Matters of Taste

Rehab for Diners and Dreams

Nothing like an upbeat, feel-good, hope-springs-eternal kind of news story to start the week.

Today’s was a New York Times tale about incarcerated juvenile offenders in Rhode Island restoring four vintage New England diners. Apparently the defunct diners, including Hickey’s Diner which was hooked to a 1954 Chevy truck in the middle of the town “green” in Taunton, Mass., were schlepped behind the razor wire of the Rhode Island Training Center, a detention facility, by preservationists for the New Hope Diner Project.

“The whole poetry behind it is that these are kids who have been pretty much cast away emotionally and criminally, getting a chance to restore beloved eateries that have been cast off from society, too,” said Daniel Zilka, the acting director of the American Diner Museum, who rescues decrepit diners and helps run the project.

Not only do the old-fashioned diners get spiffied up for a second act at locations around Rhode Island, but the kids stay out of trouble, gain valuable training in ceramic tiling, plumbing, electrical and sheet metal work, and discover ambitions they never knew they had.  Some inmates also take culinary arts classes and receive food-handling certificates.

According to the story by NYT's Pam Belluck, the diners' menus will be a mix of old diner stand-bys such as corn beef and cabbage, and items that are popular with the jailhouse population. Those include spicy chicken and  a "strawberry mousse" that' s made with Cool Whip and instant strawberry pudding.

The cost of the program is being covered, in part, by a partnership of the American Diner Museum and New Harvest Coffee Roasters in Pawtucket, R.I. The coffee company sells their New Hope coffee (organic, fair trade and shade grown) for $11 a bag, and donates $4 of each bag to the diner re-do project.

Students at a local university are creating business plans for each diner. Angelo’s, an 84-year-old landmark restaurant in Providence will operate the diners, employing the juvenile offenders when they are released.

“Hopefully, one of them will be able to own one,” said Robert Antignano, president of Angelo’s.

Pasta Perfect

All that talking and typing about ravioli this week made me hungry for pasta that I can cook myself at home; something fast and easy and satisfying.

Fortunately, bottled pasta sauce is one of the best convenience foods in the marketplace today. I’ve found dozens that are good enough to serve to guests.

Last night, I cooked up some fedelini (very fine spaghetti), heated up a jar of Trader Joe’s Organic Basil Marinara and topped the saucy tangle of noodles with huge Mexican white shrimp that I marinated in olive oil and garlic and sautéed in a pan. The whole thing took less than 10 minutes. And the comfort-food-quotient of the dish, after a particularly exhausting day, was off the charts.

Granted, this is the time of year when we should all be chopping up tomatoes from the farmers market, tossing them with fresh basil, pepper and a really good salt (such as Maldon, Anglesey or Murray River Pink) and dumping the whole lot into a just-drained pot of pasta with some extra virgin olive oil.

And granted, it’s real easy to sauté some chopped garlic in olive oil, plop in a can of San Marzano crushed tomatoes, throw in some fresh basil and simmer for 10 minutes. But on days when even that much effort is too much, you’ll be glad to have a couple of bottled sauces in the cupboard.

Here are some of my favorites. You can jazz them up with browned ground beef, sausage or mushrooms. But, honestly, they’re good enough to eat just as they are. (They're also pretty pricey; most cost about $9 for a 23-ounce jar.)

 

 

 

LUCINI makes about 10 types of tomato sauces and all are delicious.  All are pure and basic, too, with short ingredient lists that basically consist of tomatoes, extra virgin olive oil, garlic and spices.

I particularly like the Sicilian Olive & Wild Caper with its pleasantly bumpy texture. The Rustic Tomato Basil is special, too. The Spicy Tuscan Tomato is REAL spicy (and I am NOT a crushed red pepper wuss).

