Corn Pudding

New York's corn has not been very sweet this summer, so I have largely forgone eating the grain in its purest form, roasted on the cob. Luckily, Andrew Carmellini's pappardelle with corn and this wonderful recipe for corn pudding from The Spamwise Chronicles have helped pull me through this bummer of a corn harvest.

Gazpacho

I couldn't let summer pass by without making a batch of gazpacho. This past Labor Day weekend, I used a recipe from Anya von Bremzen's The New Spanish Table to make the Spanish tomato-based soup that is a celebration of summer's bounty. I was slightly dismayed when my soup turned out pink in color, as every other gazpacho I've eaten is bright red, but fortunately the flavor profile was every bit as bright as any gazpacho I've had.

Gazpacho
Serves 8

Ingredients:

• 2 cups cubed day-old country bread, crust removed
• 2 garlic cloves, minced
• 1/4 tsp kosher salt
• 1/8 tsp cumin seeds
• 3 lbs. ripe tomatoes, cored, seeded, and chopped
• 1 small red onion, minced
• 1 Italian frying pepper, cored, seeded, and chopped
• 1 red bell pepper, cored, seeded, and chopped
• 2 kirby cucumbers, peeled and chopped
• 1/2 cup olive oil
• 1/2 cup chilled water
• 3 tbsp sherry vinegar

Directions:

1. Place salt, garlic, and cumin in a mortar and pestle and mash to a smooth paste.
2. Place bread in a bowl and cover with cold water. Let sit for 10 minutes. Drain and squeeze lightly to extract excess water.
3. Place bread, tomatoes, peppers, onion, cucumbers, and salt mixture in a large bowl. Let sit for ten minutes.
4. Place half of tomato mixture in the bowl of a food processor. Add 1/4 cup of olive oil and process until smooth, approximately one minute. Pour the mixture into a large bowl.
5. Place remaining tomato mixture in the bowl of the food processor along with 1/4 cup olive oil. Process until smooth and pour it into the bowl containing the rest of the soup.
6. Add sherry vinegar and water to the soup. Pour into a blender, or using an emulsion blender, blend until the mixture is completely smooth. Taste soup for salt and vinegar.
7. Place soup in the refrigerator and chill for at least two hours before serving.

Rigatoni with Sausage, Chickpeas, Broccoli Rabe and Tomato Sauce

This hearty pasta dish is from Andrew Carmellini's Urban Italian. The ingenious ingredient here is the chickpea puree, which gives the sauce a wonderful creaminess. The method might seem like a lot of dishes to dirty for just one pasta dish, but this pasta is plenty rich to stand on its own without any side dishes. It is well worth the dish cleaning effort it requires.

Rigatoni Pugliese
Serves 4

Ingredients:

• 1 15 oz. can chickpeas
• 1/4 cup + 2 tbsp olive oil
• 1 lb. spicy Italian Sausage
• 3 cups of your favorite homemade tomato sauce (a simple preparation containing only tomatoes, salt, basil, and oil is all that is necessary. Do not use a store bought sauce.)
• 1/2 tsp fennel seed, ground
• 1 bunch broccoli rabe, cleaned and trimmed
• 1 lb. rigatoni
• 2 tbsp. olive oil
• 1 clove garlic, thinly sliced
• 1/4 tsp. red pepper flakes
• Salt and pepper, to taste
• 2 tbsp butter
• 1 cup pecorino romano cheese, grated

Directions:

1. Drain the chickpeas, reserving the liquid. Place half of the chickpeas and all of the liquid in the bowl of a food processor and puree.
2. Heat 1/4 cup olive oil in a large saucepan over medium-high heat.
3. Remove the sausage from its casing and place in sauce pan. Cook until well browned, using the back of the spoon to break up the meat.
4. Add the tomato sauce, chickpea puree, and fennel seed to the pan. Simmer until the thickened slightly, about fifteen minutes (the sauce should still have a liquid quality to it).
5. Bring a large pot of salted water to a boil.
6. Add the broccoli rabe to the boiling water and blanch for about 90 seconds. Immediately remove with a slotted spoon and place in ice water.
7. Add the rigatoni to the boiling water and cook until al dente.
8. Meanwhile, heat two tbsp. olive oil in a skillet over medium-high heat.
9. Add the broccoli rabe, garlic, red pepper flakes, and remaining chickpeas to the skillet. Season with salt and pepper. Cook for a minute or two. Remove all ingredients with a slotted spoon and add to sausage and tomato mixture.
10. Once pasta is cooked, drain the water and place the pasta back into the pot. Add the sausage and tomato mixture and stir to coat the pasta.
11. Add the butter and cheese and stir until butter is melted. Serve immediately.

Pasta alla Norma

If only more vegetables were as wonderfully meaty and smoky as eggplant, I might be willing to stick to a vegetarian diet more often. As it is, when eggplants are in season in the summer, I will substitute meat for eggplant at least one night per week. Generally, my vegetarian meal will consist of pasta with eggplant, and there is no greater eggplant pasta dish than pasta alla norma. Upon tasting this rich pasta, you will swear that there must be pancetta or prosciutto in it, but that will just be the eggplant talking.

