Toasted Fazzoletti with Mushrooms and Hazelnuts

Today is the Day of the Mushroom, an apt time for this food holiday to come along when mushroom fanatics are busy foraging for all sorts of unusual varieties of fungi.

Originally, I had planned to celebrate this day with Funghi Calabresi from the Mario Batali Cooks mobile app. But the recipe was so poorly written that I was not entirely sure what I was doing was correct. The results were fine, but not Day of the Mushroom-worthy.

Shoot for "honey-colored" when roasting the pasta flour.

Thankfully, the April issue of Food & Wine has a great recipe to showcase mushrooms: Toasted Fazzoletti with Chanterelles and Hazelnuts. The toasted pasta flour and nuts complement the mushrooms' earthiness. And Fazzoletti is one of the easiest pastas to make at home, since it requires no precision cutting.

You may cut the fazzoletti precisely, but I prefer irregular shapes.

The homemade fazzoletti takes some time to make due to several steps of resting time for the dough, so be sure to plan ahead to allocate enough time. The dough recipe was a little challenging, but not insurmountable. Be sure to watch the flour while it roasts, since it could burn. I removed mine from the oven a little earlier than the recipe called for, since I was concerned it could smoke.

Don't leave the cooked fazzoletti in a bowl too long before adding to the sauce, as they will stick together.

Another challenge with the dough was getting the consistency right. When it came time to roll it out in a pasta machine, it was really sticky. As I kneaded the dough, I added a generous amount of additional flour. After it seemed the pasta flour alone wasn't going to produce a smooth enough dough, I added all-purpose flour, which made the dough a little softer and thus easier to work with.

As I mentioned earlier, fazzoletti are easier to deal with than say linguine or fettuccine, in part because you can just cut the dough into random squares. The recipe called for making 2-inch squares, but rather than discard a lot of little pieces, I made mine more irregular. In the final dish, when the pasta ends up folded into random shapes anyway, it doesn't matter how perfect they are. In fact, I rather like the more rustic look of their irregularity. Be sure not to cook the noodles ahead of time, since they will stick together (prying apart hot noodles is a pain--speaking from experience here).

Although chanterelles were used in the original recipe, I made it with more common cremini mushrooms.

Mushroom aficionados will want to use the chanterelles as called for in the recipe or another interesting mushroom. Unfortunately, Whole Foods stopped their unusual mushroom promotion the weekend I was buying ingredients for this dish, so I had to settle for cremini mushrooms, which were still quite delicious.

Toasted Fazzoletti with Mushrooms and Hazelnuts
Adapted from Toasted Fazzoletti with Chanterelles and Hazelnuts, Food & Wine, April 2013


1/2 cup hazelnuts
6 tbsp. unsalted butter
1 lb. mushrooms, such as chanterelle or cremini, thickly sliced
Salt
Fresh-ground black pepper
1 large shallot, minced
1 tbsp. chopped thyme
Pinch of crushed red pepper flakes
2 tbsp. sherry vinegar
1 cup low-sodium chicken stock
3/4 lb. fresh toasted fazzoletti pasta (see recipe below)
1/4 cup snipped chives


1. Preheat the oven to 375 F. Spread the hazelnuts in a pie plate or on a baking sheet and toast for 12 minutes, until the skins split and the nuts are fragrant. Allow the nuts to cool a bit, then transfer the nuts to a clean kitchen towel, fold the towel the nuts and rub the nuts vigorously between the two layers of towel to remove the skins. Coarsely chop the nuts, if desired (I left mine whole).

2. In a large, deep skillet, cook 4 tbsp. of the unsalted butter over moderate heat until lightly browned, about 3 minutes. Add the mushrooms, season with salt and pepper and cook over medium-high heat, stirring occasionally, until all of the liquid has evaporated and the mushrooms are golden, about 8 minutes. Add the shallot, thyme and crushed red pepper and cook over moderately high heat for 5 minutes, stirring frequently. Add the vinegar and cook until evaporated, scraping up any browned bits from the bottom of the skillet. Add the stock and simmer until reduced by half, about 10 minutes. Season to taste with salt and pepper.

