Lemon Polenta Cake

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It's been about 3 1/2 years since we last made Nigella's Lemon Polenta Cake and today seemed the perfect day to rectify that. It's a great cake with lots of flavor - and really easy to pull together.

The original recipe calls for almond meal. I used macadamia meal today, because that's what I had in the cabinet. I also used demerara sugar that I pulverized in the food processor and stone-ground yellow grits from Adluh in South Carolina that I also pulverized in the food processor.

The changes made for a great cake - although the original is pretty darned good to begin with!

Lemon Polenta Cake

adapted from Nigella Lawson

Cake:

  • 1 3/4 sticks unsalted butter
  • 1 cup superfine sugar
  • 2 cups macadamia nut meal (or almond or nut of choice)
  • 1 cup fine polenta or cornmeal
  • 1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
  • 3 eggs
  • Zest 2 lemons (save the juice for the syrup)

Syrup:

  • Juice 2 lemons
  • 1 cup confectioners’ sugar

For the cake:

Preheat the oven to 350°F. Line the pan with parchment paper and grease lightly with butter.

Beat the butter and sugar till light.

Mix together the nut meal, polenta and baking powder, and add a bit to the butter-sugar mixture, followed by 1 egg, then alternate dry ingredients and eggs, beating all the while.

Beat in the lemon zest and spread the mixture into the pan and bake for about 35 minutes. A cake tester should come out clean and the edges of the cake will have begun to shrink away from the sides of the pan. Remove from the oven to a wire cooling rack, but leave in its pan.

For the syrup:

Make the syrup by boiling together the lemon juice and confectioners’ sugar in a small saucepan. Prick the top of the cake all over with a cake tester and pour the warm syrup over the cake. Leave to cool in the pan before placing it on a cake plate.

Powerfully lemony with a really interesting cornmealy-grit. It's pretty much a taste sensation and just different enough to be really enjoyable.

I don't think we'll wait another 3 1/2 years before making it, again.

 

 


Pane Siciliano Tre

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I got into the kitchen early this morning. I haven't really been playing a lot, lately, and decided today was the perfect day to make up for lost calories.

First thing I did was make bread dough for Pane Siciliano. It's warm and just a tad muggy outside. Mother Nature's perfect proofing box! The recipe comes from Carol Field's The Italian Baker and is a snap to make. Oddly, the first time I made it I had some problems with the dough - it was much too dry - but I made the exact recipe again in Sicily and it came out perfect. As did the batch I made today. Methinks I screwed up the first time and just didn't realize it, because the last two batches have been excellent - using the exact same recipe.

There are three variations on shaping the dough listed in her book, so today, I decided to try one other than the 'S' I have done in the past. Both start out as a rope of dough but the one below is more like an 'M' with the end folded back over itself.

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The instructions say not to tuck the final strip under the dough, but I could have made it a bit longer. It pulled back when it rose the second time.

Not that it mattered - it still tasted great!

Pane Siciliano

Makes 2 loaves

  • 2 1/2 tsp active dry yeast
  • 1/4 cup warm water
  • 1 tbsp olive oil
  • 1 tsp malt syrup
  • 1 cup water, room temperature
  • 2 1/2 cups durum flour or semolina for pasta
  • 1 cup plus 1 tbsp unbleached all-purpose flour
  • 2 to 3 tsp salt
  • 1/3 cup sesame seeds

By hand:

Dissolve the yeast in the warm water in a large mixing bowl; let stand until creamy, about 10 minutes.  Whisk in the oil, malt, and 1 cup of water.  Mix the flours and salt and whisk in 1 cup at a time into the yeast mixture.  Beat vigorously with a wooden spoon until smooth.  Knead on a floured surface 8 to 10 minutes, occasionally slamming the dough down vigorously to develop the gluten.

By mixer:

Stir the yeast into the 1 1/4 cups warm water in a large mixer bowl; let stand until creamy, about 10 minutes.  Stir in the oil and malt with the paddle; then add the flours and salt and mix until smooth.  Change to the dough hook and knead on medium speed until; the dough is firm, compact, and elastic with lots of body, 4 to 5 minutes.  Finish kneading by hand on a lightly floured surface.

First rise. Place the dough in a lightly oiled bowl, cover tightly with plastic wrap and let rise until doubled, about 1 1/2 hours.  The dough should be springy and blistered, but still soft and velvety.

