Food
Recipes, Restaurant Reviews, and More ...
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Irish Lamb Stew
Here in New Hampshire, in the middle of October, Autumn has definitely arrived. And of course along with the season comes the colder weather, and nothing warms you up like a nice, hearty stew. Leafing through my collection of recipes, I decided to start my journey with my adaptation of the Irish Stew recipe by David Tanin, courtesy of the New York Times. I’ve cut back a bit on the potatoes in my version of the recipe, and I’ve also increased the cooking time, which results in a more tender lamb. For the broth, nothing beats homemade, but if you’d rather not go through the extra work to make a homemade…
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Pappardelle con Ragù di Capra
This is my own version of a southern Italian classic, pappardelle with goat ragù (Pappardelle con Ragù di Capra). Here in America, we don’t consume a lot of goat, and that’s a real shame. In Sicily and southern Italy it is far more common, and my search for good goat ragù sent me in quite a few different directions, none of which led me to my own gastronomic Shangri La. So like any garden variety know-it-all, in the end I digested what I discovered, ruminated on it a bit, and ultimately created my own only slightly bastardized version of the dish. So Italian it ain’t, but it definitely has Italian roots.…
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Meatballs in Tomato Sauce
No, there is no spaghetti hiding just off camera upon which this dish is to be poured, because this is not an American dish, this is an Italian dish. And Italians simply do not have a tradition of spaghetti and meatballs (or any other pasta and meatballs). It simply isn’t done. This dish exists in America because southern Italian immigrants were shocked at how inexpensive meat was compared to what it cost in the old country, and so they created the spaghetti and meatballs gut buster that’s been a standby in Italian “red sauce” restaurants for decades, until most of them were put out of business by a Texan food conglomorate…
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Bone-In Rib-eye Roast
Often misnamed “Prime Rib”, the bone-in rib-eye is my favorite cut of beef. Whether as a steak or a roast, the rib-eye, with it’s distinctive wrapping of deckle* (otherwise known as rib-eye cap, or more formally, spinalis dorsi), is a particularly tender and is distinct in texture from the rest of the bone-in rib-eye. When choosing a bone-in rib-eye, the first decision you’ll need to make is whether you want your roast from the small-end or large-end of the beef rib primal, which comes from the beef forequarter. It is separated from the beef chuck between the fifth and sixth ribs, and from the loin between the twelfth and thirteenth ribs,…
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Food Road Trip; Portland, Maine in Summer
To mark my 58th birthday, Elisa and I hit the road early and set our sights on Portland, Maine. Portland, for a city of its size, has an amazing food scene, and we like food. It seemed like a match made in heaven. When we left Rindge in the morning it was raining, but the forecast for Portland was for a dry, but overcast day. It rained for most of the two and a half hour drive, but as we got within twenty miles of the city the rain stopped and that was the last we’d see of it. The Standard Baking Company Some time ago, we had watched a pair…
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Fathers’ Day, Bistecca alla Fiorentina
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Fathers’ Day, Bistecca alla Fiorentina
I don’t have a formal bucket list, but if I did, at the top would be a visit to Panzano, so I could experience eating the beef of Dario Cecchini, arguably the world’s greatest butcher. I first read about Dario in the Bill Buford book Heat, and later saw segments of a couple of different cooking shows (Anthony Bourdain’s No Reservations, and David Rocco’s Dolce Vita) that featured his butcher shop and restaurant. Traditionally, Bistecca alla Fiorentina is a thick, bone-in porterhouse made from an Italian cattle breed, the Chianina, which is the largest breed of cattle in the world. Due to a lack of supply of Chianina beef in Italy,…
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Food Road Trip; Portland, Maine in Summer
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Rendering Leaf Lard or Beef Suet
I’ve been using processed lard in my Vodka Pie Crust Recipe for several years because I get a more flaky crust than I do when using butter or shortening. But store bought lard is partially hydrogenated to extend its shelf life. Using commercially available lard simply is not as good as using lard that you render yourself. And when we’re talking lard, we’re talking about leaf lard, which comes from the fat that surrounds the kidneys of the pig. Kettle-rendered Leaf lard, sold in metal buckets, was a kitchen staple in the first half of the 20th century, and was most likely your grandmother’s (or great-grandmother’s) fat of choice when making…
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Dave’s Chili Con Carne
Chili, for most Americans, contains beans. This is a little odd, because as anyone who has been to a Chili competition can tell you, fillers such as beans, pasta, or rice are simply not allowed. This is pretty much consistent no matter what organization is running the competition. My recipe adheres to the rules; not a bean nor a scrap of pasta to be found. If you haven’t tried making a traditional homemade Chili, this recipe is a great place to start. As written, it has just enough heat for you to notice, but not enough to make you suffer any life-threatening physical maladies. Let me know what you think!
