Pepperoni Beans

I was musing about what to do with two partial meat sticks--sopressata and salami--left over from Thanksgiving and decided I could cut them up and simmer the bits in a sauce. And then I remembered the pepperoni sauce that former DC restaurant emperor Mike Isabella created on Top Chef All Stars back in 2012. I tried it then, and like Isabella, I served it with chicken. This time, I didn't have any chicken on hand. What I did have was a plethora of beans from Rancho Gordo, including some big-ass Royal Coronas. The website describes these beans as "enormous, thick-skinned runner beans with a surprisingly creamy interior. One of our all-time best sellers, it's a versatile giant that works in all kinds of cuisines. A true pantry staple." 

I figured they'd be a fine meat substitute in a brothy tomato sauce studded with cured sausage.

Royal coronas partway through soaking. They are at least twice as large as limas.

I made some changes to the original recipe. I used crushed tomatoes rather than whole, omitted the bay leaf and olive oil, and didn't puree the sauce. I also used half salami, half sweet sopressata, and rather than slice the meats thinly, I cut them into 1/4 inch slices, stacked several of them, then cut them into strips and then dices. The first time I made the sauce, I used pepperoni, which I added after cooking the onions in olive oil. The result was an oily mess that needed a lot of skimming. This time, I cooked the onion and the meat together. The fat that oozed from the sausage was the perfect amount in which to cook the onion, and there was no oil slick on top. I guess pepperoni is greasier? 

I wanted a thicker and more homogenized sauce, but before I added it to the beans, it was more of a tomato liquid with bits of tomato and meat. A spoonful of tomato paste and a cup of starchy bean broth was just the thing to bring it all together. The sauce also needed a touch more acid, so I chopped up some grape tomatoes and stirred them in at the last minute. 

Some arugula gave the dish color and a little extra pep. I also couldn't resist adding a spoonful of The Flavor Society pizza chili crisp, though Mr Minx didn't think the dish needed anything else.

I was pretty happy with the beans. They are very meaty, and though the skins are a tad firm even after several hours of soaking and cooking, the insides are lovely and creamy. Will definitely be purchasing them again in the future.

Pepperoni Beans

For the beans:

1 lb Rancho Gordo royal corona beans

2 stalks celery (leave whole)

2 large carrots, peeled and cut into large chunks

2 teaspoons salt 

For the sauce:

2 teaspoon fennel seeds

1 pound Italian hard salami-type sausage, like pepperoni or sopressata, cut into 1/4" pieces

1 medium or 1/2 large onion, diced

5 medium cloves garlic, crushed

1/2 teaspoon crushed red pepper flakes

1 15-oz ounce can imported crushed Italian plum tomatoes

1 15-oz can of water

To finish the dish:

1 tablespoon tomato paste

1 cup reserved bean liquid

1 teaspoon of Italian seasoning

Salt and pepper to taste

1 cup raw grape tomatoes, cut in half (optional)

Parmesan cheese

Something green, like baby arugula or spinach

To make the beans:

Check beans for debris, and rinse thoroughly. Place in a large pot and fill with water to cover by about 2 inches. Let soak at least 2 and up to 8 hours. Drain the beans and either refrigerate, covered, until the next day, or proceed with recipe.

Put fresh water in the bean pot to about 2 inches above the level of the soaked beans. Add the celery, carrots, and salt and bring to a boil. Turn heat down to a simmer and cook for two hours, or until the beans are tender. The skins will remain somewhat firm and will not look cooked, so you should cut a bean in half and taste it to check the texture.

Once done to your liking, remove the beans from the heat. Fish out and discard (or eat) the carrot and celery debris. Strain the bean broth into a lidded container and set aside. Leave the beans in their pot.

To make the sauce:

Put the fennel seeds in a skillet and turn heat to medium-high. Shaking the pan and/or stirring the seeds frequently, cook until seeds smell toasty and start to brown, 2-3 minutes. Immediately remove from heat and pour seeds into a small bowl.

