Comfort food: brown noodles

Ok, so if noodles implies egg noodles, this should be called brown pasta instead.  This is like rice-a-roni without the rice.   I find it comforting in the way that carbs and fats without much protein and no vegetables can be.  It is also very easy and lots of fun to make.  It is cooked like a risotto, in that you add the liquid a bit at a time.  However, it takes a lot less time than a risotto and the browning of the noodles beforehand helps to keep the noodles more al dente and gives them a great and distinctive flavor. It is the kind of thing that I make when there is nothing else in the house, or when there is wonderful stuff in the house, but these noodles are better.

The proportions below are a dinner for one or side for two or three.  You can double it if you want.  

Brown noodles

Ingredients

• 2-4 ounces very thin macaroni pasta like capellini, spaghettini or angel hair
• 1-2 tablespoons butter or olive oil
• salt or salty seasoning (see below)
• 1-2 cups boiling liquid (see below)
• plenty of freshly ground black pepper
• grated parmesan cheese and chopped parsley (optional)

Method

1. Break up pasta in a large bowl, which will keep pieces from flying all over the kitchen.  In terms of texture, the pieces should be about 2-3 inches long, but this makes it more difficult to handle in the skillet without burning, so you can break them into much smaller pieces of about 1/2 inch to an inch if you want.
2. Melt butter on medium heat in an 8-inch nonstick skillet. Add the noodles and cook for about 5 minutes  stirring almost constantly to brown lightly.  Be careful not to burn.
3. Sprinkle with salt or seasoning.
4. Turn heat up to high and add liquid 1/2 cup at a time.  If the liquid is  boiling, it will go faster, 
5. As the noodles absorb the liquid, add another half cup.  You don't have to measure, the dish is very forgiving and the liquid will evaporate quickly.  
6. The noodles are done when the bend easily -- taste one to be sure.  It should not have a raw center.
7. Sprinkle with plenty of black pepper and if desired, cheese and parsley. 

Liquid:  This would be great with a homemade stock, whether vegetable or meat.  But it is plenty good made with water.

Salty seasoning:  You could use just a large pinch of salt and plain water, but when I make this I most often use a pareve soup powder like Osem.  I am not proud of this, but it works.  

Pasta with preserved lemons, garlic and chili

This is not a healthy dish.  I never thought that the pasta would be a concern and the quantity of butter no big deal, but this is apparently where we stand in terms of today's health wisdom.  But it is real good.  So enjoy it from time to time.

The recipe is based on a combination mentioned by Mario Batali in an interview once, and I took it for a few test drives and came up with that lies beneath.  The quantities of salty ingredients are variable.  The larger quantity makes for a more hard-hitting, assertive dish.  It is considerably milder but still quite tasty.  Serve this with an acidic wine.  I think it is better with red, so my first choice would be a Pinot Noir or  an Austrian Blaufrankisch.  It would  also go well with an dry Riesling or Sauvignon Blanc.  If the wine lacks acidity, it will come off as sweet, heavy and syrupy in combination with the preserved lemons, while the high acid wines are mellowed and compliment the dish perfectly.

This recipe serves four, and could easily be called Pasta with Forty Cloves of Garlic.  I find that it is easier to cook the garlic in a larger quanitity, but you can adjust the proportions for one or two servings.

Pasta with Preserved Lemons, Garlic and Chili

Ingredients

• 1 pound tubular pasta such as penne
• 8 tablespoons (1 stick) unsalted butter
• 40 cloves of garlic, peeled (pre-peeled garlic is fine)
• 2-4 large preserved lemons (preferably homemade, store-bought acceptable)
• 2-4 anchovies 
• 2-8 pickled chilis (these vary widely, I use Roland, which are about 2 inches long and  1/4 inch wide)
• 1/2 cup chopped fresh flat-leaf parsley
• 1 cup freshly grated parmesan or grana Padano

