Monday's Marvelous Meal

I've recently revealed my blogginess to a few friends I've made on my commute to work. They are very funny, and one of them unknowingly asked me a cooking question, which spurned quite the conversation! Well, since that discussion, she's taken to reading the blog (thank you so much!) and met me at the train stop this morning, asking "How was the steak!?" I laughed, because that meant she'd found the Current Menu, and then hung my head, because I'm a little behind on this week's menu. I know! It's only TUESDAY, you say, but as I said in my weekend post, I didn't get to all the recipes from last week's menu, so on Sunday night, I tackled one of them. This means that Sunday's dinner on the Current Menu became Monday's dinner! There'll be steak tonight, I promise!

So, I got home last night, preheated the oven to 400 degrees, and set to preparing the Spatchcocked Ricotta Chicken recipe that I recently printed from one of the blogs that I read on a regular basis : The Kitchn. I know I've told you all to read your whole recipe before planning to make it, so that you know how much time is needed, and whether there's any prep that should be done hours, or days, before you actually make the dish. I did not take my own advice this time around, so when I pulled out the recipe, the first order of business was to "spatchcock" the chicken. Um...what? Okay, I read further. It's another word for butterfly...but, butterfly a WHOLE chicken? Yes, I had to cut the back bone out of the chicken and flatten the remaining body. All you need is a pair of kitchen shears, or a very sharp chef's knife.

Once the deed had been done, I was ready to prep the chicken for the oven! The "stuffing" consists of ricotta, grated parmesan, panko bread crumbs, a beaten egg, chopped basil, minced garlic, lemon zest and some salt and pepper. Once it was all incorporated, I used my fingers to loosen the skin from the body of the chicken and spread the ricotta mixture under the skin, pushing it around until it was spread evenly and covered the majority of the chicken, under the skin. I put it in a roasting pan, on a layer of onion slices for flavor, and left it to cook for the next hour.

Meanwhile, I set a pot of water to boil for our artichokes. Yes folks! It's ARTICHOKE TIME! All the long-time readers will remember my love of artichokes and it is again the beginning of artichoke season. While the two I received in my Peapod order were not of the BEST quality, they were still delicious! I think I'll probably go to the store to pick out my own artichokes from now on, but I digress. I set a pot of water to boil, adding some bay leaves and lemon slices to the water, even though the recipe didn't mention it. That's just how I roll!

Once the artichokes were in the steaming basket, it was time to make the Smoked Herb Mayonnaise. This was totally simple and really only took about 5 minutes to prep. Mayonnaise, chopped dill, chopped capers, lemon zest, lemon juice, paprika, black pepper, hot sauce and some salt were just mixed together...that's it! Now, the recipe called for Smoked Sea Salt, but...I didn't have that. I think that's the ONLY kind of salt I don't have sitting in my pantry, so I decided to use some Saffron and Sea Salt instead. It gave the dip a nice, bright flavor so I'd say it was a success!

After about 35 minutes, the artichokes were done, so we enjoyed those while the chicken finished cooking. But, let me tell you...the CHICKEN! It was so moist and delicious! The skin was nice and crispy, the "stuffing" stayed in place and really infused the meat with so much flavor. I'm definitely adding this to my repertoire for guests! It was easy to serve, I just quartered it with a sharp chef's knife, and we've got leftovers for another day! Seriously yummy stuff, here!

Buon Appetito!

Tonight, I made some fresh spaghetti for a lovely dish from Jamie's Italy, Spaghetti alla Carbonara di Salsiccia. Well, the recipe calls for linguine...but I wanted to use my pasta press instead of the rollers, so that's what I did! :) This also gives me a perfect opportunity to talk to you about carbonara sauce, since it's one of my favorites! It is an egg-based sauce that usually incorporates Parmigiano or Pecorino cheese, as well as some parsley and some sort of pork product, usually bacon or pancetta. It's totally simple, and is an extremely easy week-night meal. You tack on a bit more time if you make fresh pasta, but you know what I say - it's always worth it to make fresh pasta!

Tonight, I started by making my pasta dough so that it could rest while I got my mise en place together. I set it aside for the necessary 30 minutes.



This is another recipe with very few ingredients so my mise en place was done very quickly. All you'll need is some extra virgin olive oil, some heavy cream, grated Parmesan, lemon zest, salt and pepper, some chopped parsley, chopped pancetta, 4 Italian sausages and 4 egg yolks.



While my dough was still resting, I moved on to the first step of the recipe - making the little sausage meatballs. I slit the skin on the sausage and slipped the meat out so that I had a pile of loose sausage meat. I rolled little pieces into meatballs, about the size of large marbles. I picked the perfect surface to work on, huh?

My dough was ready at this point to start running through my pasta press so I stuffed some in to start pressing while I started the next step. I put some olive oil in a large pan and heated it until the oil was warm. I poured my mini sausage meatballs into the pan and allowed them to fry on all sides until nice and golden.



