Pasta alla Norma

Many years ago I traveled with my family to our homeland of Sicily to see where the family was from.  We toured around the island, tracking down birth certificates and marriage licenses.  It was an amazing trip, punctuated with unforgettable meals.

Sicilian food isn't the same heavy cuisine as the northern parts of the country; instead, the food of the island represents a melting pot of influences and a culture that has thrived on meager existences.  This classical dish, pasta alla norma, took us by surprise at how much flavor was packed into such few ingredients, cooked just barely enough to bring out the essence of each one.  I think that this dish could represent the humble beginnings of tomato use in Italy, coming over from the Americas and passed by the Spaniards to the Italian islanders.  In the beginning, tomatoes were often barely cooked rather than being pureed into sauces, and were often tossed with some form of grain and maybe a couple of other vegetables.  So this dish is essentially a trip backwards in time through the history of the Italy's "golden apple".

I present a very classical recipe, not unlike ones I found by Mark Bittman and Mario Batali.  You can plate this however you like, but I relish the crudeness of the ingredients and prefer to serve this as large bites of everything, an homage to the basic vegetables that would go on to form the much more eloquent language of an entire cuisine over the centuries.

Chickpea, Sausage, and Kale Pasta

I was skeptical of this dish at first - it seemed like it might be chalky or dry given the chickpeas mixed with pasta.  But using dried chickpeas instead of canned gives this a wealth of surprisingly fresh flavor, and the mixture of cheese and a snap of lemon juice really gives this dish a lot of energy to complement the inherent deliciousness that is spicy Italian sausage.  I felt like I had done something productive with my night after eating this, and didn't slip into the usual food coma.

Digging around online, I found a very similar recipe to this one from Martha Stewart by Mark Bittman, who instead of Italian sausage uses chorizo, and instead of pasta uses bread crumbs.  He cooks the chickpeas for a more significant amount of time, more like 10 minutes instead of 3.  I might try this variant next time, plus this dish would probably be equally delicious just substituting chorizo for Italian sausage.

Let me implore you to use dried chickpeas in this dish.  Canned chickpeas taste like a whole lot of nothing now that we've tried both fresh and dried, which are staggeringly close to each other in flavor after the dried peas have been soaked overnight.  They're cheaper than canned, they're easy to find almost anywhere (check the latin or Indian section of your store), they have less salt, and they're generally superior.  At the very least, buy a test bag and soak a few overnight, then eat them raw.  If you don't switch over after eating one, I will be amazed.

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

Chicken Tikka Masala

I'll be the first to admit that I have no idea what I'm doing when it comes to Indian food.  But I've made one dish so far that's consistently good, and also fairly forgiving if you screw it up.  Chicken tikka masala, one of the more common dishes on Indian restaurant menus, is surprisingly easy to make, if you look past a possibly intimidating list of new ingredients.  But go to your nearest ethnic food store and you should have no problem finding all of these things.  And to those Indian people who cringe by my saying 'garam masala' because it's a spice blend that varies heavily from region to region (even from shop to shop) in India, I will respond by saying that I am not enlightened enough to appreciate the differences, and bow to you all as the kings and queens of the spice world.  But I do know about at least a few of the spices: I used a sweet paprika with a mild level of heat (not smoked), and I recommend getting whole seeds of cumin and coriander, then lightly toasting and grinding them yourself.  This will bring out a lot more flavor.

If you've got some kind of vacuum marinator, you can cut the prep time down significantly.  Again, this is a fairly forgiving dish.  Don't have long to marinate?  Just thread the meat onto skewers and grill after 30 minutes in the chill chest.  Chicken came out tough?  Just simmer it a bit longer in the sauce.  Ran out of plain yogurt?  Use something mild, like lemon or peach (I used this once, and it was fine).  It's actually really hard to screw up.

Marinade

• 1 cup plain yogurt
• 2 tablespoons lemon juice
• 2 teaspoons ground cumin
• 2 teaspoons ground red pepper
• 2 teaspoons fresh ground black pepper
• 1 teaspoon cinnamon
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 1 piece gingerroot, minced (1/2-inch long)
• 1.5 lbs boneless skinless chicken breasts, cut into 1 inch cubes

Sauce

• 1 tablespoon unsalted butter
• 2 cloves garlic, minced
• 1 jalapeno chile, minced
• 2 teaspoons ground coriander
• 1 teaspoon ground cumin
• 1 teaspoon paprika
• 1 teaspoon garam masala
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 1 (8 ounce) can tomato sauce
• 1 cup half and half

For marinade, combine yogurt, lemon juice, cumin, red pepper, black pepper, cinnamon, salt and ginger in a medium bowl or food-safe plastic bag; stir in chicken, marinate in refrigerator 2-4 hours.

Get the chicken into your marinade (not marinate, that's a verb) and let it party down for at least a few hours in the fridge

Toss the ingredients together to make sure you get even flavor distribution

Skewer the chicken after it's been marinating.  Give it as long as you can stand to let the flavors get in there.

For sauce, melt butter in a large, deep skillet over medium heat, add garlic and jalapeno; cook 1 minute.  Stir in coriander, cumin, paprika, garam masala and salt.  Stir in tomato sauce, simmer 3 minutes, stir in cream; simmer until sauce thickens, then keep on low while meat is cooking.

This dish has a surprising amount of heat, which you can temper by replacing jalapenos with something milder

Saute in butter to get that creamy flavor you won't find with olive oil.

The sauce, after everything is incorporated

Meanwhile, heat grill to medium-high (or heat broiler).  Remove chicken from refrigerator.  Thread chicken onto skewers; discard marinade.  Grill or broil chicken, turning occasionally, until cooked through, about 8 minutes.  Remove chicken from skewers; add to sauce.  Simmer 5 minutes.  Serve with basmati rice, naan, or pita bread.

You don't need to cook these all the way through, just get some char flavor on them.  They finish in the sauce.

Tikka masala, served with basmati rice and spinach (saag)