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A quick post on how to make sorpresine.
I first encountered the pasta shape sorpresine during my first read through Evan Funke’s American Sfloligno. Folded in a similar way to tortellini but without any filling–surprise!–I fell in love with the beauty of this shape almost immediately. While traditionally used in broths both meat-and-vegetable derived, I’m a fan of tossing them in a light sauce, ranging from as light as one made from…
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January was rough for us in Baltimore (and for much of the East Coast) because of a really gnarly snowstorm that delivered both snow and ice and then we were in sub-freezing temperatures for nearly two weeks, so when the opportunity to go to south Florida for a few days in early February came up, we both jumped at the opportunity. (Our heater also wasn’t working so well, so that was extra motivation with the added incentive of having a promotional companion pass with Southwest.) Flying into Fort Lauderdale and then renting a car to get to Doral, we stopped in the Miami Design District to get a lovely lunch at Mandolin Aegean Bistro. We went here back in the spring of 2019 as the last big group meal for a joint-bachelor Miami trip, and M was not impressed at the time because the people who selected it opted for a mostly vegetarian menu which was fine, but we didn’t realize how many great meat dishes we were missing as a result! The spiced ground lamb on yogurt was divine, as was the mushroom, lemon, and herb orzo pasta that was a special that day and I enjoyed as leftovers the next.
More below the jump!
I first listened to Yesteryear by Caro Claire Burke back in early May; my hold became available the day before I was headed to LA for a few days. I held off on listening to the book on the plane because I knew I was going to try to sleep on the flight over, but as soon as we landed at LAX, I popped one of my earbuds in while we were walking from the gate to the rideshare area, and I was hooked from the line “My name is Natalie Heller Mills, and I was perfect at being alive.” The book followed me through most of my walking around downtown LA and Hollywood, and then I had to listen to it again as soon as I got home because I wanted to make the most of my two-week loan.
I’m currently listening to it for the third time because it’s such a good audiobook, but I also bought a copy of the UK edition because I want to have the ability to go back and flag specific passages and the cover is superior to that of the US edition.
All that said, some of the reactions to this book have been kind of unhinged in their negativity, which reminded me of a pretty terrible restaurant experience I had during my first trip to Las Vegas. The shrimp cavatelli alla vodka I had that night was so shitty and the rest of the experience was so pretentious and odd that I was prepared to write this scathing review of the place without ever naming it. That post remained firmly in the drafts, however, because after the natural allowance of distance that time offered and rereading the post itself, I found myself cringing at my self-righteousness of the review. The recipe for vodka sauce that I tinkered with, however, was fabulous, and I decided that I wanted to pair it with something I read and loved versus a negative dining experience, but more to come on this soon.
We had these tiny little rosti with tuna and compressed watermelon when we were in New Orleans a little over a month ago, so I’m playing with that concept for some of our brunches. Smoked salmon was on sale, so we made some compressed watermelon and paired it with the smoked salmon along with some creme fraiche and whitefish caviar, and it has definite possibilities but I need to get better with making my various potato cakes so that’s going to be on my to-do list for the rest of the year.
Red meat isn’t a regular occurrence in our house, but when there is either a good steak or a good ground beef on sale that’s actually a decent value, I will allow it to influence my meal planning. While I squatted, M did a simple mixture of grated (and squeezed of excess moisture) onion, finely chopped parsley, some minced garlic clove, some sumac, and of course some salt and let it sit in the fridge for at least an hour as one mass before forming into oblong kebabs and throwing them into the air fryer. Paired with a lemony-sumac yogurt sauce and some homegrown basil, it was a satisfying small plate!
A couple weeks ago, I tried making anglotti al plin for the first time, and while it was awkward, it’s a shape I’m determined to master.
The first time I enjoyed this type of pasta was in Acqui Terme, Italy back in 2008 on our honeymoon, and the ones we had were absolutely petite. I made larger ones because I didn’t want to drive myself up a wall, but I definitely learned things about the process as I went along. Of the many kinds of stuffed pastas I’ve made over the years, this is one that I feel creates the least waste because the pasta folds onto what might turn into scraps for other shapes, and that pleases the very real part of me that hates wasting fresh pasta.