A sneak favorite of mine, not widely available in markets, is Vino de  Milo Pasta Sauce. The gimmick is that each sauce is made with a different type of wine. Tuscan Merlot contains fire-roasted zucchini and eggplant along with the diced tomatoes, tomato sauce, Merlot and fresh herbs. Portobello Shiraz has roasted mushrooms and Shiraz. Roasted Garlic Chianti has, well, you get the picture.
All the flavors are robust, the textures are appealing. There are no added sugars, additives, etc. It's available on-line and at specialty stores across the country, including Central Markets in Texas; Draeger's in Northern California; Barons Marketplace in Southern California; and Sam's Wines & Spirits in Chicago. 

MOM’S is a division of Fischer & Wieser, the Texas company that makes the irresistible Roasted Raspberry Chipotle Sauce. Mom's sauces are supposed to taste like Mom made them...and I think they're pretty darn believable.

Mom’s Puttanesca Sauce packs a savory punch thanks to the black olives and capers and a lovely richness thanks to the butter, cream and extra virgin olive oil. The ingredient list is short and sweet. The line’s Organic Roasted Red Pepper Sauce also offers hearty flavor and a substantial texture that clings well to pasta.

RAO’S pasta sauce is part of the empire that includes the famed Rao’s restaurant in New York’s East Harlem neighborhood. The Homemade Arrabbiata is a sassy number with plenty of crushed red pepper. If you’re not a fire-eater, stick to the Roasted Eggplant Sicilian Sauce that combines good fresh tomato flavor with creamy chunks of eggplant.

Though SAN MARZANO is the buzzword among foodies when it comes to canned tomatoes, San Marzano's  Marinara Sauce doesn’t wow me. It has a nice, bright tomato flavor, but not much in the way of seasoning; and the texture is very “pureed.” However, because of its simplicity, it's a good one to jazz up with meats or roasted vegetables. Contains some sugar, if that’s a big deal to you.

L'ORTOLANO is a line of sauces made near Sacramento from local tomatoes and vegetables, California wines and fresh herbs. According to the Web site, this is "food for the heart and the soul." That seems to translate into the lowest fat content of all the sauces here.

I especially like the texture of the Artichoke Tomato Pasta Sauce. It's bumpy with bits of artichoke and garlic that tastes like it was just chopped and thrown in. The line also includes Tomato Zinfandel and Wild Mushroom Cabernet.

RUSTICHELLA d' ABRUZZO is an impressive line of imported pastas and sauces distributed by Manicaretti. It doesn't get much simpler or more delicious than Rustichella's Arrabbiata Sauce made with just tomatoes, extra virgin olive oil, peppers, garlic, onion and salt. I also like the Puttanesca that uses a bit of tuna fish and anchovy pasta to give the sauce both body and bold flavor. These sauces are the most expensive; a 10-ounce jar can cost about $12.

Ravishing Raviolo

It’s tough to call ravioli “trendy.” After all, they’ve been a staple of the Italian kitchen since at least the 1st century AD when Apicius, probably the world’s first gourmet, raved about some thin pasta sheets used to “enclose pies.”

But then, what do you call something that shows up on all the right menus, in all types of restaurants, in all the hip cities?

I call it delicious. And a lucky stroke of fate for us pasta lovers.

All of a sudden ravioli are everywhere. And we’re not talking the ho-hum cheese variety with the pinking-sheared-edges. We’re talking handmade, gossamer packages filled with seasonal vegetables purees, minced herbs, quivering poached eggs, and an array of cheeses from Sardinian sheep’s milk ricotta to voluptuous Crescenza.

Technically, the hottest ravioli of the moment aren't ravioli at all. Rather, the pasta creations headlining menus today are raviolo, meaning one big, luscious pasta package; and raviolini, meaning a whole school of weensy ravioli swimming in a brothy sauce.

Here are some of the best I’ve tasted lately. But I feel like I’m just getting started on a good thing…..please let me know your favorites.