In a 12" skillet, cook the meat and onion together over medium heat, stirring regularly, until the onion starts to get brown and the meat begins to render its fat. Add the garlic and cook for a minute or so. Stir in the toasted fennel seeds and red pepper flakes. Cook for about a minute, stirring. Then dump in the can of crushed tomatoes and another can of water. Bring the mixture to a boil, then lower the heat so the sauce is gently simmering. Cook for 1 hour. If an excessive amount of oil pools on top, skim it off and discard (or use it to make a vinaigrette for a salad).

To finish:

Pour the sauce over the drained beans. Stir the tomato paste into the cup of reserved bean broth and add that to the pot of beans. Stir to combine, then turn the heat on to about medium. Simmer for about 30 minutes. Taste for seasoning. Stir in the raw grape tomatoes. 

Place some arugula in the bottom of a bowl, spoon over some beans and sauce, and sprinkle with cheese.

Makes about 2 quarts.

* Any products in this post that are mentioned by name may have been provided to Minxeats by the manufacturer. However, all opinions belong to Minxeats. Amazon links earn me $! Please buy!

Posted on Minxeats.com.

Flashback Friday - Chiapparelli's

This post originally appeared on Minxeats.com on August 31, 2011.

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When I was a kid, growing up in Fells Point, a trip to Little Italy (or, as we pronounced it, "Lil Lily") was usually reserved for special occasions. Once in a while we'd get a pizza from DiNitti's, or a bag of ossa di morte ("bones of the dead" - very hard, clove-flavored cookies) from Vaccaro's, but we wouldn't have a sit-down dinner at any of our favorite red-sauce joints unless it was for a special reason. Ok, so sometimes the occasion was merely that we wanted to get dressed up and go out to eat. If we felt really fancy, we'd go to Vellegia's, which seemed to us to be the poshest restaurant in the area, otherwise we'd go to Sabatino's or Chiapparelli's.

Vellegia's is gone now, but Chip's and Sab's live on. Recently, Chip's offered a Groupon, which I snatched up, knowing that Mr Minx had never experienced any of the classic Little Italy restaurants. We had an opportunity to use it for his birthday - a very special occasion indeed.

While offering many of the same classics as every other restaurant in the neighborhood (ravioli, veal Parmesan, chicken Marsala), Chip's menu has been modernized a bit and offers new classics like stuffed portobello mushrooms and grilled salmon, along with crab cakes and a rib-eye for those weirdos who go to Italian restaurants but not to eat Italian food. Don't get me wrong - Chip's is still very much an old-school restaurant: the bread basket contained squishy Italian bread and a handful of prepackaged butter pats. You'll find no plates of artisinal olive oil enhanced with house-dried herbs here! And every entrée automatically comes with the famous garlic-and-cheese-laden Chiapparelli's salad, practically a meal in itself.

Once upon a time, Italian restaurants suggested ordering a pasta course AND a meat course, but since most Americans consider pasta a dinner unto itself, that's usually not the case anymore. But how could we dine at a restaurant that makes its own pasta and not have a pasta course? We opted to split an order of the "besto pesto" - the classic Genoese basil/pine nut/parm purée, mixed with a judicious amount of cream (that the menu, in a bit of reverse exaggeration, describes as a "touch"), coating strands of nicely toothsome maccherone. The dish is also available with chicken or shrimp, but I think the dish was plenty decadent without the addition of protein.

Honestly, after the giant salad and the rich pasta, I could have called it quits, but I had ordered an entrée, too. While not normally a fan of veal, I was in the mood for brasciole. Chip's version is rolled with some prosciutto and served with a generous portion of old-school potato gnocchi and a brightly-flavored marinara. Because it's so easy to make tough gnocchi, I find that most cooks try too hard to achieve the opposite effect. Eating a bowl of squishy pillows can occasionally get boring. One bite of Chiapparelli's gnocchi, however, took me instantly back to my childhood, to gnocchi that actually required chewing, and that occasionally caused an upset tummy after overindulgence. This is a good thing. Too much of one, it seems, because after three pieces of pasta and a quarter of the meat, I was done.

