Writing With My Mouth Full

Stuffed Zucchini

My new Microplane Ultra Coarse grater came in very handy when I was making this recipe. It’s not often that I find a giant zucchini on my desk at work, but Lisa brought me one of the bounties from her garden earlier this week. Zucchini bread and stuffed zucchini were both suggested by co-workers. I opted for the latter because I already had the ingredients handy; ground pork and bacon were in the fridge.

I’ve never owned a grater before–I’ve always used a vegetable peeler if I needed grated cheese when cooking and I simply shaved the cheese off. For a recipe like this, a peeler would have taken me an extra 10 minutes; it took less than one with the Microplane for me to grate all of the Piave I needed.

I realized how easy my cooking life would have been if only I’ve purchased one years ago. Without putting too much pressure on the grater, the Piave cheese I used with this recipe easily fell on the plate like soft snow. I loved the rubberized stand at the end of the grater: it kept it steady against a plate even when my cheese wedge came down to a small knob. The hefty handle also had a very firm grip–my hands didn’t even feel like they did any work.

Now I just have to find more recipes that require grating everything I can get my hands on!

Ingredients:
1 large zucchini, halved lengthwise, each chopped in 2 or 3 large pieces
1/4 lb of ground pork
4 strips of bacon, chopped
shiitake mushrooms, roughly chopped
1 small wedge of Piave cheese
1 small red onion, thinly sliced
3 cloves garlic, minced
red chili flakes
salt
oil

1. Take each zucchini piece and spoon out the flesh to make them hollow like boats. Roughly chop including the seeds. Set aside. Place the boats on a lined baking sheet and brush with some olive oil. Preheat the oven to 350º.
2. Make the filling. In a large skillet, render some fat by cooking the bacon pieces. Add garlic and sauté until brown. Add the onions until soft. Add the ground pork and brown while occasionally stirring to avoid burning. Season with chili flakes.
3. In the meantime, pass the zucchini flesh through a sieve to remove excess water. You might have to do this one more time before adding to the filling. When ground pork is cooked through, add the zucchini flesh to the skillet, stir until well-combined and keep cooking for another 5 minutes.
4. Salt the zucchini boats. Spoon the filling into the zucchini boats without pressing in. Finish off with a generous sprinkling of grated Piave. Bake in the oven for about 30 minutes or until the zucchini boats have heated through and a crust has formed at the top. Best served hot so the filling doesn’t dry up.

Recommended tool/s:
Microplane Ultra Coarse Grater

Rouge Tomate

10 East 60th Street between Fifth and Sixth Avenues
212/957.5550
$72 each for a group of five, with tip
♥ ♥

I’ve been hearing about Rouge Tomate here and there so I wasn’t surprised when my girlfriends and I ended up there for dinner. The space is massive and perfect for big groups. It’s the first restaurant I’ve been in a long time where the servers all had custom-made uniforms versus the all-black outfit. The interior design screams money (from the architectural firm Bentel & Bentel) and I was saddened to think that the business might not make it past these economic times. Four days prior, I easily scored a table for five on a Friday night at 8pm. This would have been a difficult feat in regular New York time. It wasn’t exactly empty when we walked in, but the crowd did dwindle after 9:30 and we ended up being the last group by 10:30.

Rouge Tomate has been talked about as the latest restaurant that features local ingredients and farm to table philosophy. Yada, yada, yada, right? For the past two years, I’ve always said that that philosophy in the kitchen should not be a feature anymore–it should just be a given. Every restaurant should just be in that bandwagon today or risk being different, and not in a good way. That said, Rouge Tomate has some well-flavored dishes that spoke louder than they could present them–our waiter could not edge himself between us talkative women. Oh, this is not so bad, was the common response at our table after every taste even though we dismissed every waiter who approached our table.

I opted for the $35 lamb a la plancha. Our waiter explained to all my Spanish-speaking friends what “a la plancha” meant, but could not tell us which part of the lamb was on the grill. I’ve learned my lesson from other restaurants and I’ve always made sure that I’m not paying $35 for shoulder. When the waiter returned and confirmed it was loin, two of us ordered it. Another chose the Berkshire pork and the rest shared the fish in Thai curry. We thought it was a nice touch when they split the fish in two separate dishes, but alas, our bill at the end of the night counted for two of them. We had it corrected, to their chagrin, because our waiter had left mid-service and could not confirm the mistake he had made.

