Red and Green Udon “Pasta” with Prosciutto 生ハムのせ緑と赤のうどんパスタ

I came up with this for lunch one day. This is a left-over control dish. A few days ago since it is getting hot, we had cold “udon” pasta with tomatosトマトの冷製パスタ for lunch.  We usually make this dish with thin udon 糸うどん rather than fettuccine. I also cook up more than what we can use for this dish since cooked udon noodles can be used for other dishes and are handy to have. We also had left-over roasted red pepper sauce and pesto which I made a few days ago and used to make a white pizza with those sauces on top. We still had a bit more of the red pepper sauce and pesto left, so I came up with this dish (picture #1). The topping is prosciutto. It was also left over from the cold tomato pasta. I also added grated Parmesan cheese and a drizzle of our favorite Spanish olive oil. 

I thought of making cold pasta but ended up with warm pasta. I just sautéed the pasta in two separate small frying pans with small amount of olive oil. I added the red pepper sauce and pesto to each pan and warmed them up.

I topped this with prosciutto, grated parmesan and drizzle of olive oil. This was a quite good pasta dish. In addition, we managed to finish a few left-overs.

Shad Roe Pasta シャドロウパスタ

This was the second dish we made using shad roe. Since we like “tarako” pasta たらこパスタ (using Japanese udon うどんnoodle), we decide to try “shad roe” pasta. Our version of tarako pasta starts with caramelizing onion and instead of spaghetti, we  use thin udon noodles (“ito-udon” 糸うどん). This time we had a small amount of  leftover shimeji mushroom, so we added it. It is amazing that this dish tasted exactly like one with tarako cod roe. Definitly this is a good dish to make with shad roe. We topped this with thin strips of nori seaweed (“kizami nori”) (picture #1).

Picture #2 is before we added the nori. you can see the roe and shimeji mushroom and caramelized onion.

Ingredients: (2 small servings)

Half sac of shad roe, scraped off from the membrane

Two servings of cooked thin udon noodles

1 onion, cut into thin slices

shimeji mushroom, optional

1 tbs vegetable oil and 1 tsp sesame oil

1 tbs lemon juice

Marinade for shad roe

1 tbs sake

1 tbs x4 concentrated Japanese noodle sauce (or soy sauce)

Directions:

Add the shad roe to the marinade and let it marinate at least 30 minutes or overnight in the refrigerator (#1 in the composite)

Add the oil to a frying pan on low heat, add the onion and caramelize (10-15 minutes)

Add the mushroom and cook for 1-2 minutes and add the cooked noodle (#2 in the composite)

Add the shad roe with the marinade (#3 in the composite)

Mix and cook for 1-2 minutes, taste and if needed add salt (#4)

Off the heat, add the lemon juice and mix

Serve with a garnish of nori strips (picture #1)

This is a good dish and we really like it. Only problem (?) is that we cannot tell the difference between tarako pasta and this dish except the grain of the roe is larger in the shad roe. Both taste good but the difference is negligible. 

Four Salad Lunch 4種類サラダランチ

I made 4 different salads (not all on the same day) and had the 4 salads for lunch with a cold asparagus soup. We also had a small piece of “Not no-knead bread made with dried fruit”. We feel good about the fact that all salads, soup and bread were home-made. In the center of the four salads, I served snap peas which were blanched and then soaked in Japanese salt broth.

The picture below shows Israeli couscous with artichoke hearts and garbanzo beans with a nice lemony and dill dressing.

The pic below shows a celery, mushroom, and navy bean salad with feta cheese. The mushrooms make the salad. They gave an almost meaty texture and flavor.

The next is a curry flavored sous vide chicken salad. Since we had a nice ripe Champagne mango, I added small cubes of mango which went very well with this salad.

I made this udon noodle salad since I had left-over cooked udon noodles.  The dressing is sesame-flavored. I do make several versions of the sesame dressing (for example, using Japanese “nerigoma” ねりごま sesame paste or peanut butter) but this time I used Tahini with dry roasted white sesame seeds which I ground in a Japanese “suribachi” すり鉢 mortar. Other seasonings included soy sauce, sugar, and rice vinegar.

This was a surprisingly filling lunch. Beans, udon noodles, and couscous all contribute to this and, at the same time, we enjoyed so many different flavors and textures. We just have to make sure we finish all these salads before they go bad.

Israeli (Pearl) Couscous Salad イスラエルクスクスサラダ

The other day, we were taking inventory of our pantry and found boxes of couscous (classic and Israeli or pearled) as well as tabouleh all of which were way pass their BUB (best-used-by) date. We sniffed and did not detect any rancid oil odor so we cooked the classic couscous and the tabouleh. But once they were cooked, it was clear that in these cases the BUB date had some meaning—they tasted terrible. So we discarded those boxes and bought new ones. We decided to go ahead and try cooking the Israeli couscous* and it turned out to be OK. So we decided to use it to make a salad. We looked up recipes on the web and essentailly combined two recipes omitting some of the ingredients called for in the recipe while adding others not mentioned.

