Matt Molina's Linguine with Clams and Chiles

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You may have, as I was, been charmed by Russ Parsons's profile of Matt Molina at the two Mozzas. The article may have, as it did for me, made your mouth water. You may have run, as I did, to the fish store on the way home to make his linguine with clams and chiles as soon as possible.

My question is: did anyone else lose all sensation in their lips, mouth and tongue after eating that dish, as I did and did and did?

I love spaghetti con le vongole - who doesn't? - and Matt 's idea of making a "pesto" of sorts out of hot peppers with which to sauce the dish seemed cunning. Since we're wimpy folk, I halved the amount of jalapenos called for, even de-seeded one, just for good measure, and then only used a quarter cup of the "pesto".

But when the jalapenos hit the hot oil and our apartment was instantly turned into some kind of pepper-spray purgatory, I realized, despite our precautions, that something might be going terribly, terribly wrong. Ben and I staggered around the place, yanking open windows and coughing piteously, but the painful stinging in our throats and lungs and nostrils wouldn't abate.

I went to the stove where the clams merrily steamed away and thought suddenly of this meal, destined for the trash. Is that what we faced tonight? A pile of slippery pasta and lovely, tender, delicate clams destined for the rubbish bin?

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Well, dear readers, we did our best. We sat down at the table, armed ourselves with heels of bread and glasses of wine, and went to work. Tears started streaming down our face within a few bites, and then our noses followed suit. In the end, I couldn't handle it - I finished half my plate and realized that my lips, tongue and the insides of my mouth were completely swollen. Ben soldiered on for a few more bites, but even he had to surrender eventually. I couldn't watch as he threw out the rest of the clams and the gorgeous, briny sauce, rendered entirely inedible by all those bits of jalapenos.

So I went back and reread the recipe. Could it be that my jalapenos were hotter than the ones Matt Molina used? Could it be that he meant to say "coarsely chopped withOUT seeds"? One thing is for sure: 3/4 of a pound of linguine is definitely not enough for six people as a main course, so perhaps the 6 jalapeno-strong "pesto" was meant to sauce twice as much pasta? I don't know.

What I do know is that I never want to see another jalapeno again. And if you want to attempt this yourselves, all I can say is proceed with caution.

Ow.

Linguine with Clams and Chiles
Serves only those people with asbestos-lined mouths


Red chile 'pesto'
6 red jalapeños, coarsely chopped with seeds (yeah, I'd go with two here)
1/2  red onion, diced
1/4  teaspoon salt
1/4  cup olive oil

1. In a food processor, coarsely purée the chiles, onion and salt. With the machine running, add the olive oil in a trickle to make a coarse sauce. Makes about 1 cup.

Linguine and assembly

1/4  cup olive oil
3/4 pound pancetta, diced
6 cloves garlic, thinly sliced
3/4 cup red chile "pesto"
1/2 cup white wine
4 pounds manila clams, scrubbed
3/4 pound linguine (I'd double this)
1/2 cup sliced Italian parsley
3/4 cup (loosely packed) sliced green onions

1. In a large skillet, heat the olive oil with the pancetta over medium heat and cook until the pancetta is crisp and lightly browned, 7 to 10 minutes. Drain off half of the rendered fat and add the garlic. Cook until it is light golden brown, 3 minutes. Stir in the red chile "pesto," white wine and clams. Cover the pan and cook until all of the clams have opened, 4 minutes. Remove from the heat and keep warm.

2. While the clams are cooking, cook the pasta in a large pot of rapidly boiling, salted water until it is just al dente, 8 minutes.

3. Drain the pasta and add it to the clams. Place over high heat, ladle in one-half cup of the pasta cooking water and cook, stirring to mix well. Stir in the parsley and green onions over high heat; serve immediately.

 

Bluestem's Torchie with Oyster Mushrooms, Braised Chicken and Tomatoes

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Eeep.

***

If I have ever before complained of exhaustion, let me hereby call myself a weakling and a wimp, for I have not known exhaustion until now.

*******

The move is done, it is over, thank heavens, and nothing got broken and we're still in one piece and all of our stuff is here, here in our glorious new apartment that I was scared I might have ended up overestimating, but now I can happily proclaim that, if anything, I underestimated just how big and light-filled and gorgeous it is.

