Spaghetti Carbonara

On October 18, 2017May 14, 2019 By lukephillaryhIn Classico2 Comments

Spaghetti Carbonara was one of the first meals I made where I diverged from my mother’s recipe. Growing up, my mom would make a delicious Spaghetti Carbonara full of crispy bacon bits and sautéed onions covered in a creamy sauce. It was not until college that I realized that though bacon is passable, an authentic Spaghetti Carbonara recipe never includes onions and the creaminess does not come from some generous pours of heavy cream.

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Best Office Lunch

On April 24, 2017May 13, 2019 By lukephillaryhIn Luke's Dishes1 Comment

Prosciutto and Mozzarella Sandwich office lunch — Highlight of the workday

Lunch al Desko seems to be the new hot thing these days. It’s the simple idea of bringing in leftovers or making your lunch instead of buying the same basic Sweetgreen salad/California roll/Deli panini. Despite sparking ridiculous “challenges” like #Cook90, I’m in full support of the ham sandwich’s newfound trendiness. My favorite office lunch happens to be an upscale version this classic brown bag staple. I’ll usually make a prosciutto & mozzarella sandwich when I already have one or more of the ingredients at home. Let’s say there’s some arugula and bread from last night’s dinner; at Noon, I’ll run out to Whole Foods for mozz, prosciut, and peppers. These three ingredients cost just as much as salad or sushi, and there will be leftovers for an pre-dinner snack.

Economical, resourceful, and delicious, Lunch al Desko definitely deserves its recent buzz. Admittedly, the prosciutto & mozz sandwich is my definition of “best.” So tell us your favorite office lunch in the comments! But it better not be “1 can of chickpeas.”

Ingredients

Prosciutto
Fresh mozzarella, sliced into 1/4 inch slices
1 roasted pepper, sliced into strips
Arugula, or whatever greenery you have on hand
Long roll, ciabatta, or baguette
Pesto, optional
Olive oil & red wine vinegar, optional but recommended
Salt & pepper

Directions

Pro-tip: try to get the roasted pepper from the grocery store salad bar. Pour the olive oil and vinegar into the same container as the roasted pepper.
Prep the mozzarella, prosciutto, arugula, and pepper on a plate. Cut bread lengthwise. If using, spread pesto on the bottom half.
Layer on prosciutto, mozzarella, roasted pepper, and arugula. Drizzle oil and vinegar, sprinkle salt and pepper.
Cut into two even halves.

Marcella Hazan’s Bolognese Sauce

On March 13, 2017May 13, 2019 By lukephillaryhIn ClassicoLeave a comment

Marcella Hazan bolognese sauce — Classic goodness

Disappointingly, women today are still not respected, nonetheless celebrated. In this month of March when we celebrate Women’s History, it is important to pay tribute to the incredible women who shape and inspire us. Women who deserve recognition everyday, but some extra pomp and circumstance all March long. Marcella Hazan is one of those women. When reading about Marcella you come across many admiring quotes – famous chefs and food writers who credit Marcella for teaching them how to cook, care for, and love food. Interestingly, many of the chefs Marcella inspired were men. Marcella did begin cooking for traditional reasons – married in 1955 and living in New York she was first compelled to cook in order to”feed a young, hard-working husband.” Although her foray into cooking was more or less due to gender stereotypes, she quickly realized her skillfulness and wasted no time putting it to good work. Hazan went on to publish several cookbooks. Her first, The Classic Italian Cookbook, is legitimately the classic Italian cookbook. It is canonical. This March, Luke and I honored Marcella’s legacy by tackling her bolognese recipe. We’d argue it’s the only bolognese recipe you’ll ever need. No need to cross reference with other cookbooks or websites, substitute one ingredient for another, or make many additions. Follow this recipe as is and you’ll have the perfect bolognese sauce.

