Homemade Porchetta Sandwiches with Salsa Verde: Crack(ling) for Foodies

Porchetta Panini with Salsa Verde: highly addictive, but legal.

I wrote this post over a month ago - life is so busy I didn't get to finish it and publish it till May, but I am retroactively publishing it :)

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I'm struggling a little bit, as I usually do at this time of year, with the fact that it snowed again a few days ago.  In April.  And it's not easy to face the fact that it will probably keep doing that sporadically until mid May.  High desert.  Yep - sometimes I think you seriously do need to be high to put up with this shite with a smile on your face!  Freaking Denver.  Good thing I had these pictures and my porchetta adventure in the archives ready for a post that warms.

Not cool, Nature.  Not cool.

I'm not sure where the idea came from exactly but at a certain point in 2013 I became completely obsessed with making porchetta.  I suppose it might have been my subconscious harkening back to the market in Rome's Campo dei Fiori and the porchetta stand we'd passed by on our trip in 2010.  The regret of not buying a sandwich that day clung tightly to my capricious culinary heart.  I'd tried porchetta before - I'm not sure where - and the taste of it, crunchy-salty-deliciousness, lingered, like an unattainable sensory high, in my memory.  It could also be that since then I've been victim to what seems to be nothing short of a porchetta-centric-campaign of cooking shows aimed at me only, pedaling that legalized and quite addictive substance and how to make it yourself, featuring food trucks and restaurants alike showcasing kick-ass porchetta.  I was truly convinced I'd become the unwitting victim of a universal conspiracy to entice me to death with crackling, herbs and lemon juice.  Something had to be done. 

Porchetta in Campo dei Fiori; be still my beating heart!

 

A couple of months ago I happened to land on an episode of Guy Fieri's "Diners, Drive-ins and Dives" (a show and celebrity chef I love to hate but can't stop watching) and was sucked into an episode on a sandwich joint that made what can only be described as the most tasty thing I'd ever seen (again): their own homemade porchetta sandwiches.  The place was called Meat and Bread in Vancouver, BC, and their purposely-simple approach to sandwiches (meat and bread, literally) drew me in.  Well, and I simply couldn't take it anymore.  I had to get out and finally commence that delicious hunt for the ingredients that would ensure that the most delicious of roasted pork belly sandwiches would be mine at last.

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THE HUNT

Crackling Heaven.

Porchetta is traditionally from Lazio, the region in Italy where Rome is located.  As if that is not already appealing enough to me, It's also considered something of a celebratory food in the sense that it's usually sold out of food stands, trucks or markets during festivals, and most people consider it a picnic or holiday food in Italy.  It was, not surprisingly, introduced to the US by Italian immigrants and has been adopted and adapted around the country.  It is wonderful served as a main dish (like a pork roast) but truly shines, in my humble opinion, when served as part of a "panino" or sandwich, along with Italian salsa verde - a divinely acidic and earthy sauce that perfectly cuts the fat of the pork belly.

And what is this salsa verde of which I speak?  It has nothing to do with tomatillos and onions.  Nothing new-world about it, really.  It's a sauce rumored to have been brought back from the near east by Roman soldiers to Italy where it was then exported to France and Germany and theoretically also the new world - which is where we get things like Argentina's Chimichurri.  Admittedly, there is some question in my mind as to whether salsa verde is always traditionally served with porchetta in Italy as most of the recipes for porchetta with salsa verde I've encountered tend to be found in modern American publications, but, frankly, at this point, I truly do not care about authenticity.  Salsa Verde is one of the few foods that makes me salivate on command.  At this very moment I have visions of fresh herbs, garlic, peperoncino, lemon juice, olive oil and anchovies dancing through my head.  Those six things may very well be my favorite ingredients of all time.  Ok, plus salt.  I can't imagine anything savory they wouldn't make taste better.  No, really. :)

I figured it would be pretty easy to find what I needed to make the porchetta.  Who doesn't like pork belly?!  Well, apparently nobody in Denver likes it enough to demand it be sold at their local grocery store.  I went to at least 5 different grocery stores.  I tried the regular suspects in addition to my two favorite ethnic Mexican grocery stores, but it wasn't until I entered the meat section at Pacific Ocean Int'l Market (my go-to Asian market here in Denver) that I found what I was looking for.  Amidst the smells of fermented bean curd, dried shrimp and science-experiment-looking tapioca puddings, I found a large selection of pork bellies, none of which had the loin still attached as is generally used in Italy - but no matter.  The vast availability of pork loins - the least flavorful part of the pig - is a testament to the boring culinary lives most of us lead.  I picked one up at King Soopers - and I swear I left my judgments at the meat cooler - and moved on with my life and recipe.

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THE FEAST

Delishness from above.

I read an article recently in Food & Wine written by a woman who grew up in Soviet Russia, living through food shortages and her mother's creative ways of making the government issued rations of nast palatable (see "Russian Food: A Love Story").  Apart from contemplating the oft-discussed reality that when there is none around, everything becomes about food, she also recalled her mother as having (maybe because of the food shortage, maybe in spite of it) "compulsive hospitality syndrome" - the compulsive love of sharing food with those you care about.  She would prepare dinner parties from tinned meat and half-rotting potatoes.  She coveted the neighbor's black-market bananas.  There was also a kettle ready to brew tea for a passing friend or neighbor.  I suppose this is akin to being called a "feeder," which is what my sister calls me.  I can't stand not feeding people, and, most of the time, if I am excited about making a recipe, it's at least in part because I can't wait to share it with someone I love. 

