authentic italian episode #2: lamb and fennel stew

so i thought i would be doing one of these authentic italian posts a week, but reality has set in, so, after a delay of too many weeks, here is the only the second post. . . i would love to say there are more to some soon, but i don't want to lie anymore. . . well maybe a little more. . . so many more posts to come!!!

i was looking to make something quick and easy for some friends who were coming to watch football, as well as something seasonal, and this recipe just jumped out at me. it couldn't have been easier: brown the lamb, add some chopped onion, some DOP tomatoes, let it cook for about 10 minutes, add some chopped fennel, cover, and let cook for about 90 minutes - add some water if necessary along the way. simple recipe, basic ingredients, and it turned out great. i cooked some nice curly pasta as well and served it in big bowls.

the key of course is getting the best ingredients, and the guys at golden gate meats didn't disappoint. i went in on friday to and asked for some lamb stew meat and came back saturday to a big package of beautiful lamb. i did make a big rookie mistake thought - i wasn’t thinking and put all the lamb in the pan to brown at one time - it let out tons of moisture, lowered the overall heat, and suddenly i had gray meat. i stopped - pulled all the lamb out, got a second pan, and browned them in that pan in batches, then adding it back into the main pan where all the juices had already accumulated. slow and steady wins the race. it does go to show that it's tough to ruin a simple recipe, and that sometimes it easy to forget the basics.

some more photos below (i'm still trying to improve my food photography, so bear with me - you can see the whole set here):


overcrowding the pan


halfway there


dinner is served

coco500... again

i think i've written about coco500 on more than one occasion, and it has officially become my favorite place to eat in san francisco - loretta keller (no relation to thomas) is my new hero. we ate there again last night (our first official dinner without the little one) and had another great meal. the food is simple, fresh, and excellent. it also helps that it is 1/2 a block from our house, which makes ducking out pretty easy.

food of note was the truffle oil and mushroom flat bread, the house mustard that comes with the duck pate plate, the white anchovies in the salad, the roasted marrow bone appetizer, the peanut butter cups, and a floral and fiery grappa. the place was a mad house, since the fancy food show was wrapping up yesterday (i had a pass, but didn't attend - fodder for another post) and there were a bunch of foodies in town. i was sad to see the duck pot pie off the menu, but hope it returns.

we've decided this will be our place to grab a drink and quick dinner at the bar when the mood strikes, and I couldn't be happier.

pomegranate hell

for anyone who has ever tried to extract the seeds from a pomegranate, i ran across a link to this technique on e-gullet. be warned that the page loads up incredible slow, but if you have ever tried to get the seeds from a pomegranate, it is worth the wait.

Jura Capresso A8

The man on the street is not one to kiss and tell. I like to live a decent life, but not too extravagant. I like to keep my personal life, personal and simply share where I eat. However, when it comes to a product that is this good, I had to share.

I've been drinking lattes since my mom took me off the tap. I love them. Until 3 years ago, my wife didn't drink coffee at all. Something snapped when our son was born, but that is a latter story.

For our wedding, we got a Krups espresso maker. It was great and one of the few wedding presents that we used regularly. We had it for several years, but when my wife and I started to drink lattes two or three times a day, the wear and tear ended up taking it's toll. The Krups machine only lasted about a year after that.

When the machine blew up, literally, we upgraded to a Delonghi machine. We didn't need a coffee maker / espresso maker, so we went solely with the espresso maker. The machine again lasted about 2 years, but the pump died. It still made great steam, but no espresso, so it got trashed. Now we were left with a decision, do we buy a cheap machine again and hope that it lasts for a couple of years or do we upgrade to a real espresso machine? We took the plunge and bought a real one.

The Jura Capresso A8 is the Mercedes C Class of the Jura line. It is nice, but it is the cheapest version of this line. It was also way out of our budget, but we didn't buy a Christmas present for ourselves, so we felt we could justify it. Credit, baby, its the American way. Plus, if we do more than 2 coffees a day, which we do easily, it justifies not going to Starbucks in less than a year.

Once we decided to get a real, almost commercial machine, we had two primary requirements for a new espresso maker. The first is that it was fully automatic. Press a button and out comes the exact amount of coffee that we want. Press another button and it steams milk exactly the way that we like. The second requirement, was that it had an awesome warranty. We wanted at least 10 years and would prefer lifetime.

