OK, for you foodies out there you will know what I am talking about when I talk about salt. Simply put I season (salt) everything I eat. I go to the extreme of having a bag of Kosher salt in my desk at work in case it needs a little something extra. What salt does to food can not be replaced with anything else.
Is salt bad for you? Yes it is, but my feeling, and I am not a Doctor by the way, is that if you are eating fresh meats, seafood, vegetables and grains a little salt is not going to hurt in fact your body needs salt. But if you are eating canned process food that already contains a huge amount of Sodium (salt) adding more can potentially be harmful!
But I will get off my soap box and talk about a few different types of Salt.
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Ever looking to try something new? Something fun to do with your kids? Well here is something for you to try. Make some fresh pasta! Spaghetti, Fettuccine, Linguini or even Lasagna sheets they are all pretty simple to make. Only four ingredients, it couldn’t get simpler that that!
- 2 c. Flour, unbleached, all purpose
- 3 Large Brown Eggs
- 1/2 tbls. Olive Oil
- 1/2 tsp. Kosher salt
- First you start by making a “well” with the flour and the salt. Crack the eggs in the middle of the well and add the olive oil.
- Mix the eggs together with the oil with a fork without disturbing the flour.
- Once the eggs have been beaten, start slowly incorporating the flour into the eggs with the fork.
- Once you have incorporated all of the flour together with the egg using a fork, switch to using your fingertips to blend the mixture together well.
- After the wet and dry ingredients have been combined using your fingertips, bring the mixture together with your hands to form a ball. If the dough seems to dry, add a little water. If the mixture is too wet and sticks to your fingers, rub your hands with flour and form the dough into a ball.
- Knead the pasta dough as you would bread dough. Pushing down and away from you with the palm of your hand for about 5 minutes.
- Cover the dough balls with a towel or bowl and let rest for at least 15 minutes.
- A pasta machine is great for rolling and cutting the dough. With the slot of the pasta machine on its widest setting (usually 1), turn the handle while feeding the dough into the slot. Gently hold the flattened dough as it comes out of the pasta machine.
- After the dough has completely passed through the pasta machine, turn the slot down to the next smallest setting and pass the dough through the slot. Continue to do this, making the slot smaller by one each time, DON’T skip a number.
- Try to gently hold the dough as it exits the pasta machine so it doesn’t tear. As it gets thinner and thinner and longer and longer it becomes a little more of a challenge. This is a great time to have an assistant help you, aka your kids!
- After rolling the dough out to your desired thickness, it’s time to cut the dough into pasta. Most pasta machines, come with an adapter that cuts the dough. At this time you may wish to cut your dough in half to make it easier to handle.
- Right after cutting the dough, hang the pasta on a dowel or other object, such as a (clean) broom handle. Either use that night or a few it is dried can be stored in the refrigerator for up to one week.
That’s it! This first few times you make it you will need to get use to how the dough feels before rolling it. But after that to make a pound of fresh pasta should only take about 15 minutes in total prep time. That’s not including letting the pasta rest. During that time you should be making you sauce, cutting your meats or vegetables or picking your herbs!
Enjoy!
I would love to get some feed back about peoples opinions about Foie Gras! One on my favorite foods, but I think there is a misconception about it in general. When I ask the average person about Foie Gras they think it is a Pate or Mousse! I think of it as a Whole Lobe or Liver like from Hudson Valley Foie Gras Company. What is your opinion?
To me a whole liver, untouched, has so many possibilities. You can simply slice it, season it and sear it in a hot pan. I can just imagine the taste now. Creamy inside with a caramelized nutty outside. Server on buttery Brioche and your favorite fruit compote like a fig jam or pepper Kumquats. YUM!
Or make a torchon, pate, terrine or mousse. None of these are very simple to prepare and I wont go into detail at this time on how to make any one of them but they are all commercially available on our store.
I remember about 10 or 12 years ago I visited one of the nations top restaurants at the time Michael Mina’s Aqua, which he has since parted ways with, and order a Whole Lobe of Foie Gras, that way my meal. Much to my Doctors chagrin it was out of this world. It had everything you needed. Bread, fruits and condiments. I could have died that night and my life would have been complete.
Project, post recipe about making a Foie Gras Mousse, perfect excuse for me to purchase a whole lobe. Well at least I will enjoy doing the testing!
I wish I could say I had a favorite cheese, but I don’t. Well that statement is not correct, let me rephrase it. I am glad I don’t have a favorite cheese! With every region in the world having its own style, hard or soft, uses it’s own particular type of milk, cows or sheep or goats, and has it’s own way of encasing the cheese, I am pretty sure I could eat one different cheese everyday for the rest of my life and not eat them all. And I am not that old…
Some of my favorites include:
- Buche de Chevre: This classic French goat cheese is slightly aged, giving it a lot of character. Formed in the shape of a log (Buche is French for log), enjoy this cheese on salads, as a snack, or with fruit for dessert.
- Cashel Blue: This wonderful farmhouse blue cheese hails from Tipperary. Using only fresh cows milk from their fresian herd, Louis and Jane Grubb have produced this masterpiece. Ideal for melting or after dinner with some port
- Tomme De Crayeuse: This Semi soft cow’s milk cheese, earthy flavors with a grayish brown rind, from the Savoie.
