Pasta Con Le Sarde (Sicilian Pasta with Sardines)

*Updated cooking method (again) 3/30/2020

Sicily, where my family is from, is a land of conquests. The Moors, the Romans, Berbers, Arabs, Persians, Byzantines - pretty much everybody has tromped through Sicily at some point in time, and has left some kind of mark on the people and the food. I believe that pasta con le sarde, a traditional Sicilian dish featuring sardines and pasta tossed with unheard-of flavor combinations, is one such example of what happens when you get such a diverse international palate influencing a cuisine. In this case, it's a Mediterranean cuisine, meaning you get to take fish and try to mix a bunch of flavors together. If you've ever experimented with cooking fish, you know that random flavors can often ruin a fish dish. I couldn't name any other dish that would combine raisins, saffron, fennel, and two kinds of salty preserved fish, but somehow this mix creates an incredible burst of salty and sweet, lightly perfumed, slightly floral, bizarrely colorful, and both crunchy and velvety from the mix of fried bread crumbs and silky pasta that's tossed quickly with its own cooking liquid. The closest thing I can think of to this dish would be a massaman curry, drawing again from influences of the Muslim / western world to work this into the existing (Thai) culture. But in many ways, this dish stands completely alone, and for that I have deep respect in a sea of pasta dishes that is Italian food.

Drawing from a rich supply of fresh fish, this recipe is probably spectacular with fresh sardines caught that day. But since most of us can't get that, I recommend that you invest in a couple of tins of very high quality sardines packed in olive oil. Tonight we used some from Portugal, and at $4-5 per box, it was totally worth it. Even if you don't splurge, at least be sure to get fish in pure olive oil, not a tomato sauce or water.

The dish traditionally calls for bucatini - a thin tube-like pasta - but we've done it both with this and with pappardelle. Both versions are shown in the photographs. I would strongly recommend a bronze die-cut bucatini as the pasta of choice, though, which will hold the sauce best.

Saffron Chard Potato Omelette

Another winner from Yotam Ottolenghi's book Plenty, we made this at a cooking class and then were able to reliably duplicate it at home.  A delicious herbed omelette loaded with a filling of potatoes and swiss chard cooked in saffron, which is so good that you could eat it for just about any meal, and you could even eat the filling on its own.  Make sure you have a good non-stick pan to make your life easier, and don't skimp on the herbs or the saffron, both of which are essential to the dish.

Shakshuka (North African Eggs Poached in Peppers and Tomatoes)

Shakshuka apparently means "mixture" in Arabic slang, and that's exactly what you get with this delicious and unique vegetarian dish.  Served for lunch more than it is for breakfast, this poached egg dish boasts an incredible amount of healthy flavor and a pleasing array of silky textures achieved by slowly cooking the eggs in a bed of unbelievable flavors.  It's a common dish in Morocco and Tunisia among other places.  Think of it as a much more delicious, much more Middle Eastern version of huevos rancheros, if you've ever had that.

We found this worldly delight at a vegetarian cooking class based on Yotam Ottolenghi's book Plenty.  Yotam was recently on an episode of Anthony Bourdain's Parts Unknown, so he's a credible source now that he's been on TV, for as John Cleese once said at a talk of his I attended, "I don't have to be an expert, but I am a celebrity".  If you have the patience in the morning to simmer this dish while you wait for epic mealtime, I highly recommend you give this a shot.  He's a very passionate chef with a great approach to his vegetarian dishes, and I definitely encourage you to not only try this, but have a look at his book.


Shakshuka
from Plenty, by Yotam Ottolenghi

• 1/2 tsp cumin seeds
• 3/4 cup light olive oil
• 2 large onions, sliced
• 2 red bell peppers, cut into 3/4" strips
• 2 yellow bell peppers, cut into 3/4" strips
• 4 tsp raw sugar
• 2 bay leaves
• 6 thyme sprigs
• 2 tbsp parsley
• 2 tbsp chopped cilantro, plus more for garnish
• 6 ripe tomatoes, roughly chopped
• 1/2 tsp saffron threads
• pinch cayenne pepper
• salt and black pepper
• 8 eggs

In a large heavy pan, toast the cumin seeds on high heat for 2 minutes.  Add the oil and the onions, and saute for 5 minutes.  Add the peppers, sugar, and herbs, and continue cooking on high heat for 5-10 minutes further.