I have to say, the A8 is amazing. It is everything that we wanted and more. The automatic functionality is exactly what we wanted. Press a button and 2 minutes later we have a perfect latte. It also cleans itself, grinds beans, filters water and probably does all sorts of other things that we haven't figured out yet. The coffee is grand. A perfect shot of espresso. Plus, it is an almost commercial grade machine, so we expect it to last a long time. Finally, we bought it from Williams-Sonoma, who offer a life time warranty on all of their espresso machines.

The Jura Capresso A8 machine is an amazing espresso maker. While the cost is a bit steep, it is in line with other fully automatic cappuccino makers. The man on the street highly recommends it.

Touch - South Beach, Miami, FL

Like everything in South Beach, Touch exudes sex. From their name to their furry swing when you walk through the doors to the belly dancers, this place is awash in good looking hipsters out for a bite looking to see and be seen. How did I get in? Work event.

Despite their very annoying Flash based website, the food is excellent. The ambiance is amazing and the entertainment is entertaining to say the least. Wear black.

South Beach, I learned is on Europe time. Dinner starts early if it is 9:00 and the restaurants that we visited typically didn't start to get full until 10 or 11. The service in the town, including at Touch, was painfully inept and slow. Despite these short comings, I loved it. It is a chance to enjoy your meal and a show. Something that is lacking in many other cities that have adopted the dine and dash culture.

Like many, my meal started with a Grey Goose martini, made very dry; the way that I love it. I was soon served the 910 House Salad. 910 is Touch's street number in the Lincoln Mall. The salad was wonderful. A perfect mix of baby greens, dressing, nuts, and bleu cheese.

Once that was digested, I switched over to wine. Unfortunately, living in the Bay Area, you get spoiled on really excellent wines. Touch has a great wine list, but it is also insanely expensive. Wines that are $40 a bottle here are $90 there. I guess there is a shipping and handling charge or something to get them across the Mississippi. The wine, a Cab, was very second rate. I don't recall the bottle, but it was something from Carmel Valley that I hadn't heard of.

For my entree, I had the Peppercorn Filet done medium rare. This filet isn't on the menu, unfortunately, but it is fairly close the Angus beef on that is. It was a little more on the medium side of the fence, but still, very good. I would have licked the plate. It was done over a bed of some killer potato. Not quite mashed, not quite french fries. Almost like a latka. It was damn good.

For dessert, I shared the sampler platter. It had some tiramissau (which I generally don't like), some German Chocolate cake, cheese cake, apple pie, banana something and bread pudding. The German chocolate cake was nuts.

After dinner, we continued to watch the belly dancing show, did shots and smoked cigars in their lounge out in the mall. It was a great night and Touch will always be part of my trips to Miami.

Photo above by Furcafe.

authentic italian episode #1: escarole soup

i've been really focusing on french cooking the last three years and i've loved every minute of it - stocks, sauces, terrines, 'lesser' cuts of meat, and mastering some dishes i wouldn't have attempted a few years ago, has left me with a full belly and a good base. but as we have been getting more and more winter vegetables lately and with the addition of a little baby to the house, i've been looking to make some more rustic dishes that aren't as complex in preparation, but still put a big smile on my face.

as i went and thought about what to do next, i came across a great cookbook that was tucked away in the corner called "Italy: The Beautiful Cookbook". It's an oversized cookbook with beautiful photos and dishes from all over italy. most of them are of the rustic variety and every recipe starts from scratch: if the recipes includes pasta it tells you how to make fresh pasta. i was actually given this book by the owner of a now defunct italian restaurant in north beach about 7 years ago, and i had forgotten how much i enjoyed cooking from it, as well as just flipping through the pages and drooling over the pictures.

i quickly decided italian cooking would be my goal for the coming year, and this book my primer. i'm going to try to do a couple recipes a week from this book, take some pictures, and let you all know how it turns out. not as exciting as the girl from new york who made every recipe in julia child's cookbook in a years time (and who got a book deal might i add), but this is italian cooking - we don't need all that pressure and structure and the cordon bleu staring over our shoulders....

for my first performance, escarole soup! escarole is a slightly bitter salad green that i was in our box from the farm a few weeks ago. it was about to expire, and i remembered seeing a recipe for soup in the cookbook i am now tackling. it was a pretty easy recipe and made for some good soup. here's the quick recap:

• bring chicken stock to a boil and add some carrots, leeks, and onions and let it go for about an hour.
  
