cookbook – THE DUDE OF FOOD

Did someone say Cacciatore?

The old adage about ‘nice guys finish last’ comes to us from the world of baseball by Brooklyn Dodgers manager Leo Durocher in 1946. In the cooking world it’s a bit different as a nice dish can finish first and be very popular. Having just returned from 2 weeks of hell in the Pacific Northwest I was craving a nice, easy home cooked meal and decided a chicken cacciatore style plate is what I’d like to eat to bring some joy back into my life.

Many things in life start with desire and once I set my mind on this plate it was easy to pull together.

Sauce is a big part of a pasta dish and making a good one from scratch usually takes the better part of a day or a second day to have it set right. I decided to cut corners and use Private Selection sauce made in Italy and distributed by Kroger of Cincinnati. I actually used 2 jars of sauce. The first jar was Porcini Arrabbiata and the second jar was Tomato and Black Truffle.

Below is the simple ingredient list and procedure for preparation.

Kroger Private Reserve sauce – 2 jars
1 Porcini Arrabbiata and 1 Tomato Black Truffle
1 chopped yellow onion
6 chopped garlic cloves
1 tray of rubbed chicken: 8 legs
salt
pepper

Mushrooms, grated carrots, celery, olives or any other favorites are ingredients that could also be added to this dish.

Start by chopping up the onion and garlic. Put a small amount of wine in a pan and warm. Once the wine has warmed and the alcohol will lift. Then add a little olive oil into the pan with a touch of butter and salt and the onions. Simmer the onions on low to medium heat. When the onions begin the clear up add the garlic and let them warm up. Once the garlic has had a chance to expand and begin to release its flavor it’s time to add the 2 jars of sauce. Stir, cover and let simmer on a low heat, stirring occasionally.

As the sauce does its magic it is time to start heating the rubbed chicken. Get another pan and add a small amount of olive oil and a touch of water and heat. As the pan heats add the 8 rubbed chicken legs, lightly salt and cover. Pan fry the chicken on stove top over low to medium heat. You are trying to heat the chicken thoroughly but not overcook or dry out. Low and slow is the way of the heat.

Time to check the sauce and stir.

Next add a pot of water to the stove top to boil the pasta and begin to heat. Salt can be added to this water if you salt your pasta water. Some folks do.
Boil enough water for 1lb of fettuccine or your favorite noodle shape.

Now you have all the moving parts working and it’s time to clean up as you monitor and stir the heating pans.

The noodles will be ready first. Drain the pasta and add a little of the starch water to the sauce. Cover the drained noodles and let sit.

Once the sauce has simmered enough to be considered ready and the chicken is cooked enough to eat turn all of the heat off and prepare to plate these items.

Start by adding a lump of pasta in plate center.
Surround pasta lump with chicken legs.
Scoop sauce over noodles with plenty for the chicken too.
Sprinkle the top with grated parmesan cheese and serve.

Bon appetit.

Griesbrei is a deliciously good food.

My job in the past allowed me to cross paths with a German production team and I ended up working with the Germany’s Next Top Model crew with Heidi Klum for 9 years. We spent about 3 months a year together and it was always interesting and fun. Heidi is super cool and the crew was a production group of friends that had fun working and partying together.

Oida, my travels have taken me to Munich to visit my production party friends and it is always a joy to be with them.

On my first trip to Munich I found myself attracted to the markets. Lidl, Rewe, Aldi and Edeka were my favorites. The lighting, the prices, the choices, the stern checkers, it all caught my eye. I’ve been back 5 times and always look forward to walking around the markets.

As I wandered around the market on that first trip looking at stuff on the shelves I ended up purchasing something I thought was like German breakfast grits called griesbrei. It was a product made by Dr. Oetker. I bought a few and made it for breakfast at home in Los Angeles, after decoding the instructions. I loved it.

When I told my Bavarian friends about how I loved griesbrei I always got the same odd reaction. They would get a weird look on their face and say to me, ‘so you like baby food?’