*Digression alert: While we were looking up recipes, we found that Israeli or pearl couscous was invented by an Israeli company as a substitute for rice in 1959 since there was a rice shortage at that time.In any case, the end result was a quite nice filling salad. The vinaigrette had a nice lemony flavor with dill which made this salad very refreshing.

Ingredietns:

For Couscous
1 1/2 cup (250gram or 8oz) Israel couscous
1 garlic clove, minced (I used three)
1/2 small onion, finely mince (I used one small onion)
2 tbs olive oil
1 1/2 chicken broth (I used our ususal low sodium Swanson)
1 cup water (we did not add the water. The couscous was fully cooked and the liquid was completely absorbed but although it was not scorched, the couscous stuck to the bottom of the pan. So next time we will try it with the additional water.)

For the salad
5 Campari tomatoes, skinned and cut into quarters
2 tbs dill, finely chopped
6 marinated artichoke hearts, cut into half length wise
1 can (15.5 oz) garbanzo beans, drained and skin removed (optional, but my wife insist on removing the skin)

Other items could be olives, cucumber and other greens.

For dressing
Zest and juice from one lemon
1 tsp dijon mustard
1 tsp honey
Salt and pepper to taste

Directions: {For couscous)
Add the oil in a pan, sauté the onion and garlic for 3-4 minutes, add the couscous and sauté another minute
Add the chicken broth and simmer for 10 minutes
Fluff it up with a fork and let it cool to the room temperature

Mix all the ingredients and the dressing.

Although we forgot to add one cup of water, the couscous was nicely cooked without. The lemony dressing really worked.

Surf-and-turf Valentine’s Day Dinner ロブスターとステーキ（サーフアンドターフ）

We rarely have a surf-and-turf dinner but since it was Valentine’s  day, we decided to have a steak and lobster dinner. The filet mignon came from Omaha steak and we got frozen lobster tail from Whole Food.  I cooked both in sous vide. I also made “Mac-and-cheese”. The temperatures I used in the past for lobster tail and steak were slightly different but this time I used 135F for both so that I could sous vide both in the same setting which worked.  The steaks were cooked for 4 hours and the lobster 45 minutes. I timed it so they both came out around 7pm.

I seasoned the lobster tails with salt and tarragon (I only had dried) and vacuum packed with several pats of cold butter. After it was cooked I removed the lobster from the vacuum pack, and drained the liquid inside and added a squeeze of lemon juice to make a lobster-butter dipping sauce. It was perfectly cooked.

I thawed the previously frozen steak and patted it dry. I then further dried it on sheets of paper towel, uncovered for a few hours in the refrigerator.  I seasoned it with salt and pepper before vacuum packing it for sous vide. After it was cooked I removed the steak from the vacuum bag, and quickly seared both sides in a frying pan with melted butter. I set the steak aside and added the juice accumulated in the vacuum bag to the pan and scraped off the brown bits left from searing the steak. I added 2-3 tbs of red wine and reduce the mixture in half. I finished the pan sauce with pats of butter and seasoned with salt and pepper. The steak was nice medium rare.

I have made and  posted several variations of “Mac and cheese”. This time I went with a classic with Béchamel sauce but I also added finely chopped fresh shiitake mushroom which added nice flavors. The cheeses I used as per my wife’s selection were fresh goat, sharp cheddar and smoke Gouda. The seasonings were salt and freshly grated black pepper and nutmeg. We really liked this version.

We had this with one of our favorites; Caymus Napa valley Cabernet  Sauvignon 2020. We really enjoyed this special dinner and wine.

Couscous Salad クスクスサラダ

We tend to forget what food items we have especially those that are frozen or “hidden” in the back of the pantry. My wife found several boxes of couscous the other day. All of them were a bit past their “best-used-by” date which was 2017 for one and 2019 for the other two. We just threw 2017 out but decided to try 2019. We gave them the “sniff-test” and they passed without any rancid oil smell detected. So my wife cooked them up. But when we tasted they were clearly well past edible; they were terrible. We had been planning to make some kind of coucous salad and I had already cut up some black and green olives for it. So the next grocery delivery, we ordered several boxes of couscous so that we could finish the couscous salad.  (Ironically the whole purpose of the exercise was to clear out excess pantry goods either by using them or throwing them out. Instead, with the couscous we ended up throwing everything in the pantry out and simply replacing them). For some reason, plain couscous was not available so the boxes we got had various flavors one of which happened to be couscous with roasted garlic and olive oil. That is the one we used to complete the salad. It was remarkably good. In order to prevent the earlier problem we had with the oil in the couscous going rancid, I opened the two remaining boxes of couscous, put the contents in a separate special vacuum bag, vacuum packed them and froze them. The idea was that this should extend the “best-by” date by a few years.

