Cicada's Knees bulk cocktail

This is a variation of the classic Bee's Knees cocktail that we made in bulk for a party as Brood X Cicadas started emerging. It was very well received, and we've made it a number of times this Cicada season. We use both lemon and lime, and steep the hulls in the Gin which adds a huge aroma to the drink. Start the day before to give it time to extract. It's proportioned to fit in a standard 750 ml (26 ounce) wine bottle for portability. 

16 oz Gin

 4 oz Lemon/Lime Juice, freshly squeezed (about 4), keep the skins

 4 oz Honey

 2 oz Water

Squeeze the Lemons and Limes to get 4 ounces of Juice.

Gently heat to dissolve the Honey in Water. 

Strain Juice into Honey Syrup and hold in fridge overnight in a 750 ml bottle.

In a mixing bowl, pour the Gin over the Lemon/Lime shells, and muddle to release oils from the skins;

cover to reduce evaporation and let sit overnight.

Remove each citrus husk and squeeze the retained Gin into the bowl.

Strain the Gin into the 750 ml bottle on top of the Honey/Citrus Syrup.

Shake to combine, chill.

Serve over ice.

Goose Egg Cheese Soufflé

A friend has goose eggs in the spring, and a single one makes enough soufflé for two people. Plagiarized from Serious Eats which uses 4 hen yolks and 5 whites; the goose eggs have a much higher proportion of yolk to white than hen eggs, but this still cooked up tall and proud, and was very tasty. Our goose egg was 160g, about 3x the weight of a hen's egg, and this filled two individual ramekins plus a little one, so we use 2+1. 

In the photos for this prep, I chopped grape tomatoes and cooked them in the bechamel butter to intensify their flavor before adding the Flour; their sweetness worked well with the Manchego cheese.

Soufflés just out of the oven

               Hard cheese (Parmigiano, Grana Padano), finely grated

 15 g   1 Tbs  Butter, softened to grease the ramekins

 45 g   3 Tbs  Unsalted Butter

 30 g   1 oz   Flour

235 ml  1 C    Whole Milk

               Kosher Salt

               Pepper

  1 pinch      Dry spicy chili like Arbol or Cayenne flakes

  1 whole      Goose Egg (160 g), cold

  2    1/2 t   Cream of tartar (optional; see note) 

 85 g    3 oz  Semi-firm cheese like Cheddar, Gruyère, Manchego

Grease the 3 ramekins with soft butter, then dust with finely grated hard cheese.

Hold chilled in fridge.

Melt butter then add Flour and cook to a paste, then drizzle in milk to make a bechamel.

Stir and cook until it bubbles then cook a few minutes more to thicken.

Scoop into large mixing bowl to cool a while.

Separate Goose Egg into white and yolk.

Whip the Whites with the Cream of Tartar  in a very clean bowl with clean beaters until you have firm glossy peaks, takes a few minutes (I use a cheap 1970s electric hand beater).

Add the Yolk to the cooled Bechamel and combine with the beaters -- it's OK if white gets in yolk, but not the other way around.

Goose egg on tomato bechamel, that's actually a large spoon

Add 1/4 of the whites and stir well to loosen the mixture.

Add in the grated semi-firm cheese and stir to combine.

Add the remaining whipped Whites and gently fold to combine minimally.

Manchego, whipped whites, tomato bechamel with yolk, parmesan-dusted ramekins

Pour into chilled cheesy ramekins.

I did need the extra small ramekin (front)

Bake 30 minutes at 400F until browned on top.

Serve immediately, they fall quickly.

2021-05-26 Spinach

We replaced the cheese with 200 g cooked and well-drained, finely-chopped Spinach; it worked well.

2021-09-12 Free range chicken eggs

A friend is growing chickens in her backyard, beautiful birds producing delicious eggs. We used 2 eggs, each 60 g, and cut the rest of the ingredients by 2/3.  We baked them in two large ramekins instead of two plus a third small. This worked really well.

Koji Bread #1

Our friend gave us some Koji and it's been languishing in the fridge for years. I finally made Shio Koji with it, then made bread from that -- it wouldn't be a costly if it didn't turn out. But it turned out beautifully, dark color, nice crust, a flavor with a slight sourdough-like edge.