Ingredients

1. Bring a large (4-6 quart) pot of water to boil  (This is the first thing you should do when you get home if you are even contemplating making past, not that people do this much anymore.)  Salt the water more lightly than you might for pasta ordinarily since it will be dressed with salty ingredients, about 2 tablespoons for this quantity of water.
2. Put the garlic and seven tablespoons of butter in a small pot on medium heat.  When the butter melts, turn heat down to medium low and allow to simmer for about 20 minutes.  You want the garlic to brown very lightly, but be careful that it does not burn.
3. Pour the garlic  and butter through a coarse strainer into a medium skillet.  Transfer the garlic to a cutting board. It will crisp up a bit as it cools.  
4. Remove the pulp from the preserved lemons, and sliver the peel.
5. Put the pasta into the boiling water.  Depending on more variables than I can list here, it will probably take between 8 and 10 minutes.  
6.  Put the slivered preserved lemon into the skillet with the butter and saute on medium heat until lightly brown.  Be careful that the butter, which will contain some brown residue, does not burn.
7. Add the chopped chili to the pan and saute a minute.
8. Add the anchovy filets and mash into a paste.
9. Slice the garlic. and add to the pan with the other ingredients.  Add the parsley and cook for about 30 seconds.  You don't want to cook it but you don't want it to be quite raw either.
10. Scoop out a coffee cup of pasta water and set aside. 
11. Drain the pasta and put it into a warmed serving bowl.  Add the remaining  tablespoon of butter and half of the grated cheese.  Dump on the ingredients from the skillet and mix into the pasta.
12. Serve quickly in warmed pasta bowls with the remaining grated cheese. 

The food that made the revolution-- Koshary

This past week we witnessed one of the great triumphs of the human freedom and the human spirit. I write this as a Zionist. What have the Egyptians done but begun to take control of their own destiny, just as Zionism allowed the Jewish people to take control of their's. The January 25 revolution is comparable to the end of apartheid in South Africa, the fall of the Berlin Wall, the civil rights movement and I would argue ( most Egyptians would disagree but I hope that they will be able to change their mind in the coming years) the creation of the state of Israel.  But history is uncertain and tragic. No one knows what is going to come of recent events and all of the great turns in the past have had unforseen consequences for good and ill.  One of my favorite stories is about a conversation between Henry Kissinger and Zhou En-lai in the 1970s.  Kissinger asked Zhou what he thought were the consequences of the French Revolution.  Zhou's reply:  "It's too soon to tell."   But for the moment, and regardless what ultimately happens, we can and should share the joy of the people of Egypt.

There are many questions about the Egyptian revolution.  How will political parties coalesce?  Will the military cede power to civilians?  What role will the Moslem Brotherhood, a complex and divided movement, ultimately play?  Who will emerge as leader?  What will happen elsewhere in the Middle East?

But for me, one question surpasses all others.  What were they eating in Tahrir Square? The answer is actually quite simple:  Koshary.  There are also many photos of koshary vendors hawking their wares in Styrofoam containers in Tahrir. For an on the ground report, see this from the Serious Eats blog.

Koshary is the ultimate Cairo cheap street food. It is a layered concoction of pasta, lentils (often mixed with rice), spicy tomato sauce, and browned onions.  I have heard two derivations of the name:  either it is related to kitcheree, and Indian rice and dal porridge or pilaf,  or it denotes that the dish is kosher, in that it is vegetarian and could be eaten by relatively observant Jews.  It is not peasant food, but quintessentially urban.  It is also not really home cooking, but rather the type of thing you pick up at the corner, like pizza in New York. My daughter came back from a visit to Cairo raving about it and asked me to make it for her.  Though generally not made it home, is not at all difficult, and many of the parts can be made in advance so I hope Maya will now make it for herself. 

I have adapted my version from the recipe in Clifford Wright's monumental cookbook, A Meditteranean Feast:  The Story of the Birth of the Celebrated Cuisines of the Mediterranean from the Merchants of Venice to the Barbary Corsairs , which does for the cooking of the region what Braudel did for its history.  His recipe is also available on his website .  I have altered it somewhat by increasing the proportion of lentils and changing the spicing to make it more interesting, but still consistent with Cairene flavors.  So, if you want to share the sustenance of the people of Cairo, as well as their joy, try this recipe for:


Koshary
   Since this is a mixture, I am presenting each constituent separately.  The final proportions are approximate, and can be altered to suit your taste or how much of each you have on hand.  This will serve about 6 for dinner with a salad. You can easily double the recipe.

For the onions:

This takes the longest so you will need to start it first.   Cut a very large Spanish onion in half, and then into thin rings.  Heat 3-4 tablespoons of oil in a large skillet, add the onions and saute on medium heat, stirring occasionally, until the onions are golden and then  start to brown.  Turn up heat to high and cook, stirring for another 3 to 10 minutes, and take out when some but not all of the onions turn dark brown but not black.  Remove with a slotted spatula or spoon and drain on paper towels.  They should crisp as they cool.  It is difficult to give exact times because there are so many variables. 


For the pasta:

Boil about 1/2 pound of pasta in  well salted water until more tender than you usually would. When done, drain well, add a bit of butter, and set aside in the serving dish. Traditionally, the pasta is a mixture of elbows or ditalini and broken up spaghetti.   Use a mixture of what you have around, and long as there is come combination of tubular and long pasta.  I used penne, linguine, and farfalle.  Use only macaroni pasta, not egg pasta.

