic or roasted
red peppers.  I did a white-sweet potato combination that way recently that
was heavenly to look at and amazing to eat.  Cut the two kinds of potatoes
into 3/4-inch cubes (about a pound of each) and simmered them together in
light chicken stock with a splash of cheap white wine.  I put a big dab of
butter in the cooking water.  Drained and put them into the ricer bin and
pressed away.  Got these pretty swirls of the two different colors. Sprayed
them with clarified butter I’d sautÇed mushrooms in.

Pastorio’s Lemon Curd
1/2 cup lemon juice
1/2 cup sugar
2 tbsp butter
zest of 2 lemons
3 large egg yolks
Put the juice, sugar and butter into a double boiler over, not in
simmering water. Heat to about 180F.   Whip the yolks and make a
liaison – take a couple tablespoons of the hot juice and whisk it into
the eggs.  Dump the egg mixture into the pan of warm juice and whisk
to mix thoroughly. Stir often. It should thicken in a few minutes.
Remove from heat, pour/spoon into a bowl and put into the fridge to
cool and set.
I must give away a small secret:  put a dash of orange liqueur in
there.  Maybe a half-ounce or so.  It will astonish you.  Don’t tell
anyone…
Another easy one:  use a lemon zester that cuts the peel into small
threads.  Easier than grating unless you like blood and little shreds
of knuckle-skin mixed in with the peel.  Then cut and juice the lemon.

Pastorio’s Pasta Salad Information
1 pounds pasta; cooked
vinaigrette
1 bunch other stuffs
Cook pasta, drain (rinse or not, I probably wouldn’t with this approach)
and toss immediately with your vinaigrette dressing made separately.  Ratio
of oil to vinegar for a
classic vinaigrette normally is between 2:1 oil to vinegar, and 4:1 oil to
vinegar.
1/3 roasted garlic grapeseed, 1/3 basil (or other herb-flavored, less if
rosemary) olive oil and 1/3 very light olive oil. (Heavy/fruity olive oils
will overwhelm the other flavors. Lower quality oils will have more acid,
and so provide a bit more sparkle. I usually use “pure” oo or pomice for
such applications. The oil isn’t a star, just a supporting player.)  –
total of 1 to 1 1/2 cup.
1/3 blood orange vinegar, 1/3 basil vinegar, 1/3 apple cider vinegar.
Optionally, whisk in a tablespoon or two of tomato paste (those tubes of it
are very handy), roasted red pepper puree, or a tablespoon of roasted
garlic puree. – total of 1/2 cup.
If you want the dressing to remain more integral, whisk an egg into the vinegars before combining them with the oils – the acid will kill the unlikely salmonella, as it does in mayonnaise – and add the oil as for a
mayonnaise. Dry mustard can be used with or instead of egg for that emulsification, but it won’t be as binding by itself.
I’d figure about 1 1/2 or 2 cups of dressing per raw-weight pound of pasta because a good bit of it will be absorbed, and you’re adding other stuff later that will need to be coated. Maybe reserve a bit of it to add at the end to insure coverage of tomatoes, basil and whatever else you decide to add.
I might add some chopped (peeled and seeded) cucumber for a fruitier flavor. I’ve added chopped melon to similar salads and it adds a few flavor notes that are surprising and pleasant. Chopped, roasted oil-packed red peppers. My approach would be to add layers of flavor and small fireworks to what most people see as “picnic food” so they’re positively surprised and wondering why they never thought of it. Drained capers or, even way better, caper berries with stems still attached. Scatter the berries over top for presentation. Most people won’t know what they are, and when the first one asks, the salad will occupy center stage in everyone’s mind until they know. And there will be more questions. Answer them with your best “aw, shucks, it weren’t nothin” imitation. You don’t have to *be* sincere. You just have to *act* sincere.
Bring recipe cards to sell to the startled public. I’d go at least $2.95  each.

Pig Candy
2 lbs bacon; 3/8 inch thick
1/4 cup brown sugar
Another variant: I have dry-cured bacon custom-cut at a country market near here to about 3/8″ thick – about twice as thick “thick-cut” bacon from the supermarkets.
On a rack over a baking pan, I lay the bacon out flat, single layer, not touching. About 45 minutes at 250F leaves behind a pan full of bacon fat and strips of bacon that feel like pig-flavored wisps; very light. The
strips have had virtually all the fat rendered. Next, out of the oven and pour off the fat (to save for another day).
Loosen the strips from the rack (if necessary) and either pile with brown sugar or trickle a generous amount of honey along their lengths. Back into the oven to let the sweetness melt into the bacon. Maybe ½ hour this time. It’s now *inside* the bacon.
But I think those chopped pecans sound very good. Very good, indeed.oking!

Pommes Dauphine
1 lb. potatoes
1/2 stick butter
1 whole egg
2 ea. egg yolks
salt and pepper
1 grate nutmeg
—-1 Recipe for Choux Paste—-
This is a stepped-down version of what we did in the restaurants. The choux paste recipe is in text below.
Peel, boil, drain well, and mash a generous pound of potatoes (start with maybe 20-22 ounces before peeling). Add 1/2 stick of butter, salt, pepper and a grating of nutmeg. Whip in one whole egg and two yolks and let cool. This should be about 1Ω pounds.
Meanwhile make a choux paste with milk, butter, flour and eggs.
To the potato mixture, add about 1/3 of its weight in chou, mix well and let cool. This should come to about 2 pounds total.
Shape the mixture into (a lot of) little balls (perhaps an ounce or an ounce and a half each), roll in flour and deep fry at 360∫F. Drain well, sprinkle with salt. Serve in a pile or as a garnish for other foods.
Pastorio
Make the choux paste in the usual way. 1 cup water, 1 stick butter, 1 cup flour cooked together then add 4 eggs, one at a time.