Pasta alla Norma
Serves 4

Ingredients:

• 1 eggplant, peeled in alternating strips to make a "zebra" pattern and cubed
• 1 tbsp Kosher salt plus salt to taste
• 1/4 cup olive oil
• 1 28 oz. can San Marzano tomatoes, crushed by hand
• 1 tsp crushed red pepper flakes
• Ground pepper, to taste
• 12 oz. penne pasta
  
• 1 handful of basil leaves
• Grated ricotta salata cheese, for serving

Directions

1. Place the eggplant in a colander. Toss eggplant with 1 tbsp salt and set aside for 30 minutes.
2. Rinse eggplant with water and pat dry with paper towels.
3. Heat oil in a deep skillet over medium heat. Add eggplant cubes and cook until browned on all sides, about three minutes. Remove eggplant with a slotted spoon and set aside.
4. Add tomatoes, pepper flakes, pepper, and a pinch of salt to skillet and simmer until slightly thickened, about ten minutes.
5. Meanwhile, cook pasta in salted, boiling water according to package directions.
6. When the pasta has two minutes longer to cook, add the eggplant and basil to the skillet. Taste for salt and pepper.
7. Drain pasta and stir it into the skillet.
8. Serve pasta in bowls topped with grated ricotta salata.

Roast Chicken: My Dish of Perfection

I think that most amateur cooks can agree that consistency is our greatest weakness. As our confidence in the kitchen increases, we free ourselves from the entrapment of recipes and measuring cups. Yet what was a tablespoon yesterday will be a teaspoon tomorrow. We might achieve culinary greatness with one dish, but we struggle to repeat it on a second try.

Part of the fun of cooking is trying new dishes to reach that great feeling (and taste) that a successful dish brings, just as an amateur golfer might play through holes and holes of frustration just for that one perfect drive. So we deserve to pat ourselves on the backs when we do produce a truly great dish that we can make time and time again with no recipes and no measuring utensils.

With that, I bring you my roast chicken. No matter what I season it with, it comes out perfectly every time. It's a modest dish, but it is one that I cook consistently time and time again.

Salsa Verde

I have found that salsa is a great way to boost the flavor of the simple weeknight meals that I make in the summer. This tomatillo salsa goes nicely with any roasted or grilled meats. I served it with a pork tenderloin rubbed with a Mexican spice blend, and this week I will be reusing it on tacos containing pulled roast chicken. Best of all, it is incredibly easy to make and makes enough to last through a full summer of boring week night meals.


Salsa Verde

Ingredients:

• 1 poblano pepper
• 1 lb. tomatilloes, washed and husked
• 1/2 yellow onion, diced
• 1/2 cayenne pepper, seeded and diced
• 1/2 cup cilantro leaves, chopped
  
• Salt, optional
  

Directions:

1. Peel the poblano pepper by putting it under the broiler or on top of an open flame on the stove top. Turn it frequently, until all of the skin is charred. Place in a paper bag and let cool for ten minutes. Peel the skin off and discard it. Mince the pepper and place it in the bowl of a food processor.
2. Meanwhile, place the tomatilloes in a sauce pan and cover with water. Bring water to a boil, then reduce to simmer. Simmer until tomatilloes are soft, approximately 10 minutes. Drain tomatilloes.
3. Add half of the tomatilloes to the bowl of a food processor.
4. Add onion, cayenne pepper, and cilantro to food processor. Process until no solids remain, about 1 minute.
5. Add remaining tomatilloes to food processor and process until no solids remain.
6. Taste salsa for salt (don't add any more salt than a small pinch).
7. Serve at toom temperature.

Larb: A Perfect Dish for Summer

Larb may be a dish from Northern Thailand and Laos, but I can't help but wonder if its creators invented the dish knowing that many years later, inhabitants of New York would need some refreshing and hearty dishes to get them through their hot summers. Simple to prepare and best at room temperature, larb, bursting with the refreshing flavors of lime, galangal, fish sauce, cilantro, and mint, really is a perfect dish for a hot summer night.

The most difficult part of making larb is purchasing the ingredients, which will definitely require a trip to a well-stocked Asian market, and preferably one that serves a Thai or Lao clientele. While you're there, buy fish sauce, galangal, lime leaves, and roasted rice powder. The good news is that you will get to make many more larbs before you need to return (store the lime leaves and the galangal in the freezer). I cheated and used some powdered galangal that I already had on hand:


The remaining ingredients can be purchased at any store: oil, ground pork, mint, cilantro, red pepper flakes, and lime juice. Cook the pork in a skillet, mix it in a bowl with the remaining ingredients, and serve it with jasmine or sticky rice, and some summer rolls. The below recipe is a simplified larb recipe adapted from Penn Hongthong's Simple Lao Cooking, but the Significant Eater, who grew up eating plenty of larb herself, proclaimed its flavors just as authentic as the real deal.



Larb Moo (Pork Larb)
Serves 4

Ingredients:

• 1 lb. ground pork
• 1 tbsp. peanut oil
• juice from 1 lime
• 1/2 tsp salt
• 1 1/2 tbsp fish sauce
• 1/2 tsp crushed red pepper
• 1 tbsp galangal, minced, or 1 tsp ground galangal
• 2 kaffir lime leaves, minced
• 1 tbsp roasted rice powder
• 1 tbsp lemongrass, minced
• 2 scallions, minced
• 1/2 cup cilantro, chopped
• 1/2 cup mint, chopped

Directions:

1. Heat oil in a wok over medium heat. Add pork and cook until no longer pink, 5 to 7 minutes.
2. Set pork in a bowl and let cool for at least 10 minutes.
3. Mix pork with remaining ingredients and serve with rice.