Add the tomatoes, saffron, cayenne, and some salt an pepper.  Reduce the heat to low and cook for 15 minutes, stirring occasionally.  Make sure not to overcook; add water as necessary to maintain a thick sauce consistency with minimal evaporation.  This should be incredibly potent and thick at the end of this process.

If placing into individual serving pans, divide mixture into 4 deep frying pans.  Remove the bay leaves, then make small wells in the mixture.  Crack the eggs into a small dish one at a time, and pour the eggs gently into the wells in the mixture in 8 spots.  Sprinkle with salt and cover the pan(s) with lids.  Cook on very low heat for 10-12 minutes, until the eggs are just set.  Don't cook this too fast, or the eggs will be tough.

Sprinkle with chopped cilantro and serve.

Moroccan Chicken Tagine with Preserved Lemons and Olives

The only time in my life that I tried preserved lemons was in an iced fermented lemon drink at a Vietnamese restaurant, and it was one of the worst experiences of my life.  So when I saw this, I thought: let's spend a month making these and eat them again!  Well, when you go to the culture that invented the stuff, it turns out they are used in much more pleasant ways, such as this delicious chicken tagine.

Tagines, known by their namesake ceramic or cast iron conic cooking devices famous in Moroccan culture, are nothing more than a stew of protein and vegetables or fruit, often featuring goat, lamb, or kid, but in some cases using chicken, or even chickpeas.  This one features preserved lemon, which is an interesting way of keeping lemons for long periods that involves packing them in salt.  The flavor is extra tart, slightly sour from the fermentation, and only good in small doses.  But man, do they add an interesting flavor to complex sauces like what is created in this dish.

We modified the recipe ordering slightly to be more practical, and I may go back and revise this to use chicken quarters instead of a whole chicken, which we think would be faster and better.  Regardless, this dish was well worth the effort, and had so much going on that we were completely floored by how unique it was.  Highly recommended if you have some time to make preserved lemons on your own, which are actually very easy.

Preserved lemons are incredible in sauces, and not to be eaten out of the jar as a condiment

Moroccan Chicken Tagine with Preserved Lemons and Olives

Modified from Morocco, by Jeff Koehler

• 3-4 cups cooked white long-grain rice
• 1 cup plain greek yogurt
• 3 tbsp milk
• Salt
• 1 tbsp finely chopped fresh mint or 1 tsp dried
• 4.25 lb chicken
• 1 preserved lemon
• 2 garlic cloves, minced
• 3 tbsp finely chopped flat-leaf parsley
• 3 tbsp finely chopped cilantro
• 1 tsp ground ginger
• ½ tsp turmeric
• Generous pinch saffron threads, dry-toasted and ground
• Salt and freshly ground white pepper
• 2 tbsp olive oil
• 2 tbsp fresh lemon juice
• 2 medium red onions, finely chopped
• 1 tbsp butter or smen
• 1 cup green olives, pitted

Scrape the pulp out and preserve the peel for making garnishelater

Quarter the preserved lemon lengthwise, rinse, and remove the seeds.  Without breaking the ppel, scrape away the pulp with a spoon, reserving the peel.  Finely chop the pulp.  In a small mixing bowl, add the lemon pulp and any juices, garlic, parsley, cilantro, ginger, turmeric, saffron, salt and white pepper, olive oil, lemon juice, and 2 tbsp water.  Blend well.

Clip off the chicken wing tips and the tail, and trim any excess fat.  Rinse the chicken and pat dry with paper towels.  In a large pot that will comfortably hold the chicken, create a bed of the red onions.  Set the chicken breast-side up on top of the onions and rub with the saffron mixture, pushing some of the mix under the skin without tearing it.  Add butter to the onions and pour 1 cup of water down the sides of the pot, avoiding the chicken.  Cover and cook over medium heat for 20 minutes.