Puff Pastry Ideas And Techniques
1 bunch flour
1 cup water
4 lbs. Butter
Depends on the use. For most applications, I do 3 turns which gives 54 layers. I use this for Napoleons, tops of pot pies and the like where I don’t want a spectacular rise. Typically, I get about 1 1/2 inches from a
1/4-inch thick raw dough.
For turnovers, bouchees and vol-au-vents (both classic and modern), I do a 4th turn for 162 layers. Something over 2 inches finished from a 1/4-inch sheet. For the classic vol, I stack two layers of pastry (egg washed between) or even 3 layers on occasion. The 3-layer approach is extremely fussy, though, and I wouldn’t recommend it without a commercial convection oven.
For applications where the ingredients are on the wet side (like a Wellington), I do a 5th turn, egg wash the inside, let it dry (washed side up) in the fridge and wash it again at time of use. This dough will be thick – about 3/8-inch. Almost 500 layers. For a whole filet, I vent the pastry (close to the ends so the center looks good) to let some of the steam out and keep it from sogging. For individual Wellingtons, no vent because it goes more quickly and purges less liquid. One thing I used to do in the restaurants was to sear the filet, cool it and dust the surfaces with corn starch before assembling. The starch absorbed and held juices so the meat was more flavorful and the pastry didn’t have to contend with as much thin liquid.
I use the 5-turn pastry for the individual portion of onion soup or clear mushroom soup (originally done with truffles!) lid. Put the cold soup in a deep bowl, brush the outer rim of the bowl with egg wash, egg wash a sheet of puff pastry and lay it washed side down on the bowl and smear it onto the rim and outer edge. Egg wash the top and bake in a 400∞F oven until the pastry forms a golden-brown dome. The steam from the soup creates a pressure under the pastry and forces it up into a wonderfully rounded shape. When it comes to the table, you can’t smell it. Poke a hole in the pastry and the room fills with the bouquet of what’s in the bowl. Works best with thin but richly-scented soups.

Rapid Lemon Glaze (Or Almost Any Flavor)
1/2 cup orange juice concentrate
1/2 cup lemon juice
tablespoon corn starch
Ok.  Now don’t tell anybody, but here’s the quickest orange-lemon sauce I’ve ever heard of.  It’s just you and me here and this is a restaurant secret.
Combine in a stainless or glass saucepan, whisk and bring to a gentle boil.  Chill and do whatever you want with it.  Have a friend nearby.
Adjust the balance of flavors, thickness and temperature to suit yourself.  Promise you won’t tell anybody…
Oh, you can radically change the whole thing by using different juice concentrates and juices.  Orange-tangerine and pineapple.  Cranberry and cranberry.  Pineapple and coconut milk (and a dash of rum).  Any
more ideas?  I haven’t done these different ones, but there’s no reason why they couldn’t work.
That pineapple, coconut and rum sauce might just be wonderful over a tembleque or a Spanish-style flan.  Or on your thumb.  Have a friend nearby.

Roast From Pastorio
10 lb. roast
1 batch brine
1/2 cup seasoning mix
Quote – I like Barbara Kafka’s way of roasting – from her book of the same name. Starts it at 500 degrees for about 15 minutes, then at 325 for about 3 minutes a pound, then for 10 minutes at 450∞F. It’s a little fussy, but it sure makes a great roast.
Even better, before you cook the meat, rub and/or press on some of your favorite spices and herbs with a little garlic salt and pepper (the only way I like garlic salt – if you use fresh garlic, it singes and tastes bitter).
After roasting, deglaze the pan with a little red wine, add beef stock and thicken for a lovely, rich gravy. End quote –
Or do a brine, roast at low temperatures and get more meat out of the oven that’s tender, juicy and intensely flavorful.
Brine for 24 hours (boneless) or 36 hours (bone in).
Season with white pepper, salt and garlic powder – equal amounts of each for a total of roughly 1/2 cup for a 10 pound roast.
Roast at 250∞F in a conventional oven or 205 in convection on a rack.
There won’t be any pan juices. The meat will come out at 85% or more of the weight that went in the oven. High temperature roasting will take it down as low as 55%.
Low temp roasting won’t give that dark crusted exterior that high temp roasting will. IF you want that, crank the oven as high as it’ll go for the last 15 minutes or so.
Pull the meat out of the oven at 125∞F for rare, 130 to 135 for med rare, 140 to 145 for med, cooking the meat to 160 is a felony. Let it rest for 15 minutes and carve away. — Bob

Roasted Pork Shoulder
7-8 lbs. pork shoulder
1 tbsp garlic powder
1 tbsp seasoned salt
I buy essentially all the meat we consume at Costco. The
shoulders aren’t injected with anything  (“enhanced” like it
says on the packages in most supermarkets). They’re packaged
two to a pack. Most often, I do one each way below.
I do shoulders to pull in a covered roaster (my mother’s old
speckled blue one) at 220F until it gets to 195F. Takes
quite a while. I season lightly with equal parts garlic
powder (NOT garlic salt), ground white pepper and a seasoned
salt (Lawry’s or McCormick’s). We add sauce at service, and
I used to make my own, but nowadays, we use Cattleman’s
brand. The meat will purge a good amount of liquid, and it’s
a good basis for a gravy or sauce extension. I pour it off
into a saucepan, reduce it to about 1/3 of its original
volume and add it to some sauce. Sometimes I add a bit of
cornstarch to give it enough body. Combine the juices and
sauce and carry on…
As roasts, I do them on a rack over an open roasting pan,
usually in my convection oven (210-220F), but also in the
conventional one (225-235), at low temp and seasoned the
same way as the wet-cooked one.  I cook it to 140 and let it
rest for maybe 20 minutes before cutting. The meat will be
slightly pink and a good many people just can’t abide it
that way. They don’t have to eat it. I have a restaurant
meat slicer, and use it to break down the roast. Thinly
sliced and  stacked up deep on a good Kaiser roll…
amazing. After that first meal, I chill the roast and then
slice it. Back into the fridge wrapped in wax paper inside a
sealed plastic container. When it’s time to have another
sandwich or whatever, a single portion of the meat can be
quickly heated in the nuker and it comes back to a wonderful
succulence. Moist, tender and with all the flavor of
old-time pork.
Yowzaa…

Roasted Potatoes By Pastorio
3 lb. potatoes, red or white
4 tbsp. olive oil
1 tsp. salt
1/2 tsp. pepper
2 tbsp. rosemary; minced
2 cloves garlic; minced
1 dash white wine
Small potatoes of any variety (like 3 pounds or so) or even some red
and some white, cut into quarters to serve 4 people. In a bowl large
enough to toss them, pour in a couple tablespoons of olive oil (or
enough to get it done), a teaspoon salt, maybe 1/2 teaspoon freshly
ground pepper, a couple good tablespoons rosemary leaves (finely
chopped), a couple cloves of garlic (smashed and very finely minced)
and a dash of white wine. Stir all that stuff together and drop in
the spuds. Stir to coat the potatoes and dump the whole business
onto a baking sheet. 350F for, like, 35 or 40 minutes. Just getting
golden and tender to the point of a paring knife.
I like to cut an onion or two into big chunks and add it. Sometimes,
some celery and carrot for a sorta mirepoix to go with juicy beef
roasts. Done it a few times with a bunch of other veggies in
addition to the potatoes. Pepper chunks, sweet potatoes cut into
thick rounds, thick-sliced squashes, woody asparagus (peeled and cut
into 3-inch chunks).

