Hand Rolled Cavatelli

     Being your average twenty-something year old culinary school graduate, I'm stuck between two interests that I hold very dear to me; eating gourmet food and saving money. Because of this dilemma, I eat lots and lots of fresh pasta. For any budget-oriented foodie, learning to make fresh pasta is a godsend. With a few cheap ingredients(flour, eggs, time) anyone can make a restaurant-worthy meal any night of the week. Cavatelli are a traditional Italian pasta that are hand formed and are said to look like 'little sea shells' although I don't see the resemblance. In my opinion, they are the perfect hand formed pasta. Their deep ridges soak up any sauce, making them extremely versatile and textural; they're thick enough to maintain an al dente texture when cooked yet not so thick that they're doughy; and best of all, they don't require any expensive machines or a huge investment of time. All you need to form them is a cavatelli board (also referred to as a gnocchi board or gargonelli board).
     The first skill that needs to be mastered is the dough, and with a simple ratio and a little practice, it's pretty simple. My favorite ratio when making pasta dough is 100 grams of flour to one egg. Almost every source online or in books will begin their pasta dough recipes with something like "make a mound of flour on a wooden tabletop and create a well in the center." While effective as a method of forming dough, this is an extremely messy technique and often discourages beginners because of the amount of practice it requires to avoid spilling egg on the floor. Instead, I make my pasta dough using an identical method, but in a large bowl with a flat bottom. This allows ample room to mix the dough just as I would on a table, but catches any run-off egg and incorporates it back into the dough.

     Form a mound of dough and create a well in the center and add the egg, one tsp of olive oil and a pinch of salt. Beat the egg thoroughly with a fork and slowly incorporate the flour until it starts to look like a crumbly mess and can no longer be mixed with a fork. Knead the mixture with your hands until all of the flour is completely incorporated and a loose dough is formed. On a table top, continue kneading for ten minutes, until the dough is very smooth. You shouldn't need much flour during the kneading and the dough should be moist but not sticky at all. form the dough into a ball, wrap in plastic wrap, and allow the dough to rest at room temperature for thirty minutes.

     After thirty minutes, unwrap the dough. when you poke it with your finger, it should leave a dent and not spring back. This means that the gluten has relaxed. To form cavatelli, start by rolling the dough out with your palms into a long, thin rope, then use a sharp knife to cut it into small pieces.

     The pieces of dough can stick together, so it's a good idea to lightly flour the dough, your cavatelli board and the surface you'll be putting the finished cavatelli on. Take one piece of dough, place it on the cavatelli board and push down and foreward with your thumb to flatten the dough and roll it into a cylinder that is imprinted with the ridged pattern of the board.

For those who prefer a video demonstration

and once more in Slo-mo

Your finished product should look something like this

Now all you need to do is boil them in water for 5-10 minutes and serve them with your favorite sauce.

Hand-rolled cavatelli with vermont sharp cheddar, provolone and toasted panko (A.K.A. Super cheesy mac 'n' cheese)

Thanksgiving.. Quail?

     Thanksgiving week is finally upon us, and if you're in charge of the meal, things are about to get pretty hectic. Preparing any holiday meal can be tough, especially the biggest one of the year. I find that people often over complicate things by making too many dishes with too many steps, and if that's not something you do every day, it's going to be stressful. This year, a few of my friends and I will be having a small post-Thanksgiving celebration and we've decided to get together to cook the meal as well. Cooking with friends is always more fun than cooking alone, and the teamwork that it takes to put out a good meal is nothing short of bonding. We're keeping our meal pretty simple, and hopefully the recipes will inspire some ideas in your kitchen for this year's meal.
     Since there are only five of us celebrating, buying a turkey would just be too much food, and we wanted to change it up a bit, so we decided to roast some quail. Quail is mostly dark meat, and you'll need one or two per person, so if you're cooking for the whole family, I'd stick with a turkey. Many people think of quail as a luxury food, only served in high end restaurants, but they're actually fairly cheap and delicious. Rather than making mashed potatoes, we're going to add some texture by making a potato 'risotto,' and because no feast is complete without a salad, we'll also make a simple shaved fennel salad.

