Poco tempo e tanta fame – Malloredus con sugo ai funghi di bosco

When you have no time for cooking, this would be a dish to consider…of course if you have some wild mushrooms handy, even better. I had those beautiful yellow chanterelles and oyster mushrooms in my refrigerator with so many ideas on what to make with them, the only problem was the time. Today I didn’t have any for cooking elaborated dish, so I decided to make pasta, but not regular pasta, Malloredus. Malloredus are also called Sardinian gnocchi and are the most traditional pasta in Sardinia; its origin is traced back to Antiquity. You can make them by hand, and again if you have no time like me today, you can always have some handy at home (I always keep a bag in case I have some cravings for them)… and if you have an Italian grocery store close by, I’m sure you’ll find Malloredus. They are cute, and look like little worms or shells (yes a little worm can be cute). The particularity of Malloredus is that the remain crunchy, much more al dente that other pasta (and for me the more al dente, the better).

I usually use pancetta in the ragù, if you want to keep vegetarian, just don’t add it. Also, you need to use either canned Italian plum tomatoes, San Marziano fresh tomatoes, or really sweet organic plum and ripe tomatoes, or even heirloom otherwise your ragù might be too acid.

Fall is here, and fall is all about wild mushrooms. In my family, it is a BIG deal. Every year at this time, my dad goes mushroom picking, mainly porcini, but other kinds as well. Last year I was there around this time, and every morning, he would get up at 5 am, come back at 11 am with kilos of porcini. In about 3 weeks, he brought home about 70 kg of porcini (140 lb) can you imagine? My mom and I spent days cleaning them, and storing them (preserves, frozen, drying, etc…) at one point, I could not stand them any longer. We were just wondering between ourselves when he would stop bringing them home. I had porcini nightmares. Needless to say my parents house is filled with porcini. My dad used to go find truffles too, and had a dog trained for that purpose, now the dog ran away, so no more truffles! He grew up in Italy doing that, so he kept his hobbies all his life.

I remember one year, I was living in Boston and my parents came to visit us…it was their first trip to America. We took them to the New England countryside, and we ended up in Maine, there were beautiful mansions close by and a nice green field, so my dad had his mushroom radar out, and obviously saw some eatable mushrooms in between the grass, he was so excited. Happily, he started picking those mushroom to make a frittata in the evening. All of the sudden, we heard a voice coming from behind telling him “Hey dude, you won’t get high with those!”, seems like those guys thought we were looking for the hallucinogen ones. We were speechless (my parents didn’t speak English so they could care less), but I didn’t know what to respond since I was not expecting that, so we just nodded and smiled. Macche’ high!! io mi mangio la frittata stasera!

In France and Italy, it’s a very common thing to go mushroom picking, I used to go too but not getting up at 5 am. There are so many wonderful wild mushrooms (don’t know right names in English) and if you have doubts about them being comestible, (some of them can be mistaken for poisonous ones like the very well known Amanite Phalloide), you can always go to the pharmacy to have them checked. Pharmacies do that.

Ingredients for 4

• 300 g Malloredus pasta
• 1 lb mixed wild mushrooms such as chanterelles, girolles, porcini, etc…
• 2 cups Italian plum tomatoes, or 4 heirloom tomatoes, or San Marziano (put through a food processor)
• 3 tbs pancetta, chopped (optional)
• 2 tbs parsley
• 2 garlic cloves
• a pinch of cayenne pepper (optional)
• Parmigiano Reggiano
• salt and pepper
• 2 tbs olive oil

Preparation

Was mushrooms thoroughly, pat dry and cut in pieces. Sauté them in olive oil. When browned remove from pan and set aside.

In the same pan, add pancetta, stir for a little while, then add garlic and parsley. Stir well to get the flavors out but make sure not to burn the garlic. Add tomatoes, salt and pepper and cook until the sauce reduces for about 20 minutes or more. Add mushrooms and cook for another 10 minutes. (If using dried porcini, you can use the water and add it to the tomato sauce and let it cook).

Cook Malloredus like regular pasta until desired consistency. Top with tomato ragu and sprinkle with parmigiano and a little of olive oil.

Misc, Pasta gnocchi sardi, malloredus, mushrooms, Pasta, porcini, ragu, sugo ai funghi, wild mushrooms

Rock and Rolls purple rain – Rouleaux aux blettes et chèvre, sauce aux tomates anciennes

I consider those to be Mediterranean tapas, actually tapas don’t have to be Spanish, or do they? …a small bite can be a tapas in my opinion.  I am not too familiar with Spanish traditions but it seems like it. When I went to Madrid, what they called tapas were basically small portions of all different things.

One of my greatest pleasure is to entertain, so appetizers, hors d’oeuvres and small bites are my favorites. Those are so perfect because they are not too time consuming (a little but not too much) and taste delicious. You could also use filo dough instead of those egg roll wrappers, it would be a great substitute but I didn’t have any.

Purple being the color of the moment, anytime I got asked “what is your favorite color?”, I realized that it all depends on my mood. I had the red craziness phase last month, now it’s the purple. I buy anything purple, I got myself a pair of purple corduroy pants, purple scarf, t-shirt, etc.., and I have been wearing my purple pants for over a week, without an ounce of weariness.

Obviously as soon as I saw this purple pepper I bought it, I have never used purple peppers before, I fall in love with its color, not really knowing what to do with it. When a fruit of vegetable is too pretty, I usually don’t eat it, I just look at it, so I didn’t want to do the same thing with this beauty.