In a large pot of salted boiling water, cook the fazzoletti until al dente, about 3 minutes (I recommend cooking them in two batches to avoid crowding the pot). Drain and add the pasta to the skillet, along with the remaining 2 tbsp. of butter. Cook over moderate heat, stirring, until the pasta is coated with butter. Stir in the chives and serve in shallow bowls, garnishing with the toasted hazelnuts.



Fresh Toasted Fazzoletti
Adapted from Food & Wine, April 2013


3 cups durum wheat flour (or pasta flour), plus more for dusting (I used about a cup of all-purpose flour)
5 large eggs
1/3 cup milk
1 tsp. kosher salt


1. Preheat the oven to 375 F. Spread 1 cup of the flour on a baking sheet and toast for about 30 minutes, stirring once, until fragrant and honey-colored (I pulled mine a little sooner, about 25 minutes total). Let the flour cool.

2. In a food processor, combine the toasted flour with the remaining 2 cups of flour and pulse. With the machine on, add the eggs, milk and salt and blend until the dough comes together; turn out onto a floured work surface and knead 2 or 3 times to form a soft, supple dough. Wrap the dough in plastic and let stand at room temperature for 2 hours.

3. Cut the dough into smaller pieces (judge this based on your pasta machine; the original recipe said 4 pieces, but I did 8, since that worked better in my pasta machine). Using a pasta machine on the thickest setting, run 1 piece of dough through the machine, dusting with flour. Fold the dough in thirds and run it through the machine at the same setting. Continue to run the dough on successively thinner settings until you are 1 setting from the thinnest (I made the dough a little thicker than this--setting 4 on a Kitchen Aid pasta machine). Dust the dough with flour and drape over a floured work surface while you repeat with the remaining dough. Cut the pasta into 2-inch squares and dust lightly with flour. Let the squares stand at room temperature for 1 hour, tossing occasionally.

Book Review: Salt Sugar Fat by Michael Moss

A few weeks ago I did something I hardly ever do. I ate a Cheeto. And not just one, of course, but the whole bag, since how do you stop with just one? Or even 21, which is a single serving as defined by Frito-Lay, delivering 150 calories from 10 grams of fat, 13 grams of carbohydrates and 2 grams of protein, plus about 10 percent of the recommended daily allowance of sodium and just a trace of fiber. Its ingredients include whey protein concentrate, monosodium glutamate and “cheese seasoning.” A Cheeto may be orange, but it’s no carrot.

Why did I do this? I’d just read “The Extraordinary Science of Addictive Junk Food,” a New York Times Magazine article by Michael Moss that preceded the recent release of his book, Salt Sugar Fat: How the Food Giants Hooked Us. In the article, he talked with a former Nestlé food scientist about what makes Cheetos so appealing. The scientist honed in on the product’s “vanishing caloric density,” a phenomenon of the food melting in your mouth in a way that tricks your brain into thinking the food has fewer calories, allowing you to eat more before becoming satisfied, a trick Moss compares to popcorn.

It’s the sort of anecdote that makes Salt Sugar Fat an appealing mix of nutrition-minded facts about familiar junk food brands augmented with first-hand insider information that gets behind the “it’s bad for you” rhetoric we all know to be true and into the reasons why, nonetheless, we still crave it.

Moss argues the key to these cravings are the foods’ balances of sugar, fat and salt, which processed food companies carefully formulate to achieve the “bliss point,” that right mix of taste and texture that will attract the most consumers. Each of these ingredients acts on consumers differently, and it was fascinating to learn about this. Sugar, for example, is more attractive to children than adults, and there’s a point to which consumers start to like a product less when it has too much sugar. Getting the sugar right is important, since this is the element in the trio that will “hook” you, unfortunately quite literally for some over-eaters who must swear off sugar to counter obesity. Fat, in contrast, has no bliss point—the more fat the better.

Salt is perhaps the most elusive one, given that it’s not really a food (it’s a mineral and therefore contains no calories). I was already aware that salt is a flavor that your palate can become used to, requiring increasingly greater quantities for you to really taste the saltiness (I’ve read this is why some chefs are prone to over-salting their food). What I didn’t realize is how this state isn’t permanent. Anyone who craves salty snacks need only abstain for a period of time and their craving for salt will go away. Once pleasurably salty foods will, with time, taste over-salted, an experience I had eating McDonalds after years of swearing off such fast-food restaurants.

