Gnocchi alla Vodka

Another favorite around Castle Von Rock is gnocchi with vodka sauce, based on one of Emeril Lagasse's recipies available on Food Network's website. Since I'm sure re-printing it is probably gonna get me in trouble, I'll leave it up to you to go read the recipe itself and then I'll show you how I make it. Also you should know that the recipe as written on the website is for one serving, I quadruple that for a family size dish. Ready? Ok, here goes.

First, prep work. Part of developing your skill in the kitchen is making sure you have the right tool for the job. The right knife goes a long way towards making things easier. My steel of choice? The Calphalon Katana 8" Chef's. The blade and handle are well balanced, and the bolster is shaped to allow you to easily hold the knife in the 3-finger "pinch" grip. Yes I know Guy Fieri uses one. Yes, he's a human singularity of infinite suck. Shut up.


Chop yer onion.

Peel the garlic and chop. The best way to peel garlic is to crush it under the flat of your knife. Put it under the side without the edge, and give it a smack. Once you've peeled it, mince it.

I also had a red bell pepper from the garden laying around, so I decided to give that a chop and toss it in too. Red bell pepper should perfectly compliment the vodka sauce's sweet and spicy flava combo.

Now that we're done playing with knives, heat up some extra virgin olive oil in a large skillet.

Brown the Italian sausage. No pink. Brown. Also, having the right wooden spoon for a job like this can really save you a set of aching hands. For what it's worth, after trying many other, lesser spoons, I read a recommendation in Cook's Illustrated for Mario Batali's 13" wooden spoon. I picked one up at Lakeside Mercantile for an extremely reasonable price, and it's been utterly fantastic. This dish isn't so bad, but man, my Macaroni and Cheese takes a lot of stirring and is super thick, and this spoon handles it without so much as a twinge in my poor, football shattered hands. Now is probably a good time to put on the water for the pasta, depending on how long your pot takes to come to a boil. The idea here, again, is to have the pasta come out at the same time or after the sauce.


When the sausage is completely browned, add the onion and pepper. Also a good time to add the salt, freshly ground pepper, and pepper flakes.


Saute until the onions start to turn yellow. Add the garlic and cook it until your kitchen smells awesome, around 30 seconds. Add the tomatoes.


Stir everything together and bring the sauce to a simmer. Simmer for around 4 minutes, and then add your vodka.


And now the cream.


Stir to combine, give it a minute or two to hang out, which should be just enough time to prep and add your basil chiffonade. I pulled some straight from the garden. Let's see, here we've got standard basil, Thai basil, strawberry plants, cilantro, and some overhanging gladiolus.


This should be plenty.


Chiffonade, and into the pan. Stir to combine, and there you have it: Vodka sauce.


If I was looking to make an afternoon of this, I'd have made my own gnocchi, but I didn't feel like it today. So, store-bought it is. Look for them in your grocer's freezer section. Russo's has great gnocchi, we particularly love the Asiago cheese ones. 3 1/2 minutes in boiling water.


Drain, put them in a bowl, cover with sauce, and top with a little chiffonade as garnish. Friggin delicious.


If you have extra sauce, that stores well in the refrigerator for a couple of days. The gnocchi's texture will suffer a bit. Enjoy!

Pasta Sauce

For my first recipe, I'm sharing my favorite pasta sauce. Making your own pasta sauce takes a good bit of time, but I find it really satisfying. It's one of the reasons I love cooking in general; the combination of pride in a thing done right with the connection to the common human experience. I usually serve this with penne rigate, I prefer De Cecco. It's a medium priced bronze extruded pasta that has a really nice mouthfeel. Follow the cooking time on the box, al dente pasta every time. When I cook pasta, I usually salt the water and add a couple of drops of olive oil. The oil does nothing to flavor the pasta, but it does lower surface tension on the water and limit foaming, which makes the pasta pot quicker to clean up afterward.

Pasta Sauce:
Serves 6 (yay leftovers!)

1/4 cup extra virgin olive oil (I use Lucini)
1 large yellow onion, medium chop
1 generous pinch of salt
2 bay leaves
fresh ground black pepper
2 tbs sun-dried tomato paste
1/2 tbs red pepper flakes (I've been known to use more if the kids aren't eating)
3 or 4 sprigs fresh thyme
1 tsp oregano
1 green bell pepper, stem and seeds discarded, chopped
1 package white mushrooms, sliced
1 roasted red bell pepper, chopped (I use Cento's roasted red peppers marinaded with garlic)
4 or 5 large cloves garlic
1 cup approx dry red wine (House red around here is generally Rosemount Shiraz)
2 28oz cans crushed tomatoes (Cento also cans my favorite tomato. Whatever you get, make sure the tomatoes do not have added citric acid. It effs with the flavor, ya dig?)

Optional:
Fresh Basil Chiffonade
1 lb mild Italian sausage (Jimmy Dean's is fine)

Heat olive oil in a dutch oven over medium high heat. When the surface of the oil begins to shimmer, add onions & salt. Add bay leaves, pepper, tomato paste, red pepper flakes, thyme, and oregano. Saute the onions until transparent. Add green pepper, saute for 2-3 minutes, to soften it up. Add mushrooms, red bell pepper and garlic, saute until the mushrooms loose their liquid. Add wine and reduce by half. Reduce heat to medium low and add both cans of tomatoes, reserving a quarter of one can. Cover with a splatter screen and simmer for one hour. If you don't have a splatter screen, get one. You'll save yourself a lot of time cleaning up, and they're cheap.

When I make this sauce, I'll usually set my timer for half an hour so I can start the pasta water halfway through the cooking time. My pasta pot takes FOREVER to boil- yours might not need this much time- try to have your pasta finish around the same time or after your sauce finishes. The sauce can sit, the pasta should not.

In the meantime, you can completely brown your Italian sausage if you're using it, and/or prep your basil chiffonade. The basil may darken on you if you do it too soon, so wait as long as you can without making yourself rush at the last second. If you've never done a chiffonade before, this video does a good job explaining it.

After the sauce and pasta are done, take the two bay leaves out of the sauce (remember this step, those leaves aren't good eats) and stir in the reserved quarter can of tomatoes. Put the pasta, sausage, and basil into the pot containing the sauce and fold to combine, being careful not to destroy the pasta. Sometimes, for a creamy version of this sauce, I add half of a small tub of marscarpone cheese right before I add the pasta. Stir to combine. Put it in a bowl, grind on a little parmaggiano-reggiano, et voila. Instant happy.

(I'll post a picture next time I make it!)

Do-Over

Hi!

As you can see, this place has undergone a bit of re-purposing. I've decided to stop writing about stuff that drives me nuts, and to start writing about the things I really enjoy, like food, beer, wine, and music. So, if you're interested in watching me stumble my way towards a (hopefully) better understanding of the culinary universe, come on back and see what I've been up to. Onward and upwards, excelsior, and all that. CFC 2.0 is a go.