Bread cooling on rack

Koji is rice inoculated with the Aspergillus oryzae (koji kin). It has a transformative power which is used to make Soy, Miso, and is now being used by chefs in some crazy non-traditional preparations.  I made Shio Koji with ours by adding an equal weight of water, and 5% of total weight in Salt; I whizzed it, and let it ride unrefrigerated for 10 days. After a while it developed an acetone smell that dissipated a bit with a daily stir. Disgusting? Dangerous? Lethal? How bad could it be? I tried a taste and the cream-like liquid had a flavor like creamy blue cheese without the blue. I figured if I made bread with it and it turned out badly, it wouldn't be too expensive a mistake. So I made it with my usual long-rise technique, and covered hot bake. 

1000 g All Purpose Flour
 400 g Koji
 450 g Water
  20 g Salt

Combine the ingredients in a stand mixer, then knead 10 minutes.

I started with 350 g Water and kept adding it until the texture seemed right.

Put in a covered 3L Cambro container and let rise in the fridge 3 days; it rose from 1L to 2L.

Take out, let warm up several hours, and rise to 3L.

Shape into a ball and let rise in a parchment lined bowl, covered with cling film.

Shaped and final rise

Preheat oven with a large cast iron pot and cover to 550F convection.

When hot, lift the bread on its parchment and lower into the screaming hot pot.

Cover, cook 20 minutes.

Drop temperature to 450F, cook 15 minutes.

Drop temperature to 350F, uncover, bake 30 more minutes.

Carefully remove from pot by grabbing the parchment, let cool on a rack before cutting.

 =

Stuffed Squid in its own Ink

This is dramatically black, surprisingly rich, and not that difficult to make. Serve it over cooked white rice for good contrast.

Squid with ink sauce served over rice

The recipe is adapted from "¡Delicioso! The Regional Cooking of Spain" by Penelope Casas, "Cipirones Rellenos en su Tinta". I've streamlined it to avoid removing the squid from the sauce and overlap cooking and prep times. The squid we get, by Town Dock, frozen and available at BJs Wholesale, does not need the 2+ hours cooking time hers do; this should take about an hour total.  Makes two servings.

Stuffing

1 pound Squid, about 2-4 inches long, cleaned, defrosted; separate tentacles and tubes

1 Tbs Olive Oil

1 medium Onion, chopped very fine

2 cloves Garlic, minced

1.5 Tbs Parsley, minced

Salt

Pepper

I used a 3 Quart Pot, about 6-inches tall, but narrow enough that the sauce mostly cover the Stuffed Squid when it cooked later.

Finely chop the Squid tentacles and fins, saute in Olive Oil with Onion, Garlic, Parsley, Salt, and Pepper. 

Cook about 10 minutes.

Move it to a bowl and reuse the pot for the Sauce.

Sauce

1 tsp Squid Ink

1/8 C Dry Red Wine

1/8 C Fish stock, clam juice, liquid from defrosting the Squid, or Water

1 Tbs Olive Oil

1 medium Onion, chopped fine

2 clove Garlic, minced

4 ounces Bell Pepper, cored, seeded, finely chopped (we used an orange one)

4 ounces Tomato

Pepper, black

In a bowl, combine Ink, Wine, Fish Stock and set aside to dissolve a bit; the Ink is quite thick and wants to stick to itself and everything else.

Heat the Oil and saute Onions, Garlic, Peppers, Tomatoes, Parsley, Black Pepper for 5 minutes. Cover and cook slow for 15 minutes to break down the vegetables. 

Stir in the Ink/Wine mixture and any liquid from the defrosted Squid.

While the sauce cooks, stuff the squid.

Stuff the Squid

Load a wide-tipped pastry bag with the cooked stuffing; you can use a spoon but it's fidgety.

Stuff each of the Squid tubes, but don't over fill. 

Close each with toothpicks.

Combine, Cook

Whiz the Sauce with an immersion blender and pass through a fine sieve to strain out tomato skins, seeds, and leave a smooth sauce. Return to pan.

Add Stuffed Squid to the Sauce and cook until the squid is tender enough, ours took about 20 minutes.

If the sauce is thin, leave it uncovered or slightly covered; if thick, put a lid on it.

It should be like a thick gravy, not a loose liquid.