At Café Boulud in New York City, chef Gavin Kaysen prepares wispy raviolini filled with English peas that are pureed with a touch of mint, mascarpone and “lots of butter.” He then sauces them with a reduction of sherry vinegar, shallots and chicken broth, and serves them with fresh pea tendrils, sugar snap peas and tiny dice of applewood smoked bacon.

Fresh ricotta cheese is whipped with a puree of basil and Italian parsley and a few drops of truffle oil before it’s tucked into the picture-perfect raviolo at Zoe in Seattle. It’s then placed on top of fresh pea shoots and covered with a small, room temperature salad of heirloom tomatoes and minced herbs.

At Tapenade in La Jolla, chef Jean-Michel Diot (who wowed New Yorkers for years at Park Avenue Bistro) does a wild mushroom ravioli dish that qualifies as a work of art. Not only does this one look and taste great, but the Port wine, white truffle oil and shaved Parmesan involved mean that a tantalizing aroma captivates everyone in the room as the server makes his way from kitchen to table.

Short ribs seem to have an affinity for ravioli. One of my all-time favorite pasta creations is the potato ravioli with braised short ribs and black truffles that’s served at Via Matta in Boston. The hearty, slow-cooked meat also shines in the raviolini at Fiamma Las Vegas, where a ragu of short ribs is enhanced with Barbera wine (right). 

I first tasted the extravazanza known as a soft egg raviolo at San Domenico in New York City. (It's in the photo above right.) I got to savor a similar raviolo last week at the new Viaggio in Jack’s La Jolla. The soft egg yolk and ricotta filling oozed out with the barest prodding of the fork tine, and mingled with the pea shoots and summer truffles on the plate.

The folks at Lumiere in Vancouver like to have fun with their food. Not only does the oft-honored restaurant present a terrific raviolo with caramelized shallots,, zucchini ribbons, mushrooms and parmesan “froth,” but it also came up with this whimsical “raviolo” that’s actually a pineapple-mango mousse.

Have a Sip of Cake

At our house, the Fourth of July isn’t just a celebration of the birth of our nation.  It’s also our younger son’s birthday.

Over the years that has meant parties in the yard with slip-n-slides, rented cotton candy and slushy machines, hunts for hidden treasure, rented slushy machines and  Super Mario Brothers.

It has also meant spectacular cakes created to match the party “theme” by two family friends who also happened to be Swiss pastry chefs. There were Shamu extravaganzas, pirates and doubloons, baseball diamonds, and even a “Where-in-the-world-is-Carmen-San-Diego creation when that computer game was the rage.

But alas, the cakes, the games and the goody bags are now just happy memories tucked away in photo albums.

This year my son and his friends decided to toast his 25th birthday by drinking the birthday cake.

Here’s how it works.

Fill a shot glass about ¾ full with a 50-50 mix of Frangelico hazelnut liqueur and Absolut Citron vodka (or other lemon-flavored vodka). Cut a large lemon into wedges. Dunk each wedge in a heap of sugar, preferably coarse sugar.

Then, all together now, belt out Happy Birthday, then belt back the liquor in the shot glass, and suck on the sugary lemon wedge.  It’s like a big, fat, gooey slab of chocolate cake smack in your face. And it’s delicious.

Some folks swear they get the chocolate cake taste with the liquor; others say they taste it when they chomp on the lemon. When I prepared the shots for the partiers this weekend, I was bowled over by the chocolate smell as I dipped the wedges in the sugar.

Of course, like any “recipe,” there’s room for experimentation. Some fans say you should suck the lemon before downing the juice. Others want you to lick a bit of sugar off the lemon, hold it in your mouth while you drink the liquor, then bite into the wedge.

When I Googled this popular “interactive shot” (meaning there are several steps and other ingredients involved, as opposed to just slugging a shot of whiskey) I found 868,000 links, including a YouTube “demo” that required 3 minutes and 36 seconds that I didn’t have.

Not a single site explained the “why.”