Mr Minx didn't have as difficult a time scarfing down most of his veal Saltimbocca, with spinach, proscuitto, and Parmesan in a Marsala wine sauce that tasted as if it contained a (un)healthy amount of butter. While not the most elegant version of saltimbocca, it was a hearty, rib-sticking dish, with tender veal and perfectly-cooked spinach.

We opted not to have dessert at Chip's, but after learning that it was Mr Minx's birthday, our (lovely, accomodating, and very suave) waiter brought a house-made mini cannoli as a sweet little gift to end the meal.

We went home that evening very full, quite content, and reeking of garlic. And with a large bag of leftovers (including an entire salad, since the pasta dish was considered an entrée) that would constitute my lunch for the remainder of the week. I don't know why we don't eat in Little Italy more often. Next time - Sab's.

* Any products in this post that are mentioned by name may have been provided to Minxeats by the manufacturer. However, all opinions belong to Minxeats. Amazon links earn me $! Please buy!

Posted on Minxeats.com.

Flashback Friday - Fabio Viviani's Mama's Meatballs

This post originally appeared on Minxeats.com on June 5, 2013.

Everybody loves Fabio Viviani. I know Minxeats readers do, because we still get tons of hits from nosybodies googling "is Fabio Viviani married" on a regular basis. Come on - if you were a real fan, you'd know that he's divorced from his first wife and really doesn't have time for a relationship right now, much to his mother's dismay.

Richard Blais, who competed against (and beat) Fabio in the Top Chef All-Stars season, loves Fab, too. I recently found a brief piece in which the two compliment each other's cookbook. In it, Blais waxes rhapsodic about Fabio's meatballs, claiming that ricotta cheese gives them the "most amazing texture." Now, we just so happened to have a quart of ricotta in the fridge, purchased during a 2-for-1 deal. The expiration date on the package is late June, so there was no real hurry to use it up, but before I forgot about it--lost it in the bowels of the always-full fridge--I thought it should be meatball time at Casa Minx.

I got no arguments from Mr Minx. Spaghetti and meatballs is probably his favorite dish, and he knows I'm always looking for a meatball recipe that is reminiscent of my Aunt Stasia's. Her balls were big and soft, cheesy and evenly-textured. (Ok, who's going to be the first to take that sentence out of context?) A quick online search later and he had Fabio's meatball recipe in hand.

We wanted to make the recipe exactly as written, so a trip to the store was necessary to pick up the cup of grated Parmesan, the shallots, and the panko that we didn't already have in stock. A couple hours later, we feasted. The result was, ah...pretty good. But despite half a cup of ricotta and a whole cup of parm, the meatballs were pretty firm. We blame that on the panko, a super-crunchy Japanese breadcrumb that's best used for coating fried foods. Also, the shallots hadn't melted into the meat, so there were little crunchy oniony bits here and there. Sure, the meatballs were moist, but then, I've never really had a dry meatball.

The recipe seems like a good springboard for experimentation. Maybe substitute a bread-and-milk panade for the panko. Cook the shallot a bit or puree it before adding to the meat mixture. More ricotta. Something.

In the meantime, does anyone out there have a recipe for a soft, cheesy, evenly-textured meatball? No offense, Fabio, but your balls just didn't cut it.



Posted on Minxeats.com.

Flashback Friday - Recycled Pot Roast

This post originally appeared on Minxeats.com on January 16, 2013.

It was our intention this most recent holiday season to make a Christmas dinner that took the least amount of prep work and little or no attention while cooking. We wanted everything to be easy, yet delicious, so we made a pot roast.

We had purchased a slab of chuck at Wegman's a few months earlier from which came a delicious pot roast, so we went there once again to purchase our meat. We found a 3+ pound roast for about $23 and thought we could do better with the "family pack" bulk roasts down the aisle. Indeed we did - there a two-pack that weighed about 5.5 pounds cost only $21 and change. Curious. Two pounds more meat for two fewer dollars.