Taste the sauce and add Salt if needed, but be careful since the Ink is pretty salty.

While this is cooking, cook some Rice.

Serve

Add cooked Rice to warmed plates.

Remove the Squids one at a time, and remove the toothpicks; arrange squids on the rice.

Cover with the cooked Sauce.

Garnish with some minced Parsley for contrast.

Baccalà alla Vicentina

Irene found the site of a "brotherhood" dedicated to one dish, based on dried cod. I love bacalao/baccalà so this was like catnip to me. Dried (or salted) cod is re-hydrated, dusted with flour and parmesan, cooked in milk with oil, onions, and anchovies for quite a long time. It looks rich, and is served with polenta.

There's a recipe ("an edible mummy?") and helpful video; this alternate edit of the video provides more detail. The chef is using whole sides of dried fish, dusting the insides which he first bashes to tenderize on a log.  We can easily find smaller portions of "salt cod" rather than the air dried "stockfish", and both are frequently used in this dish. We'll use a more simple technique of layering, taken from another recipe, since our fish portions and dinner size is smaller. 

For two:

150 g      Onion (1 medium), chopped medium

120 ml     Olive Oil, enough to cover Onions generously

  4 clove  Garlic, sliced

 22 g      Sardines/Anchovies, chopped fine, desalinated if dried

350 g      Baccalà, desalinated boneless filets (skinless)

dusting    Flour

 20 g      Parmesan Cheese, fine grate

sprig      Parsley, fine chop

           Salt

           Pepper

450 ml     Whole Milk, hot (probably a bit much)

glug       Olive Oil

Cook the Onions, Garlic, Sardines/Anchovies until the onions are softened but not browned.

While that's cooking, you can preheat the oven (120C/250F) and prep the fish.

Dust the Bacalà with the Parmesan, Flour, Parsley, Salt, and Pepper.

Layer into the baking dish that has the cooked Onions.

Cover with Milk, and add a glug of Olive Oil on top.

Cover and cook very low, 120C/250F for 3 hours, without stirring;

the fish will probably break apart but we don't want a mush.

Serve with polenta, we like ours firm-set then grilled to brown a bit.

Cacio e Pepe with a stick blender

I like Cacio e Pepe because of it's minimalism: pecorino cheese and black pepper. But it can be difficult to make, requiring careful temperature control to prevent it from seizing; this delightful scientific paper suggests demostrates that the ratio of starch to cheese is also critical. This technique uses a stick blender to begin the emulsion, which I believe stabilizes the cheese and makes it easier to turn into a simple sauce. It's quick and easy to make; check the YouTube video to see the paste-like texture you're aiming form.

Cacio e Pepe served with cooked radicchio 

The following proportions were generous for two as a main course, served with a tasty salad. The pepper is quite assertive, but it's supposed to be. 

225 g     8 oz    Spaghetti, uncooked

100 g   3.5 oz    Pecorino Romano cheese, grated very fine

  5 g     1 Tbs?  Black Pepper, coarse grind

 90 ml  3/8 C     Cold Water (approx, adjust as you go)

Cook the Spaghetti in just enough boiling salted water to cover it (we want to use the starch which will be in the water to help emulsify the sauce).

In the 10 minutes or so it takes to cook, prepare the sauce.

Blend the Cheese and Pepper in a tall vessel with a stick blender, adding about half the water, then gradually more until you get a paste-like consistency; avoid letting it get to the thinness of a batter.

Transfer the cooked Spaghetti to a warm bowl, it's fine if there's water clinging to the pasta.

Add the sauce paste and stir well, it's probably too thick to become a sauce.

Add a little hot starchy cooking water to the bowl and stir vigorously to coat the pasta; add more water if it seems too thick. 

Serve with a bit more grated Pecorino as a garnish.

Next time...

I like to minimize prep bowls: if I blended in a bowl, I could reuse it to combine the sauce and spaghetti; this might require a larger batch to have enough substance for the stick blender.

Make a double (or larger) batch of the paste and freeze portions in tubs or ice cube trays; thaw, then add to cooked pasta with hot water to serve.

The blended pepper made the sauce a little gray: try blending the cheese with the cold water, then stirring in the ground pepper into the paste.

