cooking @ home

Archive for the ‘Pasta’ Category

©2008 Harry Kenney

Have you ever gone to the market, brought something home and said now what am going to do with this? I’m sure we’ve all done that. I certainly have. I’d love to say I always shop with a plan. I would have to say I partly do. I often buy food with some recipe or some idea at least vaguely in my mind. But not for the entire shopping experience; the rest of the shopping goes by what I see, what’s on sale, what looks fresh, what looks not so fresh, and what just generally grabs my attention. And this time it was the on-sale bag of frozen bay scallops.

And then I got home and thought “now what?” You see, I know what to do with the larger scallops. You know the one’s I mean that are the size and shape of big marshmellows. Pretty much you sear them on one side, then the other, bang, they’re done. Well, you’re certainly not going to do the same with what amounts to 60 or 70 miniature marshmellow-sized scallops. We’re talking just slightly larger than pencil erasers after all. So, what to do?

Eventually I recalled a dish I had served in a restaurant awhile back. Funny thing, can’t recall where I was. Could have been here in Center City Philly, but my recollection is that it was somewhere while traveling, either on business or a vacation. But I can’t put my finger on where. In any case, it was scallops in pasta with a fresh pesto sauce and some veggies. Which I began to reconstruct here and eventually got so far and did my usual, namely used that as the basis or the spring board and then went on my own from there. And what I ended up with was very delicious. (Or you wouldn’t be reading it now.)

You know I like to know about what I’m eating. And since I’m thinking you’re thinking the same way, here’s some things you should know about scallops when it comes to cooking. It’s a shellfish. Technically a marine bivalve mollusc. It’s found in cuisine everywhere, that is in Eastern and in Western cooking. You’ll find it on plates in Nagasaki to New York, from Dover to Buenos Aries, you name it. In the United States only the adductor muscles is used; elsewhere the entire scallop is often used. As to size, those large ones mentioned before, the one’s I know I’m most used to are called sea scallops and you can often get those as 20-40 per pound and are often an inch-and-a-half in diameter. Sea scallops are available fresh year-round, peaking from late spring to early fall.

Then there’s the one’s used in this particular dish, the bay scallop, which as the name implies they reside in bays. Historically these tended to come from New England. Nowadays much of the bay scallops consumed in the US are farmed in China. Bay scallops are often in the 50-90 of them in a single pound; these are usually half-an-inch in diameter. The one’s I got at the market (bad me for not looking) said on the bag, 150-200 per pound and were slightly less than a half inch in diameter, so I definitely got the super minis. In terms of season, bay scallops are available frozen purchased year-round.

Nutrition info: Scallops contain a variety of nutrients that can promote your cardiovascular health, plus provide protection against colon cancer. Scallops are actually a very good source of a very important nutrient for cardiovascular health, vitamin B12. Four ounces of scallops contains 33.3% of the daily value for vitamin B12. As with fish, scallops are a rich source of healthy omega-3 fatty acids. A four-ounce of serving of scallops alone contains roughly 24 grams of protein and about 152 calories.

Healthy and delicious. What more do you want? Use the recipe I put up just the other day for Classic Basil Pesto Sauce. Enjoy.

Bay Scallops in Linguine with Pesto
©2008 Harry Kenney

8 oz bay scallops
1/2 red bell pepper, julliene then cut in half
3 oz portobellos (or other mushrooms), cut into chunks
1/2 zucchini, diced
1/2 box linguine
1 clove garlic, slightly crushed and sliced
olive oil
homemade pesto sauce

Put linguine in pot of boiling water and cook until al dente. Reserve.

Olive oil into large, deep pan at medium heat. Add garlic. After a minute add red pepper, zucchini, mushrooms. Sweat well, do not brown. After several minutes, take out of pan into bowl and hold.

Place well-drained bay scallops into pan. Add little oil, turn up heat as needed. These will start extruding water. You want the water out but you don’t want to burn or even brown much the scallops at all. Toss constantly. Empty water out in sink as necessary. Add oil as necessary.

Toss veggies back from bowl into pan and mix. Remove from heat. Toss pasta into pan and mix. Add pesto sauce and mix well. Serve. Makes about 4 servings.

