Tagliatelle with Prosciutto and Orange

I'll just cut to the chase and let you know that this might be my absolute favorite pasta recipe.  Ever.  Ever.

I think I'd eat damn-near anything that had prosciutto in it so I was already hooked when I first read this recipe...but pairing it with orange just makes it sublime.  The orange adds sweetness to counterbalance the saltiness of the prosciutto, and it also adds a brightness that you really need when making pasta.  The combination is just so, so perfect.

Gush, gush, gush...

So just promise me you'll try this one, okay?  It's really that amazing.

TAGLIATELLE WITH PROSCIUTTO AND ORANGE
Recipe from The Bitten Word (who got it from Bon Appétit)
Serves 4

12 oz. egg tagliatelle or fettuccine (preferably fresh)
2 tablespoons (1/4 stick) unsalted butter
2 oz. thinly sliced prosciutto, torn into 1" pieces
Zest and juice of 1 orange
1/2 cup heavy whipping cream
1/4 cup finely grated Parmesan
Kosher salt
Freshly ground pepper

1. Bring a large pot of water to a boil.  Season with salt; add pasta and cook, stirring occasionally, until 1 minute before al dente, about 2 minutes for fresh pasta, longer for dried.  Drain, reserving 1/4 cup pasta water.
2. Meanwhile, melt butter in a large heavy nonstick skillet over medium-high heat.  Add prosciutto; sauté until browned, about 3 minutes.
3. Add reserved pasta water, orange juice, half of zest, and cream to the skillet; bring to a boil.  Add pasta; cook, stirring, until sauce coats pasta and pasta is al dente, about 1 minute.  Season with salt and pepper.  Stir in cheese and divide among warm bowls.  Garnish with remaining zest.

NOTE ON KID-FRIENDLINESS: Bug LOVED this, every bit of it.  I did omit the zest garnish and the ground pepper on top but, other than that, I didn't need to alter it for her at all.

NOTE ON WINE PAIRING: There was so much going on here so I consulted my handy-dandy WHAT TO DRINK WITH WHAT YOU EAT.  Riesling is the way to go with this dish; specifically, I went with the Pierre Sparr that I picked up for a steal at Trader Joe's.  Delicious.

Eat, drink, and try this recipe!

Figs and Pecorino

New York City is in the middle of an October heat wave that has sucked my will to live: our building had to turn off everyone's air-conditioning a couple weeks ago so we've been melting away in our apartment with 85-degree temps outside.  We'd buy fans...except there's no damn room for them, such is life in a tiny apartment.  All our windows are open...which lets in all the noise and, annoyingly, very little breeze.  Bug can't sleep, we can't sleep. We're all grumpy.  It has not been pretty.

So yesterday I declared that there wasn't a snowball's chance in hell that I was turning heat on in this place in order to cook.  Which ended up being untrue, alas.  I found a recipe in Jamie Oliver's Jamie's Italy for sticky figs and it struck a chord with me.  All it calls for is taking a pint of figs - or however many you have - and halving them.  Then you put them on a baking sheet lined with parchment paper.

Jamie calls for them to be baked at 120 degrees for two hours but my oven only goes down to 170 degrees.  So I did that for two hours.  Done.  That's it.

I paired the figs with a crumbly, salty Pecorino.  This is one of those cases where you should find the best Pecorino you possibly can since it's one of the stars of the meal.  We added Prosciutto di Parma, rustic Italian bread, and dipping oil (really good-quality oil, sea salt, pepper).

Very little heat, very little fuss.  I know there are some of you who read this who will say, "They had only that for dinner?!"  And the answer is a resounding YES.  It's too damn hot to eat anything else.  Seriously.

Eat, drink, and keep it simple.


UPDATE #1: Naturally, Bug didn't want anything to do with the figs (though we did make her try just one) so she had a sliced apple.  She also wasn't a huge fan of the Pecorino - she thought it was "spicy".  But she ate almost that entire pile of prosciutto - I had to add more to the board - and she had bread with butter slathered on it (she claims, falsely, that she's "allergic" to olive oil).  This is such an easy meal to cater to picky eaters.

UPDATE #2: Foolishly, I forgot to mention what we drank and thanks to my good friend Daphne for reminding me!  Per Andrew Dornenburg and Karen Page's What to Drink With What You Eat, I drank a Riesling: Arthur Metz 2010 from Alsace.  It paired very well, but didn't wow me.  Adam had the winner: Brooklyn Brewery's Monster Barleywine.  It was huge in flavor, but didn't overwhelm the cheese or figs.  It was an unexpected, much more interesting pairing than the Riesling.  I highly recommend it.

