Friday Night Fritto Misto

If you find yourself in Nutley, NJ...

So basically frying things is stupendous; I don't think anyone I know would disagree. How often can you justify it though? For some it's a way of life, and the rest of us often pay for it, but for most it's a guilty pleasure. For me frying, not sauteing in oil, is an occasion, something social and momentous, so it had better be good.

Because I don't fill a pot with 2 inches of oil very often, when I do I'm tempted to just throw whatever's lying around into it. I could rifle off a list of things, some absurd just to be funny, but that would be too easy.

Frying may be intimidating to some because hot oil can seem volatile, and unlike most things, water won't tame it--in fact it makes it much scarier. Remember where your fire extinguisher is. Or, in the event the oil gets too hot or seems like it's going to have a tantrum, take the pot outside carefully and let it have a time out. Those things considered, deep frying is actually quite safe because you can maintain the temp of the oil pretty easily. And the technique of frying is about as basic as it gets. So don't be afraid, have fun!

I went to the farmer's market and got some zucchini, squash and cauliflower, then some shrimp and squid (I admit, not from the farmer's market). The plan was to fry up stuff in batches depending on demand as we stood or sat around and picked at it.

For the seafood I stuck with my standard technique of egg whites then flour for the dredging. This method gives a very crunchy yet light crust to everything, more crazy and puffy than just flour though I must warn you. Some people are purists and only want the thinnest of coatings around their delights, but I'm open-minded.

With the vegetables I decided to try a beer batter; some pilsner mixed in with some flour and an egg yolk tossed in for good measure. That way we'd be able to have some different textures and flavors.

I was thinking of cutting the canola oil I bought with some olive oil, but when the time came I relented. You can certainly do this if you want, just note that olive oil has a lower smoking point and so at best should be mixed with other oils better suited to frying (canola, vegetable, peanut, sunflower). Some places maintain that they fry exclusively in olive oil, which sounds nice, but means you need to maintain a lower temperature. Plus, I doubt they use extra virgin.

A great thing about frying, aside from how great it makes most things taste, is that it's quick. Vegetables get tender just as the crust turns golden brown in 375° oil, calamari coating achieves maximum crunch just as it hits its 2 minute window before turning to rubber. Then you dish it out and people burn their fingers and tongues to get at it. How many better ways are there to be so satisfied for so little money? Frying is the great equalizer.

To drink I was excited about a wine that I've been tracking down for a while. Probably the first vineyard I ever visited, up in Cormons on the Italian border with Slovenia. Edi Keber, the

owner, has carved out a nice business making his Friulian whites and running an Agriturismo, but until recently he didn't export them to the U.S. He claimed they wanted him to go through too many hoops (like adding sulfites) that would compromise his product. Anyway, he must have changed his mind since 2005 because I ordered a couple bottles of his Friulano Collio from a shop in New York.

On our honeymoon I kept my eyes open for it, and on our last supper I found and ordered it. But that night it wasn't meant to be; they told me it wasn't the proper temperature to serve to us since their wine fridge had broken, so we went with a Renato Keber white (no relation that I can find, but from the same town. You investigate further and report your findings to me). Edi's wine is very good and true to Friuli; crisp, balanced acidity, complex and memorable. My nostalgia is for good reason.

We knew the seafood would turn out well. The beer batter was a new direction though. It was good, more substantial with a bitter hint of yeast and hops, more inclined to absorb and hold on to oil. So it's a tossup whether I do it that again or just fry everything in whites + flour next time. If nothing else it meant a little more work switching from the different coatings, which may be the deal breaker.

I did toss in some canned chickpeas, unadorned, for the hell of it. That was as crazy as it got.

The fry was deeply satisfying, and considering the ingredients we used, not crazily unhealthy. No saturated fats were involved, and we were all very full after a plate and half at most of food. Washed down with Edi's Friulano Collio and good conversation, it made for what I consider a perfect meal.

