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Posted on » by Michael » Theme:

Pasta Al Forno con Gamberi E Spinaci (Baked Lasagna with Shrimp and Spinach)

Ultimate Pasta – Julia Della Croce P.133

In my opinion this is a 10/10. It was a bit of work (would be a lot less if I hadn’t made my own pasta. I made the pasta so thin that the recipe only used a tiny fraction of the pasta that I had made.

  • Ingredients
  • ½ quantity fresh egg pasta (1/2 lb/250g)
  • Salt, to taste

For the filling

  • 2lb spinach washed and stems removed
  • lb (500g) fresh raw shrimp, washed and shelled
  • 4 TB unsalted butter
  • 1 large onion, very finely chopped
  • 1/2 tsp salt, or to taste
  • freshly ground white or black pepper, to taste
  • 1/2 cup (125ml) plain tomato sauce
  • ~2 cups bechamel  (500ml) flavored with nutmeg (I used about extra 1/4-1/2 cup)
  • 1/2 cup (60g) freshly grated Parmesan (I used more than this b/c I spread some between each layer)

Directions

1.Roll the pasta as thin as possible (I think about a 4 on the kitchen aid is good enough I went with 6 and think it was too thin). With a knife or fluted pastry wheel, cut the sheets of pasta into 3 1/2 x 4 1/2 in (8 x 11cm) rectangles and let them rest on dry dish towels for at least 15 minutes.

  1. Meanwhile, bring 4 quarts (5 liters) of water to a rolling boil. Add 1 ½ tablespoons of salt and slip in the pasta, two or three pieces at a time, and cook for a total of 1 minute. Retrieve with a slotted spoon and immediately immerse in a bowl of cold water (do not put ice in the water as it will make holes in the pasta). Lay the strips on a damp dish towel and finish cooking and cooling all the pasta in the same manner. Do not overlap them. Pat dry.
  1. Place the spinach in a large, deep, lidded pan with no water except the drops still clinging to the leaves after washing. Steam the spinach until tender, tossing occasionally for even cooking, 5-10 minutes. Remove from the heat, drain, and leave until cool enough to handle. Using your hands, squeeze out most of the excess water. Finely chop the spinach and set aside.
  1. Using a small knife, make a slit down the back of each shrimp and remove the dark intestinal vein. Rinse well under cold running water, pat dry, then finely chop and set aside.
  1. Warm the butter in a skillet and add the onion. Saute over medium heat until wilted, about 4 minutes. Add the shrimp and saute quickly just until they turn pink, stirring to cook evenly. Remove the pan from the heat and stir in the chopped spinach, salt, and pepper.

6. Preheat the oven to a temperature of 400°F (200°C).

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

7. Combine the tomato sauce and the béchamel. Select a 10 x 14in (25 x 35cm) baking dish. Smear a very thin layer of sauce on the bottom of the baking dish. Carefully place a layer of the lasagna noodles over the sauce, making them touch without overlapping, and covering the entire surface area.

  1. Smear a thin layer of sauce over the lasagna. Spoon some of the spinach- shrimp mixture over it. Over that, scatter some of the grated Parmesan. Lay down another layer of lasagna, making sure there are no gaps and no overlapping. Repeat the process of layering, ending with a layer of lasagna topped with bechamel sauce and a sprinkling of Parmesan.
  1. Slip the dish onto the middle oven rack. Bake until the sauce forms a light golden crust, about 20 minutes. Do not overcook. Remove the dish from the oven and leave to settle for 10 minutes. Cut into squares, and serve hot.

 

Posted on » by Michael » Theme:

Summer Vegetable Galette

https://cooking.nytimes.com/recipes/1016759-summer-vegetable-galette

I think this is a 10/10.  This took a long time. Much longer than they said. I had to roast the veges in batches since there were so many. I cooked down stuff more then they said so I started with more and ended with the amount In needed. Feel like this is a very flexible template. Great use for end of summer veges if you have them


  • YIELD 8 servings
  • TIME 2 hours plus at least 2 hours’ chilling

Andrew Scrivani for The New York Times

A savory galette is the easier and more streamlined cousin of a classic quiche. It has a buttery pastry filled with any combination of vegetables, cheeses and meats, but without the need to make a custard to anchor it all. In this galette recipe, roasted summer vegetables (eggplant, zucchini, and tomatoes) are combined with goat cheese and fresh red chiles for a ratatouille-like mix with a bite, all nestled into a hearty whole-grain crust. Feel free to use any combination of cooked vegetables instead, even leftovers from the fridge. You’ll need three cups total. Serve it as you would quiche, with a salad for lunch or a light dinner.