After roasting our bargain meat with potatoes, carrots, mushrooms, and onions, it turned out we didn't need nearly that amount of beef to feed the family. A whole roast went into the fridge, with part of it ending up as cold pot roast sandwiches topped with enough horseradish sauce to make our sinuses hurt. The rest of it - about a pound and a half - went into a luscious, meaty tomato sauce. There was also a bunch of leftover onion gravy (a puree of the meat juices and about 2 cups of the quartered onion that had cooked along with the meat, seasoned with a bit of Worcestershire and herbs) so about a cup of that got added to the sauce pot as well. If you don't have any mild onion gravy leftover from your roast, or your gravy is too strongly "gravy"-flavored, you can omit it and still end up with something that's pretty delicious.

Pot Roast Pasta Sauce

2 cups diced onion
1/2 cup diced carrot
olive oil
salt
1 tablespoon garlic, finely minced
pinch crushed red pepper flakes
1/4 cup vodka
2 32-oz cans crushed tomatoes in tomato puree
1 - 1.5 lbs leftover pot roast, cut into approx 1" x 3" slabs
1 cup leftover pot roast gravy (optional)
1 teaspoon chopped fresh oregano
salt and pepper to taste
sugar (optional)

In a large dutch oven over medium heat, cook the onion and carrot in 3-4 tablespoons of olive oil and a big pinch of salt until softened but not browned, about 8-10 minutes. Add the garlic and red pepper flakes and stir to combine. After a minute or so, pour in the vodka. Turn up the heat a little and cook until the vodka has mostly evaporated, about 5 minutes, then stir in the tomatoes. Add the pot roast, gravy, and oregano. Cover the pot, bring to a boil, then turn down the heat to low. Simmer sauce for 2-4 hours, until pot roast has pretty much disintegrated and the sauce is thick.

Season with salt and pepper to taste. If the sauce seems a bit acidy and needs balance, add a teaspoon or two of sugar. Serve over your favorite pasta, with a sprinkle of freshly grated Parmesan cheese.

Makes about 2.5 quarts.



Posted on Minxeats.com.

Fabio Viviani's Mama's Meatballs

Everybody loves Fabio Viviani. I know Minxeats readers do, because we still get tons of hits from nosybodies googling "is Fabio Viviani married" on a regular basis. Come on - if you were a real fan, you'd know that he's divorced from his first wife and really doesn't have time for a relationship right now, much to his mother's dismay.

Richard Blais, who competed against (and beat) Fabio in the Top Chef All-Stars season, loves Fab, too. I recently found a brief piece in which the two compliment each other's cookbook. In it, Blais waxes rhapsodic about Fabio's meatballs, claiming that ricotta cheese gives them the "most amazing texture." Now, we just so happened to have a quart of ricotta in the fridge, purchased during a 2-for-1 deal. The expiration date on the package is late June, so there was no real hurry to use it up, but before I forgot about it--lost it in the bowels of the always-full fridge--I thought it should be meatball time at Casa Minx.

I got no arguments from Mr Minx. Spaghetti and meatballs is probably his favorite dish, and he knows I'm always looking for a meatball recipe that is reminiscent of my Aunt Stasia's. Her balls were big and soft, cheesy and evenly-textured. (Ok, who's going to be the first to take that sentence out of context?) A quick online search later and he had Fabio's meatball recipe in hand.

We wanted to make the recipe exactly as written, so a trip to the store was necessary to pick up the cup of grated Parmesan, the shallots, and the panko that we didn't already have in stock. A couple hours later, we feasted. The result was, ah...pretty good. But despite half a cup of ricotta and a whole cup of parm, the meatballs were pretty firm. We blame that on the panko, a super-crunchy Japanese breadcrumb that's best used for coating fried foods. Also, the shallots hadn't melted into the meat, so there were little crunchy oniony bits here and there. Sure, the meatballs were moist, but then, I've never really had a dry meatball.

The recipe seems like a good springboard for experimentation. Maybe substitute a bread-and-milk panade for the panko. Cook the shallot a bit or puree it before adding to the meat mixture. More ricotta. Something.

In the meantime, does anyone out there have a recipe for a soft, cheesy, evenly-textured meatball? No offense, Fabio, but your balls just didn't cut it.

