Pappardelle with Duck Ragu

You know the mental file of recipes that you think about for years, the recipes that you intend to make when the time is right, the ones you know will be great when you finally do prepare them? I’m delighted to report that one of those has moved from my mental file into the realm of reality. Since 2006, I’d been pondering the making of the Duck Ragu from On Top of Spaghetti. I knew it would be perfect for a winter meal on an occasion when I had plenty of time to roast the duck legs and then let the sauce slowly simmer. I knew I wanted to save this for a day when I could make homemade pappardelle to go with it. All of those conditions were finally able to be met for a Christmas meal. Every time I mention cooking from this book, I also mention that it’s one of my favorites. It has never let me down and certainly did not this time either. Although there is a recipe for homemade pasta in this book, I have another favorite that I turn to for especially rich pasta dough. Once again, I made the fresh pasta dough from Stir which incorporates whole eggs as well as egg yolks. It worked out perfectly since I had a use for the whites for dessert. I made the pasta and cut the wide, pappardelle ribbons a day in advance. The sauce takes some time to allow the flavors to develop, but it couldn’t have been easier. 

This was actually my first time cooking duck at home, and I know it won’t be my last. There’s not much to cooking the duck in this case. Two pounds of duck legs were roasted in the oven for about 40 minutes. You’ll need a roasting pan that can go from oven to stovetop for deglazing. Of course, there’s duck fat that’s rendered as the legs roast, and I greedily poured that into a bowl to save for cooking potatoes at a later date. With the cooked duck and fat removed from the pan, the pan was then set over low heat on top of the stove. A half-cup of red wine was used to deglaze it. While the duck was roasting, onions, carrots, and celery were chopped. Those vegetable along with chopped rosemary, and a few juniper berries were cooked in olive oil in a Dutch oven until very tender. The deglazing wine and any bits from the roasting pan with another cup and a half of red wine were added to the vegetables and left to simmer and reduce until almost completely evaporated. Next, stock and canned chopped tomatoes were added. I used a homemade chicken stock, but duck stock would have been great. As the sauce began to simmer, I pulled the meat from the duck leg bones and shredded it to add to the sauce later. With meat and skin removed from the bones, I added the bones to the sauce. The sauce continued to simmer for another 45 minutes or so. Then, the bones were removed and the shredded meat was added. Fresh pasta cooks quickly, in about a minute or two, and the cooked and drained pappardelle was tossed with a bit of sauce before being plated. It was topped with more sauce and grated parmigiano. 

This dish was definitely worth the wait. But, now that I know how easy it is, I won’t be waiting long to make it again. It is a rich and hearty sauce with layers of flavor from the duck and wine. At last, I can stop wondering when I’ll ever make this dish, and instead, I can daydream about how delicious I now know it is. 

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Asparagus Pesto with Herb Pasta

Lately, I’ve been thinking about how much the local food scene in Austin has changed over the years. Many years ago, I visited the lone, quiet, little farmers’ market on Wednesdays in the parking lot of the old Whole Foods. That was way before Whole Foods moved into the current flagship location with the corporate headquarters upstairs. It was just a handful of us who showed up for the market which consisted of a few vendors who brought a couple of carrots and maybe a turnip or two. I’m exaggerating, of course, but there wasn’t nearly the array of produce, eggs, meat, seafood, prepared foods, and artisan-made products you can find at our markets today. And, these days, we have farmers’ markets in several parts of town happening almost every day of the week. It wasn’t even that long ago, three years perhaps, when getting locally-grown asparagus was difficult. I remember the first vendor who offered asparagus and how precious and limited the supply was. When I heard it was available, I rushed to the market early one Saturday morning and nabbed one of the few, skinny bunches. This year, I’ve seen multiple vendors with beautiful asparagus. More artichokes are showing up lately as well, and I’m thrilled to hear we’ll be receiving some from our CSA next week. It’s exciting to watch our local food options continue to expand. Last month, I brought home lots of asparagus from Hairston Creek Farm. It was so fresh and tender and completely unlike what’s available at the grocery store. I sauteed chopped pieces of it in butter and poured whisked eggs over the top to scramble with it. I also tossed some chopped asparagus into a Thai curry soup just to warm it through before serving. And, I made my favorite asparagus dish of all time. I’ve been making this asparagus pesto for years during the season, and I never thought to mention it here. It’s incredibly simple, and the texture of the pesto is silky smooth. I usually use dried pasta, but this time I went all out and made fresh pasta with chopped herbs incorporated into the dough. It was a celebration of spring on a plate. 