Well, I guess I do. Griesbrei is good. It’s sort of like grits but also reminds me of when I was a kid and my grandmother used to make me tapioca pudding for dessert and I always loved that too. She also would make homemade ice cream in a bucket with salt rocks and ice, but I digress.

As an Amazon Associate I can earn from recommending qualifying sales.

Ingredients

3 ⅓ cups milk

½ cup soft wheat semolina

2 tbsp. sugar

1 tsp. vanilla extract

1 pinch of salt

1 large egg

1 tbsp. butter

Add milk and sugar to a sauce pan, mix well and bring to a light simmer.
Gradually add the semolina while stirring.
Bring to a light simmer, cover with a lid and remove from heat.
Allow to sit for about 5 min.
In the meantime, separate the egg.
Beat the egg white with a pinch of salt until stiff peaks form.
Add the egg yolk to the semolina pudding and mix well until fully incorporated.
Stir in butter and vanilla extract.
Fold in the egg white.

You can get your package of Dr. Oetker’s Griesbrei by clicking here.

Pasta Carbonara is awesome.

Carbonara is a popular dish throughout the world. Luca Di Leo from Barilla pasta says, “One of the great traits of pasta is its extraordinary versatility. You can combine it with pretty much anything. A carbonara base allows one to create different variations from experimenting from a roasted artichoke to sautéed shrimp. You can also make a great variation of carbonara with spices different from black pepper. Carbonara is a truly global recipe which can help bring people together.”

Carbonara di mare or “seafood carbonara” is an Italian beach favorite. For instance, in place of cured pork, three-star Michelin chef Mauro Uliassi substitutes virtually anything from the sea; smoked trout, small raw clams and even canned tuna.
Norbert Niederkofler, another Michelin three star chef famed for his “Cook the Mountain” philosophy, has created Tyrolean Carbonara, a reinterpretation that features Italian Alpine ingredients including leeks, Malga cheese, dehydrated speck powder and spelt flour fusilli. No beaten eggs appear in this version – instead, he places one whole yolk on top of each bowl of hot seasoned fusilli.

Italians might embrace variations but there are limits. A national culinary crisis arose when the French attempted to reinvent this beloved dish as a quick one-pot meal. This action dubbed “Carbonaragate” sparked international debate and outrage among Italian food writers, bloggers, chefs, home cooks and pasta makers. A video demonstrating the French style carbonara went viral, being viewed by more than a million Italians. They were appalled to witness bow tie pasta cooked in the same pan as diced bacon and onions, finished with crème fraiche and an unidentified cheese, topped with a raw egg and parsley. Commenting on the social media uproar, Adam Gopnik said in New Yorker magazine ‘Carbonara purists cannot stop the pasta revolution.’ He argued that the concept of one-pot pasta has already ‘swept through American kitchens’ citing the popular Martha Stewart and Food52 recipes.
Two Michelin star chef Marco Sacco offers a middle path. “In the kitchen, the protection and care of tradition must be able to coexist with the desire and the possibility to innovate and experiment” he explains. “The original recipes must be defended and preserved, just as an artistic asset is protected in a museum or a UNESCO site. But this does not mean that maximum freedom should not be given to experiment, innovate or adapt to the territory with new ingredients. After all, it is just food. Various lands offer various cultures and preparation techniques can differ just like people do.”

Traditional Carbonara Recipe
Ingredients

12 oz of spaghetti
7 oz of guanciale
4 whole medium eggs (1 egg per serving)
1 cup + 1 tablespoon of grated Pecorino Romano
ground black pepper

Step 1 – Boil the water for the pasta while you prepare the carbonara sauce. Remember: 4 cups of water for every 3.50 oz of pasta and 1/2 tablespoon of coarse salt per 4 cups of water.
Cut the guanciale into small pieces and cook in a skillet over medium heat for about 2 to 3 minutes. Stir occasionally so that it cooks evenly. The more the guanciale cooks, the more its fat will melt and its meat will become crispy. The level of crisp is up to you. Some people like their guanciale well cooked and others prefer it soft.
No need for oil: guanciale is already fatty, oily and fabulous on its own. If you want, you can add a tablespoon of cooking water and emulsify. This will create a great oily sauce to season the spaghetti nicely. When it’s ready, turn off the heat, cover with a lid and set aside.

