Wild Boar Ragù

On a cold winter night, nothing beats a hearty, meaty sauce for pasta. I recently had access to two wild boar loins out west, and having recently made a pulled-beef "bolognese" of sorts at home in VT, I knew EXACTLY what I had to do with these little guys: make one of my all-time favorite dishes (pre-no-gluten) to order at an Italian restaurant, Pappardelle al Ragù Di Cinghale or Pappardelle with Wild Boar Ragu.

This is shockingly easy, and the rewards are tremendous. I made this with rice spaghetti and fusilli, but I find it best with pappardelle (I'm still looking for rice pappardelle, good luck...). It will serve 8 easily, with extras for lunch or dinner the next day or two. Serve with a hearty green salad.

Wild Boar Ragu
4 cups tomato sauce:
  3 tbsp olive oil
  1 small yellow onion, chopped
  2 cloves garlic, finely chopped
  2 carrots, peeled and shredded
  1 stalk celery, chopped
  40-ounces canned whole tomatoes
  1 tbsp fresh thyme leaves

  3 bay leaves 

2 tablespoons olive oil
2 slices bacon, rendered
2 pounds boneless wild boar meat, such as tenderloins

1 cup red wine, such as Cabernet Sauvignon or Syrah
1 tbsp dried chili flakes
Cocoa powder, to taste (I used about a tablespoon)
1 cinnamon stick
5 cloves
3 sun-dried tomatoes
1 tablespoon red wine vinegar
Salt and black pepper to taste

For the sauce, heat olive oil until warm over medium-high heat. Add chopped onion, garlic, carrots, and celery. Cook until the onions are translucent and vegetables tender. Add the tomatoes, thyme, and bay leaf. Bring to a boil and reduce to a simmer. Cook over low heat, partially covered, for 45 minutes to an hour. Set aside.

In a large cast-iron pot, heat the oil and add the bacon, cooking until the fat is rendered. Add the boar and gently brown. Add the tomato sauce, red wine, and seasonings and vinegar, to taste. Bring to a boil. Return to low heat.

Place in a 300-degree oven (at 8000 ft; 250 at sea level) for 2-3 hours, or until the meat is very tender. The longer you simmer the dish, the tenderer the meat will become.

The ragù is ready to eat when the meat has totally fallen apart and the meat has absorbed most of the liquid. Take out the cinnamon stick and bay leaves before serving.

Serve over a wide pasta of your choice and top with freshly grated Parmigiano cheese. Accompany with some crusty peasant bread and a good red wine, preferably a strong Italian, like Amarone or Barolo.

Even the puppies know what is going on ;)

Einkorn Pasta with a Vegetable and Sausage Ragout

Einkorn pasta is a new alternative to whole wheat and other gluten-free pastas on the market. I like its nuttiness, plus it adds has a walloping amount of protein to help keep your blood sugar steady. It's also gluten-free. Best part? It tastes good!

This is a recipe I developed last fall for The Daily Meal. I wish I had some to warm up tonight to serve with the fettuccine I made last weekend. Sadly, it was pureed into a rich and healthy tomato soup.

This healthy – and easy – pasta sauce pairs well with einkorn pasta. Feel free to vary the kinds of vegetables used in the sauce, depending on what is freshest or in season. 

4 links fresh sweet or spicy Italian sausage, casings removed (optional)

2 tablespoons of olive oil

1 small onion, chopped

2 garlic cloves, finely chopped

1 zucchini, quartered lengthwise and cut into 1/3-inch pieces

1 head of broccoli and stem, cut in florets and chopped (optional)

Salt and pepper

10 cremini mushrooms, trimmed and quartered

26 ounces packaged strained Italian tomatoes, preferably Pomi 

26 ounces packaged chopped Italian tomatoes, preferably Pomi 

If you are using the sausage, heat a 10-inch sauté pan over medium-high heat. Cook the links until they are lightly golden, about 8 minutes. Set aside.

In a 6-quart saucepan, heat the oil over medium-high heat. Add the chopped onion and sauté for one minute. Then add the garlic and sauté, stirring often, until the onions are translucent, about 5 minutes.