For the lentils and rice:

Rinse and then soak 1 cup French green lentils in water for about 4 hours. (This softens then so that they cook in about the same time as the rice.  If you use regular brown lentils, then you don't need to soak.  Rinse 1 cup of rice (I used jasmine) soak in water 1/2 hour and drain well. Heat 1 tablespoon of ghee or olive oil in a 3 quart pot.  Add 1/2 tablespoon of whole cumin seed and  saute a until it begins to darken.  Add 1 onion, finely diced, sprinkle lightly with salt and saute on medium-high until it softens and begins to brown.  Add 2-4 cloves sliced garlic and saute another minute.  Add the rice, saute a minute, and add the drained lentils, and mix well with the rice.  Season with a few grindings of black pepper.  Add 2 cups of boiling water (you may need a bit more depending on the shape of your pot to cover the rice and lentils). Cover tightly, and cook for 20 minutes.  (I generally don't salt this much until it is done, because salt can inhibit the softening of the lentils.) Set aside to rest for at least 10 minutes. This makes a fine dish by its own, especially topped with the onions, and is called mujedderah.

For the tomato sauce:

Heat a little olive oil in a 2-3 quart pot.  Add one small onion, finely diced.  When it is soft and golden but not browned, add about 6-10 cloves of garlic, crushed with some salt in a mortar and pestle and mixed with 2 teaspoons ground coriander and 1 teaspoon Aleppo pepper. (You can also smash the garlic on a cutting board with the flat of a cleaver or large knife and work it into a puree, and then work in the spices. If you don't have Aleppo pepper, add 1/4 to 1/2 teaspoon of cayenne at the end with the vinegar.) Cook the garlic spices and onions on low until the garlic looses its raw aroma, about 2 minutes.  Add one 6-ounce can of tomato paste and stir to saute a few minutes.  Add 2 -3 cups boiling water (or cold water and bring to the boil) mixing it in slowly to dissolve the paste into a sauce.  Add about 20 grinds of black pepper.  Cook 20 minutes and add 2 teaspoons rice or white wine vinegar.  Taste for spciness, salt and sourness.  In addition to using it on koshary, this sauce is great on broiled fish or plain steamed or sauteed vegetables, especially green beans.


Putting it all together

Traditionally, a shop would have all the components warm and just assemble it in a serving bowl or to-go container when ordered.  You can do something similar and keep them separate and warm on hot plates or over boiling water and let people assemble it themselves, but I think it is a whole lot easier if you put it together before serving.  Put the buttered warm pasta in a serving dish, top with the rice and lentils, salting to taste as you put them on.  Pour about one quarter of the tomato sauce on top.  If necessary, you can reheat it all now in a microwave or oven.  Just before serving, top with the fried onions and pass the sauce separately. 

Knife-peeled Chinese noodles

"I would like some noodles."  So read my niece (Amy's brother's daughter) Sarah's facebook page on Wednesday.  She was coming to dinner on Friday and even  provided a helpful link to last week's NY Times article  discussing the noodle resurgence in NY's Chinatown and its spread beyond to places like Hung Ry in the East Village.  So I took the bait.  Though I generally don't bake or make my own noodles or pasta, I was intrigued.  While I, and every other person who saw the video posted on the Times website probably wanted to make the hand-pulled noodles, I realized that it was post-graduate noodle making and I wasn't yet in middle school.  So I thought that it would be easy to do what are called knife peeled noodles.  This are noodles scraped off a hunk of dough into boiling water, a bit like spaetzle but more noodle-y.  I have had these in Chinatown, but the best version I have had was at the snack bar of the airport in Guilin in China.  The noodles are irregular in shape and tender and chewy at the same time.

I found that this was not as easy to execute as it sounds. I made the dough and got a fine coating of flour all over the kitchen kneading, slapping and generally abusing it into resilience.  This was kind of fun since it made it easy to slide around on the floor and I don't thing that Amy has noticed.  I sharpened a variety of  knives well to help me scrape off the dough.  They didn't do much good, and I found that the noodle strip invariably stuck to the dough and didn't fly into the boiling water as it was supposed to.  However, the picture above from the Times shows the cook using some specific implement, which definitely looks like it is worth a run down to Chinatown.  But, I look at this as the beginning of a long journey.   Expect more posts on this in the future.