Ingredients (For 6 people):
4 large zucchini, sliced lengthwise into sticks about an inch thick and 3-4 inches long

4 yellow squash cut the same as the zucchini

1 medium head of cauliflower, cut into florets or pieces about 2 inches wide

1 liter oil (if you use olive oil, make it about 2:1 parts vegetable to olive)

1 lb. shrimp, peeled and de-veined except for the shell at the tip

1 lb. squid, cleaned and cut into rings, leave the head/tentacles whole

Beer Batter:

1/2 12 oz. cans pilsner

About 2 cups flour (AP (sifted), 00, tempura)

1 egg yolk

Egg white dredging:

8-10 egg whites in a bowl

2 cups or so flour in a separate bowl

Equipment:

Cast Iron Dutch Oven or other heavy bottom, thick sided pot or pan or a fryer if you have one

2-4 Sheet pans with newspaper or paper towel

A spider or other utensil to retrieve and drain the morsels from the oil

Make the beer batter by whisking the beer into the flour a bit at a time until you get the consistency of thick cream. Whisk in the egg yolk and refrigerate so it's cold when you fry.

Preheat the oil in the pan to 375° using a thermometer to monitor and maintain it. To fry the seafood, start by putting a handful of it into the egg whites and submerge to coat, then drain off excess and put it in the bowl of flour. Toss to coat everything, then retrieve and shake off excess flour. Put the pieces in the oil, making sure not to crowd the pan. If the temperature falls, raise the heat temporarily to get it back around 375°. Fry the calamari 2 minutes then remove. Fry the shrimp 4 minutes then remove. Place everything on the sheet pans to drain and salt everything immediately.

For the vegetables, take a handful or so and put it in the bowl of batter, tossing around to coat everything evenly. Drain the excess batter and then place the pieces in the oil. Fry for 3-5 minutes or until golden brown and remove. Place everything on the sheet pans to drain and salt everything immediately.

If you're frying in multiple batches you can keep the finished pieces in the oven on warm. Eat as soon as possible though!

Farro Salad With Corn & Feta

I discovered farro, where else, in Italy. I was very pleasantly surprised to find it at Balducci's and Whole Foods not long after I returned home in 2005. It was soon available at various places online too. I began using it to make cold salads or farotto (cooked in the style of risotto) because of it's whole grain makeup and nice nutty flavor.

Fah-ro? Fair-o? Pharaoh?

At this point it has grown in popularity, and if you eat at italian restaurants at least occasionally you've probably come across it. I'm the guy who shows up with this "is it rice, is it barley?" grain at parties (I just keep it in my pockets and take it out by the handful to show people when it comes up in conversation). It's not the same as wheat berries; unlike those, this species of whole wheat becomes tender and chewier than rice after about 30 minutes of cooking. Call it Spelt, call it Emmer, the jury is still out.

My love affair with farro is due to my documented hangup from time to time about eating "white carbs". Now, I know when to say when when it's time to dive into a bowl of pasta or a hunk of white bread, but my cantankerous glycemic index never lets me forget it. Luckily, I love farro for being farro, not just because it's a reasonable alternative to something else better tasting.

This dish is a Summery idea to utilize seasonal vegetables and just mix flavors. Carbs on carbs with the corn, but so what, who cares? I could have dumped all kinds of things in here, but remember, with good materials less is more. I was given a gift of family olive oil from Calabria by friends (thanks Leslie, Lori, Kevin, Dean, James, Kylee and the Chiapettas in general!), too good to use for cooking, so I employed it generously here.

Ingredients:

1 bag whole farro

5 small to medium ears of corn, shucked

1 bell pepper, any color you like, diced the size of corn kernals

3 scallions, sliced

1/2 cup good ricotta salata (not the chalky stuff) or feta, grated or diced the size of corn kernals

High quality extra virgin olive oil

Salt and pepper to taste

Put the farro in a wide pot and cover by several inches with cold water. Bring to a boil over high heat, then maintain a gentle boil. At this point add the ears of corn to the water and blanch for 2-3 minutes each (raise the heat of the stove if it loses its boil). Then shock the corn in an ice bath, drain and dry off. Cut the it off the cob and set aside.