Turn the chicken breast-side down, cover, and reduce heat to low, and cook for another 20 minutes.  Then add 1 more cup water, loosely cover, and simmer until chicken is very tender, about 50 minutes.  Stir in water as necessary to keep sauce from drying.

While chicken cooks, preheat oven to 350 F.  Prepare the yogurt sauce by whisking together yogurt, milk, a pinch of salt, and the mint in a small bowl.  Cover and refrigerate until ready to serve.  Trim preserved lemon peel segments into cool shapes.

After chicken is tender, remove to a plate for a few minutes, pouring juices back into pot / tagine.  Rub chicken with remaining ½ tbsp. butter, place on a baking sheet, and bake in oven for 10 minutes, until crispy.  At same time, heat pot to high, add olives, and cook sauce uncovered until thickened slightly.

Transfer chicken to serving dish and lay cut lemon peel pieces on breast.  Spoon sauce and olives around chicken.  Serve with rice in one bowl and yogurt sauce in another on the side.

Moroccan Lamb Tagine with Saffron and Candied Orange Peel

Thailand is done.  Time to start thinking about our next travels.  We were toying with Morocco, so we decided to check out a book on Moroccan food and make a few things, to see if we liked the flavors.  In the end, despite the library book being free, the resulting trip will probably cost us thousands.  If the food is similar to this, it's totally going to be worth it.  This stew falls under the "meats and sweets" category (sorry, Kevin), which is what I think of for Moroccan food in the first place.  Salty, slightly gamey meat browned thoroughly, served with some kind of preserved fruit and perfumed with the heady aromas of desert spices, like ras el hanout and saffron.  By the way, we found our ras el hanout at Williams-Sonoma, and I would recommend it, rather than making your own blend of 15-30 spices that you might not have, or that probably are none too fresh.

I think I have this dish figured out, except for the part where they say to cut a bone-in leg of lamb into 8 pieces.  What do they want me to do here?  We gave up and went with blade chops, which were already portion-sized, although they didn't look as attractive once finished.  But this was totally worth the effort, and if you already have an actual tagine, you should probably try this (although you probably have already).

A traditional Moroccan spice assortment: ras el hanout (Arabic for "head of the shop"), saffron, turmeric, cinnamon, and ginger

Lamb Tagine with Oranges, Saffron, and Candied Orange Peel

Modified slightly from Morocco, by Jeff Koehler

Serves 4

Total prep and cook time: 2.5-3 hours

• 1 tsp butter, softened
• 1 tsp ground ginger
• ½ tsp ras el hanout
• ½ tsp ground cinnamon
• ½ tsp turmeric
• ¼ tsp freshly ground white pepper
• Generous pinch saffron threads
• Salt
• 2 tbsp olive oil
• 2.25 lb / 1 kg bone-in leg of lamb, cut into ~8 pieces (we used lamb blade chops)
• 1 small cinnamon stick, broken in half
• 1 medium red onion, finely chopped
• 1 tsp honey
• 1 Valencia orange, scrubbed
• ¼ cup (50 g) sugar
• 8 cloves
• 1 tsp toasted sesame seeds for garnishing

In a tagine, dutch oven, or pressure cooker, add the butter, ginger, ras el hanout, cinnamon, turmeric, white pepper, and saffron.  Season with salt.  Moisten with the olive oil and blend well.  One by one, place the pieces of lamb in the spice mixture, and turn to coat.  Add half of the cinnamon stick and scatter the onion across the top.

Place the pot over medium heat, cover, and cook, turning the lamb from time to time, until the meat is browned and the onion is softened but not scorched, about 15 minutes.  Add 1 cup water, loosely cover, and cook over medium-low heat for 45 minutes, stirring from time to time.  If using a pressure cooker (PC), go with 30 minutes at pressure, and if using a dutch oven (DO), go to 60 minutes - the tagine is somewhere in between these in terms of cook time, and I'm basing that entirely on my guess based on how things came out, and how I know meat cooks in my pressure cooker.  During this step, deal with the oranges.

