Braised pork ragu
Anna came home a few weeks ago with Random House cookbook full of recipes contributed by employees. I think it's actually going to become one of our most-used recipe sources -- cooking as it really is at home, rather than as cookbooks often pretend it to be. This one has immediately entered the regular rotation.
Ingredients
2 1/2 lb. boneless pork shoulder roast (or more if bone-in)
1 onion, chopped
1 clove garlic, chopped
2 tbsp olive oil
1 tbsp butter
1 large can of whole tomatoes
1 cup red wine
1 tsp each of thyme, oregano, and red chili flakes
1 tbsp fennel seeds
How To
Preheat the oven to 325.
Heat the butter and olive oil in a heavy-bottomed pot over medium-high heat. When the bubbles from the butter subside, brown the pork shoulder on all sides, 10-15 minutes. Add the onions and garlic and saute for a minute. Add the tomatoes, spices, and wine and bring to a boil, then cover and put in the oven for 3-4 hours, turning roughly every hour.
Once the pork is falling apart, remove it from the oven and shred the pork with a fork. Return the meat to the pot, stir it all together, and serve it over pasta.
Pesto ratatouille
Ingredients
1 zucchini, sliced
1 medium onion, chopped
1 pepper, chopped
1 clove garlic, finely minced
Handful of cherry tomatoes, halved
Pesto
How to
Heat 2 tbsp olive oil in a large skillet until very hot. Add the onions and saute until they begin to become translucent. Add the pepper and zucchini to the pan and sauté for another five minutes before adding the tomatoes and cooking for another five. Toss in the garlic and stir until fragrant, no more than 30 seconds. Stir in the pesto and serve warm or at room temperature.
World's best tomato sauce
The first time you take a bite of the sauce you'll feel joy -- it's that good. By the second chew, anger sets in -- "Why have I spent all these years wasting all this effort making sauce more complicated than this?!" And by the third, creeping guilt -- "What have I done to deserve this divine revelation? At whose hand will I later suffer as a result?"
The only guilt I now feel every time I make this sauce is in my inability to track down the place where I first saw the recipe. Googling "world's best tomato sauce" has not been much help. Well, at the very least if you are reading this then I can sleep a little easier at night. Everyone deserves to know this recipe.
Ingredients
One can whole peeled tomatoes
1 medium onion, cut in half crosswise
4 tbsp butter
How to
Melt the butter in a heavy-bottomed pan. Add the onion and the canned tomatoes, bring to a simmer, and lower to the lowest possible heat. Either break the tomatoes up with a wooden spoon against the side of the pot, or squeeze them through your fingers before adding them to the pot. Cover and simmer for at least 45 minutes, then remove the onion and serve.
That's it! The butter adds a rich, uncomplicated silkiness that doesn't interfere with the tomatoes' intensity. The onion lends its depth without altering the texture. The end result is a complex-tasting sauce with a richness beyond belief.
Grilled vegetable ratatouille
2 tomatoes, halves
2 red peppers, halved
2 ears of corn
2 zucchini, cut into quarter-inch rounds
1 medium onion, sliced
1 clove garlic, minced
Basil, roughly torn
How to
It was Alice Waters night in the Bartholomew-Pitoniak household. Alongside her grilled fish recipe I decided to try out grilled vegetable ratatouille from The Art of Simple Food.
First, pick your veggies. Go with what's fresh and looks good; don't be too particular about what follows here or in the Waters Bible. Tonight it was corn, tomatoes, zucchini, red peppers and onions. Trim them and toss with olive oil, salt and pepper.
In a vegetable grilling contraption over medium heat on the grill, I place the two halved tomatoes flat side down alongside the halved peppers. After they began to brown I added the zucchini and onions. The corn went on the grill still on the cob. There's very little to add here in terms of guidance -- just keep an eye on things, allow them to develop a nice char, and remove them. Strip the kernels from the ears of corn, cut the vegetables into half-inch pieces, and toss the whole thing with salt, pepper, olive oil, a clove or two of minced garlic and a few leaves of roughly torn basil. Anna even went into the backyard to pick the basil from our struggling little plant, a detail that made us feel like a couple of little Bay Area Alice Waters acolytes.