Les Amis du Poivre

Sardines that Want to Fly

2008-12-28T14:32:00.000-08:00

Sarde a Beccafico

Sardines are little fishes that I've learned to love since i was young. We used to eat this little humble fish in any way possible; with fennel, with tomato sauce, with oranges, etc. Sardines ("sarde" in Italian) is typical staple food from Sicily, but in NY, fresh ones can be hard to find. This winter though, we had the pleasant surprise to found fresh sardines at Wild By Nature and we've decided to give this rarity the respect it deserved by making these fishes into a real wholesome dish: Sarde a beccafico.

Sarde a beccafico is fresh stuffed sardines in a raisin-saffron-orange concoction, decorated to resemble these little birds by the same name (beccafico).

Sardines are quite delicate to handle and to clean. If they are not truly fresh, their skin will begin to decompose quickly. The best thing to do is to put these fishes in some ice in the refrigerator, until you are ready to clean them and stuff them (within 4 days!).

Here is the recipe...

Ingredients:

1. Hyper-Fresh Sardines. You will need to carefully clean them, remove their head and the main back bone. But leave them their tail!

2. Oranges sliced in circle (2 slices for 12 sardines). Almond powder (or crushed almonds). toasted bread crumbs, garlic, raisins, saffron, olive oil, fresh parsley, a few chopped baby brown mushrooms, salt (powder, and rock) pepper and bay leaves.

-Turn on oven to 350F.

-Sprinkle rock salt on the skin of the sardines and put them carefully skin side down on a plate.
-Soak the raisins with a bit of saffron in some sweet wine. (or add sugar to a table red wine)
-Sautee the bread crumbs (about 2 cups per 12 sardines) with the garlic a bit of oil and almonds. Sautee the mushrooms separately .
when toasted (about 10 min?) put all in a bowl to cool.

-Mix the raisins and fresh chopped parsley in the breadcrumb bowl, add salt , pepper.

-Stuff the sardines start opposite of the tail with the mixture (leave a bit for the end) roll up leaving the tail sticking up.

-Put the rolled up sardines with one bay leave and one slice of orange on the sides (this will help keep it in place.) in a shallow pan

-Continue until your pan is filled with the little sardines.

-Sprinkle the juice of one orange on top of the rolled up sardines, sprinkle the leftover breadcrumbs and a tiny bit of rock salt

-Bake for about 35 min.

-Eat at room temperature, or cold with bread!.

Free Proteins...

2007-03-08T09:44:00.000-08:00

Long Island is a paradise for shell fish. Clams and mussels are everywhere; and trust me, seabirds know this fact quite well. Anywhere in which stones and boulders lay on the beach, instead of fine sand, broken shells are laying by the thousands. Because seagulls have this trick of the trade to open clams and mussels: They drop them from high altitude onto those rocks in order to break them apart as to gorge themselves with that free protein inside.

Man too can enjoy these God’s gifts. But you know folks around here: “if it ain’t from the store, it ain’t edible”. When I tell folks that I do go “get some mussels”, they look at me like I’m a complete weirdo. Poor people. Have your Tyson chicken, then; for me, I’ll go feed myself on something beautiful, fresh and pure.

If you want to get your mouth on these beautiful Mussels and clams, first, you’ve got to check out the pollution map and the rules and regulations. There, you’ll see a pollution map, a bit like this one:

Then, you’ve got to wait for the tide to go down just a little bit from its maximum, because mussels tend to shut close keeping within their shell all kind of dirt. If you go for mussels in a low tide, they will still be edible, but you’ll have a heck of a hard time to clean them.

Clams are just the opposite. They spit their dirt away before closing up. Therefore, they’re always clean. Clams live further away from the beach, however. Thus, you'll have to wait for the tide to reach its lower point before probing the sand for some….

How to cook fresh mussels:

- In a big cooking pot that has a cover, - preferably a glass cover, so you can see the mussels opening (really fun !) - heat a bit of oil and a teaspoon of butter.

- Add half of an onion ( or shallots ) cut in small cubes.

- Toss all the mussels inside, previously cleaned with great care.

- Add a full glass of extra-dry white wine.

- Let it simmer about 4 minutes more.

- Drain the mussels out, but keep the juice.

- Toss a good amount of fresh cilantro over the mussels.

- Squiz the juice of a half lemon into the juice.

- Pour back the juice onto the mussels.

- Serve immediately with crispy hot French fries.

We've Been Wrong Since The Times When Man Had Milked His First Cow

2007-03-07T15:16:00.000-08:00

Unbelievable what the corporate food industry in America will tell her citizens in order to get all their money: Now butter is bad for you! Yes, really, margarine is here to save the world!

"Matthew Reich is a baker dedicated to natural ingredients. He prefers butter in the cookies and brioche he turns out at Tom Cat Bakery in Long Island City, Queens, and like many professional cooks he applauds the public health effort to get artificial trans fat out of food.

But, in a twist of science, the law and what some call trans-fat hysteria, Mr. Reich and other wholesale bakers are being forced to substitute processed fats like palm oil and margarine for good old-fashioned butter because of the small amounts of natural trans fat butter contains.

