Fettuccine with Black Garlic and Blue Cheese

I'm calling it right now, like I did about chipotles roughly ten years ago, but now I have a blog to use as my own personal stenographer:

Black Garlic.

This stuff is going to be everywhere soon.  Haven't heard of it?  Good, that means I beat you to it.  But you're about to find out about it, so steady yourself.

Many foods have been fermented over the years.  Pepperoni.  Cabbage.  Beer.  Some other things that tend to smell funny when fermented, like shark and peanuts (not kidding, look them up).  And now, garlic.  Apparently in 2004 some Korean dude figured out that if you expose garlic to high, humid temperatures, you can get it to ferment into something unbelievably delicious - kind of like a cross between the best roasted garlic you've ever had, balsamic vinegar, and fermented black beans, if you've ever tried those in lobster sauce.  It has something to do with the sugars in the garlic, and amino acids, and all kinds of chemistry that only a few people seem to have figured out, due to the "carefully controlled process" that this Korean guy worked out when he set up BlackGarlic.com and took his product commercial (see black garlic: how it's made).  So this isn't some naturally occurring thing - it's a new discovery, and you've got to get it from this guy, or one of his competitors.  But trust me, it's worth it.

Black garlic.  What?

I was given a small tub of this by my excellent mother about a year ago, and tried to figure out what to do with it.  And it took so long, about a year later I thought "maybe this needs to be thrown out".  But then I realized it's basically gone as bad as it's going to get, and gave it a shot.  So glad I didn't toss it - this was more delicious than any garlic I've ever eaten, and if it's stale at this point, then I can't even begin to imagine what the fresh stuff tastes like.  Picture if everything savory in the world just jumped into your mouth at once, dripping with garlic and tamarind-like flavors, in a small black morsel the size of a Hershey kiss and the consistency of a roasted beet.  That's black garlic.

Because it was so delicious, I wanted a recipe that would do it justice, not overpower, and allow the flavor to come through distinctly.  So I went with a simple pasta that also uses the pungency of blue cheese, but very little else, to showcase the garlic.  Amazing use of the stuff, and I can't wait to make it again.


Fettuccine with Black Garlic and Blue Cheese
modified slightly from suddenlunch.com

• A slice of great bread, coarsely crumbled (about 4 tbsp, I used rosemary olive oil bread)
• 1 tbsp of olive oil, or black garlic-infused oil
• 9 ounce package of refrigerated fettuccine, or tagliatelle
• 6 oz blue cheese, crumbled
• 1 more tbsp of olive oil
• 5-6 cloves black garlic, coarsely chopped
• Freshly ground black pepper

The setup is really easy

Toss the breadcrumbs with 1 tbsp oil in a small bowl.  Over medium heat, cook the breadcrumbs until crispy, shaking often.  You could also bake these if you like.

Dry-frying the breadcrumbs gets them delicious and crispy

Chop or crumble the cheese and mix together most of it with the chopped garlic and the second tbsp of oil.

Cook the pasta according to instructions on the package.  Set aside about 2 ounces of the cooking water, then drain the pasta.  Now toss together the pasta and the blue cheese mixture in a pan, adding the reserved cooking water as necessary until you have a light sauce.

Taste and season with ample amounts of freshly ground black pepper, then stir in some of the crisp crumbs and top the pasta with the rest, as well as the rest of the blue cheese crumbles.  Serve immediately.

Variations: add sliced, pan-seared chicken breast, add chopped chives as additional garnish

Chipotle Chicken Soup with Lime Crema

You may have heard of tortilla soup, which is a strange name for what is often either a cheese-based cream of chicken soup or a brothy minestrone with chicken.  What makes it 'tortilla' soup is the presence of some tortillas shoved in there against their will, either fried or dissolved right in.  While this can be quite delicious, if you focus just on the soup itself, and not on the tortilla part, you can go one step further.

My family this recipe in some magazine years ago, but I have since tweaked it to enhance the flavor some.  It relies on chipotle chiles, which have become amazingly popular recently.  Chipotles are nothing more than jalapeno peppers that have been smoked, and they are either found dried, or canned in a spicy sauce seasoned with adobo, a latin seasoning.  But since adobo just means 'seasoning', I can't quite tell you what's in it, other than that it's good.

Save yourself some time on this one and buy a store-bought chicken.  But if you happen to have roasted your own, and you happen to have made a stock from the bones of that chicken afterwards, I'm not going to stop you from using them to make quite possibly the best combination of those things that you could get in your mouth without committing some kind of crime.

I got a bit experimental and made a lime crema this time, figuring it would balance out the soup.  As peppers are alkaline, meaning that they basic in terms of their pH level, they can be neutralized by acidic things, as well as fatty things.  This is because the capsaicin found in peppers is fat-soluble.  So, if your head didn't just explode there, the moral is that if you mix dairy and an acid, you have a powerful chile-fighting condiment that might not taste half bad either.