We went with 4 lamb shoulder blade chops, already cut into single serving pieces

Meanwhile, peel the orange, reserving the fruit.  Take two of the orange slices and set them aside to get your 2 tbsp juice.  With a knife, scrape away some – but not all – of the white pith from the peel.  Cut the peel into long, very thin strips about 1/8” wide.  In a small pan, bring 1 cup water to a boil.  Add strips of peel and a pinch of salt, simmer for 2 minutes, and drain.  Repeat one more time, then drain, rinse out pan, and return strips to pan with ¾ cup water.  Bring to a boil, then stir in sugar and add remaining cinnamon stick half and cloves.  Simmer until the liquid is syrupy and the strips of peel are tender but still a touch al dente, about 20 minutes.  Stir in 1 tbsp orange juice, remove from the heat, and let cool.

Try to peel the orange into one whole skin, then slice into long strips

After blanching once

Back to the lamb pot, add ½ cup water and remaining 1 tbsp orange juice and cook until the meat is tender, about 45 minutes (30 for PC, 60 for DO).  Add a bit more water if necessary to keep the sauce loose, or remove the lid to evaporate and thicken it.  Stir in the honey and cook the lamb uncovered for a final 5 minutes.

With a sharp knife, cut away any white pith from the reserved orange.  Carefully cut along the membranes separating the segments and remove them.  Lay the segments in a shallow bowl, spoon the syrup from the pan over the segments, and let soak until ready to serve.

To serve, divide lamb among four plates, and top with the sauce, orange segments, and strips of peel.  Lightly sprinkle with sesame seeds.

Pumpkin Shrimp Bisque

From The Herbfarm Cookbook, by Jerry Traunfeld

Now that it's cold out, it's time to be excited about soup again.  And in honor of Halloween, I decided to buy and eviscerate a pumpkin.  I've been sitting on this recipe for a pumpkin shrimp bisque for probably 4 years, and finally got a chance to try it out.  Does it sound like a strange combination?  Maybe, but I believed in this recipe, and was not disappointed.  The finished product is almost more like a bouillabaisse with a mild pumpkin flavor, based on how the stock was made.  And fortune smiled on me to omit most of the sage because I couldn't find it fresh, which would have overpowered this strangely delicate soup.  But at the very least, invest in some saffron threads and make sure to include them.  Without that, the soup won't have the floral, earthy flavors you'd associate with a seafood soup, and you'll just get something bland.

It's optional to roast a pumpkin over buying the canned stuff, but I highly recommend fresh pumpkin in this soup.  You end up keeping much more of the pumpkin flavor, since it's minimally processed (you only cook the pumpkin for a few minutes in the soup after it's roasted).  If you're going to roast your own pumpkin, make sure to get the right kind.  You want what's called a "pie pumpkin", not just any old pumpkin that you carved up.   The bigger ones aren't as sweet, and will have a much higher starch-to-sugar ratio, making them more bland and stringy.  They also won't roast as well, since the sugars won't caramelize as fast.

Look for pie pumpkins.  They're about 8" or less in diameter, and are full of sugar.  Don't just roast any old pumpkin you happen to have.

I break this recipe into 3 stages, the first two of which you can do in parallel - roasting the pumpkin, making the shrimp stock, and finishing the soup.  The whole thing took about 2 hours, but could have been cut down to 75 minutes now that I understand this order.

Shrimp Stock

• 2 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil
• 3/4 cup dry white wine
• 3 cups homemade or canned low-sodium chicken stock
• Pinch saffron threads (about 24)
• 2 ribs celery, coarsely chopped
• 1 medium onion (about 8 ounces), coarsely chopped
• 4 fresh bay laurel leaves, torn, or 2 dried
• 2 3-inch springs fresh sage

Soup

• 2 cups pumpkin purée, fresh (see first step) or canned
• 1/2 cup heavy cream
• About 3/4 teaspoon salt, less if using canned stock
• Scant 1/8 teaspoon cayenne pepper
• 1 tablespoon freshly squeezed lemon juice
• Freshly ground black pepper
• 1 tablespoon extra-virgin olive oil
• 2 teaspoons finely chopped fresh sage
• 1 pound large shrimp (16 to 20)  

