Recipe Re-Creations, Pasta a la Sonoma

A long, long time ago, in a place far, far away, a woman tasted the most wonderful, simple pasta dish she had ever tasted. For the first time in her life she said, "I must try to make this myself." She did, and all was right with the world.

Ok, so a long long time ago was 10 days, and a place far, far away was oh roughly 15 blocks from my house (which we drove). But that pasta was so good I have spent the last 10 days plotting it's return to tantalize my taste buds. Rob is out at a meeting this evening, so I gathered my ingredients, and set about the recipe's re-creation.

First, I am going to tell you what information I was able to discern from eating the original dish, and then I will give you the exact recipe I came up with. A note when trying to make something for the first time: I measured, almost double of what I thought I would need out and then added a little at a time, keeping track of how much I used as I went along so as to figure out how much I used. For example, I ended up using 1/4 cup creme fraiche, in reality I measured out 1/2 a cup and added it 1 TBSP at a time until the sauce looked right (I picked TBSP b/c there are 8 TBSP in 1/2 a cup, I just happen to know that so TBSP was an easy way for me to count what I used).

Ok, on to the fun. What did I know about this dish before I began? Well, it was yummy. It used fresh Paccheri (wide tube pasta) noodles, it had Creme Fraiche, Black Pepper, Chives, Red Chilis, and Ricotta Salata in it. I also was smart enough to think to ask the waitress about the base and she said it was a combination of chicken broth and butter. That is what I had to go on.

Onto gathering my ingredients. First, I didn't use fresh pasta, I couldn't find paccheri, and actually only saw ravoli and other filled pastas at the market. So instead I bought a 1/5 inch long "ribbon" pasta, it looks like it was cut off the end of a ribbon after you use it to tie a bow on a present. This pasta worked out just fine, I would like to use fresh next time, but that will depend upon availability. I used probably 3/4 lb of pasta, and I have quite a bit of leftovers. You will also need, 1 shallot, 1 garlic clove, 1 cup chicken stock, 1 cup white wine, 1/4 butter, 1/4 cup creme fraiche, 1 dried red chili crumbled, 2 tbsp fresh chives, chopped, 1 big handful finely (as fine as possible) grated ricotta salata, olive oil, and freshly ground pepper.

First start by bringing a medium pot of water to a boil and putting in the pasta, cook until just a bit softer than al dente, just a bit. Drain.

While the water is coming to a boil and the pasta is cooking, mince both the shallot and garlic clove, Put a small glug of olive oil into a saucepan, and gently cook the shallot and garlic over medium heat for a few minutes. You do not want the shallot or garlic to burn at all so keep stirring and really just a few minutes are needed. Add in the chicken broth and the white wine and bring to a boil, then simmer until the wine/broth mix reduces to about 1 cup of liquid. (Err on the side of caution here and reduce more than you think if necessary. You can always add a little more chicken broth to a too thick sauce, but after you move onto the next step of adding butter and creme fraiche you won't want to need to simmer and reduce more, because the dairy will burn too easily.) Once the wine/broth has reduced to where you are happy, add in the butter and the creme fraiche, stir constantly to mix everything into a nice smooth texture. Add the chives and the crumbled dried red chili.

Stir everything together and add the pasta and the finely grated ricotta salata, grind fresh pepper atop and toss. Serve in a bowl.

My version of this dish, tasted quite nice, it wasn't as thick as I would have liked, and it wasn't as good as a restaurant, but I will definitely make this again.

Things I will change: I will reduce my broth/wine mixture more, I may just use chicken broth I don't think Sonoma used wine in it's dish, I will grate the ricotta more finely (my biggest mistake by far) or as finely as possible. I will use more dried red chili and black pepper, my dish didn't quite have the little kick the original did. But overall, pretty darn good for my first attempt.

And voila that is what I had for dinner this evening!

Sonoma DC: Sonoma good for my belly!

Rob and I have a tradition of celebrating Valentine's Day with a meal out, and preferably not on the actual Hallmark mandated date. This year we waited a little later than usual to make a reservation on one of the days surrounding the 14th, so our first choice was booked. This ended up being a fortuitous problem, as we ended up at Sonoma restaurant near our home on Capitol Hill. What a meal.

Throughout the meal we shared a bottle of a Primitivo Puglia by Matane vineyard. Such a fantastic wine we are figuring out how to get some to have at home. It is a lighter red, so it went really well with both of our main dishes: I had pacherri with black pepper, chives, ricotta salata, chiles, and creme fraiche. Rob had a deconstructed lasagna with veal ragu and maderia fonduta. But first let's discuss our first and second course. Oh yes we had a three course (ok actually four course) meal. That in and of itself was heavenly. And we weren't rushed at all, we had time between each course to sip some wine and chat. It was soooo nice.

For our first course we had the house-made burratta cheese with tomato jam and fried bread. Did you read those words, fried bread, yea the whole thing was amazing. I have never had such a wonderful combination. The cheese had a great creamy center, but was a perfect smooth companian for the tomato jam. I should mention I don't like tomatoes, but apparently tomato jam is just fine thank you very much. Along with the burratta cheese we had the pei mussels with paprika, chorizo, and focaccia. The mussels were perfectly cooked, and the chorizo and paprika gave them such a nice spice; they complemented each other perfectly.

Next course: boston bibb salad with roasted apples, goat cheddar, toasted walnuts and vincotto. We split this, and they brought it out on two separate plates, how nice! We didn't have to fight over the last piece of cheddar, and trust me we would have fought over the last piece of anything of this salad.