Step 2 – Prepare the pecorino cream. In a bowl put the eggs and pecorino Romano cheese.
Use the whole egg. Pecorino Romano, the only cheese that is recommended for making carbonara, is a very salty and flavorful Italian cheese so there is no need to add salt.

Step 3 – Add freshly ground black pepper and mix quickly until you have a creamy sauce.

Step 4 – This egg and pecorino cheese sauce should be quite thick. Set it aside for the moment.
The water should now be boiling so add the salt and cook the spaghetti. If you chose a fairly large pot, the spaghetti should fit comfortably without breaking them. Whole, unbroken spaghetti is best, so you can more easily roll them around on your fork.

Step 5 – Drain the pasta when ready. Then place them in the skillet, over high heat, to season well with the guanciale.
At this step, we have reached the crucial moment of spaghetti carbonara. Not to put tension on it, but this is the fleeting moment in which you can make an immortal dish or one that will be a real failure. So now you have to be quick, ready and ruthless. Here’s how to do it:

Step 6 – When the spaghetti and guanciale sizzle in the pan, TURN OFF THE HEAT, otherwise the eggs will overcook and you’ll end up with scrambled eggs and pasta!
Now quickly add the eggs and pecorino cream to the hot pasta and stir. The pan is not too hot, this way the eggs will cook without lumps. Pay attention to the consistency, which should be creamy, but not runny. If you notice that your carbonara is too runny, add some grated pecorino cheese. On the other hand, if you see that it’s too sticky and dense, add 1 or 2 tablespoons of cooking water.

Step 7 – Carbonara is ready. With the help of a ladle and a fork, create a pasta nest and place it on a plate.

Step 8 – Add what’s left of the guanciale, freshly ground black pepper and grated pecorino romano to taste.

There are many quality recipes online. Check these sites out to get started.

https://www.177milkstreet.com/recipes/roman-spaghetti-carbonara
https://skinnyspatula.com/tagliatelle-carbonara/
https://www.recipetineats.com/carbonara/
https://recipe30.com/french-spaghetti-carbonara.html/

Seafood carbonara art rendition by p3

“Create tapas and you create joy!” the Dude of Food

This form of eating called Tapas can be traced back many moons to when bar owners used salty meat strips to cover drinks and keep the flies from swimming. The salty meats promoted thirst amongst the patrons and drink sales thrived. Soon the drink covers became other salty creative snacks and a bar culture of food was born. Spain gets most of the credit for this type of nourishment as many of the ingredients used in creating these food gems are found abundantly in their region.

This salty sales theory is why in the 70’s and early 80’s many bar owners in the US offered free peanuts to bar patrons. Peanuts were cheap and salty and the President (Jimmy Carter) was a peanut farmer. Jimmy’s brother Billy was a famous beer drinker. See how these things go together. The cool thing was back then that many places just let you throw the empty peanut shells on the floor like at a hockey game.

The Dude of Food was really impressed in Donostia/San Sabastian. While visiting this beautiful Basque place many great items were discovered. I stumbled upon a place named Bar Desy that invited me to try tons of great foods including an extensive tapas menu. I went back to Bar Desy a lot, sometimes 3 times a day, for the next week. The staff was great and I even met the owners father.

The top photo is one I took after I created a few tapas for my Brazilian girlfriend to enjoy while listening to some Samba and sipping on wine. We would look deep into each others eyes and share moments that made the world outside go quiet. Love was in the air. I digress.

Anyways as stated, the Dude of Food created the above pictured tapas. On the various breads are oil, cheese, meats, tomato sauce, veggies, sardines, salt and herbs. Tapas are fun to make, great to share and super enjoyable to eat.