Chipotle Chicken Soup with Lime Crema

• 1 chipotle from can of chipotles in adobo
• 1 tsp olive oil
• 1 chopped red bell pepper
• 3 chopped green onions, greens and whites separated
• 3 cloves garlic, minced
• 1 tsp freshly ground cumin
• 1 tsp powdered chiles
• 2 cooked chicken breasts or meat from a cooked chicken, about 3 cups, cut or shredded into small pieces
• 28 oz low-sodium chicken broth, or homemade
• 14-16 oz can chopped tomatoes with green chiles, such as Del Monte or Rotel
• 12 ounces frozen or fresh corn kernels
• 2 tbsp cilantro leaves
• 1/2 avocado, slices

Nothing too crazy in this, but a bit of chopping before you can start

Try to cut things up as evenly as possible to assist in even cooking.  Go for corn kernel-sized bits of pepper.

Finely mince the chipotle pepper, as well as the other vegetables.  In a large saucepan, heat oil over medium-high heat.  Add bell pepper, the white parts of the green onions, the garlic, the cumin, and the powdered chiles.  Saute for 4 minutes until soft but not browning, stirring frequently.

Next, deglaze with the chicken broth.  Stir in the chipotle chile, chicken, tomatoes, and corn.  Bring to a boil, reduce the heat, and simmer until ready to serve.

To plate, heat bowls and then ladle in soup.  Garnish with lime crema (recipe follows), cilantro leaves, and the tops of the green onions.  Arrange avocado slices on top and serve.

Lime Crema

• 2 tbsp sour cream
• 1 lime
• 1/2 tbsp cilantro leaves
• 1/4 tsp salt

In a small bowl, mix sour cream, zest from the lime, and the juice of half the lime.  If desired, finely mince the cilantro and add to the crema.  Allow flavors to combine in the fridge for 30 minutes if time permits.

Pretty simple, and pairs up well with the spicy soup.

Pain Perdu Farci (Stuffed French Toast)

The French have an excellent tradition - stale bread reclaimed by soaking overnight in a mixture of eggs and milk, and then fried.  This is called pain perdu, which translates as 'lost bread', for obvious reasons.  I hadn't had the overnight soaked version, just the standard nasty processed white bread dipped for 4 seconds before frying, and so I thought I'd give this a shot.  Whoa.

First of all, the custard that you make to soak the bread in smells so good, you basically want to eat it right there.  Think of egg nog mixed with melted vanilla ice cream, mixed with ground up little angels and unicorns and things that probably taste delicious.  Now, picture the best bread pudding you've ever had, and imagine if it were just sliced from a large sheet of bread that tasted just the same, and that you could eat for breakfast in a socially acceptable context.  Got it?  Okay, let's go further.

How about if you take that awesome custard-soaked french toast, then fill two pieces with a mixture of melted cream cheese and fruit preserves?  That's where the farci, or 'stuffed', part of this comes from.  Ready for breakfast yet?  Good.

The recipe I present is a mash-up from two different sources.  First, some place on the internet which I have long forgotten, for the custard part.  Second, my friend's mom, who served me the best stuffed french toast I had ever tried until I created this Frankenstein version.  Thanks for the inspiration, Robin.

For the record, to create this I ended up stockpiling old bread parts in the fridge until I had enough to make a batch.  This took a few weeks to accumulate, and worked perfectly.  Consider a similar route, if you have the space.

Day Before Custard French Toast (Pain Perdu Farci)
from various sources

• 6-8 slices stale French bread, cut on the diagonal into 3/4-1 inch slices
• 3 eggs
• 1 cup milk
• 3 tbsp. sugar
• 1/4 tsp. salt
• 1/2 tsp. nutmeg
• 1/2 tsp. cinnamon
• 1 tsp. vanilla
• 3 tbsp. melted butter
• 3 oz cream cheese, softened
• 1/4 cup orange marmalade 

Arrange bread in single layer in 9x13 inch pan.  Combine eggs, milk, sugar, salt, nutmeg, cinnamon, and vanilla.  Beat until smooth.  Pour over bread.  Turn slices to coat evenly.  Cover and refrigerate overnight.

The next day, make your filling.  Stir cream cheese and marmalade together in a medium bowl, and set aside.

To cook, melt butter in skillet or on grill.  Remove bread slices from egg mixture.  Saute in heated pan until golden, about 5 minutes on each side.

To plate, place one piece of toast down, then spoon on 1-1.5 tbsp of the filling, then top with another piece.  Dust with powdered sugar, and serve with syrup, more marmalade, or topping of choice.