Crispy Roasted Quail with Potato 'Risotto' and Shaved Fennel

Yields enough for a five person meal

Ingredients:

Quail

 10 quail

2 bunches of thyme

10 large collard green leaves, cut into small chunks

2 cloves of garlic, minced

Kosher salt and black pepper, to taste

 Potato 'Risotto'

3 lbs waxy potatoes, such as Yukon Gold or Red Bliss, diced into about 1/4 inch cubes

3 shallots, diced

2 tbsp unsalted butter

chicken stock or water, as needed

1/4 cup heavy cream

grated Parmesan cheese, to taste

Kosher salt and black pepper, to taste

Shaved Fennel

2 medium-large bulbs of fennel, shaved as thin as possible on a mandolin

1/3 cup rice vinegar

1/4 cup red wine vinegar

1 cup olive oil

Kosher salt, pepper, sugar, and thyme leaves, to taste

Quail

     Preheat your oven to 400 degrees Fahrenheit. bring a large pot of water to a boil, and blanch your collard greens for about one minutes, then remove them into an ice bath. Once they are cool, transfer them to a bowl with the garlic and season to taste with salt and pepper. Season the quail well with salt and pepper, and stuff the cavity with your collard greens. holding the drumsticks together, push the legs of each quail in towards the body to plump it up, then tie a piece of string, first around the drumsticks to hold them together, then around the body to keep the legs tucked in. This will promote even cooking and a nice shape to the finished bird. In an oven proof skillet, heat about 1/8 inch of cooking oil (I like to use avocado oil because of its high smoke point) and once it is hot, add your quail, breast side down. Once the skin on the breast is seared and crispy, flip your quail over, add the thyme branches to the pan, and transfer it to the oven. After 10 minutes, remove the quail from the oven and baste it with the juices in the pan. Transfer it back to the oven for another five minutes, or until t is cooked to your desired doneness.

Potato 'Risotto'

      In a large pan, at least a couple inches deep, heat a small amount of cooking oil and sauté the shallots. When they are soft, add the potatoes an

d season with salt and pepper. Cook the potatoes, stirring occasionally, for about 5 minutes, or until most of them are nicely seared. Add enough stock to barely cover them, and cook, stirring frequently, until almost all of the liquid is absorbed. Continue adding stock, about 3 tablespoons at a time, waiting for each addition to dissipate before adding the next, until the potatoes are tender. To finish, add the cream, butter, and cheese. Taste and adjust your seasoning if necessary.

Shaved Fennel

     in a blender, combine all of the ingredients except the fennel and blend, tasting occasionally and adjusting seasoning, until the vinaigrette is frothy and emulsified. In a large bowl, toss the fennel with just enough vinaigrette to coat it. The rest of the vinaigrette can be saved in the fridge for further use.

Thyme & Paprika Grilled Chicken w/ Spicy Cucumber Apple Chutney & Grilled Radishes

     Summer is finally here, and for seasonal food lovers everywhere, that means one thing: Grill weather. If you've ever lived through a summer in America, then you're most likely very well acquainted with grilled chicken. A dish which all too often ends with dry, flavorless, slightly tough meat, accompanied by under-thought side dishes, or even worse, nothing. But with a little bit of care and creativity, paired with a few fresh vegetables, we can recreate this classic dish, and take it from kind-of-boring to new and delicious.

     The first thing we have to contemplate is the chicken. If you want to get chicken at your grocery store, that's fine, and it certainly won't ruin your final product, but if you really want the flavor of the chicken to shine through and add another layer of flavor to your dish, then you want to find fresh, chemical free chicken. You can find truly fresh chicken at your local farmers market, and you can buy directly from some of the local farms in your are. For a full list of local poultry farms, click here. My chicken is - of course - from Baffoni's Poultry Farm in Johnston. If you're not a regular eater of local meat and produce, I highly suggest trying it at least once. The difference in flavor is a lot larger than you would imagine and you'll be pretty surprised when you actually taste the flavor of chicken for the first time in your life. After being genetically modified, stripped of any relatively natural living conditions, and shipped halfway across the world, chicken tends to lose almost all of it's natural, fresh flavor by the time it hits shelves at your local grocery store. I like to use leg quarters when grilling. The dark meat holds up to the heat without drying out, and cooking meat with the bone-in extracts a lot of flavor from the bone into the meat. However, if you prefer white meat, then use the breast. Cooking is all about using the ingredients and flavors that YOU like.

