[make]new Italian menu

Menu:

Salmorejo
Vegetarian Marinara
Basic Marinara + Meat Sauce
Roasted Broccoli
Gorgonzola Alfredo

Bread (?)


Salmorejo:

1 whole can San Marzano tomato (28 oz)
1 cup olive oil
.5 small white onion, diced
1 clove garlic
8 oz el cheapo white bread (if you can find vegan version, then this dish is vegan)
4 eggs, poached however you want
Optional: 4 oz bacon, crisped(ideally, some kind of cured, not cooked pork like jamon iberico, but that's okay... no meat it's fine)

-Combine liquid from tomatoes, olive oil, and white onion.  Bring to a simmer for about 5-10 minutes or until oil is tinged orange and onion is translucent.

-Add tomatoes, minced garlic, and bread and allow mixture to sit (ideally about an hour).  Blend thoroughly, pass through sieve to remove chunks if time allows for smoother final product.  Season with salt.

-If using, crisp the bacon to desired doneness.

-To serve, put a poached egg in 1/4 of the soup topped with pork product if using.


Basic Marinara:

1 lbs angel hair (or some other thinner noodle: spaghetti is maximum thickness pasta recomended)
8 oz spinach
1 can San Marzano tomatoes (28 oz)
.25 cup olive oil
1 tablespoon tomato paste
1 tablespoon balsamic vinegar
4 cloves garlic
Optional: 8-10 basil leaves
Optional: 1 tube-o-meat (supermarket sausage canister)

-Get lots of water boiling, salted.  You will both blanch the spinach and cook the pasta in this.

-Bring the tomatoes plus juices, olive oil, balsamic vinegar, and garlic to a boil.  Simmer for 15 minutes or until slightly reduced.  Add tomato paste and cook until thickened.  Blend thoroughly.

-If using meat, brown in a skillet or wok or whatever over medium/high heat.  Combine with marinara.  Add the fat: it helps make ppl full. 

-Meanwhile, blanch the spinach.  Combine with the sauce at the very end: do not overcook.

-Boil the pasta.  Note: if using angel hair, it will cook extremely quickly.  Have the sauce ready before the pasta is done so that you can strain it, then immediately combine with the sauce.  The reason for this is that the noodles are most receptive to sauce straight out of the sticky pasta water: especially for a marinara, you need all the help that you can get so that the sauce sticks to the pasta.

Gorgonzola Alfredo:
ute
1 lbs thicker pasta (fettuccine is ideal, linguine is okay, anything thinner will not work so great)

3 tablespoons butter
4 tablespoons flour, sifted (i.e. 3 packed tablespoons)
(OR if you want to do butter/flour by weight, since its more reliable, its 50 grams each butter and all purpose flour)
2 cups milk, warmed up in the microwave (lukewarm)
.5 lbs gorgonzola or roquefort cheese

-Make the roux.  While whisking, heat the butter and flour until it makes a very uniform, wet looking paste.  Do not brown it.

-As soon as the roux is combined, begin adding the milk while whisking.  Add it in incremental amounts, whisking thoroughly, otherwise the sauce will become clumpy and may burn.

-Once all the milk is added, simmer until it thickens, about 15 minutes.

-Turn the heat off the sauce.  Add the cheese and whisk in thoroughly.  Try not to destroy all the delicate flavors (this is why this should be done off heat).

-Meanwhile, boil the pasta.  As soon as it is done, combine it with the ready sauce


Roasted Broccoli:

Cut broccoli into bite sized pieces.  Saute on oiled skillets until charred on all sides.  Salt to taste.

[make]new Friday Meal for 2017.08.25

For 50 people:

Coffee braised pork:

25 lbs boneless pork shoulder meat (30 lbs bone in)

1.25 cup instant coffee

80 cloves garlic, smashed (do the metal bowl trick to peel!)

2.5 cups pack dark brown sugar

Collard Greens:

3 lbs bacon

6 TB apple cider vinegar

12 lbs collard greens

12 cloves garlic, minced

Cauliflower:

12 heads

-have someone make 25 cups of rice.  Brown or long grain preferred.

