ReLocavore: Redefining "local"

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Category Archives: Cooking


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Mushroom Week: Day 2 Mushroom Ragu

Mushroom Ragu. Fan-stupid-tastic.

Mushroom Ragu. Fan-stupid-tastic.

Of all of the recipes I have ever cooked, this is the best. There have been recipes that are easier (mapo tofu), that I make more frequently (pasta primavera), that I save for special occasions (tonkatsu), or that I work hard to enjoy the indulgence (e.g. calzones). This recipe tastes the best, cooks the fastest, and is the most reliable. The whole impetus of Mushroom week was the mushroom and wild rice soup from last night, plus my LOVE for this recipe. I hope everyone tries it out.

You’ll find porcini mushrooms at high-end grocery stores, the internet or mail-order. Give them a smell, if you can get into the packaging. They should smell strong of earth and woods.

This is also another recipe that would be easy to convert to vegetarian or vegan. Substitute chicken broth for mushroom or vegetable broth (or water…) and either omit the pancetta or substitute some other faux-meat. If you do omit the pancetta, add extra olive oil (a tablespoon maybe?) and cook the tomato paste (step 2) until it is very brown, but not burnt. This will make sure there are lots of interesting maillard reactions to produce meaty flavors. You’ll be happy to give it the extra minute or two.

I want to emphasize how important it is to rinse and strain the porcini mushrooms. They come dried and there’s always some grit in the dried mushroom. This recipe reconstitutes the mushrooms in chicken broth to form tasty mushrooms, and a VERY rich flavorful broth. It may seem unnecessary to pick the mushrooms out of the broth with a pair of forks, or to filter the broth through a coffee filter, but DO IT. These steps make sure there is no grit left in the mushrooms or the broth. Grit will RUIN this recipe.

The first time I made this recipe, I totally skimped on the de-gritting of the porcini. I just dumped the mushrooms through a wire strainer over a measuring cup, transferring all of the grit into my recipe. It was not good, let me tell you…

Mushroom Ragu

Serves 4

Mise en place for Mushroom ragu. From top left: porcini mushrooms, pancetta, crushed tomatoes, parmesan cheese, spaghetti, portobellos, chicken broth and a bowl holding the olive oil, garlic, rosemary and tomato paste.

Mise en place for Mushroom ragu. From top left: porcini mushrooms, pancetta, crushed tomatoes, parmesan cheese, spaghetti, portobellos, chicken broth and a bowl holding the olive oil, garlic, rosemary and tomato paste.

1 oz dried porcini mushrooms, rinsed well
1 cup low-sodium chicken broth
4 oz pancetta, cut into 1/2″ pieces (substitute country ham or thick-cut bacon just fine. Don’t substitute proscuttio.)
1/2 pound (2 large) portobello mushrooms, stems and gills removed, but into 1/2″ pieces.
3 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil
4 medium garlic cloves, sliced thin
1 tablespoon tomato paste
2 teaspoons minced fresh rosemary leaves (we used dried)
14.5 oz can of whole tomatoes
salt and pepper
1 pound spaghetti
grated pecorino Romano cheese (I substituted parmesan because I needed parmesan for another recipe I’m cooking later this week.)

1.  Place porcini and broth in a small microwave-safe bowl; cover with plastic wrap and cut several steam vents in plastic with paring knife.  Microwave on high power 1 minute, until broth is steaming.  Let stand until mushrooms soften, about 10 minutes.  Lift mushrooms from broth with fork and finely chop.  Strain broth through fine mesh strainer lined with a large coffee filter into medium bowl.  Set aside mushrooms and broth.

2.  Heat pancetta in 12-inch skillet over medium heat; cook, stirring occasionally, until rendered and crisp, 7 to 10 minutes.  Add portobellos, chopped porcini, olive oil, garlic, tomato paste, and rosemary; cook, stirring occasionally, until all liquid has evaporated and tomato paste starts to brown, 5 to 7 minutes.  Add reserved chicken broth, crushed tomatoes, and their juices; increase heat to high and bring to simmer.  Reduce heat to medium-low and simmer until thickened, 15 to 20 minutes.  Season with salt and pepper to taste.

