When it comes to flavoring Italian dishes, the usual suspects come to mind -- garlic, shallots, and olive oil. Yet, pancetta, an Italian unsmoked pork belly that is cured with salt and spices such as fennel, nutmeg, and pepper, may just trump them all.
This once humble cured meat, sometimes referred to as "Italian bacon," is currently di rigeur. Pancetta can be found in panini with buffalo mozzarella, in broth for mussels, in pastas, such as carbonara, in winter vegetable mashes, such as smashed potatoes, and on pizzas and flatbreads. Cooked pancetta, which lacks bacon's smokiness, infuses dishes with a sweet, spicy, and salty pork flavor.
Sliced pancetta for sandwiches is available at most major supermarkets. Many recipes, however, call for diced or chopped pancetta, which usually means a trip to an Italian deli is in order. (While you're there, you might as well pick up some sharp provolone and Sicilian olives.) Ask for the slab of pancetta to be cut about 1/4 - 1/3-inch thick. When at home, use a very sharp knife to cut it. You won't need to add oil to the skillet when you cook, as it will cook in its rendered fat, becoming irresistibly crisp and chewy.
Comfort Foods and Indulgences
Comfort Foods and Indulgences
Our Favorite Coffee Cake Recipes
April 7th is National Coffee Cake day! Not that we need a special day to eat cake to enjoy with our coffee...but why not "celebrate" with one of these recipes that are sure to make the day super delicious.
Sour Cream Chocolate Chip Coffee Cake
Coffee Cake wih Sweet Almond Topping
Pear & Cardamom Coffee Cake with Pecan Streusal
It’s like buttuh…
“So I’ve been eating butter.” I said this to some friends in Alexandria, Virginia the other weekend and they stared and laughed at me when I revealed this fact. Yes, I’ve been eating butter. I’ve sampled it plain, cold, room temp, melted, salted and unsalted, cooked and clarified. I have also scheduled an EKG, stat!
Growing up enthralled with all things pertaining to food, I have instinctively and educationally been instilled with the how’s, when’s, and why’s concerning butter. True, it IS a Southern staple, but every region and culture has a form of this delectable condiment and ingredient. The Brits, the French, the Danes and Italians all boast their own better butter and in my lovely corner of the world, I wanted to very well understand and comprehend why I like the butters I use.
I have watched Mimi, Mrs. Mary, and Mama throw in butter here and there, melt it down, dice and cube it for pie crust, garnish biscuits with pats of it, and even top off filets with a dab just before removing them from the iron skillet or grill. I have listened to Granddaddy’s stories from his childhood on milking the cows and churning said milk into butter. Butter “back in the good ol’ days” was moreover a country family’s chore or farming family’s answer to “what to do with all this fresh milk?” Cows had to be milked and nothing was wasted…butter could be consumed and stored for a bit. City and townsfolk had to buy their butter –those living in bucolical settings made it!
When Life Hands You Ripe Bananas, Make Cheesecake
Have you ever had bananas in your kitchen that were so black and shriveled, you almost threw them out? It's happened to me so many times. Day after day I I tell myself I will make a batch of banana muffins. And finally, the day arrives when I actually pick up the deflated bunch of almost unrecognizable fruit and head for the door, with intentions of taking them out to the woods for animals to enjoy. But, I just can't do it. So, this week, I squeezed the mushy fruit from its shriveled, dark skin and stirred it into a rich mix of cream cheese, sugar and eggs to make cheesecake.
I must back up a little bit at this point. Years ago, in 2005 actually, I copied a recipe for Hot Buttered Rum Cheesecakes with Rum-Caramel Sauce from that year's December issue of Bon Appetit magazine. I ordered a bunch of tiny (4 1/2-inch) springform pans, ready to make the cheesecakes and give them as gifts. It never happened that year, or any year since that time. But, I still have the recipe. I vaguely remembered the recipe instructions for reducing some dark rum to stir into the cake batter. With the experience of tasting warm, rum-spiked bananas foster still clear in my mind – I made several flaming pans full of the dessert for a recent fundraising event for the Headwaters Science Center in Bemidji – I wondered if I could match the flavors of that dessert in a cheesecake.
Julie D's Famous Lobster Pasta
This time of year in Maine the soft shell lobsters are “in” season and are very plentiful and inexpensive. You ask what is a soft shell lobster? Is it like a soft shell crab, do I eat the whole thing, shell and all? No, no, not all all similar. In order for a lobster to increase their size, ie. “grow” they have to shed their old hard shell. Two weeks before this happens they form a soft, thin shell under their hard exterior. Once the thin shell is formed under the hard shell they dehydrate, shrinking the soft membrane shell which contracts to the lobster’s meat, then the pressure builds until the old hard shell breaks open and the lobster pulls it’s new body out. First they pull out the claws then the tail and finally the body. Once this happens they fill themselves up with sea water. They balloon up with water, especially in the claws which are half water and the tail is about a quarter filled with sea water. The cooked meat of a soft shell is bright red and more tender then a hard shell lobster. The new shell looks exactly the same in coloration but it is as thin as syran wrap.
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