Rueben Sandwich
sandwiches
2 slices rye bread; chewy and light
5 oz. corned beef, thinly sliced
8 oz. sauerkraut; 5 oz. when squeezed dry
2 slices swiss cheese
4 tbsp russian dressing
1 bunch butter
The bread: Light rye, dark rye, pumpernickel, swirl rye, white, French.  I
use a chewy, light rye.
Cheese: Swiss, processed Swiss (basically, white American cheese – melts
well), half Swiss and
half Provolone.  I use Swiss.
Corned beef.  5 to 6 ounces, thinly sliced.
Sauerkraut: about 8 ounces before I squeeze most of the juice out.  About 5
ounces drained.
Dressing: Russian, Thousand Island, sweet mustards.  I use Russian.  Maybe
a total of 3 or 4
tablespoons.
Build it.  Butter (brush with melted) one side of the bread and drop onto a
hot griddle or skillet.
Lay cheese on both slices of bread.  Grab a good handful of sauerkraut and
squeeze most of the
juice out.  Drop on the griddle. Flatten with a spatula so it heats more
evenly.  By now, the
cheese should be melting. Drop the corned beef slices on the griddle and
push them around just
enough to heat them.  Put half the meat on each slice of bread.  Spread or
squirt about an ounce
or two Russian dressing evenly over both sides.  Put the sauerkraut on one
slice of bread and
cover with the other slice.  Remove from the griddle, cut and serve.
Voila.  Another guy’sReuben.

Scallop Ideas
1 bunch scallops
1 bunch butter
14 cloves garlic
1 splash marsala; or sherry
Sounds WONDERFUL. No cream around though, but scallops are on sale, so
will probably get more Saturday.  Guess I’ll just have to get some cream
too, and give this a try.  Thanks.
Joan
Bob Pastorio wrote:
Pour about a half-inch of heavy cream into a skillet and crank the heat.
Smash a clove of garlic and add it. Bring it to a boil and let it reduce
to about 1/3 of the original amount. Scoop out the garlic and drop in
the scallops. They’ll release some juice and thin the cream a bit. After
about two minutes, scoop out the scallops with a slotted spoon and
reduce the cream again. A small splash of sherry or marsala, swirl and
pour over the scallops. Salt and pepper or a sprinkle of caviar.

Sometimes I add a few oysters, mussels, calamari and/or shrimp at the
last minute. Last time I added some artichoke hearts, too.

Good bread to dip into the sauce, chilly dry white wine. Small salad
with a mild vinaigrette. Strawberries in Cointreau for dessert.

“It is much easier to be critical than to be correct.”
Benjamin Disraeli

Short Ribs In The Pressure Cooker
1 bunch shorts ribs
1 bunch seasoned flour
1 splash red wine
1 bunch celery
1 bunch carrots
1 bunch potatoes
1 bunch onions
I do short ribs nowadays in my pressure cooker. Dredge in seasoned flour
and brown in the bottom of the cooker. A good splash of red wine and close
it up. 10 pounds pressure for, oh, maybe a half hour. Take off the heat
until pressure is gone. Skim off most of the fat. Check the meat for
tenderness. If still toughish, another 30 minutes under pressure. If
tenderish, about 15 minutes. Taste the liquid and adjust seasonings if
necessary. Add chunks of celery, carrots, onions and potatoes. Close it
back up. Back on the heat. Start timing when pressure hisses the first
time. Serve everything in a big bowl with lots of bread to dunk, big jugs
of craggy red wine and room-sized napkins.
It helps if you can provide a place to take a nice nap for your guests.
Did something by mistake that turned out wonderfully. People over for
dinner, foodies all, who each did some cooking to get dinner ready. I had
some rendered goose fat in the fridge and asked one of the “chefs” to get
it out for a pan gravy from the capon we were roasting. He mistakenly got
the bacon fat I had saved and did it instead with that. Added some flour to
make a roux and finished it with the pan juices from the chicken, some
milk, seasonings and a splash of wine. Wonderful. The bacon fat didn’t
flavor it as strongly as I would have expected and it did add a rich note
to it all.
Guess I need to label my fridge stuff, huh? — Bob Pastorio

Shrimp Flied Lice (2)
2 cups rice; cooked
2 ea. eggs; beaten with a bit of wat
6 ea scallions; chopped
2 cloves garlic; minced
1 bunch soy sauce
1 bunch oil
1 bunch shrimp
Don’t tell anybody that I cook for myself this way.
Cooked white rice, I dunno, a few cups.  An egg or two, beaten with a
tablespoon or two of water..  Soy sauce.  Cooking oil (not olive).  Maybe
some scallions or green onions or maybe some other kind of onions.  A clove
or two of garlic, mashed and minced.  Ground ginger. Pinch of sugar
(optional).   However many shrimp you have, peeled.  If large, cut in
smaller pieces.  Or, if large, present on top of the rice for each diner.
Pretty.
Heat the oil (some! couple tablespoons, maybe) in a big skillet and sautÈ
the onions until limp and then add the garlic.  Cook for a minute or two.
Throw in the rice and flip the skillet around to get it all moving so it
won’t stick (non-stick is good).  Drizzle in some soy sauce, flipping and
watching.  When it’s the color you want, stop pouring in soy sauce.  Flip
it around some more. to mix it well.  Sprinkle on enough ginger.  Taste.
See if it needs any more of these things.
The eggs… can either be done as scrambled eggs in a separate skillet or
cooked with the rice.  If separate, cook just until set, turn out onto a
cutting board, chop and throw in to the rice.  If cooking with the rice,
stir furiously to keep the fragments small. With the second method, the egg
will stick to the rice.
Taste.  Everything good?  Ok, toss the shrimp in and flip/stir to get them
under the hot rice.  The shrimp will be cooked in a minute ot two.  Serve.
Is it authentically Chinese?  Hmmmph.  Does it taste good?  Yes.  Cooking
will take 10 minutes all together, including the onion.
Do I own many good Chinese cookbooks?  Of course.  Do I consult them?  Yes.
For this kind of dish?