Some may be surprised to find that many of the industry insiders Moss spoke to do not eat the snacks they helped to perfect. Some purposefully avoid them, while for others, junk food is just not part of their lifestyle. After all, these are highly paid executives, and it’s an unfortunate truth that unhealthy food is most consumed by—and therefore most targeted to—lower income brackets. It costs more to eat a diet of varied fresh fruit, vegetables, lean meats and whole grains from farmers markets and upscale grocers than it does to subsist on processed convenience foods from the corner store.

These economic issues have been touched on before, most effectively by Tracie McMillan in The American Way of Eating but also Michael Pollan in The Omnivore’s Dilemma. While Pollan suggested that Americans should be willing to pay more for their food to eat better, McMillan rightly pointed out the unfairness of this, given that Americans pay more for other services (like childcare) than other countries. While Moss’ book gives good context to these broader socio-economic issues, its greatest value lies with its insider views, particularly the insights into the foods’ science.

While Moss deftly describes the science he sees at work, he’s not taken in by it, particularly the companies’ efforts to address obesity, a problem they are aware of and willing to wade into but not at the cost of their profits. His critique of the Nestlé research center in Switzerland reminded me of Pollan’s recent takedown of molecular gastronomy in Lucky Peach. In both cases, the writers see talented, smart people who could be solving real problems but are instead engaged in work with less lofty goals:

“The research center was all very impressive and state-of-the-art…but ultimately it was disappointing. By the end of my visit, I came to realize that if Nestlé was going to save the world from obesity or any of the other ill effects of processed foods, it wasn’t going to be in our lifetimes. The food that people bought in the grocery store was so perfectly engineered to compel overconsumption that Nestlé’s scientists, for all their spectacular technology and deep knowledge of food science, were finding it impossible to come up with viable solutions.”

Overconsumption is a key concept in Salt Sugar Fat. Moss writes about how companies, particularly the soda makers, target their marketing to “heavy users,” people who already use their product a lot that they believe they can sell more to. It’s easy to see how this has played out at the store. As a kid, I remember soda was sold in single-serving cans (12 oz.) and bottles (16 oz.), and the multi-serving two-liter size. Today, 7-Eleven sells a Double Gulp—a serving meant for one person—that’s 64 ounces,  almost as much product as the two-liter package once meant to serve a group. A 64-oz. Coke contains the equivalent of 44 teaspoons of sugar, nearly 1 cup or as much as I would put in a batch of cookies.

When Americans can so easily buy a 64-oz. Coke but have limited options for buying fresh carrots (see the USDA’s new food deserts map), it’s no wonder that obesity continues to be a problem. With increasing healthcare costs that can be linked back to diet (diabetes, hypertension and heart disease, to name a few now common afflictions), something must be done to get Americans out of the convenience store and back in the kitchen. Moss isn’t offering any solutions, but it’s a wonderful contribution to the “problem definition” discussion that those concerned about how we eat are having these days.

Celebrate National Grilled Cheese Sandwich Day

April is Grilled Cheese Sandwich Month, and in fact April 12 is Grilled Cheese Sandwich Day, so it is most appropriate today to celeberate this cheesiest of national food holidays.

Grilled cheese is something people can get pretty particular about. I have a friend who swears they are best made with cheap white bread and processed American cheese. On the opposite end of the spectrum, there are quite a few gourmet incarnations with added meats, vegetables and an assortment of cheese and bread combinations.

Personally, I fall somewhere in the middle. I like to keep it simple but use really good ingredients. My favorite grilled cheese sandwich uses buttered good sourdough bread and a mix of gruyere and sharp white cheddar cheeses. I like to mix it up though; the sandwich picture above uses 12-grain bread, for example.

See that little bit of cheese on the right that fell off the bread? You know when that gets crispy that it's going to be awesomely good.

Assembling the sandwich carefully is very important. Although shredded cheese will melt easier, I find that makes a real mess when it's time to flip the sandwich. Instead, I prefer layering small, thin slices of cheese, alternating between the gruyere and the cheddar.

The cooking technique is also important. If you cook the sandwich too fast, the bread will toast before the cheese has a chance to melt. I like to start with a cold frying pan set over medium-low heat. So the first side spends a lot more time cooking than the other side, but this allows the sandwich to slowly come up to temperature, giving the cheese a chance to melt.