Which is why, one snowy weekend in February I invited our good friends and old neighbors over for a porchetta dinner after Matt and Tony went off to watch a Monster Truck Rally with the boys.  It left me ample time to make the salsa verde, make the salt rub for the porchetta with my friend Gaea, a recent convert to meat.  We rubbed the salt and lemon zest spice mix on the slotted pork belly skin.  We filled it with herbs.  We rolled it.  And then we roasted it low and slow in the oven, so that the skin on the pork belly became the crunchiest, saltiest of crackling, breaking off in chips as you sliced the roast, crushed onto the sandwich in an infinitely more sophisticated version of the ham-sandwich-with-Lays-potato-chips.

That night we feasted.  We served the sandwiches on ciabatta slathered in salsa verde, piled high with pork and crackling, and topped with more salsa verde.  A brisk white wine for me and beer for the rest finished it off quite nicely.  I'm certain I was in a salt and meat coma after the first three bites, my former vegetarian friend sitting across from me, smiling, licking her fingers - the best and realest testament to the transformative power of food - and the fact that Porchetta is crack for foodies.

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Porchetta Sandwiches with Salsa Verde

Recipe from Meat & Bread in Vancouver

Serves 8-10

Ingredients

Salsa Verde
1 bunch parsley
1 cup canola oil
2 teaspoons toasted fennel seeds ground
2 teaspoons toasted coriander ground
2 teaspoons chili flakes
small handful of fresh fennel fronds, chopped (optional)
2 anchovy fillets (optional)
salt
2 cloves garlic
zest of 1 lemon
lemon juice from 2 lemons

Salt & Herb Rub
2 tbsp coarse salt
2 tsp toasted fresh rosemary, chopped
2 tsp toasted fennel seed, crushed
2 tsp crushed red pepper flakes
2 tsp freshly ground black pepper
zest of 1 lemon
small handful of fresh fennel fronds, chopped


Other Ingredients
2-3lbs (combined weight) Pork Belly with loin still attached (or buy them separately)

kitchen twine
extra canola oil
ciabatta rolls, sliced lengthwise for sandwiches

Method

1. Preheat the oven to 275F.

2. Make the salsa verde in a blender (or chop by hand if you're feeling it), set aside.

3. Make the salt & herb rub in a small bowl and set aside.

4. Score the pork belly skin in a hatch pattern so it will roast and crisp up nicely (see pic above).  Spread some (about half) salt & herb rub on the inside of the belly and loin.  Roll the pork belly and loin (with the loin in the center) into a cylinder and tie tightlywith kitchen twine.  Rub the rest of the salt & herb rub and a generous amount of oil all over the outside.

5. Place porchetta in a roasting pan (relatively deep as lots of fat will be coming off this baby) and roast in the oven for 3 1/2 to 4 hours.

6. Turn the heat up to 450F and roast for a further 25-30 minutes or until the skin is completely golden and crispy (as in the pictures above).


Serve on ciabatta rolls smeared with the salsa verde, with chopped up meat, sprinkled with the crispy crackling on top and more salsa verde.  Enjoy!

A Salt & Pepper Meal for the New Year.

Excuse me for crassly stretching the limits of the metaphor, but this part of January - the New Year, if you will - is a lot like a roast chicken.  The simplest of things and yet, in some ways, the most complex of foods to perfect.  Done badly, it can ruin your appreciation of the roast bird, making it, like other simple pleasures, a basic and ubiquitous bore.  Done well, it can exemplify and even elevate all that simple things can be to life.  It's a blank canvas - all the possibilities that linger before us.  It's clean, straightforward, unadulterated - as of yet.  It's the New Year dreams ahead, made delicious by a little salt and a little pepper.

Perhaps it's just coincidence, perhaps it's the cold weather and the appeal of a hot roast on a winter's Sunday afternoon, but for the past couple of years Matt always seems to ask me to make him a roast chicken right around this time.  And for the past couple of years, I've always made this particular recipe, my go-to-utter-perfection-simple-roast-chicken (courtesy of Thomas Keller, see last year's homage).  For whatever reason, I tend to fight the idea of having a roast chicken when first presented with it - oh what a bore, don't want to bother, why not some nice salmon, blah blah blah.  But I always end up giving in.  And then, as soon as I enter the kitchen with that simplistic, holistic culinary purpose, I'm whisked away by the excitement of making such a downright easy meal that I know will be both utterly simple and utterly delicious.
 
The reason I love this meal I make is because it tears away all the pretentious over-workedness of many modern recipes.  It's a salt & pepper kind of meal.  All you need is a chicken, an oven, salt & pepper and you're good to go.  Yes, sometimes I embellish the side dishes (for example, this year I added anise seed to the potatoes), but at its core, there's nothing flashy or difficult about this meal in its entirety.  Except for the salad, everything is cooked in cast iron skillets in the same oven.  And it's all ready at the same time, accompanied by a simple white wine (Sauvignon Blanc is my preference).  It makes the day and sets the tone for the rest of January, a month that can either drag on or usher in with joy. 
 

