Comments (2)

By J.Ho, September 7, 2011 11:41 pm

Oh. My. Goooaahhd! This was hands down the best dish I made all summer.  Coming off back-to-back cooking disasters over the weekend I climbed back to the top of the charts with this zinger!  I rarely experience a cooking fail and I NEVER post two consecutive fails!  This dish was simple and good!  Wicked good!

This type of sauce isn’t revolutionary by any means, but people rarely make it at home.  Canned tomatoes make things a whole lot easier, but nothing can compare to a sauce that’s make with 100% fresh ingredients.

I’m a minimalist.  The fewer the ingredients, the better. My golden rule in the kitchen is utilize the best, freshest possible ingredients.  So there!

The Ingredients

• 4 pounds fresh Roma tomatoes .. peeled, seeded and chopped
• ¾ cup extra virgin olive oil
• 4 garlic cloves, finely chopped
• ½  cup chopped fresh basil, roughly chopped
• ¼ cup fresh oregano, finely chopped
• 1/3 cup dry red wine
• pinch or two crushed red pepper flakes
• 1 pound spaghetti, cooked
• Salt and freshly ground black pepper
• Freshly grated Parmesan cheese

The Plan

First off, you have to hand pick the best Roma tomatoes you can.  Four pounds comes out to about two dozen regular sized Roma tomatoes.  When picking out tomatoes, as with all ripe fruits, a ripe tomato will seem heavy for its size. If you’re not sure what this feels like, you can get and idea by picking up several different tomatoes of a similar size and comparing their heft.  Once you’ve found a nice weighty tomato, hold it up to your nose and take a nice big sniff.  The best tomatoes will have an awesome garden fresh aroma.  Finally, how does the tomato feel? A ripe tomato will be soft when pressed, but not mushy. Again, as with other fruits, you’ll want to avoid tomatoes that are bruised or that have broken skin.

Prepare a large bot of boiling water as well as a large bowl of ice water. Give the tomatoes a good rinse and cut 1/2 inch criss-cross slits into the tips of each tomato.  Working in batches, drop the tomatoes in the boiling water and blanch for about one minute.  Remove the tomatoes and drop them into the bowl of ice water to cool.  The blanching process should have popped the skins of the tomatoes and make them very easy to peel.  Trim of the bottom stem part and peel off all the skin.  Slice each tomato in half and carve out the inner structure and remove all the seeds along with the slimy stuff.  What you’ll be left with is the rich, deep red meaty part of the tomato which should then be finely diced.

In a large sauté pan add the olive oil over medium heat.  Toss in the garlic and red pepper flakes and sauté for a few minutes.  If you have time the best thing to do is let the garlic “sweat” over the lowest possible heat setting for about a half an hour.  This will bring out more flavor than you could possibly imagine.  Add the diced fresh tomatoes and red wine.  Stir well and simmer for about 20 minutes.  Add the chopped basil and oregano and simmer for another 10 minutes.  Toss in one pound of cooked spaghetti.

Bang-Bang … Done-Done!  Nice bum, where ya from?

Now I’m still no good at all when it comes to food photography, but I took a shot anyway.  This time I tossed in a little sweet Italian sausage, but next time I’ll probably prepare as described above!

Enjoy!  Yankees suck!

Fresh Tomato Sauce with Basil & Oregano

Comments (6)

By J.Ho, June 23, 2010 8:39 am

Why use canned clams if you live in clam country, people ask me all the time.  Cause it’s cheap and easy!  This is a perfect mid-week, inexpensive, simple and amazingly delicious meal.

1 pound dried linguine
½ cup extra-virgin olive oil
4 large garlic cloves, minced
2 (6-ounce) cans of chopped or minced clams with their juice
½ cup dry white wine
¼ teaspoon hot red pepper flakes
¼ cup freshly chopped Italian flat leaf parsley
6 tablespoons cold unsalted butter
Juice of ½ a lemon
Salt & freshly ground pepper to taste

In a large sauté pan heat the oil over medium-low heat. Add the garlic and slowly cook, stirring, until slightly golden, about 5 minutes. Or sweat the garlic in the olive oil for about ten minutes.  Add the clams with their juice, wine, red pepper flakes, butter, lemon juice, salt and pepper (keep in mind that the clams are quite salty on their own). Stir, reduce the heat to a simmer, and simmer until slightly thickened, about 5 minutes. Sometimes I like it a tad thicker than usual and I take about level tablespoon of flour and mix it in a small amount of wine.  Add a small amount of the flour/wine mixture to the sauce and stir. till you get your desired thickness.