Some researchers believe that the trans fat that occurs naturally in butter, meat, milk and cheese might actually be healthy. But to satisfy companies that want to call their foods completely free of trans fats, bakers like Mr. Reich are altering serving sizes, cutting back on butter and in some cases using ingredients like trans fat-free margarine."

After the good six thousand years old bread, now the butter should be vanished !

Of course, a trans-fat that pure, the pharmaceutical industry, working in tandem with the corporate food in America, will not make a dime on it. Too healthy. Margarine, now that's some wonderful stuff: you'll never read a trans-fat content on his package, but the ingredients that make it are so technologically elaborated, even a physician can't read their names !

Next: plain water is bad for you. Drink Coke !
Well, i wasn't only kidding: Makers Of Soda try A New Pich: They're Healthy !

Have a great cancer on me.

Marriage Counseling...

2007-03-07T12:47:00.000-08:00

Why bother with corporate food when sometimes, it’s so much for fun to do everything yourself? I have this trick to get your marriage working: turn off the television and spend your week-ends drinking wine and make fresh ravioli with your wife.

First the pasta dough. Nothing’s easier… take one pack of Semolina, and its equivalent in regular flower. A teaspoon of salt. And three whole eggs.

Mix the semolina, the salt and the flower. Make a whole in the center and crack the three eggs in the center. Mix starting with the eggs in the center. Add a cup of cold water.
Mix to make a big dough. You may have to add water or flower depending of your knowledge on how to make a dough. It may not be too easy the first time around, but with practice, you’ll get it. You don’t want something elastic like a bread or too granular (too much semolina).

When the ball is done, work it for about ten minutes, and then let it rest inside a moist towel.

Then start to flatten it. It make take minutes before you get something thin – about 3 millimeters. A Sicilian technique is to let a half of it hang over the edge of a table (see picture). Rotate it after ten minutes to stretch the other end.
Then place it back nicely on your table. Let it rest 20 minutes, then start to do your ravioli…

Basic ingredients: water salt, eggs, semolina, flower...

Let it rest a bit...

Working out...

Que bella !!!

Never see the end of it... it's alright, I'm listening a three hours long opera...

Super thin and smooth...

The Sicilian trick...

Cutting ravioli and pasta...

Don't fill the ravioli with dish soap, of course. Deosn't taste that great...

Valentine's day ravioli...

Too much dough: make fettuccine....

Ravioli filled with mushrooms and ricotta cheese...

buon appetito !!

Bon appetit !!

"Le fond de veau" - The Veal Stock

2007-03-05T13:28:00.001-08:00

Cooking is like building a house. Some would say that it is like making music. It is not. I know what I’m talking about because I do produce music as well. Cooking requires building a foundation, and a great stock does just that. A veal stock well prepared costs nothing. It’s easy as hell and it will make all your meals look like a million bucks. It keeps a whole week in your fridge… perhaps even two in the winter.

Forget beef stock. That’s for cheap restaurants that tries to cut corners, or simply do not try hard enough to satisfy their customers. Restaurants that do beef stock as a base for their sauces must be ashamed of themselves.

So try it. And make it a habit. Veal stock prevents heart burns. Because you won’t need all that barely cooked tomato sauce – with all its acid content – in order to flavor your pasta. It will boost anything better that MSG. It can be even your greatest secret if you do Asian cuisine. Well, like I said, you can’t be wrong with this one.

My personal veal stock:
Ingredients,

Ten black pepper seeds
One big onion.
One leek.
Three big carrots (to develop sweetness).
Three big branch of celery.
Six big veal neck bones.
A bunch of garlic (for roasting the bones)
Two cloves picked in the onions.
Bay leaves.
A great hand of fresh thyme (imperative!)
Two full cups of tomato paste.
NO SALT !!! NO SUGAR !!!

WARNING: American tomato paste usually contains salt.
It’s the whole corporate food problem equation: more salt = more fake taste = less tomato. Buy your tomato paste in glass jar (not cans) from a Turkish, Greek, Armenian, Lebanese or Russian store. Any East European store will do. If you can’t find one of those, use a whole can of marinara sauce from Trader Joe. Don’t use another one: again, this time corporate food will fill the can with at least 10 % of corn syrup to boost the tomato sweetness. It’ll kill the job done by the onion and the delicate sweetness of the carrots. Veal stock is about perfect balance of taste. And no salt should be added in the stock at all, since it is only a base for other sauces. It ‘s about eating healthy too: All those added flavors from American corporate foods usually show up in your pharmaceutical bills…

So. First roast the veal bones in a pre-heated oven - 450 degrees or more - with salt, pepper, thymes and a lot of crushed garlic.

After well roasted (25~35 minutes), toss them in a big large pot (to make about 1 gallon of veal stock). Add all the ingredients. Boil for one hour. Simmer for two more hours.

Let it cool OUTSIDE the fridge. Then filter out the stock. Keep the vegetables for a soup if you wish...