Those Saucy Spanish Sauces!

When I learned how to make Romesco sauce, a signature sauce in Spanish cooking, I knew I had hit culinary gold.

Given the consistency is more like thick mayonnaise, I regard it more as a topping than a sauce and that's why it lends itself so beautifully to seafood appetizers and first courses.

And in researching Romesco, I found that there are numerous varieties, but all have two things in common: the use of almonds and roasted peppers of some sort. I use red bell peppers, but I've seen pequillo peppers and other similar reds used. I've also made versions combining both almonds and hazelnuts, carefully toasting the nuts before adding them to my food processor.

And, with the essential oils of the nuts left in the pan, it makes for an interesting way to toast the French bread slice, torn into pieces, and then added to the food processor. I like using this sauce to show my cooking school students how bread can act as a thickener when making sauces.

With just a dash of cayenne, the background heat really makes for an interesting flavor profile. I've also experimented with this aspect of the sauce, adding and subtracting various forms of heat -- including piri piri, chipotle, jalapeño, Tabasco, etc. In the end, I've decided that cayenne works best.

I chose jumbo shrimp as the "vehicle" to show this sauce/topping. But I'm confident you'll enjoy it with vegetables -- raw, roasted, sautéed or steamed. Here's the video and recipe. Let me know what you think.





2 Tbsp slivered almonds
1 slice French or Italian bread, crust removed
1 large garlic clove, smashed
7 oz. roasted red peppers (jarred is okay)
2 Tbsp olive oil
1 Tbsp sherry vinegar
1/4 tsp cayenne pepper
16 large or jumbo shrimp, peeled and deveined

Stir almonds in a heavy skillet over medium heat until they begin to release their essential oils and start to brown. Be careful not to let them burn. When they are toasted, add them immediately to the bowl of a food processor.

In the same skillet, tear the bread slice into pieces and toast. When toasted, add it to the food processor with the almonds.

With the food processor running, drop the garlic through the feed tube and process until almonds, bread and garlic are finely chopped. Add the roasted red peppers, olive oil, sherry vinegar and cayenne pepper and process until the mixture is the consistency of thick mayonnaise, scraping down the sides to ensure that everything is incorporated.

Arrange cooked shrimp on plates and top with Romesco sauce.

Confessions of a Carboholic

I'm a bread lover through and through. While my brother and two sisters insisted on having the crusts cut off from their slices of Wonder Bread, I not only had my slices intact. I would eat the end pieces of the loaf. When my Dad brought home a fresh rye bread from the deli, I'd go for the heels and eat the slices plain.

Then I learned how to make quick breads -- aptly named because you don't need to let them rise before baking. I've got a few quick breads in the Kitchen Guy Recipe Archive and this week's episode is actually a remake of an old episode we shot in standard definition at a location we used before we had our current Kitchen Guy kitchen.

I've used quick breads in cooking competitions as a device to catch the notice of the judges, because it's such an unexpected element -- especially when one must create 10 portions of four courses from a mystery basket of ingredients. Why would a "cheftestant" under that kind of pressure add something else to cook? By the way, that particular quick bread -- which a Master Chef actually asked me for the recipe -- was made with roasted garlic and black olives. Here's a link to that recipe.

But I digress. This week's quick bread uses the carnation and yeast contained in the beer to activate the leavening powers of baking powder in the self-rising bread. You can also use Bisquik. But if you have neither, just add 1-1/2 tsp of baking powder and 1/2 tsp of salt to each cup of all-purpose flour. That's the "magic" formula.

It's important for the beer to be at room temperature. And I'm sorry to tell all of you Guinness fans out there, that dark beer just doesn't work. It's too fermented and too yeasty, not to mention thick.

The final addition of butter is also a critical element. Normally, a quick bread (think scones) has to be eaten while it's still warm out of the oven. But the addition of this melted butter near the end of the baking process made the loaf shown in this episode good for three more days, wrapped of course.

Here's the episode:


 

And here's the recipe:

3 cups self-rising flour
1/4 cup sugar
12 oz. room temperature beer
4 oz. unsalted butter, melted

Combine sugar with self-rising flour and mix well. Add the beer slowly and mix to form the batter. It's okay if it has lumps. Set it aside to rest while you pre-heat the oven to 350 and spray a loaf pan with non-stick spray.

