emily ellen

HOW TO: make biscotti

Biscotti recipes abound on the world wide web. Don't be taken in by the recipes that call for butter. They'll produce a light, airy, buttery cookie that is tasty but most certainly not a biscotti.

Italian for twice cooked (bis-cotto), biscotti are dense, crunchy, and remarkably easy to make. The recipe that follows is adapted from Mario Batali's Molto Italiano, a great cookbook and a tremendous resource for anyone interested in classic italian cooking.

Ingredients:

3 eggs

4 egg yolks

2 3/4 cups all-purpose flour

2 cups sugar

1 teaspoon baking powder

2 teaspoons of flavoring extract (vanilla, almond, anise, etc.)

Pinch of salt

Preheat oven to 350* F. Sift together flour, sugar, baking powder, and salt. If you want to make a chocolate batter, replace 1/2 cup of flour with 1/2 cup of cocoa powder. Whisk the eggs and the extract and then pour the wet ingredients over the dry. Mix for a minute or until the flour has been incorporated and evenly distributed throughout the dough. It will be wet and heavy. Split the dough in two and form each portion into a log approximately 2 to 3 inches wide. Place both logs onto a cookie sheet lined with parchment paper and bake for 20 minutes. The logs will crackle and just start to brown. Remove them from the oven and place them on a cooling rack for 20 minutes. Slice the logs into 1-inch thick pieces and place the slices cut-side down on the baking sheet. Put them back in the oven and bake for another 20 mintues.

Store the biscotti in an airtight container. Dunk in coffee, wine, etc.

From New York Magazine

Let’s start with a question. A few questions, actually: When did it become normal for your average 35-year-old New Yorker to (a) walk around with an iPod plugged into his ears at all times, listening to the latest from Bloc Party; (b) regularly buy his clothes at Urban Outfitters; (c) take her toddler to a Mommy’s Happy Hour at a Brooklyn bar; (d) stay out till 4 A.M. because he just can’t miss the latest New Pornographers show, because who knows when Neko Case will decide to stop touring with them, and everyone knows she’s the heart of the band; (e) spend $250 on a pair of jeans that are artfully shredded to look like they just fell through a wheat thresher and are designed, eventually, to artfully fall totally apart; (f) decide that Sufjan Stevens is the perfect music to play for her 2-year-old, because, let’s face it, 2-year-olds have lousy taste in music, and we will not listen to the Wiggles in this house; (g) wear sneakers as a fashion statement; (h) wear the same vintage New Balance sneakers that he wore on his first day of school in the seventh grade as a fashion statement; (i) wear said sneakers to the office; (j) quit the office job because—you know what?—screw the office and screw jockeying for that promotion to VP, because isn’t promotion just another word for “slavery”?; (k) and besides, now that she’s a freelancer, working on her own projects, on her own terms, it’s that much easier to kick off in the middle of the week for a quick snowboarding trip to Sugarbush, because she’s got to have some balance, right? And she can write it off, too, because who knows? She might bump into Spike Jonze on the slopes; (l) wear a Misfits T-shirt; (m) make his 2-year-old wear a Misfits T-shirt; (n) never shave; (o) take pride in never shaving; (p) take pride in never shaving while spending $200 on a bedhead haircut and $600 on a messenger bag, because, seriously, only his grandfather or some frat-boy Wall Street flunky still carries a briefcase; or (q) all of the above?

More

God does not want me to have clean shirts.

I don't know why, but it's true.

Just last weekend I actually had to throw away about six shirts that were only a couple of months old because every single one of them had a big stain down the front. The stains usually had something to do with dinner and olive oil, but some were really fantastic  - frozen raspberry on white shirt, tomato sauce spatter on taupe shirt - you get the picture.

So I threw them all away and set off last weekend to replenish my supply, vowing to never cook in my work clothes ever again. Rather than blowing an entire paycheck on shirts, I decided that I'd restock piece-by-piece, only buying the shirt if it was the right color, cut, size, etc. And I came upon one such piece at Filene's Basement this past weekend - Calvin Klein, lightweight, blue, cut just perfectly with sleeves that nearly reach to my elbows.

Today I went to lunch at Chipotle wearing my new pants and sky blue shirt. Already I was tempting fate by eating salsa, something that is usually a recipe for disaster.