For added flavor, I like to borrow a few moves from another cheese favorite: traditional Swiss cheese fondue. I swipe a raw cut garlic clove across the surface of the pan before I heat it. Then, as I layer the cheese, I add sprinkle of ground nutmeg and fresh ground white or black pepper. A sprinkle of truffle salt would be good too, but that might be getting too fancy.

The Cook In / Dine Out Grilled Cheese Sandwich

Makes 1 sandwich

1 garlic clove, peeled and cut in half
2 slices good quality bread, such as sourdough or 12-grain
2 teaspoons unsalted butter
1 1/2 oz. aged gruyere cheese, thinly sliced
1 1/2 oz. sharp white cheddar cheese, thinly sliced
Pinch of ground nutmeg
Pinch of fresh-ground white or black pepper

1. Rub the cut side of the garlic clove on the bottom of a frying pan. Set over medium-high heat. While the pan is still cold, spread 1 tsp. butter on one side of one piece of bread and lay in the pan buttered side down. Layer the cheese on top of the bread, alternating between types and adding a sprinkle of nutmeg and pepper about halfway through. Place the other piece of bread on top and spread the other tsp. of butter on top of that piece.

2. Cook the sandwich until the cheese starts to melt and the bottom piece is nicely toasted, about 10 minutes. Carefully flip the sandwich over and continue cooking until the other piece of bread is toasted, another 3-5 minutes. Remove from pan and slice in half. Be sure to eat any bits of cheese that escaped the sandwich and browned in the pan.

Vietnamese Chicken, Pea and Mint Salad

Like asparagus, peas are another vegetable that is quintessentially spring and they find a nature partner in fresh mint. To use up the peas I bought for the Salmon with Asparagus, Lima Beans and Peas, I thought it would be interesting to do something with Asian flavors.

I found this recipe for Vietnamese Chicken Salad with Mint by Nigella Lawson, star of Nigella Kitchen on the Food Network and thought that peas would also work well in the dish.

Don’t be put off by the fish sauce. A lot of Southeast Asian dishes have it. Despite how pungent it is on its own, it disappears into the dish once it’s all mixed together. Consider this: if you’ve eaten Pad Thai, you’ve probably had fish sauce.

The other big change I made was to omit the Thai chile and instead spiced my bowl with a few squirts of sriracha, a Thai hot sauce, allowing Chris to keep his salad mild.

Vietnamese Chicken, Pea and Mint Salad
Adapted from Vietnamese Chicken Salad with Mint by Nigella Lawson

½ medium sweet onion, finely sliced
1 large garlic clove, peeled and minced
2 tsp. sugar
1 ½ tsp. rice vinegar
1 ½ tbsp. fresh lime juice
1 ½ tbsp. Vietnamese or Thai fish sauce
2 ½ tbsp. canola oil
¾ lb. chicken breast cutlets
Seasoned salt and fresh-ground black pepper
1 cup fresh peas
8 oz. white or green cabbage, shredded
1 medium carrot, shredded
1 bunch mint, plus extra for garnish, leaves roughly chopped
Sriracha hot sauce

1. Add onion to a medium bowl. Whisk together garlic, sugar, vinegar, lime juice, fish sauce and remaining 1 ½ tbsp. oil and pour over onion. Set aside for ½ an hour.

2. Heat 1 tbsp. oil in a medium frying pan over medium heat. Pat chicken dry, season with salt and pepper and sauté until browned and cooked through, about 10 minutes, flipping halfway through. Set aside to cool and then cut into narrow strips.

3. Fill a 4 qt. saucepan halfway with water and place over medium-high heat. Bring to boil, add peas and cook for 3 minutes. Transfer cooked peas to an ice water bath to chill.

4. In a large bowl combine cabbage, carrot, chicken breast, peas and mint. Pour onion-dressing mixture over salad and toss with tongs to combine. Serve topped with extra mint for garnish and, if desired, a few squirts of sriracha.

The Feed: April 10, 2013

The Feed is my weekly round up of interesting food-related stories from newspapers, magazines, blogs and websites.