I served the noodles with squash and ginger broth with roasted vegetables, adapted from Hung Ry and also published in the Times. Sarah was very happy. They would also be quite wonderful with the Uighur lamb stew which I blogged about a few months ago.  I made some significant changes in the recipe:  I roasted the squash that was used to make the broth rather than just simmering it with ginger.  For vegetables, I used oven-roasted cauliflower and Brussels sprouts, pan-roasted butternut and kabocha squash, and pan-seared cremini mushrooms.  When you roast the vegetables for this recipe, however, do not use salt and use a vegetable or peanut oil or spray instead of olive oil. It may have just been the particular squashes (each squash, like each cheese is an individual), but we all found that the butternut added much more flavor than the kabocha.  (I could do the whole recipe here with my modifications, but this post is getting long enough already.)

I cobbled the noodle dough together from a variety of places on the web and some cookbooks.  This recipe serves 4-8 people, depending on their appetites. I may try it next time with bread or semolina flour, and keep you all posted.  This is the beginning of a long journey:


Knife-peeled noodles, cut 1

Ingredients

• 4 cups flour  (I used all purpose, next time I will try bread or semolina flour, though that latter would be very inauthentic.)
• 2 tablespoons cornstarch
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 12 oz water
• up to 2 cups additional flour for kneading

Method

1. Put the 4 cups of flour in a large mixing bowl and mix in the cornstarch and the salt.  Slowly mix in the water until it starts to adhere into a sticky dough. 
2. Turn the dough out on to a floured surface.(I used a cutting board but could just as well have used the counter since flour got everywhere anyway.)
3. Dust your hands with flour and knead for 15-20 minutes.   This should be good exercise.  Don't be afraid to be rough with the dough.  You won't hurt it.  In addition to folding it over and pressing it with your heel, ever few minute slap the dough down hard on the board.  I don't know if this actually does any good, but it feels great and seems to relax the gluten  in the dough. You will knead to dust your hands, the dough and the work surface with flour several times.  I found I used well over a cup of additional flour during kneading.
4. When is the dough done?  Is Batman a transvestite?  The answer to both questions is "Who knows?"  But, when it feels both elastic and supple, you can stop kneading.  (Who knows still seems more accurate.)
5. Flour the dough, and wrap in in wax paper and let it rest for 15 minutes to a few hours. 
6. Bring at least 4 cups of water to the boil and add salt.
7. Divide the dough into 2 or 3 blobs, put on a board or hold in your hand, and shave off pieces of dough into the boiling water.  Think scraping gyros or shawarma but horizontally.  If this doesn't work, you can sort of cut thinish pieces of dough on the board and scrape them into the pot, but only do a few pieces at a time since they tend to stick together before they are in the boiling water.
8. Once you have shaved in all the dough, cook for 3-5 minutes.  Check the noodles.  They should range from tender to chewy but not be raw and floury.
9. Either scoop out the noodles with a strainer or drain in a colander.  If you are not serving immediately in soup, you can oil them lightly, leave them at room temperature and reheat them briefly in either boiling water or the soup.

First, boil water: whole wheat pasta with tomatoes, green olives and ricotta salata

There was a time when I would say that first thing you should do when you walk in the door in the evening is boil water. Boiling water is one of the most time-consuming things you do when you cook, and if you don't have sufficient foresight, you find yourself wasting a significant amount of your life waiting for water to come to the boil  If you decide not to use it, you can always turn it off.

But times change.  We used to eat pasta several nights a week, and there was always a chance that we would need a pot of boiling water.  But, since the low-carb trend has hit, pasta has become a rare treat.  (It is still nice to have the water, but I generally just make a tea kettle rather than a whole pot.)  When Amy goes out, she eats treyf and I make myself pasta at home.

This recipe is based on a dish served at Pisticci, our local Italian restaurant. It is a lovely place with very good food. I can't believe how lucky we are to have it less than a five-minute walk from our apartment.  Generally, I would just as soon eat their version than mine. Even if my version is not quite as good, it still is not bad.  It is also cheaper, you don't have to wait (they can get very crowded, especially on weekends)  and I wasn't in the mood to go alone and sit at the bar.  They probably use their own roasted tomatoes, while I use canned Muir Glen. Although you can use good white macaroni pasta, they serve it with whole wheat penne and I used Bionaturae's chiccioline.  Bionaturae was recently recommended by the New York Times as one of the better whole wheat pastas on the market. The important thing is to use a tubular or concave pasta that can trap the sauce and olives. Spaghetti-type pastas would be a bad idea.