Spoon the batter into the prepared pan and bake for 60 minutes. Remove the loaf from the oven and add the melted butter, using a table knife to pull the loaf away from the sides, so the butter gets into the bread.

Bake for an additional 5 minutes, then remove to a rack to cool. When it's cool enough to handle, but still warm, remove from the pan, slice and serve.

Kitchen Guy: Is There Such a Thing as Mexican Pasta?

Kitchen Guy: Is There Such a Thing as Mexican Pasta?: We've been misled. Too many of us think that Mexican food is just a bunch of variations of tortillas stuffed with meat or fish, add a ...

Is There Such a Thing as Mexican Pasta?

We've been misled. Too many of us think that Mexican food is just a bunch of variations of tortillas stuffed with meat or fish, add a little Jack cheese, some refried beans and rice on the side. Nachos, salsa, sour cream, cilantro. Well, some of it is true. The real truth is that much of what passes for Mexican food in the U.S. is really Tex-Mex. But most of it is really a corruption of what people think is Mexican food, in the same way that Chop Suey passes for Chinese. So much of it is the creation of fast food chains and American street vendors. But as a number of top chefs like Rick Bayless have shown us, there can be great refinement in Mexican cuisine. You just have to look beyond the burrito and taco stands and look to the Mexican countryside or the fishing villages to find some great variety, fascinating flavors, spicing and saucing techniques That's what we did in this week's episode with "Sopa Seca." That translates literally as "dry soup." This dish is not dry, however. It turns out something like a casserole with a delicious sauce that you can make as spicy or as mild as you like. But is there really pasta in Mexican cuisine? When I first saw this recipe, I asked myself the same question. Does Mexican cuisine even have pasta? The original recipe calls for a pasta known as "fideos," but you can substitute vermicelli. See the link below if you want to purchase this product from a Mexican food purveyor we found. Like so many other cuisines, pasta is borrowed -- some say from Italy, others from China. Nevertheless, this is probably the most difficult part of this recipe: frying the vermicelli and making sure it's not too greasy. Because the pasta is quite absorbent, it will soak up the oil and retain it if you fry it at too low a temperature. And, like all foods that we deep fry, it needs time on paper towels to drain. The other "issue" with this dish is the spice level. Our recipe has four chipotle chilies, which can add quite a bit of heat. But you can add less or more, depending on your taste. We also call for Cotija cheese, a Mexican cheese that's quite crumbly - a lot like feta. We also call for crema, the Mexican version of creme fraiche. If you can't find either of these ingredients in your store, you can certainly use feta and sour cream. Or you can order then online at this Mexican specialty store. Here's my version of "Sopa Seca," with the recipe coming from one of my favorite food magazines, Saveur. You can find the recipe at my website: http://kitchenguy.biz.

Say It With Me: AGRODOLCE!

Sweet and sour is a favorite flavoring combination in my recipe repertoire. And while most folks associate sweet and sour with Chinese cuisine, it's actually a common flavoring in many other cuisines. And so we demonstrate that with the classic Italian style of sweet and sour, known as Agrodolce, pronounced aw-grow-DOLE-chay.

While we taped this episode, some of the crew were surprised to see me pairing fish and fruit, but it's a classic technique, for example Possion Veronique (sole with white grapes). And I've used other berries with salmon before, notable strawberries.

Sweet and sour in Italian dishes is actually not that unusual. The Italians have sweet and sour sausage, sweet and sour meatballs, chicken, and other sauces, particularly from the Parma area that include pine nuts as an additional flavoring agent.

You'll also find sweet and sour in other European cuisines, especially Eastern European foods like the Polish "halushki," or stuffed cabbage. In Eastern European Jewish cuisine, sweet and sour was employed, especially for Sabbath dishes using vinegar to help preserve the food, with the addition of honey or sugar to counteract the sourness of the vinegar.

The bottom line here is that I highly recommend that you add "agrodolce" to your recipe repertoire; experiment with it; most of all, enjoy it. This recipe came to my attention last summer when it was featured in the New York Times in the Dining section. Here's this week's Kitchen Guy episode, featuring Salmon with Agrodolce Blueberries.




