Wednesday, January 23, 2008
Technique Not: Colanders and Spätzle
I made a pot roast the other day, browning the meat, cooking some onions and several cloves of garlic, then sauteing some chopped carrots and celery. A little beef stock and five hours on low in a crock pot made for a great entree, but I wanted to make something different for a starch, so decided on spätzle, using a recipe from Ann Willan's The Country Cooking of France.
I once read that one way of forming the short strands was to force the dough through the holes of a colander, so I gave it a shot. My suggestion? Don't bother. I kept pushing and working away with a wooden spoon and found that the dough exists the colander about as readily as cash leaves a miser's wallet. In the absence of a true spätzle maker, Willan suggests cutting the dough into slivers.
Being lazier, I put the mass on a light cutting board, held the board above the pot of boiling water, and used a metal pastry scraper to pull away strands of dough and flick them off into the pot, which worked reasonably well. As they floated up and cooked for a few minutes, I then transferred them, bit at a time, into a pot of cold water. When all were done, I heated some putter in a pan, added the spätzle, heated it, and then served the pot roast on top.
I once read that one way of forming the short strands was to force the dough through the holes of a colander, so I gave it a shot. My suggestion? Don't bother. I kept pushing and working away with a wooden spoon and found that the dough exists the colander about as readily as cash leaves a miser's wallet. In the absence of a true spätzle maker, Willan suggests cutting the dough into slivers.
Being lazier, I put the mass on a light cutting board, held the board above the pot of boiling water, and used a metal pastry scraper to pull away strands of dough and flick them off into the pot, which worked reasonably well. As they floated up and cooked for a few minutes, I then transferred them, bit at a time, into a pot of cold water. When all were done, I heated some putter in a pan, added the spätzle, heated it, and then served the pot roast on top.
Thursday, October 25, 2007
Review: Donatella Pasta Sauces
Jarred pasta sauces rarely catch my attention because there are already so many of them, a number of which are quite good. You can add another name to the latter: Donatella. That's the moniker both of the company and of owner Donatella Arpaia, who is also a Manhattan restaurateur. Her PR firm sent some sauces and a bottle of olive oil. I'll focus on the sauces, as getting various types of oil from virtually anywhere in the world has become comparatively easy.
The "Essential Sauce" is a passata di pomodoro, which translates as tomato puree. That's a bit over simplified. These are fresh San Marzano tomatoes cooked with celery, onion, basil, and garlic, all of which they claim are also fresh and not dried. Even without simmering the sauce for ten minutes with some olive oil, as they suggest, it has a marvelous tomato flavor, napping the pasta well, and can become a foundation for sauce variations, as you like.
The ready-to-serve sauces are puttanesca (prostitute's sauce, incorporating olives, capers, and some anchovy), marinara (garlic and basil), and arrabiata (red peppers with some garlic). They're all solid flavors, though I would have liked a bit more kick in the puttanesca, as I'm used to it with the traditional capers and some hot peppers. But you should be able to open any of these and expect a decent covering for your pasta.
And now for the "but." These sauces carry a hefty price. Go to the web site and you find that the Essential Sauce is $10 for one jar. Ouch. That almost makes the jarred trio of marinara, puttanesca, and arrabiata seem reasonable at $24, or $8 a jar. I tried providing a Boston address to see what shipping would be to someplace other than my neck of the boondocks, but I got the following message: "No Shipping Rates available for your shipping address." Does that mean free? Who knows? Perhaps the problem is that the sauces are supposed to be available at some Whole Foods and ShopRites in the Northeast. Ah, the vagaries of trying to shop on the web.
The "Essential Sauce" is a passata di pomodoro, which translates as tomato puree. That's a bit over simplified. These are fresh San Marzano tomatoes cooked with celery, onion, basil, and garlic, all of which they claim are also fresh and not dried. Even without simmering the sauce for ten minutes with some olive oil, as they suggest, it has a marvelous tomato flavor, napping the pasta well, and can become a foundation for sauce variations, as you like.
