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By J.Ho, October 27, 2007 1:57 pm

I’m finally coming to the realization the Everyday Italian show on the Food Network really appeals to the masses. Seriously. Why? It features easy to prepare Italian dishes which are light and delicious. The host Giada De Laurentiis is a skilled chef with extensive formal culinary training and impressive resume. Oh yeah, and she’s way, way, way waaaay pretty. She reminds me of Natalie Portman, but with boobs.

I’ve gone back and forth being a fan of this show. Giada used to annoy the hell out of me. I never liked they way she pronounces Italian words. Not that I’m being a prick and saying she shouldn’t conform to her family culture, but when you’re talking to someone in plain English, then bust out with a word using a profound Italian accent, it just seems fake. Like all the movie celebrities who talk about the Cannes Film Festival. They pronounce Cannes the proper French way, like saying Can. OK, I get it, that’s proper. But these same phonies pronounce Paris the way it’s spelled in English, you know, Paris. Why don’t they pronounce it the proper French way, ‘Pahree’ with a guttural French ‘r’ and a silent final -s. You get the point.

Anyway, I’m really starting to appreciate this show much more than I have in the past. Today I watched the episode Island Hopping on my TiVo. Giada made two dishes that looked wicked, wicked good. I can’t believe I’m typing this instead of running to the store to grab the goods needed to whip this stuff up. Maybe I’ll do it today. Maybe not. I need to clean my place up. It’s a wreck. I need to get ready top go out tonight. I might be dressing up early for Halloween. And Ace Combat 6 for my Xbox 360 was just delivered by Amazon last night. That might keep me busy for a while.

The two recipes that caught my eye were the fresh Ravioli Caprese and a fresh mushroom, celery and pecorino salad. They looked soooo good and soooo easy. I make my own fresh pasta noodles from scratch all the time. It’s so delish. You can’t beat it, but it can be such a pain in the ass. The way she made the pasta from scratch looked pretty easy. I need to go out and get a ravioli cookie cutter thingy so I can do it right though.

Take a look at this episode and these recipes. Try them. I know I will. By the way, the top she was wearing looked freakin AMAZING on her. Oooooooh-yeeaaaaah! Yankees suck!

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By J.Ho, February 21, 2007 3:57 pm

I absolutely love risotto. I’ve never tried to make it before. I wanted a delicious side to the Korean BBQ Chicken I made last weekend. I took a nose dive into some of my Italian cookbooks and cruised around the web a little for information on risotto ingredients and preparation techniques. Here’s what I found …

A quick read on risotto history and recipes can be found here. Most of my cookbooks really didn’t explain what risotto really was and the caveats on preparing it. One recipe I found in Lidia Bastianich’s cookbook Lidia’s Italian-American Kitchen really caught my attention. It explained that once you understand how to prepare a basic risotto, you can parlay that skill into making any type of risotto you could imagine. The basics are the key to pretty much all cooking and just about everything else in life.

I followed Lidia’s “master plan” for preparing risotto and made a few of my own changes along the way. Nice!

4½ cups hot chicken stock
3 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil
1 medium white onion, minced
1 leek, white parts only, trimmed, cleaned and chopped
6 scallions, white and green parts chopped separately
2 cups Italian Aborio rice
â…“ cup dry white wine
2 tablespoons butter, cut into four pieces
â…“ up freshly grated Parimigiano-Reggiano cheese
Salt & freshly ground black pepper

Pour the chicken stock in a small sauce pan and keep it hot over medium heat. In a large sauté pan, heat the oil over medium heat and stir in the onions. Sauté the onions until softened, about four minutes. Stir in the leeks and white parts of the scallions and sauté for another six minutes. The onions should start to brown. Stir in the rice making sure all of the grains get covered with the oil. Keep stirring often for the next two to three minutes until the edges of the grains become translucent. Pour in the wine and let it boil. Keep stirring the rice till the wine has evaporated.

Season the rice with salt and ladle enough of the hot chicken stock into the sauté pan until it barely covers the rice. Bring to a boil then lower the heat to maintain a lively simmer. Continue cooking while stirring constantly until all the stock has been absorbed and you can see the bottom of the pan when you stir. Continue cooking, pouring the remaining hot stock in small batches. Each addition of stock should be only enough to completely moisten the rice. Continue doing this until the stock has been absorbed. All this should take 15-20 minutes from the time you added the wine.

Remove the pan from the heat and stir in the butter and green parts of the scallions until the butter is completely melted. Stir in half the grated cheese. Taste the risotto and add more salt if you like and then add the freshly ground black pepper. Top with grated cheese and serve immediately.

