learning to be human, since 1984
cooking
Tagliatelle with Tomatoes, Scallions, Herbs, Lemon, and Marsala
Jan 14th
Its not hard to make pasta. Real, fresh, homemade pasta. All it takes is five simple ingredients and some muscle. This should take about 40-50 minutes total, for the whole dish. It takes a bit of time to get the gluten going, so lets cut the palaver and get to it.
For the pasta, you will need:
- 1/2 cup unbleached flour
- 1/2 cup semolina flour, or superfine semolina
- 2 or so tablespoons olive oil (assume extra virgin, unless otherwise noted)
- 1 large egg, room temperature
- a cup of water
For the sauce:
- two handfuls of cherry tomatoes (I also used some romas that needed to be used)
- 2 or 3 scallions
- some olive oil
- some dried oregano
- a sprig of rosemary
- 1/2 a lemon (use a real fucking lemon, please)
- a cup or so of Marsala
- kosher or sea salt and freshly ground pepper
You’ll also need:
- a fork
- a sharp knife
- a measuring cup
- a small bowl
- a medium mixing bowl
- sexy muscles
- a rolling pin or pasta machine
- a large (stainless steel) pan
- a large pot and cover
- a colander
Combine the flour into the bowl. Crack the egg into small bowl, breaking the egg with a fork. Mix in the olive oil and a touch of water-about a tablespoon or so. Then combine the liquids with the flour, using the fork to bring everything together. Once most of the clumps have combined, use your hands to get everything together into a singular mass. Add a touch of water if too crumbly; a dash of flour if too sticky. Continue kneading in the bowl till better combined. Then take it out and knead on a flat work surface. Work the dough until the edges don’t break off as much and it stays together. It will firm up and become more elastic and cohesive. Use the pin to flatten it out into a long sheet, about 1mm thick (1/32 of an inch). If you’re using the machine start it at the thickest setting, reducing it each time. This whole process further develops the gluten, so if you’re using a pin, you might want to knead a bit more by hand. Once you’ve got a sheet of dough, cut strips with your knife or set your machine to do it. For tagliatelle, you want about 1cm strips. Don’t worry about extraneous bits, they’ll all go in the pot.
Before your pasta is cut, get a pot of water large enough to contain it-generally, 6-8 quarts of water per pound of pasta. Also, per 6-8 quarts, season with about 2-3 tablespoons salt. I use kosher or coarse sea salt. Cover and boil. Toss in the pasta and cook
for several minutes, about 3-5, checking by tasting. Your pasta should be firm, still soft but not soggy.
While the water was boiling, you can make the sauce. Coat a sauté pan with olive oil and set to high heat. Halve the tomatoes and add to the pan once the oil is hot. You’ll know it is hot enough if the oil sizzles. If you’re not certain, try one half first to test the heat. Generally, hot olive oil is as viscous as water, cool oil is much slower to move in a pan. Hot oil also smokes, but avoid this, as it kills all the flavor and nutrients in the oil. Chop and add the scallions. A pinch of salt. Don’t stir or move the pan. Let the heat wrinkle the tomatoes and add some color – the scallions will start to caramelize too. Give the pan a quick forward-and-back jolt to loosen any stuck bits, to keep things from burning. Add some oregano, removing any stalks. I rub it between my palms, over the pan, to release any oils. Rip off the leaves from the rosemary by pinching and pulling the stalk between your thumb and forefinger. Give a good toss to mix everything together.
Drain the pasta in a colander and dump it into the pan, with the tomato party. Coat all the pasta in the sauce and mix in about half of the Marsala. Let it simmer for awhile until the alcohol is burned off and the liquid absorbed or evaporated. Remove from the stove and pour into a serving dish. Use the remainder of the Marsala to deglaze the pan. Deglazing simply removes all the bits of burnt schmootz from the pan – this is where all the flavor is! Reduce till the alcohol has burned off and all the bits of veg and pasta are free. Then, pour over the pasta. Finish by squeezing lemon on top. Jam a fork in there and wiggle to get all the goodness out.
I like it served as is, but you can finish it with a nice hard, aged cheese, coarsely grated, a small pad of butter, or a drizzle of olive oil. Grind some pepper on top, and serve three of your best mates. It should also be noted that this is entirely vegetarian – there’s only one egg keeping it from being vegan. But egg substitutes are an entirely different post altogether!