Shrimp-Crab Sandwiches, Sorta…
1 cup crabmeat
15 ea. shrimp; u-15 size
1 tsp. lemon juice
º tsp. garlic powder
1 tsp. old bay seasoning
2 tbsp. bread crumbs
3 tbsp. mayonnaise
Get the biggest ones you can find (Costco sells U-15 and they’ll work
brilliantly), peel (but leave the tails connected). You’ll want
between 4 and maybe 8 for each person – so a pound of shrimp in the
shell. We’re going to butterfly them, but not the usual way. Cut them
from the inside of the curve, the belly side, almost through, but
still connected at the back. It’s now butterflied. Set them aside for
a moment.
Mix the crabmeat with the mayo, lemon juice, garlic powder, Old Bay, and
bread crumbs. Mix together everything but the crabmeat to get it
evenly combined and then gently fold in the crabmeat.
Take a shrimp and lay it on it’s uncut back. Pile on a couple tablespoons
crab mixture and top with another shrimp, tail facing the
opposite direction, smooshing it together so it’s a nice, tight package.
Wrap with appropriate-sized strip of bacon and pick to hold
it closed. Pancetta works, well, too as does prosciutto or country ham.
Broil, turning a few times to heat evenly. Serve with a small bowl of lemon
butter, some bubbly and a place to lie down.
t
Spaghetti Squash Procedures
1 ea spaghetti squash
1 bunch ginger
1 bunch nutmeg
1 tiny-dash cinnamon
1 tinier-dash clove
Nuke the squash until it is soft.
Yep. Forgot about that.
Cook it like that, add cinnamon, ginger, nutmeg and a tiny dash of clove
and it’s grand. Serve warm. On a low-carb program, you can either top it
with a bit of whipped cream or just pour some cream over it.
Fake squash pie, low-carb style: Make a crust of finely chopped almonds
and butter. Cook the squash to the mushy stage, whisk together a couple
eggs, some cream and seasonings and add to the squash. Pour into shell
and bake until lightly set. Goes nicely fast if you cook the squash and
continue on directly to the pie-making stages.

Spaghetti w/ Shrimp al Cartoccio
1 lb spaghetti or linguini
2 tablespoon butter for spaghetti; melted
2 tablespoon olive oil
1 clove garlic; minced
1 teaspoon salt
1 cup mushrooms; chopped
2 strips bacon (4 Tbsp); cooked and crumbled
2 tablespoon butter; melted
2 oz white wine
2-3 lb small shrimp; peeled, deveined
Heat oven to 450∫F.
Cook pasta in salted water for 5 minutes and not longer. Drain and toss with butter. Hold aside.
Put oil and garlic in a skillet and cook for 5 minutes. Add salt and mushrooms and cook until the mushroom liquid is almost gone.
Add remaining ingredients and heat through-no more than 2 minutes. Remove from heat. Put the pasta and all of the sauce in parchment* and bake for 12 minutes.
*Note: A simple paper bag or aluminum foil can be used for this process. Yield: 6 servings

Spatzle
2 large eggs
Ω cups water; or a bit more
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon baking powder
1Ω cups flour
Beat eggs and 1/2 cup water together. Stir in dry ingredients. If too stiff, add a bit more water, a teaspoon at a time. Test by pushing through a ricer. It should move easily, but still require a good grip. Over a pot of boiling water, squeeze dough through the ricer, cutting it off in 1/2 to 3/4 inch lengths until all dough is in the pot. When they all come to the top, they’re ready. Scoop them out, drain and toss with butter. Serve. A good gravy over top doesn’t hurt them at all.
Gnocchi dough with potato works well with a ricer, too. It doesn’t result in anything that looks like traditional gnocchi, but it’s good.

Stocks #2 By Bob
1 bunch bones
1 bunch vegetables
1 bunch water
I don’t know where that notion that roasting meats, bones and veggies makes for cloudy stock.  It isn’t so.  Cooking stock ingredients before simmering has a long tradition in both home and haute cuisine.
Searing veggies adds a bit of color and additional flavor notes. Stock is cloudy if it’s boiled, not skimmed, not defatted or if solids are left in – not filtered.  Or some combination.
I routinely roast chickens before making stock (and sometimes a leg and thigh accidentally get eaten before they make it to the stockpot) and season them lightly with salt, pepper and garlic.  Much of the fat
is rendered, skin is crisped and the meats become firm.  I cut it up and put into just enough water to cover, sometimes with a mirepoix (celery, carrot and onion but no turnip or potato) and sometimes not.
And, again, sometimes, the mirepoix is roasted, or sweated or even just raw.
Each variation will give a different finish.  To get the true flavor of stocks, somewhere near the end, it needs to be salted.  Even very rich stocks (reduced or reinforced) have flavor notes that don’t appear until salt is added.  It needn’t be a lot of salt, but the difference is astonishing with and without salt.
Bones add a wonderful darkness of flavor and a good ratio for beef stock is 3 units of bones to one of meat.  Since I make it in large quantity, it’s 10-12 pounds of bones to 3-4 pounds of meat.  I usually use one of the cheap cuts and leave it whole – some chuck cut, usually.  Local meatcutters are happy to provide bones for the purpose – one calls them “dog bones.”  I roast bones and meat at 450F in a flat roasting pan.  After a couple hours, I throw in the veggies and let them roast to a good brown color.  Pour off the fat (it’s usually
scorched and not very tasty) and dump everything in enough water to cover.  Low heat and let it go for maybe 24 hours, skimming whenever I happen to be nearby and adding liquid as needed.  Water, wine, tomato juice… whatever the moment offers.
If I’m making a clear broth, I take pains to skim very deliberately. When it reaches the place I want it to be, I gently pour through 3 or 4 layers of cheesecloth in a chinois.  Solids are useless for anything else.  Sometimes I give the meats to my cats and they seem to like it.  Can’t hurt.  I don’t often do the traditional “clearmeat” approach with ground meat and egg.  Too fussy for any but the most elaborate exercise.  Still, filtering through cheesecloth makes for a good stock.  Do that a few times and it really sparkles.
If I’m using is as a soup base, I filter once to get the pieces out and that’s it.  For risotto or similar dishes, I filter only through a colander so that small bits are still in there.  I like what it looks and tastes like.  Adds tiny bits to the bite as well.
At home, I use a crockpot to reduce stocks.  Set it to medium and leave the lid off.  Let it go all night.  The surface doesn’t even ripple.  The whole house smells grand