Chipotle Shrimp Tacos with Spanish Rice

In honor of Cinco de Mayo, a holiday celebrated mostly by Americans to celebrate a battle against the French, I'm presenting a recipe served with Spanish rice, and I'm posting it on May 6.  Why?  Because in life, nothing's perfect.  One day, you will come to accept this, and all will be well.

Perhaps a short backstory is in order on this.  I will attempt to guess at your day yesterday.  It's May 5.  It's getting late.  At some point in the day you've had this conversation:

You: "what the heck is Cinco de Mayo all about?"
Anyone who will listen: "I have no idea."
You: "well I think we should probably have a margarita somewhere, just to be sure."

Needless to say, I was no exception.  A quick Wikipedia search turned up the fact that this is not Mexican independence day, and that Cinco de Mayo is hardly celebrated in Mexico at all, unless you're from Puebla, where a fairly spectacular battle was fought against the French in 1862.  But it is celebrated in Mexican restaurants north of the border, and that's good enough for me.  So we settled on making some tacos, which soon gave way to burritos, as we had consumed overly strong margaritas following a 3-2-1 recipe and weren't quite in the mood for portion control.  Also an artifact of the margaritas was our inclusion of tequila in the shrimp recipe, which was invented last night.  And finally, the ingredients of the rice, which started off as plain brown rice but quickly became "whatever you feel like should be in there" rice, and which turned out to be one of the best parts of the meal.

But we'll get to the rice in a bit.  Let's start with these tacos, which were deemed so good that they arguably shouldn't be put on the blog.  After a lengthy discussion and more margaritas, it was decided that the world had to know, so here we are.  Some of the better shrimp I've ever eaten, let alone made.  Let's do this!

Burritos and Spanish rice, the results of a successful night of invention at the hands of a bottle of Herradura

Tequila-Fired Shrimp Tacos-Turned-Burritos
by me, entirely me, and nobody but me

• 1/2 pound large (21-25 count) shrimp, peeled, deveined
• 1/2 tsp cumin, freshly ground
• 1/4 tsp oregano
• 1/4 tsp salt
• 1/8 tsp black pepper
• juice of 1/2 lime
• 1 chipotle, chopped fine
• 2 cloves garlic, minced
• 1/2 tsp dried chile powder
• 1 tbsp olive oil
• 1.5 oz tequila
• 1/4 head cabbage, shredded fine
• 1/2 avocado
• Cilantro leaves as desired
• Tortillas
• Sour cream

In a medium bowl, toss the shrimp with the next 8 ingredients.  Try to work the lime juice into the shrimp.  Allow to sit for a few minutes, but not enough to accidentally cure the shrimp in the acidic solution.  While marinating, begin heating a large cast-iron skillet over high heat.

Season the shrimp in lime juice and a whole bunch of awesome.

Once smoking hot, add the oil and immediately add the shrimp so you don't burn the oil.  It may splatter if you just dump everything in, so individually add the shrimp, leaving behind the liquid.  Cook the shrimp for 2 minutes, then flip and cook another 2 minutes.

Not too much shrimp!  If you overcrowd, you'll end up with steamed nastiness, not seared crustacean magic.

At this point, a rational person would stop.  But someone 2 margaritas deep will instead forge on, and try to light the kitchen on fire.  By this I mean you will add 1 shot of tequila, and apply fire to it to get it to catch.  I had some difficulty with the flame part, but you can try to tip the pan or use a fireplace starter to get that thing to blow up like the Godfather.  Do it immediately, because it will evaporate quickly.  Once done having fun, remove shrimp to a bowl.

My alcohol-fueled tequila-fired shrimp.  Actual fire is optional.

To serve, assemble burritos/tacos with sour cream, cabbage, sliced avocado, the shrimp, and cilantro if you don't think it tastes like soap (I don't).  Serve with escabeche (pickled vegetables) if you have them, Spanish rice (recipe follows), or whatever you like.  More margaritas, for example.  ¡Olé!

Spanish Rice

• 1 jalapeno, diced
• 3 cloves garlic, chopped finely
• 2 green onions, white parts only, sliced finely
• 1/2 lime
• 1 tbsp tomato paste
• 1 cup brown medium- or short-grain rice
• 1 tbsp olive oil
• 1/2 tsp salt

Begin by cooking the rice, which takes a while given that it is brown rice.  While rice is cooking, prepare your other ingredients.  In a pot, bring 2 cups water to a boil, then add 1 tsp of the oil and the brown rice.  Once boiling, add the brown rice, cover, reduce to a simmer, and cook for about 30-40 minutes, until rice is chewy and cooked through.  Drain rice in a colander or large strainer, and set aside.