Maybe there’s an adventurous, vodka-loving scientist out there who can explain it to us.

Revving Up the Grill

There’s more to the Fourth of July dinner table than a bunch of hot dogs and some buttered corn.

Just ask Matt Rimel.

Rimel, owner of Rimel’s Rotisserie and Zenbu Sushi Bar in La Jolla, joined us yesterday on Gourmet Club, the radio chat show of the San Diego Union-Tribune’s SignOnRadio Web site.  It took him only a couple sentences to get all three hosts drooling.

The topic: His favorite fish dish for a holiday dinner at the beach.

It starts with a very hot grill. Then there are five layers of aluminum foil, big enough to cover most of the grill.  Next comes a bunch of sliced or chopped summer veggies – zucchini, yellow squash, red and yellow bell pepper strips, onions, potatoes and herbs.

“Then I lay fresh local rock cod fillets on top, add some more of the vegetables, top it with aluminum foil and seal the package,” said the outgoing restaurateur who will soon open another restaurant in North County and an old-fashioned butcher shop in La Jolla.

When the fish and vegetables are tender, you simply unfold the package, drive off all the other beachgoers that will come around wondering what the heck that fabulous aroma is, and dig in. “We just stand around the grill and eat straight from the foil,” he says of his wife Jacqueline and two young daughters.

Gourmet Club’s wine guru Robert Whitley also weighed in on holiday grill favorites. Whitley’s choice, a boneless leg of lamb, is marinated for about 24 hours, then grilled in the backyard. He says he likes the way a boneless leg produces several degrees of doneness – very pink in the center, medium to medium-rare on the ends and well-charred around the edges.

If you’re more inclined to cook indoors, you can’t go wrong with the  roasted leg of lamb that Patricia Wells celebrates in her book “Bistro Cooking.”

Called “Gigot Roti au Gratin de Monsieur Henny,” it’s a leg of lamb that cooks directly on an oven rack set above a gratin dish filled with potato, onion and tomato slices. As it cooks, the lamb’s juices drip into the gratin. Wells calls for a bone-in leg, but I’ve had success with a boneless leg as well. Also, I like to substitute Yukon gold potatoes for her russets.

GIGOT ROTI AU GRATIN
Serves 8 to 10

6 cloves of garlic, 1 clove split, the rest chopped
2 pounds baking potatoes, peeled and very thinly sliced
Salt and freshly ground pepper
1 tablespoon fresh thyme
2 large onions, very thinly sliced
5 medium tomatoes, cored and thinly sliced
2/3 cup dry white wine
1/3 cup extra virgin olive oil
1 leg of lamb bone-in (6 to 7 pounds)

Preheat the oven to 400 degrees.

Rub the bottom of a large oval porcelain gratin dish with the split garlic cloves. Arrange the potatoes in a single layer. Season generously with the salt, pepper and some of the thyme and the chopped garlic.

Layer the sliced onions on top; season as with the potatoes. Layer the tomatoes on top of the onions. Season with salt, pepper and the remaining thyme and garlic. Pour on the white wine and then the oil.

Trim the thicker portions of fat from the leg of lamb. Season the meat with salt and pepper. Place a sturdy cake rack or oven rack directly on top of the gratin dish. Set the lamb on the rack, so that the juices will drip into the gratin.

Roast uncovered for about 1 hour and 15 minutes for rare lamb. (For well-done lamb roast an additional 30 to 40  minutes.) Turn the lamb every 15 minutes, basting it with liquid from the dish underneath.

Remove from the oven and let the lamb sit for 20 minutes before carving. Serve on warmed dinner plates with the vegetable gratin alongside.

Bistro Cooking at Home

C’mon. I ask you.

How can you go wrong with a cookbook that features these scrumptious renditions of irresistible American treats?

The answer is: You can’t. Go wrong, that is.

