Tag Archives: pappardelle

Homemade Pasta

20 Jan

After epicly failing on the bread… I decided I had to redeem myself. So I decided to put  my new KitchenAid (with pasta roller attachment!) to work and make some pasta. On a whim, I also secured myself the cookbook “Pasta Sfoglia” by Ron and Colleen Suhanosky with Susan Simon after reading about it in one of the food blogs I constant.  I’m strange about cookbooks… I love having them, but I hardly ever use them.  I usually find recipes on the internet as I am a complete slave to reading reviews of the recipe to determine if I’ll like it, what I should change, and how it’s ranked.  Yes, I love crowd sourcing.

This book, however, is already pretty sticky with bits of butter and dough that have escaped out of my bowl (happens often) and onto the pages.  My first attempt was surprisingly easy and left me wondering why I thought pasta making was so terrifying and complicated.  It couldn’t have been easier!

I made the fresh egg pasta from the book (full recipe below) and then I wrapped it in plastic and stuck it in the fridge for about an hour.  It seemed to have a perfect consistency when I took it out (pliable without being sticky).

Though I noticed by the time I put the 3rd dough patty in, it had warmed up to a bit stickier than I wanted (so I added some more flour and prayed… though it did require more reworking than the first 2).


The tip in the book for making pappardelle was to put 3 sheets on top of each other with flour between them and lightly roll…

…Then cut into wide noodles.


Then unroll and presto! Perfect thick noodles (I used a pizza cutter and it worked perfectly).

They were excellent all cooked up (though I did wish for more flavor… I’ll have to explore upping the salt and try with some other types of flour, especially some healthier whole grain options).

I put some more of my new favorite homemade grape tomato sauce on top and MMM was it good!

I still can’t believe I made this all from scratch. This is one of those days that I look back to how far I’ve come (I hermetically sealed a pot while making Rice-A-Roni for the first time in college).

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RECIPES
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Fresh Egg Pasta

Ingredients:

  • 2 cups all-purpose flour
  • 3 eggs
  • 2 tsp. EVOO
  • 1 tsp. kosher salt
  • Rice flour for dusting (I just used regular flour)

Directions:

  1. Add the all-purpose flour, eggs, extra virgin olive oil, and salt to the bowl of a food processor fitted with a metal blade. Pulse several times until the dough resembles medium crumbs. (I actually don’t have a food processor so I just gave it a few pulses in the mixer)
  2. Turn out the dough onto a clean, dry, rice flour-dusted work surface.  Gather the dough together and knead it until it comes together and is smooth and elastic.  Cover the dough with a kitchen towel or plastic film and let rest at least 10 minutes or up to 2 hours. (if wrapped tightly, dough can be stored in the fridge for up to 2 days or frozen for 2 weeks and then defrosted in the fridge.  The book notes that the dough will discolor slightly but the flavor will be fine.)
  3. Rolling the pasta (pappardelle, tagliatelle, and fettuccine):
    1. Divide the dough into 3 equal pieces and flatten each into a disk.  Dust with flour.
    2. Set roller to setting 1.  Feed the disks through, one at a time, and fold the dough to meet in the middle and press down to seal between each pass.  Put the open side of the dough back through the rollers for a total of 3 times on setting 1.  Fold dough so both ends meet in the center and press down.
    3. Adjust to setting 2.  Feed the open side of the dough through the roller twice.
    4. Adjust to setting 3 and feed through the roller twice. Since the roll will be long, cut it in half.  Feed through on setting 3 one more time.
    5. Dust each sheet with flour and stack.  You can now cut it as I outlined above.
    6. I have cooked my pasta immediately each time, so I can’t advise on storing it (yet).  Google!

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Homemade Tomato Sauce and Baked Tilapia in Wine and Shallots

7 Jan

I am inspired, quite often, by cooking shows. Especially the ones where they break down things and give you tips on how to make it scrumptious.  While I now absolutely hate Chef Academy for steering me wrong on making bread (more on that in a few days), at this point I did not hold such contention and decided to make a homemade tomato sauce.  I basically had almost none of the ingredients and only had grape tomatoes, but I figured it would still be good. I also added leftover mushrooms to the mix and it was delish!

I bought some packages pappardelle (my fave) and put the sauce over it. Scrumptious.


We needed some protein, so I went to the local fish market/store and bought Tilapia.  The fish guy said he prefers it backed with shallots and butter, so that’s just what I did (though I think I added some white wine as well).

This was just ehh.  The first was a little bland and the sauce just didn’t have caliber next to that tomato sauce.