Check for doneness on the farro after 30 minutes and add a couple to a few tablespoons of salt to the water. Remove the farro when it is al dente but not crunchy. Drain and let cool for 10 minutes in a large bowl, stirring periodically to flush out the steam and excess moisture. Add some olive oil to prevent sticking.

When the farro is no longer hot, just slightly warm, add the corn, peppers and scallions to incorporate. Lubricate with olive oil and season to taste with salt and pepper. Then add the cheese and mix gently to combine--don't overmix. Finish off with more olive oil until it glistens.

Rome I

Ahh, Roma...

It's good to be back! To Italy that is. So we landed in Rome on the morning of my 30th birthday, three days after our wedding. Nicole had a surprise for me in the form of a chauffered ride to Anzio, a small beachside town where the Allies staged an invasion in World War 2. Now there's a memorial and cemetery there (I read a bunch of books on WWII recently). So no sooner had we dropped our bags off at the hotel than the car pulled up outside. I had no idea yet what was going on, mind you.

We popped a bottle of prosecco in the backseat and we were off. Both exhausted, we downed a couple glasses each in no time as we left the city center and drove past Mussolini's Fascist EUR zone and beyond. It's a part of the city most tourists don't venture the extra mile or so to, not exactly a proud part of italian history, but interesting nonetheless. I wondered what the city would be like to walk around in these parts where they are not used to tens of thousands of people crowding the streets daily. Maybe not next time, but the time after that.

Anyway, Anzio was cool, a place I never would have traveled to on my own. Unfortunately we saw the British memorial and not the American (we didn't realize it until we were already there and the clock was running), but the thought and impression it made were what counted for me.

We both napped on the way back and found another bottle of prosecco, compliments of the front desk, waiting for us in the hotel room. We rallied yet again, then headed out for dinner.

When I come to Rome I am looking for the classics; Spaghetti alla Carbonara (sauced with egg yolk, pecorino, cured pig's jowl and pepper), Bucatini all' Amatriciana (thick hollow spaghetti with a sauce of tomato and cured pig's jowl), Cacio e Pepe (pasta with pecorino and more pepper), some fried artichokes, stuffed zucchini flowers, Gnocchi alla Romana (made from semolina and baked with butter and cheese), maybe a braised oxtail. That's Roman cooking of tradition in a nutshell.

Aside from that there are the modern restaurants you typically find in cities that cater to an international crowd and depart from tradition to synthesize the cuisine from various regions of Italy and beyond. Some are more grounded in Rome than others. We decided on our trip to mix it up a little with tradition vs. modern.

When I was in school in Le Marche and we had a chef from each region come in every week to teach his or her local cuisine, Lazio (the region where Rome is) was conspicuously absent. When asked why, the director told us Roman cuisine "non esiste". Maybe he was a little harsh, but his point was that the quality and "slow" aspect of their culinary traditions have largely evaporated in favor of serving up plate after plate of fodder to tourists.

I don't agree with il direttore completely, but in Rome I don't expect to be blown away by "roman" food. The style doesn't lend itself to that. Sure, you can have a plate of pasta and remark how back in the states they just don't do it like that. You can get the aforementioned dishes and be very satisfied and want to come home to recreate them. But they are humble and often times best exhibited in hole-in-the-wall places unnoticed by most non-locals. So it is particularly important to do your research on where to eat in Rome, and I will impart our experience this most recent time there to boot.

We didn't start snapping pics of our dishes until after Rome, sorry!

Cul de Sac - our first night out and we didn't want to be tied down to a reservation or get all dolled up knowing fatigue was setting in, so we chose this wine bar. A quaint spot right off Navona, they offer up a slew of salumi, cheese, local specialties "alla romana", smoked fish and other small plates pulled from all over the Mediterranean. We went for some local cured meats and cheeses, then added some olives and braised stuffed zucchini. I ordered out of the region from their extensive wine list even though I usually like to stay true and match terroir all around. I was nostalgic just about being back in Italy, so I paid homage to Le Marche by ordering up a nice riserva Rosso Conero.