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The house smells like heaven.  You find yourself enthralled in the easy but purposeful sprinkling of coarse salt & pepper over the newly dried chicken skin.  No oil, no butter, just heat, salt & pepper and a chicken.  And 60 minutes later your beautiful chicken is transformed.  You can baste at the end.  You can add the Thyme for a little spice.  But you don't have to - it would be the best chicken you ever had straight out of the oven.

the cook's prize

You've roasted potatoes with lemon slices, you've made a simple salad with lemon juice and oil as dressing and copious amounts of grape tomatoes marinated in fresh garlic and basil.  You've basted the chicken and greedily tried to share the cook's prize with your husband.  The wine is chilled, the table set, and you sit down.  You eat.  You feel full and happy, picking at bits of crunchy skin after already eating your fill.  Everyone is rosy-cheeked and happy - even the three year-old - with more light than dark left in the day (and the chicken).  

And that's when you know: this is what a meal should do.  In all its uncomplicated glory it should unite.  It should spark mutual appreciation and enthusiasm for life among the young and old, sitting together, sharing such a meal, in animated conversation, toasting bravely to life's inevitable joys and travails - the salt and the pepper of our existence.

*  *  *

Recipes
To serve a family of 4

Preheat oven to 450F / 232C

The Chicken (4-5lbs)
Rinse and Dry thoroughly.
Salt & Pepper copiously (inside).
Truss tightly.
Dry again.
Salt & Pepper copiously (outside).
Bake in cast iron skillet (no oil or butter) for 55-65 minutes.
Baste with own juice, sprinkle thyme lightly and baste again.
DONE.

The Gravy
Whisk flour slurry into pan juices. Add wine.  Reduce. Skim fat. Salt & Pepper.  Serve.

The Potatoes (4 large)
Peel and chop.
Slice lemon thinly.
Mix potatoes, salt & pepper, lemon, oregano (anise seeds too?) and generous amount of canola oil. 
Bake in separate cast iron skillet next to chicken for 45 minutes, mixing occasionally.
Salt & Pepper.
DONE (at the same time as chicken).




The Salad
Chop grape tomatoes.
Chop garlic (3 cloves).
Chop basil.
Mix with lemon juice and olive oil.
Salt & Pepper.
Add mixed greens and serve.
DONE.

Plenty of Ottolenghi & A Word to the Sage

Mushrooms & Herb Polenta from Plenty by Ottolenghi

I have something to confess.   A relatively major thing, as foody confessions go.  There's something I've been keeping to myself for several years now that I dared not utter but was forced to the forefront of my mind a few months ago when I randomly purchased a new cookbook.

I'd been wanting it for a while but I decided to finally just go out and buy Plenty when I saw it at a highly aesthetically pleasing little shop on the main street in Camden, ME on a whimsical weekend getaway in the fall.  I ordered it off Amazon as soon as I got home.  I just couldn't stand not having that picture of the eggplants (slathered in some sort of deliciously light yoghurty-sauce and sprinkled with thyme, zatar and pomegranate seeds, if you must know) as part of my daily visual binge.

I flipped through it voraciously as soon as it came.  And I oohed and ahhhhed over the lovely, intensely creative vegetarian recipes which literally jump off the page at you.  I'd heard of Ottolenghi for so long.  First, just because I lived in London, of course (they're in Kensington, Notting Hill, Belgravia...).  Then because it was somewhat of a rival to Melrose & Morgan, the place across the street from the bakery I worked at in Primrose Hill where I generally got my lunch (to this day I often dream of their beef wellington).  And finally because a friend of mine was obsessed by their style of cooking and was going on about the new book coming out and how she'd pre-ordered it.  I scoffed.  All-natural ingredient-driven delis with modern lighting, bright white platters and on-the-edge-of-acceptable-vegetarian-salads are kind of "a thing" in London.  They're almost common, ironically.  It's like they're the British upper-crust's answer to the working man's pub on every corner: "So, you dare to serve microwaved cottage pie with frozen chips?  Take THAT scoundrels!"  

Vibrant Vegetable Recipes - as Ottolenghi's Plenty is described - have arrived.

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Yottam Ottolenghi is Israeli and, surprisingly, not a vegetarian (as Plenty's recipes and his weekly column in The Guardian would suggest).  I don't know much about Israeli food, though I do know a fair bit about the Mediterranean and I'm guessing he's going for a fusion of those two with light, modern British cuisine.  I admire the use of local, fresh ingredients and the fact that everything is made from scratch by them every single day.  The only problem I often find with modern, all-vegetarian takes is that they often look better than they taste.  It seems to me that in an effort to use as many fresh, raw, unique ingredients as possible, the flavor combinations can often cross the line a little too far into the purely "artsy-fartsy" side of food, straying every-so-much from the purely "tasty-wasty" side of things.  (I mean, in all honest, I have never tasted a dish where plain quinoa featured prominently that I loved.) 

Despite my misgivings, I must admit that I was spoiled for choice with Plenty.  It covers all the seasonal bases and I had no problem finding  a warm, inviting Fall or Winter dish.  In the end I settled on a deceptively simple recipe: Mushroom and Herb Polenta.

I had all the ingredients in the fridge and any recipe that includes more than one type of mushroom in copious amounts makes it to the table at my house.  I was also especially taken by the idea of creating a beautiful slab of polenta.*  Just so aesthetically appealing.  But anyway, the only thing I was missing was the chervil.  After a quick google search I realized you can substitute a combination of parsley and sage for it and felt happy that I finally had a reason to cut into that giant, beautiful sage bush growing in my backyard before the first frost.  Except for one thing - and here's where the confession comes in - I hate sage.

