Dgourmac's Blog

Geometry of Pasta – Fregola in Cassola

Posted on June 30, 2023 by dgourmac

One of my more unusual cookbooks is The Geometry of Pasta. Here is a quote from the NPR review of the book, when it was published in 2010:

“Pasta comes in a myriad of wonderful shapes — tubes and spirals, shells and ribbons and little ears. But why? Did some pasta manufacturer have fun — or does it really make a difference in taste?“

The authors address these questions with intriguing explanations, and they illustrate them with over 100 recipes. I had read the book cover-to-cover years ago but until recently, I tried only a few of the recipes. This week I have delved into several more recipes, beginning with this Sardinian pasta with Manila Clams from the State of Washington, by way of Eataly Boston’s fish market.

As you can see, this is a fairly simple recipe, and I found the instructions to be accurate. It made a lovely late lunch for me today, and I’m happy to share the results with you.

I had a little bit of the Ancarani Fomoso left, to go with the first serving. The second helping was accompanied by the latest Vermentino from Birichino.

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Anniversary Dinner at Pammy’s

Posted on June 30, 2023 by dgourmac

It’s beginning to be a new tradition: our wedding anniversary dinner at Pammy’s restaurant in Cambridge. This week my wife and I celebrated #58 with another excellent meal there. I write this blog post as much for me as I do for you. I like to remember the superb cooking.

The menu is Prix Fixe, three dishes per person from this list. Our choices are circled. In case you are counting, we both ordered the Gnocchi dish, and my wife’s last choice was their unpublished vegan option, featuring Asian eggplant (which was outstanding).

Here are the photos.

This was the vegan dish.

My choice for a glass of wine was Donna Grazia, a white wine made in Sicily from two native red grapes, and imported by my friend, Nick Mucci.

I’ve begun to look forward to #59.

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Lunch from Almost Nothing

Posted on June 27, 2023 by dgourmac

Today’s lunch required some ingenuity. Having had bread as the centerpiece for the past four meals, I decided against sandwiches in any form. The refrigerator was about half empty, so many of my favorites were not available. The leftovers roster was meager but not bare. (I had to throw out the extra chickpeas that were sitting there for 10 days, and the remaining lobster risotto did not appeal.) I did find a plastic bag with lovely Swiss Chard ribs. There was also a small container of cannellini beans, so I decided to use those elements as the core.

Step 1 was to chop up a very fragrant, fresh garlic clove from Clark Farm, along with fresh Lemon Thyme from our garden, picked yesterday. I cooked those ingredients slowly in organic Greek olive oil for several minutes. When the garlic started to color, I added the chard ribs, salt and pepper. Things looked lonely, so I looked around the counter and saw some small croutons to add to the mix.

Next, I added the white beans and 1/2 cup of water. Slowly, the chard ribs and the cannellini began to soften. It was time to enhance flavor; a jar of leftover Italian tomatoes in sauce provided one crushed tomato and juice. To that, I squeezed a bit of Harissa from a tube. This spicy Tunisian ingredient add zest and darker color. A little more water, and the lunch was ready. Cheap, colorful, flavorful and satisfying.

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Notable Dishes in April and May

Posted on June 18, 2023 by dgourmac

Now that I’m mostly caught up with blog entries for my fans, I will close out the Spring season with a brief selection of tasty and attractive dishes. None of these were important enough for a full story, but I can’t let them go by without being noticed.

Red Cabbage and Beet Salad with Balsamic Vinegar

Couscous, Vegetables and Feta Cheese Salad

Asparagus and Pancetta Quiche

Padron Peppers with Sopressata with Slovenian Orange Wine

Sheet Pan Roasted Vegetables with Feta

Pasta Fagioli with Borlotti Beans

Spaghetti with Pan Roasted Pancetta and Pecorino

They tasted at least as good as they looked.

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Springtime in the Yard: Flowers, Turkeys, and the Fox

Posted on June 18, 2023 by dgourmac

I don’t always write about food and wine. This post is a celebration of the way Springtime brings the beauty of flowers and wildlife to our bucolic grounds.

Flowers explode all around us. We love when the trees and bushes are in full bloom. Here are the flowers on our Kousa Dogwood tree.

In the front of the house the kitchen windows open to the blossoms of a Mountain Laurel bush.

On the side of the house we have a Crabapple tree. It’s not very attractive most of the year, but it is glorious for one week in the Spring.

This is also the time of year that wild turkeys choose to show off their style to potential mates of the opposite sex. We had a few in the yard recently.