Below was my first pass by the home made tapas table.

Enjoy some tapas soon.

“Egg, chicken and potato salad is a delicious ‘super food’.” the Dude of Food

Body builders, fighters, athletes, nutritionists, historians, archivists and intelligent eaters everywhere all agree that eggs and chicken are good sources of protein and carbs are good for a body in motion. They too would agree upon the fact that vegetables are good for folks. So when I mixed eggs, chicken, potatoes, celery and onions together, in theory, I made super food, no? The recipe ingredients follow at the end of article.

I started by peeling, cubing and boiling 3 potatoes in salted water. I use and love my Oneida knife. I’m not endorsed by them but this knife and I have grown together in the kitchen and we both try to look good while staying sharp.

You can add steamed peas to the mix if you like. If so now is the time to retrieve them from the freezer and steam a cup full of them. Once steamed, cover and let sit.

Now is the time to chop the vegetables, onions and celery, while the potatoes are warming up. I like to leave the onion a little chunkier and dice the celery up pretty small as you can see in the photo.

Peel and chop up the hard boiled eggs.

Remove the meat from the precooked chicken thighs.

Once the potatoes are cooked you need to drain them and return them to the hot pan. Add the chopped onions, celery, eggs and chicken to the warm potatoes. If you are adding peas add them now too. Stir in the mayo, mustard, vinegar, relish and spices. No need to stir hard or use mixer as the potatoes are soft and will become mashed if you mix vigorously. It’s not bad, as some may prefer the texture, but personally I like the potatoes to maintain some cube shape. The taste is the same.

Once mixed you can enjoy warm with crackers or cool in fridge and enjoy in lettuce bowls later or between toasted sourdough slices in the morning with a slice of cheese. It’s a bit like tapas and goes great with wine, anti pasta salads, appetizer trays and sunsets.

Now getting back to the nutritional status of being called a ‘super food’. I think it certainly qualifies for the title as it tastes ‘super’. The Dude of Food fully approves and recommends trying this. This new super food group deserves all 5+ Golden Fork Awards if any are to be given.

3 large gold potatoes
4 hard boiled eggs
4 chicken cooked thighs
3 chopped celery sticks
2 chopped green onion stalks
1/4 chopped white onion
3 spoon fulls of mayonnaise
3 circle squirt of yellow mustard
1 spoon full of dill relish
2 cap fulls apple cider vinegar
Add salt, pepper, paprika to your taste.

Additional options could include but certainly not limited to: avocado, peas, sour cream, ranch dressing or raisins. If you add grapes then we probably aren’t friends.

Easy 1 pot Chicken with Mushroom Rice

Ingredients:

1 six pack of your favorite beer or 1 bottle of favorite wine
1 cup rice
6 chicken thighs
8 oz tub of diced baby bella mushrooms 
1/4 onion
2 Tablespoons butter
1 Tablespoon minced garlic or 2 chopped garlic cloves
Olive oil
2 cups chicken stock
  1 cup heavy cream - optional
  chopped parsley - optional
  1 cup peas - optional
Salt and black pepper
Herbs  (thyme, sage, tarragon, rosemary, paprika)

Preparation:

Pour your favorite beverage into a glass and collect your ingredients including pans and utensils. Remember to pick a pan large enough to hold everything at the end as we’re doing 1 pot style.

Open the package of chicken and individually rinse each piece in cold water and dry with a paper towel.

Season your chicken with salt, black pepper, herb mix. Some folks put everything in a bag and shake the dried chicken in the bag. Dealers choice here but if your chicken isn’t dry it just makes a mess. I prefer the sprinkle on both sides method. Also don’t neglect your drink. Your beer might be getting warm.

Pour enough olive oil to barely or lightly cover surface of pan and heat on medium-high heat. When
oil is hot, carefully place the chicken thighs skin-side down in the hot oil and leave to fry for roughly
5 – 6 minutes. The chicken skin should not stick to the pan if cooked right. Flip and continue to fry
on the other side for another 4 – 5 minutes. Both sides should be lightly crisped.

