January 26, 2018

Spaghetti Two Ways

January 26, 2018/ Blair Cowan

These recipes are both basically ''take a box of spaghetti, make a sauce, then eat it!' but one of them involves stirring sliced hot dogs (wieners, in the parlance of the recipe, which, since I am 12, is hilarious to me) into the finished sauce. As this sounds revolting, I am lucky because I live in a country with little to no respect for the hot dog so I was unable to find hot dogs and had to make this with chorizo,* thus combining both recipes into a simpler single version with optional chorizo sprinkles.

Since both recipes require some kind of pre-made sauce base that obviously doesn't exist anymore, I made my own sauce from scratch (-ish) using their additions to dress it up. I had mine with chorizo and Judson tried it without, so you can make it either way, or, if you're feeling really authentically 1950s, go ahead and stir in some sliced hot dogs. What could be better?

I made this for us one night when it was raining (not snowing for once!) and I couldn't be bothered to cook anything that required much thought but still wanted to be in the kitchen because it's always the warmest room in our flat. I really love mindless cooking like making pasta sauce or chili sometimes- the kind of thing where you just chopchopchop sizzlesizzlesizzle simmersimmersimmer taste and adjust, then start again from the beginning. I love zoning out to an old episode of the Golden Girls, my favourite playlist, or an audiobook (my newfound passion- I can read twice as many books at a time now!), listening to the rain and filling the kitchen with steam and good smells until it's time to eat, and this recipe is no exception.

Very much intended to be a 'clean-out-your-fridge' type recipe, this sauce is the kind of thing you'll never make the same way twice because it's completely dependent on what you've got to hand; have an open jar of anchovies you need to use up? Throw 'em in! A stalk or two of celery that are going soft? Chop 'em up! Half an onion, one shallot, and a piece of leek? In they go! A carrot? Fine! A handful of strawberries? WHOA, no. This is not a free-for-all, you know.

Anyway, here's how I made mine, based on what the original recipe recommended to add to a prepared sauce base, but as I said, edit it to your heart's content. You can cook this for as little as 30 minutes including softening time, but it's going to keep getting better the longer you leave it, so if you have time, do your prep a few hours before you need it and then let it simmer for a few hours so the flavours really blend. It'll be worth it.

*Truly, this country has so little respect for the hot dog that the only ones I have ever seen in my shop come full-length in a can packed in water, and the label is, of course, an American flag. Once upon a time, the existence of those water-packed canned weiners was the most embarrassing thing about being an American abroad.

The verdict:

3 spoons out of five. I'm knocking off one spoon because this is no spaghetti bolognese made with fresh tomatoes when they're actually in season, but for a recipe that cleared out my fridge of all the veg I would otherwise probably have had to toss, it's great. And I'm knocking one more spoon because the chorizo didn't really add anything and I can all but guarantee the requested hot dogs would have been even worse.

ONE YEAR AGO: TOLL HOUSE MARBLE SQUARES
TWO YEARS AGO: ASIAN CHICKEN TWO WAYS

the recipe:

Spaghetti

the directions:

Saute the anchovy in the oil in a deep saucepot until it melts.
Add the celery and stir well, reduce heat to medium-low and cook for 4 minutes, until slightly softened.
Add the garlic, onion, bell pepper and mushrooms and continue to cook, stirring frequently, until well-softened and slightly browned, at least 10 minutes or up to 20 minutes.
Deglaze the pot with a generous glug of wine, turn up the heat to medium and add the tomato paste. Stir to combine, then add the passata and stir well.
Bring to a simmer, add red pepper flakes, then taste.
If needed, add sugar, salt and additional red pepper flakes.
Reduce heat to medium-low and either allow to simmer with the lid on for up to an hour, or cook your spaghetti.

