Penne alla vodka con Pollo

So this meal starts with a promise and ends with the "'itis."  If you are from the north east USA you know what I'm talking about.  If not let me clarify.  Tonight I made Penne alla vodka with chicken (con pollo) and it was just what the doctor ordered.  This meal starts out very simply, first you make the sauce, and actually if you have it pre-made that quite already/preferential...

To repeat how exactly the sauce is made, it is as follows (as per how I made it in this scenario):

Start with 1 small onion chopped and diced with 2-3 cloves of garlic.  Saute for 2 minutes then add one can of crushed tomatoes, add salt and pepper.  Bring to a boil then let simmer for 20-30 minutes.  Then let cool to room temperature. (I made this sauce at 3pm and notice how it's not even on the stove.  

Next we start the rest of the process.  I took 3 chicken breasts and cleaned them up.  I sliced them in half and put them into 1/4 by 1/2 inch chunks.

Below is a video describing how you commence a vodka sauce.  

Once you have the sauce going, now it's time to tend to the chicken.  You just want to dice them up like so.

Next, throw them in a pan with some oil and let them brown up.  Fresh, non commercial chicken is a rarity and something that we get here in Grenada quite often.  I do feel that it cooks differently than regular and it has some getting used to.  Use per your own recommendation   

At this point you will have everything organized, including the pasta, and get ready to pour the heavy cream to make that beautiful pink sauce.

You add it slowly

And stir slowly

Until it all gets incorporated

Add a touch of basil from the garden and you're almost there!

Add the chicken to the sauce.  One key thing to note is that you do not want to add the cream when the sauce is still hot.  You want to add it when it is at room temperature like I did.  Then you put on a small flame and  let the cream incorporate with sauce.  Add more depending on how pink you want it.  You play Picasso here folks!

As for my final steps, incorporate the pasta with the sauce, marrying the two like some honeymooners off the Vegas.  If you are wondering why the pictures are so frequent with this installation you can thank my guest who had been kind enough to document for me.

Next we make sure everything is in it's place and we serve our dinner!

And after  30 minutes you see what you get...an empty plate! Along with a beautiful smile!  I want to thank my friend Greysi for sacrificing her time to bear with me...even if she enjoyed my eclectic taste in music.  Greysi did what I suggest to all of those enjoying tasty pasta, "Scrape the bowl" or Scarpa il piatto.  That is the reason I had bread out for dinner.  Only Italian's think that carbs go with more carbs...Well at least it's Friday!  Enjoy!

6 Calamari Walk into a bar

On tonights edition of What's for dinner I whipped up a quick batch of Calamari.  I was craving it on the way home today and decided to pop out the little guys from the freezer and batter them up.  

First thing I did was load up a nice pan with olive oil or in this case I would allow Vegetable oil as well but I still went traditional with this one.  You want enough oil that it will coat the size of the whole piece you're frying.  Make sure to get it nice and hot before dumping them in as well.

Now for, arguably, the hardest part of this project, which is cleaning the squid.  All this take is a little knowhow and ambition and you'll be messing with squids whenever you get a chance to.  First you take the whole squid and rip off what appears to be the head/tentacles. Then you'll get a piece that looks like this.  You want to rip the beak off which is I believe the eye of the beast.  You know what it's easier if you just watch me on this video... 

So you're left with the body after you take out the guitar pick looking thing and rinse it out after you put it inside out.  Then you just cut them into 1/4 to 1/2 inch strips.  

Then you will get a small bowl with about a 1/4 cup of flour.  Sprinkle a teaspoon of salt and some cracked pepper along with some chopped parsley and you are set to fry.  Just coat the pieces with the flour then throw it into the hot oil.  After about 1 minute (yes you read it right) take out the calamari when its light golden brown and crispy!  Just add a little salt and thats it...

I also had some leftover marinara sauce from the other night that I added a hot pepper from the garden to in order to make it a nice, spicy, complimentary sauce for the calamari.  And there's dinner folks...Enjoy!

Pesto Pesto Pesto!

For tonight's dinner I am making a special dose of Pesto for some friends who were kind enough to supply the important Pine nuts (or as I call them pignoli) for this delicious yet simple dinner.  To start this off you need 5-8 cloves of garlic (you decide how strong you want it, and about a good handful and a half (3/4 of a cup for you exact measurers) of Pine nuts.  For added depth of flavor toast the pine nuts in the oven or over an open flame.

Next we need some bailico (aka basil), probably the most important part of the recipe.  For this you rather get more than less so dont skimp on grabbing that extra bag/handfull.  Make sure the leaves are nice and plump and not dull, brown and flimsy.  Freshness supersedes all!!! 

So you're going to want to start chopping up the cloves of garlic and the pine nuts first to make a paste along with a couple of tablespoons of extra virgin olive oil.  Once that is nice and incorporated its time to add some basil leaves.  In my processor I needed to add a little at a time along with the proper amount of olive oil.  This will be a personal journey as the amounts differ per location and   ingredients.  Eventually you'll process it all down to look like this cup of beautifulness.  All the while tasting and adding salt and pepper along the way.  And that is pretty much it for the "sauce" of the dish.

Next for the pasta.  I forgot to take an image of the farfalle I used but instead took a picture of some penne I have instead.  This particular brand, which I found at CK's market, is an excellent pasta from Puglia, the land of my Nonna.  I highly recommend it to anybody on the island looking for a good brand of pasta for a cheap price.  You cook the pasta for about 8-10 minutes, making sure its just 'al dente'.  As I mentioned to my friends this evening, the old Italian grandmothers dont even need to taste the pasta to know that its ready, all it takes is a flick of the rist from a wooden spoon to tell.