The past few days have been a blur of boxes and crumpled newspaper and endless loads of laundry and dishwashing and happy sighs (we have a linen closet! a whole closet just for linens!) and frustrated looks ("really? You really had to bring that damn Rothko poster to the new apartment?"). The few times we've been able to stop and smell the roses have been at dinner, when we've taken our meal out to the balcony and sat at a little weathered table and chairs, eating in silence, watching the airplanes take off.

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We've still got a long way to go, but we've found a home, dearest readers, and I am just abuzz with the glory of it all.

That pasta thing up there is the first thing I cooked in the new kitchen, after a week straight of take-out and a burning desire to get my fingers dirty with something other than packing tape. It was fine, nothing special really, and a little too complicated for such a plain, weeknight dish, but I got to use my new stove (which is actually really old - I'll show you pictures sometime) and go to the grocery store, where I promptly fell in love, both with the store and the nice people who work there (the checkout lady popped two white peaches into my bag after I paid).

The dinner might have been forgettable, but our first few nights in our new place, together, will stay with me for a long time. I'm just so happy.

Torchie with Oyster Mushrooms, Braised Chicken and Tomatoes
Serves 4

2 chicken drumsticks and 2 thighs
Salt and freshly ground black pepper
1/4 cup olive oil
4 cloves garlic, thinly sliced
2 carrots, peeled and diced
1 onion, peeled and diced
8 ounces oyster mushrooms, cleaned and coarsely chopped
1 10-ounce can San Marzano tomatoes (and juices), crushed by hand
1 bay leaf
1/2 cup chicken stock or water
1 pound torchio, campanelle or other torch or bell-shaped pasta
Grated pecorino Sardo, for garnish
Chopped fresh oregano, for garnish.

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Pat chicken dry with paper towels, season liberally with salt and pepper, and set aside. Place a Dutch oven over medium heat and add olive oil. When oil shimmers, add chicken and brown well on both sides.

2. Remove chicken from pan and set aside. Add garlic and allow to brown slightly (15 to 30 seconds) then add carrots, onion and mushrooms. Sauté until onions are lightly browned, 10 to 15 minutes.

3. Add tomatoes, bay leaf and chicken stock. Bring back to a simmer and nestle chicken leg quarters into tomato sauce, spooning some sauce on top. Cover and transfer to oven to braise until chicken pulls easily away from bone, 45 minutes to 1 hour.

4. Transfer chicken to a plate and allow to cool; keep tomato sauce warm. Meanwhile bring 6 quarts of lightly salted water to a boil. Pick cooled chicken meat from bone and return to tomato sauce.

5. Cook torchio in salted boiling water until al dente, about 10 minutes. Drain well and add to chicken mixture. Serve garnished with grated pecorino Sardo and fresh oregano.


Housecleaning, or Three Recipes

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Okay, we're going to veer a little bit off-course today. Because 1. I have to empty my pantry; 2. We signed the lease two days ago and had to fork over a pile of money, so big a pile that I wouldn't be able to buy groceries for new recipes over the next 10 days even if I wanted to; and 3. My CSA is keeping me so flush with vegetables that if I don't cook them every night, I'll be knee-deep in slop.

Besides, didn't someone mention wanting to see the fruits of my type-A labor? Ask and ye shall receive, people.

First up, we have a dish that freed me of a quarter-bag of Pennsylvania Dutch Egg Noodles that I bought when Ben was wracked with some kind of flu (the flu I like to call E. coli but that the E.R. doctor insisted was just a bug. Without having done a culture. While hitting on me as my boyfriend lay defenseless on the cot between us. Thanks a lot, doc.) and that had been sitting in my pantry for at least a year.

You take a small onion (or a quarter of a Vidalia onion), dice it up, and fry it gently in a pan with olive oil until softened and translucent. Then you add three small zucchini that you've diced largely. Turn up the heat a bit so that the zucchini start taking on color and the onion sizzles and it all smells delightful. Start boiling your well-salted pasta water in the meantime. When the zucchini have colored quite well all over, add a handful of torn basil leaves and a handful of torn mint leaves along with a good pinch of salt. Flipping it all together with a spatula, cook the zucchini mixture until it's fragrant. Dump the egg noodles into the boiling water (a few handfuls were enough for two plates). Pull out a bottle of balsamic vinegar, add a spoonful to the zucchini mixture and cook it down, stirring all the while. There shouldn't be any liquid left in the pan. Drain the pasta and add the noodles to the pan of zucchini (adding some pasta water if necessary). Toss them together, grate a substantial amount of Parmigiano on top and eat while piping hot.

