Monday, January 30, 2006
hmm... Ok, well I was re-reading my post and looking at some other great food Blogs (which I am hooked on! - see the links on the left handside under Links I Like) and understand that I need to add some pictures of my finished work. Nothing better than seeing my wins and of course the disasters from tweaking recipes. From this point forward I promise to include lots of pictures with my post. Hopefully, you are inspired to cook with me and we can compare notes on the outcome. Happy Cooking.
What are you tasting?
Edna
Sunday, January 29, 2006
The Silver Spoon: Ricotta and Raisin Tart
Flavor: Mild, almost delicate
Prep Time: 1 hour 30 mins
Add to the Rotation?: Maybe, probably better for guests.
The third of my three course meal that I created from The Silver Spoon was the Ricotta and Raisin Tart on page 1076. I selected this due to its seemingly Old World type nature. One of the downfalls of The Silver Spoon is that while it is an Italian cookbook it also has a great many other influences which appear in this book. One has to remember that this is really an Italian cookbook written for Italians, not Americans who want pure Italian recipes. Instead, The Silver Spoon is dotted with many recipes which are clearly French, Russian and even American (American Chicken Salad? Yes, on page 913). So, while some of the recipes are easy to spot as not being Italian, some are not so. For this reason, I selected the Ricotta and Raisin Tart. Once again, the novice baker such as myself would have a great deal of difficultly with this book. It calls for tart pan, but how large, and what shape? I used a beautiful rectangular fluted French tart pan that I bought years ago at Williams-Sonoma. The dimension are roughly 4 inches by 15 inches. The tart crust was a standard butter and flour mixture however, it was uncooperative when in came to rolling out. The crust would not stay together and just crumbled a part. Perhaps, had a I been a better baker this would not have happen. I rolled out what I could, and filled in the tart pan. Any holes or openings I used the leftover scraps to plug them up. The filling was made up of Ricotta cheese with sugar, golden raisins soaked in Marsala and lemon zest. Only the lemon flavor really came through on the end product. It turned out that my tart pan was the perfect size for the amount of filling. The last step in the recipe is to create a lattice with the remaining crust. This was not going to work. The dough was too dry and crumbly. I even popped the dough in to the fridge for a short period hoping to get crust at least in place as one sheet. In the end, the crust won the battle and I simply rolled out what I could and draped the pieces on top of the tart. This approach gave the end product a sort of cracked Old World kind of look. I placed the filled tart pan on an insulated cookie sheet to keep the bottom from burning and sat the whole thing into the oven. The directions called for 45 mins at 350 degrees. It turned out to be 60 mins until I got the top to brown. Once cooled to slightly more than room temp, we sliced into the tart. The taste was mild with a very subtle lemon flavor. The raisins while chewy and appealing to look at in the Ricotta mixture, weren’t all that flavorful even after soaking in Marsala for an hour and a half. Yet, this desert was delicious and a perfect mild end to the rich Peas and Ham dish described below. My partner described this desert to be on par with the French cookie Madelines. Both have a delicate buttery lemon flavor which I agree with. Be sure to serve this with tea or coffee as the dry crust pairs best with a beverage. While the work to create this dish keeps it from being an everyday treat; I do think that one would be happy to create this for guest especially if one has a fancy French tart pan.
What are you tasting?
Edna
Prep Time: 1 hour 30 mins
Add to the Rotation?: Maybe, probably better for guests.
The third of my three course meal that I created from The Silver Spoon was the Ricotta and Raisin Tart on page 1076. I selected this due to its seemingly Old World type nature. One of the downfalls of The Silver Spoon is that while it is an Italian cookbook it also has a great many other influences which appear in this book. One has to remember that this is really an Italian cookbook written for Italians, not Americans who want pure Italian recipes. Instead, The Silver Spoon is dotted with many recipes which are clearly French, Russian and even American (American Chicken Salad? Yes, on page 913). So, while some of the recipes are easy to spot as not being Italian, some are not so. For this reason, I selected the Ricotta and Raisin Tart. Once again, the novice baker such as myself would have a great deal of difficultly with this book. It calls for tart pan, but how large, and what shape? I used a beautiful rectangular fluted French tart pan that I bought years ago at Williams-Sonoma. The dimension are roughly 4 inches by 15 inches. The tart crust was a standard butter and flour mixture however, it was uncooperative when in came to rolling out. The crust would not stay together and just crumbled a part. Perhaps, had a I been a better baker this would not have happen. I rolled out what I could, and filled in the tart pan. Any holes or openings I used the leftover scraps to plug them up. The filling was made up of Ricotta cheese with sugar, golden raisins soaked in Marsala and lemon zest. Only the lemon flavor really came through on the end product. It turned out that my tart pan was the perfect size for the amount of filling. The last step in the recipe is to create a lattice with the remaining crust. This was not going to work. The dough was too dry and crumbly. I even popped the dough in to the fridge for a short period hoping to get crust at least in place as one sheet. In the end, the crust won the battle and I simply rolled out what I could and draped the pieces on top of the tart. This approach gave the end product a sort of cracked Old World kind of look. I placed the filled tart pan on an insulated cookie sheet to keep the bottom from burning and sat the whole thing into the oven. The directions called for 45 mins at 350 degrees. It turned out to be 60 mins until I got the top to brown. Once cooled to slightly more than room temp, we sliced into the tart. The taste was mild with a very subtle lemon flavor. The raisins while chewy and appealing to look at in the Ricotta mixture, weren’t all that flavorful even after soaking in Marsala for an hour and a half. Yet, this desert was delicious and a perfect mild end to the rich Peas and Ham dish described below. My partner described this desert to be on par with the French cookie Madelines. Both have a delicate buttery lemon flavor which I agree with. Be sure to serve this with tea or coffee as the dry crust pairs best with a beverage. While the work to create this dish keeps it from being an everyday treat; I do think that one would be happy to create this for guest especially if one has a fancy French tart pan.