The Oregonian: “Welcome 'Mad Men' season 6 with 1960s-themed party snacks, cocktails: Foodday Favorites,” by Grant Butler.
AMC’s stylish drama series Mad Men returned for its 6th season Sunday, sending lovers of nostalgic party food back to the ‘60s for Mad Men-era snacks and drinks. The Oregonian’s Foodday took a nice approach: resurrecting its own recipes from the 1960s but putting a modern spin on them, like updating cheese ball with smoked paprika and marcona almonds.

Table Matters: “Don’t Drink Like Mad Men,” by Derek Brown
Also in the Mad Men vein, although with a caution, as Brown discusses how cocktails were definitely trending downward during the ‘60s. He offers suggestions for how to improve Mad Men-era drinks, such as omitting the “fruit salad” from an Old Fashioned (I prefer just an orange peel myself).

SlowMoneyFarm: “Food Labels – What Do You Believe & REALLY Want to Know?”
If I told you my blog was a “nuclear free zone” would it make you want to read it more? The SlowMoneyFarm blog uses the recent example of the Florida DJs who got in trouble for telling people their taps were dispensing “dihydrogen monoxide” (a.k.a. “water”), to point out that food producers can use the truth in misleading ways to sell their products. For example, labeling popcorn as free of genetically modified corn in hopes of selling to the anti-G.M.O. crowd when no popcorn is G.M.O. in the first place. I’ve seen this with chicken: producers claiming it’s hormone free when no chickens are raised with added growth hormone since they aren’t approved for that use.

New York Times: “Why Do G.M.O.s Need Protection?” by Mark Bittman.
Speaking of G.M.O. Bittman is known as a recipe genius and champion of simple cooking, but here he takes an editorial stance, calling a recent move by Congress to protect producers of genetically modified foods “unnecessary as well as disgraceful.” According to Bittman, the law in question prohibits the Department of Agriculture from stopping production of a genetically engineered crop, even if it’s found to be harmful.

Washington Post: “Homemade crackers, in no time flat,” by Jane Touzalin. 
Think making homemade crackers is difficult? Touzalin discovers its really quite simple and a much more economic way of getting your hands on “artisan” crackers. This recipe, for example, uses only flour, sugar, salt, baking powder, butter and water and sounds like it takes about 30-40 minutes.

New York Times Magazine: “True Tales of Hell in the Kitchen,” by Jessica Gross. 
They may be professional, but top New York chefs have suffered mishaps too. Here’s a collection of 10 amusing anecdotes from restaurants like B. Smith, Perilla and Anissa.

Salmon with Asparagus, Lima Beans and Peas

I love asparagus with salmon. I love peas with salmon. I love bacon with salmon (and just about everything else). This dish, adapted from a recent Bon Appétit recipe unites that trio, along with lima beans and shallots, for an easy midweek broiled salmon. Salmon doesn't appear in the magazine's recipe, but I think it's an obvious accompaniment for this spring mix. Unfortunately, I could not find the fava beans it called for, but lima beans are a fine stand in (edamame would also be good).

The crispy shallots are a nice touch but watch them carefully. Although the original recipe called for frying them for 10 to 12 minutes, mine were definitely ready after just 5 minutes and you don't want to overcook them.

Salmon with Asparagus, Lime Beans and Peas
Adapted from Pea, Asparagus and Fave Bean Salad, Bon Appétit

3/4 lb. salmon fillet
1 1/2 tbsp. extra-virgin olive oil, plus more for the salmon
Salt and fresh ground pepper, to taste
2 slices bacon, cut into 1/4-inch lardons
2 tsp. grated parmigiano-reggiano cheese
1 tablespoon fresh lemon juice
1 bunch asparagus, tough ends trimmed
1 cup shelled fresh peas
1 cups lima beans, fresh or frozen thawed
1/2 cup vegetable oil
1 shallot, thinly sliced

1. Preheat broiler with oven rack about 5 inches from broiler (the top position in my oven). Place salmon fillet skin-side down on an oiled baking sheet. Spray or brush with olive oil, season with salt and pepper. Broil until cooked through, about 10 minutes, turning halfway through.

2. Cook bacon in a medium frying pan over medium heat until browned and crisp. Remove with slotted spoon and transfer to paper towel lined plate.