A couple weeks ago, I tried making anglotti al plin for the first time, and while it was awkward, it’s a shape I’m determined to master.
The first time I enjoyed this type of pasta was in Acqui Terme, Italy back in 2008 on our honeymoon, and the ones we had were absolutely petite. I made larger ones because I didn’t want to drive myself up a wall, but I definitely learned things about the process as I went along. Of the many kinds of stuffed pastas I’ve made over the years, this is one that I feel creates the least waste because the pasta folds onto what might turn into scraps for other shapes, and that pleases the very real part of me that hates wasting fresh pasta.
I paired these with an onion ragu--both pasta and sauces were inspired from Pasta Every Day by Meryl Feinstein--but I think the truly-inspired idea is to fill these with mascarpone cheese and serve them with a cream-free vodka sauce.
To use up some of the leftover schiacciata bread from sandwich night, on Sunday I made some coddled eggs with basil, tomato, and some parsley, and it was so nice and so light, and I need to make this a few more times because this particular technique is, I think, adaptable into other flavor combinations. The original recipe comes from The Silver Spoon of all places, but I like to flip through the Eggs section of that book when I am struggling to figure out a good brunch dish for our normal Sundays.
I’ve been baking a lot of pan de cristal lately because it pairs well with a lot of different dishes, but I floated the idea of making a loaf of schiacciata for sandwiches, and he was into the idea so long as I was able to get the bread baked sooner rather than later.
Because this bread uses a Poolish starter that needs a good 12 hours to form before you make the dough itself, I would say this bread is slightly easier to make ahead of time because the actual stretching and folding process is slightly less time-consuming than that of the pan de cristal. It also doesn’t stale as quickly as pan de cristal does, which is helpful if you want to make sandwiches that are still pliable.
This sandwich of prosciutto, gorgonzola cream, and pistachio pesto was inspired by La Numero 1 at All’Antico Vinaio (though that version uses porchetta), and basically I pureed a third of a cup of pistachios with several tablespoons of extra-virgin olive oil (adding a little more as needed) and seasoned it with salt and pepper. I made the gorgonzola cream by combining a cup of crumbled gorgonzola from a good wedge of it and blending it with a quarter-cup of ricotta cheese to make it soft and fluffy, and that went on the bottom of the sandwich, followed by the pistachio crema on top. While it was rich--I absolutely saved some for lunch the next day--it was really tasty and brought me right back to All’Antico Vinaio, so I’m definitely going to do some other iterations with this.
I usually spend Tuesdays deboning chicken thighs and then either baking them (fall/winter) or grilling them (spring/summer), and while making them recently, I had the idea to use up some older parsley to make a little parsley oil sauce to go on top of these thighs that I coated in black garlic powder. I want to make this again as it’s been a minute since I tried the parsley oil, but I really liked it as an alternative to finely chopping parsley as a garnish, and you can use in on plenty of other things like, say, some bruschetta, tomato bread, pasta, eggs--you name it.
Drawing more inspiration from Missy Robbins and her book Pasta, I made some ravioli that rocked my husband’s world1 about a month ago that I paired with her ravioli red sauce. This is in her section dedicated to Italian-American classics, and it’s a red sauce meant to go up against ravioli stuffed with ricotta cheese. While I used ricotta here, I blended it with sauteed mushrooms and garlic to give it that savory, umami kick that pairs perfectly with tomato sauce, and the final result was really really good. I hadn’t really explored that part of her book before as I was more intrigued by the unconventional pairings found elsewhere, but I’m so glad I made a point of making this because it’s definitely going into the rotation for Sunday dinners, especially in the fall and winter.
I should note that this doesn’t happen with every pasta dish I make on Sundays! Sometimes he’s just fine with it as he knows I love pasta more than he does, and then sometimes he genuinely freaks out and has to tell me all the ways he loves that particular dish.