It's fresh and sweet and has just enough of that sixth sense deliciousness from the cooked-down vinegar and funky cheese.

Next, we have tomatoes filled with rice - an Italian classic that I am utterly obsessed with and don't eat nearly enough of. You take four large tomatoes (these are the first non-greenhouse ones I've found at the market this year, from my favorite New Jersey ladies in Union Square, and they are fantastic), cut the tops off and scoop out the insides, which you then chop up and reserve (along with all the liquid and seeds). Dice a small onion, or another quarter of the Vidalia onion you used for the dish above, and saute it gently in olive oil. After it has softened, add 1/3 cup of arborio rice to the pan and stir that around for a few minutes. Chop the tomato pulp and add all of it, plus 1/3 cup of water, to the onion and rice, fold in a few torn basil or oregano leaves and a good sprinkling of salt, lower the heat and simmer the rice, covered, for 10 minutes. Heat your oven to 350 degrees, spoon the par-cooked rice into the tomatoes, put them in a small, oiled baking dish, top them a few breadcrumbs and a drizzle of olive oil, and bake for an hour and 15 minutes. The tomatoes will shrivel a bit and become incredibly fragrant and sweet. Let them cool for a bit before eating.

The rice is hot and sludgy and delectable and the tomatoes are sweet and caramelized. To gild the lily, you could slice up potatoes and put them around the base of the tomatoes before putting them in the oven, as the Italians do (who else can combine rice and potatoes with such success?) - they get all oil-slicked and tangy from the tomato juices - but even without the potatoes, this is one of my favorite meals.

And then, because I realize it was a little cruel to tell you about "my" crostata and then not deliver the recipe, here you go:

Mix together 150 grams of sugar with 150 grams of softened butter. To this add 2 eggs, the grated peel of a lemon, 200 grams of flour (depending, you might need up to 50 grams more) and half a packet of this leavening (Amazon calls it yeast, but it's not, it's more like baking powder). Knead this together until well combined, then let it rest on a board for a bit while you preheat your oven to 350 degrees. Pat 3/4 of the dough out in a tart pan or a buttered spring-form pan and cover the dough with jam of your choice (we sometimes thin the jam with a glug of brandy over low heat before spreading it on the dough). Top the jam with the remaining dough rolled into strips and woven, lattice-style. Bake until golden-brown and the jam is bubbling, 30 minutes. Cool to room temperature before eating.

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As for these beauties? They're what I've been eating when I haven't been staring at my pantry with glassy eyes. They came as a delightful surprise from the kind and generous folks at ChefShop. They're Lapin cherries and are the biggest, plumpest, juiciest cherries I ever did eat. So good, in fact, that I can't bear to do anything with them but pop them in my mouth, one by one. I'd love to cook with them, make a pie or a clafoutis or even just roast them and serve them over cornmeal cake (using up the rest of my cornmeal, polenta and grits, somehow), but these cherries are too good for all of that. If you can get your hands on some of these, do.

I'm off, friends, to scavenge boxes now. I'll be packing this weekend, with a beer in one hand and a handful of cherries in the other, and apparently eating a whole lot of corn-based gruel. Enjoy the weekend and the recipes and I'll see you all next week!


Sara Jenkins' Penne with Sheep's Milk Ricotta and Mustard Greens

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Family is everything, isn't it? After all, I'd be nothing without my mother's love and my father's devotion, that's for sure. And I'd go very hungry indeed if it wasn't for the presence of my Sicilian uncle in my life.

Without him, I would have never known the pleasure of tiny cockles stewed in tomato sauce and eaten with a toothpick on New Year's Eve, or the glory that is a perfectly stuffed and battered fried zucchini flower. I ate my first raw oyster at his behest (though it didn't exactly - er - go down as it should have, and the humiliation of that moment still stings a bit), consider my best spaghetti dinners to be the ones that I learned by watching him (and, by extension, my aunt - who is no Sicilian, it's true, but a gifted cook and exacting taster nonetheless), and I still know absolutely no one who can clean artichokes as well as he can and perform the kind of culinary magic with them that he's capable of (fried, braised or stewed - they are incredible).