 RECIPE:

 6 4-ounce filets Atlantic salmon
2 shallots, peeled and sliced very thin
1-1/2 cups white wine
2 Tbsp white wine vinegar
4 sprigs fresh thyme
2 cinnamon sticks
1-1/3 cups blueberries
4 Tbsp unsalted butter
2 Tbsp honey
sea salt to taste
vegetable oil for greasing baking sheet.

Season fish well with the sea salt and set it aside at room temperature while you make the sauce.

Preheat the oven to 400 and lightly grease a baking sheet large enough to hold all of the fish.

Simmer together shallots, wine, wine vinegar, thyme, cinnamon sticks and a pinch of salt in a saucepan over medium low heat until most of the liquid has evaporated, about 12 to 15 minutes.

Add the blueberries, butter and honey and cook until the berries soften and begin to release their juices and the sauce turns pink - another 2 to 4 minutes.

Place the salmon on baking sheet and spoon the berry mixture over the fish and season with freshly ground black pepper.

Bake until the salmon is cooked to desired doneness -- 8 to 10 minutes for medium rare. About 12 minutes for medium.

Scotch Eggs - an Easter Story

I got stuck when it came to doing something different on my television program for Easter. I was exhausted from preparations for Passover -- having eight plus myself for dinner on Monday, and a business dinner on Tuesday.

Knowing full well that it's "Lamb and Ham" season, I struggled for one of my culinary "twists" and that's when I decided to do Scotch Eggs. For some reason, eggs are associated with Easter.

I remember growing up in Northeast Pennsylvania, where there was a substantial Ukranian population who brought the art of "psanki" to this country -- elaborate decoration of eggs for Easter. I also remember an elementary school teacher showing us essentially how to blow our brains out by putting a pinhole in one end of the egg and and a larger pinhole in the opposite end and then blowing out the white and the yolk so that we had a hollow vessel to paint.

When I get stuck for ideas for the TV show, I sometimes go to extremes and for some reason, the idea of doing Scotch Eggs got stuck in my head. I never made them before and I only tasted a piece of one quite a long time ago. So I researched it and it seemed simple enough.

So I had my trusty assistant Josh helping me He had worked as my sous chef at two different venues in the Missoula area and then took a break to go to Scottsdale Culinary. This kid had so much experience, he probably could have taught the teachers a thing or two. In any case, he's now working for a very high end and posh resort that closes for the winter, so he was on his annual seasonal layoff which made him available to me.

I've been hard-boiling eggs for a long time and usually get a good result. But for some reason, I had sticky shells. I did them the way I've always done them since I learned the technique in culinary school. Start the eggs in cold water. When the water boils, cover the pot and take it off the heat and after 15 minutes - not a second sooner or later -- you uncover and run cold water into the pot. The eggs are perfectly cooked and the shells should just come off when you crack them. But mine were stubborn. I wasn't sure if I had old eggs or new eggs -- they do behave differently, you know.

Josh told me to try adding a couple of tablespoons of white vinegar to the water. Since egg shells are quite porous, I guess the vinegar reacts with the membrane between the shell and the albumen, making it easier to separate. It worked.

So I had perfectly cooked and shelled hard-boiled eggs. As you'll see in the video posted with this blog, I rolled the eggs in flour because in a dredging process the object of the dredge has to have something on it that will allow the beaten egg to adhere to it so that you can coat it -- in this case with ground Italian sausage. Take about an ounce and a half -- the size of a healthy meatball and form it into a ball, then flatten it slightly in the palm of your hand. The hardboiled egg with the flour on it will then adhere to the sausage.

It's important to treat the egg with care because you want the perfectly cooked yolk to stay that way, since the Scotch Egg will eventually spend a fair amount of time in hot oil. So the sausage coating was barely an eighth of an inch thick. Then I rolled each sausage-coated egg in beaten egg and then in breadcrumbs seasoned with nutmeg, salt and pepper.

I decided to use plain -- not extra virgin -- olive oil. I heated the oil to 325, one of the lower deep frying temperatures, and placed a dredged egg on my spider and lowered it into the oil. It fried nicely and i gingerly rolled it so that the side not fully immersed in the hot oil could also take the deep fry bath.

They were a beautiful golden brown and we couldn't wait to bit into them. So we waited just a bit to let them drain on paper towels and cool down slightly.