My wife cooked up the couscous and by itself  it tasted really good but the salad tasted even better.

Ingredients:

One box (5oz) Near East couscous with roasted garlic and olive oil (I am sure any other flavored couscous will do)
1 1/4 cup chicken broth
2 tbs butter
Black and green olives, sliced
2/3 block of Feta cheese, crumbled
2 stalks of celery, finely chopped
1/2 Vidalia (or other sweet) onion, finely chopped

For dressing:

1 tbs Dijon mustard
1 tbs honey
2 tbs rice vinegar
1/4 -1/3 cup extra-virgin olive oil
Salt and pepper to taste

Directions:
Cook the couscous according to the instructions on the package. In this case it was heat 1 1/4 cup water (we used chicken broth) to boiling add the butter and the contents of the included flavor package. Then stir in the couscous remove from the heat, cover and let it stand for 5 minutes. Fluff it up using a fork. Let it cool to room temperature.
Add the olives, onion, celery and feta cheese
Add the dressing and mix well
Taste and if needed add salt and pepper

This is a good salad. A bit filling but the combination of olives, feta cheese and slightly sweeet and tangy dressing really makes this dish.

Mini Lasagna cups ミニロザニアカップ

One day, all of a sudden, my wife asked if we still have wonton or gyoza skins. I said we had leftover gyoza skins frozen. I was not sure why she was asking this. I found out that she saw a recipe for “mini-lasagna cups” which uses wonton skins as the pasta. This is a good dish to make since I have been reheating my marinara sauce once a week for several weeks now to make it last. It was time to use it up. In any case, the picture below shows the mini-lasagna cups she made. They are perfect for a lunch or appetizer. The combination of flavors is very nice.

You can see the layers in the picture below; layers of ricotta cheese and spinach and alternating layers of marinara sauce (actually one time when I reheated it I put in chopped up cooked chicken) separated by the wonton skins. She ran out of the wonton skins and some of the lasagna cups ended up having a layer of Pennsylvania Dutch noodles instead. (Because she had those and hey, they are a form of pasta).

 

I am not sure where she saw this recipe but I’ll ask my wife to take over. (Note from wifey: I found the recipe in the Washington Post and as usual treated it as just advisory.)

Ingredients:
1 cup cooked spinach
1 cup ricotta cheese
1/2 tsp. salt
2 cups shredded cheese (I used a combination of dry mozzarella, smoked gouda and cheddar.)
1 1/2 cups husbandito’s marinara sauce
36 wonton skins (3 per 12 muffin cup tin)

Directions:
Mix the spinach, ricotta cheese and salt together. Put half of it in a separate bowl and stir in 1/2 of the shredded cheese. Fit a wonton skin into the bottom of a 12 cup muffin tin. (I used muffin papers to make it easier to get the finished product out but it turned out they weren’t necessary.) Evenly divide the ricotta spinach blend into each cup (#1). Fit another wonton skin on top. Spoon the marinara sauce on top (#2). Cover with another wonton skin. (Note that at this point I ran out of wonton skins so I used cooked pasta as shown in the left side of #3) Evenly divide the ricotta shredded cheese on top (#4). Top the mixture with remaining marinara sauce and grated cheese (#5). Cook in a 375 degree oven for 12 to 15 minutes until cheese on the top is melted, browned and bubbling (#6). 

These were a bit tedious to put together but they were worth it. They had all the satisfying complex flavor of a full lasagne with all the elegance of a single portion. They made a perfect lunch with a salad or a small bowl of soup. 

"Udon" pasta with squid and marinara sauce イカとマリナラソースのウドンパスタ

 I ordered fresh whole squid from Hmart via the Instacart. Since there was a minimum of 1 pound for the order so I specified 1.5 pound to be safe. I was expecting one large intact squid. Instead I got a substitute; "cleaned and packaged" squid. Since this squid did not include innards 1.5 pounds translated into quite a lot of squid; three large packages, much more than I  expected. When my wife unpacked the bag she commented, "That's a lot of squid!" Since it was "cleaned" it was also more expensive per pound. I was thinking the body portion of the squid I bought would be intact so I could either stuff it or cut it into squid rings to fry. But the body portion had been opened to remove the innards. (Removing the innards even if the body has not been opened is not that hard and is what I do to prepare squid). In addition the thin skin (which is very hard to remove) and the small wings at the top were still attached. This all made it relatively easy for the person packaging the squid but not necessarily the customer left with the harder part of the prep. What I would have preferred is the body left intact but the thin skin and wings removed. Oh well, I kvetch.