Add the chopped zucchini and broccoli, if using, to the onions and cook for 2 minutes. Season with salt and pepper.  Add the mushrooms to the pot and cook until they begin to give off some of their moisture. 

Pour in the tomatoes and bring to a boil. Lower the heat to medium and simmer for about 30 minutes, until the vegetables are tender and the flavor has deepened. Season to taste.

Serves 4

Have you had your daily vegetable serving?

I don't know what got into me yesterday. Maybe it was all the thinking and stewing about various priorities in my life (hey, I was in need of a major dose of comfort, and I didn't get all I needed, so cooking is my next resort, and it always works). Maybe it was the full day ahead of me in Lil Rhody, free to let me do whatever I damn well pleased. Maybe it was the fact that I spend 12 hours of every work day standing on my feet, chopping, trimming, weighing and cooking various pieces of produce and protein. Who knows, but I was totally in a cooking and baking mood last night. Give me a glass of Sakonnet Vidal Blanc and stand back. She's on a roll.

What was the first thing on my task list? Gazpacho. My aunt made some the week before last, and it was good, but I was determined to top that (sorry Brooke!). As I rushed out the door to make it to the local fish market by 6 (I had 20 minutes, and it takes 15 minutes to get there. I made it, in the end), I grabbed one of my new favorite go-to cookbooks, and dashed out the door.

This recipe is derived from The Silver Palate's New Basics Cookbook (it's a good one. My new favorite, seafood risotto, is from this same tome). I tweaked a couple of items, based on what I found at the market (organic green peppers (from Wishing Stone Farm, in Little Compton, RI. Keep up the GREAT work Skip and Liz, and keep nurturing the relationship with Lees. I'll keep buying!!!), organic cilantro, and TONS of organic tomatoes (Wishing Stone Farm, again! Omg, I think I died and went to heaven eating these big, fat, juicy morsels!). Hey, you gotta go with what's fresh and local. Oh, of course and organic.

A perfect dinner idea for tonight. Or tomorrow. It's hotter than Hades out there (98 in Providence at 4!). Can't you tell I'm looking forward to slaving over a stove tomorrow? Not...

Local Gazpacho

1/3 c red wine vinegar (I used the O brand Cabernet vinegar. It's full flavored, as far as red wine vinegars go. I'm not a huge fan of this kind of vinegar anyways)
1/4 c extra virgin olive oil
3 eggs (organic! I love The Country Hen)
5 monsterous tomatoes (or 6 large), coarsely chopped
2 red bell peppers, coarsely chopped
1 green bell pepper, coarsely chopped
2 yellow onions, coarsely chopped
2 large shallots, coarsely chopped
2 large (or in my case, 4 small pickling cukes)
1 jalapeno, seeded and chopped
salt to taste
2/3 c chopped cilantro

Mix the vinegar, oil, and eggs together, whisking well. In a food processor, process the vegetables in batches, adding a little bit of the egg mixture to thin out the soup. Transfer to a large bowl or pitcher which will enable you to combine all the ingredients once they are all processed. Continue to finely chop all vegetables in the food processor and combining in the bowl. Add the cilantro to the last batch of vegetables and finely chop. Once all ingredients are chopped and in the bowl, stir well to combine. Season to taste and serve. A perfect dinner for a super hot day.

Entremetier Musings and Memories

I was going through emails today after about 6 weeks of hiding and lack of internet, and came across some pictures of tasty tidbits from my time in Entremetier in Level 6 at FCI.

For those of you who don't know, Entremetier was in charge of the specials of the day. In Level 5, Entremet, as we called it for short, prepared the Chef's Classic special (ranging from Jacques Pepin's Lamb Chop, to Chef Pascal's Choucroute Garni) and a vegetarian special of their own creation (some of my favorites being wild mushroom papardelle and a butternut squash ravioli with brown butter sauce). In Level 6, Entremet was to make the canape for all restaurant diners (ranging from 30 people on a snow day to nearly 100 for lunch during the holidays) and a special sandwich.