What possessed me to grab it anyway?  What made me think that instead of using the 1/8 tsp the website suggested I cold use the 4-5 full sage leaves I greedily grabbed?  Was it my hopeful trust in Ottolenghi's magic chef wand?  Was it that I thought maybe this would be the dish that converted me?  It's all beyond me.  I grabbed it anyway.  Yes, I'm a beast.  

I poured my heart into that recipe, chopping up a fragrant herbal storm, conjuring and channeling the spirit of London's most sophisticated, most natural eateries - and what resulted was beautiful.  Truly beautiful.  A purely aesthetic masterpiece of creamy polenta with roasted, autumnal mushrooms.  A delightful thing to look at, and one which Matthew found me gleefully photographing in the backyard as he got home from work.  

But back at the dinner table, I knew something had gone awry.

I don't know why I don't like sage!  I never have.  Maybe in a minute quantity I can kind-of stand it but to me it just tastes like badly-cooked liver.  Badly-cooked liver in the deceptively enticing form of a lovely, velvety leaf.  A perfectly shaped leaf that is iconic for many dishes such as Saltimbocca alla Romana in which it serves as a garnish and seasoning, or traditional Christmas sausage stuffing.  And yet, I just don't get it.  It ruined the dish for me and I am convinced the chervil would have done the same.  If I ever cook this again (which I might), I'd leave it out altogether.

Ottolenghi prides itself on bold, fresh flavors.  This polenta certainly delivers that and a little too much more.  I can't say I agree with this particular flavor combination but...I can't wait to try another recipe.  And maybe even get the first cookbook. :) 

*In the book it's served on a wooden board (which, if I'd had a big enough one I would have done).

Lobster Fra Diavolo And An old Italian DB.

My take on an old Italian-American favorite: Lobster Brotha' Devil

 Lobstermania is in full swing here in Maine, which is partly why I've been MIA.  I've been shamelessly sampling the goods since the day we arrived into Portland back in April, when I had my first Maine-style (cold meat, mayo) Lobster roll at The Dry Dock.  And I continue to sample the goods, for the sake of amateur Lobster research. 

Lobster is not a food that featured heavily in my diet until we moved to Maine.  It's expensive and kind of rare in, oh, you know, everywhere.  In fact, I could count the number of times I'd had a whole lobster in the shell before I got to Portland on, well, one finger. :)  I'd had lobster tails or lobster meat in pasta dishes maybe 5-10 times other than that, and therefore, having lobster has always had an absolutely mythical excitement surrounding it to me.  I remember almost every single lobster meal I've had pretty clearly.  And I am sure by now you know that I am a meal-remember that can hang with the best of them.

As a small homage to my past lobster experiences, several weeks ago I recreated one of my favorite Lobster dishes in the world - a dish that has special meaning to me because I've always eaten it at great restaurants and on memorable occasions: Lobster Fra Diavolo.  The ensuing lobster murder (because I decided to cut it in half while alive rather than just boil it whole) was semi-traumatic, but not traumatic enough to stop me from eating lobster again (and again).

With its spicy tomato sauce, Lobster Fra Diavolo can be a highly messy affair if the lobster does not come a) already picked for you or b) sliced in half lengthwise, which isn't ideal given that it's an expensive dish generally served at expensive establishments, which means you're probably dressed up when eating it.  As far as life experiences go, leaving a restaurant with a stained dress and garlic/lobster breath is a small price to pay as far as I'm concerned. :) 

Now this is also an interesting dish because it's technically considered more Italian-American than Italian-Italian as a dish.  The name "Fra Diavolo" means "brother devil," with the brother referring more to a monk or religious brother than the kid your mom also gave birth to.  I am not certain whether there is a connection or not but, tenuous as it is, there was also a crazy Neapolitan guerrilla leader named Michele Pezza back in the early 19th century who was nicknamed Fra Diavolo because he was such a brat as a kid.

From his photos Mikey looks like kind of a DB; I'm not gonna lie.  And I therefore am going to go ahead and un-claim any possible, tenuous connection he might have to the nomenclature of this favored dish of mine.  Someone who looks like that just doesn't deserve the honor:

If you want to make Lobster Fra Diavolo, I highly recommend Deborah Mele's recipe on Italian Food Forever. My modifications: use spaghetti, omit the basil, add more garlic, and add a generous helping of chopped fresh italian parsley and fresh lemon juice as a final garnish.  Don't forget an extra plate for the lobster shell bits. :)

And now the list of the day.

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My Top 5 Lobster Meals Ever.
So good the devil may actually care.

5. The First: The first time I ever had lobster was in college at a no-name place in Cambridge, MA with Matt.  We got two 1lb lobsters for $20 and I was traumatized by the sheer quantity of butter Matt consumed in one sitting.  Ah, the college days.

4. The Last: The last time I ever ate at Steak-n-Ale was on my 1st anniversary with Matt in South Bend, IN.  I foolishly ordered the surf-n-turf and it was...pretty bad.  Mental note: they don't serve seafood often in the Midwest for a reason.  Still, great time. :)

3. The In-Laws: A few months before we got married, in March or April 2006, our parents met for the first time and had lunch together at Patsy's in the Upper West Side.  I boldly ordered Lobster Fra Diavolo.  It came out in all its glory on a huge platter, pre-cracked claws and lobster body.  To this day I maintain that everyone had entree envy. 

2. The Roll: A year ago or so I wrote about the best lobster roll I've ever had.  It was at the Lobster Landing in Connecticut and since then I've had a lot more lobster rolls here in Maine but none have ever compared.  I am not a fan of mayonnaise on seafood, which is the Maine-style of Lobster roll.  I want the hot meat, hot roll and hot butter poured all over it.
 
