My boyfriend the gourmand has generously thrown his lot into my little blog experiment, penning this, the first installment of his semi-regular segment, "Food Thoughts". Listen to him. He knows what he's talking about. His food has inspired tears. And he has a really cute butt.
Really cute.
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My name is Alan and I have a cookbook problem.
No really. I love ‘em. I buy more than I could possibly use. I have fully replaced the need for fiction authors in my life with Mark Bittman and Alice Waters. I value the real CIA (Culinary Institute of America) more that phony front in Quantico, VA. Seriously. It’s an issue.
The good news is that I’m not content to let all the culinary knowledge go to waste. Every weekend I hunker down in the kitchen to try to craft something delicious for Felix and the rest of my taste-testing panel (or “friends,” as some prefer to be called).
So you’ve already read about Felix and my experience at Flub a Dub’s. And yes: it was very good. Between the food and Sam, it’s a must visit in Lakeview. But it was exactly heart healthy…not that I care. But it was the best excuse I could come up with to try out my newest acquisition, Vegetable Love by Barbara Kafka. Now, I’m not a vegetarian (“Not that there’s anything wrong with that!”), but growing up on a farm does give me a soft spot for all things flora. So I skimmed through the chapters, offering suggestions:
Me: “What about cucumber soup?”
Felix: “No soup. Are you mental? It’s summer in Chicago.”
Me: “But it’s a chilled soup!”
Felix: “Ew.”
Me: “Ok, what about lamb and beet stew?”
Felix: “Stew is a soup.”
Me: “Well, no actually. A stew is much more…”
Felix shoots his patterned cold, blank stare
Me: “Fine. What about butternut squash risotto?”
Hence, dinner was conceived! I bet this is how Thomas Keller sets all his menus…
So here we can see the opening credits for this dish.
Nothing too crazy or out of the norm for a risotto: onion, garlic, olive oil, aborrio rice. The usually cast of characters. The next step was prepping things. I have gotten pretty good over the years at chopping garlic and onions, so no worries there. However, I don’t deal with squash on a regular basis. The first step was to skin the little bugger. You start by lopping of the top and the bottom…just to square the thing off and take some of the roly-poly out of it.
Next run your chef’s knife down the sleek curves of the squash, taking off the skin but as much flesh as possible. Squash skin is pretty tough stuff, but you don’t need to be Lou Ferrigamo (or the newly buff Ed Norton) to pull this off. Then, simply half the thing and remove the seeds with a spoon.
The next step is grating the squash. This can get ugly in a couple ways:
1) Make peace with the fact that your going to get squash goo on you. However, here’s a tip for keeping things fairly clean: always place your box greater in the middle of larger plastic cutting board and simply grate onto that. This will allow the slim to fly on an easily cleanable area and avoid the whole pressure of having to get the squash to land in a bowl.
2) As with anything involving a box grater, you have to try not to be mesmerized by the grating action. It’s tempting to space out a little once you get on a roll, but resist. Your knuckles will thank you.
So, as you can see, I grated a bit and cubed a bit.
Next we bring on the heat. There was no pan specified in the recipe (“large” and “shallow” where the best describers I had to go on) so I just grabbed my 11” sauté pan and went to work melting butter with oil olive.
Then you throw in the rice and cook it with the butter for a couple minutes. I’m not sure exactly what this step does, but every recipe for risotto calls for it. Maybe to toast the rice to deepen the flavor? No clue. Maybe one of you foodies could help me out…
Add the onions and garlic and cook until they smell amazing.
Next, we introduce the title character: the butternut squash. Dumping in the grated orange goodness...NOW!
At this point, everything looked good. Nice color; good smell. Once the squash is heated through, you start with the part of risotto that everyone hears about and runs from…the stirring. I’ve read a couple varying opinions about how necessary the stirring actually is, but I, for one, thing this probably pretty important.
First add some wine. (Oh, most of the recipes we do involve wine/beer/vodka. What? You have your hobbies...) And stir. Once that’s gone, add some beef stock. And stir. Once that’s cooked out, add some more beef stock. And stir.
It’s really not as arduous as it sounds, but it takes a while. That’s the way with good food…no matter what Ms. Ray tells you.
Once all the requisite liquid is absorbed, add the cubed squash, a shake of nutmeg, and a little more stock. Let that cook through, and finish by mixing in some grated Parmesan.
Let’s talk about my lazy choice in Parmesan. Usually, I buy a nice block of the stuff and happily grate away. This time, however, I was a dope and used the pre-shredded parm. Sadly, this not an acceptable substitute. It’s dry and melts (not to mention tastes) more like shards of plastic than delicious cheesy goodness. Live and learn.
Voila!
Overall, the dish was a solid risotto. I’m not very good about self-rating my food…I’d say maybe 3.5 out of 5. It’s not main-course-worthy, but would make a killer side to some pork chops.
