Pasta Con Le Sarde (Sicilian Pasta with Sardines)

*Updated cooking method (again) 3/30/2020

Sicily, where my family is from, is a land of conquests. The Moors, the Romans, Berbers, Arabs, Persians, Byzantines - pretty much everybody has tromped through Sicily at some point in time, and has left some kind of mark on the people and the food. I believe that pasta con le sarde, a traditional Sicilian dish featuring sardines and pasta tossed with unheard-of flavor combinations, is one such example of what happens when you get such a diverse international palate influencing a cuisine. In this case, it's a Mediterranean cuisine, meaning you get to take fish and try to mix a bunch of flavors together. If you've ever experimented with cooking fish, you know that random flavors can often ruin a fish dish. I couldn't name any other dish that would combine raisins, saffron, fennel, and two kinds of salty preserved fish, but somehow this mix creates an incredible burst of salty and sweet, lightly perfumed, slightly floral, bizarrely colorful, and both crunchy and velvety from the mix of fried bread crumbs and silky pasta that's tossed quickly with its own cooking liquid. The closest thing I can think of to this dish would be a massaman curry, drawing again from influences of the Muslim / western world to work this into the existing (Thai) culture. But in many ways, this dish stands completely alone, and for that I have deep respect in a sea of pasta dishes that is Italian food.

Drawing from a rich supply of fresh fish, this recipe is probably spectacular with fresh sardines caught that day. But since most of us can't get that, I recommend that you invest in a couple of tins of very high quality sardines packed in olive oil. Tonight we used some from Portugal, and at $4-5 per box, it was totally worth it. Even if you don't splurge, at least be sure to get fish in pure olive oil, not a tomato sauce or water.

The dish traditionally calls for bucatini - a thin tube-like pasta - but we've done it both with this and with pappardelle. Both versions are shown in the photographs. I would strongly recommend a bronze die-cut bucatini as the pasta of choice, though, which will hold the sauce best.

Jungle Curry (Kaeng Pa) // The virtues of obscure ingredients

When we went to Thailand, our travels through the northern part of the country landed us at a great cooking school in Chiang Mai. Here, we learned about the difference between northern Thai food, influenced heavily by other cultures and their significant distance from the coast, and southern Thai food, flavored heavily with coconut, fiery chiles, and plenty of fish. In the north, pork reigns supreme, and an interesting curry dish has emerged - jungle curry, known most notably for its absence of coconut milk from the sauce. Drawing on the other flavors of the countryside - fermented fish sauce, lime leaves, palm sugar, and a pungent red curry paste - mixed with chicken broth, it is a very enticing, filling, and yet surprisingly healthy alternative to the usual cholesterol-laden curry dishes from Bangkok and parts south. We cooked a decent version that day, which we carried home with us.

Fate being the cruel mistress that it is, we tried to replicate this dish following that recipe multiple times, to no avail. I tried making my own curry paste, finding different vegetable mixes to add, making Thai-infused chicken stock, buying a can of green peppercorns, and even growing my own kaffir lime tree to get things right. Nothing worked. Disgusted, embarrassed from one too many hosted dinner party failures, and on the verge of a breakdown, we tried one last time last night, with a careful eye on the exact ingredients called for.

The results were astounding. Somehow this dish rocketed from the bottom of our Thai repertoire to near the top, for a few reasons - it's healthy, it's easy, it's delicious, and it's exotic. This is the only dish I now make that has two very specific ingredients, which we had to learn (painfully) not to substitute for others. We didn't even have to make our own curry paste for this, just used the cans and it came out great. Still in shock, we may make it again tonight just to confirm that we have this one in the bag.

This is what the dish should look like

A prior attempt included making curry paste from scratch

I have no idea what I was thinking

Prep for the older version - too many substitutions, way too much effort, and an unbelievably disappointing meal. We will refer to this image shortly

So read on to learn about why this last photo is completely wrong, and how you can do this right.