1. The Utter Madness: The second best Lobster Fra Diavolo I've ever had was at Cafe Tacci in New York, a place that no longer exists in its original form.  It was a small restaurant in NYC where professional opera singers would come to sing on a tiny wooden stage in their own time, while you ate and chatted.  The food was great and the ambiance was nothing short of total madness with Bolero! being belted out, the table shaking, and the tiny restaurant reverberating under the weight of the hefty voices.  Amazing.

Spring Greens: Pollo en Salsa Verde

Tomatillos.

I've noticed that the majority of the places and cultures I love most have several things in common: their family-centeredness, their focus on communal eating, their unabashed pride in their cultural heritage, their generosity and welcoming of guests, and their love of good, fresh, home-cooked food.  Add to this the culture and generational expertise of foraging and home-gardens and you nearly get the definition of what I aspire to in my life.

A phrase I never really appreciated until this year was the meaning of "spring greens."  Having just spent nearly a year in a land of deserts and non-greenness, I have truly begun to understand how much I personally love and revel in verdant landscapes and everything that goes with them.  This spring in Portland has been nothing short of magical for me, and I find myself marveling at the silliest things: the abundance of dandelions everywhere, the way birds are everywhere at all times of the day, the way that tree roots make the ground swell and drop, the acorns and squirrels who relentlessly scavenge them.  I was so starved of seeing nature - real, green, woodsy nature - that I'd almost forgotten what a miracle it is every single year to watch it come back to life after its long winter nap.  And I feel privileged to be able to further enjoy it in a very pedestrian city where, without plan or intention, even the spaces between two streets are painfully alive with all sorts of native wildlife - beautiful twisted trees, numerous wildflowers, wild - almost edibley green - grass.  Ah, grass.

And then I went to the grocery store and was almost blown away by the selection and availability of spring greens. Turnip greens, mustard greens, collard greens, Beet greens, Spinach, Arugula, a million lettuces, Broccoli rabe, the aforementioned Fiddlehead Ferns.  And dandelions, of course.  And thank God for the latter because it saved Matt the embarrassment of me returning to that street corner where I discovered a particularly prolific patch of dandelion greens the other day that I fully intended to pick and eat.  

Apart from it being my favorite color, I could eat greens every single day and not get sick of it.  I love them fresh, boiled, steamed, barely sauteed.  I'll take them almost any way they come and preferably with some lemon juice on top.  Hot, cold, or room temperature.  They are a Spring incarnation for me, and just one of the many things I love about this time of year.  Here is a list of five things that particularly take my breath away:

Top 5 Green and Spring-y Things I Love
because, frankly, what's not to?

Broccoli Rabe.

5. Budding Trees

It's a hopeful, almost incredible sight for me, every year, when I find there are tiny, perfect little leaves starting to sprout from what I swore was a dead piece of wood.

4. The Dandelions Before They're Fuzzy

I love and have always loved the simplicity and beauty of those little yellow flowers and their weed-like but beautifully green accompanying leaves, all of which (including flowers) are edible and very tasty.

3. Dew on New Leaves

It's still just cool enough that in the mornings the trees and grass are covered in beautiful sea-air dew.  I love feeling drops of it plop on my hair and seeing my shoes and pants stained with it, and knowing that Spring is here.

2. Herbs
 The herbs are back and all over the country people are planting beautiful new little gardens which will season and accompany their food all summer long.  One goal this summer / spring: to use parsley as a side dish or salad, all by itself.

1. Grass
It's just one of my very favorite things.  And it's brilliant and everywhere right now.


Today I decided to make a spring green stew that is a version of a Mexican recipe I love: Espinazo de Cerdo en Salsa Verde.  I used chicken instead and picked up some fresh tomatillos, some broccoli rabe (my substitute for verdolagas, or purslane, these days) and some bone-on chicken breasts. Enjoy this on a still-kind-of-chilly Spring day like the ones we've been having here in Portland.

* * *

Pollo en Salsa Verde with Spring Greens

Serves 4

This dish is a comfort food for me.  A similar thing is often made in Mexico using pork spine - espinazo - and verdolagas, or purslane, which lend it a much heartier flavor.  I love tomatillos and they are a typically Mexican flavor which is fresh, slightly sour and pairs very nicely with slightly bitter spring greens, like broccoli rabe.

* * *

Ingredients

2 tbsp canola oil

2 large, bone-in, skin-on chicken breasts (or 4 small)

6-8 smallish tomatillos, halfed or quartered depending on size

1lb of broccoli rabe, washed and cut in half (stems / leaves florets)
1 large-medium or 2 small-medium potatoes, chopped into medium pieces
3 cloves garlic, crushed and roughly chopped

1/2 of 1 large can of Crushed Tomatillo Salsa

1-2 chicken bouillon cubes or 1-2 tbsp salt

2-3 cups water (as needed)
ground pepper

Method
1. Add the oil to a large pot or dutch oven and heat over medium-high.  Add the onion and garlic then brown the breasts, skin side down, until the skin is crisp and golden brown, shaking the pot occasionally so the onions and garlic don't burn.  This should take 3-4 minutes.

2. Add the chopped tomatillos, potatoes, salsa, water (just enough to not-quite cover the chicken), bouillion, and pepper and give it a good stir; bring to a boil.

