Tuesday, November 11, 2014

Stracotto (Italian Pot Roast) over Pappardelle. (June)

It evens gets cold in Florida and when the temperature dropped the other day, I was thinking of "comfort food".  One of our favorite restaurants, Brio Tuscan Grill, had sent an e-mail with this recipe and it sounded perfect for a chilly Sunday dinner.

Ingredients

3 tbsp Olive Oil
2 Lbs Chuck Roast
1 Cup Chopped Onion
1 Cup Chopped Celery
1 Cup Chopped Carrots
4 Cloves Garlic, Sliced
1 Cup Beef Broth
1 Can (16 oz) Tomatoes, Diced
3 tbsp Tomato Paste
1 tsp Chopped Garlic
1 tsp Pepper
1/2 tsp Salt
1/2 tsp Dried Thyme
1 Bay Leaf
1/2 Cup Red Wine
1/4 Cup Chopped Parsley
1 Lb Pappardelle (recipe below for homemade or use store bought)

Heat oil in a Dutch oven.  Add chuck roast, sear on all sides, remove & set aside.




Add onions, celery, carrots & slivered garlic to the pot.  Cook until soft - about 10 minutes.  Remove from pot and set aside.



 
Place rack in bottom of the pot. (I didn't have one so I used a small, disposable aluminum pan)  Place roast on rack & add beef broth. Bring to a boil, reduce heat and simmer for 1 hour.

Preheat oven to 350.  Remove roast and cut into 1/2" slices.  Remove rack and return sliced meat to the pot.  Add tomatoes, tomato paste, chopped garlic, pepper, salt, thyme, bay leaf, red wine and cooked vegetables to pot. 







Bake covered for 1 1/2 hours or until meat is falling apart. Discard bay leaf.  Add parsley, heat through.  Cook pappardelle according to recipe or package directions.  Serve the meat and sauce over the pappardelle.

 
 
Homemade Pappardelle
 
1 3/4 Cups All-purpose Flour
1 Cup Semolina Flour
6 Large Eggs
4 tsps Extra Virgin Olive Oil
 
Sift both flours together on a large work surface & make a well in the center.  Place the eggs, olive oil and a pinch of salt in a bowl and break up with a fork.  Gradually add the wet ingredients into the flour mixture and mix just until combined. Using your hands works best!
 
 

Knead the dough until smooth and elastic.  Divide dough in half and pat into balls, wrap in plastic and refrigerate for at least 30 minutes or overnight.  (you can freeze one ball for later, or roll both and freeze cut pasta)


 
 
 
Place one ball of dough on lightly floured surface and dust with flour and roll dough into a sheet.  Continue to roll the dough until you can see your fingers through it.  We used our pasta maker to roll out ours.  Let dry about 10 minutes.
 
Dust the top of the sheet with flour and loosely roll into a cylinder.  Using a sharp knife, cut into 3/4 inch wide slices.  Unroll, dust with semolina and lay on a sheet pan until ready to cook. 
 
Not the perfect, even length pasta you might buy, but it was more fun to make it!
 
 

 

Confession!  We didn't get ours thin enough and it took forever to cook.

Wednesday, November 5, 2014

Easy Simple Fast Savory Pie Crust [Zack]

I’m a big fan of keeping a pack of puff pastry sheets in my freezer because I’m normally too lazy to make crust the traditional way.  We were in the mood to make a breakfast quiche and I realized we didn’t have any of the puff pastry sheets.  We found a 4-ingredient recipe online that took about 5 minutes to make.  It cuts out the fuss of using a food processor or letting it rest in the fridge.  As a bonus, it ended up having a better flavor and texture than the puff pastry sheets!  It was more firm and crumbly. 


Process:

Mix the flour and salt together.  Add a few ice cubes to a glass of water, and stir vigorously with your finger.  Loosely mix the oil and water together in another bowl.

Gradually stir the liquid into the dry ingredients.  Use a fork to mix together.  Once it's all combined, if it's still sticky, add a touch more flour until it becomes solid.  Roll the dough out on a lightly floured surface into the shape that you need.

Add quiche ingredients (I used roasted pumpkin, crispy bacon, shiitake mushrooms, feta cheese, and rosemary).  Bake for 35-40 minutes at 375F/185C.


Ingredients (recipe from Food.com)
1 cup flour
1/4 cup ice cold water
1/4 cup olive oil
1/2 tsp salt

Song: Mathieu Boogaerts - Ondule