Laurent Tourondel’s latest book, “New American Bistro Cooking,” is a lip-smacking blend of elegant “junk food” (the matchstick fries are sprinkled with butter imbued with fresh rosemary and garlic, then dusted with freshly grated Parmigiano Reggiano), and the refined French dishes that show up in a classy bistro.

Which is, by the way, what Tourondel’s restaurants are, all eleven of them, including BLT Steak (seven locations from San Juan to Scottsdale), BLT Fish, BLT Prime, BLT Market, and BLT Burger.

The book, written with veteran cookbook author Michele Scicolone, is beautiful, with appetizing food shots and evocative scenes from the various bistros. (Many of the recipes come from the restaurants.)

It’s also user-friendly, with concise, easy-to-follow instructions and ingredients that are, for the most part, readily available. There’s a good mix of simple recipes that fit on one page (multiple pages is often a deal-breaker for me), and some slightly more complicated numbers.

And the results are terrific. Tourondel perfected his skills at such temples of gastronomy as Troisgros in France, and the stratospherically priced (and now-defunct) Cello in New York City. But clearly there’s the heart of a country boy beating inside that starched white chef’s coat.

Beef short ribs simmer in a couple bottles of Cabernet Sauvignon and Port; roasted cod wears an herb-bacon crust; “chili” consists of corn, beans and sausage.

Seared swordfish is slowly braised with bell peppers, tomatoes, onions, capers and lots of white wine. It’s wildly aromatic and flavorful….and ready in just an hour.

A grilled tuna sandwich is an over-the-top salade Nicoise on toasted Italian bread. Roasted chicken gets buttered bread crumbs and preserved lemon tucked under the skin.

Salads sound simple, yet each one teaches a little trick for turning that simple into sublime. (I love the crispy fried shallots on the Fennel-Arugula Salad with Aged Pecorino.)

Tourondel seems to have a thing for Thai food, too, with ingredients like lemon grass and coconut milk showing up in every chapter.

I’m in love with his Curry-Kaffir Lime Chicken Pot Pie that looks like an elegant French masterpiece with its puff pastry toque, yet packs the distinctive wallop of red and green curry pastes.

It’s easy to dismiss the books of accomplished restaurant chefs as “special occasion” material. But, like a good bistro in either France or the U.S., the food in this book is accessible, down-to-earth, and supremely satisfying.

BRAISED SWORDFISH – TOMATOES, OLIVES AND CAPERS
Slightly adapted from “New American Bistro Cooking”
Serves 6

½ cup flour
Fine sea salt and freshly ground black pepper, to taste
6 swordfish filets, about 6 ounces each
¼ cup olive oil
1 red bell pepper, thinly sliced
1 yellow bell pepper, thinly sliced
½ large onion, chopped
6 garlic cloves, finely chopped
1 cup dry white wine
2 cans (28 ounces each) Italian tomatoes, diced or crushed or one of each
¾ cup pitted green olives, coarsely chopped
3 tablespoons drained capers
Pinch sugar
Pinch crushed red pepper flakes
¼ cup chopped fresh basil

On a piece of waxed paper, mix together the flour and salt and pepper. Dredge the fish in the flour, shaking the pieces to remove the excess.

In a large skillet, hear the oil over high heat. When it is very hot, add the fish. Brown it well, about 2 minutes on each side. Remove the fish to a plate and keep warm.

Turn the heat to medium. Stir the peppers, onions and garlic into the oil in the skillet. Cover and cook until the vegetables are soft, about 15 minutes. Add the wine and cook uncovered, 5 minutes, scraping the bottom of the pan,.

Add the tomatoes, olives, capers, sugar and red pepper flakes. Bring the sauce to a simmer and cook for 10 minutes.

Return the fish to the skillet. Baste the fish with the sauce so that the pieces are completely covered. Simmer 20 to 30 minutes on low hear, or until the sauce is slightly thickened and the swordfish is very tender,

Stir in the chopped basil and serve the fish with the sauce.