3. Turn the heat down and allow the stew to simmer for 40-50 minutes or until the meat is fall-apart tender.  Add the chopped broccoli rabe and simmer for 10 minutes before serving (to keep some crunch).  Or you can add it 30 minutes into cooking if you like soggier greens (which I do sometimes).

Serve alone or with white rice.

Fish Stew: Corfiot "Bianco" & My Love for Rick Stein

Bianco: White Fish Stew from Corfu

One of the things I unabashedly adore about the UK is Rick Stein.

A Little Background on Rick

Cornish Chef extraordinaire.

Rick, Chalky and some delicious Cornish seafood.

He is a middle-aged, awkwardly balding, ambiguously gay - but previously-married, like so many fruity British men - celebrity chef. I do have to say that I cringe a little when I use that loaded term "celebrity chef" to describe him, because Rick is just about anything but a culinarily-inclined-diva. What he is, is as non-glitzy and down to earth as someone who owns numerous award-winning restaurants, has written countless books, filmed countless cooking and travel shows, and is essentially *the* poster-boy for British seafood and therefore all of Cornwall, can be.

He is best known for his funny mannerisms, eloquent, typically British way of speaking ("it works a treat" most famously) and for toting his charming, scrappy little Jack-Russel Chalky (RIP) with him on all his world-wide cooking and eating adventures. With a degree in English from no less than Oxford University, it's no surprise all his programs have an air of the educated and refined. And his food, while both elegant and delicious, is also based on the respectable principles of sustainability, regionality, authenticity and - most importantly, in my mind - simplicity.

Currently showing on British tv are reruns of his "Mediterranean Escapes" (get the book on Amazon) and I happened to catch the one on Corfu a couple of weeks ago. I was immediately intrigued and lured in by a Corfiot fish-stew that Rick came across. It was made so simply and looked so delicious that I went out only a few days later and got all the ingredients to make it myself.

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A Little Background on "Bianco"

(pronounced bee-ahn-coh)

Bianco, in Italian, means "white." Odd that a Corfiot dish would have an Italian name? Not so much if you know that Corfu was once controlled by the Venetians, which is where it and other fish stews in the Ionian sea, such as bourtheto - or "red" fish stew - (spicy and red from the tomatoes used to make it) take their origins. Though much simpler, Bianco, which is white because it lacks the "tomato" that bourtheto has, can also be compared somewhat to the Greek kakavia, a fisherman's fish soup which involves a quintessentially Greek touch - it is typically cooked on the boat, using seawater. How delicious does that sound?

What first caught my eye and piqued my interest about bianco - apart from the sheer quantity of lemon juice and garlic used in this recipe - is another important aspect of Greek cuisine that I dearly love: the use of whole, bone-in fish. As Rick sits down on a Corfiot beach, bowl of bianco before him, sun shining, and the whole giant cauldron of the stuff on the other end of his table, he makes a key observation:

"I thought of putting this on the menu in my restaurant [in Padstow, Cornwall] because I really liked it, but the only way that customers in Britain would like it would be chunks of fish off the bone, cooked in this garlicky lemon-and-peppery sauce. And I thought - nah, I'm not doing that. Because you need the bones of the fish to give the liquid its gelatinous quality. Without that, it wouldn't be the same, and someone would be bound to sue me for getting a bone in their throat anyway."

I love eating whole fish, or even chunks of fish with the bone in. It is something that the Greeks have mastered in their cuisine, and to me it is infinitely more appetizing. I've found my whole life in the US that people scare you about choking on fish bones to the point of absurdity, and for that reason we live in a boring world of fish sticks and salmon steaks. To me that is not what seafood is about.

Give me shrimp head-on. Give me a whole grilled sea bass cooked simply in butter and garlic. Give me octopus tentacles and whole baby calamari. Baby eels and live whole lobsters and crawfish, shell-on, galore. I'm so sick of people being squeamish about the food they eat. If you like calamari, don't complain about the tentacles. If you like fish, don't cry about having to pull the tail and head off - it's a FISH not just a chunk of meat!

Anyway, bianco is a great opportunity to get past the squeamishness of eating whole or bone-in fish because, as Rick says, without the bones in, the flavor is just not the same.

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Bianco or "White Fish Stew" from Corfu

Serves 2

To me this dish screams summer, even though it's a stew. The simplicity and freshness of the ingredients "work a treat" on a hot summer day when you wish you were in Greece instead of stuffy old London. Fresh fish, fresh lemon, fresh garlic...I can't imagine something more appetizing.

In Rick Stein's show the Greek woman makes her bianco with a large Grouper fish. You can substitute seabass very easily for this fish as they come from the same family. I used Greek seabream because it was fresh and available that day in my supermarket. Oh and because it was Greek. :)

Here is a video of how to make Bianco from Rick Stein's Mediterranean Escape. I love watching it because it is an example of home-cooking at its best. Quantities are guest-imated, everything is chopped over the pot, and there is a large helping of Rick's commentary which makes it all the more pleasant.

Ingredients
1 whole Greek seabream or seabass (about 1-1.5 lbs in weight),
cut into steaks, keep the head and tail too*
1 cup lemon juice + 1 lemon cut in half
10-15 cloves of garlic, crushed and sliced
2 tbsp freshly ground pepper (don't be shy!)
1-2 cups water (or seawater!), adjust as necessary
1/2- 3/4 cup olive oil
3-4 medium potatoes sliced into thick-ish rounds
salt to taste
chopped parsley for garnish

* Ask your fishmonger to do this for you before you leave!