Mise en Place
Jan 9th
Nobody wants to stand around cooking for hours. The flood of “quick-meal” cookbooks is a response to the ever increasing pace of business-driven society. Less time, better output. One way to eat well and save time is to minimize both preparation and cooking. Using raw, whole foods is a good solution, and a rather trendy one at that. But what if your favorite meal is port-braised duck with chanterelles and pearl onions? Luckily, there is a method that most chefs – and indeed, the kitchens they run – employ to keep food preparation as efficient as possible.
Mise en place [miz ã plas] is a French term meaning “set in place” or “everything in its place”. It refers to the planning and setup necessary to prepare food, both food and equipment alike. This includes cutting vegetables, gathering necessary spices, cleaning pots and pans, preheating the oven, and so on. Often, especially in English, it is simply called mise [miz]. The brackets denote the pronunciation as transcribed in the International Phonetic Alphabet. It’s worth learning.
Having everything in front of you allows two things things: easy access to all your equipment and ingredients (and that you indeed have all necessary items), and the ability to spot shoddy ingredients or equipment. A great tip for recipes involving eggs, and certainly part of mise en place, is to crack them one at a time into a small bowl or ramekin, inspecting each one before pouring it into the collective bowl. Every once in awhile, a bad one makes it into your fridge. Thankfully, our pal Mise is there to bail us out.
Okay, so lets get to the application. How exactly do you look at a recipe and figure out the mise en place? There are five steps, roughly, to tackling any recipe or set of courses:
- Figure out each step in the recipe.Usually this is done for you, but sometime it isn’t. Break the recipe down into sequential tasks that make sense.
- Assess which steps can be done ahead of time.This includes all your prep-work, preheating, bowl-chilling, vegetable blanching, etc.
- Decide how you will store your ingredients will be stored until you are ready to use them.Some things, like sauces, need to stay hot. Others need the fridge or freezer, while others yet can simply reside in bowls in or near your work area – so consider both the storage location and vessel.
- Determine the time each step will take.This one is pretty straightforward. One note, however. Sometimes you can use downtime later in the cooking process to get some prep out of the way. For example, if you’re making a roast, it needs to rest after being cooked. You can use that time to make the sauce from the juices. This is where you can multi-task by using passive cooking time to do prep work or cooking. This leads into the final step:
- Look for ways to be more efficient.For example, blanching vegetables partially cooks them while allowing you to chill them, and finish cooking them later. Since they are blanched, it won’t take as long and you can do it ahead of time while maintaining their quality. Also, if you are cooking several courses, look for common ingredients or preparation techniques in each dish. Doing all your julienning at the same time allows you to get into a routine, which saves time.
There are a few key ideas necessary that are beyond the scope of this post. They are knife use (and other tools, in general), and cleanliness. I will dedicate at least one post to each of these topics in the future. I must note this disclaimer, however. I am not responsible for your mistakes in the kitchen. I have badly cut myself, as I am sure most chefs have. It wasn’t fun, but I take full responsibility for it. If your knife doesn’t feel right, set it down. If your blade is dull, get it sharpened. This is what mise is for – getting out all the kinks and working efficiently and responsibly. You are entirely responsible for your own safety. That being said, here are some tips:
- Keep your fingertips tucked under your knuckles, using them to hold the food to your cutting board.
- When chopping, keep the edge of the tip on the board. It never leaves. Simply rock the blade to cut-you can steady it by carefully pinching it with the thumb and forefingers of your non-dominant hand. Let the knife do the cutting-bad things happen when you apply too much force. If you can’t cut something without exerting undue pressure, then its time to sharpen or true your blade, or get a new one entirely.
- Keep your workspace sanitary and free of clutter, cleaning as you go. The only thing worse than not having space in which to work is hurting yourself because of a mess that you left. Keep it clean, keep it safe.
- Make sure all the equipment and food you are using is thoroughly cleaned, dried, and prepared properly.
It should be noted that mise en place also refers to your individual setup-how your workspace is arranged regularly. Everyone does things differently, but there are certain commonalities (salt, pepper, cutting board, etc).
Till next time! Stay safe!