Posted on Minxeats.com.

Recycled Pot Roast

It was our intention this most recent holiday season to make a Christmas dinner that took the least amount of prep work and little or no attention while cooking. We wanted everything to be easy, yet delicious, so we made a pot roast.

We had purchased a slab of chuck at Wegman's a few months earlier from which came a delicious pot roast, so we went there once again to purchase our meat. We found a 3+ pound roast for about $23 and thought we could do better with the "family pack" bulk roasts down the aisle. Indeed we did - there a two-pack that weighed about 5.5 pounds cost only $21 and change. Curious. Two pounds more meat for two fewer dollars.

After roasting our bargain meat with potatoes, carrots, mushrooms, and onions, it turned out we didn't need nearly that amount of beef to feed the family. A whole roast went into the fridge, with part of it ending up as cold pot roast sandwiches topped with enough horseradish sauce to make our sinuses hurt. The rest of it - about a pound and a half - went into a luscious, meaty tomato sauce. There was also a bunch of leftover onion gravy (a puree of the meat juices and about 2 cups of the quartered onion that had cooked along with the meat, seasoned with a bit of Worcestershire and herbs) so about a cup of that got added to the sauce pot as well. If you don't have any mild onion gravy leftover from your roast, or your gravy is too strongly "gravy"-flavored, you can omit it and still end up with something that's pretty delicious.

Pot Roast Pasta Sauce

2 cups diced onion
1/2 cup diced carrot
olive oil
salt
1 tablespoon garlic, finely minced
pinch crushed red pepper flakes
1/4 cup vodka
2 32-oz cans crushed tomatoes in tomato puree
1 - 1.5 lbs leftover pot roast, cut into approx 1" x 3" slabs
1 cup leftover pot roast gravy (optional)
1 teaspoon chopped fresh oregano
salt and pepper to taste
sugar (optional)

In a large dutch oven over medium heat, cook the onion and carrot in 3-4 tablespoons of olive oil and a big pinch of salt until softened but not browned, about 8-10 minutes. Add the garlic and red pepper flakes and stir to combine. After a minute or so, pour in the vodka. Turn up the heat a little and cook until the vodka has mostly evaporated, about 5 minutes, then stir in the tomatoes. Add the pot roast, gravy, and oregano. Cover the pot, bring to a boil, then turn down the heat to low. Simmer sauce for 2-4 hours, until pot roast has pretty much disintegrated and the sauce is thick.

Season with salt and pepper to taste. If the sauce seems a bit acidy and needs balance, add a teaspoon or two of sugar. Serve over your favorite pasta, with a sprinkle of freshly grated Parmesan cheese.

Makes about 2.5 quarts.

Posted on Minxeats.com.

Cook Like a Top Chef - Mike Isabella's Pepperoni Sauce

During the Top Chef All-Stars finale, chef Mike Isabella produced a sauce that had judge Gail Simmons swooning. "Pepperoni sauce" was all she murmured for the last 20 minutes of the episode. With such a glowing endorsement, how could I not give it a try (despite the fact that Isabella lost the challenge and the competition)?

He served it with chicken, as did I: Top Chef Masters cheftestant Suvir Saran's lemon chicken, without the lemon (and with very little salt). Plain boring chicken breast, cooked sous vide, poached, or pounded thin and sautéed quickly, would benefit from a couple of tablespoons of Isabella's concoction, as would pork tenderloin or a bowl of pasta. The sauce is spicy, salty, and tangy--a little goes a long way.

Isabella's original recipe calls for six tablespoons of olive oil. It seems that most prominent Italian chefs like to drown their food in olive oil (I'm pretty sure Mario Batali even cooks bacon in it), but since pepperoni is such a fatty product, I figured one tablespoon to cook the onions would be more than enough. And it was--I skimmed off about 2/3 cup of liquid fat before I dumped the cooked sauce into the food processor. (That luscious dark red grease did not get wasted...it made a very nice vinaigrette when whisked with a bit of balsamic vinegar, honey, and Dijon mustard.)