NB: I was tempted to add crushed red chili pepper to this, but thought it blasphemy as part of the allure is actually the spice and taste of the black pepper.


Method

1. Heat the olive oil in a large pot. Add the garlic and let it simmer in the oil for a minute to infuse it with its flavor.

2. Add the pepper, fish (steaks, head and tail), potatoes, lemon juice, and enough water to just cover everything.  Add the salt and adjust to taste.

3. Cover the pot and allow to simmer on low for 15-20 minutes or until the potatoes are tender. Then simmer another 15-20 minutes with the top off, allowing the sauce to reduce. It should not be soupy but rather like a light stew. Correct the seasoning.

Serve in shallow bowls with parsley sprinkled over them, some crusty bread and extra lemon wedge on the side for good measure. Oh, and don't forget the bone plate for the fish!

A Small Bone to Pick: You can also cook the fish in the stew whole, not chopped. If you do this you can easily remove the head, tail and bones before serving and just dish out flaked or chunks of fish with the potatoes and stew. Yum without bones in your throat. :)

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PS: I've just joined Foodierama. Check it out!

Foodierama is a homepage for foodies based on the idea of serendipity. It's designed as a portal front page containing teasers to the latest posts of all the best food blogs. Whenever users enter the page they discover something new and exciting: a new blog, a new recipe or cooking technique etc. With Foodierama users get a panoramic view of what's going on in the food blog-sphere all on one graphic page.

Fat Tuesday & Cajun Roux: Shrimp, Chicken & Sausage Gumbo

Gumbo and a Little New Orleans Flair.

Lent is a time of fasting, a time of reflection and reconnecting with the person we might have lost along the good-intentioned-paved road of gluttony and greed we've walked throughout the previous liturgical year. There are no flowers in church, dull songs during mass, accompanied by, most notably, the absence of choirs and instruments and a microphone-boosted, resoundingly off-key and otherwise instrumentally-masked priest voice that is better left to the most pious of imaginations.

But when I think of Lent I think a seafood feast: Fish & Chips, copious amounts of Shrimp, Salmon, Scallops, in place of my otherwise beloved veal, pork, chicken and lamb. Sadly, most years I look forward to it not as an opportunity to cleanse the slate of my impure soul, but as a culinary challenge. I love to cook seafood but rarely have a good reason to go out of my way to visit the monger of fish and get myself a nice, fresh bit of whatever smells like the ocean. Lent provides, nay, mandates that every Friday I do just that.

But before Lent there is Mardi Gras, the Tuesday that is Fat. :) And having been prefaced with my Lenten fish obsession, it should be relatively obvious to you that when I think of Mardi Gras, the last Tuesday before lent, images of beads, Bourbon street, pancakes, and feathery masks and boas are secondary to my long-time love for the infamous Cajun soup we all know and dare not cook: Gumbo.

Never mind that I almost died from going into a severe allergic reaction and anaphylactic shock from eating Gumbo in New Orleans once. "Why dare we not cook it?" you might ask. There are several reasons for that, and here they are in list form. :)

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Gumbo: Top 4 Reasons I Dared Not Cook It
until now
(Hey, it's Mardi Gras - let's throw caution to the wind!)

4. The Spices.
Despite having grown up in relative proximity to Louisiana, and having visited it on several occasions, I will freely admit that I knew little to nothing about Cajun food and its roots. For that reason alone, I find concocting any kind of semi-legitimate Cajun style seasoning for food extremely intimidating. Frankly, I have a small bottle of Tabasco sauce I keep on hand and some shrimp-boil spice mix, but other than that, as far as I could tell my bodega did not boast anything even close to legitimate Cajun spices.

After some quick reading, I found I was dead wrong about Cajun complexity. Cajun flavors are actually relatively common and simple - it's the combination that makes them distinctive.

All you need for good and authentic Cajun food is: bay leaves, thyme, black pepper, cayenne pepper, onion, celery, bell pepper, garlic, salt, parsley and filé (or Sassafras).


3. The Sausage.
When I was a kid I used to watch cooking shows a lot. I did not think that was odd because my dad was a chef and I'd always had a natural interest in cooking. But I think I finally had a sense that I was a litt-le "different" when I found myself choosing to watch Justin Wilson, THE New Orleans Cajun, over cartoons.

"I dont like that some, none atallll any!"

As Mr. Wilson explains in this amazing flash-to-the-past-piece-of-culinary-heritage video, there is a special kind of sausage used in Cajun cooking, and it's called Andouille. Andouille is "the gumbo sausage," according to Mr. Wilson, because it is the only kind of sausage any self-respecting Cajun would ever grace the gumbo pot with. Originally brought over by the French it is a smokey, pork sausage used in many Cajun dishes including Jambalaya and Etouffee.

Well, I never have Andouille sausage on hand, and I have convinced myself for years that using any other sausage was a little too close to blasphemy for this Roman Catholic, until yesterday when I proudly plunked a bunch of British Cumberland sausages into the mix and lived to tell the tale. :)


2. The Okra.
When I decided to finally cook gumbo, I was convinced that it would definitely be missing one of my favorite southern ingredients: okra*.

Having been raised on the wonderful cafeteria lunches of Texas public schools, I was well-versed in the ways of okra. My favorite lunch consisted of chicken fried steak, mashed potatoes (white gravy on both), buttered corn, and fried okra, with a side of jello and a chocolate milk. (Yeah, yeah heart-attack on a plate, yadda yadda...it's the south, ok?) And to me, gumbo is not gumbo without okra in it. I have NEVER seen okra in a UK supermarket. In fact, they'd probably laugh at me if I asked whether they had it or not. But yesterday, the universe was smiling down on me.

