Not so pretty but oh so tasty!

For the second week of our Italian vacation, we used the charming town Radda in Chianti as our base for exploring the hill towns of Tuscany. We would be tourists during the day, but in the evening would return to our "home town" Radda for our apero and dinner.  One evening, we dined at the Ristorante Botte di Bacco.

For my main course, I chose a primo piatto, Blueberry Pasta with Cinghiale-Chianti Sauce. Now you can see from the picture that it was not the prettiest dish I've ever had put in front me, bless its little heart, but I gotta say, it was one of the best, if not the very best dish I had in Italy.

I had seen the blueberry pasta in another nearby town, but hadn't ordered it. It must be a VERY local item. I asked my friend (and Tuscan cooking instructor) Judy Witts Francini about it, and she had never heard of blueberry pasta. This isn't unusual in Italy (or France or Spain either, for that matter). Some menu items are just VERY local.

Cinghiale is the wild boar that populates the hills of Tuscany and during the fall can found on pretty much every menu around, perhaps as a sort of stew. Or it might be in a tomato-based pasta sauce, usually served on pici, a regional thick and chewy spaghetti.

For this sauce, the ground boar meat was simmered with Chianti wine and herbs.  Then a very reduced drizzle of Chianti wine was drizzled around the edges, garnished with sangiovese grapes warmed in the reduction.

I'm going to try to reproduce this (although I'll have to use ground pork for the wild boar) and if I'm successful, I'll share it with you!

Laretha's Tasty Corn Sauce

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Those of you who read this blog regularly know that one of the friends I really enjoy cooking with is Laretha Randolph. Over the years, she has given me lots of good recipes that I’ve passed along to you.

Recently we went to the Randolph’s for dinner and she came up with another goodie, perfect for the summer season: a tasty and really REALLY easy-to-make corn sauce.

She had made fresh salmon croquettes adapted from a recipe in Cook’s Illustrated Magazine. As wonderful as the sauce was with the croquettes, Laretha says it is also a great dressing for a salad with hot fried okra on top.

This would also be really good with grilled salmon, tuna or swordfish.

With fresh locally grown corn abundant in all the farmers’ markets, there’s no better time to try this than now!

LARETHA’S CORN SAUCE

4 ears fresh corn, shucked
1 cup corn oil
1/3 cup white wine vinegar
¼ tsp salt (or to taste)
Your favorite salmon croquette recipe
Salad greens for 6 servings

Preheat the oven to 450 degrees. Place the ears of corn on a lightly greased baking sheet and roast until done through and lightly golden in places.

Cut the kernels from the corn. Scrape the cobs with the edge of the knife to get all the good juicy parts. This should give you about 2 cups. Reserve ½ cup for garnish.

Put the rest of the corn into a blender or food processor with the remaining ingredients and process until smooth. The sauce will be thick. Taste and add a little more salt if necessary.

Toss about half the sauce with the salad greens. Divide among six plates. Put the salmon croquettes on the side and spoon the rest of the sauce over them. Sprinkle with the reserved corn kernels and serve immediately. Serves 6.

Porc Beurre Brun

A couple of weeks ago, I issued one of those last-minute dinner invitations to a friend. Normally I have something I can fix on short notice, but I knew my fridge was bare. I stopped by the supermarket and found great looking pork chops on special. I hadn’t done anything with pork chops for a while, so I bought a couple.

Then, at home, I had to decide what to do with them. I pulled out spices I always like with pork, cumin, coriander and cardamom, mixed them with olive oil and rubbed the chops with it.
And then I needed some sort of sauce.

I love beurre blanc, a French sauce that starts with white wine, white wine vinegar, shallots and sometimes herbs, simmered a bit to reduce it and strained. Then, off the flame, chilled butter is whisked in bit by bit to make a creamy sauce that is quite fragile: not enough heat and the butter doesn’t melt, too much and the sauce breaks down. This is a problem that one of my chef friends solves nicely, but in quite an un-traditional manner, with a splash of heavy cream whisked in at the end.

I also love beurre rouge, made the same way with red wine. Both are traditionally served with seafood. Both can be tailored to your taste with the addition of herbs, curry powder, Dijon mustard or spices.

I had a little cream sherry left in a bottle a friend had brought a few weeks before to go with our dessert. There wasn’t enough to serve, but certainly enough to cook with. So: there I am standing at my refrigerator door, looking at that bit of sherry and thinking, "Why can’t I do it with sherry?" And I did. Sort of.

I used the aromatics from the rub, crushed, and simmered them with sherry vinegar and the cream sherry and a shallot. I tasted and adjusted some of the seasonings, and let it set while we grilled the chops. While the chops rested, I finished the sauce. Boy! Was it good!

I had tossed asparagus with a little olive oil and sea salt and grilled them with the chops. About five minutes on the grill gives you a slightly crisp texture and pleasantly smoky flavor. I also cooked rice, and had a couple of yellow tomatoes that I sliced along side. An altogether satisfying dinner!

Middle Eastern Pork with Sherry "Beurre Brun"

2 center cut pork chops, about 1" thick
2 tbsp extra-virgin olive oil
¼ tsp each ground cumin, coriander and cardamom
Sauce:
1 tsp each whole coriander seeds, cumin seeds and black peppercorns
1/4 cup sherry wine vinegar
½ cup cream sherry
1 large shallot, minced
½ cup chicken stock
1 tbsp Worcestershire sauce
4 oz (one stick) butter, very cold, cut into 12 pieces
1 tbsp heavy cream

Mix the ground spices with the olive oil. Rub the mixture all over the pork and let set at room temperature for up to an hour, or cover and refrigerate overnight.

For the sauce, crush the whole spices with a mortar and pestle, or with a rolling pin, or with the side of a heavy knife. In a small pan, add them to the vinegar, sherry and shallot. Simmer until reduced by about half. Remove from the heat, strain and let set until pork is done.

Either grill the pork on a charcoal or gas grill, or under the broiler, about 15 minutes on the first side, and 5 to 10 minutes on the second side, until done to your liking. I prefer my pork a tiny bit pink; it’s a lot juicier that way. Remove to a plate and tent with foil while you finish the sauce.

Reheat the strained sauce until just simmering. Remove from the heat and wait about two minutes. Then begin whisking in the butter piece by piece. When the last piece is in, whisk in the cream. Remove the chops to dinner plates and drizzle with the sauce. Serve immediately. Serves two but doubles or triples easily.

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