I set to work and removed the wings ("enpera" エンペラ in Japanese. Supposedly, this word originated from "emperor" since the shape of the wings resembled Napoleon's hat) and removed the thin skin using a paper towel to grasp the edge of the skin and peeled it off. Most importantly, the good news was that the squid was fresh (i.e. no smell).  It was much fresher than anything we would get from Giant. It was a fairly good size with tentacles so overall I was pleased.  

I quickly boiled the tentacles in salted water with a splash of sake. (We enjoyed these as appetizers for several evenings with cucumber and wakame seaweed dressed in "sumiso" 酢味噌 vinegar miso dressing). I shallowly scored the body in crisscross fashion and cut it into one inch by a half inch rectangles. I used about a third of the prepared squid for squid in tomato sauce "udon" pasta. The rest I froze. This was lunch on Saturday.

I thought I used a quite a good amount of squid but once it was cooked, it did not feel like a lot.

 

Ingredients:
1/2 lb squid, body, cleaned, thin skin removed, apply crisscross shallow cuts on one side and then cut into 1 x 0.5 inch rectangles (see picture below).
1/2 cup marinara sauce (This was my usual homemade)
Cooked pasta (I used cooked udon noodles)
4-5 fresh basil leaves, cut into chiffonade,
Garlic, finely chopped (optional)
Salt and black pepper
Olive oil

Directions:
Add the olive oil in a frying pan on medium flame. Add the garlic (if using) and stir for 1 minutes or until fragrant. Add the squid and sauté for 30-40 seconds, add the noodle and the marinara sauce. Stir and warm up for few minutes. Garnish with the basil and splash good olive oil.

This was a good pasta dish. The squid was not chewy at all. 

Pesto prosciutto "udon" pasta バジルペーストとプロシュートのウドンパスタ

This was a lunch. Since we made pesto from our window sill basil harvest, we decided to use the pesto, prosciutto, which was getting old,  and the remaining rapini which I blanched previously. We thought this combination should work. Instead of spaghetti, we used thin Japanese “udon” noodles called "Ito-udon" 糸うどん which we had cooked a few days prior. I started with cooking the prosciutto in a frying pan. Then set aside the prosciutto. In the same pan, added a small amount  of olive oil and sautéed the noodle until warmed up, added  the rapini. Finally, off heat, added the pesto and prosciutto.

Since the pesto had enough parmesan cheese in it, I only added our favorite spicy Spanish olive oil.

The flavors of the pesto, slightly bitter rapini, and salty prosciutto all worked well. This was a perfect lunch for us.

Olive brine marinated pork tenderloin with cuscus オリーブブライン漬け豚ヒレ

This is continuation of my search for another way to cook pork tenderloins. A few days ago I used the trimmings from two pork tenderloins, I prepared to make "Pork, potato, and green bean stir fry". The next day, I made "Seared Pork tenderloin with smoked paprika and oregano 焼き豚フィレ肉、薫製パプリカ、オレガノ味" from one of the tenderloins. That left one last tenderloin. I came across this recipe in "Food and Wine" magazine. It uses the brine from a jar of olives (I suppose it is made of water, vinegar and salt with added olive flavor from the marinated olives) as a marinade for pork tenderloin. We were inspired by this recipe so we made this dish and served it with couscous. The original recipe called for white beans as the side but we happened to have a box of couscous which recently passed its "best used by" date. (Actually that date was one year ago but in our household that is "recent"). The brining did make the pork more succulent but did not add much flavor despite the addition of ground sage and lemon zest to the brine.

We added all the juice, olives and roasted garlic from the roasted pork to the couscous which made it very flavorful and moist. (We tend to avoid dry flakey couscous which we found from experience can easily become uncomfortably air borne if you happen to inhale slightly at the wrong time while eating it). Although the color could have been a bit better, we will call this dish a sucess.

Since we do not believe in "searing" the surface of the meat before baking, I skipped the searing step.

Ingredients:
One trimmed and prepared pork tenderloin
Several green olives, pitted and smashed
Several cloves of garlic, skin on
1 tbs olive oil

For marinade:
1/4 cup of brine from a jar of olives (we had sweet red pepper stuffed green olives which I use when I have a martini).
1 tbs extra-virgin olive oil
1/2 tsp ground sage
Lemon zest from one lemon using a micrograter.
1/2 tsp Kosher salt

Salt and pepper for seasning.