Now that the rigors of adulthood and certain geographical realities prohibit me from seeing my family as often as I'd like, the wonder of email and the Internet keeps us linked even when we cannot be together. So when my Sicilian uncle read that I'd finally found Giovanni Rana's pasta around the corner here, it reminded him to tell me about his latest discovery.

Aren't you glad I'm the generous, information-sharing type? It was Pasta Setaro - an artisanal pasta made in Campania and sold (oh so luckily!) right around the other corner here, at Buon Italia. I hided myself over to get a kilo of penne and a wedge of imported ricotta Romana for the dish I'd been eager to make for years, since I first spied it in the New York Times Magazine, in a profile of Sara Jenkins (chef and daughter of Nancy Harmon Jenkins).

Sara has you boil pasta while you wilt pungent mustard greens in olive oil and slivered garlic. When the pasta is cooked and the greens are sufficiently wilted, you stir a goodly amount of ricotta into the greens, off the heat, and add the drained pasta. A plentiful shower of Parmigiano tops the dish. If you've never had sheep's-milk ricotta, trust me when I tell you that there is absolutely no way you can substitute the supermarket version here. You'd be disappointed in the mediocrity of the dish and you'd resent me. Do your best to find imported ricotta from Italy for this recipe. I'm not sure it's worth trying with anything less.

(An aside for those of you who live in New York: I recommend a visit to A Voce where Andrew Carmellini serves Sardinian ricotta as an appetizer. It's worth the trip, the expense, the everything.)

(Oh wait, and another aside: my absolute favorite spaghetti-with-ricotta dish is even more delicious than this one and is quite easy to make. Make a simple tomato sauce (by browning a clove of garlic lightly in olive oil, then adding pureed tomatoes of the highest quality possible and simmering them until the flavors meld, adding a pinch of salt and a few leaves of fresh basil - that's it). When you dress your cooked pasta with the tomato sauce, add a dollop of good ricotta, the best you can find. Mix the whole thing together, and top, if desired, with grated Parmigiano. It's bliss, this dish, I guarantee it.)

I loved Sara's mustard-green pasta, not just because it was light and healthy and flavorful and just plain good, but because it reminded me of my family and, by extension, the happy summers of my childhood. My taste memories are among the strongest ones I have, and yet it always surprises me just how instantly a mouthful of soft cheese can catapult me into my grandfather's dining room, thousands of miles away. (When we were little, my cousins and I were allowed to sprinkle sugar on the spoonfuls of ricotta on our plates. The crunch of the sugar crystals under my teeth along with the faintly chalky texture of the pale, smooth ricotta was total sensory bliss. Now that we're grown-ups, we eat the ricotta plain and savor its delicate complexity. But I cannot wait to teach my children to eat their ricotta the way I used to.)

Living so far away from people I love is no picnic. But it is a deep, abiding comfort to find their presence so readily in my home when I get into the kitchen to cook the way they taught me to, with the ingredients that flavor their lives and my own. In a month, I'm taking Ben with me to Italy to see my family and show him the (real) tastes of home. I am counting the days and I know he is, too.

Penne with Sheep's Milk Ricotta and Mustard Greens
Serves 4

Sea salt
1 pound penne or maccheroni
3 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil
1 clove garlic
2 large bunches mustard greens (about 12 ounces each), stems removed, cut into 2-inch strips
6 to 7 ounces sheep's milk ricotta, run through a food mill (about 1 3/4 cups)
Parmigiano-Reggiano
Freshly ground black pepper

1. Bring a large pot of generously salted water to a rolling boil. Add the pasta and cook until tender but firm at the core, about 8 minutes. Meanwhile, heat the olive oil in a large saute pan. Add the garlic and cook until golden.

2. Add the mustard greens and about 1/4 cup of the pasta cooking water, just enough to steam the greens. When only a little liquid is left in the pan and the greens have wilted, remove the pan from the heat and add the ricotta, stirring with a wooden spoon until the cooking liquid is removed.

3. When the pasta is done, drain it, add it to the sauce and fold everything together. Sprinkle with a handful of grated cheese and fold together again. Season to taste. Serve with more grated cheese on the side.