Really cute.
-------------------------------------------------
My name is Alan and I have a cookbook problem.
No really. I love ‘em. I buy more than I could possibly use. I have fully replaced the need for fiction authors in my life with Mark Bittman and Alice Waters. I value the real CIA (Culinary Institute of America) more that phony front in Quantico, VA. Seriously. It’s an issue.
The good news is that I’m not content to let all the culinary knowledge go to waste. Every weekend I hunker down in the kitchen to try to craft something delicious for Felix and the rest of my taste-testing panel (or “friends,” as some prefer to be called).
So you’ve already read about Felix and my experience at Flub a Dub’s. And yes: it was very good. Between the food and Sam, it’s a must visit in Lakeview. But it was exactly heart healthy…not that I care. But it was the best excuse I could come up with to try out my newest acquisition, Vegetable Love by Barbara Kafka. Now, I’m not a vegetarian (“Not that there’s anything wrong with that!”), but growing up on a farm does give me a soft spot for all things flora. So I skimmed through the chapters, offering suggestions:
Me: “What about cucumber soup?”
Felix: “No soup. Are you mental? It’s summer in Chicago.”
Me: “But it’s a chilled soup!”
Felix: “Ew.”
Me: “Ok, what about lamb and beet stew?”
Felix: “Stew is a soup.”
Me: “Well, no actually. A stew is much more…”
Felix shoots his patterned cold, blank stare
Me: “Fine. What about butternut squash risotto?”
Hence, dinner was conceived! I bet this is how Thomas Keller sets all his menus…
So here we can see the opening credits for this dish.
Nothing too crazy or out of the norm for a risotto: onion, garlic, olive oil, aborrio rice. The usually cast of characters. The next step was prepping things. I have gotten pretty good over the years at chopping garlic and onions, so no worries there. However, I don’t deal with squash on a regular basis. The first step was to skin the little bugger. You start by lopping of the top and the bottom…just to square the thing off and take some of the roly-poly out of it.
Next run your chef’s knife down the sleek curves of the squash, taking off the skin but as much flesh as possible. Squash skin is pretty tough stuff, but you don’t need to be Lou Ferrigamo (or the newly buff Ed Norton) to pull this off. Then, simply half the thing and remove the seeds with a spoon.
The next step is grating the squash. This can get ugly in a couple ways:
1) Make peace with the fact that your going to get squash goo on you. However, here’s a tip for keeping things fairly clean: always place your box greater in the middle of larger plastic cutting board and simply grate onto that. This will allow the slim to fly on an easily cleanable area and avoid the whole pressure of having to get the squash to land in a bowl.
2) As with anything involving a box grater, you have to try not to be mesmerized by the grating action. It’s tempting to space out a little once you get on a roll, but resist. Your knuckles will thank you.
So, as you can see, I grated a bit and cubed a bit.
Next we bring on the heat. There was no pan specified in the recipe (“large” and “shallow” where the best describers I had to go on) so I just grabbed my 11” sauté pan and went to work melting butter with oil olive.
Then you throw in the rice and cook it with the butter for a couple minutes. I’m not sure exactly what this step does, but every recipe for risotto calls for it. Maybe to toast the rice to deepen the flavor? No clue. Maybe one of you foodies could help me out…
Add the onions and garlic and cook until they smell amazing.
Next, we introduce the title character: the butternut squash. Dumping in the grated orange goodness...NOW!
At this point, everything looked good. Nice color; good smell. Once the squash is heated through, you start with the part of risotto that everyone hears about and runs from…the stirring. I’ve read a couple varying opinions about how necessary the stirring actually is, but I, for one, thing this probably pretty important.
First add some wine. (Oh, most of the recipes we do involve wine/beer/vodka. What? You have your hobbies...) And stir. Once that’s gone, add some beef stock. And stir. Once that’s cooked out, add some more beef stock. And stir.
It’s really not as arduous as it sounds, but it takes a while. That’s the way with good food…no matter what Ms. Ray tells you.
Once all the requisite liquid is absorbed, add the cubed squash, a shake of nutmeg, and a little more stock. Let that cook through, and finish by mixing in some grated Parmesan.
Let’s talk about my lazy choice in Parmesan. Usually, I buy a nice block of the stuff and happily grate away. This time, however, I was a dope and used the pre-shredded parm. Sadly, this not an acceptable substitute. It’s dry and melts (not to mention tastes) more like shards of plastic than delicious cheesy goodness. Live and learn.
Voila!
Overall, the dish was a solid risotto. I’m not very good about self-rating my food…I’d say maybe 3.5 out of 5. It’s not main-course-worthy, but would make a killer side to some pork chops.
2 comments:
I love squash, sometimes too much!
it would appear one of your blogs is empty, and I'm not invited to read the other.
I suppose I'll have to marry into the Montwills for the privelege? I do so enjoy pierogi.
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