The recipe from the show can be found here. I went without the star anise (this seems to be everywhere lately! wtf?) and vanilla pod and only had dried thyme and basil.   I also added it all the beginning (with WAY more garlic and a bit of tomato paste) and then let it cook down for about two hours.

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Penn Station to Times Square Takeout/Delivery Wrap Up

12 Oct

Midtown Lunch is a fabulous resource for eating lunch in Midtown, obviously.  Through them I have discovered my love for cart food and multiple more interesting lunch time feasts.  Unfortunately, while they are right around my current office, they don’t stretch quite so far as my apartment, which is near Penn Station.  Therefore, I put together my own wrap up that provides a smattering of the food we’ve eaten in the past few months from Penn Station up to Times Square.

I’m adjusting my Nom Points scale for this one to on a scale of 5.  1 being eating sewage, 3 being exactly what I’d expect from an order in midtown, and 5 being well above expectations.

Starting from the South and going North…

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A Seamless Web search for cheese steak (after watching the latest Man vs. Food episode I was craving) brought us to Kool Bloo.  Upon writing this I realized how far out of the jurisdiction this is, however, they deliver to Penn Station so it’s going in.  (There are 4, but I think the closest to us is on 22nd between 2nd and 3rd Ave… EAST side!  Other locations are Ave A at 12th Stree, 6th Ave at Watts St, and 2nd Ave between 38th and 39th Streets… according to MenuPages anyway).

Mike started off with cole slaw, which I thought was quite novel in this beautiful purple shade.  I actually tried it and liked it.

He followed that up with a Mr. Big Beef Burger.  (Mr. Big from Sex and The City? hmmm.) This had a friend egg, American Cheese, and bacon (with lettuce, tomato, and raw onion).  I took a bite and it was one DAMN good burger. 

I went with the cheese steak, but I didn’t go classic. It was called Sinatra’s Philly Cheese Steak which came with provolone and marinara (I added friend onions).  It was tasty but the bread just didn’t hold up.  I like the bread on my cheese steaks to have some crunch (but not enough to cut open my mouth and make a mess) and this just had none.  The steak was also just okay.  I wonder if the regular cheese steak might have been a better choice.

Overall Nom Points: 3.5 out of 5 (3 for the cheese steak, 4 for the burger)

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This is also not quite in the district, but it does deliver to the Penn Station area, so I’m including it too… A craving for Italian had us ordering from Aleo (20th between 5th and 6th).  I’m pretty sure this was a Seamless Web order (as many of our meals are at my apartment). 

The Eggplant Parmigiano Starter was quite good.  Great flavors.

I got the Half Order of Pumpkin Ravioli and was overall dissapointed.  They weren’t really all that pumpkin-y and the sauce was just really just a bit of butter and some flavor that I did not recognize and did not like.

Mike got the Half Order of Pappardelle (pancetta, sweet peas, crimini mushrooms, onions in a parmesan cream sauce) and noodles were VERY tasty.  I have a love for pappardelle and this one definitely satisfied.

Overall Nom Points: 3 out of 5

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Gardenia Deli is a very new “little bitta dis, little bitta dat” deli right near my apartment (8th Ave between 30th and 31st).  It’s one of the few clean delis on that stretch without homeless people hanging out right by the door with the toy crane machine.  We decided to try some of the hot food and found it pretty good for the type of place.  I usually expect greasy and/or flavorless and/or overcooked food but the flavors were great for a quick pick up meal.

Chicken Parm with Ziti

“BBQ Beef” and Rice (the BBQ Beef was much more like pot roast… but they named it)

Overall Nom Points: 4 out of 5

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We ordered from Sandwich Planet (9th Ave between 38th and 39th) one night when we were craving burgers.  I got the Parmagiana Hamburger, which was pretty good.  Enjoyed the bread.

Mike got the Cordon Bleu Hamburger with Guacamole which we didn’t realize came on white bread, but still were overall satisfied with it.

Overall Nom Points: 3 out of 5

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One of my absolute favorite places to grab lunch is Just Salad (we got to the one on 37th Street between 7th and Broadway, however, they also have locations in Midtown East, the Financial District, Murray Hill, and 30 Rock).  Now I’m not a huge salad fan, and will usually avoid it unless I’m feeling overly guilty about a meal the night before.  Just Salad, however, is far from being just a salad.  Their ingredients are really fresh and they have offerings that other places don’t (LIKE SQUASH!)  I get basically the same salad every time I’m there and surprisingly can eat it every day.  It consists of squash, apples, edamame, beets, barley, and pumpkin seeds with fat free raspberry dressing.  DELISH!