Ingredients:

1 TBS olive oil
3 TBS butter + 1 TBS for tossing pasta
1/2 cup chopped onion
2/3 cup chopped celery
2/3 cup chopped carrot
3/4 pound ground beef chuck (80% lean, 20% fat is best)
salt & freshly ground pepper, to taste
1 cup whole milk
a tiny grating (approx. 1/8 tsp) fresh nutmeg
1 cup dry white wine
1 1/2 cup canned whole tomatoes, cut up, with their juices (get good quality!)
1 lb pasta (spaghetti or fettuccine)
freshly grated parm, for serving

Directions:

Be prepared to spend the next 4 hours tending to your bolognese. Once it starts simmering it doesn’t take much work, but this sauce likes to be checked up on regularly.
Put the oil, butter, and chopped onion in a heavy bottom pot or dutch oven and turn heat on medium. Cook until the onion has become translucent, about 5 minutes, and then add the carrots and celery.* Cook for an additional 2 minutes.
Add ground beef, a large pinch of salt, and a few grindings of pepper. Stir meat well, so that it crumbles, breaking up with a fork if necessary. Cook until the beef has lost its red color.
Add milk and let it simmer gently, stirring frequently, until milk has bubbled away completely. Add the freshly grated nutmeg and stir.
Add the wine, and as with the milk, let it simmer until it has evaporated completely. Add the tomatoes and stir thoroughly to coat all the ingredients well. When the tomatoes begin to bubble turn the heat all the way down. You want the sauce to cook at a very gentle simmer. Cook, uncovered, for about 3 hours, stirring from time to time. During this cooking process, you will likely find that the sauce loses quite a bit of liquid. Be wary of this! You don’t want the meat to stick to the bottom of your pot so add 1/2 cup water at a time when the liquid supply is looking low.* At the end of the 3 hours though no water should be left. Also check taste as you go, adding more salt as necessary.
Add a tablespoon of butter to the cooked pasta, and toss with the sauce. Serve with plenty of freshly grated parm.

The recipe above is verbatim Marcella Hazan bolognese. We did not want to disrespect the queen of Italian cooking in this post. We did make the following 2 minor adjustments that you can consider making as well –

With the celery and carrots, we also added a couple cloves of garlic, minced.
We created a mixture of tomato paste and warm water (1 TBS tomato paste to 2 cups warm water), stirring the tomato paste into the water so that it would dissolve. We added this mixture to the sauce when it was drying out. We ended up using all 2 cups of this mixture during the 3 hour simmer.

Details: Serves 4-6.

The Ultimate Philly Lunch

On November 27, 2016May 13, 2019 By lukephillaryhIn Adventures2 Comments

Best Italian hoagie lunch in Philadelphia — The perfect homecoming

The Thanksgiving holiday offers us the chance to see friends and family while gorging on the usual spread of turkey, mashed potatoes, yada yada yada. This year, however, it wasn’t the meal on Thursday that brought me the most pleasure. On Wednesday afternoon, I decided to skip the pre-Thanksgiving fast and walk to Cosmi’s Deli in South Philly for a Italian hoagie. Philly has recently gotten a lot of love for its pizza, fried chicken n’ donuts, and – yes, New York, even bagels. Most trips home I’ll head straight to Washington Ave. for Vietnamese pho, vermicelli, and hoagies aka bahn mi. Something must’ve been in the air this time around because I was craving the most quintessential Philly food I know. And, no it doesn’t begin with Cheese.

Admittedly, I have exclaimed on more than one occasion that I make the best Italian hoagie in the country. This is complete hubris, because although my version is pretty damn good – the guys at Cosmi’s will show you how it’s done.

I won’t leave you with a recipe, but I will give some instructions.

Walk, bike, or drive down to 8th & Dickinson streets
Go up to the counter and say, “Can I get a Italian on a seeded roll, lettuce/tomato/onion, roasted peppers, oil/vinegar, salt/pepper/oregano.”
Grab a bag of Herr’s chips and a can of soda
Pay for everything + a couple bucks tip
Find the nearest place to enjoy the best meal Philly has to offer.