It was raining this afternoon, but I had an umbrella. Got a little wet going into restaurant as I was closing said umbrella, but no big deal. Ate my fajita bowl (rice, beans, grilled fajita veggies, TWO kinds of salsa, corn, shredded lettuce) with military precision while flipping through a magazine. Liz called - hungry at work, needed lunch. Ordered same for her. Walk out, juggling bag of Liz food, magazine, purse, and umbrella. Try not to get swept away by torrential downpour. Walk down street feeling triumphant, as I'd managed to emerged unscathed from potentially disastrous lunch while wearing new shirt and pants. Looking forward to showing off new shirt and pants to clothing-minded little sister.

Make it to American Apparel. Hand food over to starving sibling.

"What's that on your shirt?"

"What the fuck are you talking about?" I immediately replied.

"That - there. Is it food?"

"Absolutely not. There's no way. I was too careful. Nothing fell on its way into my mouth."

But, sure enough, there was a long yellowish stain sitting on my right shoulder. I couldn't get food up there if I tried. I literally would have to throw food directly at my right ear to get a stain there. And while I might be a messy eater, throwing the food at my ear is not the current feeding method I employ.

So what the hell was this stain? I didn't get pooped on by a bird (It's happened a few times, so I'm familiar with the feeling of the poo landing...) I wasn't wearing anything in my hair or on my face that could have run down and dripped on my shirt. The only thing that could have possibly dripped on me was...

...water.

From the metal awning above the Chipotle entrance. Rusty water. So my fight for clean clothes was doomed from the start because I was stained on my way in by water.

Clearly, God does not want me to have clean shirts.

HOW TO: make pasta

I've made homemade pasta a couple of times in my young life. It's always laborious and time-consuming, but it's also tons-o-fun, especially if you can wrangle a friend or significant other (hint hint, DK) into doing it with you. Plus, there's nothing more satisfying than making something from scratch. It's like magic, the way the pasta just comes together.

That being said, making pasta from scratch is certainly not an exact science. You just have to do it a few times to figure out what's right for you - and it all depends on the temperature, humidity, type of flour, size of eggs, etc. Even though the perfect dough can't be scripted, here's a good place to start:

Egg pasta (pasta all'uovo)
3 cups flour (all-purpose or OO)
4 eggs (large)
1 tablespoon olive oil

Mound most of the flour in the center of a large wooden cutting board, reserving a portion for later. It's  easy to add the reserved flour later to make "wet" dough drier, but it's very tough to add liquid to a dough that's too dry. Make a well in the middle of the flour and add the eggs and the olive oil. Using a fork, beat together the eggs and oil, and begin to incorporate the flour while still retaining the shape of the well - it should still look like a volcano. As you expand the well, keep pushing the flour up from the base of the mound to retain the well shape. The dough will start to come together once half of the flour has been incorporated. At this point you can start kneading the dough by hand, using the your palms. There will be stray knobby bits of egg and flour that you should just brush to the side of your board. Keep kneading the dough for 5 minutes. It should have the texture of soft play dough. Wrap it in plastic and let it rest in the fridge for half an hour.

Once the dough has rested, unwrap it and cut it into four portions - you will roll one portion at a time, and the rest of the dough should sit wrapped in the fridge until you're ready for it. Lightly flour the dough you're working with and send it through the pasta machine on the thickest setting. Fold it in half or into thirds and send it through again. You will have to roll the pasta on the same setting a number of times. I usually move on to the next  setting when the pasta is smooth and unblemished - no cracks or tears in the dough. If your dough does start to rip, don't worry. You've moved to a thinner setting too quickly. Just drop the machine down to a thicker setting and re-roll the sheet. Be sure to dust it with a little flour every now and again. The pasta should never stick to your fingers, but should still be elastic.

As you continue rolling, the pasta will get loooooooong - a partner is a big help when you're trying to send these long sheets through the roller. But remember, you want to be able to comfortably eat the noodle, so you can cut a long sheet of pasta as needed.

Once you've rolled the sheet to your desired thickness, it's time to cut! You can do this by hand by folding the sheet over on itself and cutting lengthwise with a sharp knife. This is a great way to make pappardelle. Standard pasta machines include a cutting roller, usually for fettuccine and cappellini noodles.