Here are three examples of creations made during my four days in Level 6 Entremet. You'll find the tomato soup and beet burgers recipes on the blog, too!

Beet Burgers - for 90 people

Fresh Salmon Tartare on Pommes Gaufrettes with Cilantro-Lime Crema

Tomato Soup with Grilled Gruyere Sandwiches and a Mache Salad

Perfect Winter Meals: Tomato Soup

I. Love. Tomato. Soup.

Not sure when I first fell in love with the creamy tomato goodness. I think in grade school? In the cafeteria? GASP! With canned tomato soup?! I'm so embarrassed to write that!

I haven't had a decent Creamy Tomato Soup in a while...until June of 2009. It was the last week working at my old job (www.nyrp.org. They do WONDERFUL things for NYC. Check them out. SUPPORT THEM!!!). My youngest sister and I went out to dinner at Paul Newman's restaurant in Westport, The Dressing Room. If you haven't already been, you must go! Brilliant food, wonderful staff, charming space. Every time I go, it's a pleasure, both for the mind and stomach.

Anyways, they have a wonderful tomato soup on the menu, served with two wedges of grilled cheese (in my mind, the right way to serve tomato soup!) made with delicious Nehantic Abbey cheese. First spoonful in my mouth, the symphony began in my head. Oh. My. Goodness. I had forgotten how much I loved tomato soup, and Michael and Johnny, the geniuses behind the menu, have hit the nail on the head! Oh so so good...

Fast forward to the beginning of November. Someone (ahem) had too much fun the day before Halloween and came down with a little cold on Halloween proper. And the only thing, other than sleep, that I knew would help kick the beast was tomato soup.

Luckily, I came across a recipe from a former coworker at Martha Stewart Living on Chow.com. I modified it slightly to suit my tastes. Perfect with a grilled cheese sandwich, a slice of bread, or even on its own!

Creamy Tomato Soup, my way

1 tablespoon olive oil

1 yellow onion, diced

Salt

1 28-oz can of diced tomatoes (I like San Marzanos) in their juices

1 1/2 cups low sodium chicken stock

2 bay leaves

1/2 cup heavy cream

Heat oil in a saucepan til hot. Add onion and a pinch of salt and saute until onion becomes golden and translucent. Add in tomatoes, broth, bay leaves and bring to a simmer. Cook until tomatoes are tender, about 20 minutes.

Remove from heat and let soup cool a bit. Remove bay leaves and puree with an immersion blender (or in a blender - be careful to vent the top as hot liquid may cause the top to burst off!). Add the cream in (you can adjust to your taste) and check seasoning.

Serve warm and enjoy!

Canned Creativity

Mondays. The beginning of the week, an opportunity to start the week off right. It's true! But these days, I'm so darn busy that Monday blurs into Tuesday, then to Thursday, then Friday (and in my case, to Saturday and still working hard). Sigh.

I've been working these past weeks to "clean" out my cabinets of food, as I'm moving out of the city back home to start on a new adventure in food. So far, so good! But, I've had a major surplus of canned tomatoes and am definitely sick of tomatoes - tomato sauce, tomato soup, more tomato sauce. Luckily, there was some other "random stuff" in there - lentils, brown rice, a can of black beans...wait! Eureka! Spacing out on the subway home, I had an idea!

My friend The Lunchbelle had brought some cilantro to my place Saturday when I made dinner. I still had some left over, and was craving a "fresh" spin on dinner, and I thought up just the combination: canned whole tomatoes, chopped up, mixed with my can of black beans (no salt), and a lot of cilantro. The perfect topping? An avocado, so I stopped off at the market on my way home to grab one.

The prep was easy - open cans, smush with a spoon, season liberally with salt to taste (I'm a huge fan of Maldon salt - there is no comparison!). I was utterly famished, so I served my black bean and avocado salad with some cold leftover mac and cheese from Saturday's dinner - a quick and complete dinner in a bowl.

I still have a pint of this salad left over - maybe for lunch later this week? A late dinner? Whenever it's eaten, I hope it's even better than before now that flavors have had time to blend.