Mike Isabella's Pepperoni Sauce (adapted slightly from the recipe in the Washington Post)

1 tablespoon extra-virgin olive oil
1 small onion, cut into small dice
5 medium cloves garlic, cut into very thin slices
1 pound pepperoni, cut into thin slices
1 teaspoon fennel seed, toasted
1/2 teaspoon crushed red pepper flakes
1 15-oz ounces can imported Italian plum tomatoes, chopped, with their juices
1 cup low-sodium chicken broth
1 bay leaf

Toast the fennel seed in a small dry skillet over medium heat, shaking the skillet often to keep the seeds from burning. They will become fragrant and slightly darker in color. Remove from pan and set aside.

Heat the oil in a large, heavy-bottomed pot over medium heat, until the oil shimmers. Add the onion and garlic; cook for 5 to 10 minutes, stirring often, until they are golden and fragrant. Stir in the pepperoni; cook for about 5 minutes, until fragrant and evenly coated, then add the toasted fennel seed and crushed red pepper flakes. Cook for 1 minute, stirring. Add the tomatoes and their juices, the broth, and the bay leaf; stir to incorporate. Bring to a boil, then lower heat so the mixture is simmering. Cook for 45 minutes until the pepperoni softens. Remove from heat.

Skim sauce with a tablespoon. Discard fat, or save for other use. (Make vinaigrette!)

Working in batches as needed, transfer to a food processor or a high-powered blender (including the bay leaf). Puree until smooth. Cover and refrigerate until very cold, to remove additional fat. When ready to use sauce, remove fat and reheat sauce.

After skimming, I had a quart of sauce. If you don't skim, you'll have more.

Posted on Minxeats.com.

Pork Spareribs, Santa Fe-style

Who doesn't love pork ribs? Ok, apart from vegetarians and those who eschew eating pork...I'm betting they'd love them if they tried them! Not long ago I was looking for a rib recipe that didn't involve a lot of work. I found one with a flavor profile that I liked, and simplified it so it was easy-peasy. Just mix up the sauce, pour it over the meat, and braise. There's nothing more strenuous in this recipe than using a can opener, and the results are quite delicious. The sauce is mildly spicy, so if you want more heat, just add more chipotles.

Southwest Pork Ribs

1 15oz can tomato sauce
1 8oz can red chili sauce, or 1 cup homemade
2 canned chipotles en adobo
2 tablespoons brown sugar
2 tablespoons cider vinegar
1 1/2 - 2 lbs well-marbled pork country ribs (with bones, if possible)
Fresh cilantro for garnish

Preheat oven to 300F.

Combine first five ingredients in a bowl, mixing well to dissolve brown sugar.

Place pork country ribs in a single layer in a 9 x 13 baking pan. Pour over sauce. Cover pan and place in the oven. Cook for 2 hours or until meat is very tender.

Degrease sauce and serve on the side.

Posted on Minxeats.com.

Chiapparelli's

When I was a kid, growing up in Fells Point, a trip to Little Italy (or, as we pronounced it, "Lil Lily") was usually reserved for special occasions. Once in a while we'd get a pizza from DiNitti's, or a bag of ossa di morte ("bones of the dead" - very hard, clove-flavored cookies) from Vaccaro's, but we wouldn't have a sit-down dinner at any of our favorite red-sauce joints unless it was for a special reason. Ok, so sometimes the occasion was merely that we wanted to get dressed up and go out to eat. If we felt really fancy, we'd go to Vellegia's, which seemed to us to be the poshest restaurant in the area, otherwise we'd go to Sabatino's or Chiapparelli's.

Vellegia's is gone now, but Chip's and Sab's live on. Recently, Chip's offered a Groupon, which I snatched up, knowing that Mr Minx had never experienced any of the classic Little Italy restaurants. We had an opportunity to use it for his birthday - a very special occasion indeed.