Directions:
Place the marinade and the tenderloin in a Ziploc bag. Removed the air, close the bag and marinate for 3 hours in the refrigerator.
Preheat oven (I used our toaster oven in convection mode) to 375F.
Remove the pork from the marinade, blot with a paper towel, coat with olive oil and season with salt and pepper. Coat the garlic cloves with olive oil.
Place the pork, olives, and garlic on a baking sheet and bake for 30 minutes or until the temperature in the thickest part of the pork registers 145F.
Let it rest for 5-10 minutes on the cutting board.

Meanwhile, we prepared a box of couscous according to the directions (we used chicken broth and pats of butter). When done, we fluffed up the couscous using a fork, added the roasted garlic by squeezing out the soft center of the clove leaving the skin behind. Then we added the olives and whatever juice from the meat that accumulated while it was resting.

Since we are not really into brining meats, this is a quick and easy way to do it. As far as we could tell the main impact of the brining was on the texture of the meat rather than its flavor. The meat was moist and nice. This is a new for us but we are not sure we will do this again.

Morel mushroom pasta and pork scaloppini モレルマッシュルームパスタ

We like mushrooms in general (except for button mushrooms). Shiitake is our main stay. Occasionally we branch out to maitake 舞茸 or enoki えのき茸 or shimeji しめじ. Of course, once a year, matsutake 松茸 is a must have. This time my wife found a package of fresh morel mushrooms at our near-by Whole Foods. So one weekend evening, we had morel mushroom pasta and a pork scaloppini-like dish.

The pasta was PA dutch egg noodle. My wife made a sauce. This is a simple sauce with sautéed fresh morel in butter and cream simply seasoned with salt and pepper. Pork scaloppini was just pork tenderloin cut into medallions and pounded very thin, seasoned with dried basil and oregano, salt and pepper. I dusted with flour and cooked in olive oil. I did not make the traditional sauce that goes with scaloppini. The pasta had a lovely morel mushroom taste that was absorbed and extended by the pasta. The creamy sauce added an unctuous element. This was a great way to eat pasta. The pasta also went very well with the pork scaloppini.

Since we have started to open up the old wines we collected over the year, this bottle was up next. This is Barnett Vineyard 2006 Pinot Noir.

We got this bottle when we visited the vineyard. This was a reserved personal tasting and the guide (a bit grumpy guy) let us taste their wine in a gazebo on the top of the mountain on their property overlooking surrounding vinyards and mountains. The view was spectacular. We bought several bottles of cabernet and a few Pinot. We must have had them send to us but I do not remember the details. Long time ago, we finished all of their cabs but this pinot was left. This bottle was kept in our wine refrigerator not in the basement. So we were hoping this was better kept and aged.

I carefully decanted it one hour before. Although, edge was brownish indicating age, it had surprisingly fresh fruit; cherry and a bit of strawberry and tannin was mellow. We really enjoyed this aged Pinot. This was particularly good paring with morel mushroom pasta and the pork scaloppini. Since I did not make any sauce (like caper and lemon) but just herbs, salt and pepper, it went better with this wine.

Ravioli with wonton skin ワンタン皮のラビオリ

My sister-in-law gave me a cookbook called "Perfect Pairings"(special issue of "Food and Wine"). One weekend, my wife and I were browsing through it and found several interesting recipes. My wife really wanted to try this ravioli recipe which was paired with champagne in the book. Since it was a very hot summer day, we had this with a rather inexpensive rose wine from Provence called Domaine du Garde Temps 'Tourbillon' Côtes de Provence Rosé 2016 (made of 50% Cinsault, 30% Grenache, 20% Syrah). We started by trying to follow the recipe. When we realized the recipe used 12 oz. of cheese and made over 60 ravioli, I intervened and decided to "wing-it" in my usual style. I used most of the ingredients for the stuffing (without measuring) and took a shortcut using store-bought "wonton" skins instead of making a pasta dough. We served this as a first dish with the aforementioned (a bit over-chilled) rose wine.

For sauce, I simply made a brown butter sauce with capers and Meyer lemon juice with a side of basil leaves. I included a quarter of Meyer lemon just in case we needed more acidity in the sauce.

The next day, I made a sauce of finely chopped shallots sautéed in butter with basil leaves added at the end just to wilt them. I topped with grated Parmesan and just before eating squeezed on some Meyer lemon juice. This was a better sauce for the ravioli.

Ingredients (made about 32-35 ravioli):
For filling
1/2 cup whole milk ricotta cheese
1/4 lb prosciutto, thinly sliced and then minced into small pieces (We used Boar's Head brand which appears to be imported from Italy).
1 whole egg
1/4 cup Parmigiano Reggiano, grated
One package of baby spinach, cooked without adding additional water, moisture pressed out and chopped.