Nancy Silverton's Pappardelle with Bagna Cauda, Wilted Radicchio and an Olive-Oil-Fried Egg

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I've been eating pretty well lately. More than pretty well, spectacularly even. You already know all about my delicious adventures in Los Angeles and, frankly, my kitchen's been quite good to me lately, too. It's almost too good to be true. From honey dates and kumquats to gai lan and braised fennel, I have been bandying about the superlatives with an uncharacteristically heavy hand. Which makes me a little nervous. Because what if you, my dear readers, start to question all this enthusiasm? Have I been waxing too rhapsodic lately? Am I still credible if I rave, yet again, about something that might be the most delicious thing I've ever tasted?

I guess I have to hope that you trust me. And tell you that if you don't listen to me on this one, you will seriously be missing out on a meal that had me practically laughing with glee as I ate it last night. Is that the corniest thing you've ever read? I swear it's true. It was that good. Unbelievably good.

I-can't-believe-my-taste-buds good.

I got the recipe from Sunday's New York Times Magazine, where Christine Muhlke reviewed Nancy Silverton's latest book, A Twist of the Wrist. I now covet this book with a burning lust. (Well, to be honest, I did before I tried the recipe, too. But now? My lust has reached alarming heights.) Because if this dish was so ridiculously good, who knows what else is hiding in there? I have to find out. I simply have to.

But while I'm off ghosting around the aisles of the bookstore, do me a favor and get yourselves to the kitchen, post-haste, to make this for dinner. Even you anchovy-haters! I promise up, down and side-to-side that you will love this, too. I know it. (Just make someone else cook it for you, so you don't get all squee-ed out by the hairy fish factor.)

You melt a bunch of anchovies into some olive oil (I left out the butter - it seemed like too much fat for me) with what seems like an inordinate amount of minced garlic. The key is to do this over low heat, so the garlic barely colors and the anchovies really disintegrate. One minute little fish fillets are fizzing about in your pan, the next minute they've just...melted into aromatic nothingness. You turn off the heat, add lemon zest, lemon juice, minced parsley and shredded radicchio and stir it around until the radicchio is slick with oil and everything is well-combined.

You then toss boiled noodles (I used regular egg noodles, in the spirit of Nancy's "convenience cooking") in the pan with the anchovied radicchio until the sauce is fragrant and the radicchio is wilted (extra pasta water ensures that nothing dries out). Each plate is topped with grated Parmigiano and a fried egg with a molten yolk. This means that when you use your fork to break the egg, the yolk oozes all over the pasta and binds it together with this luscious, golden, savory sauce. The salty anchovies, the sweet garlic, the acidic lemon, the fragrant peel, the bitter radicchio, and the rich egg all meld into a spectacular combination of flavors that you can't really identify when they're harmonizing together in your mouth.

It's quite remarkable. In fact, I'm really kind of in awe. How did Nancy figure this one out? This creation is proof (if the myriad restaurants and bakeries, previous books, and other related ventures weren't already) of serious, serious talent. Trust me when I say this is among the best things to ever come out of my kitchen. I'm laminating, Hall-of-Faming this one. Oh, yes. I think you will, too.

You won't be able to help yourself.

Egg Pappardelle With Bagna Cauda, Wilted Radicchio and an Olive-Oil-Fried Egg
Serves 4

For the pappardelle and bagna cauda:
¼ cup extra-virgin olive oil
15 anchovy fillets
8 large garlic cloves, minced
¼ cup finely chopped flat-leaf parsley
12 radicchio leaves, torn into small pieces
Grated zest and juice of half a lemon
Kosher salt
Freshly ground black pepper
8 ounces egg pappardelle

For finishing the dish:
¼ cup extra-virgin olive oil
4 large eggs
Parmesan cheese
1 heaping tablespoon finely chopped flat-leaf parsley

1. To make the bagna cauda, place a large skillet over medium-high heat. Add the olive oil, anchovies and garlic and cook, breaking up the anchovies with a fork and stirring constantly, until the anchovies dissolve and the garlic is soft and fragrant, about 2 minutes. Turn off the heat, stir in the parsley, radicchio and lemon zest and juice. Season to taste with salt and pepper.