Stocks By Bob
1 bunch bones
1 bunch water
1 bunch bay leaves
1 bunch celery; chopped
1 bunch onion; chopped
1 bunch carrot; chopped
I’d suggest not boiling the stock hard or at all.  That guarantees a cloudy stock.  A very gentle simmer (so the surface “laughs” as a French chef would say) and frequent skimming make a clear and
intensely flavored stock.
Enriching the flavor of stock by precooking the meats or vegetables offers a possibility of greater intensity and fullness of flavor. Roast beef meat and bones and the veggies (celery, carrot and onion) in a hot oven to deeply brown them.  The resulting stock will have the color and flavor of the Maillard reactions (the name of all the things that happen when foods brown) to add to the basic flavor of the meats.
Sweat the chicken first.  Likewise veal.  Same with the veggies. Start fish stock with trimmings and bones in cold water over low heat.
Skimming and filtering make for the clearest and richest-tasting stocks.  The ice cube approach has been in common currency for decades.  It works fine.  If you operate according to a fixed recipe and reduce to a fixed amount, you can freeze stock in concentrated portion size.  Maybe one cube makes a cup of broth or some other amount you find useful.
Stock cubes and other commercial preparations are approximations of what real stock tastes like.  Sometimes the approximation is a long way off.

Stracotto Di Manzo Al Ginepro (Beef With Juniper Berries)
2 tbsp extra virgin olive oil
1Ω cups onions; thinly sliced
2 pounds beef chuck; cut in 2 or 3 pieces
1 tsp juniper berries; crushed
2 tbsp red wine vinegar
1 tsp salt
Ω tsp black pepper
Put the olive oil and the sliced onions in a heavy-bottomed pot and set the meat on top. Add the juniper berries and vinegar, and season with salt and pepper. Turn the heat on to medium low and put then lid on.
When you hear bubbling, adjust the heat so that meat cooks at a very gentle simmer. Cover the pot. Simmer for about two hours, or until the meat is extremely tender when prodded with a fork. You can begin
checking it after an hour and a half. When the meat is done the sauce should be thick enough to coat a spoon. If it is too thin, remove the meat and raise the heat a bit until it has reduced.
NOTES:
1) Juniper berries – to crush, put them on a cutting board or counter and press on them with a heavy pot, or put them into a zipper bag and gently hit them with a meat hammer.
2) If you canít find juniper berries, two tablespoons of gin will work as well.
3) Crockpot – This can be done in a crockpot set to a temperature that will let the juices very gently simmer.
4)This stracotto may be prepared up to 3 days ahead of time and reheated over gentle heat with a few tablespoons of water or red wine.
5) Variations – Add a tablespoon of tomato paste after removing the meat, stirring it into the pan liquids; add a few sliced mushrooms to the pot for the additional flavor; use a boneless leg of lamb or a game meat roast instead of beef.

Tempura Batter
1-1/2 cups ap flour
1/2 cup corn starch
1-1/2 tsp baking powder
1 large egg
1 cup ice water
Combine dry ingredients, mixing well. Whisk together egg and water, dump into dry and stir just to combine. There should be lumps. Dip dry veggies into batter and drop into 365∞F oil. They’re done
when browned at the edges or whenever you decide.
For wet ingredients like fish or meats, dredge them in flour first, then dip in batter and finish as desired.
Variations On Whipped Cream
1 cup cream
1 bunch other stuff
Has anyone tried a mustard or horseradish whipped cream on smoked salmon? I’m thinking of the SS on crackers and normally topped with crÍme fraiche, capers and a sliver of red onion. Would the flavored whipped cream, instead of crÍme fraiche, be over the top?
—————————-
Bob wrote:
Of course it’s over the top. What could be better? How about incorporate the horseradish, capers and onion, very finely minced or even pureed, into the whipped cream? Want to really, really take it over the top? Add a bit of finely minced smoked salmon to the whipped cream and fold in a bit of caviar – both red and  black…
Gorgonzola (or any blue-veined cheese) dressing for salad – comprised of whipped cream (a cup of liquid cream, whipped to full volume and then put into a sieve over a bowl in the fridge to let any whey drip out – couple hours). After draining, put whipped cream into a bowl and stir 1/2 to ¾ cup (or however much suits you) crumbled gorgonzola into it. Let sit for 12 hours or overnight. Stunning on salads or as a dip for fruit…
Whipped cream drained like that with finely minced smoked salmon, a dash of lemon juice, grate of black pepper, and a sprinkle of minced fresh dill is an astonishing spread… (ground ginger optional)
That technique of whipping the cream and holding it in a sieve or strainer for a while to let any loose liquid drain out means it’ll be simultaneously light and more dense than if left undrained. Incorporating other flavors into it then is easy. I’d run those other ingredients in a processor and fold them in to the whipped cream.
Think of other flavors to do that with… Ground or fresh ginger to put on top of, oh, I dunno, pumpkin pie? Cinnamon, clove, allspice, nutmeg on top of hot apple pie. Others…?
Veloute Sauce
3 cups reduced chicken stock
6 tablespoon flour
6 tablespoon Butter
Begin with a good stock and reduce it to 2/3 volume. Cool it.
Melt the butter and put in the flour. Cook it for about 10 minutes. Whisk in the cool stock and bring to a boil. Reduce to a low simmer and stir forever and continiously until it is right.
Remove from heat and cool.  Use in pot pies or elsewhere.

Walnut/Pear Salad W/ Vinaigrette
1 head romaine
3 each pears
1 bunch bleu cheese
—-VINAIGRETTE—-
1 pint cider vinegar
12 sprigs mint
1 pinch cinnamon
2 pinches nutmeg
1 t sweet onion, finely minced
1 t salt and red pepper
In a pint of cider vinegar, infuse about a dozen good sprigs of mint (put the bottle in a hot water bath to hasten the infusion – maybe 3 hours) and use that as the vinegar in a vinaigrette with walnut oil.  A small shake of cinnamon, a grating of nutmeg and about a tablespoon of very finely minced sweet onion, salt and finely milled red pepper flakes.  Shake.  Then shake the dressing.  Then shake the guests.  Whole lotta shakin’ goin’ on.