While offering many of the same classics as every other restaurant in the neighborhood (ravioli, veal Parmesan, chicken Marsala), Chip's menu has been modernized a bit and offers new classics like stuffed portobello mushrooms and grilled salmon, along with crab cakes and a rib-eye for those weirdos who go to Italian restaurants but not to eat Italian food. Don't get me wrong - Chip's is still very much an old-school restaurant: the bread basket contained squishy Italian bread and a handful of prepackaged butter pats. You'll find no plates of artisinal olive oil enhanced with house-dried herbs here! And every entrée automatically comes with the famous garlic-and-cheese-laden Chiapparelli's salad, practically a meal in itself.

Once upon a time, Italian restaurants suggested ordering a pasta course AND a meat course, but since most Americans consider pasta a dinner unto itself, that's usually not the case anymore. But how could we dine at a restaurant that makes its own pasta and not have a pasta course? We opted to split an order of the "besto pesto" - the classic Genoese basil/pine nut/parm purée, mixed with a judicious amount of cream (that the menu, in a bit of reverse exaggeration, describes as a "touch"), coating strands of nicely toothsome maccherone. The dish is also available with chicken or shrimp, but I think the dish was plenty decadent without the addition of protein.

Honestly, after the giant salad and the rich pasta, I could have called it quits, but I had ordered an entrée, too. While not normally a fan of veal, I was in the mood for brasciole. Chip's version is rolled with some prosciutto and served with a generous portion of old-school potato gnocchi and a brightly-flavored marinara. Because it's so easy to make tough gnocchi, I find that most cooks try too hard to achieve the opposite effect. Eating a bowl of squishy pillows can occasionally get boring. One bite of Chiapparelli's gnocchi, however, took me instantly back to my childhood, to gnocchi that actually required chewing, and that occasionally caused an upset tummy after overindulgence. This is a good thing. Too much of one, it seems, because after three pieces of pasta and a quarter of the meat, I was done.

Mr Minx didn't have as difficult a time scarfing down most of his veal Saltimbocca, with spinach, proscuitto, and Parmesan in a Marsala wine sauce that tasted as if it contained a (un)healthy amount of butter. While not the most elegant version of saltimbocca, it was a hearty, rib-sticking dish, with tender veal and perfectly-cooked spinach.

We opted not to have dessert at Chip's, but after learning that it was Mr Minx's birthday, our (lovely, accomodating, and very suave) waiter brought a house-made mini cannoli as a sweet little gift to end the meal.

We went home that evening very full, quite content, and reeking of garlic. And with a large bag of leftovers (including an entire salad, since the pasta dish was considered an entrée) that would constitute my lunch for the remainder of the week. I don't know why we don't eat in Little Italy more often. Next time - Sab's.

Chiapparelli's
237 S High St
Baltimore, MD 21202
(410) 837-0309


Posted by theminx on Minxeats.com.

Fazzini's Italian Kitchen

When my brother lived in Cockeysville, he would frequent Fazzini's on a regular basis. He raved about their meatball pizza, topped with sliced meatballs that would frizzle on the edges in the heat of the oven. Of course, by the time Mr Minx and I got around to paying Fazzini's a visit, it had closed.

Eventually, however, it reopened, and we had another chance.

After being seated in the dining room of the tiny strip mall restaurant, our enthusiastic waitress brought us a basket of soft Italian bread and a saucer filled with olive oil and cloves of roasted garlic. Hello - roasted garlic olive oil is so much tastier than the usual EVOO with a drizzle of balsamic, herbs, and/or red pepper flakes! Especially when one takes some of those oozy soft cloves and schmears them on a piece of bread. The bread wasn't bad, but if it were better (crustier), I would have been quite content making a meal out of oil and bread.

That would make for a really boring blog post, wouldn't it? Instead, we ordered actual food.

While pizza and pasta are always tempting, we decided to try neither this first time. Mr Minx started off with a half salad, but I went for the gusto and ordered the fried calamari.

Many, many, many little squids gave their lives for this dish. The menu should warn that this is a large entrée-sized portion, or an appetizer for four. The portion was huge, and the calamari were tender for the most part, but they were bland. The menu claims they are coated in seasoned flour, but I sure had to use a lot of salt and pepper to bring out some flavor. Not the best fried calamari I've ever had, but decent enough. 