3.  While sauce simmers, bring 4 quarts water to boil in a large dutch oven.  Add 1 tablespoon salt and pasta; cook until al dente.  Drain pasta, reserving 1/2 cup cooking water, and return to pot.  Add sauce to pasta and toss to combine.  Adjust consistency with reserved pasta water and season with salt and pepper to taste.  Serve, passing pecorino separately.

Per Serving (with no added cheese):
Calories: 641
Total Fat: 25.1 g
Sodium: 715 mg
Carbs: 74.3g
Protein: 28.4g


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Mushroom Week Day 1. Wild Rice Mushroom Soup

The mushrooms for this week's recipes. 2.5 lbs crimini. 2.0 lbs portobello. 0.5lbs dried porcini. and 0.1 oz dried shiitake.

The mushrooms for this week’s recipes. 2.5 lbs crimini. 2.0 lbs portobello. 0.5lbs dried porcini. and 0.1 oz dried shiitake.

This has (somehow) become mushroom week. In the most recent (January/February 2013) Cooks Illustrated, there was a recipe for Wild Rice and Mushroom Soup. It looked good, so I thought to make it for dinner one day this week. Somehow, this spiraled into an entire weeks’ worth of mushroom recipes.

I also want to learn a little more about mushrooms. I eat them occasionally, but not regularly. There is much to explore.

The first recipe of the week is for Mushroom and Wild Rice Soup. If you would like a copy of the recipe, please email me. I’m hesitant to post it to my site because it’s copyright from Cooks Illustrated. I wouldn’t want to get into trouble.

The recipe has two interesting twists. First, the wild rice is cooked with baking soda to keep the grains intact. Didn’t make much of a difference, as far as I could see. Our grains fell apart. However, I am a cheapskate, so I didn’t buy the $25.99/lb “whole” wild rice, but the $6.99/lb “broken” wild rice. Might have something to do with it. Second, they use powdered shiitake mushrooms and cornstarch to give the broth some thickness and body. The broth did have thickness and body. Success!

Wild rice and mushroom soup. I had to work really hard to make it look tasty. Mushrooms and wild rice tend to sink.

Wild rice and mushroom soup. I had to work really hard to make it look tasty. Mushrooms and wild rice tend to sink.

We made one main modification – I don’t eat a lot of dairy, and the recipe called for adding 1/2 c heavy cream at the end of cooking. This would be way too much cream for me – so we substituted coconut based nondairy creamer. It’s not sweet and the soup didn’t come out tasting like coconut.

I keep saying “we” like I had anything to do with the cooking. Sam did all of it. All of the prep, all of the stirring. Everything. I was in my office stuffing Holiday cards into envelopes through the whole thing. I did stop by the kitchen to refill my glass of wine and observe the progress.  Tomorrow will be different. We’re making one of my favorite recipes… More then.


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Tofu with Sweet Chili Sauce and Coconut Rice

I don’t quite remember where I got this recipe, but it was the first time that I bought sweet thai chili sauce. Fool that I am, the first time that I made it I thought sweet Thai chili sauce was sriracha. We almost died from the heat of the recipe. No, you may not substitute sriracha for sweet Thai chili sauce. But if you’d like this dish a little spicier, add some additional chile flakes – like the kind you find at an old-school pizzeria next to the shaker of “parmesan cheese.”

For the Rice:

3 units rice
6 oz coconut milk (whole fat, no cheating)
big pinch of salt

Add ingredients to your rice cooker. Fill to the line with water. Close the lid and press the button. Don’t have a rice cooker? Until you get one, you’ll have to figure out how to make rice yourself. Sorry. Once the rice cooker has done it’s magic, stir the rice to distribute the coconut fat throughout the rice.

