Lavandino Della Cucina
A sublime night's meal born from failure. Eh? How so? Well, I've learned how to fail excellently, in a very Buzz Lightyear-esque way. "Falling with style."
Just last weekend I came into possession of two really nice cuts of steak Some New york prime cuts, thick and marbled. It was a hot night so I did a bit of a warm marinade (sherry, garlic, cracked black pepper and worcestershire sauce slid into some deep cuts top and bottom) for a few hours and then flopped the steaks on super hot grill to sear and cook to taste (that would be med rare listing heavily to the starboard side of rare).
I shoulda left well enough alone, and all would have been well, but I got all inspired by an article I'd read about a new South Carolina style BBQ restaurant in the City and decided I was feeling Southern enogh to make a mustard based dipping sauce. Tre' elegant! Some mustard, honey, brown sugar, white vinegar and some cracked pepper. It sounded so good on paper. Really.
But I took the opportunity to rid my fridge of a purchase mistake I'd made some months earlier from The Mars Cheese Castle during my last trip to Wisconsin. I had this Root Beer mustard that I'd bought to put on beer soaked grilled brats that was really really awful. Just too sweet in a weird ass sort of way.
A smarter man than I would have just tossed it. But no, I tried to save some dough and somehow got it into my head that with the other ingredients it somehow would just transform itself into something rich and hearty and smokey/tart. Braaaght! Nope . It was the worst thing ever, a total failure. One small bite and I took the bowl that I'd put this misery sauce* outside and used it for skeet shooting practice. It made a shiny sound when it exploded.
*copyright 2015 SwampBob productions
Valuable, valuable lesson learned: The wrong ingredients can kill any dish. DON'T. DO. IT. Throw that gunk away and start with good stuff.
The other half of the lesson was: don't be afraid to try anything, you might get lucky - as I did tonight when I invented a dish from nothing but a refrigerator cleaning, throwing together an oddball collection of good ingredients together.
All the tiny tupperware containers of stored stuff had to go so I crushed a bunch of garlic in the mortar and pestle, squooshed out the tail end of an Italian sausage roll, used the end of a jar of red pepper flakes, found an onion that was 3 minutes from going bad (and cut off the 1/4 of it that was DOA) found some hidden tomatoes behind a loaf of bread and chopped up some Kale that was just a step away from composting.
I brought some oil slowly up to speed with the crushed garlic swimming in it and sautéed slowly until it was just wriggling and dancing and then added the red pepper flakes and Italian sausage, torn up into little nightmare sculptures. I took the 6 minutes or so of free trme to grate the onion with my cheese grater, then threw that in the mix for 3 minutes or so. Grating the old onion gave it a marvelous liquid feel and it smelled really luscious and sweet. The kitchen was starting to smell dang good. I then poured a glass of wine and poured in the chopped tomatoes, some more garlic powder, the kale and one nice splat of Herbs de Provence.
I also salvaged a half a box of Collezione* boiled drained and then tossed in the skillet with the slow simmering, thickening sauce. Onto the plate with a wad of fresh grated Romano cheese and mio Dio, that went down well.
I named this dish Lavandino Della Cocina (Kitchen sink) pasta as it was nothing more than a refrigerator cleanup project.
*Guitar pasta, so named for it's thick square, non delicate pasta noodles
Never be afraid to trust your instincts and never use poor ingredients. I may need to book some time at Sacred Rose down on University avenue to get that tattood on my arm so i don't forget.
Lavandino Della cocina
Just last weekend I came into possession of two really nice cuts of steak Some New york prime cuts, thick and marbled. It was a hot night so I did a bit of a warm marinade (sherry, garlic, cracked black pepper and worcestershire sauce slid into some deep cuts top and bottom) for a few hours and then flopped the steaks on super hot grill to sear and cook to taste (that would be med rare listing heavily to the starboard side of rare).
I shoulda left well enough alone, and all would have been well, but I got all inspired by an article I'd read about a new South Carolina style BBQ restaurant in the City and decided I was feeling Southern enogh to make a mustard based dipping sauce. Tre' elegant! Some mustard, honey, brown sugar, white vinegar and some cracked pepper. It sounded so good on paper. Really.
But I took the opportunity to rid my fridge of a purchase mistake I'd made some months earlier from The Mars Cheese Castle during my last trip to Wisconsin. I had this Root Beer mustard that I'd bought to put on beer soaked grilled brats that was really really awful. Just too sweet in a weird ass sort of way.
A smarter man than I would have just tossed it. But no, I tried to save some dough and somehow got it into my head that with the other ingredients it somehow would just transform itself into something rich and hearty and smokey/tart. Braaaght! Nope . It was the worst thing ever, a total failure. One small bite and I took the bowl that I'd put this misery sauce* outside and used it for skeet shooting practice. It made a shiny sound when it exploded.
*copyright 2015 SwampBob productions
Valuable, valuable lesson learned: The wrong ingredients can kill any dish. DON'T. DO. IT. Throw that gunk away and start with good stuff.
The other half of the lesson was: don't be afraid to try anything, you might get lucky - as I did tonight when I invented a dish from nothing but a refrigerator cleaning, throwing together an oddball collection of good ingredients together.
All the tiny tupperware containers of stored stuff had to go so I crushed a bunch of garlic in the mortar and pestle, squooshed out the tail end of an Italian sausage roll, used the end of a jar of red pepper flakes, found an onion that was 3 minutes from going bad (and cut off the 1/4 of it that was DOA) found some hidden tomatoes behind a loaf of bread and chopped up some Kale that was just a step away from composting.
I brought some oil slowly up to speed with the crushed garlic swimming in it and sautéed slowly until it was just wriggling and dancing and then added the red pepper flakes and Italian sausage, torn up into little nightmare sculptures. I took the 6 minutes or so of free trme to grate the onion with my cheese grater, then threw that in the mix for 3 minutes or so. Grating the old onion gave it a marvelous liquid feel and it smelled really luscious and sweet. The kitchen was starting to smell dang good. I then poured a glass of wine and poured in the chopped tomatoes, some more garlic powder, the kale and one nice splat of Herbs de Provence.
I also salvaged a half a box of Collezione* boiled drained and then tossed in the skillet with the slow simmering, thickening sauce. Onto the plate with a wad of fresh grated Romano cheese and mio Dio, that went down well.
I named this dish Lavandino Della Cocina (Kitchen sink) pasta as it was nothing more than a refrigerator cleanup project.
*Guitar pasta, so named for it's thick square, non delicate pasta noodles
Never be afraid to trust your instincts and never use poor ingredients. I may need to book some time at Sacred Rose down on University avenue to get that tattood on my arm so i don't forget.
Lavandino Della cocina
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