Drunken Spaghetti [Nick]

Degree of difficulty: easy
Time: 45 minutes (includes prep)
I know what you’re all thinking…no, unfortunately, this pasta doesn’t take you into a state of inebriation. However, what this pasta CAN do is make your taste buds drunk with happiness and longing for more.

I’m no expert cook, let’s be honest. In fact, after working all day and then going to the gym or running, I’m usually exhausted by the time dinner rolls around. I usually look for three key elements in dinner: simplicity, quickness, and taste. Often times those three elements don’t combine very well (see: Fast Food), but I have found a meal that is both swift and delicious.

To cook the pasta for this dish, I used a cheap bottle of red wine, combined with water. The pot should be at about 50/50 with water and wine. Some people may choose to use a leftover bottle of red, which also works (see: ‘not finishing your alcohol’…for shame). Bring the water to a boil, and simply cook the pasta as you normally would. When the noodles are finished, they should be a light purple color, and will have absorbed the taste of red wine…paradiso!

As the pasta is boiling, take the pancetta and cook it in a frying pan on a medium-low heat. This type of bacon cooks a little differently from regular bacon, so make sure you are watching it carefully. Throw some fresh-ground pepper onto the pancetta, and smell the glory.

When the bacon is done cooking and the pasta is ready, strain the noodles but leave a fair amount of the wine/water in the pot, as you will use some of this for your sauce in just a few short steps.

Take the noodles from the pot and add them to the pan with the pancetta. As the noodles are being added, toss in some ricotta cheese. This helps thicken the sauce, so it is up to your discretion on how much to use. Continuously stir and mesh the noodles with the ricotta. At this point, I added more of the wine leftover from the pot to ensure that my dish was flavorful and captured the full essence of the red wine. Toss in some more fresh-ground pepper and a bit of salt, and you are ready to plate.

     

Plate the purple-hued noodles, ensuring that there is plenty of pancetta in the serving. At this point, take a spoonful of finely chopped walnuts and sprinkle over top. Don’t worry; the best part is still yet to come…

    

Parmigiano-Reggiano...Pow! Add some to the top of the dish and you’ve got yourself one fine looking plate of food. The cheese adds a bit of saltiness to the dish…so, if you must….over-cheese, please do not over-salt.

   

Disclaimer: I made some baked asparagus on the side. All you need is a bit of olive oil, pepper and salt. Throw it in the oven, turn’em, take’em out and enjoy.


Ingredients:
Pack of Spaghetti
Bottle of Red Wine
Pancetta (1/2 lb)
Ricotta Cheese (discretionary)
Parmigiano-Reggiano (lots)
Walnuts (handful)
Salt/Pepper

Parmesan Puffs [Nick]

Friend: "Oh man, Nick. What is this little poofy thing you've made?"
Me: "Ummm we call it a Parmesan Puff. I wish I could tell you it's something fancy...but it's not."
Friend: "Who cares! What's in it?"

Until now, I have always been apprehensive to answer the age old question of; "Hey this is tasty, what's in your recipe?" I've been so guarded because this particular recipe is not complicated, nor is it fancy. Regardless, it wins over the crowd every time, and even has the appearance of being classy!

I'm talking, of course, about Parmesan Puffs. This delightful treat has been made at the Kaiser's lake house (devoured), New Year's parties (demolished), and even a cooking group my mom participates in (also gorged).

It is one of the easiest appetizers around, and if you have a friend to help you spread and cut the pieces, the whole process can take under 15 minutes.

The ingredients:

7 slices of white bread (the best to use is Wonder bread...seriously)
1 cup mayonnaise
½ cup grated Parmesan Reggiano (or more...I like more)
½ cup chopped scallions or onion
Paprika

Preheat oven to 425 F. Remove crusts from bread (cut them off, don't peel) and lay bread flat on a clean working surface. In a small bowl, combine mayonnaise, Parmesan cheese, and scallions. Spread a nice even layer of cheese mixture over each bread slice, sprinkle with paprika, and cut into quarters. Arrange on a baking sheet and bake until bubbly hot and golden, about 10 minutes. Makes 28.