Shaping and second rise. Punch the dough down, knead it briefly, and let it rest for 5 minutes.  Flatten it with your forearm into a square.  Rollit into a long, narrow rope, about 20 to 22 inches long.  The dough should be so elastic that it could almost be swung and stretched like a jump rope.  Cut the dough in half and shape each into a loaf.  (The book shows 3 classic shapes and illustrations; Mafalda, Occhi di Santa Lucia, and the baked Corona.  I made the Santa Lucia.)

Place the loaves on floured parchment paper, peels sprinkled with corn meal, or oiled baking sheets.  Brush the entire surface of each loaf with water and sprinkle with sesame seeds; pat the seeds very gently into the dough.  Cover with plastic wrap, and then a kitchen towel, and let rise until doubled, 1 to 1 1/2 hours.

Baking. Thirty minutes before baking heat the oven with baking stones to 425°.  Sprinkle the stones with cornmeal just before sliding the loaves onto them.  Bake 10 minutes, spraying 3 times with water.  Reduce the heat to 400° and bake 25 to 30 minutes longer.  Cool on racks.

It really is an easy bread to make - and it really does taste great.

Give it a try.


Summertime Cooking

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One of the true joys of summer is the bounty of fresh fruit available. I'm one of those guys who just can't bring myself to buy berries and watermelon and peaches grown in the southern hemisphere in December. Besides being ridiculously expensive, the stuff generally has no flavor. Can't do it.

But come April I start thinking about it. And in May and June, I'm ready. I can't wait to bite into a peach and have the juice run down my arm. Or bite into a strawberry that is actually red, ripe, and has flavor! And apricots and plums and nectarines... I'm definitely a stone fruit kinda guy although, if I can find an old-fashioned watermelon with seeds, I'll pick one up. When they bred the seeds out of melons, they bred the flavor out, as well. I prefer things to be as local as possible, but east coast living is different than west coast living. Early in the season I'll settle for northern hemisphere.

So tonight's bountiful bowl consisted of nectarines, strawberries, and ranier cherries, with a bit of mint and a drizzle of Fico D'India - a prickly pear liqueur we picked up in Sicily.

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Any excuse to pull out a bottle of booze, ya know?!? We have several different flavors - orange, cinnamon, and a fiery red something or other I picked up at Mount Etna - that will all be used in due time.

Good fresh fruit doesn't need any enhancements but needing and playing are two entirely different concepts. I like to play.

I also played with a baked bean concept we came up with at work.

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Baked beans, bacon, onions, and a mustard-based BBQ sauce. Nonna - who says she doesn't like beans - had a big helping and twice said how much she liked them.

And then there was the chicken breast big enough for three.

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Crispy crispy chicken-bacon-skin for Victor. That's actually another thing - boneless skinless chicken breasts - something else with no flavor. All I added to this was salt, pepper, and a dusting of garlic powder. It was tender, juicy, and bursting with chicken flavor. What a concept.

And it wasn't "enhanced with up to 22% solution." Do you read the packages of chicken - or anything else you pick up at the store? They factory-farm a bird to be a certain size and weight by a certain day and then inject them with a 'solution' to make them taste like chicken.

That's not a solution, that's a problem.

Tomorrow is looking to be another bright, sunny day, so it's time to hit the kitchen and see what gastronomical delights we can come up with. There's nothing planned, so I can spend all day in the kitchen if I feel like it!

We shall see...

 


Herbs and Spices

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Hello. My name is Tim. And I'm a spice-a-holic.

I don't really know when it started. I was young. You know how it is... a little cinnamon in the oatmeal. Spice cookies at Christmas. And before I knew it, I was buying pounds of bay leaves online. Do you have any idea how many bay leaves are in a pound? Let's just say a lot.

My dealer of choice has been Atlantic Spice Company since we moved east. Back in San Francisco, it was their sister company, San Francisco Herb Company. A fitting name. I'd walk into their warehouse of a store and just buy whatever looked good at the moment. It was an addicts dream. Bin after bin of the best herbs and spices around - at the best prices one could imagine. Moving east meant mail-order. In one pound lots for many years.

One pound lots. Okay... you've envisioned a pound of bay leaves. Now think of a pound of marjoram. Or basil.

I have airtight bins down in the basement where I keep the stuff that won't fit on the shelves and today, I decided it was time to bring them upstairs, refill the jars in the cabinets, and see what we needed. While we have most known herbs and spices, there are a few that I go through quicker than others - and there's always a new one out there that may need to find a home...