One of my favorite wild visitors is the fox who often trots around our meadow, woods, and stone walls. I like to fantasize that he has a steady diet of squirrels and chipmunks in front of the house, helping to keep these pests under control.

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How to Make the Best Out of a Screwed-Up Batch of Sourdough

Posted on June 18, 2023 by dgourmac

Last month I had a couple of disastrous rounds of bread baking. I am learning that my ability to multi-task the way I used to is diminishing as the years go by. I am now too easily distracted and forget things more often. One of those episodes was marked by two significant errors. The first was in the selection of flour for the dough. Instead of going to the container with white bread flour, I went to a container I had mis-marked and, before I discovered my mistake, I measured out 275 grams of Type 85 flour — a whole wheat malted grain, darker in color and rougher in texture than what I usually use.

The second error was even simpler. When baking the breads, normally I start them in their covered pots at 500 º F. for 20 minutes. Then, after removing the lids from the pots, I am supposed to turn the heat down to 450 º F. for another 20-25 minutes to finish the browning process. On this fateful night I forgot to turn down the heat, so the loaves burned quite noticeably. However, having invested 12 hours of my time and a kilo’s worth of ingredients, I had to figure out how to make the best of it.

The rustic nature of the bread seemed to lend itself to strong flavors, so I made breakfast toasts using a rich goat cheese and a splash of spectacularly good Sicilian orange marmalade. They were amazing! The burnt crusts were barely noticeable.

While I was on a Sicilian kick, the next step was to make a grilled prosciutto and cheese sandwich for lunch, accompanied by an excellent Etna Bianco white wine. These were good enough to make me consider burning bread more often!

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Tagliatelle

Posted on June 16, 2023 by dgourmac

Tagliatelle is a traditional type of pasta from the Emilia-Romagna and Marche regions of Italy. Individual pieces of tagliatelle are long, flat ribbons that are similar in shape to fettuccine and are traditionally about 6 mm wide. (Wikipedia)

I make my own pasta, using 85-90 grams of “00” flour and 10-15 grams of Durum flour, with one extra large egg, a pinch of salt and a little olive oil. Sometimes I add chopped up fresh spinach into the flour mix, to make green noodles.

Here are two different combinations for dinner this Spring.

Spinach Tagliatelle with Zucchini, Leek, and Cannellini Beans

Butternut Squash and Pancetta

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Signature Sourdough Bread

Posted on June 16, 2023 by dgourmac

Over the course of the past year, I’ve been experimenting with variations of sourdough bread — sometimes intentionally, other times by accident. The results yesterday confirmed the bread I want to make most often. Here’s the recipe:

850 gm. Breadtopia white bread flour
100 gm. Castelvetrano whole wheat flour
50 gm. freshly milled rye flour
200 gm. Levain (50 g. mature starter, 80 gm. 50/50 white and whole wheat flour, 80 gm. water)
750 gm. water (700 with flour in autolyse, 50 for dissolving salt)
21 gm Kosher salt

Follow instructions for Tartine bread by Regular Chef

It makes 2 or 3 loaves, depending on how you divide the dough. This batch made two boules and a batard.

Top with hummus, peanut butter, sheep milk cheese, prosciutto, or almost anything else, and you have breakfast, lunch, snack or supper. Buon appetito!

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Recycling

Posted on April 23, 2023 by dgourmac

We make a concerted effort to recycle as much as possible. Paper, plastic, bottles and cans, and much of the detritus of lifestyle in this century requires that effort. I take the piles to the town Transfer Station weekly and have done so for many years.

It turns out that this all provides a good metaphor for managing leftovers in the refrigerator as well. As an example, I offer this dish which was my lunch for several days this week. Over the course of the week, I had made and consumed beans and rice in separate meals, ending up with leftovers of each. By sautéing some leeks and cutting up a tomato, and heating them up with a little water and olive oil, I was able to turn it into delicious and attractive dish.

Last night for dinner, I prepared some small octopus — cooking it for an hour Sous Vide — and then grilling it outside.

Naturally, there was some little octopi left over, along with the remaining bean/rice concoction, so they were combined for today’s lunch in the last incarnation of those long-ago ingredients.

While I am re-using concepts, I applied recycling to recipes, too. To get inspiration for our dinners, I recently used this blog. I was looking for seasonal successes in years past, so I searched the blog for interesting alternatives from the same season in prior years. Lo and behold, I found a recipe for Homemade Spinach Tagliatelle with Asparagus Sauce in March, 2018, and I decided to replicate it.

Using some leftover cheese filling from a recent ravioli dinner, I made an accompanying dish of zucchini rolls filled with the cheese and a light touch of tomato sauce, and then baked it for 30 minutes.