Remove seared chicken from oil, letting the oil drip back in pan, cover and set aside for now. Do not refrigerate the chicken. Now is a good time to sip your drink or refill if needed. I always keep my beer close so I am easily reminded.

Turn the heat down just a bit and in the still hot and now empty oiled chicken pan add garlic, butter, parsley and onions and simmer for 6 minutes or so. If adding peas add them now too. Still frozen is OK but I prefer if the peas have sat out on the counter for a bit and thawed. Once the peas have simmered for a couple minutes you can add the mushrooms and continue to simmer until the onions are soft and
nearly clear.

Add washed rice on top of the simmering veggies and stir. After the heat has toasted the rice for a couple minutes pour chicken stock into the mix. The thing to do is de-glaze the pan as you stir in the added stock to the rice by giving it a gentle stir. Remember not to scrape metal spoons on pan bottoms when stirring. Use a wooden spoon to stir. I try not to use plastic utensils although I have a good one just in case.

After about 10 minutes or so place the chicken on top of the steaming rice in the pan and reduce the heat. Now would be when you would add the heavy cream if choosing to do so. Let the whole thing simmer together for another 20 – 25 minutes or until the rice is soft. Sprinkle some chopped parsley on top, stir, cover and let sit for a couple more minutes while you top off your drinks.

Darned good.
Enjoy,
the Dude of Food

The Joy of Griesbrei

One of the memories I carry from when I was a little kid is of my grandmother preparing tapioca pudding from scratch and it was the best. I always loved it warm and freshly made. She always made us stay out of the pool for 30 minutes after eating lunch. Anyways, the memory I have of those tapioca puddings is captured in a German dish known as Griesbrei. The flavor of Griesbrei reminds me of those early family days. My Bavarian friends always laugh at me and say that I like ‘baby food’ but it is what it is. If it tastes good maybe it’s worth overeating sometimes. Perhaps I will try to mix it with some grits, a couple eggs and a side of peppered bacon next to a buttered pancake splashed with maple syrup.

Dr. Oetker makes the package above and the one I originally fell in love with but you can prepare your own with the following recipe. I have some semolina left over from pasta making and will try this recipe soon.

Griesbrei –

Ingredients
3 ⅓ cups milk
½ cup soft wheat semolina
2 tbsp. sugar
1 tsp. vanilla extract
1 pinch of salt
1 large egg
1 tbsp. butter

Instructions
Add milk and sugar to a sauce pan, mix well and bring to a light simmer.
Gradually add the semolina while stirring.
Bring to a light simmer, cover with a lid, and remove from heat.
Allow to sit for about 5 min.
In the meantime, separate the egg.
Beat the egg white with a pinch of salt until stiff peaks form.
Add the egg yolk to the semolina pudding and mix well until fully incorporated.
Stir in butter and vanilla extract.
Fold in egg white.

You can purchase your Dr. Oetker’s Griesbrei on Amazon by clicking here.

Enjoy. Prost.

Pasta, Angels, Family & the Dude of Food.

Cooking With Grandma Gina

The Dude of Food grew up an only child with a working mom who disliked cooking. Her 3 motto’s in life to me were:

‘where there’s smoke, there’s dinner’
‘you can never be too rich or too thin’
‘go play on the freeway’

The refrigerator to me was something to go look in at someone else’s house. That is how I learned about food, by looking in other peoples fridges and lunch boxes to see what they ate like. It took me years to get over just casually opening and looking inside of someones fridge.

On special Saturday mornings as a kid I used to make a can of Spaghettios or Franco American Macaroni with cheese sauce as a treat.

One of the places I would wander over to visit was the house of the Italian family down the street. They had 3 older girls and a boy my age and they always had food. Their kitchen was the best. Something was always out on the table or on the stove top, warmed and ready to be eaten. Homemade pastas, sauces, pizzas, rapini and as we got older everything with onions in it so our lungs would stay healthier. This Italian mother even made liver taste good with thin slices and loads of onions.