It's great to know that at any given moment, we could cook just about any cuisine in the world. We have berbere from Ethiopia, boonie pepper from Guam, Saigon cinnamon, Japanese sansho 7-spice blend... Greek oregano and Mexican oregano. Piri-piri from Mozambique. Whole nutmegs, ground nutmeg, whole allspice, ground allspice, whole cloves, ground cloves... Star anise, anise seed,  French herbs, herbs d'Provence, Italian herbs, several Caribbean spice blends, Spanish paprika, Hungarian paprika, smoked paprika, and no less than 13 different salts. Really. Smoked salt, Himalayan pink, red salt, black salt, French sea salt, fleur de sel, sel gris, San Francisco Bay salt, Maldon salt, Sale al vino Roso, Sale d'erbe al limon, Kosher salt and canning salt. Oh. And a carton of regular ol' iodized table salt we use to fill up our salt shaker collection.

Yeah... salt and pepper shaker collection. We had to stop buying them.

But a dozen salts, or no, it's nice to know that we're not going to run out of anything any time soon. The jars are all filled, I still have a bit of back-up downstairs - cinnamon, chipotle powder - things I go through quickly - and I have a nice big box of portioned out herbs and spices that I'm bringing into work tomorrow to share with my coworkers.

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And with all of this leaving, there's room for a few more!

One thing to note is I don't care what the 'experts' say, I do not throw out my spices after a year. They're all in airtight jars in a dark cabinet or in airtight bins in a cool basement. And they're also in a corner carousel cabinet so nothing ever languishes in a corner or hidden under something equally old. I suppose things could possibly lose a bit of potency over time, but if that happened, I'd just add an extra pinch. They don't go bad. The containers get dusty. Wipe them off once in a while.

They're fine.

 


Pasta Salad

06-22-14-pasta-salad One of the Rites of Summer is a bottomless bowl of pasta salad in the 'fridge. I usually leave the pasta-salad-making to Victor, since he's such a whiz at pulling odds and ends together to make delicious dishes. Pasta salads in their most basic form, are clean-out-the-refrigerator items. We don't go to the store and buy things to make a pasta salad, we open up the refrigerator and start pulling things out that need using up. I mean... there's always some sort of pasta in the cabinet, there are always vegetables, there are always cans of tuna, a jar of roasted red peppers... Olives - jarred or canned. And this salad has the distinction of being the first dish where we used our Sicilian olive oil... We only brought home a liter - fresh-pressed right up the road from us. I wish we had a way of getting more. And more. It was only €10 per liter - less expensive than Colavita. And absolutely delicious. Grassy-green sweet, mild but rich and full-bodied. Delish. It will be gone soon enough, but we're going to take full advantage of it while it's here.

Pasta Salad

[unordered_list style="bullet"]

  • cooked pasta
  • eggplant
  • roasted red pepper
  • sun dried tomatoes in oil
  • fresh tomatoes
  • garlic
  • cannellini beans
  • tuna in olive oil
  • black olives
  • bell pepper
  • celery
  • red onion
  • freshly-grated Parmesan cheese
  • salt and pepper
  • olive oil

[/unordered_list]
Cook pasta according to package instructions. Drain, rinse, and cool. Chop everything and mix with pasta. Drizzle with olive oil, to taste. Stir in cheese. Check for seasoning and add salt and pepper, as desired.

Every batch is slightly different, depending upon the items in the 'fridge. Any and all fresh vegetables - broccoli, carrots, cauliflower, squash, whatever - can and should be used. Add some fresh herbs if you like. There are no rules. And no matter how you do it, it's going to come out great!


Burgers and Fries

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I do love me a good burger - there's something almost primal in their greasy, juicy messiness. When they're really good, you pick them up and can't put them back down until you're done. It's an art getting bites of burger, bites of toppings, and getting the occasional french fry into your mouth.

And napkins. Lots and lots of napkins. And even then, I feel like I should be hosed down afterwards. A great burger makes a great mess.

The above burger was a definite mess-maker. It had mayonnaise, mustard, ketchup, pickles, onions, lettuce, bacon, and melted boursin cheese along with a good-sized patty between the halves of a whole-wheat bun. I had an avocado that I planned to put on there, as well, but... reality struck.

Even without the avocado it was gastronomic heaven.

Welcome Summer! More to come!

 

 

 


Nectarine Squares

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This is a bit of a no-brainer bar cookie that really works well with thin slices of fresh fruit. I've made it it peaches, plums, and nectarines, so far, and I imagine just about anything would work - including bananas or thin-sliced or chopped cherries. Or apricots. Or whatever looks good at the grocers or farmers market.