Once you've cut your noodles, drop them into salted boiling water for 90 seconds or until they float. There is no al dente for fresh pasta, but overcooking it will make it gummy and gross. Like I said, it's not an easy process, and it usually takes a good bit of time, but it's so wonderful to produce a beautiful meal out of a handful of flour and a couple of eggs. Trust me, it's worth it.

Veeeeerrrrry Eeeeenteresting.....

I know we've all seen clips like these before. I just think that every now and then it's nice to remind myself that what someone's got in the kitchen is not always what winds up on the table. Dove put it out there in this clip:

And now it's being taken to the extreme:

Click Here for more great videos and pictures!

SoBe, May 12-15 2007

a fuoco

So the night started out simply. Picked up DK from the office, stopped by his house, and made our way back home. Had some nice ingredients - filet mignon, asparagus, etc - and once we'd settled in, I set about making dinner. Dinner would be, along with blanched asparagus and parmigiano risotto,  steak au poivre, a dish that (for the uninitiated) calls for a sauce that is made by FUCKING LIGHTING THE PAN ON FIRE. That's right, you purposefully start a kitchen fire.

I'll tell you more.

It was the scariest thing I've ever done. Seriously, I was shaking, both before and after. I had to sit down (once all the flames went out, of course). Lets start at the beginning.

In a medium pan over medium heat, you heat butter and olive oil until the combo takes on a golden color (takes about a minute). Mixing the oil with the butter increases the smoke point of the butter, enabling you to cook something in it at a higher temperature without burning the butter. So I did all that, and then put my beautiful peppercorn-crusted filets into the pan. I was feeling quite confident, like a very capable, learned chef. I had everything going at once - the asparagus, the risotto, the filet, and it was all coming together magnificently. But there it was - it was looming in the not-so-far-off distance - the notion that I would have to FUCKING LIGHT THE PAN ON FIRE. The steaks were done. There was no turning back.

I donned my Orka, pulled my hair back, and said a little prayer. Oh, and I also equipped DK with a big metal lid, in case things got out of hand.

I poured the cognac into the pan. "Shit, this is it! I've gotta do it now!" I thought, as the cognac began to sizzle and spit. And I did it! I stuck my grill lighter into the pan and - WHOOOOOSH - a column of flame ignited in front of my very eyes and licked its way toward the ceiling. Holy cow. Shake, shake, shake, I shook the pan, gently sloshing the burning liquid around as the flames (which were now confined to the area directly above my pan) began to die down. Shake, shake, shake, and twenty seconds later, the fire had burned itself out. The really magical part of the whole process (I mean, in addition to me escaping with my eyebrows still in tact) is that it worked - all the beautiful brown bits from the bottom of the pan were now part of the sauce, no scraping required.  I finished making the sauce, plated our dinners, and abbiamo mangiato. We ate.

Hey, how ya doin'?

Between 24 and The Sopranos, I may just have a television-induced heart attack. Seriously. I won't waste too much time babbling about it all, but let me just say - holy cow. I mean seriously people, could the last week's worth of television be ANY BETTER? I think not.

I must have been channeling the Sopranos on Saturday, when I decided DK and I would really exploit the Italian in us and head down to the Strip District for some good Italian foodstuffs. We found some great stuff and, inspired by my surroundings, I settled on making two great dishes: Bucatini al Amatriciana and Tiramisu.

We tackled the tiramisu, and after DK butchered a couple of eggs, we set into the recipe, made all the components, and assembled. Easy! Voila! Perfect! I figured this was a sign of things to come, and I was excited to set into making the bucatini, a dish I discovered in Rome two summers ago. It's a wonderfully spicy tomato sauce with onions and sauteed pancetta (Italian bacon) over the bucatini noodles, thick pastas with a pinhole running down the middle.

I cubed the pancetta and diced the onions and set them in a pan with a little olive oil. Hmmm...not quite the scent I was expecting. In fact, the more it cooked, the more I was able to identify the smell. Wet dog. My beloved amatriciana sauce was smelling like wet dog. DK yelled from the living room, "Is it supposed to smell like that? Or is the smell going to change - into something good?" And I didn't know what to say. We had a good laugh over the fact that he thought it smelled like feet, whereas I stood by my original assessment, wet dog. I soldiered on, wet dog sauce and all, and we actually ate it and it wasn't so bad in the end. But still, I had this romantic notion that I could whip together the lovely sauce I had one night in Trastevere and of course, it didn't quite turn out the way I'd hoped. Oh well.