I like a creamy risotto so I used another two cups of chicken stock. This also added to the cooking time since I had 50% more stock to absorb. I also squeezed a little lemon juice at the end. This basic recipe can be taken into an infinite number of directions. Try adding some smoked chicken at the end. I’d like to add some saffron to the chicken stock next time I make it. Shrimp risotto should be good. Maybe I’ll try making an asparagus risotto. I’m guessing all I would have to do is add some steamed & chopped asparagus tips to the risotto at the end of the cooking. Yeah, that’s the ticket! Arrivederci! Yankees suck!

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By J.Ho, May 24, 2006 2:34 pm

I lived off 29th Ave & Clement Street in San Francisco for three or so years. On the stretch of Clement between 26th & 22nd Aves reside some of San Francisco’s best neighborhood restaurants. Ernesto’s was one of my favorites. Everything I ever ate there was outstanding. Baked stuffed clams and sautéed calamari are excellent appetizers. The seafood pasta is a delicious dish: linguine with shrimp, scallops, garlic and green onions served with a butter-lemon sauce. Veal Saltimbocca, grilled veal chops, pizza, grilled swordfish, fettuccine alfredo … I can go on and on. If you’re lucky, the smoked chicken risotto and/or the filet mignon marsala may be on the list of daily specials.

The know-all, be-all of dishes at Ernesto’s is the Chicken Ernesto. Lightly sautéed chicken breasts smothered with a lemon-butter-wine mushroom sauce served with either the daily vegetable or a side of pasta. I live near Boston now, but I never stop thinking about Ernesto’s and all the great restaurants on Clement Street.

I tried for four years to reverse engineer this recipe since they would never tell me how to make it. I even considered getting a part-time job as a bus boy just so I could learn how it was done. I dropped that idea pretty quick. Eventually I got the recipe close enough to brag about it. As it turns out, it’s a lot like making veal or chicken piccata, just without the capers.

½ cup all purpose flour
2 teaspoons salt
½ teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
4 boneless chicken breasts, about ¾ pound, pounded to a thickness of ½-inch
1½ tablespoons light olive oil
2 packages of white mushrooms, cleaned, stemmed and diced
5 tablespoons butter
1 cup dry white wine
½ cup chicken stock
1 garlic clove, chopped
1 lemon, juiced, or more to taste, (about 2 tablespoons)
1 tablespoon chopped flat leaf Italian parsley leaves

To pound the chicken thin, place one chicken breast in a large Zip-Lock bag, underskin/membrane side up and pound with the smooth side of a meat mallet. Don’t pound too hard because you can easily ruin the meat by breaking it all up.

In a shallow bowl or plate combine the flour, 1½ teaspoons of the salt and pepper and stir to combine thoroughly. Quickly dredge the pounded chicken in the seasoned flour mixture, shaking to remove any excess flour. That’s something I do differently. Ernesto’s doesn’t dredge the chicken in flour first. I like the taste and texture of a bit of crusted flour on sautéed chicken.

Heat the oil in a large sauté pan over medium-high heat until very hot but not smoking. Add 1½ tablespoons of the butter and, working quickly and in batches if necessary, cook the chicken until light golden brown on both sides, about 1 minute per side. Transfer to a warm plate and set aside. increase the heat to high and sprinkle about two tablespoons of the seasoned flour into the oil and whisk rapidly till it’s dissolved. Add the wine and bring to a boil. De-glaze the pan with the wine by scraping to remove any browned bits from the bottom of the pan.

When the wine has reduced by half, add the mushrooms, chicken stock, chopped garlic and lemon juice and cook for about five minutes, or until the sauce has thickened slightly. Whisk in the remaining ½ teaspoon of salt, remaining 3½ tablespoons of butter and the chopped parsley. When the butter has melted, return the chicken to the pan and cook until heated through and the sauce has thickened, about 1 minute. Serve immediately. Yankees suck!

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By J.Ho, May 11, 2006 7:38 pm

I love, love, love Fettuccine Alfredo. Very few restaurants make it well. Some of the best Fettuccine Alfredo dishes I’ve had are at Ernesto’s in San Francisco and the Spaghetti Bender in Newport Beach, CA. I’ve tried several different variations of this recipe and I think I finally have it. I usually make more sauce than I need because I’m one of those crazy bastards who like my pasta swimming in sauce. I have a very, very funny story about the last time I made this dish for my friend Shawna! Try it and let me know what you think. Yankees suck!

