Dgourmac's Blog

Bucatini is one of my favorite pasta shapes.  I rarely cook it though, even before I became a vegan.  It’s too chewy for my wife.  Now that I am a vegan, I don’t eat it often either.  The penultimate role for bucatini in life is in “Bucatini All’Amatriciana“.  And since I have cut back significantly on my consumption of Guanciale and Pecorino, there are few occasions to enjoy this pasta’s marvelous, mouth-filling qualities.  Fortunately, tonight was one of those occasions.

Since Barbara had to rush off after an early supper of leftover cabbage soup, I was able to cook just for me.  As usual, the menu was ingredient driven.  A few days earlier I saw some lovely-looking chanterelles at our local farm stand, so that provided the impetus.  Until I learned how to cook chanterelles a few years ago, I was often disappointed with the texture.  Once I learned the technique, it became a mainstay when they are available in the Fall.

• first, trim off any bad spots on the mushrooms, then cut large pieces into bite-sized slices, leaving small pieces whole
• saute the mushrooms in olive oil or butter, until just barely tender
• add stock (we use homemade roasted vegetable stock, although tonight I cheated by skimming off about one cup of broth from the cabbage soup)
• cook on medium heat until the liquid is gone; add a little water and continue, if the mushrooms are still tough
• when the liquid is gone, add about 1/2 cup of white wine, and boil that off
• add salt and pepper to taste, plus any chopped herbs you fancy (tonight I picked some lemon thyme, oregano, rosemary and parsley from the garden)

While the mushrooms are cooking, boil the bucatini in lots of salted water, until al dente — perhaps 15 minutes or more.  Pick out a strand and taste — it’s the only way I know to be sure about doneness.  Reserve about a cup of the pasta water, then drain the bucatini.  Reheat the mushrooms, add the pasta water, and the pasta.  Heat until all is well-coated and the texture of the pasta is tender enough, but not flabby.

If you wish, add hot pepper.  I cut up some tiny Calabrian hot peppers and mixed them in.   For the wine, I was so happy to have received some of the Polvanera Aglianico recently, from Jan’s first shipment into the U.S. last month, via Acker, Merrall & Condit in NYC.  I also used some of the Sicilian olive oil I bought at Di Palo’s in NY recently, from Trapani.

This Aglianico is silky-smooth, balanced and delicious.  One of the best I have had.  Here are the Calabrian peppers, cut up, de-seeded, and shown red-on-red cutting board.

Interestingly, all that meaty flavor in the dish was created by 0.14 lbs., or 2.2 oz. of mushrooms.  It’s a good thing it takes so little; as you see, the good ones are $40/lb.  Anyway, after the pasta I felt a need for some vegetables, so I took out the mesclun from the farmers’ market, put it in a large bowl, added salt & pepper, Trapanesi olive oil, a little champagne vinegar, mixed it together, and put it back in my pasta bowl to eat.

Another observation: pasta served in a large bowl can be much more appealing as a main course, vs. a smaller bowl.  Here is the visual comparison between our normal pasta/soup bowl and the big one from Crate and Barrel.

Now, if you could only take care of my dirty dishes….

The growing season is not very long in New England; yesterday was the last farmer’s market in our neighborhood.  It was an opportunity to go there, as well as to the year-round farm stand nearby to stock up on the abundant Fall harvest.

One of the ways I love to extract maximum flavor from vegetables is by braising.  I have a few favorite cookbooks on the technique, and my #1 is Molly Stevens’ All About Braising.  The two recipes I chose were Cauliflower, Potatoes and Peas Indian-Style, and End-of-Summer Green Beans Braised with Tomatoes.

I also boiled some baby beets and braised several young leeks in olive oil and white wine, then made a cashew cheese-like spread from raw organic cashews, water, garlic, olive oil, nutritional yeast, sea salt and cilantro.  These were all assembled into a first course salad, with fresh mesclun, topped with organic sauerkraut from the health food store.

I already had an open bottle of an Occhipinti (Lazio) Alea Viva, a light and luscious red wine — another beauty from Jan D’Amore — which matched beautifully.

Remember the roasted butternut squash last week, for the Cappellacci di Zucca?  Well, I had some puree left, and I found a recipe for gnocchi in La Cucina di Lidia, so I decided to make some tonight.  Note: I used the plain pureed squash, without the walnuts and corn butter that I had added to the filling for cappellacci.  Making gnocchi is pretty easy, and it’s fun, especially if you happen to be in possession of a gnocchi board (cool, but not necessary at all).  The technique is perfectly explained on this website, which includes a superb video clip.

I had about 2.5 – 3 cups of puree, to which I added one egg, and some bread flour (all-purpose flour is fine, but I read somewhere that high protein flour is a bit better for this, so I used what I had).  I can’t tell you how much flour to use; you will need to gauge that by feel.  It was probably 2 cups, but I am not at all sure of that.  The keys to tender gnocchi are:

• do not add too much flour…it should be slightly sticky but not so much that is sticks to the board
• do not overmix…add flour a bit at a time, and mix GENTLY by hand or with a fork
• cut off pieces of dough and roll into logs about 1/2-inch in diameter
• dust with flour, cut pieces 1/2 to 3/4-inch long
• roll each piece on the ridged board, as shown in the video
• poach in salted, boiling water about 3-4 minutes, until they float
• don’t add too many to the pot at once

Many sauce alternatives are available.  My choice for tonight was a riff on the classical butter-and-sage-leaf sauce.  First, I picked a bunch of fresh sage leaves from my plant outside.  Then I fried the leaves in about 1/3 cup of olive oil (still vegan this weekend), and removed them to a plate when crisp.  I chopped 1/4 cup of organic walnuts and warmed them in the oil on low flame.  As the gnocchi rose to the top of the pot, I scooped them out with a wire strainer and dropped them in the sauce.  Added a little of the pasta water to the sauce (less than 1/4 cup) and boiled it down a bit.  Serve in a pasta bowl:

For the wine, once more I turned to Jan D’Amore.  An unusual wine — 2011 Alter Ego from Occhipinti in Lazio — 100% Aleatico (a red grape) vinified as a white wine.

I’ll tell you about the second course: Chinese stir-fry — with porcini-crusted tofu, Yu Choy, eggplant, mushrooms, and ginger-scallion sauce — another time.