Ok, this is a super easy recipe and a great one for turning that holiday turkey into a delicious leftover dish. The recipe is simple, and there isn’t much to say even as a preamble, believe it or not. I have maybe two items to mention. First, this is one of those recipes where it’s difficult to separate the sauce from the rest of the dish as they basically come together as one. Therefore I’m just following the natural flow and present them together as one.

Second, at this very moment in time I’m just so very tired of turkey … I even want to just get this recipe published and out of the way so I don’t have to think about or even look at turkey for a few weeks. That is just me in the wake of Thanksgiving. In a few weeks I’ll actually be debating do I want ham or turkey again for Christmas. And if it turns out to be the latter, I’ll definitely be looking up — I do that, you know — my own recipe here to make it again.

Turkey and Mushrooms on Fettucini
©2007 Harry Kenney

3 cups of turkey, pulled into pieces
1 cup chopped portabello mushrooms (can substitute other mushrooms)
4 slices pancetta (can substitute bacon)
1 cup frozen peas
3 fresh plum tomatoes, chopped
4-5 tbsps Marsala
8 oz heavy cream, and 4 oz milk
(can substitute these for 12 oz of light cream or half-and-half)
1/3 cup grated parmegan
salt
pepper
garlic powder
1 box Fetuccini (I like the green and “white” mix)
olive oil, extra virgin

Boil water and add fettucini. Meanwhile, on medium-heat, oil in pan, then mushrooms, then pancetta, season, then add dairy, then wine, season again, reduce slightly (this will be a light and thin sauce), then add cheese, then turkey, finally peas and tomatoes last three minutes. Remove from heat. Take the al dente fettucini and dump that in, mix, and serve. Makes about 8 servings.

I’m noticing as time goes on and, especially with pasta dishes, when you interchange different ingredients, it becomes tougher and tougher to come up with the actual names of the recipes. To me, my short-hand for this dish is “Chicken Z-and-Z” for Zuccini and Ziti. Of course if I actually named it that, you would be going “huh?” and either turn away. Or maybe it would conversely grab your attention. But you surely wouldn’t know what it was until — and if — you started looking closely. And if you were specifically looking for a chicken and squash pasta dish, you might not find it here either.

No wonder Rachel Ray and others come up with crazy names after a while for things. I mean I love pasta simply because you can put sooooo many different ingredients, meats, seafood, proteins and veggies in it. And then the number of sauces as well are staggering. But then with all those mixes and matches, naming does become difficult.

You know, this might make you laugh. Or maybe you think the same way as I do, but, in many ways, pasta seems to me as a very American dish. It’s sometimes difficult to think of them as Italian. And this coming from an Irish-American no less.

Sure, America is the home of hamburgers, hot dogs and apple pie. But growing up, pizza, spaghetti and meatballs, and alternately cheese and meat raviolis, strombolis and calzones and lasagna were as much of it. I have this one friend from England who’s lived here forever and she still doesn’t get it, as they never ate that way in the UK. First time I heard this I thought it was weird saying, “Wait, you’re 4,000 miles closer to Italy than we are!” Right there, that shows you it’s more an American thing.

I say, fair is fair. The tomato was grown only in the Americas; Europe never had the tomato before Columbus. And yet for two hundred years the tomato has been the staple of Italian cuisine. If they can do all that with our tomato, then yeah, I don’t see why we can’t therefore say a lot of Italian food is just plain American. It’s just the boomerang effect.

  

Chicken & Squash with Ziti in Roasted Garlic Sauce
©2007 Harry Kenney

two large zucchinis, diced large
1 large yellow squash, diced large
yellow onion, diced
ziti (or penne or rigatoni, etc)
fresh baby carrots (halved)
1 1/2 pounds skinless chicken breasts, diced large
salt
pepper
garlic

While garlic is roasting in oven (see sauce below), sweat the vegetables, that is, one a medium heat and olive oil you want to cook them, break them down, but you don’t want them brown nor do you want them mushy, you want the vegetables still to have a good deal of body. Season as required. So sweat the zuccini and the squash, take out of pan. Put in the chicken, and later (so it doesn’t brown) the onion and cook them well also. Meanwhile boil lightly or steam the carrots (you can do this in the microwave if you want.) Cook the pasta per directions. Drain. Into the large vessel containing the pasta now add the chicken and veggies, mix well, add any additional seasonings. Add the sauce below. Mix well, serve. Makes enough for 8-10 servings