The ready-to-serve sauces are puttanesca (prostitute's sauce, incorporating olives, capers, and some anchovy), marinara (garlic and basil), and arrabiata (red peppers with some garlic). They're all solid flavors, though I would have liked a bit more kick in the puttanesca, as I'm used to it with the traditional capers and some hot peppers. But you should be able to open any of these and expect a decent covering for your pasta.
And now for the "but." These sauces carry a hefty price. Go to the web site and you find that the Essential Sauce is $10 for one jar. Ouch. That almost makes the jarred trio of marinara, puttanesca, and arrabiata seem reasonable at $24, or $8 a jar. I tried providing a Boston address to see what shipping would be to someplace other than my neck of the boondocks, but I got the following message: "No Shipping Rates available for your shipping address." Does that mean free? Who knows? Perhaps the problem is that the sauces are supposed to be available at some Whole Foods and ShopRites in the Northeast. Ah, the vagaries of trying to shop on the web.
Monday, September 17, 2007
Strange News from the Food Front (9/17/07)
A weekly round-up of food and drink oddities:
- Bottle Wrapper Bourbon manufacturer Jim Beam is putting a 40 story-tall ad on the side of the RIO All-Suite Hotel & Casino in Las Vegas. We're waiting to see which hotel becomes the glass. (Press Release)
- Cheeseburger Diet A woman in Cheshire, England lost 63 pounds on a cheeseburger diet. What, no double patties? (Ananova)
- Chocolate Not Addictive A University of Bristol psychologist says that chocolate is not addictive. Clearly he can give it up any time he wants. (Reuters)
- Drive-Through Run Down A man tried to run down a Burger King worker in Syracuse, NY after a dispute. What, it wasn't after he tasted what he bought?(AP)
- Pasta Strike Many Italians boycotted buying pasta last Thursday in protest of planned price hikes. A saucy move. (Reuters)
- Garlic Stomp A worker the Great China Buffet in Nanuet, NY was caught crushing garlic by stomping on it in an alley. Don't ask about the sausage. (AP)
- High on Education A former student of Lake Highlands High School in Texas pleaded guilty to delivering marijuana-laced muffins to the teacher's lounge. The instructors didn't notice, being too amazed at the vivid colors of the text books. (AP)
- World's Largest Sundae About two dozen people in Canada set a new world record for ice cream sundaes at almost 55,000 pounds. Who set the record for the spoon? (The Calgary Sun)
- And a World Record for Soup Venezuelan officials claimed a new record for a pot of soup at 3,960 gallons with 6,600 pounds of chicken and 4,400 pounds of beef. It was to make a political point. Anything for politicians to stay out of hot water. (AP)
- Dog Beer Festival The Bunter Hund cafe in Vienna will serve special beer for dogs during Oktoberfest. Aged in dogwood kegs? (Ananova)
Labels: bourbon, burger, Burger King, diets, dogs, garlic, pasta, record, soup, sundae, weird
Wednesday, August 08, 2007
Review: Angy's Tortellini
My wife came back from the grocery store with two packages of frozen Angy's tortellini: one meat filled, and the other containing cheese and coming in three different colors. The food seemed fine enough - cooked up in five minutes and the meat filling was a bit spicy, which was a nice change from many of the frozen tortellini out there. I'm not sure of the price, as the packages weren't marked. The suggested servings seem overly optimistic: 3.5 servings from 12 ounces of pasta, or not even 3.5 ounces a person. It's not totally out of reality, but it does seem a bit tight.
Also, I tried going to the company's web site using a fairly secure system i have and my anti-virus kicked in on two attempts, each time saying that the site was trying to load some known virus on my computer. So if you decide to go to the web for more informaiton, be careful.
Also, I tried going to the company's web site using a fairly secure system i have and my anti-virus kicked in on two attempts, each time saying that the site was trying to load some known virus on my computer. So if you decide to go to the web for more informaiton, be careful.
Labels: Angy's, frozen, pasta, tortellini