These puffs are so easy, so simple, and so incredibly delicious that your friends will be begging for more (literally...they were begging for more on New Year's 2010...)

Have fun being cheesy!

Replicating my Mom - Chicken and Steak Marinades [Nick]

In many respects, it is easy for a young man to look up to his father. What kid wouldn't want to be a big, loud, brash, and overly abrasive New Yorker? (That question is rhetorical...don't actually answer that). I've always thought it was easy to see what traits and qualities I emulate in my father; a booming voice, an exuberant personality, and I love having everyone's attention.

My mother on the other hand is a different story. She's a fabulous-looking, hyper-intelligent, hell-of-a-cook kind of gal. Sorry Pops, but Mom's got you beat...

So naturally, emulating my mother tends to be a bit more difficult.

Do I look like her? I'd like to think so, but I suppose the quality of looks could be up for debate...

Do I cook like her? Fat chance...

What better way to try to be a little more like my mom than take her recipes (that have already been posted), and re-create them myself. With cooking, sometimes you get fabulous results, and sometimes you just get lucky. This circumstance was a little bit of both.

Growing up my mother would always take an incredible cut of london broil, marinade it for hours, then grill it to perfection. On this night, I attempted to re-create her marinade for my own steaks. Here is the London Broil recipe:

½ cup soy sauce

¼ cup minced fresh ginger

¼ cup slivered lemon zest (peel lemon with veg peeler, then chop with knife)

8 teaspoons Asian sesame oil

4 cloves garlic, minced

4 teaspoons coarsely ground black pepper

4 teaspoons brown sugar

Combine marinade ingredients, pour over London Broil or any other delicious steak (can use zip lock baggy, turn several times in fridge before grilling). I marinaded for about 8 hours - making my meats extremely juicy and saturated with flavor.

But why stop with just steak? I decided to marinade some chicken breasts as well, this time with another one of my mother's recipes - what she calls her "shark marinade" (also already posted on our food website). Here is the Shark Marinade recipe:

¼ cup soy sauce
¼ cup orange juice
3 cloves garlic, minced
2 tablespoons olive oil
2 tablespoons lemon juice
1 teaspoon dried oregano
1 teaspoon Worcestershire sauce
½ teaspoon black pepper
½ teaspoon paprika
1 tablespoon chopped dried parsley

Conduct the same process as before with the zip lock bag.

It's official, I can attest to both marinades. The soy and ginger combination complemented the juicy nature of the steak.

The chicken was a stark contrast to the steak, with a tanginess that gave each bite an extra kick.

So what lessons did I learn from my grilling escapade?

#1 If you have a grill, grilling season never ends. Unless you have some tinfoil and a campfire (shoutout to Pat Kaiser), there are not many better ways to cook meat.

#2 Marinading meat for 5+ hours will make your meat incredibly tender, juicy, and downright delicious.

#3 Always listen to your mother...

Family secret / Breast of lamb [Nick & Mike]

Mom and dad never had much money, yet I don’t remember ever wanting for anything. When you have a mom who’s Italian, there’s always pasta with gravy on the table or dishes that tasted great yet were very inexpensive to make. Here’s a great example: breast of lamb. I’ll bet no one has ever seen it on a restaurant menu. That’s because breast of lamb is always layered with tons of fat; you had to really dig deep to find those thin layers of lamb in between. But there was a wow factor… it tasted great. It was a poor man’s version of a well-marbleized rib eye steak.

This past July 4^th weekend, I decided to create Mom’s breast of lamb recipe with Nick. Talk about an impossible task. Every butcher or grocery store I called in Columbus had never heard of breast of lamb, or never carried it. I even called several meat wholesalers, no luck. I finally tried ­­­Blues Creek at the North Market. They said they would get me a batch. I ordered 15 lbs and 2 days later I picked it up. Price? $1.79 a pound. Why so cheap? The high fat content.