INGREDIENTS

FOR THE DOUGH:

  • ⅔cup/80 grams all-purpose flour
  • ⅔cup/90 grams rye flour or whole-wheat flour
  • 1teaspoon/5 grams sugar
  • ½teaspoon/3 grams fine sea salt
  • 1large egg
  • Heavy cream, as needed
  • 1stick/113 grams unsalted butter, cut into big pieces
  • 2teaspoons/10 milliliters lemon juice
  • ½teaspoon/4 grams grated lemon zest (optional)

 

FOR THE FILLING:

  • 2medium eggplant (about 1 pound), trimmed and thinly sliced
  • 2medium zucchini (about 3/4 pound), trimmed and thinly sliced
  • 1pound plum tomatoes, cored and thinly sliced
  • Extra-virgin olive oil, as needed
  • Kosher salt, as needed
  • Black pepper, as needed
  • 2hot chile peppers, such as cherry peppers, seeded and minced
  • 3ounces goat cheese, softened
  • 1small garlic clove, grated or pressed
  • 1teaspoon thyme leaves

 

PREPARATION

  1. In a food processor fitted with a steel blade, or in a large bowl, pulse or mix together the flours, sugar, and salt. In a measuring cup, lightly beat the egg, then add just enough cream to get to 1/3 cup. Lightly whisk the egg and cream together.
  2. Add butter to flour mixture and pulse or use a pastry cutter or your fingers to break up the butter. If using a food processor, do not over-process; you need chickpea-size chunks of butter. Drizzle the egg mixture (up to 1/4 cup) over the dough and pulse or stir until it just starts to come together but is still mostly large crumbs. Mix in lemon juice and zest if using.
  3. Put the dough on lightly floured counter and knead to make one uniform piece. Flatten into a disk, wrap in plastic and chill for 2 hours, or up to 3 days.
  4. When you are ready to make the tart, roll out dough to a 12-inch round (it can be ragged). Transfer to a rimmed baking sheet lined with parchment paper and chill while preparing the filling.

 

  1. Heat oven to 425 degrees. Spread out eggplant, zucchini and tomatoes in one layer on three separate sheet pans or cookie sheets. Drizzle generously with oil and season with salt and pepper. Roast vegetables, tossing zucchini and eggplant occasionally, 35 to 40 minutes. Eggplant and tomatoes will be golden at the edges; zucchini will be tender. Don’t let the vegetables get too dark because they will continue to brown in the tart. Transfer vegetables to a bowl (you want to have about 3 cups of them) and toss with chile peppers.
  2. Decrease oven temperature to 400 degrees. In a small bowl, combine goat cheese, garlic and thyme leaves. Spread mixture in a thin layer over crust, leaving a 1 1/2-inch border all around. Arrange vegetables evenly over goat cheese. Fold up edges of crust, pleating to hold it in (sloppy is fine). Brush pastry generously with leftover egg and cream mixture.
  3. Transfer galette to oven and bake until golden brown, about 40 minutes. Cool on a wire rack for at least 20 minutes before slicing.

Have you cooked this?  Mark as Cooked

 

Michele1 year ago

This is fantastic . . . but be aware that it takes a long time to make. The better the goat cheese, the better the galette in this case, since dri-er cheese will not meld properly.

15 This is helpful

Cristina1 year ago

I made with Eggplant, leeks, and foraged Agaricus mushrooms. Very yummy but a verging on too rich. Next time I would use less butter in the crust. I didn’t have goat cheese. I used queso fresco so did not get the goat cheese tang which would have been nice.
Make the dough ahead of time; it is supposed to be refrigerated for 2hour-3days.

12 This is helpful

Aarti1 year ago

Galette can refer to different types of free-form pastries or the savory buckwheat crêpe you mention above, which is more precisely termed galette bretonne or galette de sarrasin. Another galette is the famous galette des rois, which is traditionally made with a pastry dough (pâte feuilletée) enclosing an almond pastry cream and eaten on the Festival of the Epiphany in France. The galettes referred to here have pastry crusts that are folded free-form around a fruit or vegetable filling.

7 This is helpful

Alan1 year ago

Cop out and use a good store bought whole wheat pie crust. Sounds like this recipe would fill 2 crusts. Switch onions and peppers for zucchini which, lets face it, is ONE BORING VEGETABLE!

4 This is helpful

 

Posted on » by Dino » Theme:

Memphis-Style Dry Rub Barbecue Pork Ribs

Mouth-watering photo courtesy of @nyfoodiefamily (THANK YOU NANCY!)

Recipe & Process Notes

Ashley found some killer country-style pork ribs (the meatier kind) at the farmer’s market and this was a no-brainer. I really love Meathead’s Memphis Dust, so that’s what I used for the rub. The recipe below makes a large batch of it– we keep a large jar of it on hand.

