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February 8, 2012
Dear Friends,
This week it's a Greek-inspired spin on pasta with tomato sauce. Laced with cinnamon, oregano and crumbles of goat cheese that melt into the pasta, it's as romantic as those legendary Greek isles. It would be a very nice supper for your valentine, should you be eating in, along with our Little French Fudge Cakes for dessert. Serve your love one of these warm from the oven with a generous scoop of whipped cream, a glass of good Port, (see review below) and take it from there.
As pastry chef and cookbook author Emily Luchetti says, "After eating chocolate you feel godlike, as though you can conquer enemies, lead armies, and entice lovers." What could be better?
Have a good week and Happy Valentine's Day,
Lynne
Hollow Pasta with Greek Cinnamon-Tomato Sauce
From The Splendid Table's ® How to Eat Supper: Recipes, Stories, and Opinions from Public Radio's Award-Winning Food Show by Lynne Rossetto Kasper and Sally Swift (Clarkson Potter/Publishers, 2008). Copyright © 2008 by American Public Media. Photographs by Mette Nielsen/Tony Kubat Photography. All rights reserved.
Serves 4 as a main dish
15 minutes prep time; 25 minutes stove time
The sauce can be made several days ahead and kept in the refrigerator
Greek pastas are so seductive, especially the ones done with tomato sauces. I think of them as another world to plunder. Cinnamon always scents the tomatoes, along with garlic, oregano, and wine. This sauce was inspired by the work of Greek culinary authority Aglaia Kremezi.
It began as hers, but over the years of cooking, the mix of seasonings became my own, along with the occasional additions of lamb or chicken; and I have substituted goat cheese for her feta. It turns to cream in the sauce.
Cook to Cook: You will love the unruliness of this hollow pasta. It fights the fork but picks up all the goodness of the sauce. This recipe is one of the few that call for you to break the pasta before dropping it into the pot.
- 5 quarts salted water in a 6-quart pot
Sauce:
- Good-tasting extra-virgin olive oil
- 1 medium onion, chopped
- 1/3 tighty-packed cup fresh flat-leaf parsley leaves, coarsely chopped
- Salt and freshly-ground black pepper
- 1 heaping tablespoon tomato paste
- 6 large garlic cloves, minced
- 1-1/4 teaspoons dried oregano (Greek oregano preferred)
- 2 teaspoons ground cinnamon
- 1 teaspoon sugar
- 1 teaspoon ground Aleppo pepper or other medium-hot chile; or 1/2 teaspoon red pepper flakes
- 1/2 cup dry white or red wine
- 2 pounds ripe summer tomatoes; or one 28-ounce can whole tomatoes with their juice
- 1-1/2 to 2 cups diced cooked chicken or lamb (organic if possible; optional)
Pasta:
- 1 pound imported long hollow pasta like perciatelli, maccheroncelli, or ziti, broken into more or less 2-inch pieces, or short hollow pasta
- 1-1/2 cups (6 ounces) fresh goat cheese, crumbled
Bring the salted water to a boil.
Generously film the bottom of a straight-sided 12-inch sauté pan with olive oil and heat it over medium-high heat. Stir in the onions, parsley, and generous sprinklings of salt and pepper. Sauté the onions to golden brown. Then stir in the tomato paste, garlic, oregano, cinnamon, sugar, and Aleppo pepper. Turn the heat down to medium and sauté for 1 minute. Add the wine and cook for 1 minute.
If using fresh tomatoes, grate them on a grater over a bowl, and add the pulp with its juices to the pan. For canned tomatoes, crush them as they go into the pot. Raise the heat to medium-high and cook the sauce for 8 minutes, or until thick. Taste for seasoning, remove the pan from the heat, and if using the chicken or lamb, stir it in. Cover the pan.
Drop the pasta into the boiling water. Boil, stirring often, for 8 minutes, or until the pasta is tender but still has a little bite. As the pasta cooks, reheat the sauce over medium-high heat. Once the pasta is done, drain it in a colander and add it to the sauce. Toss over the heat for a minute or more to help the sauce permeate the noodles. Turn half of it into a serving bowl and dot with half of the cheese. Add the rest of the pasta and top with the remaining cheese.