For my entrée (the two bites of it I was actually able to eat after all that fried squid), I ordered the stacked eggplant parmigiana. The parm itself was about 5" square and nearly 2" high, but it was nearly consumed by a flood of marinara sauce. While the sauce tasted fine, it completely overpowered the delicate flavor of the eggplant.  

Mr Minx ordered the Chicken Francaise "Michael," two panko-coated chicken cutlets with asparagus, prosciutto, capers, and a lemon butter sauce. The butter sauce was the best part of this dish, redolent of citrus and wine. And while there was a lot of it, it didn't overpower the dish's other strong flavors. There was zero subtlety in this dish, but we enjoyed it.

With both entrées came bowls of linguini marinara. Fazzini's touts their homemade pasta; a real shame the linguini was cooked to an unpleasant mush. 

Based on the strength of the garlic olive oil and the chicken dish, I'd say Fazzini's definitely deserves another try, next time for pizza, a sub, or maybe the chicken marsala. 

Fazzini's Italian Kitchen
578 Cranbrook Rd
Cockeysville, MD 21030
(410) 667-6104
www.fazzinis.com



Posted by theminx on Minxeats.com.

Product of the Week - Mid's Pasta Sauce

To me, the ideal pasta sauce is smooth and thick and doesn't separate into tomato chunks and water when it hits hot pasta. To achieve this with homemade sauce, it needs to simmer for hours. And, it needs to be made with a lot of tomato paste, rather than just canned tomatoes.

Sometimes we're pressed for time (or are just plain lazy) so choose to use a jarred pasta sauce rather than making one from scratch. All jarred sauces are not alike, so I've tried several brands in a quest to find the one that best suits my particular tastes. Many jarred sauces tend to do that separation thing. In addition, they are usually full of high-fructose corn syrup, which adds both sweetness and body to a sauce. Mid's on the other hand, is made from tomato paste for body and uses sugar as a sweetener. The end result tastes a lot like what I would want to produce, if I had the time - assertively tomato-y, but neither too acidy nor too sweet. And thick enough to coat every strand of pasta without forming a layer of water on the bottom of the bowl. In my not-so-humble opinion, it tastes great and is the perfect consistency. It's not expensive like the premium restaurant sauces (Rao's, Patsy's) and it tastes better. At least we think so.Your mileage may vary, but if you can find it, I recommend giving Mid's a try.

According to the Mid's Web site, they have no retailers in Maryland, but since Wegman's is a New York firm, we've been able to purchase it there. Wal-Mart may also stock it locally.

Mint Love Letters

While last week's ravioli experiment was a failure, this time around it was a rousing success. See? Ravioli. :)

Rather than re-attempt the pumpkin and beet variations, I decided to do a riff on Mario Batali's Mint Love Letters with Spicy Lamb Sausage - I had peas and ground lamb in the freezer, and thanks to the warm weather we've been having, my mint plant was still putting out leaves.

I didn't have the extravagant amount of Parmesan cheese called for, but I had some leftover ricotta. And while the mint was still hanging in there, it was hardly flourishing; I put a bit of mint in the filling and saved the rest for garnish.

As for the sauce - without merguez handy, I made my own. To the pound or so of ground lamb I had, I added 1/2 teaspoon each of ground cumin, coriander, and fennel seeds, plus a half teaspoon each of smoked and regular paprika, three cloves of garlic, and salt and cayenne to taste. Precooking the lamb and draining off the fat meant I didn't have to constantly skim fat off of the tomato sauce once the meat had been added.

Voila, the finished dish. It had an interesting Moroccan flair from the combination of mint and spicy lamb sausage. As I used won ton wrappers, the ravioli were a bit on the delicate side, but they still worked with the sauce, which in itself was really terrific. I'd happily make it again to use as a topping for a pasta like rigatoni or farfalle.

Overall, the dish was a bit fussy and had a lot of (non-difficult) steps that required several pots and pans and the food processor, but I wanted to try something new. Mission accomplished.

Next: We're making most of Thanksgiving dinner this year, including the turkey, but not at Casa Minx. Stay tuned!