Summer of Riesling

A couple of girlfriends and I are doing the Summer of Riesling Crawl, hosted by Chairman Grieco of Hearth Restaurant and Terroir Wine Bar (see the Riesling tasting from last year).  Last night was our first night out, and here's a photo from City Winery:

They have wine taps!!!!  This is the tap handle.  Pretty cool, right?

Hello, Summer!

You guys!  I'm FINALLY home and I'm FINALLY done with conference season at work!  Most of you have been entrenched in summer for a few weeks but mine is starting now.  Um, to say I'm excited is an understatement to the nth degree.

But let's start at the beginning: as most of you know, I was at the American Library Association conference in New Orleans last week: 7 days and 6 nights.  That is a lot of eating out in restaurants, airports, and hotels.  So when I got home, all I wanted was a simple, fresh, home-cooked meal that was both satisfying and light.  And even a bit cleansing.

So I went with one of my favorites: Tuna with Butter-Warmed Corn Kernels.  Which I've actually posted here in the past.  What's funny is that when I initially posted this recipe, I was in the middle of a summer meltdown: it was late August and I was soooo over the heat and humidity.  I was trying to stick with no-heat meals and this one was perfect.  So isn't it wonderful that now I can post this in the opposite frame of mind?  Instead of fighting summer's heat, I am embracing all that summer entails: vacation, sunbathing, watermelon mojitos (because that's what I'm drinking while I write this), lounging on the roof deck, and...no conferences!

And in my joyous and celebratory frame of mind, I give you Tuna with Espelette Pepper and Butter-Warmed Corn with Cilantro, courtesy of Patricia Wells' Vegetable Harvest:

Click here for full recipes (you're clicking through to my original blog post).  Again, feel free to substitute smoked paprika for the espelette pepper.  And feel free to substitute and improvise!  Can't stand the taste of cilantro (Hi, MC and Gillian!)?  Try parsley or basil*.

When I initially posted this recipe, I drank it with a Riesling**.  But right now I am completely high on Vinho Verde and my particular favorite is this one:

It's Ouro Verde Vinho Verde (Portugal) and I get it from Fresh Direct for $6.99 - it's my summer go-to.  It's slightly effervescent,citrus-bright, and dry.  It paired perfectly.

I can't even tell you how thrilled I am to be back here with all of you, ready to start my summer, and sharing my favorite recipes and drinks.  Cheers!

Eat, drink, and celebrate summer!


* These recommendations are courtesy of the outstanding The Flavor Bible by Andrew Dornenburg and Karen Page.  I've mentioned it here a gazillion times but it needs to be mentioned again.  Just go buy it.


** Ditto for this one.  The Riesling recommendation came from What to Drink with What You Eat, also by Andrew Dornenburg and Karen Page.  Your personal cookbook library is NOT complete without either of these books, in my opinion.

Comfort Food: Risotto

Major changes going on in the Lutz household lately. Here are a few:

• Hell, just a busy week. We rarely ate en famille this past week. Which definitely wears on all of us.
• Bug is starting a new school this Wednesday: The Neighborhood School in the East Village. It's all been somewhat sudden and, while fabulous, still stressful. She'll be starting 4th grade in a new environment and we're hoping it'll be a change for the better. The bad news? Until our lease is up in March 2011, we'll be commuting an hour each way to get her to school. Wow.
• Planning a vacation. I told Adam that I have one goal - and one goal only, really - in 2010: Leave this country. I went to France in 1993, Mexico in 1996...and then haven't left the country since. And I must. The world is calling me. The three of us have passports so what the hell are we waiting for? So Thanksgiving this year. We initially thought Europe (Dublin or London, perhaps) but, post-Hawaii, we're thinking Costa Rica or Turks and Caicos. Readers, weigh in.
• Recommitting ourselves to Frenchness. Thanks to the excellent Wafels and Dinges, Schnitzel and Things, Joyride Truck, and my lack of self-discipline, I'm failing the zipper test. Trés unsexy.

The good news is that we are on the cusp of autumn. And tonight I was finally able to bring some heat into the kitchen: I made risotto. Lemon risotto, specifically. A montage:

As with any recipe, I always recommend getting all ingredients ready ahead of time. (Ignore the oranges in the glass - that was my Lillet on ice)

The thing I love most about risotto is that I can stand there, stirring and stirring, and read. It must've been something unconscious because I "accidentally" left my e-reader full of manuscripts at work on Friday. Which left me free to read David Lebovitz's The Sweet Life in Paris all weekend which, suffice to say, did not quell my wanderlust. It's lovely in every way (the book, that is. Not my wanderlust, which is rather annoying and expensive).