Roasted Garlic Sauce

head of garlic
dried oregano
dried basil
salt
pepper
1/2 cup olive oil
some lemon zest
2 tblsps lemon juice
red pepper flakes
1/4 cup grated parmagen

First, preheat oven for 350°F. Take an entire head of garlic, cut off the top, place in aluminum foil, and make an open pocket. Pour olive oil on top along with dried basil and oregano. Seal, place in oven for 25-30 minutes until roasted brown.

Squeeze the garlic out of it’s “head” of paper and place in blender. (Note, this works with the normal old bar blender as well as the super new ones.) Put in the ingredients listed above, except the oil, mix. Take off the top, pour the olive oil in as the rest is mixing, this is to emulsify and create the sauce properly. Taste, adjust as needed. Pour onto pasta, mix and serve.

What’s to say about this meal? Other than it’s light and delicious? Dunno. It’s not that I’m in any way “tired” of writing openings — I have way too much to say, generally, for that ever to be the case. It’s just that sometimes, there is no back story, nothing that went wrong the first time to warn you about. Very little to inform you about.

Other than use fresh seasonal ingredients whenever you can and come up with something special. One can argue if this dish is a pasta primavera or not. I say it is as it’s mostly about the veggies (even though hey, who can ignore shrimp?). Other’s might debate that saying instead of blanched or raw I did a saute or pan roasting of my veggies. Still other’s say, this isn’t spring, certainly the use of a summer squash negates that. I say argue until the moon turns blue and take a chill pill. It’s all about the food, folks.

And, speaking of debates and such — yes I used cheese with seafood. And what IS the story about that? Should we? Shouldn’t we? And in actual fact that entire school of thought or debate has inspired me to write an article on the matter. But that’s for yet another day.

For today, this light and robust meal with make a great lunch, a romantic dinner or even a superb party bowl at your next get together. Buon appetito!

    

Shrimp with Sauteed Asparagus Pasta Alfredo
©2007 Harry Kenney

ingredients:

20 shrimp, medium (aka 35-41s) cut in half
1/2 lb asparagus, woody ends removed
1/2 box bow tie pasta
1 red bell pepper, diced finely
1 yellow squash, diced
1 cup frozen peas, defrosted
1/4 pt cherry tomatoes
14 oz jar Alfredo sauce (Classico makes four wonderful ones)

season to taste:

salt
pepper
oregano
basil
fresh parsley

grated parmagena (optional)

You can use precooked shrimp in this; it won’t hurt it at all, that said, uncooked is better as you can then impart even greater flavor. If the latter, take all the skin off, place the shrimp in a frying pan with olive oil, season as you like. Medium flame, about two minutes per side. Move on to plate to cool.

Meanwhile start pasta in rolling boil of water. And defrost peas (which don’t need a complete defrost) by straining and running warm water over them and place in bowl.

In same pan medium-high add oil and asparagus, salt and pepper and drizzle more oil on top. Pretend you are on a grill not a frying pan. You want to constantly move these around until you see some browning, and a lost of the stiff “rawness”, however you do not want to get them ovedone nor soggy. As some will get done before others, move them onto a plate individually until all are done.

In same pan, medium-high, add squash, season with salt, pepper, oregano, basil and garlic powder, and saute. In a few minutes add red peppers and cherry tomatoes and again add more seasoning.

In small pot warm up Alfredo sauce gently. Drain pasta and put back in large pot. Turn on to low heat.

Slice shrimps in half. Slice asparagus in half. Dump shrimp and all vegetables (peas included) into pasta. Dump in Alfredo sauce. Turn heat up to medium, season mixture, stir and let everything combine, add a touch of fresh parsley, about two minutes. Place in large bowls, optionally top with small amount grated parm.

Suggest serving with lightly buttered garlic bread and a nice Chianti. Serves 5 to 6.