Instead of using a pasta sheet I used one package of Wonton skins (We ran out of the skins leaving a small amount of filling which we cooked in a ramekin in the toaster oven).
Mixture of flour and water to form a glue to seal the ravioli

For sauce
3 tbs unsalted butter
1-2 tsp of capers, drained, roughly chopped
1/2 Meyer lemon juice
salt and pepper to taste

Directions:
Mix all the ingredients for the filling in a bowl (#1).
Using a small ice-cream scoop, place the filling in the center of the wonton skin and paint the skin with the flour and water mixture (#2).
Take another wonton skin, paint one side with the flour glue and press both wonton skins around the filling try to not to trap any air (#3).
Using an appropriate sized cookie cutter cut around the filling making the square into a round  (#4).
Repeat until either all the filling or all the wonton skins are used up.  We ran out of wonton skins a tad earlier than the filling) (#5 and 6).
Boil the ravioli in rapidly boiling water (salt and olive oil added) for 2-3 minutes or until they float (#7).
Drain and let it cool briefly on metal rack (#8)
After they cooled we stacked the ravioli on a large square plate with parchment paper brushed with olive oil to make multiple layers and keep them from sticking together.  At this point, I suppose you could serve, refrigerate or freeze them.

For serving:
Melt the butter in non-stick frying pan until slightly brown, add the capers.
If needed season it with salt (prosciutto is rather salty, so do not over season).
Add the ravioli and warm it up, squeeze on the lemon and serve immediately.

Making ravioli even when using pre-made pasta skins is a bit of work. My wife and I worked as a team. I filled and sealed the ravioli and she cut them into rounds with the cookie cutter. She over saw cooking them and I prepared the "landing pad" so they would not stick together. But it was worth it. Although I thought I may have used a bit too much prosciutto when I was making the filling (I was trying to use it up), it was just the right amount.  It amalgamated into the Ricotta and spinach mixture adding a nicely complex meaty, salty flavor. The Meyer lemon added a bright note which was both lemony and orangey. This went well with our rose from Provence. The wine is very light with some acidity which went well with acidity provided by the lemons.  The fresh basil leaves were also great. Next time, I may just add few basil leaves to the butter sauce itself. Since we serve only a few ravioli at a time, we will be enjoying them for some time to come. (Good thing we didn't follow the recipe and make 60!)

Spinach Spaetzle ホウレン草スペーツル

After a great success of making spaetzle using our newly acquired spaetzle maker, my wife made this spinach spaetzle. (What's the old adage, "the right  tool for the job"). She made this basically because we had a bit of spinach left over from another dish. This was light supper and I served spinach spaetzle with meat balls in tomato sauce and green beans.

With the spaetzle maker, the size of the spaetzle is just right and it is much easier to make. By-the-way, it may look like there are peas on the plate in the picture above but it is actually the spaetzle as shown in the close-up below. I heated it up by sautéing in a bit of olive oil.

Ingredients:
1/2 cup thawed, drained frozen spinach (we used fresh spinach cooked without any addition of water).
1 cup low-fat (1%) milk
1 egg
1 tablespoon extra-virgin olive oil
1/8 teaspoon grated nutmeg
2 1/4 cup all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon Kosher salt
2 tablespoons unsalted butter, for cooking spaetzle

Directions:
Bring a large pot of lightly salted water to a boil.

In a blender, combine spinach, milk, egg, oil and nutmeg (#1 and #2); blend until spinach is puréed. Whisk flour and salt together in a large measuring cup (using a measuring cup makes it easier to pour the batter into the hopper of the spaetzle maker). Stir in spinach mixture. (#3).  In several batches pour the batter into the hopper of the spaetzle maker.  Slide the hopper back and forth over the base plate with holes (#4 & #5). Cook until noodles float and firm up, about 1 minute. Lift spaetzle out with a strainer and transfer to a colander to drain and drizzle on some olive oil to keep them from sticking together. (#6)  Repeat with remaining dough.

When ready to serve, melt butter in a large skillet over high heat. Add spaetzle and cook, tossing frequently, until spaetzle just begins to brown.

Although we really did not taste the spinach, it adds a nice green color. This is a welcome change from our usual forms of pasta. Despite a good amount of nutmeg, it is not at all overwhelming. The texture was firm enough to hold together but still very tender.

Spaetzle with tongue stew シュペッツレとタンシチュー

When I made beef tongue stew, I mentioned to my wife in passing that spaetzle (Spätzle) may go well with it. So, one day when I was at work and she was home, she made spaetzle. But she did not have the right tool to physically form the spaetzle. She ended up cutting the corner off a Ziploc bag and dropped the batter into the boiling broth by cutting the lump of dough extruded from the bag into the broth, but it made a rather clumsy large spaetzle that looked more like gnocchi. Although it tasted good, the shape and size were not quite right. Recognizing that I was on the receiving end of a good thing I got her an appropriate spaetzle maker in the hope of encouraging the production of more spaetzle. This is her second attempt and the spaetzle came out much better.