Classic Risotto (w/ Shrimp)

On November 6, 2016May 13, 2019 By lukephillaryhIn ClassicoLeave a comment

Risotto with Shrimp in Staub — *Post sponsored by Staub Cookware…jk 🙂

Risotto is one of those recipes that elicits respect. It takes a little bit of TLC, all of that stirring. Risotto is needy. You can’t leave it unattended too long. And it is key to be patient when adding the stock. Too much liquid at one time can completely derail the dish. So be prepared to stand over your saucepan and enjoy the cooking magic of this ever absorbing rice. But, all in all, it is a fairly easy dish to whip together and can definitely be concocted in under one hour. Skip shrimp to make it even simpler! The risotto is delicious enough to stand on its own and will still impress.

We suggest consulting Action Bronson and Chef Michael White (of Marea, Osteria Morini, Ai Fiori, etc) for some professional risotto cooking tips. For our risotto, we used a super simple, straight forward recipe from the New York Times as our basis.

Ingredients:

1 lb medium shrimp, in shell
1 quart chicken stock
salt to taste
2 TBS butter or olive oil
2 shallots chopped
1 1/2 cup arborio or carnaroli rice
2 large garlic cloves, minced
1/2 cup dry white wine
generous pinch of saffron (optional)
2 TBS freshly chopped parsley
freshly ground pepper to taste

Directions:

Shell and de-vein the shrimp. Set aside and salt them lightly. Rinse the shells and combine with 4-5 cups water. Bring to a boil, skim off the foam, reduce heat to low and simmer partly covered for 30 minutes. Strain and add to chicken stock. Bring the stock to a simmer in a saucepan.*
Melt the butter in a large, wide saucepan and then add the shallots. Cook, stirring until the shallot softens, 3-5 minutes. Add a pinch of salt to the shallots and stir, and then add the rice and garlic. Cook, stirring, until the rice begins to crackle.
Stir in the wine and cook over medium heat. You want the wine to bubble, but not too quickly. When the wine has just about evaporated, add a ladleful of the stock, enough to cover the rice. Stir often over medium-low heat. As the rice absorbs the stock, add additional ladlefuls. You want to add more stock once the previous ladleful has just about been absorbed. At some point, crush the saffron threads between your fingers and stir in. You should continue adding stock for about 20 minutes.
After 20 minutes, taste a bit of rice. The rice should be a bit chewy, but definitely not hard in the middle. Continue adding stock until you reach this al dente stage (you likely will have a bit of leftover stock). When you think your rice is nearly perfect, stir in parsley and one more ladle of stock. Remove from heat, season with salt and pepper.
We like to make the shrimp separately, but you can also add to the rice to cook. If cooking with the rice, when the rice is nearly finished, add the shrimp to the risotto with a ladle of stock and cook, stirring for 4-5 minutes, until the shrimp is pink. If you’d like to cook separately, heat 2 TBS of olive oil over medium-high heat in a pan. Add shrimp in an even layer and cook for 3 minutes. Turn shrimp and cook an additional 2 minutes. We recommend adding a spritz of lemon, splash of white wine when turning the shrimp.

Details: Serves 4

*Note: You can skip the shrimp and just purchase a bit more chicken stock. In this case, you’d be making delicious, classic risotto without the extra fuss of creating shrimp stock.

Pasta alla Norma

On September 19, 2016May 13, 2019 By lukephillaryhIn Veggie1 Comment

We like heavy pastas in our household. Ragù. Spaghetti and meatballs. Pasta alla Gricia. We love the slow simmer, building of flavors, and richness of these dishes. And, yes, pasta is carbs. Carbs are comfort food. So why not, while you’re already eating something deemed “unhealthy,” pile on the prosciutto, guanciale, and sausage? But this vegetarian pasta, recipe courtesy of Mark Bittman, holds its own against our meaty favorites. Staring eggplant, it makes for a delicious, refined, and relatively quick dinner. And with a grating of ricotta salata and a sprinkling of freshly chopped herbs, it has an unbeatable fresh flavor. Enjoy as you’re easing out of summer! Save those heavier pastas for the upcoming cold.