My recipe serves two generously, and since Amy usually won't eat so many carbs, I will have the leftovers for lunch tomorrow.  You can double or halve it.  It could not be easier and faster to make, and takes less than a half hour from when you walk in the door until you sit down to dinner, provided that you boil the water first thing:

Whole wheat pasta with tomatoes, green olives and ricotta salata

Ingredients

• water
• salt
• 3-4 ounces ricotta salata 
• 1/2 pound whole wheat pasta 
• 2 tablespoons olive oil
• 5 or more cloves garlic, peeled and slice thin (think the prison kitchen scene in Goodfellas)
• pinch or more of hot red pepper flakes (optional)
• 14 ounce can Muir Glen diced fire-roasted tomatoes
• 1/4 pound pitted green olives (I used Gaeta, which the market had already pitted, and they worked well)

Method

1. As soon as you walk in the door, bring 2-3 quarts water to boil in a pot for the pasta. 
2. Line a small pan with foil, oil lightly, and roast the ricotta in a 400 degree oven or toaster oven for about 15 minutes until lightly browned.  This step is optional, but it gives the cheese a nice toasty caramelized flavor.  Grate coarsely and set aside.
3. Heat the olive oil in a skillet.
4. Add sliced garlic and cook until aromatic, about 2 minutes, on medium high, but do not brown.  Add hot pepper flakes if using and stir.
5. Add the tomatoes and cook on high for about 10 or 15 minutes, until the oil separates and it thickens into a sauce.
6. When the water is boiling vigorously,  salt generously, and add the pasta. Cook until very al dente, generally a few minutes less than they say on the package.
7. Add the olives to the sauce and heat through.  Taste sauce for salt (it may need a bit) and add if necessary. 
8. Drain the pasta, and toss with the sauce and cheese and serve at once.  This is nice with some freshly grated Pecorino Romano.

Variation:  Use feta instead of the ricotta salata, but don't toast it first.  It will give you a creamier and tangier dish. 

Chicken with pasta, inspired by Greece and Syria

On of the under-reported joys of parenthood is being able to eat your kids' leftovers.  It may be as simple as picking at the food that adheres to their clothing when they are done eating (only try this with very young children) or nabbing half a hot dog (if people still feed their children hot dogs) that is left on their plate.  My favorite juvenile leftover, however, is pasta.  When they were young, my kids were VERY picky eaters-- no longer, fortunately.  More than one friend has commented that this at least partially proved the existence of a just God with a sense of humor.  They ate a lot of pasta, seasoned at times with nothing more than air.  Salt and butter came later, and tomato sauce much later. Cheese is a relatively recent addition to the pasta plate, that Maya started eating in her teen years and Harry not at all with the occasional exception of mozzarella..  We call Maya the Cheeze Wizard and a substantial amount of our family's food budget when she is home goes to buying good cheese, especially parmesan.  We can go through two pounds of Parmiggiano-Reggiano a week.  We have tried to slip in some Grana Padano, but it apparently won't do.  But I digress.  To me, the best thing about my kids' pasta habit was that we would get to zap the leftover in the microwave for a few minutes, covered loosely with paper towel.  Throw in some Parmesan, mozzarella or other cheese if you kids' pasta was cheese-less. What comes out was a combination of somewhat overcooked pasta in the center, surrounded by amazing crusty pasta.  If you are the kind of person who likes picking the hard bits from the edges of a pasta casserole, and who doesn't, try this some day.  If you are this kind of person, this recipe is also for you.

Both Syrian Jews and Greeks make chicken with macaroni pasta.  I have been toying with this recipe for years, combining seasonings and methods.  There was a time when I would rub the chicken with spices, leave overnight, roast it, cook the tomato sauce in the pan juices, add the semi cooked pasta, and then toss it altogether and cook some more.  I decided that life is to short and have come up with a version that I like and that I find pretty easy to prepare.  It uses the Filipino method of stewing the chicken without browning and then broiling it after to crisp the skin.  This dish will be done minimal harm if is sits for a while in a warm oven before serving it, which makes it great for company or a Friday night dinner.

Chicken with pasta

Ingredients

• 2 tablespoons olive oil, and a bit more for oiling the baking dish
• 2 cloves
• 2 bay leaves
• 1 stick cinnamon
• 1 medium-large onion, chopped
• salt and pepper
• 5 or more cloves garlic, sliced or chopped
• 28 ounce can diced tomatoes, with their juice (I like Muir Glen fire roasted)
• 1 teaspoons ground allspice
• 1-2 teaspoons Alleppo pepper
• 4 pounds chicken parts (I used a chicken  cut into eights plus a few thighs, a little more or less won't hurt)
• 1 pound tubular pasta