Passion Fruit Crémeux

The flavor of Passion Fruit (Maracuya) is intense, and this makes for a zingy dessert. 

The pulp is easy to find in the frozen section of Latin markets. The first we tried was too firm to eat in this presentation. The second (originally mango) is more intense but still a bit firm so we’re cutting back on the Gelatin from 14g to 7g. This makes enough for 4 desserts, topped with the mascarpone.

7 g 1 envelope Knox Gelatin
270 g 9-10 fl oz Passion Fruit Pulp
100 g 2 whole Eggs
90 g 1/2 C Sugar
30 g 2 Tbs Butter

Bloom gelatin in a little of the cool melted Passion Fruit Pulp juice

Heat Passion Fruit Pulp to 190F/90C

Beat 2 eggs with Sugar, add to pan, heat whisking to 190F/90C until thickened

Remove from heat, cool to 180F/82C, add bloomed Gelatin, whisk or stick blend

Add frozen Butter chunks, stir to melt

Mix with stick blender

Pour into mold (Sundae dishes, martini glass, etc), tap to release air bubbles

Chill to set

Irene thinks we should drop the gelatin even more. Maybe what she really wants is a maracuya mousse. Chris thinks it'd be fancy to have a layered dessert with both, especially if it can be unmoulded.

Ravioli Filled with Runny Egg Yolk

This is a decadent dish, and we're delighted the yolk remained runny and unctuous. The goal is to cook the pasta enough without hard-boiling the egg. We topped them with brown butter and sage. This was an experiment: for dinner, probably 3 per person is enough.

We made a pasta without egg whites on the theory that the whites expand when cooking, making the cooked pasta loose and sloppy in appearance. Perhaps, we're not sure, but these were fairly shapely; we need some more experimentation, but we'd make this again. 

This pasta was different than our normal AP + Semolina dough, using 00 and some Rye flour. This was an experiment in dough for another project, so we used only a little of the finished dough for these. (You can make an Angel Food Cake with the Egg Whites you produce). 

180 g Italian 00 Flour (we have this for pizza)

 20 g Rye Flour

  5   Egg Yolks

      Water

      Ricotta Cheese

  3   Egg Yolks

      Butter

      Sage Leaves

In a food processor, whisk the Flours together; while spinning, drop the Yolks in one at a time; we're trying to barely get the dough to come together.

Ours did not, so we drizzled in Water until a ball formed, then we processed some more to knead it.

Wrap in cling film or a ziptop bag and let hydrate an hour or overnight.

Roll out the dough in a Pasta machine; most of this dough was for Tagliatelle, so we went down to #7.

We only need a little for these two (plus one) ravioli, so we cut off about 9-inches, then rolled out to the thinnest setting, #9 on our machine; this gave us about a 12-inch length of 6-inch wide dough.

Cut out circles big enough to hold the Ricotta containing a Yolk;

we cut two smaller ones, and two larger ones to cover with a dome.

Lay out a "doughnut" or nest of Ricotta on the smaller disk, and set the Yolk in the center.

Top with the larger disk of dough, and press down to seal the edges and tighten the dough against the filling. 

Left is filled, right needs the top layer of pasta

I took the scraps and rolled out another sheet, filled likewise, and simply folded it over for a half-moon; it cooked up well too.

The scrap-pasta was fine, not tough, and easy to fill and form

In a small pot, brown some Butter, and add Sage leaves.

Cook the ravioli in salted water for about three minutes: you want the pasta barely done, but do not want the yolks to cook.

Plate and top with brown butter sauce.

Next time, add some seasoning to the Ricotta: at least salt and pepper. Parmesan and Black Pepper would be good. Some finely diced ham or cooked bacon would be a riff on bacon and eggs. If you don't have fresh Sage for the sauce, capers would be tasty.

Brisket: dry rub, sous vide 3 days

We dry rubbed an uncured brisket, then cooked it sous vide for 3 days: it had a great texture, pink interior, and rich taste. The long time turned the tough meat into ribeye steak-like tenderness, while the low temperature kept the meat pink and avoided drying it out. We'll definitely do this again: it was easy to make -- the hardest part was measuring out the dry rub, and that's pretty flexible!