Lasagna-stuffed spaghetti squash: a fun alternative

If you're looking for a way to take something totally unhealthy and turn it into something only mildly unhealthy, then look no further! This recipe converts the standard lasagna into one that uses spaghetti squash, a fun winter squash that pulls apart into threads (not unlike spaghetti) once sufficiently cooked. It may leave you wanting a bit, given the lower calorie count, but at least you won't hate yourself as much later that night. Plus, it's incredibly fun to eat.

Matsaman Curry // Fresh coconut milk beats homemade curry paste any day

On our trip to Thailand a few years ago, I was captivated by the freshness of the ingredients. The Thai markets are filled with fresh produce and all manner of slaughtered animal parts, which is impressive enough, but then there are the prepared foods - the curry pastes, the sausages, the shrimp chips, and of course, the coconut milk. I had no idea that this was made on a small scale, but after seeing the operation, it made sense - coconut flesh could be shredded quickly, and then a small hydraulic press can crank out a few quarts of fragrant coconut milk every few minutes. We had multiple occasions to taste this fresh coconut milk (and coconut cream, will explain later), and it was starkly different from the thick, somewhat savory canned coconut milk we commonly get in the U.S. Most notably, when you smell homemade coconut milk, it smells like... coconuts! There's no plastic, fatty smell from the preservation of the liquid necessary to get it into cans and across the ocean. The freshly made milk makes no mistake in letting you know what it is, and, as I would soon learn, offers exactly the same unapologetic, coconutty brashness when made back at home with a questionably old coconut. So I watched this process, enthralled by the heavy machinery nestled within the small farmer's market, bound and determined to try replicating this at home with hand tools.

The story wasn't actually that simple. I started out thinking that the magic was all in the paste, with no appreciation for the coconut milk. Coming home armed with curry paste recipes, and having sat on the floor smashing herbs in a mortar and pestle for a few hours, I assumed I was an expert in paste making. But more than a few failed attempts back home led me to realize that those little old Thai ladies sitting around smashing up garlic all day really know what they're doing. Homemade curry paste is truly an art, and I do not have the magic just yet. Maybe it's the freshness of the ingredients, I don't know. All I know is that my pastes are too coarse and lack the depth of the ones made fresh in Thailand, or even the ones from a can here. So after one too many mediocre curries, I broke down conceded defeat, requiring much more practice to this day. Instead, I dug into the process of making homemade coconut milk. Thankfully, the gear required isn't too extensive, but it is somewhat challenging to actually do this, if you use the method I used.

We decided to use the coconut milk as part of a matsaman curry, which we really liked when we made it in Chiang Mai. Matsaman, also written massaman, means "muslim", and isn't actually a Thai word at all - it's a Thai interpretation of the Persian dish, referred to in the 19th century as "mussulman" curry, which is a dated term for Muslim. The analog of this dish is American tex-mex food: it's the native culture's interpretation of what an international dish tastes like, adapted somewhat to the local methods. In this case, the dish borrowed the spices brought to Asia by the Muslim spice traders, including cinnamon, cardamom, cloves, bay leaves, cumin, and star anise, but mixed into a paste and then fried with coconut milk, like so many other Thai dishes. It's said to be favored by westerners because of its more familiar spice palette, but honesty I don't like it any more than a good red (kaeng phet) or green (kaeng khiao wan) curry.

This recipe explores a big hack in the process - how much does homemade curry paste matter? And which is more important, high quality coconut milk, or high quality curry paste. The short answer is both, but the longer answer is that you can get a good curry paste from a pouch, but there is no substitute for homemade coconut milk. Using a commercial paste I brought back with me, the finished dish was so spectacular that I have to question if a mediocre homemade paste is in any way a substitute for a reputable packaged paste. What's more, the fresh coconut milk elevates the dish to a floral, magical level, with the subtle fruity perfume that really takes your mind to the tropics. This doesn't happen with a great curry paste and mediocre coconut milk, by converse. Given this and the other curious additions that make up matsaman curry, I'm going to advocate for skipping the paste pounding step in lieu of making your own coconut milk from now on, so long as you agree to use a decent quality paste. Agreed? Okay, let's move on.