Ingredients:

1 large eggplant, cut lengthwise into thin slices (bit thinner than 1/2 inch)
salt & pepper
lots of olive oil, up to 1/2 cup
1 TBS chopped garlic
2-3 tsp chili flakes (depending on spice preference)
1 28-oz can whole peeled tomatoes
1 tsp dried oregano
1 pound long pasta
1/2 cup chopped parsley or basil (or combo)
1/2 cup ricotta salata (or, if you must, pecorino Romano)

Directions:

Preheat oven to 400°F.
Sprinkle eggplant slices with 1-2 tsp salt and let drain of excess moisture. We do this by layering the slices in a colander and then placing a small plate weighed down with a can or big glass of water on-top, pushing down on the eggplant. We’ll let this sit for 20 minutes, patting the eggplant with paper towels afterwards. There are some other methods! This will prevent your eggplant from being soggy and bitter.
After drying slices, arrange on a large, well oiled baking sheet. Brush with more olive oil and season with salt and pepper. Roast in oven for 20-25 minutes flipping at least once. You’ll went the eggplant slices to be nicely browned, soft, but with a good crisp.
While eggplant is roasting, make the sauce and bring a large pot of salted water to a boil. In a large, deep skillet heat 2-3 TBS olive oil over medium heat. Once shimmering, add garlic and chili flakes, cooking until garlic has browned a bit and is fragrant. Add the tomatoes and juice, squeezing the whole tomatoes with your hand to crush, and oregano. Add a bit of salt and pepper. Bring to a boil and then simmer while eggplant and pasta finish cooking.
Cook pasta until al dente. While cooking, cut the eggplant slices into strips. Transfer 1/4 of slices into simmering sauce. Set the rest aside.
Add cooked pasta to tomato sauce.* Dress with remaining eggplant strips and a generous topping of freshly grated ricotta salata, basil, and/or parsley.

Details: Serves 4-6.

*Note: We like to keep the pasta and sauce separate and let people prep their own plates according to their sauce to pasta ratio preference. Not so traditional of us, but we are sauce-y people!

Panzanella with Mozz + Herbs

On September 3, 2016May 13, 2019 By lukephillaryhIn Ode to NYTLeave a comment

Panzanella mozzarella cheese Melissa Clark recipe — Panzanella, ella, ella, eh, eh, eh

There’s still time – tomato season isn’t over yet! This is a perfect end of summer salad. It combines some of our favorite seasonal ingredients, tomato, cucumber, and basil, with year-round essentials, namely cheese (mozzarella) and bread. On self-respecting nights, when we manage not to finish off a whole baguette, we let a portion go stale and make this delicious Tuscan bread salad the next evening for dinner. Traditional panzanella calls for stale bread, uber ripe tomatoes, a dressing of olive oil and red wine vinegar, and sometimes onions and basil. This oomph-ed up version comes from our favorite lady Melissa Clark. The cucumber adds freshness and crunch and the mozzarella makes it a heartier salad, worthy of eating as a main meal instead of a side. Make sure to enjoy this salad before summer is officially over!