What are you tasting?
Edna
The Silver Spoon: Tagliatelle with Cream, Peas and Ham
Flavor: Simple, but out of this world
Prep Time: 30 mins. (less with pre-made pasta)
Add to the rotation?: Yes
The second course meal, and main entree that I created from The Silver Spoon was pasta with peas and ham. I have had this dish a number of times at area chain Italian restaurants. Often, it is served as a dense, overly sauced dish which leaves the consumer feeling bloated and heavy. However, the reason for creating this dish from The Silver Spoon was due to its relative familiarity that I have had with other versions. So, keeping with The Silver Spoon theme - this recipe on page 281 was simple from an ingredients perspective and even easier to prepare. The Silver Spoon calls for fresh homemade pasta in the shape of Tagliatelle and keeping my authentic hat on, I dove in and tried my hand at creating homemade pasta from the recipe on page 268. I have to admit that I have made homemade pasta before but, with a fab handcranked pasta machine which I no longer have. However, I have two hands and a rolling pin; which didn't cut it when it came time to roll out the dough. My seemingly thin strips of pasta cooked up to be large and chewy pasta sticks that looked more like squid in the finished dish. In retrospect, I would next time use a good quality ready-made pasta product or invest in a pasta machine and make my own. Ok, moving on from that disaster. Once past the homemade pasta issue, the rest of the dish is a snap! I used frozen peas since it is winter time with no apparent lost to the end product. Also, I bought a ham shank earlier in the week for a soup that I made (See my post on Bean Cuisine) and used chunks of that cut up into small bitesize pieces. The ham had to be precooked then added to the onions, peas and cream. Lastly, toss in the pasta and we had an instant dinner entree. While I don't normally cook this type of calorie rich meal for my family on a daily bases it was nice to have a treat. The finished dish with American water injected ham, frozen peas and freaky pasta sticks was still way above in flavor than what I have normally gotten at the chain Italian restaurants. This dish will be going into the family rotation and certainly is worthily of creating for guest.
What are you tasting?
Edna
Prep Time: 30 mins. (less with pre-made pasta)
Add to the rotation?: Yes
The second course meal, and main entree that I created from The Silver Spoon was pasta with peas and ham. I have had this dish a number of times at area chain Italian restaurants. Often, it is served as a dense, overly sauced dish which leaves the consumer feeling bloated and heavy. However, the reason for creating this dish from The Silver Spoon was due to its relative familiarity that I have had with other versions. So, keeping with The Silver Spoon theme - this recipe on page 281 was simple from an ingredients perspective and even easier to prepare. The Silver Spoon calls for fresh homemade pasta in the shape of Tagliatelle and keeping my authentic hat on, I dove in and tried my hand at creating homemade pasta from the recipe on page 268. I have to admit that I have made homemade pasta before but, with a fab handcranked pasta machine which I no longer have. However, I have two hands and a rolling pin; which didn't cut it when it came time to roll out the dough. My seemingly thin strips of pasta cooked up to be large and chewy pasta sticks that looked more like squid in the finished dish. In retrospect, I would next time use a good quality ready-made pasta product or invest in a pasta machine and make my own. Ok, moving on from that disaster. Once past the homemade pasta issue, the rest of the dish is a snap! I used frozen peas since it is winter time with no apparent lost to the end product. Also, I bought a ham shank earlier in the week for a soup that I made (See my post on Bean Cuisine) and used chunks of that cut up into small bitesize pieces. The ham had to be precooked then added to the onions, peas and cream. Lastly, toss in the pasta and we had an instant dinner entree. While I don't normally cook this type of calorie rich meal for my family on a daily bases it was nice to have a treat. The finished dish with American water injected ham, frozen peas and freaky pasta sticks was still way above in flavor than what I have normally gotten at the chain Italian restaurants. This dish will be going into the family rotation and certainly is worthily of creating for guest.