Gambas al Ajillo (Spanish shrimp with garlic)

Complexity. Depth. Perfection. And certainly, unquestionably, with no possibility for ever changing, the best shrimp recipe I have ever made, or will ever make. Thank you, Kenji Lopez, for bringing joy to my shrimp experience tonight.

Gambas al ajillo is a staple Spanish tapa that simply means "shrimp with garlic". But this dish is so much more than that - it somehow extracts all of the flavor in every ounce of the shrimp and garlic, done so exquisitely that you wonder how you have ever eaten either of these things alone before.

I have wanted to make this dish for years, and almost did so with my brother last month. Fortunately, my new favorite recipe site, Serious Eats, brought us their version of this dish, which casts aside paprika often used to redden the oil in favor of making a garlic and shrimp shell infused oil and then quickly sauteing in that. The magic of the dish comes in the form of brilliant usage of the "three flavors of garlic" - a mellow, astringent, and savory mix created only by the careful application of heat to the garlic in three different cuts. I have never served a dish with garlic treated any more than a single way, but now I've tried it three ways, I instantly understand why this is a brilliant idea.

Americanized Kung Pao Chicken

One of my new favorite websites is Serious Eats. Their head chef has some great recipes informed by testing out different ways of making each dish, and they also have other authors (read into that as you will). We tried both versions of Kenji Lopez's kung pao chicken, and were pleasantly surprised by both of them. Naturally, being filthy Americans, we were fans of the Americanized or "take out" version, which uses vinegar, bell peppers, and celery to create a delicious replica of the usual restaurant order. It was instantly obvious that white vinegar was the missing ingredient in some take-out recipes, so I'll be on the lookout for ways to shove this into other stir-fries. The authentic version uses a Chinese black vinegar known as Chinkiang vinegar along with leeks and Sichuan peppercorns, which is definitely worth checking out as well. Stay tuned for my repost of that recipe, or just go here for the original one.

Chicken Cacciatore

Nothing says winter cooking better than a good stew. Chicken cacciatore is an Italian chicken fricassee, with some added tomatoes, red wine, and olives bringing the Italian flavor on top of the usual mushrooms, onions, and garlic that are probably shared with almost all of the chicken stews out there. It translates as "hunter's style chicken", defined as having onions, garlic, and tomatoes. It actually has some commonality with Jägerschnitzel if you have tried it, given the addition of mushrooms and herbs in the sauce. And while I can't capture the smells in this post, I assure you that the combination of rosemary, onions, garlic, and sage make for some memorable comfort food.

I pulled my recipe from The Joy of Cooking, which is a great reference book for those getting started. The well-worn page of this recipe also contains Brunswick stew and coq au vin, making it easily the most used page in the whole book for me. But I'll repost the recipe here, with my notes on the process added. The recipe does state that the oil-cured olives are optional, but I highly recommend adding them, as it gives a briny, salty punch reminiscent of a good puttanesca sauce.

Vietnamese Lemongrass Beef Salad (Bun Bo Xao)

One of the most common Vietnamese dishes is some form of grilled, marinated beef served on, in, or at least near some rice noodles. Just like tex-mex food in Jim Gaffigan's words (tortillas with meat, cheese, or vegetables), bun bo xao is one such construction of beef with rice noodles and cilantro, and is on almost every Vietnamese menu other than at pho restaurants. I've made pho before, but have actually never made this dish until now. It turns out that not only is it somewhat simple, it's also incredibly delicious, and replicates the restaurant version almost identically.

I made this dish by merging a few different recipes, some coming from the very excellent book Vietnamese Street Food, by Tracey Lister and Andreas Pohl. The key components of the dish are the lemongrass marinated beef, the raw salad components, and the seasoning sauce, nuoc cham truyen thong.