Little French Fudge Cakes
From The Splendid Table's ® How to Eat Supper: Recipes, Stories, and Opinions from Public Radio's Award-Winning Food Show by Lynne Rossetto Kasper and Sally Swift (Clarkson Potter/Publishers, 2008). Copyright © 2008 by American Public Media. Photographs by Mette Nielsen/Tony Kubat Photography. All rights reserved.
Makes 6 cupcakes, and doubles easily
15 minutes prep time; 20 minutes oven time
Wrapped, the cakes keep well in the refrigerator for up to 5 days
If you can melt chocolate and stir, you can make these cakes, and no commercial mix has chocolate as good as this. Quality chocolate is like breeding: it always shines through. Gooey chocolate pockets stud the cakes, while the cake itself is nearly as dense as fudge.
There is a real bittersweet edge here. For the kids add another 3 tablespoons of sugar. For yourself, keep the adult attitude; put the young ones to bed, light the candles, and pour two glasses of port.
You could turn this recipe into a cake by baking it in a 9-inch springform pan lined with parchment. Increase the cooking time to about 35 minutes.
Cook to Cook: The pan you choose will change the baking time of this and other recipes. Here, the dark pan called for gives you fudge cakes in 16 to 18 minutes; shiny pans lengthen the baking time by a few minutes more. We use a dark (not black) nonstick metal pan for this recipe.
- One 3.5- or 4-ounce bittersweet chocolate bar (Lindt Excellence 70%, Valrhona 71%, Scharffen Berger 70%, or Ghirardelli 70% Extra bittersweet, in order of our preference), broken up
- 1-1/2 ounces unsweetened chocolate, broken up
- 5 tablespoons unsalted butter
- 1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
- 1-1/2 teaspoons vanilla extract
- 2 large eggs plus 1 yolk (for a double recipe, use 5 eggs)
- 1/2 cup plus 2 tablespoons sugar
- 1/8 teaspoon salt
- 3 tablespoons unbleached all-purpose flour, organic preferred (measured by dipping and leveling)
- Half of a 3.5- to 4-ounce bittersweet chocolate bar, broken into bite-sized pieces
1. Preheat the oven to 375°F. Butter a dark metal 6-cup cupcake tin.
2. Combine the broken-up bittersweet and unsweetened chocolates with the butter in a medium-sized microwave-safe bowl. Melt them for 2 to 3 minutes at medium-low power. Check by stirring, as chocolate holds its shape when microwaved. Or melt it in a heatproof bowl over simmering water.
3. In a medium to large bowl, whisk together the cinnamon, vanilla, eggs and yolk, sugar, and salt until creamy. Stir in the flour to blend thoroughly. Then stir in the chocolate/butter mixture until smooth. Finally, blend in the bite-sized pieces of chocolate. Pour the batter into the cupcake pan, filling each three-quarters full.
4. Bake the cupcakes for 18 minutes. Insert a knife into the center of a cupcake. It should come out with some streaks of thick batter. If you have any doubt about doneness, press the top of a cupcake to see if it is nearly firm. Remove them from the oven. Cool the cupcakes in the pan on a rack for 5 to 10 minutes to serve warm, or for 20 minutes to serve at room temperature.
For a beautiful mate to those cupcakes, try a glass of Graham's Douro Valley, "Six Grapes" Porto NV ($22) from Portugal.
Wine writer Robert Whitley of Wine Review Online says, "With Valentine's Day just around the corner, wine enthusiasts should be locking in on that special bottle for someone special. Without going out on too much of a limb, I believe it's safe to say Graham's Six Grapes is the closest any vintage character ruby Port comes to the real deal -- which would be vintage Port -- at three to five times the price. Most vintage-character Ports have plenty of aroma and flavor, but lack the structure of vintage Port. Graham's Six Grapes is the exception, delivering a richly layered, complex red dessert wine with satisfying grip (from the smooth tannins) on the back end. The Six Grapes I sampled recently offered lovely plum and cherry aromas, hints of spice and the essence of mocha -- perfect to accompany Valentine's chocolates!" 90 Points.
Copyright © 2012, Lynne Rossetto Kasper.
All Rights Reserved
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