To my surprise, I hadn't cooked them long enough because the sausage was still pretty raw. That surprised me, but then I understood the need to deep fry at the lower end of the range because in order to cook the sausage through, the breadcrumb crust really needs to go beyond golden brown -- to an almost deep brown.

The second one and those that followed were big successes. When the crew came to tape the episode and got to eat the finished product, they were a bunch of happy Easter bunnies.

Here's the video:

Sint Maarten/Saint Martin "Food Coma"

PORT LA ROYALE, Marigot, French West Indies — This is a story about family as much as it is about food.

Cugini is the Italian word for cousins. It’s also the name of the best new restaurant we found in our annual visit to Saint Martin. The name is eponymous because two cousins own this restaurant. It’s actually one of those reunion stories that you might see on TV. Sam and Tony were each born in Sicily. When Sam was a young boy, his family emigrated to Toronto. Tony’s family stayed in Sicily. They never really knew each other. But in a chance meeting just a couple of years while Sam and his wife, Francesca, were visiting Saint Martin, brought these two cousins together. Tony is a well-known restaurateur on the island and when they discovered each other and learned of one anothers’ love of food, it was a natural that they should open up a restaurant together.

I am so glad they did!

My friend Topper Daboul, the restaurateur whom I wrote about last week, invited my wife and me, along with his wife Melanie, and a few others, to take a boat ride across Simpson Bay into Marigot’s Port La Royale, on the French side of the island. Topper being half Sicilian told us we were about to have one of the best Italian meals ever.

He didn’t exaggerate.

I brought my camera and so I could illustrate as well as describe this incredible lunch, starting with a gorgeous antipasto with antipastoProsciutto sliced so thin you could see through it; Capiccola so flavorful; Genoa salami with just the right bite; and a beautiful Caprese, consisting of sweet cherry tomatoes, fresh basil and freshly made mozzarella cheese. The fruitiness of the extra virgin olive oil made it all absolutely perfect. I could have been happy eating this antipasto all afternoon, but our “cugino” Sam kept bringing more and more food to the table.

Next came house-made pasta in a meat sauce similar to the Bolognese style, but distinctly Sicilian in pastaflavor and seasoning. At the same time, he brought gnocchi in the same sauce, so we ate them together. These gnocchi were so light and delicate, they melted in your mouth. “Mangia, mangia! (Eat, eat!),” Sam urged. Not one of us at the table had to be told twice, as we scarfed up every last one of those gnocchi.

Pasta-making is an art in itself and the best Italian cooks make it by feel. Humidity changes affect the texture of the dough. You have to get your hands in it and at Cugini, it’s clear that these are very skilled hands.
Just when we thought the last gnoccho was gone, Sam brought to the table a whole platter of more, this time in a tangy and creamy Gorgonzola sauce. And he wasn’t finished. Because at the same time, he also brought two varieties of cugini lasagna, one with a meat sauce and the second with spinach. I told Topper that I was about to lapse into a food coma, because here it was midday and we had already eaten the equivalent of four meals — plus unending glasses of Sancerre Blanc.

Surely, you didn’t think we were finished, did you?! Sam insisted that we try one of each of his desserts:
Tiramisu, Tarte Tatin, and Chocolate Cake with a liquid center. I’ve made my own version of tiramisu and I’ve eaten it at countless restaurants. But I’ve never had one with the mascarpone cheese incorporated with whipped cream that was so light and airy. I also make Tarte Tatin. I think mine’s pretty good, but Sam’s had a quality that I have been unable to duplicate in the way the caramel developed around the apples. The chocolate cake also had a quality to it that spoke to me of some very high quality and high percentage of cacao content.

If we would have allowed it, Sam would have kept bringing food and wine to the table. As hearty as my appetite is, I was stuffed. But we weren’t finished! My wife and I decided we had to pay a second visit, but this time for dinner. I didn’t bring my camera and I regret that I cannot show you the beautiful food we ate, but we started with a glass of champagne (I thought it might have been Prosecco, the Italian sparkling wine, but I wasn’t complaining!). Sam didn’t even have to ask. He just knew instinctively that we had to have that antipasto again. This time, instead of the Caprese component, he served marinated mushrooms and artichokes with sun-dried tomatoes. Delicious. We then had the Cugini Sicilian Salad, with the freshest tomatoes, onions and herbs, along with capers and beautifully ripened Sicilian olives.