     Once we have our chicken, the next thing to contemplate is seasoning. One of the biggest mistakes people tend to make when seasoning meat for the grill is using seasoning as flavor. Remember, we just spent time sourcing fresh local chicken, and we want that flavor to shine through. Seasoning should be used to enhance the natural flavor of our chicken, not to cover it. I like to keep my seasoning simple. I start with salt and pepper, and like to use one herb and one spice. Two of my favorites for chicken ate thyme and paprika. Remember, we want to season the meat, not flavor it. Over-seasoning is just as bad as under-seasoning, and with a little practice, you'll find your perfect balance. Once your chicken is seasoned, it's ready to hit the grill, which should be heated to around 400-450 degrees. If you're using white meat, it will cook a lot faster than dark meat, so check constantly and be careful not to overcook it.

     Alright; our chicken is perfectly seasoned, and cooking away. Now we're getting somewhere. Now it's time to start thinking about sides. One of my absolute favorite grilled side dishes is simple, tasty, and completely under-utilized by so many home cooks: grilled radishes. Some people are scared away from using radishes because they don't like the spice of raw radishes, but when they're cooked, they lose their kick and gain a flavor that falls halfway between potatoes and roasted cauliflower. If you've ever picked a radish, you know that by the next day, they've already started to lose some of their flavor, so it makes a big difference to buy fresh, local radishes, especially when they're so easy to find at just about any farmers market in Rhode Island. I like to quarter my radishes, and toss them with olive oil, minced garlic, salt and pepper. If your grill's grate is too big, and you think your radishes will fall through, you can cook them in a sauté pan, or leave them in larger pieces. Cook these until they're brown on all sides and tender all the way through.

     While your chicken and radishes are finishing up on the grill, we have one more component to this meal that needs to be made. No summer time grilled dish is complete without a cold component. For this dish, I'm making a cold chutney. More specifically, a spicy cucumber apple chutney. This is a simple side for the chicken which will add a spicy kick, as well as balance out the smoky paprika with sweet , fresh flavors. For this chutney, we'll start with one cucumber, peeled and diced, as well as one apple and one pear also diced. To this we'll add a tiny pinch of salt. We don't want our chutney to taste like salt, but we want just enough to help bring out the natural flavor of the fruit. Finally, we'll add minced cilantro, to give the chutney a refreshing flavor, and sriracha for a spicy kick. Add as much, or as little as you like, depending on how well you handle spicy food.

     When our chicken and radishes come off the grill we're finally ready for a delicious, fresh summertime feast.

     Hopefully you're inspired to add some creative twists to your summertime grilling this year. To keep up with this blog, you can follow us on Twitter and Facebook. Happy noshing!

Roasted Vegetable Ravioli

     Growing up in an Italian family, ravioli was always present in my household, and a staple in my diet. Of course when I was a child, I never could have guessed what type of ingredients were used to make these soft little pouches of joy. No, to me, they were just there, and the only worry I ever had about ravioli was "How man of these can I eat before I have to stop?" But as I grew older, curiosity soon took hold of me, and as I made my transition from boy to cook, it didn't take long for me to want to delve deeper into the world of ravioli and learn how to create this savory treat myself. Once I started the Culinary Arts program at my high school in Cranston, pasta dough was one of the very first things we had learned how to make.
     Enter: Adam at age fifteen, circa 2007, inside the culinary Arts lab of Cranston High School West. It is the first week of class, and I am about to burst with excitement. I have been waiting years to work with a real chef and learn what cooking is all about. I watch intently, noting every single movement as Chef Martha Sylvestre shows us all for the first time, how to make fresh pasta dough. Since that day, store bought pasta has never quite tasted the same. It may be a labor of love, but I've never sat down to eat home made pasta and said anything other than "Wow, That was worth all the work."

Pasta Dough

Ingredients:

3 cups all purpose flour

2 eggs

2 tbsp. water

 

Directions

1. create a mound using two cups of flour. Create a well within the mound. Add the eggs and water into the well.