2. Prepare the pasta by bringing a large pot of water to a boil over high heat. Add enough kosher salt until the water tastes salty and return to a boil. Add the pasta and cook, stirring occasionally, until al dente.

3. To finish the dish, heat the olive oil in a large nonstick skillet over high heat until the oil is almost smoking, about 2 minutes. Break 1 egg into a small bowl and pour into the skillet. When it just begins to set around the edges, break the second egg into the bowl and pour into the skillet. (By waiting a moment before adding the next egg, the eggs won’t stick together.) Repeat with the remaining 2 eggs. Cook until the edges are golden, the whites are set and the yolks are still runny.

4. Use tongs to lift the pasta out of the water and transfer it quickly, while it’s dripping with water, to the skillet with the bagna cauda. Place the skillet over high heat. Toss the pasta to combine the ingredients and cook for 1 to 2 minutes more.

5. Using tongs, divide the pasta among 4 plates, twisting it into mounds. Grate a generous layer of cheese over each. Place an egg over the cheese. Sprinkle the parsley over the pasta and serve with more grated cheese and pepper.


Sam Sifton's Sesame Noodles

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I seem to be a woman of empty threats. Because even though I made it seem like one more day without a plate of Sesame Noodles would be a dire one indeed, I actually survived for four more days thereafter. (Is that the sound of a thousand people falling over in shock at the news? I know, unbelievable.) But after four days of fruitless searching, and just as many grocery stores, I decided this morning that I'd had enough. I got in the subway to go down to the source itself, Chinatown, to finally lay my hands on an apparently elusive creation, the fresh Chinese egg noodle. What I got in return was something far, far greater.

Isn't that exciting?

But first things first. At the Dynasty Supermarket on the corner of Elizabeth and Hester, I found my noodles. Well, actually, not really. But close enough. You see, the refrigerated fresh noodle section was crammed with all sorts of noodles, but infuriatingly, none of them were labeled in a manner that would appease the little Type A in me. There were noodles galore, for sure, "Shanghai" noodles and "shrimp" noodles and "vegetable" noodles and, maddeningly, "plain" noodles. Some of them had eggs in them, some didn't. But were there any labeled "egg" noodles? No.

The closest I got was with a bag of "lo mein" noodles that had eggs in them, but were far, far skinnier than the 1/8th of an inch Sam Sifton called for. Noodles in his size were only available eggless. I mulled my choices for far too long, decided the world would not end if I made Sesame Noodles with 1/16-inch wide noodles and got on with my day (and thank goodness I did, because otherwise I think I might still be there, dithering away).

(And here I have to stop and just quickly mention the whopping 98 cents I paid for that pound of egg noodles. 98 cents! When will fresh Italian egg pasta ever be that cheap?)

As I made my way up Elizabeth, I kept my eyes peeled for a vegetable stand. Something about the early morning air and the atmosphere of hungry shoppers and pushy sellers had me feeling adventurous. Actually, it's how I usually feel when I'm in Chinatown, like I'm standing on the precipice of some huge, unknowable mountain of information about really, really good food that I simply can't decipher, but very much want to. Usually I satiate my curiosity by eating at a Chinese restaurant, but that never really solves the problem. So today, instead of going home and buying wilted broccoli from D'Agostino's, I decided I'd buy some real Chinese vegetables and cook them myself.

The vegetable stand I stopped at had several rows of good-looking greens, baby bok choy and green beans being the only ones I recognized. I pointed to what I thought was Chinese broccoli and asked the grocer to confirm what I was buying. I might as well have been speaking in, well, English.

She pointed to the price and nodded nicely. I tried asking her a few more times, even prodding her with the word for Chinese broccoli (gai lan), but this received no reaction. Just a few more points to the sign, decidedly less friendly by the minute. So I acquiesced and bought a pound of the stuff. (For $1.60! And this after I spent $5.99 per pound on Mr. Spear asparagus at Balducci's on Friday.) (I know, I know, I always say I'll never go back there and then I do. What can I say, I'm a woman of low moral fiber.) The grocer pointed me towards another vendor working there as I pocketed my change, as if to say "that guy, he'll know what you're trying to say, now move along, there are people who actually make sense waiting to order".

