The third and final meat at the meat slicer party this past weekend was a homemade mortadella. Making the mortadella was quite the undertaking but I had a lot of fun doing it! I used a recipe from Marco Canora that was published in Lucky Peach #4 and it came out absolutely delicious. Big thanks to Moody’s Delicatessen for selling me the sausage casings in an emergency!
Porchetta is normally eaten as a roast for a special occasion dinner, but when I was in Italy recently, we actually had it as a thin sliced sandwich meat. We got some porchetta, salami, and cheese for a train ride from Venice to Florence, and I was completely hooked on the porchetta. I happen to have a commercial meat slicer in my possession, so I thought it would be a fun theme for a party to make some different sliced meats for sandwiches. So here we are, lunchmeat week on TFimB! This porchetta tasted EXACTLY like the one I had in Italy which is pretty lucky because I just sort of winged the recipe. It was fairly easy to make and everyone loved it so I would consider it a big success!
Mexican chorizo is not really that common in New England, in fact, most people around here think you are talking about the much more common portuguese variety when you say the name. At my burrito shop, we used to get fresh Mexican chorizo that was delicious, but then the supplier kept sending the portuguese stuff by mistake and it was starting to annoy me. We are a burrito shop man! One day we ran out of the mexican kind so I whipped up a quick homemade version after skimming a few recipes. It came out ok, but everyone REALLY liked the stuff we were bringing in much better. This reaction made me really want to make chorizo better than the store bought one, so I tested recipe after recipe for several months until I got it right! Now we not only save money on it, but everyone loves the stuff! If you happen to live close enough to Cafe Burrito, come in and try some on a burrito or taco (it’s especially good on our breakfast burritos), But if not, here is the super easy recipe to make some on your own!
Last time I made Carbonara on here,(a long long time ago) I got harassed a bit in the comments for putting cream into the sauce. Honestly, I made a decent version of the dish, but just because I added a splash of cream, people got mad. I have looked since, and there are some really really awful and offensive versions of carbonara out there on the web with nothing but nice and happy comments, so I’m not sure why I was singled out. (might have been the aggressive cheesy bread?) Either way, when I was in Rome last week, I made it my duty to seek out some authentic carbonara and see what the fuss was about.
My journey led me first to a dish called Rigatoni Alla Gricia, followed by Bucatini Alla Amatriciana, and then Spaghetti Alla Carbonara. These dishes had 3 things in common. First, the pasta was very al dente. Like, to the point that I apparently didn’t know what al dente really meant, because the pasta was straight up crunching in my mouth. Second, lots of pecorino romano cheese, and third, ample bits of crispy guanciale, a cured meat similar to pancetta, but made with the jowl instead of the belly. Alla Gricia predates the other dishes by a long shot, and is sort of the vanilla of the three dishes. Add some tomatoes and chile flake, and you have Amatriciana, add some eggs instead, and there’s your carbonara.
When I got home, I was dying to get into the kitchen to make these two dishes. I wanted to do it for redemption for my last carbonara post, but also to see if it was really just as simple as it seemed. These were my favorite two plates of food I had my entire time in Italy, could they really only take 20 minutes and 5 ingredients to make? You might be tempted to add onion or garlic like many recipes out there… DON’T DO IT! You may also think you can substitute pancetta or even bacon, (like 2008 Dan) but please please go out and find that guanciale. Then just take your time and enjoy cooking and eating something that has been made the same way for hundreds of years.
Spicy pork meatballs tossed in BBQ sauce and served on a roll with slaw
Creative pasta dish that is almost a spin on ravioli. This instead has asparagus wrapped up in fresh pasta sheets.
Everyone loves super tender ribs that come right off the bone, and I bet you think that they are really hard to make. Well guess what? You take the ribs out of the packaging, dump some liquid onto it, put it in the oven, go play some video games, and boom, ribs. The one tricky part is getting that liquid just right. I wouldn’t use just any liquid floating around your dorm room, like whey protein shakes or bong water, you need to make a really flavorful concoction with a balance of sweet, sour, salty, and spicy. I’ve found that Korean Bulgogi marinade fits the bill just perfectly.
Speaking of birthdays, people came over to my place this weekend for mine, and I wanted to make a little snack for everyone to eat before we went out. My first idea was meatballs, but when I eat a few of my normal meatballs, I end up with garlic breath and heartburn all night, and I didn’t want that for myself or any of my guests. Instead I whipped up this new spicy variety. Light with chicken and pork instead of beef, less garlic than normal, a little habanero to get the blood flowing, and instead of the heavy red sauce, a simple puree of mango to dip in. They were a big hit, and didn’t bog anyone down for the long night ahead.
This is one of those deceptively delicious dishes. It looks plain, and is easy to make, yet somehow tastes incredible. I was even tricked again with the leftovers. I didn’t want to eat them cause I thought they didn’t look that good, but yet again, amazing! The pressure cooker makes it all much quicker, but you could easily do this one in a dutch oven or any decent pot.
This recipe for fresh orecchiette was based on a dish by Kristen Kish on Top Chef. It has apples, pomegranate, kale, and pork.
God this soup is so ugly. The good news is that it is healthy and tastes amazing. But yea, it looks like puke. I came home from work and decided to make an easy and healthy soup with stuff that I had lying around the house, and this was the result. It’s kinda like when you are a kid and you think if you combine all the colors in the crayon box you will make this awesome new color but it just turns out greenish black. Luckily, the flavor was the opposite of ugly.
A baked bean recipe inspired by Korean spicy bbq pork aka jeyuk bokkeum