- Pecorino Tartufo Riserva: This Italian cheese is aged for at least 6 months from Siena enriched by small flakes of Tuber Aestivum Vitt, the summer truffle whose tenuous scent comdines with the delicate flavor of the Tuber Albidum Pico, the unmistakable flavor of the white and black truffle.
- Royal Blue Stilton: This special Stilton, still produced in Leicestershire, is full, rich and creamy. Its blue veins radiate outward from a natural, crinkly brown crust, revealing layers and folds of honeyed, cheddary flavor
Well this just touches on some, there too many totalk about but the one I remember the most is when I was in Biarritz, France a few years back I was dinning at a Michelin two star restaurant and point blank as the server for the smelliest cheese they had, and god was it stinky. Couldn’t tell you the name of it, just that is was local, smelled but tasted great!
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The local strawberries will be coming soon and they are on my mind. I like strawberry shortcake, strawberry smoothies, strawberry ice cream or even chocolate dipped strawberries but, there is nothing that beats strawberries when they are server as part of a salad. I have seen them in spinach salads, or with goat cheese and almonds but my favorite is tossed with a good quality aged Balsamic and Cracked Black Pepper.
- 1 Qt. Strawberries, hulled and quartered
- 1/4 c. good quality Aged Balsamic (Villa Manodori Balsamic)
- 1/2 tsp. rough cracked Black Pepper
- Pinch of salt
Gently toss all ingredients together and chill in refrigerator until ready to use. I wouldn’t recommend storing for more than a few hour because the strawberries will start to get soft because of the salt and the acid from the vinegar.
Server over mixed greens drizzled with some Extra Virgin Olive Oil. One of my favorite additions would be slice smoked duck breast.
Well, I went to Plum Island today after talking about it the other day to go Striper fishing, well I got there at about 1:30 with the tide coming in (low tide was at about 12:15PM). Had my line in for maybe 15 minutes and caught my first fish a striper about 19 inches or so. Thought I was off to a good start and hopefully dinner.
Sorry to say that was my only fish of the day, oh well they call it fishing, not catching right! But there is nothing like being in front of the ocean, the sound of waves, the smell of the salt water it is all so very peaceful and relaxing.
There will be another day.
So, after sitting in the driveway for a few hours on Yesterday reading Jasper White’s cook book “Lobster at Home” I got inspired to make Lobster rolls for dinner with some matchstick potatoes. So, that’s what was for dinner.
Here is the recipe:
- 1 1/2# Maine Lobster, Boiled for 8 minutes then shucked, chilled and rough chopped
- 1/2 cucumber, peeled, diced without any seeds
- 2 tbls. Mayonnaise
- 1/2 Lemon squeezed
- 1/2 shallot, minced
- 1/2 tbls. Tarragon, minced
- Salt and Pepper
Mix all ingredients and chill. Spread butter on three/four hot dog buns and brown on griddle or non-stick pan. While still hot, add the lobster salad and serve immediately. Read the rest of this entry »
Well I was home last night and thinking about all my Cook Books and what has happened to them recently. I moved about a year ago and didn’t have the same amount of space I once did in my old kitchen, so some of the books were sent to the basement. Well, over the period of time we have live in our new home, between the flood we had in the basement and just the basement being a basement, I would say about 40% of them are now ruined.
Yes this make me sad, but most of the “good” ones have been spared as they were never sent to the basement but I found room in my now cramped kitchen. I have every Professional Chef from the CIA starting back from copyright 1978 I think (v.4) up until the most recent one. I have Escoffier le Guide Culinaire from the 1940’s. But one of my favorites is from Hudson Valley Foie Gras Company, Foie Gras….A Passion. Safe!
Oh Well, for the 200+ cook books I once had, I now have about 100 that are still in good shape. And the important ones are safe!
Share some of your favorite Cook Books.
- Cook Books!
Spring is my favorite time of year for food by far. Just think about it! I live in New England and the food that is available is flown in from everywhere. But in the spring I start to see my local stuff appearing.
Starting off with the likes of fiddleheads, dandelion greens, asparagus, or soon Softshell Crabs! I love it. This just starts us off, there will be strawberry festivals starting in the next few week, local farmers markets with actual local food, I can’t wait.
Speaking of things that are all spring and food, Stripers! They are here, just looking at fishing reports from Plum Island Area, schoolies and keepers, nice. Not only are these my favorite fish to catch, they are one of my favorite fish to eat. Beautiful clean fish, slightly sweet and firmed flesh makes this fish ideal for sauteing, pan roasting or grilling. You will hear me say this often, but keep it simple stupid.
Well It will be two three years on Saturday that I closed my restaurant. I am not sad that I actually closed it what upsets me is the fashion in which it closed. Things could have been much different in the way it was handled. But that is the past.
It all just came to mind as I just drove by the shop and there is a new restaurant going in. I remember like it was yesterday all the hard work, planning and pure fright of the whole endeavor. There were lots of good times, but there were lots of struggles along the way too.
With all that sad, I no not miss the business, just miss the access to all the great food I had at my finger tips and all the wonderful meals I cooked everyday.
My Blog is dedicated for the love of food! Please enjoy, make comments and come back often. Thanks.