The other grocer did seem to understand that I was asking what the vegetable I'd just purchased was called and kept repeating "toi sam" (spelling, obviously, not guaranteed by yours truly) over and over, nodding. So I assumed I'd bought a pound of toi sam. Delicious! But at home, the internet produced precious little information on toi sam and insisted on telling me that the vegetable I'd purchased was indeed none other than Chinese broccoli.

What was the point of relaying every step of my purchase to you? I was trying, I suppose, to make you realize how exhilarating the whole exchange was. It felt like I was navigating that aforementioned huge mountain of knowledge with a dinky, little, rudderless boat full of enthusiasm and good intentions but very little else. I wish I had a guide to bring with me to Chinatown every day, to slowly and carefully teach me about all the vegetables on display at those overwhelming sidewalk stands: how to cut them, how to prepare them, how to serve them. (Don't even get me started on the fruit offerings or fish.) What does serving bok choy with mushrooms signify? Will I ever have the courage to purchase loofah or bitter melon? Why do Chinese scallions come in so many different forms?

I guess that Chinese food just totally bewitches me (thank God for Fuchsia Dunlop, who has at least given me some insight into Sichuan food, though that seemed totally indequate today). But before I go all starry-eyed and make Fuchsia adopt me to teach me the rest of what I have to learn, let me quickly tell you about the food I actually cooked.

First, Sam Sifton's sesame noodles. Which are fine, I guess, though I think the dish's appeal lies more in the sensuous mouthfeel of dressed noodles than in the taste. You mix together a pungent sauce of various oils and vinegars and sauces and nut butters, throw in some grated ginger, minced garlic and whisk it all into a dark sludge. The egg noodles are boiled briefly, then rinsed in cold water, dressed with the sauce and topped with chopped peanuts. They're spicy, to be sure, and relatively nuanced - zesty might be the word I'm looking for. But what I really liked was the texture - chewy and silky and slithery and cool, with little bits of peanut adding a pleasing crunch here and there.

The real revelation of the day, though? Was the Chinese broccoli. Oh yes. I made this recipe and have decided that it might be my new favorite thing in the world to eat. It is so good and so totally, entirely easy. Which made my day even more. Not only did I buy my first Chinese vegetable (well, I have bought baby bok choy before, but that was at Whole Foods and so doesn't count) today, but I made a dish so delicious it tasted like the vegetables do at my favorite Chinese restaurants. Yes, that good! I'm speechless with joy.

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Ben and I ate our noodles dutifully, but then set upon the savory-sweet Chinese broccoli like a pair of starving urchins. I am alternately proud and embarrassed to admit that we finished the entire pound in one sitting. How could I have been so short-sighted? Next time, two pounds, at least.

I think this means that I have to get myself to Chinatown more often. I need to explore and discover and learn. If Americanized sesame noodles brought me to Hong Kong-style gai lan, then who knows what the future will bring? I can't wait to find out.

Takeout-Style Sesame Noodles
Serves 4

1 pound Chinese egg noodles (1/8-inch-thick), frozen or (preferably) fresh, available in Asian markets
2 tablespoons sesame oil, plus a splash
3½ tablespoons soy sauce
2 tablespoons Chinese rice vinegar
2 tablespoons Chinese sesame paste
1 tablespoon smooth peanut butter
1 teaspoon sugar (the original recipe calls for 1 tablespoon)
1 tablespoon finely grated ginger
2 teaspoons minced garlic
2 teaspoons chili-garlic paste, or to taste
¼ cup chopped roasted peanuts.

1. Bring a large pot of water to a boil. Add noodles and cook until barely tender, about 5 minutes; they should retain a hint of chewiness. Drain, rinse with cold water, drain again and toss with a splash of sesame oil.

2. In a medium bowl, whisk together the remaining 2 tablespoons sesame oil, the soy sauce, rice vinegar, sesame paste, peanut butter, sugar, ginger, garlic and chili-garlic paste.

3. Pour the sauce over the noodles and toss. Transfer to a serving bowl, and garnish with cucumber and peanuts.  


Florence Fabricant's Asian Seafood Risotto

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What a night it's been! First, I feared I'd totally offended the gods - or at least the one God that counts on this particular night. Then I tasted sweet relief when Wikipedia came to my rescue. Then the rest of the internet dashed my hopes for an entirely damnation-free evening. And I had such good intentions! Such is the path of the unrighteous. Let me explain.