Reference the recipe I linked to above, which I followed almost exactly. However, I didn't have a full two tablespoons of parsley or basil left on my balcony garden. I did have a bunch of sage in my fridge that was about to go bad. So I used 1 tbsp. chopped parsley and 1 tbsp. chopped sage. Then I fried whole sage leaves in 2 tbsp. of butter for garnish:

Lest you think my tastes are too rich (or fattening) for your blood, I didn't add the the butter at the end that the recipe recommended: I figured the butter I used for the fried sage sufficed.

Adam came into the kitchen while I was stirring and reading. He put his arms around me (as all significant others should while someone is cooking an amazing dinner from which they will benefit) and he said, "I could tell you needed this." "Needed what?" I asked. "Needed to just sit in the kitchen with your music playing, stirring. Reading. Glass of wine." And he was right.

Eat, drink, and feel grounded in the kitchen.

Note: In the great Beer vs. Wine battle that goes on in our house, we decided that tonight was a draw. We agreed that the Hermann J. Wiemer 2008 Dry Riesling was exceptional, as was Adam's Bear Republic Racer 5 IPA.

Austrian Riesling

I was embarrassingly late to my wine-tasting date with Jenn this past week. I had never done a wine-tasting where you make a reservation, pay $25...and the wine geek in charge ("Chairman Paul") gives a lecture. So I walked in to a quiet room with all eyes turned to the lecturer...and then all turned to me. Crap.

But bad start aside, Terroir Wine Bar in the East Village (follow them on Twitter: @terroirny) gives an amazing wine-tasting. We started by talking about the important wine-making regions in Austria, which are in the easternmost part of the country. In particular, there's a trifecta of the best of the best regions: Kremstal, Kamptal, and Wachau. Wachau is arguably the bestest of the best. We even had a map of Austria to help us identify all these regions (along with a "Hello, My Name is Summer Of Riesling" sticker and a tattoo). Check out the packet we received:

We tasted 7 Austrian Rieslings - the first two were from the Traisental and Wien regions while the last five were from the trifecta. Here are a few snippets of information I learned (among many):

• Rieslings (or any wine, really) won't smell sweet - that's a taste.
• Sweet wines need acidity for balance - you want some tartness to counteract the sweet.
• A petrol nose is characteristic of Riesling but not always present. Likewise, Rieslings characteristically smell and taste of slate, granite, etc. That's speaks to terroir.
• "The best thing about tasting Riesling is that we don't have to talk about oak!" (This was related to our discussion that some of these wines had Chardonnay-esque qualities: butter, warmth, peach...but no wood! Rieslings are much cleaner and crisper.)

Check out all the notes I took (and there's more on the backside):

I won't get into the details and notes about each wine, but Jenn and I agreed that #4 was our favorite: Riesling Pfaffenberg Rainer Wess 2006 (from the Kremstal region). It was incredibly unusual - our instructor rightly told us that you don't taste the peach fruit, you taste the pit. It was very earthy and metallic (in a good way). One of the reasons we loved it was because it was a rather odd, disconcerting wine...which made you want to keep drinking it to figure it out. It intrigued me more than the others.

Our least favorite? The first wine: Riesling Rothenbart Ludwig Neumayer 2007 (from the Traisental region). It was all Granny Smith tartness and no roundness of flavor to balance it. I could certainly see where it would pair well with sashimi but, for this tasting, I wasn't a fan.

Terroir has a three more wine-tastings left as part of their Summer of Riesling event: here's the schedule. It was $25 well-spent for this:

Word to the wise: you might want to eat a snack before the tasting. Drinking this much wine pre-dinner was a bit of a challenge for Jenn and me...but we held it together admirably. I also want to share that this is a great class for beginners (I'd classify myself as a beginner-intermediate wine taster). I can't say if it's too "easy" for the advanced connoisseur, but I do know there was some schmuck there who kept talking over our instructor, loudly blabbing about his "wine tutor". Wine snobs like that guy are what give people who love wine a bad name. Luckily, I easily ignored him.

Lastly, I leave you with this quote from Chairman Paul:

"There is no conversation about how these wines are made. They're made in the vineyard [...] Wines are made in the vineyard, NOT in a winery. That's terroir."

Eat, drink, and cheers to that!