The pesto is found in On Top of Spaghetti which is one of my most favorite books for pasta. You simply roast one pound of trimmed asparagus spears at high heat, like 500 degree F, for a few minutes until tender. Roasting time will depend on the size of the spears. Just toss the spears with a little olive oil and season with salt and pepper before roasting. Once the roasted asparagus has cooled a bit, roughly chop it and use a spatula to transfer the asparagus pieces and any oil from the pan to a blender. Add two-thirds cup of extra virgin olive oil, and I know that sounds like a lot, and puree until completely smooth. Taste and add more salt if needed. That’s the asparagus pesto. It can be made in advance and stored in the refrigerator. Just bring it to room temperature or heat it in a saucepan over low heat before adding to cooked pasta. For the pasta, I followed another favorite recipe which is found in Stir: Mixing It Up in the Italian Tradition. Two cups of flour are mixed with two whole eggs plus four egg yolks and a teaspoon of salt. I mix the dough in a bowl, and then knead by hand for a few minutes before wrapping the dough in plastic and letting it rest for 30 minutes. This time, I also added chopped herbs from my garden which flecked the dough with green. Speaking of color, my pasta dough was especially yellow this time thanks to gorgeous eggs from Milagro Farm. The yolks were beautifully orange. I divide the pasta dough into four pieces for rolling through the machine, and I cut the rolled sheets into thin spaghetti for this dish. I left the pasta to dry at room temperature for half an hour, and then covered it to store in the refrigerator until I was ready to cook. A big pot of salted water was brought to a boil, the fresh pasta was cooked for two minutes or so, and some pasta water was saved before draining. Since I was enjoying our local asparagus so much this year, I bought extra and quickly cooked some chopped pieces to add to the pasta as it was tossed with pesto. I added a little pasta water to thin the pesto slightly. In On Top of Spaghetti, Pecorino is suggested for serving with this dish, but I always use Parmigiano Reggiano instead. 

I have a lot of favorites when it comes to food, but this is in that special category of favorites. Getting to make this pesto with locally grown asparagus and the fresh pasta with incredible, local eggs and home-grown herbs made it better than ever. It’s a continuing pleasure to watch our local food scene grow and to discover new things each time I visit our markets. 

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Spicy Pappardelle with Summer Tomatoes, Cucumbers, and Oregano

My books are like my kids or my cats since I don’t have children. You know what I mean. Picking a favorite just isn’t possible. Each one is special in its own way. But, when the others aren’t looking, I do sometimes point out a few that are maybe just a little bit extra special. Don’t tell them I said that. There are a lot of them. I can’t help it. One that I tend to favor is On Top of Spaghetti by Johanne Killeen and George Germon. It’s a book of nothing but pasta recipes, and pasta does make me very happy. I’ve cooked from this book many times, and I know that whatever I pick from its pages is going to be good. Whether it’s pasta with vegetables, tomato sauces, seafood, or baked pasta, the book has never let me down. It had been a while since I spent time with it, so I pulled it off the shelf a couple of weeks ago. I was looking for something light and fresh for summer. The head note to this recipe reads “this is as close to pasta salad as we get,” and that sounded perfect. I made a couple of small changes to the original ingredient list. Instead of using Scotch bonnet pepper sauce, I used some fresh, locally-grown habaneros, and since the oregano in my herb garden hasn’t survived our summer very well, I used fresh basil.

To begin, chop large tomatoes or halve cherry tomatoes as I did, and place them in a large bowl. Next, onion was minced and cucumbers were chopped, and both were added to the tomatoes. I seeded and finely chopped two habaneros rather than using pepper sauce. Then, olive oil, red wine vinegar, dried oregano, and salt were added. Fresh oregano was supposed to have been added in addition to the dried, but since my fresh oregano has about two leaves on the plant right now, I added fresh basil instead. The mix of vegetables and herbs with the oil and vinegar was set aside to allow the flavors to mingle and the onion’s sharpness to subside. Meanwhile, the pappardelle was cooked in boiling water and drained. It was then tossed with the vegetables and vinaigrette, more basil was added on top, and dinner was ready.

This isn’t intended as a chilled pasta salad. Instead, it’s a room temperature pasta dish with raw vegetables. But, it does end up being a lot of pasta which means we had leftovers. Pulling the pasta out of the refrigerator and letting it come up to room temperature before serving those leftovers worked well. The finely chopped habaneros distributed throughout all that pasta added just enough of a punch, and the layered flavor of the onion and dried oregano played well with the fresh tomato and cucumber. As it always does, this book delivered another great meal, not that I play favorites.