Method

• Bring several quarts of water to the boil in a large pot to cook the pasta.  Salt it well.  Meanwhile, do the rest of the recipe.
• Heat olive oil on medium in a large 5 -6 quart pot.
• Add cloves, bay leaves and cinnamon stick, Stir around for a few seconds and add the onion, a little salt, and cook until soft but not brown.
• Add the garlic and cook for a minute or two.
• Add the tomatoes and their juice, the allspice, and the Alleppo pepper.  Cook on high for about 5 minutes.
• Add the chicken, some salt and pepper, bring the boil, turn heat down to medium-low, cover and simmer for about 40 minutes until chicken is barely done, or slightly underdone.  Remove chicken to an oven dish.
• Meanwhile, cook the pasta in boiling water for no more than 2-3 minutes.  Drain, run under cold water to stop the cooking, and drain well.
• Broil the chicken, skin-side up, until the skin is crisp but not too brown, because it will cook more later. 
• Set oven temperature to 425.
• While the chicken is broiling, add pasta to the sauce in the pot, and cook on high heat for about 5 minutes.  The past should still be very al dente.  
• Spray or lightly oil a large, fairly shallow bake and serve dish. A shallower dish will give you crustier pasta.  Pour in the pasta and bake in the oven about 20 minutes.
• Put the chicken on top, skin side up, and bake another 10-20 minutes until cooked through.  If you want, brown the chicken a bit more at the end to crisp and get the pasta crusty.

Cooking the pasta:  If I really had the courage of my convictions, I would skip the preliminary boiling of the pasta and just cook it in the tomato sauce before baking it.  There should be enough liquid since the chicken, onions and tomatoes give off a lot of juice.  This would make it easier to keep the pasta al dente.  However, there is nothing wrong with a casserole where the pasta is slightly soft in the center and crusty around the edges.  If you do try this without pre-boiling the pasta before I do, post a comment to let everyone know how it turns out.

Leftovers:  One one level, this is what the dish is all about. To make it easier to reheat, remove the chicken meat from the skin and bones and shred coarsely, ideally with your hands.  Oil or spray a baking dish, and add half the remaining pasta.  What sauce there is will have mostly been absorbed and the rest will be solid from the amount of gelatin. Top with the chicken, and top with the remaining pasta and spray with some oil spray.  I find that I don't care for chicken reheated in the microwave, so I would bake it about 45 minutes in a 400 degree oven, until the top is crusty.  You could also zap it if you want, but be sure not to cover it with plastic wrap or a regular cover or the pasta will get soggy.  Use paper towel or wax paper. 

Boiling water:  This should probably be the first thing that you do when you start to prepare any meal whether or not you will actually need it later..  Boiling water takes time, and you don't want to have to wait for it.

Rental house cooking: pasta salad with spinach and feta, and chicken schawarma (not at the same meal)

This is our sunset view for the week, provided that the weather holds out. We rent a house on the Craigville River in Centerville on Cape Cod, about a block from the beach and only a little bit longer from Four Seas Ice Cream. Unlike other New Yorkers, we tend not to rent in Wellfleet, where a walk on the beach is like a ride down Broadway on the #1 train. You can't avoid other Upper West Siders. We usually rent in the Hyannis area, where you rarely run into anyone from NY on the beach, and where you have the joy of hearing the skin of pale Red Socks fans sizzling in the sun.

We have been renting this house for three years, and it has lots going for it, especially view, location, and the people we rent with. (This means lots of surplus labor for kitchen tasks and clean up, amongst other things.) But there are some disadvantages, especially terrible mattresses and a poorly equipped kitchen. I usually bring a skillet or two and some knives, and lots of spices. Still, we manage to put together some good meals. So far I have made the salad nicoise tunisienne, (salad nicoise with preserved lemons and harissa) which I blogged about a few months ago; a pasta salad with spinach and feta; and chicken schawarma style.

I am currently working two part times and I've been working very hard and haven't had time to post yet this month. I swore that I wouldn't bring a computer on vacation, but I had some work I had to to, and will try to retrain myself. However, it is also giving me the chance to blog, so here are are recipes for the pasta salad and the chicken:

Pasta salad with spinach and feta

Ingredients

• 1 pound farfalle pasta
• olive oil
• 8-12 cloves of garlic (sliced very thin: if you have seen the prison scene in Goodfellas you know what I mean -- this is another advantage of the surplus labor in a house share. Carl, our friend's soon to be 23 year old, did this without complaint.)
• 1 to 1.5 pounds spinach (prewashed is acceptable here)
• salt and pepper
• 1/2 pound feta cheese, cut into 1/2 to 1/4 inch cubes (substitute ricotta salata if you want)
• 1 pound cherry or grape tomatoes, halved or quartered
• large handful of fresh basil leaves, washed well and cut into shreds
• 1/4 to 1/2 cup pine nuts, lightly toasted (I spent a fortune on these and forgot to put them in, but the salad would have been better with them)
• 1/4 pound parmesan cheese, scraped into curls with a vegetable peeler