Brisket with jus, served with asparagus and scalloped potatoes

  24 g                Worchester Sauce Powder

   1 g                Chili Japon pod (2 chilis), deseeded

  40 g                Black Pepper

  20 g                Corriander Seed

  10 g                Smoked Paprika

  15 g                Salt

1600 g   3.5 pound    Brisket, flat cut, uncured

  30 g     2 Tbs      Butter, cold, cut into cubes

Grind the coarse spices and combine with the powders.

Lay a large sheet of cling film on the counter and place the Brisket on it.

Spread the dry rub generously over top, bottom, and edges of the meat; I had some dry rub left over.

Wrap tightly in the cling film.

Slide it into a sous vide bag, evacuate and seal; you can leave it like this in the fridge or cook it right away.

Cook in a 57C/135F sous vide bath for 3 days.

Remove brisket from bag, discard cling film.

Drain off the jus from the bag and strain it into a pot.

Put the brisket back in the bag and keep it warm by carefully setting it back in the bath; don't let water get in.

Reduce the jus over high heat; when reduced by about half, whisk in the butter, one cube at a time; you're trying to create an emulsion but it won't be stable.

Slice the brisket thinly across the grain and serve on warmed plates; top with enriched jus.

This was enough for 4 dinners for two. Put the rest of the brisket in the bag, let cool, then put in the fridge. The next day, it will be firm enough to cut into neat slices. It retains its attractive pink color.

Biscuits: flaky

This recipe from King Arthur Flour uses cold butter for a flaky texture; this is what enticed me: "Using cold butter and working it into the flour until the mixture is unevenly crumbly, on the other hand, will result in higher-rising biscuits that are 'layered' and flaky". There are lots of other good technique tips and suggestions in that article.

Starting to flake inside, easy to split with a fork

360 g   3 C    All-Purpose Flour
        1 tsp  Salt
        1 Tbs  Baking Powder

 85 g   6 Tbs  Butter, cold
230 g   1 C    Milk, cold (more as needed)

Preheat oven to 425F or 400F convection.

Line a baking sheet with parchment.

Whisk together the dry ingredients.

Cut in the Butter with a fork, pastry cutter, or food processor to get an uneven crumbly mixture like breadcrumbs.

Drizzle in the Milk and mix gently and quickly until it becomes cohesive; if it's too dry, add more Milk, but don't knead it or it will become tough.

Turn it out onto a floured counter.

Roll it into a rectangle 2cm / 3/4-inch thick;

fold in thirds like an envelope and repeat the roll.

Cut into 12 squares or rectangles; cutting circles will require re-rolling which will toughen the biscuits.

Place on parchment-lined sheet pan, brush with butter or milk, and bake 15-20 minutes until light brown.

Didn't rise as much as I expected

2021-02-07 Used food processor, didn't get breadcrumb texture, perhaps it's too aggressive. Didn't rise much. Took > 20 minutes with 400F convection. Interior was very slightly gummy. Doh! I used 1 tsp instead of 1 Tbs Baking Powder, 1/3 what I needed! Next time use the correct amount of (fresh) Baking Powder; consider cutting in butter by hand.

Attempt #2 with proper amount of baking powder

2021-02-14 This time I used 3 Tbs baking powder, but they still didn't rise enough, certainly not like the King Arthur photos; Irene said she could taste the levener. What am I doing wrong? The baking powder expired almost a year ago, but it was a can I just opened today, and it's worked for Irene's baking.  This time I also did an extra fold and roll to even the edges; was it overworked? I didn't add the Sugar the original recipe requested, but I don't believe the chemical reaction needs it. Again, I didn't brush with Milk or Butter. And this time too I used the food processor and did not get the "breadcrumb" texture. 

 

Next time: make the dough by hand, cutting in the butter with a pastry cutter. Add the Sugar. Brush with Milk or Butter. Use 425F non-convection. 

Khoresht-e Fesenjan: Lamb or Chicken in Pomegranate Sauce

I've made this with chicken and lamb, and have tweaked the spices, quantities, and procedure slightly. If using lamb, be careful that the rich sauce and spices doesn't overpower the mild flavor of the meat. This is a very rich dish and will feed about 8 with the proportions given.  1.5 hours cooking time

Fesenjan served with basmati tahdig

Adapted from a recipe posted by Emma Fernlund (thanisa@df.lth.se), from Persian Cooking: A Table of Exotic Delights, by Nesta Ramazani 1974, ISBN 0-8139-0962-7.