Ingredients:

1/3 of a baguette or rustic loaf (preferably stale) cut into 1-inch cubes
6 TBS olive oil
1 tsp salt
3 tomatoes, use a mix of varieties and colors!
6 oz mozzarella, cut or torn into bite-sized pieces
2 shallots (or 1/2 red onion) thinly sliced
2 garlic cloves, grated to a paste
2 TBS red wine vinegar
1 TBS chopped fresh oregano or thyme (or a combination)
pinch of red pepper flakes
1/2 tsp Dijon mustard
1/2 cup Persian or English cucumber, cut into thin quarter pieces
1/2 cup torn basil
1/4 cup roughly chopped parsley
1 TBS of capers, drained

Directions:

Heat oven to 425ºF. Spread bread pieces onto a baking sheet and toss with 2 TBS olive oil and 1/2 tsp salt. Bake until golden brown and dried out, about 7-15 minutes. Cool on a wire rack.
Cut tomatoes into pieces just a bit smaller than the bread cubes. Put them into a large bowl and then thinly slice the shallots lengthwise.
Add the shallots into the bowl and use a microplane to grate 2 cloves of garlic into a paste. Along with the garlic paste, add 1 TBS vinegar, oregano or thyme, 1/4 tsp salt, and red pepper flakes.
Cut up the mozzarella into bite-sized pieces and add to the bowl, toss everything together and set aside.
In a medium bowl, combine 1 TBS vinegar, mustard, 1/2 tsp salt, and black pepper. While continuously whisking, add 4 TBS olive oil one-by-one to the dressing. Stir in cucumbers, basil, and parsley.
Add bread pieces, dressing, and capers to the large bowl and mix well. Let it sit and soak for at least 30 minutes, up to 6 hours. You can keep chilled in the fridge. Add extra oil, vinegar or salt if needed!

Notes: Serves 3-4 as a main meal, 6 as a side.

French Tomato Tart

On July 19, 2016May 13, 2019 By lukephillaryhIn VeggieLeave a comment

Tomato Tart David Lebovitz recipe — Tomatoes and the tart! Perfect for a picnic.

Luke’s dad Scott is a masterful tomato grower. In a small community garden plot in Philadelphia Scott has harvested many pounds of tomatoes, a combination of varieties he carefully selects – Speckled Peach, Amish Paste, Marmande, Golden Honey Bunch are a few of his favorite. He’s truly perfected the science of tomato growing, even conducting taste tests. In past summers, Luke and I have had the privilege of enjoying Scott’s tomato bounty, making oodles of bruschetta, homemade tomato sauce, Caprese salad – gustatorily transporting ourselves to Italy. This year, in accordance with fairness and good governance, Scott’s community plot has been ceded to another gardener. And sadly, without Scott’s crop, Luke and I have completely forgotten to enjoy any of summer’s tomatoes! Thankfully, that changed this weekend. We selected three beautiful farmer’s market tomatoes and journeyed from Italy to France. This fresh, bright tomato tart makes a perfect summer lunch or light dinner. Bring to the park for a Provençal picnic!

Recipe courtesy of David Lebovitz – a classic food blogger, but new favorite!

Ingredients – Dough:

1 1/2 cups flour
9 TBS chilled butter, cut into 1/2 inch cubes
1/2 tsp salt
1 large egg
2-3 TBS ice water

Ingredients – Tart filling:

2-3 TBS dijon mustard
2-3 large ripe tomatoes, cut into slices
2 TBS olive oil
2 TBS minced fresh herbs (thyme, chives, tarragon)
6 oz goat cheese, cut into rounds
salt & pepper, to taste

Directions – Dough:

Tart dough: Mix flour in salt in a medium sized bowl. Add the butter and use your hands or pastry blender, to break in the butter until the mixture is crumbly.
Mix the egg with 2 TBS of cold water. Make a well in the center of the dough and add the beaten egg mixture. Stir the mixture with your hands until the dough holds together. If it’s not coming together easily, add an additional TBS of water.
Form dough into a ball and transfer onto a big sheet of plastic wrap. Wrap in plastic and flatten into a disc. Refrigerate for an hour (or up to 24 hours).
Remove dough from fridge and let thaw out slightly. On a lightly floured service using a floured rolling pin, roll out the dough. Rotate the dough and add more flour to surface, as needed, to ensure dough doesn’t stick. Roll out dough so that is large enough to cover the bottom and sides of a 9-inch or 10-inch removable tart pan.
Transfer the dough to your tart pan and press the dough into the bottom and up the sides of your pan.