To serve, place spaghetti in four individual bowls, top generously with warm sauce, sprinkle with cheese and, if desired, add a sprinkle of chorizo. Note that according to this recipe, adding the chorizo turns this into 'Frank n' Spaghetti Supper.'

the ingredients:

Customise the below to fit what you have in your kitchen:

3 anchovies
3 tbsp olive oil or the oil from the anchovy tin
2 celery ribs, chopped very fine
2 cloves garlic, minced
½ onion, chopped coarsely
1 bell pepper, chopped coarsely
1 handful white or chestnut mushrooms, chopped coarsely
1 glug red or white wine
2 tbsp tomato paste
1 box tomato passata
1 tsp red pepper flakes
2 tbsp sugar or brown sugar
2 tbsp salt or to taste
4 servings of spaghetti
Fresh grated parmesan or pecorino

Optional: 1 generous handful of chorizo, chopped coarsely

January 12, 2018

Pierogi

January 12, 2018/ Blair Cowan

I grew up eating pierogis* occasionally- my mom would buy frozen ones and saute them in butter, then serve them with sour cream for a quick weeknight meal. I'm pretty sure she ate hers with cooked onions on the side, but as we've discussed, I didn't touch onions with a barge pole until I was probably 20, so I definitely ate mine without them. As I grew up, I realised that pierogis are not as common in American households as I previously thought- admittedly, it's been four years since I shopped in an American supermarket, but I don't recall ever having even seen pierogis in a grocery store, and prior to this week I think the last time I had them was probably in high school when my mom made them for me.

When I found a recipe in the Box for homemade pierogi, I set it aside thinking it would be a pain, and probably it required a pasta maker, and I didn't think I was up to the task. Fast forward to this month, when outside it's so cold that all I want to do is stay in the kitchen because it's the warmest place in the house and make warm, cosy food, and... suddenly the idea of spending a frozen Saturday locked in the kitchen with only flour, mashed potatoes and a rolling pin to keep me company sounded magical, so that's how I spent last weekend.

If you're not familiar with pierogis, they're Central/Eastern European dumplings (most likely originating in Poland, though it seems every country in the region has claim to their own version), generally made from a simple dough and filled with potatoes, sauerkraut, onions, mushrooms, cheese, fruit or any combination of the above. They're nearly impossible to make in small batches, so this is a dish to make when you want to stock your freezer, have a dinner party and/or stock a friend's freezer while you're at it. Vegetarian and made with budget ingredients, these are perfect for making in January, when everyone's resolutions involve eating less meat and spending less money.

Now, the logistics: these aren't easy per se, but they're far simpler than I thought they'd be. You need a substantial amount of time to make them on account of making the filling and rolling out the (fairly stiff) dough, but it's actually simple to get the dough as thin as you need it to be, the dough adheres to itself easily so you don't need to worry about the pierogi coming apart as you go, and once you get into a rhythm, it's really not difficult. Also, there's no real 'technique' involved as there is with, say, macarons or soufflés where you don't know until you remove them from the oven whether they have worked or not. With pierogis, you can taste the filling in advance and re-season as needed, I've included specific instructions for the texture and thickness of the dough to take the guesswork out, and when you're finished, you fry them in butter which covers all manner of sins. If you're looking for a way to fill your freezer, get creative in the kitchen and try out a food you probably have never made from scratch before, here's your chance: get yourself an audio book (I listened to like half of Paula Hawkins' newest while making these), a podcast you're really into or a Netflix series that jumps straight from one episode to the next and spend your day in the kitchen rolling and filling these delicious dumplings. You might really enjoy it!

Some tips:

It helps to make your filling a day ahead, so that on the day you can just focus on dough making, rolling and filling.
Fillings can be anything I listed above, or anything else you can think of. I made half of my filling according to the recipe below, and for the other half I made a simple mashed potato mixture with sauteed shallots (I happened to have some shallots on the edge), sage, rosemary and a scoop of cottage cheese. They were amazing.
If you make a mashed potato filling, you'll want the mashed potatoes to be substantially drier than you would normally eat them. They should be mashed until there are no potato lumps, but resist the urge to add more milk/butter/cream cheese/whatever you usually use to make yours smooth. When the dumplings are cooked, the steam softens the potato mixture and if you make them too smooth to begin with, they'll be runny by the end.
Keep any dough you aren't rolling out covered with a warm, damp dishtowel to keep it from drying out. If it does start to get too dry, you can add a few drops of water and rework it briefly, but be careful not too add too much so that the dough becomes sticky.
ROLL ROLL ROLL that dough until it's as thin as possible. 1/16-inch is ideal and though that seems impossible, if you work in small-ish quantities of dough (1/5 or so of total dough at a time), it's totally doable because this dough does not stick to the counter or your rolling pin.
Next time I am dying to try a sweet filling- prune is traditional, and I might use the prune purée from this recipe next time to see how it goes.

*For what it's worth, the plural is pierogi, and the singular is pierόg in Polish, but since most English speakers refer to them as pierogi and pierogis, I'm going with that.