I sautéed the spaetzle with butter and finely chopped parsley to accompany the tongue stew. After a few days in the refrigerator and reheated, the stew was better and the spaetzle went so well with it.

This is the contraption I got for my wife.

Ingredients:
2 eggs, beaten
1 1/2 cup AP flour
1/2 cup water (add more to adjust the consistency to loose pancake batter).
1/2 tsp salt
1/4 tsp baking powder
Grating of nutmeg (#1)

Directions:
In a large sautéed pan, boil the water and add bay leaves and add salt to taste.
Place the spaetzle cutter over the pan, pour the batter into the hopper on top (#3).
Move the hopper back and froth and let the batter drip down into the boiling water (#4).
When the spaetzle floated up on the surface (#5), let it cook for another 30 seconds.
Scoop them up using a slotted spoon (#6)
Dain and then coat them with light olive oil to prevent from sticking together (#7 and 8).

The combination of the tongue stew and spaeztle really works well. The spaetzle had a mild bay leaf flavor. Also this is a proof that you need the right tool for the right job. It was well worth it to supply the appropriate tool to make a dish like this.

Gnocchi ニョキ

When we barbecue chicken, we often bake potatoes. Since we had fairly large Russet potatoes, my wife just wrapped them in aluminum foil and we put them into the Weber next to the chicken. By the time the chicken was done (about 1 hour and 15-30 minutes), the potatoes were perfectly cooked. She made them to mashed potatoes with a Japanese touch i.e. liberal applications of soy sauce and butter. We love the crispy skin of barbecued chicken particularly when it just comes out of the Weber.  So, we immediately started snacking by making small rolls of mashed potatoes sprinkled with chopped chives wrapped in the crispy skin of the barbecued chicken. By the time we were ready to carve the chicken, we had mostly finished the dinner standing up eating the potato rolls with our fingers. In any case, my wife made gnocchi from the leftover mashed potatoes a few days later. As an ending dish of the evening, I served gnocchi with sage butter, meatballs I made that day and asparagus.

This gnocchi was more like sautéed in sage butter rather than swimming in sage brown butter. Although we grow sage in our herb garden, we used dried sage this time.

I made the meatballs from the trimmings of pork tenderloin. This time, I made my marinara sauce from skinned and diced Campari tomatoes instead of canned tomatoes.

Gnocchi
Ingredients:
16 oz. of mashed potatoes (3 cups)
4 oz. of AP flour (3/4 cup)
1 egg
1 tsp. salt

Ingredients X 1 1/2
24 oz. (1 lb. 8 oz.) of mashed potatoes 
1 1/8 cup of AP flour (may need more to make a workable dough)
2 eggs
1 1/2  tsp. salt

Ingredients X 2
32 oz. (2 lb.) of mashed potatoes 
1 1/2  cup of AP flour (may need more to make a workable dough) (I actually used 2 1/4 and it worked out        OK)
3 eggs
2  tsp. salt




Directions:
Press the mashed potatoes through a sieve. Add the flour and gently mix with a fork. Add the egg and salt and again gently mix with a fork until everything comes together into a dough.
Gently roll into 1/2 inch diameter logs. Cut into the desired size.
The pieces can be rolled on the back of a fork to make ridges to better hold the sauce but that didn't work out so well so our pieces generally didn't have any ridges.
Fill the dutch oven with water. Add 1 Tbs. Salt and several bay leaves. Bring the water to a boil. Lower the heat and gently add the gnocchi to the water. Heat just below the boil  for a few minutes in salted water until they float to the surface. Then remove from the water and put into the sauce.  Or for use later put in a bowl and coat with olive oil to prevent them from sticking together. 

This was really very good. They had a lovely light texture and the potato taste really came through. These were so easy to make and were so good they will definitely appear on the menu again. 

Cod roe and homemade spaghetti pasta 自家製スパゲティでたらこスパゲッティ

This is a variation of cod roe spaghetti. We usually make this dish with thin Udon noodles うどん. After my wife got me a pasta machine, I have been making pasta. Since I made spaghetti and happened to have some tarako たらこcod roe, I tried this dish using the homemade "spaghetti".

Makings of spaghetti (for 2 servings):

Ingredients:
200 gram flour (I used Hodgson mill pasts flour which is a mixture of semolina and durum wheat flours).
80 gram mixture of one egg, olive oil, salt and water, well mixed. (I weighed these ingredients).