Mom never parboiled the lamb when she made it, but it was so fatty my brother Tommy suggested to do it. After an hour or so we removed the ribs and let them cool. Nick took a bunch of lemons and squeezed them, and chopped garlic. We poured the juice and added the chopped garlic into a pot that held the lamb. We added oregano, and put the mixture into the refrigerator for several hours. The grill was fired up. I told Nick we had to be careful because the fat content was still high and would cause flames and burn the lamb. Finally they were done. Nick and I each took a section of the breast of lamb to taste… “Oh my gosh, the best lamb ever.”

Rigatoni alla Carbonara [Nick]

Slowly crank up the decibel level on your ipod and bring those slow, seductive John Legend tunes to the ears of your lady-friend, because this meal is about to get sexy.

Scenario: cute girl, she's got a knack for you, but you still desperately want to impress her. Well fellas...you've got to croon for the ladies to swoon (and if you're like me and can't sing...here is the best plan for you...)

It's called Rigatoni alla Carbonara. This meal was created as a quintessential "working man's" meal in Italy for coal miners way back in the day. As time has passed, the dish has evolved and only a few restaurants and individuals have seemed to perfect it (including my mother). Unfortunately, Americans have turned the dish into an Alfredo pasta with bacon which, after traveling to Italy, saddens me beyond all measure.

So here it is, the simple meal with simple ingredients that will turn up the volume on your cooking game...

Process:

Start by taking the cut of pancetta and slice small, roughly 1/2 inch pieces on a cutting board. Turn your heat to medium/high under a frying pan and cook these little slices of heaven like you would any regular bacon (crispy is better for contrast in the pasta). Once they are done, put them aside and put a large pot of water on the stove (add salt to the water for flavor and an increased boiling point). While the water is beginning to get hot, cut up the 1/2 small white onion, and sauté it in a frying pan. Once the onion appears soft, toss in the 5 cloves of minced garlic for a quick minute (do not let the garlic get overly brown!).

The most crucial part of this dish are the eggs. Differing from other carbonara dishes I've had in the past, and yet replicating the Roman archetype, I use only the egg yolks. The best method to get only the yolk is to crack the egg and use your fingers as a strainer. Eventually, you will see that the yolk is easy to cradle (maybe practice on an egg or two before you invite that nice lady-friend of yours over). Take the 12 egg yolks and mix them together in a bowl. As this is going on, you should be cooking your rigatoni pasta (stirring every minute or so). Once the pasta has cooked for 10-12 minutes, test a noodle and see if it has the texture you enjoy (maybe a little more al dente, maybe a little less).

Now you are ready for the final and easiest step. Strain the pasta, leaving a very small amount of residual water from the cooked noodles. Add the 12 egg yolks to the dish, the chopped onion and the diced garlic. Toss in the pancetta and 1/2 cup of grated parmigiana reggiano.


All the while, you should be stirring the pot of pasta. (note: keep the heat on very low at the bottom of the pot while you are stirring, as the noodles tend to get cold quickly) Add in a pinch of Sea Salt (but remember, the cheese is already salty so don't ruin it!) Finally, liberally add fresh ground black pepper for some pizazz. Give the pot a few more stirs and plate the pasta.

Recipe:

3/4lb Rigatoni

12 Large Eggs

1/2 Cup Grated Parmigiana Reggiano

1/4lb Pancetta

1/2 Diced Small White Onion

5 Minced Garlic Cloves

Fresh Ground Black Pepper

Sea Salt

At this point, your lady should already be so impressed that if your dish turns out halfway decent, she will likely still be sticking around.

In addition to my carbonara, I added a simple green salad with some oil/vinegar dressing, pecans, and shaved parmigiana.



Oh baby! What's cookin'??



As the Koulermos family continues to make more posts, it should come as no surprise that more carbonara recipes will be added. Why, you might ask? Why on earth do you keep posting about this dish you crazy Koulermi!!?? Simple: in the world of pastas, carbonara is king.


Enjoy your dish with some Legend...
John Legend - Each Day Gets Better