For the Tofu with Sweet Chili Sauce:

1/4 cup chicken stock
1/4 cup Asian sweet chili-garlic sauce
2 Tablespoons soy sauce
2 Tablespoons rice wine vinegar
2 Tablespoons ketchup
chile flakes
1 block extra-firm tofu
1 Tablespoon vegetable oil

Cut the tofu into similar-sized pieces. (I typically cut mine to 1″ x 1″ x 1/2″. This gives me two broad surfaces to brown and four smaller sides to ignore. It’s easier than trying to brown all six sides of a 1″ cube of tofu.) Place the tofu on a single layer on paper towels or a flour sack towel. Press between two weights for 10 to 30 minutes. The more water you press out, the easier it will be to brown the tofu.

Whisk together the stock, chili sauce, soy, vinegar and ketchup. Add chile flakes to taste.

Heat oil on medium-high in a nonstick pan. Tofu will stick to anything less. Trust me. Nonstick. Unwrap the tofu from the paper. Once the oil shimmers, place the tofu in a single layer in the pan and brown the bottom side. Shake the pan occasionally to make sure the tofu isn’t sticking to the pan or to each other. Flip all of the pieces over and brown the second side. Once the second side is browned, add the sauce and cover (QUICKLY!) with a lid. When the sauce hits the hot pan it splatters EVERYWHERE… so don’t make this if your mother is coming to visit and you don’t have time to clean little red drops off your white party dress and your white kitchen walls. Reduce the heat down to medium and simmer the sauce until it’s thickened, about 10 minutes. Keep shaking the pan to spread the sauce around the tofu cubes.

Serve the tofu with sauce over coconut rice.


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Smells like Tomato Sauce.

This morning at the Norwich Farmers’ Market, we picked up ingredients to make tomato sauce. 8 lbs (ppw) of tomatoes from Ray Williams at Back Beyond Farm of Chelsea, VT, 2 onions from Luna Bleu Farm, and 2 heads of garlic from Craig at Echo Hill. I can’t can anything, since I don’t have any jars nor the extra capital to invest in jars, so we’re relying more on the freezer this fall than normal.

My typical routine is to buy boxes of tomato “seconds” – perfectly fine tomatoes that may be a little too “ugly” for the other picky clientele at the farmers’ market – and convert ugly tomatoes into quarts of shelf-stable canned tomato sauce. We have a food processor attachment for our stand mixer that can turn 8 lbs of tomatoes into puree in 10 minutes. The puree cooks in the oven over night to reduce by half. I make sauce on day 1, and can it on day 2.

This is not my typical routine. First, I’m only making sauce from 8 lbs of tomatoes. In a typical year, I would process 50 lbs. Second, I can’t can, as I said above, so I’m stuck freezing sauce. It comes out OK, but I don’t like putting the sauce into freezer bags. Either I have to handle really hot sauce in thin plastic bags, or I have to take the risk of letting the sauce cool (BACTERIA!!!) and filling the bags with cooled sauce (CONTAMINATION!).

So, the house apartment smells like cooking tomatoes. Sam points out that I’m still wearing an apron. Psah!


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Beans and greens in the rice cooker

We’re a bit short on cooking utensils while staying at the hotel waiting to move into our new apartment. I figured I should try out some new things with our rice cooker. Sam noticed lots of local collard greens at the Norwich farmers’ market, and suggested we eat beans and greens one night for dinner.
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Beans and greens is good old-fashioned comfort food. Typically we cook it all day in the crock pot, but the rice cooker can act like a glorified crock pot, boiling the beans, then holding warm until its time to eat.

I soaked 1 cup of black navy beans from the COOP overnight in water. In the morning before Pidi and I went on a long hike, I assembled the following in the rice cooker:

  • Soaked beans, drained and rinsed
  • 4 cloves garlic, crushed
  • 1/4 large onion, chopped
  • 1 large bunch (8 stalks?) of tuscan kale, stemmed and chopped
  • salt
  • 3 cups of water

I put the rice cooker on the setting for cooking brown rice and hit the start button. When we got back from our hike in Boston Lot Bluffs (just across the street!), we had made the whole hotel smell great. I gave the pot a stir and left it to stay warm.

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When it came time for dinner, we served the beans and greens with elbow macaroni. It was a little plain and we added sriracha for some more flavor. I would have loved some ham or bacon grease to give it a little more flavor. Or, I could have cooked with stock or beer.