Cooking Techniques and Kitchen Gadgets

I consumed so many delicious things this year, it's really hard to pin down one meal or one bite. But if there was a night that stands out, and a single dish that truly made me happy, it has to be a sausage sampler that I consumed with my best friend Don in early November.  He showed up one night with some Spanish chorizo sausages, a blood sausage, a couple of wedges of runny cheese, and a small cooler with a few kick ass craft beers in it.

We pan fried the sausages with a little olive oil, then poured some of Stone's Vertical Epic 11.11.11 into the pan to finish them off. This year's offering from Stone (their 10th beer in the Vertical Epic series) is a strong Belgian ale spiced with cinnamon and anaheim chilies from Hatch, New Mexico.  It was the perfect compliment to the sausages. We drank the rest of what the sausages didn't swim in.  Then we drank another bottle.

Among the sausages we stuffed in our faces that night was my homemade catalan-style pork and garlic sausage.  If you like the simplicity of pork and garlic, you'll absolutely love this.  And who doesn't like meat in tube form?

I’m a pasta snob.  I admit it and I don’t apologize for it.  I believe that great pasta is an Italian cultural artifact that’s been given to the world.  And when I talk about pasta I’m talking about DRY PASTA, that is, Durum Wheat pasta.  Pasta made with semolina  from exceptional (now, often North American) hard winter wheat.

Over centuries Italian artisans learned how to combine hard wheat with water, humidity and moving air into an easy to store source of calories and whimsy.  High quality dry pasta is all about texture.

When properly made it is porous enough to absorb condiments or “sauce”, yet sturdy enough to withstand boiling in water and remain resistant while tender.  Good dry pasta should be as satisfying to eat as meat.  It is not easy to achieve and my favorites are all imported from Italy.  

I'm a cheater, in the kitchen anyway. While I may not be a fan of mac and cheese from a box, I positively love using gourmet specialty products. What kinds of products? Jams, mustards, chutney, tapenade, Chinese sauces, so many things! Two of my favorite secret weapons are in the freezer--phyllo dough and puff pastry.

You could easily write a book on all the things you can make out of phyllo dough and puff pastry. I suggest the title "How to Succeed in Baking Without Really Trying". Once you learn how to handle them, the possibilities are endless. They even turn something mundane into something special. For example you could make a stew into an elegant pot pie. You could turn a fruit compote into pastries. You could make fancy little appetizers to serve hot from the oven. How fancy? I suggest little napoleons or tartlets. It's really easy.

A few weeks ago I had a lot of goat cheese languishing in the fridge. I had promised my friend Alison I would develop some recipes for her fabulous chutney and it dawned on me that using puff pastry I could make a delicious pastry with nothing more than goat cheese, puff pastry and chutney. 

It’s funny how years ago when I made an easy baked Italian rigatoni dish, a jar of Ragu seemed to work just fine. Now, I can’t even remember the last time I purchased a jar of pasta sauce.

There must have been a time when I was inspired to try making a sauce from scratch. Once I discovered how easy it was to produce a fine tasting red sauce to spoon over pasta, I began experimenting until finally, Rich Red Sauce for Pasta was the recipe I wrote in a little book that holds my recipe collection.

As you read the recipe you'll probably stop when you get to the garlic. Sixteen cloves of garlic? That’s right. You'll be so surprised as you eat the sauce – you’d never guess it holds that much garlic.