Directions:
1. I put the flour into the chamber of the machine (left upper) and turned it on.
2. I then slowly poured in the liquid.
3. It turns several minutes. It never come to one mass of dough but remains rather dry.
4. It automatically stops and reverses the direction which will feed the dough to the extruder and the pasta starts coming out (right upper).
5. The lower two pictures show the final product. It is rather dry and does not stick to each other.

For tarako sauce.

Ingredients:
One small onion, halved and sliced, caramelized in olive oil
Two sacs of "Tarako" cod roe
Sake
Olive oil, 1 tbs
Lemon juice
Perilla leaves, thinly julienned (I did not have perilla so I used baby arugula)  Nori , thinly julienned

Directions:
1. Cut one side of the roe sacs. Using the back of the knife, scrape off the roe leaving the sac.
2. Place the roe in a small bowl and add sake (small amount, probably 1-2 tsp) and mix.
3. Cook the spaghetti (I may have over cooked this).
4. Add the olive oil in a frying pan on medium flame.
5. When heated, add the cooked spaghetti, caramelized onion and mix. When the spaghetti is coated with oil and warm, add the cod mixture and quickly mix for 1-2 minutes until the roe becomes opaque (i.e. cooked).
6. Cut the heat and add the lemon juice (1 tbs).
7. Serve on the plate garnished with think strips of perilla leaves and nori.

This was a bit of disappointment. Since the fettuccini I made was  very good with nice texture but somehow became a bit mushy, I was expecting better. We decided using thin Udon noodle is much better.

Home made pasta with squid in beer sauce 自家製フェタチーニのイカビールソース

My wife surprised me with a Valentine's day gift of an automatic pasta maker. I had made fresh pasta using a hand cranked pasta machine many years ago but we decide it is not worth the time and effort since the resulting pasta was rather soft and did not have much of the texture. The pasta machine with which I was gifted, was like a bread machine for pasta. Just put in the flour, add liquid  (i.e. egg and water), flip the switch, watch it knead the dough for a while and be prepared to collect the pasta it extrudes in 15 minutes or less. I have to admit I was a bit skeptical about the "extruded" part but since my wife got me a pasta machine, I had to try it. After one failed attempt (too much water results in glop), I successfully made homemade "extruded" fettuccine which had a surprisingly nice firm texture. Since I had a leftover tapa "squid in beer sauce", I used it as a pasta sauce.  I had also just made meatballs, I added one (top in the picture below).

I garnished the pasta with  our favorite spicy Spanish olive oil

I also added blanched broccoli for color and adjusted the seasoning with Kosher salt and freshly clacked black pepper. The long cooking made both the squid bodies and tentacles very tender and flavorful. The fettuccine was nicely chewy and satisfying.

The pasta machine is a small 2 person model made by Phillips.  As per the instructions I used 200 grams of flour (Hodgson mill Semolina Pasta flour, since I could not find straight semolina flour at my grocery store. This flour is a mixture of Semolina and Durham wheat flour). The amount of liquid is 75 grams including one egg. This means the amount of the water you need to add is very small. It mixes and kneads for 3-4 minutes and then it reverses the turning direction of the paddle loading the mixture into the extruder (#1 in the picture. Very clever!). The dough looks very dry and the kneading does not form into a single mass but when it started extruding, it came together (#2 and #3). Since I made the pasta in the morning, I placed it on parchment paper and covered it with a towel (#2 and 3) until noon. This further dried the pasta.

I cooked the pasta in boiling water with added olive oil and salt (#4). I checked several times until still al dente but cooked (probably took 5-7 minutes). I drained and coated with olive oil (#5). I added the pasta to the warmed up squid in beer sauce (#6) and stirred so the sauce would cling to the pasta (#6).

This was much better than expected. The pasta had a nice chewy texture and went well with the squid. I learned that the amount of liquid should be between 75 to 80 grams including the egg for 200 grams of flour.  The amount of pasta it made is supposedly for 2 servings but for us small eaters, half was enough for the two of us. This dough was much dryer than the one I made by hand. I made the first batch too wet like regular hand made pasta dough, but only half of the dough got extruded and the rest remained in the machine. The resulting pasta came out as a blob and could not be separated. The dough has to be fairly dry so that the it will go into the opening of the extruder. I assume that the pasta's firm chewy texture derives from the fact that the pasta is rather dry when extruded and dries further when left out. I have to play with the machine some more (adding olive oil and salt comes to mind immediately). There are also several other dies that I have to experiment with not to mention vegetable juice to substitute for the water. I have to admit that my wife hit on just the right kind of gift to keep me "happily playing the sandbox" for some time to come. We were pretty pleased with the results.