We enjoyed tasting a mix of products from the Lazio region; it was nice to be dining al fresco and tasting some coppa, some wild boar soppressata, i.e. things taken for granted over there and available in huge variety, but not all that easy to find in the U.S. The zucchini with meat and cheese filling were sort of one note and bland, but Nicole appreciated the contrast to all the other salty offerings.

It was a good call that night to go with the tapas and bevvy of wine choices, and we wished we had come back for lunch on one of those days we got stuck eating mediocre pizza out of desperation. The prices are moderate and you have a lot of freedom to decide how much or little you want to eat and drink, while taking your time.

It's a low key spot for a younger crowd I'd say, a place to pop in for lunch, a drink and a snack after a day of sightseeing, or a casual dinner of small plates and wine. Tends to be ecclectic, but a decent selection of traditional dishes as well.

http://www.web.tiscali.it/culdesac/

Antico Arco - A week or so before we arrived I set about making some reservations for the places we know we wanted to hit in our two weeks. We tried to book one of Rome's hautier places one night, but it turned out there is a holiday on June 29th & 30th (in Rome only) to celebrate St. Peter and St. Paul, and the place was closed. We were debating between that place and Antico Arco before I attempted the reservation, so now the choice was easy since AA was open for business.

Sitting down I could almost imagine us being in a restaurant in the East Village. The small dining rooms, the brick walls painted over in off white with soft lighting, a modern vibe. Despite its location near the top of a hill beyond the pedestrian part of Trastevere, we overheard a good amount of english being spoken, which might have added to that sentiment. People have discovered the place in the same way I discovered it so I shouldn't be surprised.

We opted for a tasting menu that didn't really owe to any particular region of Italy for its inspiration, but we did notice there wasn't any pasta on it. Day 2 and still no pasta! Oh well. A good wine list, not huge, and we were steered toward white for the tasting since no glass pairings were offered. I went for a Gravner, a sort of cult wine aged in clay amphorae. It's a hefty white, very dry and intense but I just said the hell with it and got something memorable.

They brought out the bountiful bread plate made up of buttery bread sticks that Nicole loved, sliced italian bread, some multi-grain coated in sesame, everything seemingly homemade.

Shortly thereafter came an amuse bouche, or a welcome course that isn't ordered. It was a meatball of suckling pig, served over some toasted bread, softened by the juices of the meatball and the simple tomato sauce underneath. Appetites check.

The tasting menu began with warm octopus salad with potatoes that were sauteed with balsamic until it was reduced to a glaze, the whole thing topped with a chip of parmigiano like a fricco. The octupus was tender and mild, the potatoes sweet and with a hint of spice derived from the wood the vinegar is aged in. The cracker offered up a new texture and some nutty saltiness, a very nice dish overall.

Next was mozzarella for the third meal in a row (never get tired of it) served en croute, with tomato confit, bottarga (salted tuna roe) and a touch of pesto. The pastry around the cheese was soft and flaky and when you broke in to it the white mass just slowly oozed out. Simple, salty, a big bite of cheese like when you cut into a hot calzone.

Then they served a super refreshing gazpacho with a dollop of ricotta in the middle, followed by a hot risotto with scorpion fish and asparagus, well cooked but somewhat lacking in flavor and distinction compared to earlier dishes.

The last of the "dinner" courses was an amberjack filet served with a very clean caponata. The seared fish had a nice mild flavor and the caponata wasn't mushy or saucy at all, rather the sum of the individual ingredients, seemingly cooked seperately and then combined right before plating.

We remarked that all of the courses had clean, fresh flavors and the presentations were generally very well done. The plates were simple in terms of the number of ingredients, and they never tried too hard to marry dissimilar things. Evidence that even modern italian cuisine appreciates the less-is-more mentality.

Nicole couldn't rally for the pre-dessert cheese course, but they offered up a reasonably small one with a range of mild to intense ending with a stilton, and served them with some warm aromatic breads and interesting spreads like anise flavored onion relish.

