What Would Mama Do?

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wo evenings ago, Fatima and I cooked Pollo al Forno in Padella, Pan-Roasted Chicken. I would have posted the recipe and a photograph, but it turned out to be brutta ma buona: not all that photogenic, but delicious nonetheless.

As we are only two, we had leftovers from a four-pound bird. So last evening, the burning question around our kitchen was, what to do with some miscellaneous, fully-cooked chicken parts. Of course, I'm on record all over the place as becoming peckish if I go more than a couple of days without pasta, so that seemed a logical choice. But from that point, we asked the rhetorical question, "What would Mama do?" That is, how would the typical Italian mama use leftovers? A visit to the refrigerator seemed in order.

Right away, we found two cubanelle peppers turning from green to orange. Half a Bermuda onion glowed in the vegetable bin. And during the Florida winter, we always have a bouquet of flat-leaf Italian parsley on hand.

Some tempting local plum tomatoes sat on the counter, but we restrained ourselves. Instead, we opted for the leftover pan sauce from the chicken, supplemented by a little meat broth I had made over the weekend.

But I didn't use just any broth; this was Paul Bertolli’s Meat Broth (Cooking by Hand, page 135).

A Saturday afternoon and 10 lbs. of hefty beef knuckles and shanks, pigs’ feet, and chicken backs had yielded four quarts of liquid amber. So you can understand why we didn’t want too many distracting elements in our dish.

We took the chicken fat from the leftover pan sauce to sauté some garlic, the sliced cubanelles and coarsely chopped onion. While the vegetables sweated, I shredded the remaining chicken, which we put into the pan when the onion had begun to carmelize .

Then we raised the heat to medium-high and added a cup of the chicken pan sauce. As that reduced, we poured in approximately a half cup of the Bertollian meat broth.

Meanwhile, on the back burner, our linguine was now at the al dente state. We drained it and swirled it into the sauté pan along with approximately half a cup of its cooking water.

Just before serving, we tossed in two generous handfuls of coarsely chopped parsley. We finished the dish at the table with a grating of Pecorino-Romano. We think Mama would have been pleased.

Dogs Eating Pasta

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m on record in several publications indicating that my taste in art runs toward dogs playing poker. This has become significant recently as Sarasota has a thriving, vibrant art community. I mean no disrespect for the artists of Sarasota, but so far, I have yet to visit a gallery that compares with a certain bar in downtown Sonoma, California that features the complete collection of prints by Cassius Marcellus Coolidge.

I mean who would not be moved by "His Station and Four Aces?" Or the timeless, "A Friend in Need."

Fatima—who doesn't believe my taste in art could be that parochial—has nevertheless been nominally supportive. "Okay...how about dogs eating pasta?" she said one day, pointing to the famous spaghetti scene from Lady and the Tramp.

I took this up with my Boston friend and graphics guru, Chris, whose taste in art runs toward penguins. He liked the idea too. I think if C.M. Coolidge were still with us, he'd be pleased himself.

Shamless plug for a dear friend: If your computer is plagued with adware/malware/spyware/viruses; if you'd like to have a network installed in your home; if you need help setting up DSL; if your bartender called in sick and you just need someone to talk to; and if you live anywhere in the vicinity of Mass General Hospital, you need to talk to Chris.

Peperoni Ripiene con Risotto

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’ve been encouraged to discover that besides tomatoes, peppers too are in season here on the Gulf Coast of Florida. And at $0.25 each at the open air produce market, represent a great value.

While roasting is always a good choice for bell peppers, this particular batch was colorful enough that I thought I should stuff them. But rather than use the traditional stuffing based on bread crumbs, I used a simple risotto with sausage, based on the Montovan recipe for Risotto alla Pilota.

Again, though, I wanted to keep this simple in order to keep the focus on the peppers, so rather than use chicken stock for the risotto, I simply used water.

I’ve also discovered recently that by adding the wine to the risotto last, instead of first, the risotto has a pleasant sweetness that doesn’t come through with the more traditional cooking method.

Peperoni Ripiene con Risotto
Peppers Stuffed with Risotto

Ingredients:

2 Large bell peppers
1 Tbs. Olive oil
1 Italian sausage (either sweet or hot) with the casing removed
1 Medium onion, finely diced
2/3 Cup Arborio rice
1/2 Cup dry white wine
1/4 Cup grated Pecorino Romano or Parmigiano
1 – 2 Slices sharp Provolone, shredded
4 Tbs. Flat-leaf Italian parsley, finely chopped

Preparation:

Preheat the oven to 450 F.