Serves: 8

2 large     Onions, chopped or sliced 

5 Tbsp     Butter 

2.5 pound   Chicken or Lamb, cut into 1-inch cubes

2 cup     Chicken, Lamb, or Veal Stock

2 1/2 cups  Walnuts, ground: some fine, some corn-kernel size

1 cup       Water

4.5 Tbs     Pomegranate Syrup (substitute sour cranberry juice) 

2-3 Tbsp    Sugar 

2-3 tsp     Salt 

1/2 tsp     Saffron (or turmeric) 

1/4 tsp     Cinnamon (ground from stick instead of pre-ground)

1/4 tsp     Nutmeg 

1/4 tsp     Pepper 

2 Tbsp     Lemon juice

6 pods     Cardamom, ground

3     Cloves, ground

Saute the onions in 2 Tbsp of the butter until golden brown.

Remove from the pan.

Add 3 more Tbsp of butter and saute the chicken/lamb pieces until lightly browned.

Drain fat.

Add the Stock and sauteed onions.

Cover and simmer gently for 30 minutes.

Bone if needed.

While that's cooking...

Grind the Walnuts to a mix of sizes;  the texture too thick if ground uniformly fine. 

Toast the ground walnuts in a saucepan or skillet until aromatic.

Prepare the sauce by stirring the water into the ground walnuts.

Stir in the pomegranate syrup and sugar, and simmer gently over a low heat for 10-15 minutes.

Roughly grind the walnuts

Add the walnut sauce to the cooked, chicken/lamb and onions.

Add the seasonings and the lemon juice.

Cover and simmer gently for another hour.

Adjust the seasonings by adding a little sugar if too sour, or more pomegranate syrup if too sweet.

The chicken/lamb pieces should be coated with a rich, dark, sweet-sour sauce; there should be plenty of thick sauce.

Serve with rice, preferably Tahdig. Couscous also works well, as would unleavened bread.

Basmati rice tahdig

Canelones de Bacalao y Samfaina

Canelones are a traditional dish in Catalunya, imported from Italian canoli. They have myriad different fillings;  a combination of meats seems most common, but I wanted one with bacalao -- the dried salt cod that has an appealing texture and funky aroma when rehydrated.  Many recipes I found had a loose chunky filling that looked floppy and unappealing, others ground the fish into a paste resembling cat food: I wanted texture and structure so the rolls were firm and well-defined. I found this recipe which used a traditional Catalan sauce "Samfaina" that's somewhat like French ratatouille, but more cooked down. It proved to be an excellent vehicle to hold the fish, and provided an attractive bright contrast to the Béchamel sauce and gratin of Manchego cheese.

Three pieces per person is a bit much, it's rich

We used what we had on hand, with hydrated bacalao and dried scallops for the fish, and made some substitutions for a couple of the ingredients in the samfaina, but it shows we don't need to be pedantic to make a great dish.  We also made our own pasta instead of using the pre-made dry pasta sheets they have in Catalunya. This was too much food for the two of us, and could have fed three as it was quite rich.  

Pasta:

  1       Egg

100 g     All Purpose Flour

Fish:

135 g     Rehydrated Bacalao

 25 g     Rehydrated dried Scallops (save the hydration water)

          Olive Oil

          Flour

Samfaina:

          Olive Oil

1 medium  Onion, chopped fine

3 cloves  Garlic, sliced thin

1 C       Tomato, chopped coarse

1 C       Green Pepper, chopped

2 large   Roasted Red Pepper (from a jar)

1 C       Squash flesh

Béchamel:

1 Tbs     Butter

1 1/2 Tbs Flour

1 C       Fish stock and/or fish rehydrating water

1 C       Milk

          Nutmeg

          Manchego Cheese, grated

Whiz the egg in a food processor, add flour and pulse until it combines, first into a coarse sandy texture then into a ball; form by hand if it doesn't come together. Wrap in plastic and let hydrate overnight in the fridge.

Rehydrate the Bacalao, changing the water a couple times to reduce salt; also rehydrate the dried Scallops overnight. The water from the dried Scallops is quite flavorful, and you can save if for the sauce.