We heavily salted the ribs and let them chill for 12+ hours, then they took a warm sous vide bath for 36 hours. We chilled them and then they hit the charcoal smoker for 15 minutes on a relatively low heat. I seared them very briefly over the coals to let the sugar caramelize and form a bark before I served them (dry, with optional BBQ sauce on the side).

I thought they were delicious but perhaps a bit too dry. Apparently this is the way country-style ribs are– more meaty, less juicy. I might stick with baby back or another less-meaty rib style going forward.

Meathead’s Memphis Dust Dry Rub

Ingredients

  • ¾ cup firmly packed dark brown sugar
  • ¾ cup white sugar
  • ½ cup sweet paprika
  • ½ cup garlic powder
  • 2 tablespoons ground black pepper
  • 2 tablespoons ground ginger powder
  • 2 tablespoons onion powder
  • 2 teaspoons rosemary powder

Instructions

Meathead’s recipe notoriously is lacking salt. You can read his long explanation for this, but the TL:DR is that it’s a good practice to pat meat dry with paper towels and cover it with salt first before adding a dry rub. This makes it harder to over-salt the meat if you happen to go overboard with the rub. It’s also beneficial to dry brine certain cuts of meat by coating them with salt and letting them hang out in the fridge for a while.

  1. If you have time, sprinkle on ½ teaspoon of kosher salt per pound of meat up to 12 hours in advance.
  2. Mix the ingredients thoroughly in a bowl. If the sugar is lumpy, crumble the lumps by hand or on the side of the bowl with a fork. If you store the rub in a tight jar, you can keep it for months. If it clumps just chop it up, or if you wish, spread it on a baking sheet and put it in a 225°F oven for 15 minutes to drive off moisture. No hotter or the sugar can burn.
  3. If you plan on serving with a BBQ sauce, wet the surface of the meat with water and sprinkle just enough Meathead’s Memphis Dust on to color it.
  4. For Memphis-style ribs without a sauce, apply the rub thick enough to make a crunchy crust, perhaps 2 tablespoons per slab of St. Louis Cut (Center Cut) and a bit less for baby backs.
  5. To prevent contaminating your rub with uncooked meat juices, spoon out the proper amount before you start and seal the bottle for future use. “Keep your powder dry,” as the old expression goes. To prevent cross-contamination, one hand sprinkles on the rub and the other hand does the rubbing. Don’t put the hand that is rubbing into the powder or use it to hold the bottle.

Sous Vide Barbecue Pork Ribs

Recipe by J. Kenji López-Alt adapted from Serious Eats. I snipped the relevant bits for making Memphis-style, dry-rubbed, country-style pork ribs finished on a charcoal smoker

Cook Instructions

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d_fqJcc4n_I
  1. Remove the papery membrane on the back of the ribs, using a paper towel or kitchen towel to grip it and pulling it away in one piece. Divide each rack of ribs into three to four portions with three to four ribs each by cutting through the meat in between the ribs. Rub ribs generously on all sides with the remaining spice rub mixture. (Set aside 3 tablespoons spice rub if making dry-style ribs.)
  2. Place individual portions of rubbed ribs in vacuum bags. (Fold over the top of each bag while you add the ribs so that no rub or pork juices get on the edges of the bags, which can weaken the seal.) Add 4 drops (about 1/8 teaspoon) liquid smoke to each bag. Seal the bags, transfer to refrigerator, and let rest for 4 to 12 hours.
  3. Set your immersion circulator to 145°F (63°C) for extra-meaty ribs (or 165°F (74°C) for more traditionally textured ribs).
  4. Add ribs to the water bath and cover it with ping pong balls. Cook for 36 hours at 145°F (or 12 hours at 165°F for less meaty ribs). Transfer cooked ribs to a large bowl of water filled with ice to chill thoroughly. Ribs can be stored in the refrigerator at this stage for up to 5 days before finishing.

Finishing Instructions

  1. Remove ribs from vacuum bags and carefully pat dry with paper towels. Coat generously with more spice rub.
  2. Light one-half chimney full of charcoal (about 2 ½ quarts of coals). When all the charcoal is lit and covered with gray ash, pour out and arrange the coals on one side of the charcoal grate. Add any smoker chips or blocks directly to the lit coals. Set cooking grate in place, cover grill, and allow to preheat for 5 minutes.
  3. Scrape the grill grates clean with a grill scraper, then oil the grates by holding an oil-dipped kitchen towel or paper towels in a set of tongs and rubbing them over the grates 5 to 6 times.
  4. Place the ribs, facing up, over the cooler side of the grill. Cover and cook until ribs are heated through and dry to the touch, about 15 minutes.
  5. Transfer ribs to hotter side of grill and continue grilling, turning occasionally, until a crusty bark has formed, about 10 minutes. Serve.