Finally onto our entrees. First I should mention that we ordered pasta dishes, which are not actually entrees according to the menu. Those will have to wait for another trip to this restaurant. As I mentioned I had the paccheri which is a long tube shaped pasta. The best part about my dish was how simple it really was. The pasta was obviously freshly made and perfectly cooked, just a bit al dente. The chilis, ricotta, and black pepper worked perfectly together. It had a peppery spicyness but at the same time it was smooth and welcoming. Really it was a grown up comfort dish. I plan to try to recreate this recipe in my kitchen. I have a plan as to how I think I can do it, I just need to find some fresh paccheri in DC.

Finishing up the post, Rob had a sort of deconstructed Lasagna, where the lasagna noodles were cut up to be slightly larger than fettucine and they were mixed in with the veal ragu and maderia fonduta, topped with parmesan cheese. Rob thoroughly enjoyed this and said the ragu was excellent, but in hindsight he wished he had gone with a different pasta dish, the papperdelle.

And on to dessert, which I still have dreams about, because oh my goodness homemade salted carmel ice cream is the best ice cream I have ever had. Yes this is above any ice cream containing cookie dough, shocking I know. We had this ice cream over apple bread pudding which is super yummy too, but really the ice cream was the best (it was so good we had to order an extra scoop!).

So to summarize, Sonoma rocks, it is definitely a special occasion restaurant where the checkbook is concerned (and this is probably a good thing as I would be there far too often if it wasn't). But a fantastic and fun restaurant. I look forward to another meal there, hopefully sooner rather than later!

Let's Talk about Salmon...

Let's talk about you and me, Let's talk about all the good things...whoops sorry wrong song.

Salmon, this was supposed to be a post about Salmon, however I am faced with a conundrum. Steelhead Salmon, or rather trout, as it is the same species as the rainbow trout, except that the Steelhead, like salmon, lives in both fresh and salt water. This is where the confusion lies; some fish markets, like the Whole Foods counter correctly label this fish Steelhead Trout (which was actually what I used to think it was), but then the Eastern Market fish counter labels it Steelhead Salmon. Since I have bought almost all of my fish from the Eastern Market fish counter, I have called it Salmon for the last oh 2 years and 8 months. According to the internet I am wrong. It is trout. And really it tastes like a red meat trout, it doesn't taste a lot like any of the varieties of Salmon I have eaten.

So why do some erroneously call it Salmon, well I think the word Salmon probably sells more fish. I think a lot of people think trout is really fishy, and many people don't like fishy fish. I like pretty much all fish, except flounder and cat fish. I just can't do those.

On to our Steelhead trout. It was really yummy and super fresh (even in the midst of 2 snowstorms). I did this fish really simply, I'm not even sure I would call this recipe so much as a preparation. There were 2 of us eating so I bought 3/4 lb of fish. Pre-heat the oven to 375 degrees. I placed the fish skin side down on a cookie sheet. I brushed it with olive oil, and then sprinkled 2 chopped garlic cloves and a littel kosher salt on the fish. Then into the oven. That is it, all there is to it. You just let the fish cook until you think it was done. We usually like our fish medium rareish, the inside is a always just a little undercooked. Most of you will probably like your fish cooked completely all the way through.

Accompaniment, can be anything, a salad, broccoli, brussel sprouts, potatoes, really anything goes with fish this way.

And viola, that is the fish I had for dinner Tuesday evening.

(Pizza) Muffins, they're not just for breakfast anymore!

Well, I did it. I made pizza muffins. It's amazing how a blizzard, and impromptu Superbowl party at my house, and no trips to the supermarket will spark the cooking imagination. Ok, fine, I have mentioned pizza muffins here before so I guess that wasn't imaginative, but Rob and I had homemade pizza the night before so I wasn't really in the mood to "just" have pizza again. I'm not sure if these are anything like what I vaguely recall making with my Dad, but they got rave reviews at the Superbowl party so I'm going to go with it.

First, you will need the dough recipe from here and the marinara recipe from here. You will also need grated mozzarella cheese, italian seasoning, crushed red pepper, olive oil, a muffin tin capable of making 12 muffins and Pam (or something like Pam). Pre-heat your oven to 400 degrees. Take your dough and divide into 12 little balls (I was only able to make 11 muffins, but I was too generous with my early dough balls and I was too lazy to remeasure to get the 12th but I am positive you can easily get 12 muffins out of 1 dough recipe. I promise.). Take your rolling pin (or empty wine bottle) and roll out each little ball into little round dough circles. After spraying the muffin tin with Pam, press each little round dough circle down into the muffin openings. You want there to be a bit of dough sticking above the top of each opening. After your press down all the little dough circles, brush them with olive oil and, using a fork, make little holes all around each dough circle to better aerate while baking. Place the muffin tin in the oven to pre-bake the dough, they should be in the oven for just a few mins, you want the dough to be slightly baked, but the edges over the top of the muffin tin should still be malleable.

In each muffin, place a dollop of marinara sauce in the bottom, stuff in a bunch of mozzarella cheese, and sprinkle with italian seasoning and crushed red pepper. Next carefully fold over the dough edges into the middle of the muffin tin. place another dollop of marinara sauce on top of the edges and a little bunch of mozzarella. Place back into the oven until the dough looks slightly browned and the cheese on top is bubbly. The muffins should be nice and firm at the bottom.

I left out a little bowl of warmed marinara for a dipping sauce as well. These muffins only had cheese and sauce in them, but I am sure you could add pepperoni, mushrooms, salami etc to the muffin, though you might have to sacrifice a little cheese and that, my friends, would be a travesty.

A slight disclaimer: I didn't actually eat one of these pizza muffins. I had had pizza the night before and was well, pizza'd out after making dough and smelling pizza smells for two days. But really I was told they were quite yummy. Maybe Rich will post a comment to corroborate that last statement :-) Hi Rich!

And voila, that is what I made for my Superbowl guests yesterday!