Self (help!)

So I'm doing the 2006 Self Challenge, a three-month program where you record your workouts and track your weekly progress, with the goal of being "ready" for swimsuit season (as if a person can be "ready" like a turkey or a cake - no, don't take the swimsuit out of the oven yet, you're not "ready"). Swimsuit season is a strange ritual that women apparently subject themselves to annually. I say apparently because I've never really been one to buy into the idea that I should only "prepare" my body to be presentable six months out of the year. Unfortunately, this rebellion of swimsuit season results in a situation where I'm never prepared to show my limbs to the general public - I don't own a pair of shorts (and don't even ask about a bikini - I wore one once. Not one summer, my friends, but once as in one singular day. Ever. In my entire life). Like a milk-fed calf being raised for veal, my limbs stay hidden beneath whatever covering I decide upon for the day, and more often than not it's a pair of black pants and a black shirt.

So the situation has gotten a little out of hand (read: cellulite everywhere!) and I've decided to engage in the ritual of "getting ready." This effort is in no way assisted by my recent venture into cooking, which has a road paved in butter and, well, more butter. I tried to make a hollandaise sauce this weekend (big failure - the eggs curdled) and the recipe (from my Silver Spoon cookbook) called for nearly a cup of butter - almost two whole sticks! Not helping my "getting ready" endeavor, but damn it, I'm going to the gym tonight, and I'll probably cook once I get home. I'm a woman of contradictions.

Schadenfreude (and more!)

Schadenfredue (n): Taking delight in another person's misfortune (German).

The Germans couldn't have designed a more perfect word for my current state of emotions (though it isn't the slightest bit surprising that the Germans would be the ones to develop this word. And don't pretend to be offended - everyone's a little bit racist. Chris and DK, that was for you guys). Anyway, back to my current state of emotions - she failed! The woman who swooped into a project I was working on, who never talks to me like I'm an equal, she failed, and I couldn't be happier, which maybe makes me a bad person, but I don't really care right now. You can email me if you're really interested in the details, but lets just say I've been vindicated, and I am recovering the responsibility that she tried to take after her recent failure to produce an even remotely comprehensible document. And now we do the dance of joy (aah, Balki.)

So, onward.

I got my car - it's sooooo much fun to have a car that you enjoy driving. I actually woke up this morning thinking, "Yay! I get to drive into town for work!" And trust me, very few people on the planet have that thought running through their brains at 7:30AM. Only people with new-ish cars or those who have been recently paroled have that thought going through their heads (I am in the former group, in case that needed to be clarified). So yes, new car, it's awesome. It was all shiny and beautiful when I picked it up on Wednesday, and then, in typical Pittsburgh fashion, it rained/snowed all day yesterday, so now it's covered in that white chalky gunk that blankets all vehicles for the better part of the winter. I'll rinse her off one night so I can have a proper photo session and actually show her off to everyone. Kay, I'll stop talking about my car like it's my child.

I'm reading a great book, Julie and Julia. It's a piece by a woman, Julie Powell, who decided to spend a year cooking all 524 recipes from Julia Child's Mastering the Art of French Cooking in one year. I'm about halfway through the book and I'm really enjoying everything - it's not so much about the recipes. Instead, it's about this woman's life and how cooking becomes a really special thing that she takes on (for no good reason) and how she can connect a year's worth of events through cooking. It's fun for me to read about her failure to flip an omelet, or how she used almost a dozen eggs just to get three that were properly poached - I had a similar experience trying to make a flourless chocolate cake a month ago. My egg whites just wouldn't make a meringue, and I went through more than a dozen eggs before getting a batch that was even close. The cake was not a success. But oh well. Anyway, one of the coolest things about the book is that it came from Julie's blog. In fact, the whole experiment revolved around the idea that she'd cook and then she'd write about it in her blog.

So that brings me to this: I know I promised to update this blog, and I know I gave you a list of reasons why I haven't been. I'm newly inspired by Julie Powell and the lure that this blog might, someday, take on a life of its own and make me a writer or something like that. I hereby swear to be more attentive to my blog. Plus, my 30-day trial period is up, so hell, I've already paid for it. I might as well use it.