What's nice is there is no additional sugar in the filling - just a thin layer of fresh fruit.

Nonna loves them. She's finding lots of reasons to get up and head into the kitchen for one of those "as long as I'm here" moments!

Nectarine Squares

  • 3 cups flour
  • 1 cup sugar
  • 1 tsp baking powder
  • 1 cup butter
  • 1 egg
  • 1/2 tsp cinnamon
  • 1/4 tsp cloves
  • 1/4 tsp nutmeg
  • pinch salt
  • 3-4 nectarines or peaches

Preheat oven to 375°

Butter a 9×13 inch pan. Mix together sugar, baking powder, flour, salt and spices. Cut cold butter into dry ingredients. Add egg and mix well.

Press 2/3 of the crumbs into buttered pan, pressing well.

Layer nectarine slaices over packed crumbs.

Sprinkle remaining crumbs evenly over the top and bake about 30 minutes or until top is slightly brown.

Cool and then cut into squares.

 

 

 


Focaccia - Ragusa-Style

 

One of our many fun food finds in Sicily was a local take on focaccia. While everywhere we went, it was referred to as focaccia, it seems it's also referred to as scacce. It's a stuffed bread. A fantastic, fabulous, and absolutely delicious stuffed bread.

It was one of the first dishes we had and it was a recurring item, everywhere. The great thing is no two were ever alike. Similar traits, but always different flavors. It is a bread with no rules that changes with the seasons.

It starts with a ball of dough.

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We made this with Italian "00" floor because we bought 10 kilos of it before our trip. All-purpose will work just fine.

It is rolled out paper-thin, and then a thin layer of fillings is added.

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This was tomato sauce and then a layer of fresh ricotta Victor made. It was then topped with thin slices of fried eggplant.

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It then gets folded. The two ends fold to meet in the center, a bit of filling is added and then they are folded in half.

A bit of sauce goes on top and into a hot oven. 20-30 minutes later, you have achieved focaccia ragusana.

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While we usually had it as a part of a thgree-hour meal, we thought we could live on it, alone, for dinner tonight.

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And have plenty for lunch tomorrow, as well. Funny how those three-hour meals just aren't as much fun here...

But we do plan on making more fun meals - and showing them off on some new fun plates and bowls.

On our last trip to Italy, we bought dinnerware in Florence, along with a few serving platters. What we didn't get were serving bowls that are practical. We have a few that take up most of a table, but they don't quite make it for a mere 5 or 6 at the table.

So two new bowls came home with us.

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They're the perfect size for a big batch of mashed potatoes, vegetables, or even salads.

I also wanted to get little bowls for salt and pepper by the stove. I don't measure S&P, I use my fingers and add a pinch here and there. The bowls we have used for years were just 99¢ Ikea glass bowls. Time for an upgrade.

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They're the perfect size - and they were really inexpensive - just a couple of euro each.

We got these in Modica at a local shop, along with a couple of ornaments, and a few other things. We made a trek to Caltagirone - the ceramics capital of Sicily - for a few more goodies...

I wanted a new cake platter since the one we have with the faux-Italian design that is slightly off-center is machine-made Made in China - and just not worthy of our culinary efforts. First place we walked into, we saw the perfect plate.

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The perfect plate that didn't make the trip home in one piece. Even with some pretty good wrapping, it broke in half and chipped in a couple of places. Some good glue and it will work just fine. And now I don't have to worry about anything happening to it. It already has.

We also wanted plates for dolce - dessert.  Sweets.

We walked in and out of a few shops and found some plates that just seemed right. The owner of the shop was also the artist who created them and gave us a tour of the shop, his studio, things in his kiln. It was a really fun experience. I lived with my dear ceramic artist friend Susan for years in both Tahoe and Boston and know first hand the work involved in creating these works of art. Each piece was better than the next. We had to settle for four small plates. I would have loved to bring home half of his shop.

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All different, yet complimentary. Can't wait to use 'em!

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And just because we saw it and liked it, we got a little wall piece at yet another shop.

The prices were good - we stayed well within our budget.

Now... back to tonight's dinner...

Victor made fresh homemade ricotta for these, but, as good as the fresh ricotta is, it's a little wasted on these if you add other filling flavors. A store-bought ricotta will work just fine unless you make it as a dessert.