White Chili
4 cups chicken stock; (low-sodium canned)
1 tablespoon cumin
1 tablespoon coriander
1 tablespoon oregano
1 tablespoon basil
2 teaspoons celery seed
1 tablespoon garlic powder
1 teaspoon red pepper flakes
5 pounds boneless chicken or turkey, white o; r dark meat
Ω cup butter
1 large onion; minced
2 medium carrots, minced
2 stalks celery; minced
1 green pepper; minced
1/3 cup flour
º cup milk
Method:  Put stock and herbal flavorings (next 7 ingredients) in a saucepan, cover and bring to a boil.  Reduce heat and simmer until finished preparing meat, at least 30 minutes.  Strain stock and return to the pot.
Meanwhile, trim off any fat and skin from meat and cut into Ω” pieces. SautÈ in butter, stirring frequently, until the meat no longer gives off moisture but don’t let it brown.
Add onion, carrot, celery and pepper and sautÈ until the vegetables soften and no moisture remains in the pan.  Sprinkle flour over and stir to distribute evenly. Cook for another 5 to 8 minutes to get rid of the raw
flour taste. Add stock, bring to a boil and reduce to a simmer.  Cook for about one hour, stirring occasionally.  Add milk and stir through. Serve over great northern beans (or any other white bean).
The eternal discussion still rages about beans.  To include or not to include.  Do whatever you like.  And who says it always has to be the same thing?
Combine several kinds of beans – pinto, red kidney, black, great northern, navy and others – and serve them alongside.  Or throw the cooked beans into the chili for the last five minutes; just long enough to heat through. It’s your chili.  Whoever complains has just volunteered to do it next time. Enjoy.
I invented this one just for this column because of the poultry produced in the area and in the interests of healthier eating. [Some ingredients in the original recipe have been changed. jbo] Make no mistake, though, this is real food, not some weak imitation of some other real thing. The recipe calls for chicken stock.  Most brands of canned stock have tremendous amounts of salt.  Get the low sodium or “no salt added” kind.  It has a better flavor and doesn’t disguise a weak stock with salt.
This approach calls for the herbal flavorings to be simmered in the chicken stock then filtered out.  I only suggest this technique for the sake of final appearance; it looks nicer without the flecks, I think.  If you’d
rather have them in the dish, why then, go ahead.  Yield: 12 servings

Asparagus, Poached *
1 loaf french bread; sliced 1 inch thick
2 lb. asparagus
1 cup cream; or more
2 ea. eggs; hard boiled
1 bunch caviar; for garnish

The quantities listed are the way I would do it today. Tomorrow it would most likely be different. What a country. Milk is good in this dish, but cream (the heavier the better) is heavenly. Serves several
Butter and toast the bread. Lay out the bread slices closely on a platter large enough to handle the whole batch of asparagus.
Over medium heat, put the asparagus, milk or cream and salt in a skillet and cover. Bring to a low simmer and cook until fork-tender, about 8 minutes. Lift out the asparagus (I use two long-bladed spatulas) and lay on the bread.
Turn the heat up and rapidly cook down the cream until it will coat a spoon dipped into it. Pour over the asparagus, sprinkle on caviar (two or three tablespoons) and/or eggs. Serve with an icy, fruity white wine.
If you steam or boil, what would be good with the asparagus? Here’s a list: Hollandaise sauce. Biarnaise sauce. Crumbled bleu cheese. Cook 12 strips of bacon, discard all but a tablespoon or two of fat; crumble the bacon and sprinkle fat and crumbles over. Chopped shrimp and mushrooms (1/2 cup of each) sauteed in lemon butter, tossed over. Shreds of boiled country ham (1/3 cup) and grated cheddar cheese (1/2 cup) on top, briefly broiled to melt the cheese and served.

Bagna Caoda
5 cloves garlic
1 stick butter
1 cup oil; walnut or olive
1 tin anchovies; rinsed to reduce salt
—-2nd version in directions—-
vegetables: raw or roasted peppers, white savoy cabbage leaves, Jerusalem artichoke, cauliflower, broccoli, carrot sticks, etc.
Breads: crusty Italian bread, bread sticks (grissini)
pasta: put some in a bowl, trickle the sauce over
seafoods, etc.: you’re on your own.
Peel the garlic and put it in milk to cover for about 2 hours. Drain it, dry it and cut into thin slices or mince finely and combine all ingredients in a pan over low heat. Cook for about 15 minutes, stirring with a wooden spoon, over low heat (never at a boil). When it’s ready, bring to the table and keep warm using a hot plate or alcohol burner set to low flame.
VERSION NUMBER 2
This is a creamier variation on the idea of bagna caoda. I’ve seen it in Italy and, occasionally, in the homes of relatives. I’ve adapted it to crockpot preparation.
1 pound butter
1 pint cream
1 tin anchovies, mashed
20 cloves garlic; minced
Melt butter in a crockpot and add the garlic and anchovies, stirring to distribute. Add the cream, cover, and simmer gently for two or more hours, stirring occasionally. The garlic and anchovies should
completely combine with the other ingredients. This can be made a day or two ahead and refrigerated. It will separate when it gets cold but will return to the original creaminess when gently heated and stirred. When the sauce is ready, bring it to the table and keep warm using a hot plate or alcohol burner set to low flame.  Pastorio
This always becomes a small party. A crock or pot of a dip is put center table, and people help themselves, either dipping into it or taking some in a bowl for themselves. The accompaniments can include raw or cooked vegetables, breads, pasta, cooked shrimp or pretty much anything else. The last departs somewhat from tradition, but don’t we all?
The name means warm bath or, by extension, warm sauce in a northern Italian dialect. These came out on the big holidays to keep people busy and out of the kitchen where they’d only get in the way. There’s no one protocol for doing this. The more like family the diners are, the more that breaches in normal table manners will be forgiven. Even double-dipping. Kids love to do this and it gets messy. Disposable tablecloths for such occasions are good.
It will sound surprising to say that the flavors meld very nicely and the finished flavor is subtle. Not what you’d expect from this combination of ingredients. The anchovies disappear and provide a quiet background flavor. The garlic becomes mild and gives it a hearty sparkle. The butter and oil are a tasty carrier of all those other flavors. The creamy one coats the dips more fully. Both versions are best if served in a fondue pot or other dish that can be kept warm, but not boiling.
VERSION NUMBER 1
Amounts for 4 people:
Cream Sauce W/ Citrus….Fundamentals, sauces
1 cup cream
1 ea. citrus; juiced
Any of several ways:
1) Reduce the cream to about half and whisk in the citrus. This usually works.
2) Reduce the cream a bit, add some corn starch (or other thickener) and whisk in the citrus.
3) Heat the citrus with some corn starch to thicken, whisk in the cream and reduce.
He probably started with 40% cream.