Heat the Oil and cook the Onions about 10 minutes until softened; add the Garlic, cook a bit more. Add the other Samfaina ingredients and cook low for at least an hour, but two is better. If it's getting too dry, cover the pot. We want a thick-ish consistency that will bind our fish.

Cut the Pasta dough into two pieces, and roll out each with a pasta maker, reducing down to its finest setting -- #9 on our Marcato Atlas model. Lay it on a dish towel and roll out the other one. You should end up with each sheet being about 20 inches long, by the 6-inch width of the machine. Cut each sheet into 3 pieces.  Cook in boiling salted water until done, but it still retains a little "bite". Let cool and dry on a kitchen towel. The pasta sheets will have expanded significantly, but the width should fit in a lasagna pan. 

 

For the Béchamel, melt Butter in a pan, add the Flour and cook until lightly colored. Add the fish stock or hydrating water, and cook down; it should thicken and reduce. Add the Milk, and cook until it thickens. Grate in a bit of Nutmeg, season with Salt.  Add a bit of the Bechamel to a lasagna pan to prevent the pasta from sticking, or use a bit of oil.

Roughly chop the Bacalao and Scallops, and saute in Olive Oil a few minutes until just cooked. Sprinkle with a bit of Flour and cook out the raw flavor. 

Add the Samfaina, stir to combine, and cook a together a little longer. If Oil starts separating, dust with a bit of Flour and cook a bit to bind it all together. Taste and adjust Salt.

Bacalao and scallops combined with Samfaina

Roughly divide the filling in the pan into six sections, then lay a snake of filling on each pasta sheet, across the 6-inch dimension. Roll each up and put, seam-side down, in the lasagna pan. I separate them a bit (groups of 3) so I will be able to use a spatula and pull out a serving at a time.

Cover (but don't smother) with Bechamel, then top with grated Manchego. 

Broil until the sauce starts bubbling and the cheese browns attractively. Carefully pull out the Canelones and plate; two pieces this size should be enough for each person.

Spaetzle made with a potato ricer

Spätzle is German cross between noodles and dumplings, with an appealing toothsome texture. They're great with Beef Bourguignon, our Jurassic Chicken, Pörkölt, and many German dishes. We use a potato ricer's large holes to get fat, textured strands. 

We based this on a recipe from sports-glutton. The batter was a bit thicker than I expected and quite sticky. It required some force to push it through the large holes of a potato ricer. I was concerned that the strands would stick as they emerged, so I submerged the end in the simmering water as I squeezed the ricer. Our ricer has three disks, we used the largest holes, about 1/4 inch.

2 pax   4 pax  4 pax

140 g   260 g    2 C    All Purpose Flour

2.5 g     5 g    1 tsp  Salt

110 ml  215 ml 3/4 C    Milk

  1       2      2      Eggs

                        Butter

2025-01-12 I converted the recipe to metric and reduced to for 2 person serving;

I also used a food processor with plastic dough blade to mix it on low speed for a few minutes.

In a bowl (or food processor, or stand mixer), whisk Milk and Eggs together.

Add the Flour and Salt.

Stir with a strong spoon or spatula -- or food processor or stand mixer -- until fairly smooth; 

by hand this will take some time and muscle: it will become thick and sticky from gluten development.

It should be thicker than pancake batter; add water if too thick and dough-y, flour if too thin.

Bring a pot of salted water to the boil; when ready too cook, turn it down to a simmer.

With the batter next to the pot, fill a ricer with the batter about 2/3 full;

a thick batter should reluctantly drip through the ricer's widest holes, not flow.

Press down to extrude the batter through the holes into the simmering water;

if you think it's in danger of having the strands stick together, submerge the head in the water a little as you squeeze out the batter. 

Repeat until the batter is used.

Give the pot a gentle stir to make sure nothing's stuck to the bottom.

Adjust the heat maintain the water at a gentle simmer.

When the spätzle floats to the top, give it another 30 seconds or so to finish cooking.

Fish out the strands that have finished into strainer over another bowl to drain.

When it's all cooked, add a bit of butter to the bowl and toss to prevent sticking.

You can hold the cooked, buttered spätzle in a ziptop bag in the fridge for a few days.