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Linguine with Frenched Green Beans and Pesto

This fall, my CSA has switched from having a pick-up every other week to a pick-up every week. I collect my share at our Wednesday farmers’ market, and I’m always tempted by the goods I see at all the other tables at the market too. What this means is that each week I bring home a big supply of fresh, beautiful vegetables and get to think up ways to use them all within the next seven days. Last week, my haul included incredibly fresh and crisp green beans and a bunch of basil, and I remembered this pasta dish from On Top of Spaghetti. I’ve mentioned this book a few times before, and it’s one of my favorites. Once again, it delivered a great meal. Now, the interesting thing about this dish is the cut of the green beans. By frenching them, or cutting them into long, slender strips, the pieces become very tender when cooked and can be twirled on your fork with the pasta. This was the second time in my life that I french-cut some green beans by hand, and for this quantity it’s not such a daunting task. However, if I were preparing this for a crowd, or if I should decide that I need to french beans for every meal, I’m going to have to get a tool to speed up the process.

So, begin by carefully slicing green beans lengthwise into thin pieces. Then, cook them in boiling water until tender enough to twirl on a fork, and drain them, rinse with cool water, and leave them in the colander. While you bring a large pot of water to a boil for the linguine, you can make a pesto from parsley leaves, basil leaves, a garlic clove, a pinch of cayenne, and olive oil. Once the pesto is pureed, add some grated pecorino romano. Cook the linguine, and then drain it into the colander with the beans so as to re-warm the beans. Place the pasta and beans in a large serving bowl, toss with the pesto, and serve with extra grated pecorino.

This pasta dish is all about the fresh flavors of the green beans and the herbs in the pesto while the cayenne perks things up without being assertive, and the pecorino adds richness. I loved that the beans curled into the pasta on the plate and their texture was just barely firmer than the linguine. It’s a simple pasta dish and a delicious way to use fresh green beans.

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Roasted Asparagus Lasagne

The photos seen here do not adequately convey how good this lasagne was. It was all flavor and no photogenic ability, but this was my favorite thing I’ve eaten for weeks. It was dreamy good and incredibly so given how few ingredients made up each component. For instance, asparagus and parmigiano reggiano are meant to be together. I had wanted to make this lasagne for awhile but waited until I could get asparagus in season. I also waited until I could devote the better part of an afternoon to the many steps involved in making it. This is found in the book On Top of Spaghetti by Johanne Killeen and George Germon which I’ve gushed about a time or two. I had read through all the instructions for the lasagne, had all the ingredients, and was excited to finally get started.

First, I began making the fresh pasta following the recipe for George’s Fresh Pasta on page 212. There is a very specific explanation of how much egg is to be used: two jumbo eggs, weighing four and one-half ounces in their shells, slightly over one-half cup but less than two-thirds cup. Right, so I used two eggs which seemed to be in the acceptable volume range, and I used two cups plus two tablespoons 00 flour as advised. This was mixed in a food processor with salt, and one tablespoon of hot tap water was added at the end. The result was unworkable, dry, hard pasta dough that was soon scooped into the garbage. Rather than admitting defeat and going to buy dried lasagne, I called Kurt and talked him into getting eggs on his way home. I checked Marcella’s recipe which I’ve used before successfully, and her ratio was four eggs to two cups of flour. For pasta dough round two, that’s what I used again with the 00 flour. That worked perfectly and produced beautiful pasta dough but put me an hour and a half behind in the preparation. There was no turning back though.

Two pounds of asparagus were roasted, onions were sauteed. The roasted asparagus was chopped and added to the onions. Milk was simmered with some lemon peel and then used to make the bechamel. All of this transpired while the rolled and cut pasta sheets dried. Said pasta sheets were then briefly boiled, shocked in ice water, and drained on towels. Then, the layering began. A baking dish was sprayed with oil, pasta sheets went into the bottom allowing for them to come up the sides and overhang the dish. Bechamel found its way onto the pasta sheets followed by grated parmigiano reggiano followed by the asparagus onion mixture and some cream. This was repeated with more pasta sheets that fit inside the ones overhanging. Once all the layers were in place, the overhanging sheets were tucked over top, and the remaining bechamel and cheese were spread about before the top was drizzled with olive oil. And, just before I nearly passed out from hunger, the lasagne went into the oven for about 30 minutes.

Given that this was not a thirty minute meal, and that I faced certain challenges that set me back in my overall scheduling, I was completely incapable of waiting the full five minutes before cutting and serving. Hence, the photos of the plated lasagne clearly depict the wonderful bechamel and cream as it oozed forth from the layers. Even after it sat for several minutes, this wasn’t a lasagne that held its shape when cut. What I can tell you though, is that roasted asparagus and some onion in concert with a simple bechamel, really good parmigiano reggiano, and homemade pasta is more delicious than I can describe. Do make the pasta, with four eggs, and do use the cream, and find a big chunk of time when you can do all of this because like everything else from this book, it was a pure delight to eat.

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