MIstakes aside, the lamb loin was so delicious I found it hard to share it with my group. It was perfectly medium rare served with string beans and tomatoes. The pork loin was naturally sweet that I could have eaten it without the vegetables on top. The Thai curry was delicious even though I always find sea bass a pretty bland fish. The appetizers fared better at our table: the fluke ceviche was bright and fresh; the frisée and fennel salad with prosciutto was my kind of salad, while the asparagus with maitake mushrooms and warm farm egg just made me happy.

I loved the blueberry crepe dessert that tasted like fluffy pancakes. Not too sweet, it was light enough to finish without forcing it down my throat after a pretty hefty meal.

Pasta with Sundried Tomatoes and Arugula

Dear, Anna. Believe it or not, the sun-dried tomatoes I used in this recipe are still from the batch you sent me a year ago after your trip to Argentina. I only had a handful left but I felt bad about throwing them away. After a few minutes in hot water, they softened up and I was able to chop them in smaller pieces. Off they went with some heavy cream and into my stomach for dinner tonight. Thanks again, Cia.

Ingredients:
2 cups of penne pasta
1 cup of sundried tomatoes, soaked in hot water, drained, roughly chopped
a few handfuls of arugula
pancetta, chopped
1 cup of heavy cream
3 garlic cloves, minced
1 small red onion, sliced
a handful of basil leaves, chopped

1. Cook pasta in salted boiling water until al dente. Drain pasta and set aside.
2. While cooking pasta, render some fat by cooking the pancetta. Remove the pancetta and set aside. Using the fat, sauté garlic until brown and then add onions until soft. Add the sun-dried tomatoes and add return the browned pancetta.
3. Pour in the heavy cream and simmer for 10 minutes. Mix every so often to avoid drying up. Turn off the heat and fold in the arugula to wilt. Add the drained pasta in the skillet and mix well. Toss with basil before serving.

Where to eat in Darien: Coromandel

I had to ask the Indian developers at work for approval before I tried Darien’s Coromandel. Once I had their okay, I dragged five other co-workers to eat lunch with me (and also to make sure I didn’t have to walk along the highway). For lunch, Coromandel only serves an all-you-can-eat buffet for $12. The choices are plenty and unlike the buffet selection Iâ€™m used to at Balucci’s in New York City.

Sure, there’s the usual vindaloos and paneers, but when was the last time you remember having jardaloo sali boti, or lamb cooked in apricot? The three times I’ve been to Coromandel, I’ve skipped the complementary tandoori chicken just to make room for that lamb dish. It’s so soft and easy to eat and that hint of sweetness makes it a stew like no other. Not that the staples don’t make the cut: the chicken vindaloo, though not as spicy as I would like, is flavorful in that perfectly burnt sienna sauce color. I fell in love with Indian food the very first time I had saag paneer and they do saags very well here without being too mushy. The combination of shredded cabbage, broccoli and carrots peppered with black sesame seeds is their best vegetarian option, as well as the lentil dahl with chickpeas. A smaller table houses the chutneys and the sides. If you’re so inclined to start with a mixed green salad, you can try different chutneys from coconut to mango to tamarind.

It’s just too bad I can’t live without the warm nan nor the basmati rice to make room for everything else on the table, but of course, there’s always room for the kheer, or rice pudding. Hmm, maybe I should think about walking from there back to work.

Coromandel has several locations in Connecticut, but I go to the one in the Good Wives Shopping Center at 25-11 Old Kings Highway in Darien, CT. Call 203-662-1213 for their daily buffet menu or to ask about a la carte dishes.

Related post/s:
Or you can just go for Colony Pizza

Wusthof Classic Wave Knife

The first time I held the new Wave knife from Wusthof, I thought, This isn’t sharp at all. And I don’t mean the blade is dull; I meant that it’s not one of those scary knives that you can’t even comfortably hold. The feel is definitely heavier than I am used to but it also means the grip is more stable and that it feels safer in my hand.

The extra wide blade is similar to the shape of a Santoku knife and it has a reversed-scalloped edge that slices smoothly and efficiently. I’ve never seen anything like it before. It’s attached to a Hostaform-C black handle with triple rivets to make them durable and feel solid, a signature feature that all Wusthof Classic knives share. (Hostaform-C is a plastic molding used in products under abrasion stress to prevent degradation which also makes the knife hygienic even if it ages.)

I had corned beef that has been in the fridge for a few weeks and I sliced through it without any difficulties even though I did not give the beef time to cool down to room temperature. If I had used a serrated knife, it would have torn the beef into crumbs.

The new 7-inch Wusthof Classic Wave Knife is now available in your favorite department store for a suggested retail price of $99.99.

Recommended tool/s:
Compare the Wave knife to the Santoku knife