Focaccia Ragusata

(makes two)

  • 9 oz  all-purpose flour (Italian "00" if you have it!)
  • 5/8 cup warm water
  • 1/2 tsp yeast
  • 2 tbsp olive oil
  • pinch salt

Proof yeast in warm water. Add flour, salt, and oil, and mix well. Knead about 5-6 minutes or until a smooth, elastic dough forms. Roll into a ball, cover, and let rest 30 minutes.

Divide dough in half and roll into a large, very thin circle. Spread with a very thin layer of tomato sauce and then top with a thin layer of ricotta. Add slices of fried eggplant.

Fold sides to almost meet in the center. Brush new tops with a bit of sauce and cheese. Fold in half, again, and press lightly to seal. Paint a bit of sauce on top.

Put into a preheated 475° oven and bake for 20-30 minutes or until dark brown. Take out of the oven and cover with a towel to trap steam and soften the top.

These really are no-rules focaccia.

The raw, uncooked rolls can be sliced into 6 or 8 pieces, dredged in grated cheese, liberally brushed with beaten egg on top, and then baked cinnamon-roll style.

The filling can be sweet or savory, they can be brushed with sauce, olive oil, egg, or left plain before baking.

You can brush a thin layer of olive oil on the dough and forego the tomato sauce altogether. Add some nuts - pistachios - or bits of sausage.  Little bits of anything.

The only must-do is make them.

 

 


Our Last Night in Modica

Our host at Villa Modica had been so wonderful, we wanted to show a bit of our appreciation by taking him and his wonderful family out to dinner on our last night. He brought us to Taverna Nicastro - a great local restaurant cooking the traditional dishes of Modica. They have been in operation under the same family since 1948 - 66 years. You don't stay in business that long by serving mediocre food.

The restaurant is in Alta Modica - upper Modica - and probably would have been impossible for us to find on our own through the warren of narrow one-way streets in the area.

 

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But when we did get there, a gastronomic treat awaited us.

After two weeks we had eaten some tremendous foods - local ingredients, hand-made regional specialties - and when we saw the menu, we knew we were in for more treats. The difficulty was going to be in deciding what to order. The problem was solved by just asking the waiter to bring us dinner.

The beauty of this approach was knowing we would get a representative sampling of the best foods on the menu. And we did.

Everywhere we ate, we ordered liters of house wine and it was almost always served in tumblers. While many places had extensive wine lists, we saw no reason to overspend when the house wines were always extremely good. I liked that the wines were in simple glasses. It relegated them back to where their place should be in the meal - an enhancement to a good meal - not the centerpiece of the meal. The wines never competed with what we were eating but were always a welcoming addition.

We started off with arancini and focaccia - two very traditional Sicilian antipasti. Every arancini we had on this trip was different. The concept remains the same, but every cook puts their own unique spin on it, making for some great food. These had sausage and chopped egg. What a flavor delight!  The focaccia - totally unlike what we call focaccia here - is the same - every one different. These had either a red or white sauce and cheese, sausage, vegetables... Totally unique - and totally what I am going to be making soon!

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Next was the requisite plate of local olives, eggplant, salami, cheeses - including fresh ricotta and fresh mozzarella - and fresher than fresh carrots. Everywhere we went, the olives were exceptional, and these were no exception. They're all cured locally, and in many cases, are done in-house. The whole area is slow-food. Local, in season, fresh.

 

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And then we had jellied pork. What a surprise! It was fun and unexpected.

Following was ricotta-stuffed ravioli in a tomato sauce. The sauce was make with pork and sausages and they were served later. The ricotta was fresh - as in fresh.

And following that, cavatelli with more fresh ricotta, cherry tomatoes, and wild fennel. Absolutely stellar. The flavors blended perfectly. Less is more - a mantra I have to keep repeating to myself.

Next came a platter of sausages and pork that were cooked in the tomato sauce. Fork-tender and heavenly.

And, finally, the house specialty - sweet and sour rabbit.

Potatoes, olives, carrots, celery, peppers, herbs, vinegar... and succulent chunks of rabbit. Everything about it was great - from the texture of the potatoes to the tanginess of the sauce. Some dishes are just meant to be - and this was one of them.

 

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Finally, chocolate gelatto and cannoli. I ate before thinking about taking a photo.

Oh well...

This whole trip has been nothing but stellar foods served by wonderful people in homes and home-like settings. It was fitting that our last big meal complimented our first big meal - and that we were able to share the evening with our host and his lovely wife and children.

Vogliamo rifarlo.