When we would go back east to visit their Italian relatives I would be blown away that every Italian kitchen was the same, warm and full of food. We couldn’t go anywhere without eating a plate of food and sipping some homemade wine. By the third or fourth visit you’d be pretty full but the hosts would get offended if you didn’t eat their food and thought you liked the other family better so you had to eat, drink and be merry. It was great.

When I went to visit the youthful home of my buddies father in Italy I was blown away at the genuine love, hospitality and meals shared with me.

This love of family and food has never left me and recently I began preparing homemade pasta noodles after a lesson from my friends father’s sister, Aunt Mary, whom I’ve known since I was in 5th grade. I’m now 56 years old. In researching how to make a better noodle I was directed to Youtube and discovered the next best thing since beer was created. The name of this Angel is Grandma Gina Petitti. She has a food channel that you must see.

Grandma Gina is precious and I instantly fell in love with her. She speaks just like everyone in my buddies family and reminds me of the best of my childhood. If you are still reading this then you must go to visit Gina https://www.youtube.com/c/BuonAPetitti/videos and see for yourself.

Learn to make noodles, ravioli or whatever else you might be interested in preparing but be ready to get sucked in. You will learn to cook and have your heart warmed at the same time.

You can also purchase Gina’s cookbook online as well. It’s titled, ‘Cooking With Grandma Gina’.

Grazie Nonna Gina. May God continue to bless you.

According to Buzzfeed Pasta Facts, https://www.buzzfeed.com/jesseszewczyk/pasta-facts ,
the average Italian eats 60 pounds of pasta a year while Americans average eating just 26 pounds per year.

October 25 – World Pasta Day
January 4 – National Spaghetti Day

“Now I’ma gunna maykeh a pasta carbonarra.” the Dude of Food.

La Tur cheese will mooove you, baaaaa.

This blend of cow, sheep and goat milk from Italy made by the fine folks at Caseificio Dell’Alta Langa is absolutely delicious. Soft enough to spread on crackers and easily melts into hot pasta. The flavor in this cheese is rich enough for cheese experts and lively enough to wake up a boring appetizer party.

The Dude of Food melted a good chunk of this cheese into some hot noodles the other day and was stoked I did. I can see myself craving this in the near future.

Thank you Caseificio Dell’Alta Langa for your La Tur cheese. It is delicioso.

The Dude of Food creates a great new oatmeal-tapioca breakfast treat.

Tired of the same old thing for breakfast? Give up on your quest to eat healthier 10 days after your New Years resolution? Perhaps you are a hockey player and have no front teeth to bite a burrito with. What ever the case may be, the Dude of Food has created an awesome new way for people of all ages to enjoy a pretty healthy breakfast.

The Dude of Food decided that he wanted to try a German packaged cereal thing he saw on a market shelf in Munich. The package was made by a guy named Dr. Oetker and was called Griessbrei. As you can see below the label is in German as were the directions for preparation. I had a heck of a time online trying to decipher exactly what the proper measures and times were when I decided to try and prepare it. Anyways to make an interesting story short, the stuff was like a cross between creamed wheat and tapioca pudding. I liked it and mentioned it to my Bavarian friends. They all said the same thing, “You like baby cereal?”

Well since the stigma is that this stuff is too sweet for a proper adult breakfast the Dude of Food decided to try mixing tapioca pudding with oatmeal. The tapioca pudding is easy to acquire. In the German market the small packet of Dr. Oetker Griessbrei was like .89 euro or about 93 cents. If you can find it in the states or online it is $3.99 a packet.

So the Dude of Food (www.facebook.com/dudeoffoodpage) prepared 1 cup of oatmeal. Just as it was time to turn it off and cool off I added a little bit of warm homemade tapioca pudding and stirred it together. I topped it with a little bit of strawberry preserves and put it to the taste test. The results = excellent.

Category: cookbook