Deep Fried Stuff Or Tempura
1 bunch vegetables
1 batch oil
1 bunch flour
Tempura batter is: one egg, one cup of flour, one cup of water. It isn’t intended to cover fully like a corn dog or an American-style fried shrimp.
The crust should be lacy and crisp. The veggies should be dry before dipping.
Tempura batter should be *just* blended and maybe not even that much. When I make tempura, there’s a ring of dry flour around the bowl.
If you want full coverage, tempura batter isn’t what you want.
More like a beer batter, it sounds like. The general rule for full-coating batters is: if it’s dry, wet it; if it’s wet, dry it. Moist foods like shrimp should be floured before dipping. Dry veggies should be egg-washed before dipping. —

Escargot En Croute
1 bunch snails
1 bunch puff pastry
1 bunch butter
Actually did them a few different ways.  Puff pastry and snails somehow seem sympathetic.
I did individual bouchees at one point, but I can’t recommend that unless you have some prisoners of war hanging around.  About 1 out of 3 actually worked the way I wanted.  The presentation was 6 snails,
each in its own small pastry case with too much butter and seasoning. Gorgeous but very labor intensive.
Then I did pastry boxes and dumped a dozen of them in at service. Sautied the snails in garlicky butter with tarragon and mint and poured them in and replaced the pastry cover.  Shipped on hot pewter plate for some outrageous price.  They were wonderful.
The last and best was to lay out a sheet of pastry, egg wash and put the snails down on it 3 rows, 4 columns – a dozen – separated like ravioli filling.  Egg wash another sheet and lay over top, pressing between snails to seal.  Crimp edges, bake at 450F and serve.  The big deal was to put the snails in small molds, one per cup, and fill the cups with about a tablespoon of seasoned (description above) butter.
Chill to harden and put that inside the pastry, butter and all.  It eaks and who the hell cares.  Served on a bed of fresh herbs -oregano, thyme, rosemary.  The hot pastry makes the herbs give off their scents.  Maddeningly lush.

Mafalde w/ Seafood · la Bob Pastorio
1 bunch home made pasta; prepared as below
1 grupo mariscos mezclados
1 litro court bouillon; o mas
1 bunch sherry
1 bunch butter
Use semolina flour to make the pasta with sherry wine which has been reduced by about one third. Roll it out to maybe the middle thickness, lay it out on a tabletop and arrange parsley leaves (no stems) about an inch apart on half its length. Fold the other half back over it and run it through the machine, thinning it to about 2 or 3 thicknesses from the thin setting. Cut it with a sharp knife or a pizza cutter into strips about an
inch wide. Cut diagonally to pappardella width.
Poach the mariscos in court bouillon for their average times. Meanwhile, melt some butter and whisk in some sherry or marsala and a bit of salt and pepper. Lift the seafood out of the poaching liquid and drop into the butter. Toss and hold just warm (about 140∫ F) until the pasta is ready. Toss the pasta with the mariscos and portion out. Garnish with finely chopped parsley.

Mayonnaise (discussion thereon)
1  egg
1  oil
1/8  vinegar
Easier than using traditional methods. And with more control over thickness of the finished product.
Either one can be made either way. I like whole egg mayonnaise better. Broader flavor and texture profile.
I would also consider egg yolk mayonnaise and whole egg mayonnaise to be very different sauces. I make both, but for quite different purposes. I always make mayonnaise with 100% olive oil – about 3-quarters a very light oil that I buy in Spain and 1-quarter normal good Portuguese oil – I’ve given up buying non-olive oil, it tastes so horrid. Then again, I do have a good local supply … :-)))
Different applications call for different oils. A full-flavor garlic mayonnaise (aioli and the like) demand fruity olive oil. A lighter mayo for, say, a grilled fish salad suits my tastes better if made with an oil with more mild flavor notes. Walnut oil or maybe a grapeseed/canola combination.

Morels In Puff Pastry
1 bunch morels; sliced
1 bunch puff pastry
1 bunch beef stock
1 pinch marsala wine
1 pinch cream
Recipe is like this:  Morels (however many you have), sliced and simmered in beef stock.  I added a bit of Marsala wine.  If you want to get crazy add some cream.  Chill.  Put into bowls, brush the rims with beaten egg. Brush a sheet of puff pastry with egg and stretch it across the top of the bowl (egg side in) and press firmly around the edge to weld it on.  Brush it with egg on top and pop into the fridge.  After about 20 minutes, pop into a 400F oven and bake for about 20 minutes.  The puff pastry will inflate into a dome.  You’ll smell nothing. Bring to the table and sit each person’s bowl on a trivet or potholder.  Poke a hole in the pastry and the whole neighborhood will smell like mushrooms.  Eat the soup and sit and talk to yourself.  The rest of the evening will be anticlimactic.

Old-Style Beignets
1 cup milk
2 tablespoons butter
4 tablespoons sugar
1/2 teaspoon salt
1  egg, beaten
3 cups flour
1 package yeast
oil for frying
Heat milk over low heat in a saucepan and add butter, sugar, and salt, mixing well to dissolve. Remove from heat and cool to lukewarm. Stir in egg. In a large bowl or the bowl of an electric mixer, mix together half of the flour and yeast. Add milk mixture and beat for 5 minutes or so. Gradually add remaining flour. When the dough forms a ball, put it in a greased bowl, turning dough to coat. Cover and chill in the refrigerator for 4 hours or overnight. Pat dough onto a floured pastry cloth or wooden board. Cover and let stand for 10 minutes. Roll out dough and cut into rectangles (2X2, 3X3, etc.). Cover and let rest for 15-20 minutes. Deep fry dough in 365∞F oil, a few at a time until golden on both sides. Drain on paper towels and finish with powdered sugar. **Dough may be kept in the fridge for a few days or cut and frozen.
Makes about 2 dozen)

One Potato, Two Potato
1 lb. russett potatoes; cut up
1 lb. sweet potatoes; cut up
1 pint chicken stock
1/2 cup cheap white wine

Riced potatoes have a splendidly different texture.  I like to use the ricer when I’m adding stuff to the potatoes like roasted garlic or roasted red peppers.  I did a white-sweet potato combination that way recently that was heavenly to look at and amazing to eat.  Cut the two kinds of potatoes into 3/4-inch cubes (about a pound of each) and simmered them together in light chicken stock with a splash of cheap white wine.  I put a big dab of butter in the cooking water.  Drained and put them into the ricer bin and pressed away.  Got these pretty swirls of the two different colors. Sprayed them with clarified butter I’d sauteed mushrooms in.