Now, when you add the wine, make sure you use a good quality dry wine such as a nice Chardonnay. Use something that you would actually drink. Don’t be stupid and use one of those “cooking wines” that you’ll find at the grocery store. They suck.  they suck bad. If you wouldn’t drink the wine out of a glass, why the hell would you cook with it?

Cook the linguine while reserving about ½ cup cooking water. Tip for cooking linguine: add 4-6 quarts of cold water to a large pot. Cover and bring to a boil. Add about ½ tablespoon of salt. Always wait till the water is boiling before adding the salt. If you add the salt before the water boils, the salt crystals will not dissolve immediately and can damage your pot. Stirring occasionally, cook for 8-10 minutes or so, no longer than 12 minutes.  I like my pasta sub-al dente, so 8 minutes is good for me.  Drain the pasta and immediately add it to the sauce along with the chopped parsley to the sauce and mix well, adding a few tablespoons of pasta cooking water if needed to coat the pasta evenly. Cover and cook for about a minute. Serve immediately. This dish is pairs perfectly with a bottle of Spanish Albariño.

I measured out the ingredients to have a little more sauce than most people would use. I like my pasta swimming in sauce. If you would like to regulate it better, add drained pasta to your serving dishes and spoon sauce over the top to get the volume you like.  I could eat this three or four times a week.

Yankees suck!

Comments (4)

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

Comments (6)

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!

Comments (0)

By J.Ho, March 6, 2006 2:05 pm

Growing up in any red-blooded American household, macaroni & cheese was a big deal. I still love to whip up some boxed Kraft’s Macaroni & Cheese every now and then. This recipe represents one of the most famous comfort foods. I like mine VERY, VERY cheesy. You may want to reduce the grated cheddar a bit if your cheese addiction isn’t as profound as mine.

¼ cup flour
1 stick butter + 2 tablespoons
3 cups milk
1 cup half-n-half
2 pounds sharp cheddar
1 pound elbow macaroni, pasta shells or rotini pasta, cooked and drained
1 ½ cup plain bread crumbs

Heat oven to 350°. Melt the butter completely in a sauce pan and add the flour. Vigorously whisk it together to make a roux. Slowly pour in the milk and half-n-half, still whisking. Keep whisking to avoid lumps. Reduce heat and simmer for ten minutes to make sure there is no raw flour flavor.

Fold in the two pounds of grated cheddar cheese. Season with some salt and freshly ground pepper. In a large mixing bowl gently mix the macaroni with the cheese sauce.  Melt the extra 2 tablespoons f butter and in a separate mixing bowl mix it with the bread crumbs. Pour the macaroni and cheese mix into a greased casserole dish and dust the top of it with the bread crumb mix. Bake for 20-30 minutes or until the edges are bubbling and the top is golden brown. Let cool for about 15 minutes before serving.  Yankees suck!

Comments (0)

By J.Ho, March 6, 2006 5:28 am

Here is a simple way to make a good marinara sauce. There are as many was to make marinara sauce as there are hungry Italians-Americans. It would be blasphemous to use a jarred marinara sauce.

6 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil
¼ cup butter
3 large garlic cloves
Handful fresh Italian flat leaf parsley sprigs (leaves only)
½ teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
½ teaspoon salt
Three large cans peeled, diced & stewed plum tomatoes (about six cups)
1 tablespoon dried oregano
2 heaping tablespoons tomato paste

Combine olive oil and butter in a saucepan and heat. Chop garlic and parsley together and add to the pan. Cook slowly for five minutes, then add the salt and pepper. Drain the canned tomatoes and add them along with the oregano to the sauce and cook slowly for 30 minutes. Add the tomato paste, stir well and remove from heat. At the end of the cooking, taste for salt and add some if necessary.