6 tablespoons butter
1 pint + 3 tablespoons heavy whipping cream
Few pinches ground nutmeg
1 cup grated Pecorino Romano cheese
2 egg yolks
Small handful fresh Italian flat leaf parsley, finely chopped
1 pound of fettuccine
Sea salt to taste
Freshly ground black pepper

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By J.Ho, March 29, 2006 10:16 pm

I was asked by a lady friend if I had a good, light recipe for some sort of chicken-broccoli-ziti dish. One without a cream sauce. I promptly replied, “No, but for you and only you, I’ll go into the lab (my kitchen) and invent one!” Here’s what happened …

Over a week’s time I consulted several cooking web sites, perused through many cookbooks and didn’t really find something that would suit her fancy, or even more important, mine! So, I created one of my own. I used rotini pasta instead of ziti. When I cook, it’s all about what I want. Of course, you can use whatever type of pasta you like best. I only made it once and it turned out pretty damn good. Give it a look.

1 pound boneless, skinless chicken breasts, diced
1 pound rotini pasta
1 stick salted butter
1 cup white wine
1½ cup chicken broth
½ cup extra-virgin olive oil
2 broccoli crowns (a little less than 2 pounds)
Juice of one lemon
6 cloves garlic, finely chopped
2 heaping tablespoons all-purpose flour
Freshly grated Pecorino Romano cheese
Salt & freshly ground black pepper

Melt butter in a heavy sauté pan. Add oil and garlic and simmer on very low heat for 10 minutes. Add wine and 2 cups of the chicken broth and bring to a boil then reduce heat to medium-low and simmer for 10 minutes. Cut chicken into small bite size pieces and add to the sauté pan and cook for 8 minutes, stirring occasionally. Chicken cooks fast when it’s cut into small pieces. Season with salt & pepper. Add the lemon juice (no seeds please).

Chop broccoli into small bite size pieces and steam a large pot with a steamer basket for 3-5 minutes. Boil rotini separately to your own liking (al dente for me). In a mixing bowl whisk together the other ½ cup of chicken broth with the flour until the flour is completely dissolved. Turn the heat to high and add the flour mixture to the sauté pan, mix well. Let it boil for a minute or so while you’re stirring. This will thicken the sauce a bit. Once it’s thickened, add steamed broccoli to the sauté pan, toss well and let sit covered over low heat for 5 minutes. Add rotini to the sauté pan and sprinkle broccoli with Romano cheese. Serve with a smile!

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By J.Ho, March 8, 2006 1:14 pm

This is a quick and easy Italian vegetable side dish that can be served with a weeknight family meal as well as a fancy-schmancy dinner. This recipe also works well with yellow squash. The pictures below aren’t of a full pound of zucchini, by the way.

1 pound medium zucchini
¼ cup all-purpose flour
1 tablespoon Herbes de Provence (dried parsley, sage, rosemary, thyme)
2 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil
1 tablespoon butter
Salt and pepper to taste
Freshly grated Pecorino Romano cheese

Wash the zucchini and trim off the ends. Slice zucchini length-wise twice and cut into ½-inch pieces. Heat the butter and olive oil in a large skillet over medium-high heat. Season the flour with salt & pepper. Toss zucchini with flour and add to the hot oil. Season with Herbes de Provence.

Sauté over high heat until slightly tender and golden brown, about 5-10 minutes. Don’t expect the flour to stick too much to the zucchini, most of it will clump up into brown toasted bits adding texture and flavor to the dish.

Remove from heat. Sprinkle with freshly grated Pecorino Romano cheese, cover and let sit for a few minutes to allow cheese to melt. Yankees suck!

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By J.Ho,

I love red wine. I love filet Mignon. I love filet Mignon in red wine. Makes sense doesn’t it? This recipe is as simple as it is delicious. Have a crack at it and let me know what you think.

1½ pounds of filet Mignon, about 1″ thick
1 oz salt pork, chopped fine
2 large cloves of fresh garlic, minced
¼ cup of sweet butter
Three tablespoons of red Burgundy
10 sprigs of fresh Italian flat leaf parsley, leaves only, minced
Salt & freshly ground black pepper

Combine salt pork, garlic and butter in a skillet over medium-high heat. Sauté garlic for about two or three minutes, do not burn. Add steaks and cook on each side for four minutes. Add salt, pepper and wine; cover and cook for two more minutes. Add the minced parsley and shake and swirl around in the skillet. Serve on warm plates and pour the sauce from the pan over them.