And now for the tantalizing torture section of the blog.  Slowly incorporate the pesto little by little.  You don't want to misappropriate the jar of goodness now would you?

I had a trick to get the rest of the pesto out of the container I was using.  Since you don't want to let it go into the bottom of the sink, I took a couple of the bow-ties and sloshed it around the glass until it was coated with deliciousness.  

Throw in a handfull of graded cheese.  In this instance I used a blend of pecorino romano, parmigiano reggiano and some nice imported asiago cheese into the mix.  It came out to about 2/3 of a cup of cheese.  (mind the use of salt in the sauce since cheese is salty and makes up for the taste).

Eccolà! There it is the beauty on the table.  I threw some small basil leaves on top  for added garnish along with my blend of cheese.  

My friends Josh and Constantine even grilled up some fresh Tuna for us as well which was an added piatti secondi!  They prepared it simply and deliciously on the grill on their rooftop.  It was a truly filling meal that gave us the 'itis', if you know what I mean.  Definitely a treat, thanks guys!

And lastly I wanted to add in a special and important meal enjoyed today from two very special sous chef's, Lia and Elian along with my roomate Tessa who helped us make a delicious Tiramisù.  I taught Tessa how to make it so she can pass it on to her family and many more...Buon Appetito! 

A quick and easy fillet of Tuna

Living on an island has its perks.  One of them being availability of fresh fish.  Today I took advantage of that perk.  So now that my first round of tests are over I'm able to flex my culinary muscles again.  Yesterday I went to the fish market in downtown St. George's.

There was a pretty good selection of fish to choose from,  ranging from  fresh lobster and crab to  snapper, grouper, and young tuna.  The last of which was my catch of the day.  The best thing is that they fillet it for you and you don't have to get messy at all!

 So to make this dish, I simply took the fillet and sprinkled some Hawaiian sea salt, old bay, garlic powder and Extra Virgin Olive Oil and then placed a couple sun dried tomatoes in the middle where the spine used to be.  I put the oven on 350 F and let it sit in there for about 15 minutes or until cooked through.  Try not to over cook the fish.  

The rice that you see pictured is some brown rice that I pre-made the day before in my rice cooker and fried up some of the plentiful bounty of seasoning peppers I have along with a scrambled egg as well.  That I learned from my former roomate and friend Ellery, and is a great addition to any rice dish (plus added protein).

 And then Finally I rounded it out with some creamed corn for good measure and thats what I call a Caribbean lunch!

Biscotti di mandorle e cioccolato (Almond biscotti dipped in chocolate)

On this morning edition I make some chocolate dipped almond biscotti.  I was "pressured" to make these little treats due to the fact that my fellow classmates in my Pathology group have been harassing me for something delicious.  Despite my one friend Karl who wants Cinnamon rolls, this is the best I could do for now.  

Biscotti is the Italian word for biscuit and its a funny thing when I think about the word since it tells a lot about how to actually cook this treat. Biscotti literally means Twice Cooked (Bis- Twice, Cottare- To cook).  And essentially that is all we are doing, along with measuring stirring and dipping along the way. 

The Ingredients are as follows (since unlike my cooking recipes, this needs to be more precise):

1/2 cup butter, softened

1-1/4 cups sugar, divided

3 eggs

1 teaspoon anise extract

2 cups all-purpose flour

2 teaspoons baking powder

Dash salt

1/2 cup chopped almonds

2 teaspoons milk

First you must "cream" the butter, which essentially means you will take the butter (at room temperature aka softened) and add 1 cup of the sugar (I used a blend of white and brown sugar since that was what I had).  Mix them together so they get to look like that image to the right.

Next we add the eggs, one at a time and stir them in. (heres where you can add the pinch of salt as well.

Now to add the dry ingredients, so little by little add in 2 cups of flour (I did a half cup at a time since that was my only measuring device and it worked out nice that way).  You also want to add the almonds at this point as well as the anise (anisette) extract. You want to continue to mix until it gets thicker but it should not appear like a dough.  It should be messy and sticky for a reason.

Next you're going to want to slap it down and shape it into a rectangle.  This has a little skill involved but my advice is if its too big, split it up into two small rectangles unless you want super long biscotti, which you may desire.  N.B. grease the pan with some butter and use a nonstick pan.  Better yet use some aluminum foil if you want less clean up, I felt like getting a shoulder workout apparently.

Next throw it in the oven at 375 F for 15-20 minutes or until golden brown like so.  Then you are going to want to transfer it to a rack in order to cool properly.  At this point lower the oven temp to 300 since they are going back in the box!

Now you want to slice them up longitudinally as so and set them back on the tray.  Mine were a little long so I cut them in half in order to maximiza my order.  Then I placed them back on the pan and cooked them on both sides for 10 minutes each or until they were golden all around.  

Now for the fun part, the chocolate dip!  This technique I have to accredit to my Uncle Driss who is a phenomenal baker and taught me everything I know about baking excellently (yes you heard me).  In order to melt and dip you should set up a double boiler.  Now you can go the easy route and just microwave it but you wont feel like a baker now would you?  So once that is set (or if you live in the caribbean they will probably just melt right away) get the water to hot, not boiling.  You dont want it to get that warm, just slowly moderating the temperature.

One at a time I dipped them in, coating about half of the biscotti in chocolate each time.  Then I let them dry on the racks.  If you are saying to yourself, "Sal, I dont have those kind of racks at home," then you might have to guess again.  These racks are right from my toaster oven, so if you have on of those, then you probably have what you need.  

Gotta love the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle camera!

And there it is, some almond biscotti dipped in chocolate.  Its nice with some espresso or coffee in the morning (which was my grandma's aka my nanny's-pictured here- favorite).  I hope you all enjoy this little treat, I'm betting my Path group does!