You see, this evening I was host to an old friend who didn't want her usual Passover feast. Life had semi-recently gotten complicated, in the way it sometimes does, and she realized a few days ago that all she wanted tonight was a good meal and, perhaps more importantly, easy company. No family, no rituals, just her own quiet way of being grateful.

Having been brought up a bit of a heathen, and being in no mood on a plain old Monday night to cook everything from matzo ball soup to haroset, I thought up a simple meal for the two of us - an Asian-tinged risotto chock-full of pink shrimp, and a delicate little salad of shaved fennel and radishes dressed with sharp cider vinegar and crunchy little flakes of salt. With a crisp glass of white wine and plenty of fodder for a catch-up chat, I thought we were golden.

Until, of course, I started to wonder about the kosher-ness of the rice in my risotto. Wasn't there some kind of distant memory left over from the seders I was invited to as a child in Brookline, something about grains being forbidden and the Jews crossing through the dessert with nothing but matzo crackers and definitely, absolutely no grains of any kind? Unfortunately, it was a bit late for this kind of thinking. After all, the rice was stewing away on the stove and Becca was sitting happily and expectantly at the kitchen table.

Then Wikipedia swiftly came to the rescue, telling me that as long as wheat, oats, rye, spelt and barley weren't involved in my dinner, I wasn't leading my friend down a dark path. What sweet relief! I had myself a glass of wine.

But, of course, as perhaps many of my readers are chortling to themselves this very instant (it's not nice to make fun, you know), rice is a ridiculous thing to worry about when you've got shrimp, those dirty little bottom-feeders, resting plumply and placidly in their white and creamy starch-bound risotto beds, practically smug with pinkness and really, truly, totally un-kosher to the core.

Yes, that's right. I made my dear friend eat shrimp on Passover. I might just be on the express train to hell.

In my defense! I had no idea! I was all fixated on not feeding her any bread! Or forbidden grains! I'm not a very good half-Jew. In fact, technically, I'm not really one at all. I couldn't possibly have known!

Sob.

(Luckily - though I don't really want to get into it here, you know, wrath of the gods and all - the risotto was quite good, even though there's something about Asian flavors that really require sort of crisp, sharp textures and risotto, of course, is anything but crisp and sharp - it's like the world's most famous comfort food and is, therefore, by nature pillowy and soft, so I'm not entirely convinced that the flavor profile and the textural character of the dish is something to write home about, but I can't complain, really, because at the end of the day, I served shrimp on Passover and the fact that I wasn't smitten down at the table must have had something to do with the food. Or?)

(By the way, the salad was fantastic, but I don't think it's getting me a Get Out Of Jail For Free card anytime soon.)

I suppose I should note that Becca ate her dinner happily and with gusto. She had no problem with the bottom feeders and questionably immoral grains on her plate. In fact, she seemed grateful for the evening and the meal. She's such a good friend. Which leads me to my next question: if she vouches for me when we get to The Big Dinner Table In The Sky, do you think I'll be okay?

Asian Seafood Risotto
Serves 4

2 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil
2 bulbs fresh lemon grass, chopped
1 tablespoon minced ginger
2 cloves garlic, minced
1/4 cup finely chopped shallots
2 cups unsweetened coconut milk
2 cups fish stock
1 cup dry white wine
1 tablespoon nuoc mam (Vietnamese fish sauce)
Juice of 2 limes
1 1/2 cups Arborio rice
1 pound medium shrimp, shelled and deveined
3 tablespoons minced mint
Salt and ground white pepper

1. Heat oil in a heavy saucepan. Add lemon grass, ginger, garlic and shallots, and saute over low heat until soft. Meanwhile, place coconut milk, stock, 1/2 cup wine, fish sauce and lime juice in another saucepan. Bring to a gentle simmer.

2. Add rice to saucepan with lemon grass and cook, stirring, a minute or two. Add remaining wine and cook, stirring, until it is absorbed. Add 1/2 cup coconut milk mixture and stir until it is absorbed, then continue adding the mixture, 1/2 cup at a time, stirring constantly. Rice should be al dente after 20 minutes.

3. Stir in shrimp; cook until they turn pink, 3 to 5 minutes. Fold in mint. Season with salt and pepper and divide among plates. Serve hot.