Chopping my salad:

My favorite salad:

A close up with their delicious bread (glad they brought it back after going whole grain for a while):

Julia’s sald that was more normal than mine.

I will miss this place when I leave my company (this is my last week).

Overall Nom Points: 5 out of 5

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Baja Fresh(Broadway between 40th and 41st) just opened up across the street from my current office.  On the first day they gave away $2 burritos for lunch and pretty much everyone that worked late that day went there.  I returned the following day to find a line out the door and had the same problem the following day.  One late night at the office, I stopped in around 8pm and found hardly any line at all.  I debated with the guy behind the counter for a while on what I could and couldn’t eat (peppers allergy) and surprisingly all the meats were safe but they had no rice option without peppers.  (Damn! I love rice!)  So I got the burrito with lettuce, tomato, guac, sour cream, cheese, and pork.  By the time I got home (10 blocks away) it was very cold.  I heated it up in the oven for a few minutes and was glad for melty cheese.  It was VERY tasty (the pork especially), however, it needed rice. 


Overall Nom Points: 4 out of 5

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Cart food (AKA Street Meat) is a relatively new love of mine.  I was terrified after a bad cart food experience that shall not be discussed, however, some coworkers convinced me that there were awards for cart vendors and the winner (2 years ago) had to be tried. 

Kwik Meal(South West corner of 45th street at 6th Ave) did turn my opinion around.  I had their lamb over rice (comes with an amazing white sauce, a small green salad with what seems like italian dressing) which contains REAL lamb (not gyro pieces like most).  The combination of mixing the meal, rice, white sauce, and salad is fantastic. 


In the past year or so, the Biryiani Cart(has gotten a lot of buzz (taking home the People’s Choice Award both last year and this year).  I tried to go a few months ago, but after standing online for quite some time was told that I was in line on the spicy side and I had to go over to the cart next door (run by the same people) for anything without peppers.  This cart, while having no line, also didn’t have a non-spicy version of what the cart was famous for (Biryani Chicken) nor eggs which top their meals (and that I was looking forward to).  My lamb over rice that resembled my Kwik Meal purchase but with yellow rice was just so-so and not even worth writing about.  Their Biryani Chicken, however, looked incredible and is a favorite among many of my coworkers.  I only wish I knew what it tasted like.


Overall Nom Points:
Kwik Meal #1- 5 out of 5
Biriyani Cart- 2 out of 5 for their regular (non-spicy) food

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There are a few other places I enjoyed in the area that I didn’t get pictures of.

Cafe Zaiya(main location on 41st between 5th and Madison and on the top floor of Kinokuniya Book Store on 6th Ave between 40th and 41st, opposite Bryant Park.  Also one in the East Village at 69 Cooper Square).  I wish I had a picture of this place.  The main location we went to first is a bit of a treasure find.  It’s hard to navigate, busy, and labeled terribly.  But it’s tons of fun.  It’s hard to determine exactly what you’re eating, but it’s delicious.  I usually get the beef bowl (which is similar to Korean Bulgogi over rice) and it’s probably one of my favorite meals.  It’s fun to go to the upstairs cafe in the bookstore, however, they have less selection. 5 out of 5

Pret A Manger (corner of 38th and Broadway, amongst many other locations in the city): A standby chain I’ve always enjoyed.  Very fresh food that you can pick up and leave with very quickly.  A bit pricey, but still tasty.  I hear their swedish meatball hot sandwich is great (I can’t try it due to the spicy sauce), however, I usually went with the balsamic chicken or one of the salads. 3 out of 5

Pad Thai (8th Avenue between 30th and 31st Streets).  It’s a simple, unassuming restaurant on my way home, but it’s dependably good and pretty inexpensive.  They don’t do much that’s fancy, but if I want some good, non-greasy, quick Thai near my apartment, this is my go-to.  They deliver to my apartment in less than 10 minutes and the delivery man is always very friendly. 4 out of 5

Then there is the infamous, Cafe Duke, on the corner of 41st and Broadway.  It was right next to my office, and seems to be a place that everyone that works in Times Square knows about.  It’s the place everyone goes for lunch their first few weeks on the job, then gets sick of… even though they have EVERYTHING.  Their salads are decent and their made-to-order asian noodle area and their flat bread sandwiches are the highlights.  With that said, I think everyone has their own story or knows someone who has a story of a time they got sick off Duke’s food.  I do not personally recommend the sushi… but I still go back for the other items.  Their yogurt parfaits are especially delicious for breakfast. 2 out of 5

Overall, Penn Station and Times Square aren’t exactly highlights of the culinary world, however, there are some hidden gems in the area.  What are your favorites?

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