 

2. Beat the eggs with a fork, and slowly grab and incorporate more and more flour with your fork as you are beating. Do this until a dough begins to form and you cannot beat with a fork anymore.

 

3. Using your hands, incorporate some more flour and on a floured surface, begin kneading the dough, incorporating flour as needed, until the dough has a little elasticity. The dough should be moist, yet not wet enough to be sticky.

 

4. Cover your dough-ball in plastic wrap, and allow it to rest for about twenty minutes before using.

 

5. Repeat this process as many times as you need to for the desired amount of pasta. Each ball of dough will feed about two people.

 

If you have a food-processor, you can simply add two cups of flour, the eggs, and the water and use that to incorporate, but I personally like to do it by hand.

 

     The first time you try to make pasta dough, it might not come out right, whether it isn't the right consistency, or just a little over-kneaded, but don't get discouraged. Every time I make this, it becomes a little bit easier and a tastes a little bit better. Once you've made it a few times, it will become second nature.

     After your pasta dough is made, you're well on your way to making home made ravioli. The next step is the filling. Everyone had their own preference of what they like to put in their ravioli filling, whether it be pork, beef, ricotta cheese, or like me, lots of veggies.

 

Roasted Vegetable Ravioli Filling

Ingredients

1/2 zucchini, small dice

1/2 yellow squash, small dice

1/2 carrot, fine dice

3-4 asparagus, thinly sliced

3-4 Oz olive oil

Salt & Pepper, to taste

 

Directions

1. In a mixing bowl, combine all of the ingredients and toss to coat evenly with seasonings and oil. If desired, you can add more or less olive oil.

 

2. Spread the vegetable mixture out on a sheet pan, and put into an oven at 400 degrees Fahrenheit until the vegetable soften and begin to brown.

 

 

     Alright, now comes the fun part: Forming your ravioli. Once your dough is rested, it can be rolled out. If you have a pasta roller, then you're in luck. If not, you can use a rolling pin. If you are using a pasta roller, a tip that I learned very early on in my pasta-making days is to run the dough through each number of thickness twice because it will more sufficiently stretch your dough and makes it much less likely to rip while rolling. You want to roll your dough into sheets about one and a half to two inches wide, and as long as you desire. You will want to make an even number of dough sheets, because you will need two sheets to make the ravioli.

 

Directions for assembling ravioli

1. On a well floured surface, lay out one sheet of pasta dough.

 

2. Scoop out 2tsp sized portions of your filling onto the sheet, about one and a half inches from each other. Scoop as many as you can fit onto the sheet of dough.

 

3. Using your finger, brush a thin layer of water onto the dough around the filling. This will allow the top layer of dough to combine with the bottom layer in the next step.

 

4. Take a second sheet of pasta dough and lay it on top of the first. Trying not to let too much air in, use your fingers to press down the dough around the portions of filling. Don't squish the dough, but push down firm enough for it to stick well.

 

5. Cut around each portion of filling leaving about 1/4 inch of dough. As you finish the ravioli, lay them out on parchment paper, or on a well floured surface to avoid sticking.

 

 

     Unlike dried store bought pasta, home made pasta only needs to be boiled for a few minutes. Drop your ravioli into boiling water, and do not go anywhere. After just a couple of minutes, they'll start to float, and when they do, you know they're ready to be strained.

 

     Unless if you grew up in an Italian family, and know how to make real tomato sauce, do your self a favor and avoid dousing your hard work with sub-par store bought sauce that will mask all of the delicious subtle flavors of your home made ravioli. I think that the best way to really let the flavors shine is to prepare it as simply as possible. In a sauté pan, heat up some good olive oil, and add some garlic and baby spinach. Once your spinach is wilted, add your ravioli, season lightly with kosher salt and black pepper, and toss to coat them with the oil. Do this in small batches to avoid over crowding your pan, and as each batch is finished, transfer it into a serving bowl. Once all of the ravioli are cooked, I like to cut some grape tomatoes in half, and sprinkle them across the top.

     Like I said, this is a labor of love, and if you don't have the time or desire to make something delicious from scratch, then this isn't for you, but if you can find the time, then you will love this recipe. Let's nosh!