For her entree, my wife chose Sicilian Scampi, a succulent shrimp dish with a tangy and spicy red sauce, interspersed with sautéed slices of fresh garlic. I had a grilled veal chop, perfectly cooked to medium rare with some of that house-made pasta on the side. We complimented our meal with a bottle of a moderately priced Tuscan red wine. (And I couldn’t say no to another tiramisu.)

I was impressed with the care Sam and his staff took to make sure that everything they served was to the highest standard. The restaurant is not fancy by any means. Like the food, it’s very simple. But make no mistake: Simple food, expertly made as it is at Cugini, is a gift. Furthermore, while we had only two encounters with Sam, he treated us as if we were family. How can you not love a place like that?

Cugini is open only four months of the year. I am so happy that my annual time in Sint Maarten/Saint Martin coincides with one of those months!

* * * * *

SIMPSON BAY, Sint Maarten, Dutch West Indies – This will be this season’s final column about restaurants in Sint Maarten/Saint Martin. And in this one, you’ll get two-for-one because they are owned and operated by the same person.

And these two are as different as night and day and, though the cuisine is Italian, neither resembles the Italian food I wrote about at Cugini.

Let’s begin with IZI (pronounced, “easy”). Located in a new shopping plaza on the always busy Welfare Road just past Simpson Bay, it is a starkly modern building with cascading water on the front windows. They call themselves an “Italian Pasta Lounge,” and it’s an absolutely perfect name.

I must tell you that we visited IZI last year not long after it opened and, while the food was very good, it was so incredibly noisy we decided that we probably wouldn’t return. Fortunately for us, we heard that sound baffles had been installed. What a difference. You could actually carry on a conversation with the person or people at your table. Last year, you had to yell your order to the waiter and he was standing right next to you.
That’s one of things that I really like – not just about IZI – but its owner, David Foini, who also owns the best fine dining Italian establishment on Sint Maarten, La Gondola, listens to his customers and he responds.
At this point you may be saying to yourself that pasta is pasta. But pasta at IZI is quite different, and you’d see that right away as soon as you open the innovative menu.

You have a choice of three groups of pastas – special pastas such as filled pastas or gnocchi; regular styles such as spaghetti, rigatoni, bowtie or linguine; and finally, a choice of two pastas made with whole wheat.
The IZI menu then gives you additional choices for sauces and toppings which they group as “colors,” such as Red Sauces (pomodoro, Arrabbiata, Bolognese, Campagnola, and Amatriciana); “Blue” toppings – a reference to seafood such as mussels, shrimp, salmon or fuitti di mare; the White Sauces containing cream of cheese or both, including Carbonara, Alfredo, Quattro Formaggi, and Mushroom; and finally, the Green, which includes oil and garlic, basil pesto or sautéed vegetables including zucchini, eggplant and peppers in marinara.

You can make a nearly endless variety of combinations and each is priced from a low of $10.95 to a high of $22.95. I think the concept is unique and borders on genius, and it’s ripe for franchising – a concept not lost on Signore Foini.

There were eight of us in our group and with cocktails beforehand and wine with dinner, each tab ran right around $80 per couple. And even though it was pasta, it felt fairly close to a fine dining experience. That was due in part to the presence of an expert and personable chef and a friendly and knowledgeable wait staff.

Just a few nights beforehand, we had the pleasure of dining with Davide Foini along with friends and he and his brilliant Chef Matteo put on a seven-course tasting menu dinner for us that was extraordinary.

But here’s the thing: The dog ate my homework. I have torn my luggage and briefcase apart looking for my notes on this beautiful dinner and the wines Davide chose to accompany it. I can’t find them, so I cannot give you the detail.

But let me advise this: If you have the good fortune to be in Sint Maarten and you want a fine dining Italian experience, make your way to La Gondola in the Atlantis Casino complex in Cupecoy.

Here’s the way I think you should do Italian in Sint Maarten/Saint Martin. Begin with the trattoria/wine bar I wrote about last week, Cugini, in the French part; then go to IZI on the Dutch side; and lastly, go to La Gondola, located almost directly in between.

For a French and Dutch island, they sure know how to do Italian.

That’s it for this year’s Caribbean Gastronomic Vacation. Back to “normal subjects” next time. Ciao!