Method

1. Cook pasta in plenty of salted boiling water until very al dente, drain, and toss with some olive oil in a large serving bowl.
2. Heat 1-3 tablespoons olive oil in a large skillet, preferably nonstick, on medium heat, and add the garlic.
3. Cook gently for a few minutes until soft but not brown.
4. Add the spinach salt lightly, and stir fry until wilted but not overcooked. Add to the pasta in the bowl.
5. Mix in feta, tomatoes and basil.
6. Add salt and pepper to taste, and move olive oil to lubricate it well. (No vinegar is needed-- the tomatoes and cheese supply enough sharpness here.)
7. Top with parmesan and pine nuts, and serve at room temperature (though it is fine cold as well).

Chicken Schawarma

This isn't really schawarma, either Israeli or Lebanese style, but it is good. This isn't really a recipe either. Puree an onion, some fresh garlic, lemon juice and olive oil in a processor or blender. Add lots of Pereg Spice Mixture for Schawarma (I told you rental houses involve compromise, but this mix is good enough that we use it at home too), and some salt and pepper, and mix well. Marinate chicken thighs 8 hours over night, and remove from the fridge at least one hour before cooking. Grill (or broil if you are home in an apartment) until browned and tender. Depending on the efficiency of your grill, the temperature of your chicken, the outside temperature, the quantity of chicken, your mood, and the alignment of Venus and Mars, this will take between 30 minutes and an hour. Serve with schug (Yemenite hot sauce) or harissa, tahini (see below), hummus, chopped salad, and grilled vegetables (we has squash, onions, eggplant and mushrooms, but the eggplant and onions were most popular). This is especially good in laffa bread, which you can do at home now that PappaLaffa is available in some stores like Fairway.

To make tahini sauce: Smash a clove of garlic on a cutting board with a broad knife or cleaver. Remove peel, salt, and work with the side of the knife until it is pureed. Scrape into a bowl, and add a few tablespoons of tahini. Add the juice of 1/2 lemon. Stir. Dribble in a little water, and stir. You will notice that it will get very stiff and grainy, and then start to relax. Add the water slowly. When it becomes the texture of a yoghurt or sour cream, you can dribble in olive oil instead of water. Otherwise, add more water. Salt to taste.

Stringy pasta (this is a good thing)

I haven't been posting for a while, and have been realizing that I either tend to cook other people's recipes, or my own favorites over and over. So I thought that I would post something quick and easy. The job market seems to be easing up, so I hope that I have considerably less time for this blog in the near future, and I want to take advantage of the time while I had it.

Now that Amy is on a low-carb diet (she looks great), it seems that whenever she is out, we have pasta for dinner. We occasionally serve it as a main or side when she is home, but try not too, since the temptation seems unfair. One of my favorite, super-easy, vegetarian and completely artery-clogging pasta dishes is something I call stringy pasta. If you love how mozzarella gets stringy when it melts, you will love this dish.

Basically, you make a garlicy, spicy tomato sauce, melt in as much fresh mozzarella as you can, and then serve it over pasta. I forget where the recipe originally came from, but it is almost easy enough not to require one. Given that it is local asparagus season for the next few weeks, I would preferred to have made an asparagus and anchovy riff on carbonara last night (maybe I will try and post this next week), but living with a vegetarian and an anchovyophobe, not to mention an anti-carbotarian, I have been making lots of stringy pasta. Believe me, it is no sacrifice. Here is the recipe:

Ingredients

• 3 tablespoons olive oil
• 10 cloves garlic, chopped, more if you want; there is really no upper limit here
  
• 1/2 teaspoon dried hot red pepper flakes (more or less depending on the level of heat that you want; I use them straight from the jar, but you can crumble a dried red pepper if you are fussy)
• 8-10 grinds of the pepper mill
• 1 28 oz. can chopped tomatoes (by now readers of this blog should know that I like del Valle chopped cherry tomatoes)
• salt
• 10 ounces to 1 pound fresh, salted mozzarella, grated coarse (it grates easier after a brief turn in the freezer)
• 1 pound twisty pasta -- I like rotini , fusilli, gemelli or cavatappi; anything to trap the sauce