• after an hour, shred a head of escarole and saute some pig lard (i used wild boar lard)in olive oil with garlic for about 7 minutes.
  
• add this to the chicken broth and let cook 10 mins.
  
• remove from heat and add two well beaten eggs and stir it all up
  
• serve with some grated parmesan and parsley
  

adding the egg at the end was new to me, but it ended up making the soup pretty hearty. a little crunchy rustic loaf and some red wine, and we were good to go.

that's all for my first installment of authentic italian - if you want the full recipe, let me know, and if you have any extra pig lard, send it my way.

the drake

"how could you not like the drake?"

well, if you're talking about sf drake, the uber rare cheese from cowgirl creamery, the answer is, you can't! i hit the their store at the ferry building almost every weekend, and as i was looking over he usual soft cheeses, i noticed something new - the sf drake. i grabbed one and was told it's rind is washed in muscat and then fresh currants are pressed into it. it's only made around the holidays when 'conditions are right,' and not every year. to me it sounded like a hidden treasure or that the circus was coming to town and the bearded lady was doing a show just for me. i grabbed one, and we ended up eating it for breakfast on new years eve. it was awesome - it's a medium bodied cheese - somewhere between their redhawk and mt. tam. the sweetness from the currants and the washed rind really set it apart. we devoured it.

since then, i have purchased 5 more rounds and have taken them out when we've had guest over, and they have lasted about 20 minutes each, with people going nuts over the cheese. I have one more left for this week, and may make a special trip to ferry building today and see if they have any left in stock. if you like cheese and live in the bay area, try to get to the ferry building to get some. as a warning though, i will take you out if it comes down to me and you and the last bit of sf drake, and i fight dirty (mostly slapping and hair pulling though, so it's not too bad).

pictures are linked from the website www.forkandbottle.com - since there are no pics on the cowgirl site and i haven't uploaded any of my own yet. it's a cool site - check it out.

holiday cooking

the new year is here, the holiday's are over, and it's time to catch up on all things food! of course there was never any shortage of food over the holidays, but the most gluttonous period was the new years weekend, where my dad and me cooked up some wintery food goodness as well as partook in some meals that were simple and good. like an idiot, i took zero pictures (even though i bought a tripod so i can take more pictures, so i pilfered a bunch from the web- my new years resolution is pretty
obvious - take more pictures in the kitchen. also, cook with more pork fat.

on friday night we made osso bucco - the biggest debate was whether to do the brown sauce version (northern italy) or the red sauce version (southern italy). we decided on the red sauce version since i had a nice can of DOP tomatoes in the pantry. we added the traditional anchovy gremolata at the end and served it with some pretty tasty parmesan risotto that my dad cooked up. the next argument was over who got the bone marrow from my wife’s shank - we decided to share....

for new years day after a long walk, the cheese steak shop - we decided to reward ourselves with the best cheese steak in san fransicso; i've been going here for about 8 years and figured it was time for dad to taste the goodness too. i had the 15 inch cheese steak hoagie which includes lettuce, tomato, and lettuce, and he went for the 10 inch version with salsa and hot peppers. it was greasy and divine.


that night we went to a new years dinner hosted by a friend and had the traditional san francisco holiday meal - dungeness crab. you can't go wrong with crab, sourdough bread, and some good butter.

new years day we continued our 1 year old tradition of cooking and eating on new years day. we started with eggs, biscuits, country ham and red-eyed gravy for breakfast. for those of you who are unfamiliar with this great southern combo, country ham is a salt cured ham and red-eyed gravy is a combination of coffee and the fat from the cooking of the slices of country ham...it is divine.

mid morning we moved onto the cheese course, which consisted of some fresh chevre, quince jelly, and a cheese from cowgirl creamery called "drake sf" - it was a soft cows milk cheese, medium sharpness, and the rind is washed with muscat and they press fresh currents into the bottom of the cheese. they only make it during the holiday season, and not every year - lucky us, because it was delicious.

our late lunch consisted of dungeness crab (you can never get enough) and a nice bottle of muscadet, as well as watching great football.

finally, for dinner, we had the oxtails i had been braising in red wine and beef stock all day as well as my dad's famous black-eyed peas - a southern tradition that is supposed to bring good luck when eaten on new years day. it was truly a great day! best wishes to all in 2007!

as an aside, it is now wednesday, and i have eaten nothing but salads all week...