-Preheat oven to 500F

-Combine insant coffee, smashed garlic, and some water in pressure cooker

-If necessary, debone pork

-Cube pork to 1.5" pieces.  Salt and let rest

-When pork has absorbed salt, add to pressure cooker.  Add hot water until almost covering.  Lock lid and pressurize.  Pork should be cooked at high pressure for 20 minutes, natural release.

-Meanwhile, quarter cauliflower and remove the thick stem, trimming to edible pieces.  Put in a single layer in a baking tray and salt.  Drizzle with vegetable oil

-Roast for 30-45 minutes at 500 or until spotty and tender

-When cauliflower is done, switch oven to broiler, maximum heat

-Meanwhile, cut bacon into 1/8" matchsticks.  Render in a large pot on medium low heat.

-Twist off the thick stalk of the collard greens and discard.  Chop the leaves into fourths, (about 2" segments.)

-When bacon is completely rendered, turn heat to high and add all the greens

-When liquid has boiled off, deglaze the bottom of the pan with apple cider vinegar.

-After deglazing, cook on low-medium heat, covered, until tender.  Adjust salt.

-After pressure cooker is depressurized, strain liquid into a pan on the stove top, add dark brown sugar, and reduce until very thick and coats back of spoon.

-Meanwhile, arrange pork in a single layer in a tray.  Place under broiler until crispy and sizzling.

-When sauce is reduced, drizzle over the pork and put back under broiler to glaze.  Blow torch if necessary.

Ma Po 2.0

Ma Po Tofu mass-consumption version

• 1 brick of silken tofu (16-20oz), cubed into 10mm (see below).  Firmer tofu is for n00bs
• .5C  dried shiitake broth made with 4 sliced shiitakes.  For extra flavor, use rice wine instead of water as the liquid base.
• 1TB cornstarch
• 2 TB oil
• 1TB crushed red chili flakes
• 2t sichuan peppercorns, toasted and finely ground
• 2TB soy sauce
• 1t fish sauce
• 1TB 辣豆瓣醬 (Chinese spicy chili broad bean paste, recommend donkey sauce)
• 1TB korean red pepper paste (substitute 1 TB red miso + 1 TB dark brown sugar if less spicy version desired)
• 1TB fermented black beans, rinsed of grit
• 2 cloves garlic, minced
• 2 green onions, whites and greens separated
• .5" minced ginger

The tofu
To cut the tofu: first cut the top plastic film off using scissors.  Then , cut off one of the bottom corners of the tofu box.  Place a small cutting board on top of the tofu box and then invert: now that you've just cut a vent, you should be able to pull the box off of the tofu without breaking the brick (save the box).  You'll probably need to do two cuts parallel to the cutting board plane to split it into thirds: this is the most annoying part: if you find it too annoying, just do one cut to split it in half (newb).  Then, cut the tofu from the top into 10mm squares: err on the side of smaller, being careful to keep all the pieces together.  Get that box you saved and put it back on top of the now cubed tofu, invert, and now your tofu will be MUCH easier to work with now that it's in a vented box.

The rest
-Mix 1 tablespoon soy sauce and 1 tablespoon cornstarch with the ground pork and rehydrated mushrooms.

 -Heat the oil with the peppercorns on medium high heat.  After 30 seconds or when fragrant, add the chili flakes and cook until the oil is red and the chili flakes are darkened but not burnt (this can be tricky...).  When the chili flakes look done, scoop all the solids out with a strainer and set them aside: don't worry about being too thorough.

-Add the garlic, green onion whites, black beans, and chili bean paste and cook until fragrant, about 30 seconds to a minute.

-Add the mushroom broth, rest of the soy sauce, ginger, fish sauce, and korean pepper paste and stir until uniform.  Heat through until thick, then gently add the tofu which should be easy now that it's in that neat little box and should drop without too much effort because of that vent.  Using a broad, flat, soft object (i.e. wooden spatula) very gently stir the tofu into the sauce and simmer for 1 or 2 minutes.

-Meanwhile, stir fry the marinated pork in a lightly oiled wok, breaking it up into tiny pieces.  You should fry the junk out of them into meaty crispies.

To serve, pour tofu mixture into serving vessel (or serve out of your cooking pot) and put the super meaty crispies on top- don't mix them in so they stay crispy.  Finish off with sliced green onion greens.