What are you tasting?
Edna
The Silver Spoon: Ricotta and Spinach Gnocchi
Flavor: Flat
Prep Time: 20 mins
Add to rotation?: No
I set out to create a three course meal for my family while testing out The Silver Spoon. My appetizer and first course of choice was the Ricotta and Spinach Gnocchi from page 264. (you can see part of the gnocchis in the picture on the left) The directions were easy and straightforward for a better than average cook. The Silver Spoon does have its drawbacks as it assumes the reader will know basic to slightly advance cooking techniques. The spinach Gnocchi recipe had only 5 ingredients and didn't pose much of a challenge in creating it. Since I was cooking this as an appetizer I chose to half all of the ingredients without any concerns to the finished dish. The only difficultly came in when it was time to cook the gnocchi in a boiling water bath. The gnocchis are a mixture of spinach, ricotta cheese, Parmesan cheese and an egg yolk. The directions state to simply drop the gnocchi in to the large pan of boiling salted water. I tested out two of my newly formed gnocchis, which were shredded down from a golf ball to hazelnut in size by the turbulent water bath. After loosing two like this, I changed techniques by lowering each gnoochi on a slotted spoon for a minute. Once cooked, I would lifted the spoon up, carefully slide the cooked gnocchi off the spoon and replaced it with an uncooked one. With only a dozen or so, this only took a few minutes to do. Had I been a novice cook it was easy to see how one could of had a pot full of waterly spinach soup. In the end, I dressed the gnocchis as directed with melted butter and shaved Parmesan cheese. My family and I both felt that the gnocchi while a good first course were flat in the flavor department. Perhaps, I would make one change and add a few fine shaves of nutmeg to each gnocchi.
What are you tasting?
Edna
Product Love
I found a new soup product that I need to write about. It is called Bean Cuisine. It's a cellophane bag with a mixture of bean, dehydrated veggies, and seasonings. But the best part is what is NOT included - SALT! I like soup on a winter's day but hate all of that salt in the canned varieties. Have you ever looked on a label of Campbell's Tomato Soup? One can is just about all of your daily requirements, and what if you add in a grilled cheese sandwich or other meals. Our American diet has too much salt in it. Bean Cuisine is unique that it allows the cook to add only the about needed for flavor. Each package cooks up enough soup to feed a family of 6. I found a small display at my locale grocery store, stopped by the reduction of price ($2.70 from the normal $4.99) , then looked at the ingredients and was bowled over by the lack of salt. I bought just one, the White Bean Provencal soup. It was easy to assemble the raw ingredients in this case, onion, celery, wine and two chicken breast. I sauteed the veggies, added the beans, and the rest of the ingredients. Two hours later my family was raving about this soup. Simple, hearty and delicious. I made a special trip to my grocery store the next day and bought 10 more bags. This time, I purchased the Thick as Fog Split Pea, Ultima Pasta E. Fagioli, Island Black Bean and a few more of the White Bean Provencal. I made the Island Black Bean soup two nights ago which was met with raves, even by my 2 yo. The soup was spicy without being hot. I used a ham shank, cut into bitesize pieces for the meat and keep the chilies out since my young son would be eating the soup. Instead, I put out a few bottles of hot sauce out for everyone to use. What a delightful product. Tonight, I will be making the Thick as Fog soup and will be sure to write about it later in the week. I swear by these products. You should be able to find the soup in your better markets however, I did find the company's website where you can order it online: http://www.luzianne.com Use the menus to navigate to the soup section and then click on the Bean Cuisine links. Happy soup making!
What are you tasting?
Edna
Friday, January 27, 2006
Finally, I think I have a reason to create a blog - cooking and travel. Something that I love to do and spend a great deal of time thinking about. From this point on, this Blog will be about my cooking and travel adventures as they relate to food. I hope you find it interesting and entertaining.
Last night I bought a new cookbook called The Silver Spoon. The book is very heavy with over 1200 pages, in full color and added features like two page marker ribbons. The Silver Spoon is an Italian cookbook much like the American Joy of Cooking book and is often given as wedding gifts. At first glance, the recipes and direction seems to be very simple. Almost too simple for an experienced cook. Also, even though the book is touted as the bible of Italian cuisine, I found recipes for Russian and French dishes. Much like how we would find those very same recipes in our general American cookbooks. Anycase, the book is handsome and a welcome addition to my collection which is has very much under-served Italian cookbook section. This weekend I plan on cooking two dinners from the book to test it out on my family. I'll be sure to clue you in on my progress.
You are what you eat!
Edna