Get your ingredients ready to go while the rice cooks

In a large skillet over medium heat, add remaining oil, and then add garlic, peppers, and green onion.  Saute for 3-4 minutes until soft and just starting to brown.  Now add the rice and toss to coat.  Stir in tomato paste and salt, and cook for 1-2 minutes.  Just before removing from heat, pour in juice from 1/2 lime.  Serve immediately.

Using brown rice gives a healthy kick, plus a delicious chewy bite to the rice that I thought was a huge improvement over standard long-grain white rice

Come on, work that lime!

Risotto with Shiitake, Asparagus, and Artichoke

Here's a dish that commemorates springtime - a risotto showcasing asparagus, among other things.  Risotto is that classic Italian dish using a short-grain, high starch rice that is stirred continuously during cooking to loosen the starch and create a thick, flavorful sauce that envelops the whole dish.  The dish is almost always made with Arborio rice, although these days you can find arguably better rice to use, such as Carnaroli.  The process also generally follows a formula - saute some aromatics, coat the rice in some oil, add a liquid while stirring, and then add the remainder of the ingredients once cooked, usually including a cheese of some kind. You can't phone this dish in - you have to stir for all you're worth for the 15-20 minutes that the rice cooks, and you have to pay attention to the doneness level so you don't ruin anything.  Be on your guard, and this will be well worth the effort.

Springtime Risotto of Shiitake, Asparagus, and Artichokes
expanded on from Gourmet, May 2003

• 5 cups chicken broth (40 fl ounces)
• 1 cup water
• 1 pound thin to medium asparagus, trimmed and cut into 1/4 inch thick slices, leaving tips 1 1/2 inches long
• 1 tablespoon olive oil
• 1/2 stick (1/4 cup) unsalted butter
• 3/4 pound fresh shiitake mushrooms, stems discarded and caps cut into 1/4 inch thick slices
• 2 artichoke hearts, fresh if available, jarred if not
• 2 shallots, finely chopped
• 1 1/2 cups Carnaroli or Arborio rice (10 ounces)
• 1/2 cup dry vermouth
• 2 ounces finely grated Parmigiano-Reggiano (1 cup)

Shiitakes add a great earthy flavor and meaty consistency to this otherwise meat-free (except the broth) dish

Shallots.  Only way this dish would get better is if I put in flakes of gold.

First, we have to blanch the asparagus - boil to partially cook, then stop the cooking process in ice water.  Usually you just use water to boil, but we can do double duty and start heating up the broth here, which saves a pot.  So bring the broth and water to a boil in a large pot, then add asparagus and cook, uncovered, until crisp-tender, 3 to 4 minutes.  Immediately transfer the asparagus with a slotted spoon to a large bowl of ice water to stop the cooking, reserving the hot broth which you should keep at a simmer.  Drain the asparagus and set aside.

Digitize your asparagus.  Anybody ever see that movie Tron?

Blanch in the broth - cook 3-4 minutes, then shock in ice water.  Now the asparagus is ready to add at the last step, cooked and ready to go.

In another large heavy pot or pan, heat the oil with 1 tablespoon butter over moderately high heat until foam subsides, then saute mushrooms.  You want them nicely browned, so I recommend doing this in two batches, using half of the fat each time.  Don't overcrowd the pan or you will get squishy grey mushrooms!  Stir occasionally, until browned, about 4 minutes.  Season with salt and pepper, then transfer to a bowl.

Brown the mushrooms.  You don't want to see moisture coming out - do this in two batches

The mushrooms came out great, but are easily ruined

In that same pan, cook onion in 2 tablespoons butter over moderate heat, stirring, until softened, about 3 minutes.  Add the rice and cook, stirring, 1 minute.  This will coat the rice grains in oil and begin frying them, which adds flavor.  Add the wine to deglaze and start infusing flavor into the rice, and cook, stirring, until absorbed, about 1 minute.

Add the rice and toss to coat in the oil

Now the fun part - start cooking the rice with the broth.  Ladle in 1 cup of the simmering broth and cook at a strong simmer, stirring, until absorbed, about 2 minutes.  Continue simmering and adding broth, about 1/2 cup at a time, stirring frequently and letting each addition be absorbed before adding next, until rice is just tender and looks creamy, 18 to 20 minutes.  There's going to be a lot of stirring involved.  Now here's the most important point: it's done when the rice is cooked through, not when the broth is gone.  Keep tasting periodically as you get towards the end, and when the rice has just a bit of bite left (called al dente or "to the tooth", like a pasta), you're done.  Save any leftover broth for thinning as needed.

Stir the rice while adding broth

Remove from heat and stir in 1/2 cup cheese, remaining tablespoon butter, and salt and pepper to taste. Gently fold in asparagus, artichokes and mushrooms, then cover pan and let stand for 1 minute.  If desired, thin risotto with some of remaining broth.  Serve immediately with remaining cheese on the side.