Once the sausage was golden on all sides, I poured in my chopped pancetta and allowed the mixture to continue cooking until the pancetta started to become crispy and golden as well.



Meanwhile, my pasta dough had been fully turned into spaghetti noodles so I put a pot of salted water on to boil. While I was waiting for my "watched pot," I mixed the egg yolks, heavy cream, half of the parmesan, the lemon zest and the parsley together with a whisk. It turns into a lovely bright yellow mixture.



Once the pasta is finished cooking (8-12 minutes for boxed pasta; 3-4 minutes for fresh pasta), drain it in a colander, reserving just a little bit of the cooking liquid in case you need to thin your sauce a bit. Pour a little olive oil into the bottom of the pot that you cooked the pasta in, and then pour the pasta back in from the colander. At this point, pour the sausage and pancetta mixture into the pasta (try and avoid pouring the grease from the pan in if you can) and then pour the egg mixture on top. Quickly toss your pasta with some tongs so that the carbonara sauce coats all the noodles but doesn't scramble. The heat from the pasta will cook the egg gently so that it turns into a rich, gooey coating for the spaghetti. Be careful to continue tossing until all the noodles are well coated and there is no extra sauce cooking on the bottom of the pan...you'll have scrambled eggs if you're not watching what you are doing!



Once you've plated the pasta, sprinkle it with some of the leftover grated Parmesan. You can serve with a side salad, or a steamed veggie. Tonight, I chose to use Broccoflower. It just looked so bright and spring-y at the grocery store - I had to buy some!



That was DE-LISH-OUS!

The Early Bird Special

My husband has his weekly hockey game this evening, which translates to an early dinner in our household. I started to prep around 4pm today, and before 5pm we were sitting down to a lovely meal! The new menu started today, and I chose to begin with the Steamed Sea Bass, Green Beans with a White Wine, Vanilla, Cream and Garlic Sauce from Jamie's Kitchen by Jamie Oliver. Except, instead of sea bass, I chose to purchase cod steaks at the grocery store...they were a bit more affordable, and looked really nice and buttery. This meant altering the cooking times a little bit but that's okay. This recipe doesn't call for a ton of ingredients so my mise en place didn't take very long at all!

So, here we have 2 vanilla beans, some lemon zest, olive oil, a couple of cod steaks, salt and pepper, a clove of garlic, some green beans, white wine (measured by the glass - gotta love Jamie), a little heavy cream and the leaves from a celery heart, for garnish. Not too much to prep at all!

I made a marinade for the cod steaks, using the lemon zest, one of the vanilla beans seeds, and the olive oil. Vanilla beans are an interesting ingredient - I slit open the leathery skin and scraped out the insides, which look like a black blob when grouped together but when mixed with an oil or liquid, the seeds disperse and you can see how small each one really is. They are like little flecks of deliciousness. I rubbed this mixture all over the cod.

Meanwhile, my large pot of salted water was coming to a boil on the stove, and once it got there, I threw the garlic clove into the water for the first three minutes. On another burner, I had the second vanilla bean's insides, plus both pods steeping in some white wine that I left to reduce. We've definitely got some multi-tasking goin' on here!

Look at all the little flecks of deliciousness!

Once the garlic had been in the boiling water for three minutes, I placed my cod steaks in a steamer and placed them on top of the boiling water. The recipe actually calls for throwing the green beans in the water at this time too, but since my cod steaks were definitely thicker than a fillet of sea bass, I added 3 minutes to the cook time. I put 8 minutes on the timer, and when it counted down to 5, that's when I added the green beans!

While the cod steamed and the green beans cooked, I added the cream to my reduced wine and vanilla beans, and allowed it to heat through. I didn't want the cream to come to a full boil and burn, but I allowed it to get pretty hot and begin to reduce. The recipe said to continue reducing until it coated the back of a spoon nicely, and that's just what I did. I also added a touch of vanilla extract to the sauce...the recipe didn't call for it, but I think my vanilla beans might have been a little old and lost a bit of their flavor, because I wasn't getting the scent I wanted ...so I improvised!

When the timer dinged, I pulled the steamer off of my pot, drained the green beans, and transferred the garlic clove to the sauce and mashed it up a bit in there. I poured the sauce into a small food processor just to blend the garlic in and get a touch of foaminess to the cream. I bunched the green beans on the plate and placed the cod steak on top of that. I drizzled on a generous amount of sauce and then garnished the plate with the celery heart leaves.

Isn't that pretty!? It was a very mild, refreshing dish. There wasn't a lot of salt or pepper in it, but yet it had a ton of flavor. The vanilla beans and lemon zest really added a lovely fresh scent which also transferred to the palate! This dish made me think of spring...something I wish would hurry up and get here!