For dessert Nicole went for puff pastry with custard and chocolate "pearls", while I tried "O Baba" with coconut mousse. The texture of the baba, which is a little cake soaked in a liquor-spiked syrup, was actually a little too crumbly and dry, but the coconut flavor of the mousse was nice. Hers was the winner though with its silky smooth custard and light crunchy pastry, decorated with a big cross hatch of caramel.

Like the decor, the meal for the most part was something I could imagine in New York City, perhaps with AA's execution and certainly its ingredients a cut above the $50 a head kind of places you'll typically find in NYC. Antico Arco is on the more expensive side of restaurants in Rome, a nice place for a date and the location is good because it gets you out of the center and into a residential neighborhood you wouldn't otherwise see. Not quite suited to a long walk after dinner though unless you're prepared for a really long way back over the River. Get there before dark and you'll have an exceptional view of the city.

We were happy with the timing and flow of the meal, the latter courses coming out more slowly than the first three "antipasto" styled ones. Even with our big appetites it is wise to observe the "tasting" aspect of the meal so as to pace yourself; neither of us like to waste food, but in order to complete the meal without feeling gluttonous you may have to leave something on the plate.

http://www.anticoarco.it/

Insalata Cruda e Cotta (Raw and Cooked)

I'm working on stuff to write about from our honeymoon; lots to compact into meaningful posts, but I'm getting there. In the meantime, this is what we conjured up last night for a quick and cheap weeknight meal.

It's more of a guideline than a recipe, although the name of this salad is not of my own creation. You can go in all kinds of directions with the ingredients and make it like a Nicoise Salad or something more hefty with grains. Ours came to life because we had some grilled london broil left over from my birthday last Saturday, a whole filet of it actually. The thinking was we'd slice it up and eat it room temp in a salad.

We had some cherry tomatoes in the house as well as some crisp baby arugula, and so the idea was for a salad with some sliced steak on the side. But knowing that mushrooms often accompany steak in our families' households, we decided to saute some and mix them in with the raw ingredients. A couple of caramelized onions later and we had a satisfying weeknight meal.

I cooked the onions slowly by themselves, then let them cool while I got another pan smoking hot for the mushrooms. I just used a couple containers of big button mushrooms, with one container of oysters for extra butteriness and some differing texture. I let them sear in just a tiny bit of oil without moving the pan so they'd develop a nice brown color on one side. Keeping the heat up to its max I tossed only a couple of times to cook them as fast as possible until the liquid was gone and they were browning again.

From there they cooled for only 5-10 minutes and got mixed in with the onions. Nicole opted to cook her steak as well, or re-cook it I should say. I sliced it thin like a sushi chef on a hunk of toro and flash seared the pieces just to heat them through and brown them a little.

Nicole built her salad from there while I kept my meat cold. The mushrooms and onions weren't hot enough to welt the peppery arugula or make the tomatoes mushy, just tepid enough to maximize the sweetness of the onion. And the tomatoes lent a nice acidity, so much so that I just went for good olive oil and some salt and pepper to dress it.

Other ideas to add: roasted potatoes, beans, blanched green beans, corn, roasted beets, farro, raw or cooked fennel, chicken thighs, tuna, it goes on and on. I just got another idea for a salad. See?

Back From Italy

Sunday evening Nicole and I came home bearing gifts, and we were welcomed back with open arms by our family for Sunday dinner. A good way to finish a trip and not feel such an abrupt shock of reality. Now we're struggling to readjust to work and waking up to an alarm, but the good vibes and memories of a trip magnificently spent endure. I will surely be writing all about it in the coming weeks.

Right now some things that come to mind; sunny, bustling Rome, beautiful, idyllic Tuscany, driving through nary a straight road in the countryside, timeless and vibrant Venice, exceptional tomatoes and other produce, the mozz, the mozz! Our cheese just is not the same product that their mozzarella is, no matter how fresh we think it is! I will be on a quest to see if anything comparable can be found this side of the Atlantic. And I've been to Obika in New York, which doesn't even quite cut it.

Did I mention we're married? So weird! (In a good way)

A presto