Method

1. Bring to boil 4-6 quarts of water in a large pot. Salt generously.
2. Heat olive oil in a large nonstick skillet or pot.
3. Add garlic and cook until soft but not brown.
4. Add red pepper flakes and black pepper and stir.
5. Add tomatoes, and cook on high for about 10 minutes until the oil begins to separate and the sauce is done. Taste for salt and keep warm on low heat.
6. Add the pasta to the boiling water and cook until very al dente (see below).
7. When the pasta is almost done, begin adding the mozzarella to the sauce, turning up the heat if necessary. Add as much as the sauce will take and your conscience will allow. 12 ounces of a bit more should be about right. It will become something of a stringy mess.
8. Drain the pasta and immediately add to the sauce, tossing and coating it well in the hot sauce for a few minutes so that the sauce and stringy cheese gets into the nooks and crannies.
9. Serve (ideally on warmed plates) with more red and black pepper, red pepper oil, and parmesean cheese for those who want it. It goes nice with a lightly chilled simple cheapish red -- we had a Malbec, though a Montepulciano d'Abruzzo would be great as well.
   

The skillet: use a nonstick skillet or pot for the tomato and cheese sauce, if you ever want to have any hope of getting it clean. A generous hand with the oil helps also.

Warmed plates??: It was in the 90s yesterday, so we had the air conditioner and the ceiling fan on in the dining room. The fan cooled the pasta too quickly, and it is much better piping hot. Warmed plates would have helped. Maybe it is a winter dish best served in an overheated NYC apartment, but I was in the mood.

Al dente: We were in Southern Italy in 2001, and al dente (litterally, on the tooth) takes on a whole new meaning there. In the first place, they generally serve dried macaroni pasta, rather than egg pasta. And it is cooked much firmer than we have ever had it in the US, especially long pasta like spaghetti, but also the shorter shapes. They are cooked so that they almost snap in your mouth when you chew on them. When you are going to cook the pasta a bit with the sauce, it is really important not to overcook it in the water. Timing is so variable that you have to test it, and there should be some visibly raw in the center.

Garlic: I say that there is no upper limit for the quantity of garlic, but if it reaches the point that the odor starts coming out of your pores and your coworkers ask you the next day if you ate raw garlic for breakfast, you should probably cut it back.

Roasted cauliflower with pasta, roasted cauliflower salad

As long as you are roasting cauliflower, and may have some more on hand, two more recipes. The roasting adds a real depth of flavor that steamed or boiled lacks. My wife hates boiled cauliflower, but practically mainlines it when it is roasted.

Roasted Cauliflower with pasta

1. Roast Cauliflower according to the directions of the last blog posting.
2. Bring large pot of salted water to boil.
3. Heat a few tablespoons olive oil on low heat(I hope I don't have to do a Rachel Ray and specify EVOO......), and add 5-10 cloves of chop garlic, depending on your taste.
4. Saute gently for a few minutes, until they are soft but not even beginning to brown.
5. Add between 2 and 10 anchovy fillets. This is a matter of great argument in our house. Amy wants none, I want 10, so we compromise on two. Add some ground black pepper and a pinch or two of pepper flakes if you like. Saute, stirring, until the anchovies dissolve into the garlic.
6. Add a handful of chopped flat-leaf Italian parsley and stir a bit.
7. Add the cauliflower and saute stirring occasionally, until it is hot. Mash it a bit from time to time as you stir -- this dish is better with smaller pebbles than large florets.
8. As soon as the water boils, add one pound of pasta. Good choices hear are penne, rigatoni, or orrechiette. (Dal Racolto has a wonderful new rusitc orrechiette which would be great.
9. When the pasta is done -- there should be some tooth to it (when we were in Southern Italy there was often some snap to the macaroni pasta!), spoon off a cup of water and drain.
10. Add the pasta to the cauliflower, and mix well to incorporate. Add a little pasta water if it seems dry.
11. Before serving, you have your choice of toppings: nothing, breadcrumbs (unflavored!!!!!!) browned in a little olive oil, or grated pecorino cheese , alone or mixed with a bit of parmiggiano. Though probably not authentic, we often like bread crumbs and cheese together.
12. If there is any leftover, it is great straight from the fridge.

Roasted Cauliflower salad

1. Combine the cauliflower with chopped flat leave parsley, rinsed capers, rinsed and seeded black olives (pre-seeded kalamatas if you are lazy, gaetas or picholines if you are not), and a little chopped red onion or shallot.
2. Dress with olive oil, sherry vinegar, and salt and pepper to taste.
3. If you want a slightly Mexican (Veracruzano) flavor, add about 1/2 teaspoon of Ceylon (true) cinnamon and 1/2 to a full teaspoon of rubbed oregano, ideally Mexican. This sounds odd but it works. True cinnamon is very different from the regular cinnamon that we usually get, which is really cassia and better in desserts, Indian and Moroccan food.