1. Pumpkin purée: Cut a sugar pumpkin in half and scrape out the seeds.  Place it cut side down in a baking dish and pour in about 1/4 inch of hot water (I didn't remember this, just put it on a sheet pan lined with parchment paper and it still worked out fine).  Bake it in a 400°F oven until the flesh is tender, 40 to 50 minutes.  Turn the pumpkin halves cut side up to cool.  Scoop the pumpkin flesh from the skin and purée it in a food processor until smooth.  I don't have a food processor, so I broke out its historical cousin, the food mill.  The directions say to transfer the purée to a large sieve lined with a double layer of cheesecloth and let it drain for 2-3 hours until it is firm enough to hold its shape on a spoon; however, I just ran the pumpkin through the mill right into the soup.  You can substitute winter squash purée, such as butternut or acorn, for the pumpkin.

The roasted pie pumpkin (about 4 pounds total)

You can't just scoop this out and throw it in the soup - it's too stringy.  Use a processor, or...

...this awesome thing - a food mill.  Bet you don't have one!  In fact, I'm not sure why I have one either.

2. The shrimp stock.  Peel and devein the shrimp, reserving the shells.  Cover the shrimp and refrigerate.  Heat the olive oil in a medium (3-quart) heavy-bottomed saucepan over high heat.  Add the shrimp shells to the pan and cook, stirring constantly, until they turn deep orange and are just beginning to brown, 3 to 4 minutes.  This step - pan roasting the shells - gives the stock much of its flavor, so don't skip it.  The roasted shells should release a concentrated, toasty, shrimp aroma that will fill your kitchen.  Add the wine to the pan, first turning off gas flames to prevent the alcohol from igniting, then boil it over medium heat until all the liquid is evaporated.  Add the chicken stock, saffron, celery, onion, bay leaves, and sage.  Don't omit the saffron!  It makes all the difference in the world, and is probably the number one defining flavor in this soup.  Bring to a boil, then reduce the heat to the lowest setting.  Partially cover the pan and simmer gently for 30 minutes.  Strain the stock through a fine sieve, pushing down on the solids with the back of a spoon to extract all the liquid.  Rinse out the saucepan and pour the stock back into it.

The prep station.  Note the course chop on the vegetables - you don't need to dice anything, just get it small enough to give off some love in the stockpot.

The shrimp, after shelling.  It looks like they molted - does this make you want to watch District 9?

Don't just throw the tails in the pot and pour in the liquid - brown them up a bit.  Roasting and developing flavors before boiling is what distinguishes a light broth from a hearty stock.  This was shortly before I added the wine.

This is saffron.  It is your friend.  It is also the most expensive spice on the planet.  A little goes a long way - this is all you need.

3. The soup.  This is the easy part!  Whisk the pumpkin, cream, salt (omit if using canned stock), and cayenne into the shrimp stock.  Bring the soup to a simmer, then cook very gently uncovered over low heat for 10 minutes.  Stir in the lemon juice, taste, and season with black pepper and more salt if needed. (The soup can be made up to this point up to 1 day ahead store covered in the refrigerator.  Keep the peeled shrimp in a resealable bag buried in a bowl of ice in the refrigerator.)

What you end up with after adding all the soup ingredients.  It's not bright orange or anything.

Finishing the soup: Pour the olive oil into a large sauté pan placed over medium heat.  When hot, add the reserved shrimp and sage (optional) and cook, tossing often, until the shrimp is just cooked through, pink, and no longer translucent, but not curled into a circle, 2 to 3 minutes.  They should still have a tender snap when you bite into them.  Arrange the shrimp in warmed serving bowls or a tureen.  Bring the soup back to a simmer and then ladle it over the shrimp.  Serve right away.

Sauté the shrimp in olive oil, with or without the sage.  I'm not sure what they meant by not letting them curl up, but I didn't overcook them.

The finished soup, with some shrimp sticking out.