Directions – Filling:

Preheat oven to 425°F.
Spread an even layer of mustard over the bottom of the tart pan and let sit for a minute or so to soak in.
Arrange the sliced tomatoes in a single layer (a little overlap is ok). Sprinkle with 1 TBS of fresh herbs and drizzle with olive oil. Top with salt and a freshly ground black pepper.
Arrange the goat cheese slices on top and sprinkling with remaining herbs.
Bake the tart for 30 minutes, until the cheese is nicely browned around the edges. Let cool for ten minutes, then enjoy! Perfect for a summer lunch.

Details: Makes 1 9-inch or 10-inch tart

Pasta alla Gricia

On March 20, 2016May 13, 2019 By lukephillaryhIn Ode to NYT2 Comments

Like most, we are big fans of bacon and pasta, respectively and combined. Two of our favorite dishes come from Cal Peternell’s Twelve Recipes. His carbonara and amatriciana recipes are always smashing successes. Admittedly, we typically opt for regular old grocery store bacon instead of pancetta or the even more authentic option of guanciale. Feeling a bit adventurous, but also wanting to keep it simple for our Saturday night dinner, we decided to try Mark Bittman’s version of a Roman classic, pasta alla Gricia. Marky B stresses the importance of using guanciale, so we finally committed, trekking into Manhattan to buy a nice hunk of pig jowl at Eataly (we’ll visit our favorite butcher Los Paisano’s in Cobble Hill next time). The guanciale elevated this pasta from a simple weekday dinner to a delicious Saturday night feast. And now we feel like slightly more legit gourmands.

Ingredients:

1/2 pound guanciale (cured pig jowl), cut into 1/4 inch pieces*
1/2 tsp freshly ground black pepper + more to taste
3/4 pound spaghetti or other long pasta
1/2 cup freshly grated pecorino romano or parmesan

Directions:

Cook the guanciale in a large skillet over medium heat until deeply golden. You may need to adjust the heat to not cook too quickly. You want the fat to render without burning the meat. The meaty parts should be brown and the fatty parts should be cooked but still slightly transparent. This should take 10-15 minutes. When done, add the black pepper and turn off heat.
While cooking the guanciale, bring a large pot of salted water to a boil. When the water reaches a boil, add the the pasta. Cook till al dente and drain, reserving 1 1/2 cups of pasta water.
You want the pasta to still be wet and hot, so while it is cooking add 3/4 cup of the pasta water to the cooled guanciale. Turn heat to high and reduce liquid by half.
Once reduced, transfer pasta to the skillet. Mix vigorously and stir in more pasta water if necessary to create a creamy sauce. Add the cheese and extra cracked pepper.

Garnish with additional cheese! Enjoy with a glass of red wine.

Details: Serves 4

*Note 1: If you can’t find gaunciale, pancetta or bacon will also work. But guanciale is a game changer in this recipe!!

Hoagies + Pie

On December 8, 2015May 13, 2019 By lukephillaryhIn Adventures1 Comment

Walking Map of Paisanos Union Market Caputo Bakery and Four Twenty Blackbirds — Paisanos > Union Market > Caputo > Four Twenty Blackbirds

Sundays are for walking. Whether it’s to Brooklyn Bridge Park in steamy July or a loop around Prospect Park in bone-chilling January, Hillary and I are devoted to our Sunday walk. With perfect weather this past weekend, we were inspired to log some major steps. After watching Creed on Friday evening, our hearts and stomachs longed for Philadelphia. What better to fulfill that taste of home than a classic Italian hoagie. We headed to Cobble Hill on Sunday morning for the essential hoagie ingredients, and made a detour to Gowanus for some pie slices.

Our stops