My in-laws came to visit in early June for a weekend, and ahead of their arrival on Friday, I made some pan de cristal again to go with an appetizer that my mother-in-law loves to make in the summer where she roasts cherry tomatoes with olive oil, salt, and pepper at 350 degrees until they burst (about 15-20 minutes), and then she pours them into a serving vessel of choice and plop a nice ball of burrata in the middle, topping with some torn basil or another fresh herb of your choice. We got to use some of our homegrown basil, which was pretty exciting! Served with torn bits of toasted bread, it’s a really tasty and warm spin on the classic bruschetta.
For those who may avoid burrata because of lactose intolerance, the brand Buf makes both mozzarella and burrata using water buffalo milk which is naturally lactose free, and it’s really good. This is the cheese we prefer to use on our pizzas, and the burrata is fabulous here.
I wanted to try using the dragonfruit powder I bought back in the spring to make cherry blossom pasta (something I’m going to make again because while the cherry blossoms are for spring, that dish is seasonally agnostic) in an egg yolk dough, and it came out really well! I might use a few more teaspoons to see if I can get a more vibrant pink color the next time.
The finished pasta in question is an interpretation of a dish from Missy Robbins’s book Pasta: a lemon-butter sauce that she finishes with crushed pine nuts but I used almonds because neither my husband nor I like pine nuts enough to justify their price.
We went to our friend’s place around the corner from us for a lovely gathering back in May, and they served a watermelon-lime cocktail that I really liked despite not liking watermelon much. (My main issue with it is the texture, but I also don’t love the smell of unripe melon.) Blended, spiked with lime juice and gin, however, and I think it’s great!
As I write this, we’re getting together over the weekend to do a progressive brunch/dinner, so I’ll try to snag the recipe from her because I want to make this again as the personal-sized watermelons are still in season.
While I’m obviously trying to not bake bread during the hottest parts of the day these days, I’ve been experimenting with starting times for making bread that get me loaves by lunchtime which I can then wrap up and save either for dinner that night or for brunch the next day. This pan de cristal with sauteed mushrooms, peppers, and serrano ham was part of a pintxo spread for a Friday night meal at home, and getting up fairly early that morning to make it was totally worth it, as the crags cradled the mushrooms and peppers and the ham gave everything a savory, salty kick.
Every once in a while I get a craving for polenta, and I made some a few weeks ago for lunch (and to use a clutch of oyster mushrooms I had bought at Hmart), and things were going well until I added the butter to the polenta and it got really, really watery and I tried cooking it down further. After sitting in the fridge for a day or so, it definitely re-thickened, but I had never seen this before.
Maybe it was because I used homemade butter, but it’s not the first time I’ve done that so I’m still kind of perplexed over this.
After making the decidedly rich Marc Vetri pesto that features both a lot of basil (expected) and a lot of butter (not so much!), I made another pesto shortly thereafter: the basil-pistachio pesto from Dinner at the Club by Joey Baldino and Adam Erace, and the latter is the chef-owner of Palizzi, the one restaurant in Philly that you need to know someone who’s a member to eat at because memberships themselves are very hard to come by.
I was pleasantly surprised by how simple and low-key this recipe was, and that it was clearly rooted in addressing costs as the pesto is made with almonds in addition to pistachios, and I kind of liked it better? In any case, I will probably make this again before I do the fancy pesto, as it’s referred to in our household, but they are both notable in their own ways.
Making butter in a stand mixer is both very easy, as the stand mixer technically does most of the work, but also a pain in the ass, because the work you have to do is clean up the mixer afterward because it makes a ton of mess. Shrouding the mixer in dish towels helps a LOT in containing the mess to the mixer itself, but you still gotta clean it!
That said, churning it yourself is mainly useful for the purpose of making compound butter. Yes, you can buy butter at the store and let it sit out on the counter for a few hours to let it become pliable, but a freshly-churned butter that has never been refrigerated is the perfect consistency to mix in whatever you want, and it will be perfectly mixed. This particular compound butter had miso, Calabrian chile, and black garlic, and would go under the skin of chicken leg quarters and roasted in the oven.