Slice the peppers in half lengthwise. If possible, slice through the stem as well. Remove the seeds and ribs (a grapefruit knife works well for this purpose), and discard.

Place the peppers—cut side down—on a baking pan, and then in the oven. Cook for approximately ten minutes, or until the peppers begin to wilt and caramelize. Remove from the oven and reserve.

Meanwhile, heat a sauté pan over medium heat, then add the sausage. Cook, breaking up the sausage with the back of a fork, until it has lost its pinkness, and has begun to exude some fat. Remove from the heat and reserve.

Heat another sauté pan over medium-high heat, and when hot, add the olive oil. Add the chopped onion, and sauté for three or four minutes until the onion has wilted. Add the Arborio to the pan, and sauté briefly to toast the rice.

Begin adding water to the pan, approximately ½ Cup at a time, stirring constantly. When one addition of water has been absorbed, add another ½ Cup, continuing to stir. Begin tasting the rice after approximately fifteen minutes. The grains should retain their texture, but the dish should also be creamy.

When the rice is nearly cooked, add the wine, and cook, stirring, to dissolve the alcohol. Remove the rice from the heat, and add the Pecorino or Parmigiano. Stir in the reserved sausage.

Place the reserved peppers, cut side up, on a baking pan, and spoon the risotto into each of them, just mounding the risotto slightly. Dot each pepper with the shards of Provolone, and return to the oven for five or six minutes—just until the cheese begins to bubble.

Remove from the oven and place one pepper half on each of four dinner plates. Garnish with the parsley, and serve at once.

Serves four

Blogging from Sarasota

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never exactly saw myself as one of those people who would wind up in Florida at a slightly advanced age, yet as of one week ago, I’ve become a resident of Sarasota. I’m grateful to be here for any number of reasons, not least of which is a return to eating a reasonable diet. During the three-day trip from Connecticut, I spent a disproportionate amount of time in Cracker Barrel restaurants eating things like ‘Chicken Fried Chicken,’ and some kind of mucilage called gravy. I chalked it up to ‘keeping up my strength.’ I have no such excuse for the biscuits with sausage gravy that constituted breakfast for the final leg of the trip from a motel in Santee, South Carolina.

Nevertheless, I did eat some serviceable catfish on the way down here, and had some great barbecue at a place called Grannie’s in Starke, Florida, which—apart from the barbeque—seems to hold the distinction of being the ‘capital punishment capital’ of the state of Florida.

Now, I’m pleased to report that Sarasota turns out to be a pretty good food town. Of course, it doesn’t hurt that the temperature reaches approximately eighty degrees on good days, and we have a couple of beaches within easy striking distance.

On my first full day here, my significant other—whom I’ll call Fatima—took me to The Red Barn; a large, open-air market in Bradenton where we bought approximately twenty pounds of various vegetables and wound up with change from a ten-dollar bill.

While the Red Barn is primarily a flea market, it includes approximately one hundred yards of food vendors selling nearly any vegetable you can think of. It also includes an eastern European sausage maker with a stall that has the look and feel of Cold War Hungary, but that’s a story for another time.

It warmed my heart to see that tomatoes are in season here, and strawberries are ‘comin’ good’ too. And, since most of the vendors are Latino, tomatillos, cilantro, avocado, and all manner of chili peppers are readily available. And speaking about ‘keeping up one’s strength,’ the intrepid shopper in need of sustenance while navigating the vegetable stalls will appreciate the food concession with a decidedly Latino bent. Pozole, tacos, and menudo are all available to keep hunger at bay. And while I couldn’t exactly get lampredotto at 9:00 a.m., I was able to make do with a tripe taco.

I was encouraged to find an abundance of Meyer lemons there. Naturally, I began to think about agnello a scottaditto, and vitello alla picatta. And of course, a little Meyer lemon granita would be a welcome ending to any meal.

But most of my neighborhood seems to be an open-air market; and the price is right. I can walk around the block, and come home with an armload of grapefruit, oranges, and star fruit. Alas, the only Meyer lemon tree that Fatima knew about has been bulldozed to make way for a new home, but we’re optimistic we’ll find another nearby.

In the meantime, Fatima has been promising an outing to Venice, some twenty minutes to the south, where a group of expatriates from New Britain, Connecticut are rumored to be making their own mozzarella di bufala. Oh yes, this is definitely a good food town.