Roman and I ventured out of the cave to buy some green beans (the sad substitution) when I had a nagging feeling I should peek my head into the local Halal Grocer and see if maybe they had okra. Miraculously, right there in the very center of their veg display was a giant pile of fresh, delicious okra. Needless to say, I dove in head first and ran out raving like a mad woman, my gumbo-making having been legitimized.

*Notes on Okra: Some consider the addition of okra to gumbo to be a specifically Creole thing. Others say Okra should only be used in gumbo that includes seafood or is to be consumed in the summer. Others still say that when using okra, the roux should be cooked to a medium color rather than the darkest, making it a less over-powering flavor and allowing the okra to be better showcased.


1. The Roux.
Everyone knows what a roux is. Ok, Matt didn't know, but, I mean, everyone who's into food knows what a roux is. It's that dark mysterious stuff made in secret white wooden shacks deep in the Louisiana bayou...the real stuff is hard to come by, and even harder to make. The combination of fat (butter, oil) and flour seems simple enough - but when you throw in menacing threats of burning, constant stirring, miniscule differences in coloration making "all the difference," it really starts to mess with your head.

I had myself convinced there must be something so utterly complex and unique about making roux that there was no way in hell I could do it at home, much less in the UK, where the H.E.B. Cajun section is not around the corner to save me in case I mess it up.

Happily (again), I was wrong about Roux being complex. It's about as simple as can be to make -it just take a whole lot of time and patience. You have to cook it for, minimum, half an hour to get a decent color - and the real purists cook it for even longer than that, to a black, dark, chocolatey color. It is the base and the basis for all the flavor in gumbo, and the darker the deeper and more delicious it is. Much like hand-whipped cream, or zabaglione, Roux is a true labor of love, and while you can buy it at a store these days, I highly recommend you take the bull by the horns and make it yourself. You'll never doubt your ability to make gumbo again.

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Brenda's Mighty Fine Gumbo

based on this recipe
Serves 4-6

Roux-y, Pepper-y Might-y Fine Gumbo

I made this gumbo on a whim to celebrate Mardi Gras. I cooked my roux for 30 minutes exactly (Roman would not suffer me being at the stove much longer than that at one time) and it came out a darkish color - maybe slightly darker than milk chocolate. I found the flavor to be to my taste, and almost a little bit overpowering, actually. So if you don't like really intense gumbo, keep it under 30 minutes for roux-cooking time.

I added chicken, shrimp and sausage to my gumbo and used okra as an additional thickening agent as opposed to the traditional use of in the winter filé. I also did not have Cayenne pepper on hand, so I used reguarly crushed red pepper and jalapenos combined with copious amounts of black pepper, with I think is the most Cajun tasting.

Oh, and don't forget to pull out the Mardi Gras masks for dinner - we did and it made it taste all the more authentic. :)

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Ingredients
1/2 cup vegetable or olive oil
1/2 cup all-purpose flour
1 medium white onion, chopped finely (about 1 cup)
1 small green bell pepper, chopped finely (about 1 cup)
2-3 stalks celery, chopped finely (about 1 cup)
3 cloves garlic, minced
1-2 jalapenos, minced, seeds in
1 quart (~1 liter) chicken stock or low-sodium broth
3 bay leaves
2 medium skinless chicken breasts, diced
1/2 pound shrimp, peeled and deveined
1/4 pound andouille sausage or 4 Cumberland sausage links, cut into 1/2-inch-thick rounds
1/2 pound fresh okra, trimmed and cut into 1/2-inch-thick rounds
1 tbsp salt
1 tbsp crushed red pepper or 1 tsp ground cayenne pepper
1 tbsp freshly ground black pepper
2 tsps dried thyme
4 cups cooked white rice, made with copious amounts of ground black pepper cooked in


Method
1. Make the roux by heating the oil in a large pot and then adding the flour. Stir with a whisk on low heat (the roux should be bubbling) until it is the desired color (at least 20 minutes, ideally about 30) and has an intense, nutty scent. Do NOT allow it to burn!

2. Add the holy trinity (onion, celery and bell pepper), the garlic, the jalapenos and the red pepper and cook in the hot roux on medium heat until the vegetables are soft. Then slowly whisk in the stock a little bit at a time. It will look like the roux is not mixing with it, but don't worry that's normal.

3. Raise heat to bring the broth to a simmer, then add bay leaves, thyme, black pepper, okra, chicken and sausage and allow to thicken. Lower heat and allow to simmer for 20-30 minutes.

4. Finally, add the salt and adjust the spiciness adding more or less red pepper and black pepper as desired.

5. Five minutes or so before serving, add the shrimp with the heat off and lid on. Allow it to cook through residual heat checking it is completely opaque before serving. If you add the shrimp any earlier it will overcook. Don't recommend it.


Laissez les bon temps rouler with a little rice in each bowl and the gumbo served over it, some crackers on the side and a Sazerac to toast!

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Oh we brought out the masks alright!

PS: Shout out to my friend and once-partner-in-crime Simin who is, as we speak, in the Big Easy and hopefully nursing a painful New Orleans-style hangover with copious amounts of Absolut Pepa', Sazeracs and a Muffaletta, like a good girl. Party on Wayne!