3. Whisk together 1 1/2 tbsp. olive oil, parmesan, salt and pepper in a small bowl.

4. Bring a large (4 qt.) saucepan of water to boil. Have a large bowl of ice water ready. Add asparagus and cook until just tender, about 4 minutes. Remove asparagus from hot water and transfer to a bowl of ice water. Add the peas to the boiling water and cook for 3 minutes. Drain and transfer peas to the bowl of ice water. Once cooled, drain vegetables.

5. Heat vegetable oil in a small saucepan over medium heat. Add shallots and cook, stirring occasionally, until golden brown and crisp, about 4-6 minutes (original recipe said 10 to 12 minutes, but mine were definitely ready much sooner). Transfer shallots to a paper towel-lined plate.

6. Add vegetables to a large bowl and toss with the dressing. Divide among two plates and top each with half the salmon, bacon and fried shallots.

7. Add dressing to bowl with vegetables, season with salt and pepper, and toss to coat. Transfer salad to a serving platter and top with shallot and bacon.

Vegetable Napoleons with Red Wine Sauce

I'm anxious for the bounty of spring vegetables to arrive. Apart from the asparagus though, we're just not quite there, a situation The New York Times bemoaned last week. Their solution was to treat winter vegetables with spring-like preparation or to "cheat," that is take advantage of spring vegetables that are already available because they are grown in other places, like California.

I don't know if I consider it cheating, but I did have a craving for a mix of vegetables recently that I decided to satisfy by making roasted vegetable napoleons. Traditionally, a Napoleon is a layered pastry, but a recent Washington Post article about a meal at Mintwood Place described a vegetable version. Mine isn't nearly as complex as Chef Cedric Maupillar's, but it's still a fun way to serve roasted vegetables in a different way.

Because the asparagus and mushrooms require less time in the oven, I arranged them in one pan so I could remove it from the oven while the heartier vegetables--the peppers, onion and zucchini--continue in the oven until they develop a little color. Since the whole thing goes back in the oven for a final blast to warm through and melt the cheese, be careful not to overdo it, especially with the mushrooms, which could burn if left in the oven too long.

I served the napoleons with fried polenta and went the easy route: I bought the pre-cooked polenta that comes in the tube, sliced it into 1/2-inch slices and fried them in olive oil with a little salt and pepper.

Roasted Vegetable Napoleons with Red Wine Sauce
(Red Wine Sauce adapted from Red Wine Reduction Sauce by Jen Hoy for About.com)

Extra-virgin olive oil
1 bunch of asparagus, tough ends trimmed
2 portobello mushrooms, stems removed
1 sweet onion, sliced into 1/3-inch thick rounds
1 zucchini, cut on an angle into 1/3-inch thick ovals
1 red bell pepper, sides cut off in four flat pieces
1 tsp. kosher salt
Fresh-ground black pepper, to taste
10 oz. fresh mozzarella, sliced into 1/4-inch thick rounds (aim to cut two large pieces of cheese into 8 slices each)
1 cup fruity red wine (I used pinot noir)
1 tbsp. agave nectar
1/2 shallot, peeled with ends sliced of
1 rosemary sprig
4 tbsp. Italian (flat-leaf) parsley, roughly chopped

1. Preheat oven to 425 F.

2. Brush two baking sheets with olive oil. Arrange asparagus and portobello mushroom cups one sheet and the onion, zucchini and red pepper on the other. Spray vegetables with olive oil and sprinkle with kosher salt and pepper. Roast vegetables until lightly browned, about 10-12 minutes for the asparagus and mushrooms and 15-20 minutes for the other vegetables. Remove from oven and allow vegetables to cool so you can handle them. Chop asparagus spears and mushrooms in half.

3. While roasting vegetables, make the red wine sauce: combine wine, shallot and rosemary in a small saucepan. Bring to boil and cook until reduced to about 1/3 to 1/2 a cup. Remove from heat to cool. Discard rosemary and shallot.

3. Assemble the Napoleons (you'll be making four): Line a baking with with parchment. Lay down the bell pepper slices, skin side down. Top each with a slice of mozzarella, then 4 or 5 asparagus spears (the fatter ones), an onion slice, more cheese, a zucchini slice, more cheese, more asparagus spears (the tips), more cheese and finally the portobello mushrooms (you'll have some leftover vegetables, wi. Return to oven to heat through and melt cheese, about 4-5 minutes. Remove from oven and allow to cool. Serve with red wine sauce and a sprinkle of parsley.