Spiedini

On Saturday evening, I tried a couple of recipes from Mario’s latest, Italian Grill, with mixed results.

The Calamari Spiedini in Lemon Leaves looked delicious on the page, and I had Meyer lemons and leaves at the ready. In real life, it looked good, smelled good, tasted good, but the texture wasn’t perfect throughout. The problem could have been that some of the calamari tubes I purchased were thicker than others. Also, I may have packed too much onto each skewer thereby preventing good heat transfer to all the pieces stacked together. Some of the tube pieces could have used one more minute on the grill. The flavor was fantastic, and the texture of the thinner tubes and that of the tentacles was fine. I served this dish with a garden fresh arugula salad, and the peppery greens were a nice complement to the marinated squid.

Up next was Charred Tuna Spiedini with Spicy Peppers. The spicy peppers included red and yellow bell peppers and jalapenos which were sautéed and then served as a bed for the tuna spiedini. Turns out the jalapenos were both large and piquant this weekend and managed to completely overpower all other flavors. The tuna was to have been dusted with a combination of fennel pollen and dried oregano and then seared briefly on the grill. First, Austin has no fennel pollen. Huge oversight, Austin! Second, to get a good char on the tuna, I really should have turned it in oil rather than just drizzling. While delicious itself, the tuna suffered from the very spicy, jalapeno-forward pepper mélange.

Our conclusions were that while I quite enjoyed the marinated calamari and had less chewy pieces than Kurt did, Kurt was happier with the tuna but wished the pepper pile hadn’t disappointed so.

Minestrone

This is a dish which really does not require a recipe. I’ve made it a thousand times, and I’m fairly certain that I’ve never made it the same way twice. Last weekend, the ingredients I had on hand included: chicken broth, canned diced tomato, red onion, carrots, eight ball zucchini, swiss chard, kale, canned red kidney beans, red potatoes, and bay, sage, thyme, and parsley from my herb garden. Since I had potatoes to use, I chose to leave out the usual pasta. The noteworthy experience came at the end of the cooking time. As I tasted the soup again and considered the flavor and seasoning, I first thought: more salt. Then, I realized: no, not salt, acid. In A Return to Cooking, Eric Ripert discussed balanced flavor and the use of acid, and this came to mind along with a quote from last week’s Top Chef. During the quick fire challenge, guest judge Art Smith said of the lime in a dish “chefs don’t think of using acid as often as they should.” Of course, vinegar or lemon juice added to a soup at the end of the cooking time will brighten the flavor, but when throwing things in a pot and doing five other things while waiting for the soup to cook it could slip one’s mind. A tablespoon or two of sherry vinegar added to the five quarts or so of soup made this minestrone perfect, and henceforth I’ll remember to reach for acid to balance flavors.

Blueberry Irish Scones

I received Avoca Tea Time as a lovely birthday gift in March (thanks Sharon and Bill!) and finally baked some scones this past weekend. After pulling out my copy of Food Lover’s Companion and doing some quick conversions, I mostly followed the recipe for Scones with Sultanas and Cranberries. Sadly, my supply of raisins included about a tablespoonful and I forgot to buy dried cranberries, but I had frozen blueberries. Hence, the title you see above. These were devoured hot out of the oven with a cappuccino on Sunday morning.

Now, I’m thinking seriously about acquiring a kitchen scale. Ruhlman discussed the topic recently. The measurements would have been more accurate and much easier to achieve.