As pretty as this pepper is from the outside, the inside is shockingly ugly, it’s the Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde pepper. As soon as it’s broiled, the skin turns brownish and its pulp whitish. So, if you buy a purple pepper, don’t expect a purple pulp, just buy it for its color while uncooked, not for its taste. This pepper has nothing to do with the regular red or green bell pepper and has somehow a flavorless side to it. I am glad I bought one, so now I know I will not buy it again! It’s just pretty, but when dealing with food, pretty isn’t enough!

As for the chards, I only used the leafy part, not the stem. The French throw away the leaves and make gratins out of the stems. Italians do the opposite, my mom always made those as a side dish everything combined stem and leaves. I think it’s a shame to throw away the stems, but they’re not really used in these rolls, so you can sauté them with garlic and serve them as a side dish.

Ingredients for 8 rolls

For the rolls

• 2 bunches chards
• 8 tsp goat cheese
• 1/2 red bell pepper
• 8 wrappers
• 2 garlic cloves, crushed
• chili oil
• 1 tbs olive oil
• Szechuan pepper
• salt

For the dipping sauce

• 3 yellow heirloom tomatoes, seedless and diced
• 1 garlic clove, crushed
• 1 sprig fresh oregano
• 1 tsp butter
• vegetable bouillon
• salt and pepper

Preparation

Wash chards, remove the stems, and place in boiling water for about 5 minutes. Drain well, squeeze extra liquid and chop them. In a pan, heat olive oil and add garlic, stir well to get the flavors out, then add chards and sauté them quickly. Add salt and stir. Set aside and let it cool.

Broil pepper under broiler. When the skin is charred, remove from broiler and let it cool. Peel and remove seeds. Cut in long strips.

Using a large egg roll wrap, place chards in the middle, add one bell pepper strip, pepper, red bell pepper, goat cheese and chili oil. Continue the wrapping process. From about 10 cm rolls.

Heat olive oil in a pan, and place rolls. Let them brown evenly all around. Cut them in half and serve with dipping sauce.

For the dipping sauce

Peel tomatoes and remove seeds and dice them finely. In a pot, melt butter, add garlic and oregano sprig. Stir for a few minutes to get the fllavors out. Add tomatoes, bouillon, salt and pepper. Reduce the tomato until it thickens. Remove oregano sprig and let it cool.

Appetizers, Misc Appetizers, chards, goat cheese, heirloom tomatoes, rolls

Les bons souvenirs sont de retour – Tarte au flan pâtissier

Flan pâtissier, tarte au flan, different names for the same thing. It’s a traditional and classic dessert that is simple and quite delicious, a kids and adult’s favorite in France. It’s not considered sophisticated nor fancy, just a simple sweet grab-and-eat little dessert that is sold all over the place. Sometimes, that’s all you need.

I loved to buy a slice of flan on my way back home from school at 5 pm. Gone in a few minutes and such a treat. Every boulangerie in France has its own. I went to La Boulange yesterday, if you live in San Francisco, you know what I am talking about, if not, it’s a French bakery opened by a boulanger Bordelais (a baker from Bordeaux) and that sells traditional French pastries like this one. Since I saw La Boulange’s tarte au flan in display, I started to have a craving and think about France and memories came rushing back. I am like a kid, I see something, and I get a craving, then I need to have it.

For me tarte au flan represents my childhood but most of all my teenage years when I was dieting all week, except on Wednesdays which was the day of indulgence. Every Wednesday afternoon in high school (since we had no school on Wednesdays), with my best friend, we used to go down town and went for a tour of all the bakeries in town, stuffed ourselves with flans, coconut croissants and pithiviers and talk about it for hours. It probably messed up all the week’s diet, but we couldn’t care less. La gourmandise est un joli défaut, that’s what I say, it makes you appreciate things so much better! While our girlfriends were busy with boyfriends, we were busy with pastries.

Even though there is the name “Flan” in there, it’s not really like a flan caramel or a regular flan. It has flour in it, therefore can cook at high temperature and the flan will be fine. It also has a different, more compact consistency.

You can use milk only, then you would need 500 ml if you don’t want to use the cream. Also, if you want to add a little twist, you can replace milk by coconut milk. I know my quantities might seem odd, but I use the metric system that gets converted into the imperial system so I get some uneven numbers in ounces and cups. You can always round them up.

Ingredients

For the crust

• 8.8 oz (or 250 g) flour
• 3.8 oz (or 110 g butter), cubed
• 1 egg yolk
• water

For the filling

• 3 eggs
• 1.7 oz (or 50 g) white sugar
• 1.7 oz (or 50 g) light brown sugar
• 1.7 oz (or 50 g) flour
• 1.5 cups (or 350 ml) milk (or 2.2 cups 500 ml if you don’t want to use cream)
• 0.6 cups (or 150 ml) heavy cream (optional)
• vanilla extract
• 1 vanilla pod, cut lengthwise and beans scraped

Preparation

The crust

Place flour in a container, add yolk and butter, gradually add water and with your hands mix carefully to somehow incorporate all the ingredients but do not over knead the dough. When you have incorporated all the ingredients, form a ball and wrap it in a plastic foil. PLace in the refrigerator for about 30 minutes.

Roll dough and place in a deep dish and about 20 cm diameter. Place parchment paper on the surface of the dough and cook for about 15 minutes in a pre-heated oven at 370F. Remove paper and cook for an additional 5 minutes. remove from the oven.

The filling

Mix eggs and sugar until the mixture has doubled its volume. Add flour and vanilla extract. In the meantime, in a pot add milk and cream with vanilla pod. Bring the mixture to a boil and add to the eggs mixture.

Pour filling into the crust. Cook in a 370-375F oven for about 30-45 minutes depending on your oven. The top needs to be golden brown and the cream firm all the way through.

Desserts, Misc Dessert, flan patissier, tarte au flan