Baked Beans
In a square baking dish or disposable aluminum one for summer outdoors

stuff. Imagine you’re looking down on a target. Black beans in the
center. A ring of navy beans around that. Limas around that. A ring of
red kidney beans. Garbanzos. Pan is now full. Puree any leftover beans
and add to dressing.

Dress with a vinaigrette (like about 3 or 4 cups – I like to add apple
juice and dark brown sugar) and bake (350F), covered until bubbling, an
hour or so. Uncover, top with a mixture of crumbled bacon and light
brown sugar. Bake until sugar melts, may take 15 minutes.

Variations On Whipped Cream
 1 cup cream
1 bunch other stuff
Has anyone tried a mustard or horseradish whipped cream on smoked salmon? I’m thinking of the SS on crackers and normally topped with crÍme fraiche, capers and a sliver of red onion. Would the flavored whipped cream, instead of crÍme fraiche, be over the top?

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Bob wrote:

Of course it’s over the top. What could be better? How about incorporate the horseradish, capers and onion, very finely minced or even pureed, into the whipped cream? Want to really, really take it over the top? Add a bit of finely minced smoked salmon to the whipped cream and fold in a bit of caviar – both red and  black…

Gorgonzola (or any blue-veined cheese) dressing for salad – comprised of whipped cream (a cup of liquid cream, whipped to full volume and then put into a sieve over a bowl in the fridge to let any whey drip out – couple hours). After draining, put whipped cream into a bowl and stir 1/2 to ¾ cup (or however much suits you) crumbled gorgonzola into it. Let sit for 12 hours or overnight. Stunning on salads or as a dip for fruit…

Whipped cream drained like that with finely minced smoked salmon, a dash of lemon juice, grate of black pepper, and a sprinkle of minced fresh dill is an astonishing spread… (ground ginger optional)

That technique of whipping the cream and holding it in a sieve or strainer for a while to let any loose liquid drain out means it’ll be simultaneously light and more dense than if left undrained. Incorporating other flavors into it then is easy. I’d run those other ingredients in a processor and fold them in to the whipped cream.

Think of other flavors to do that with… Ground or fresh ginger to put on top of, oh, I dunno, pumpkin pie? Cinnamon, clove, allspice, nutmeg on top of hot apple pie. Others…?

Veloute Sauce
3 cups reduced chicken stock
6 tablespoon flour
6 tablespoon Butter

Begin with a good stock and reduce it to 2/3 volume. Cool it.

Melt the butter and put in the flour. Cook it for about 10 minutes. Whisk in the cool stock and bring to a boil. Reduce to a low simmer and stir forever and continuously until it is right.

Remove from heat and cool.  Use in pot pies or elsewhere.

Molded Confetti Rose Salad
  • 1 package of lemon gelatin made according to directions but not fully set
  • 1/3 Cup carrots, peeled and shredded
  • 1/3 Cup cucumber, peeled, seeded and shredded
  • 1/3 Cup green bell pepper, seeded and shredded
  • 1/2 Cup washed and dried rose petals (preferably mixed colors)
  • Chill gelatin until syrupy, add remaining ingredients and gently stir to mix evenly. Pour into decorative mold and chill until solid, about 3 hours. Unmold by dipping mold into warm water for a few seconds and turning out onto a bed of red leaf lettuce. Garnish with flowers – honeysuckle, geranium, day lilies or marigold petals. Serve with a creamy dressing like bleu cheese or ranch

CHICKEN BASIL PESTO RECIPE
1 lb. Chopped Boneless Skinless Chicken Breast
2 C. Loosely Packed Basil Leaves
1/3 C. Pine Nuts
2 Cloves of Garlic
1 Small Sweet Onion
2/3 C. Grated Parmesan
2/3 C. Olive Oil
Salt and Black Pepper to Taste
Brown chicken and onions in 2 Tablespoons of olive oil. Combine Basil, Pine Nuts, Garlic, and Parmesan in food processor and blend into a paste. Add a little oil if paste is to thick. Add paste and remaining ingredients to chicken and cook for 5 minutes. Serve over 1 lb. of Pasta.

hoppin’ john all together

1 pounds Dry black-eyed peas
Ham hock or country ham skin and fat trimmings, total of about 3/4 pound of meat, coarsely chopped
1 Big onion, chopped fine
teaspoon Ground bay leaf
1 teaspoon Salt (up to 2)
1 teaspoon Black pepper

Wash and pick over the beans and put in a sauce pan with water to cover and simmer for 45 minutes. In a skillet, put the ham and onions over medium heat until the onions are wilted. When the beans are tender but not yet fully cooked, add remaining ingredients, adding water if necessary and simmer covered for 20 minutes or until both rice and beans are cooked.Serve hot with ham and greens for a traditional New Year’s meal.  8 servings>

braised garlic

When I was a child, my Sicilian grandmother made this. It’s used for several different dishes. Take a couple heads of garlic and break them apart. Peel the individual cloves and put them into a small covered baking dish with some white wine; enough to moisten the bottom of the pan. Bake at about 300 for 25 minutes or so. The garlic will have the texture of a smooth puree or custard.

Spread it thinly on bread as an accompaniment to garlic soup (or any soup).

Or, spread it on some bread, trickle with olive oil and bake briefly for another kind of garlic bread. Stir some into any soup. Add some to mayonnaise or salad dressing. Spread a thin layer on the dough for homemade pizza. Throw some into bread dough and knead it throughout. Brush on a piece of fish before baking.