le blog de tranny

Okay, so, I’m pretty into this idea of, instead of having a sauce, having a broth (or brodo as I’ve douchily been calling it lately). This brodo concept is closely tied to meals I’ve eaten at nicer restaurants for one (obvi), and my embarrassingly recent realization of what deglazing actually is for another. Plus you know, nowadays when I buy a $5 bottle of wine at the corner store for the purpose of cooking with, I’m compelled to use the rest of it for cooking because I can’t bring myself to drink it (to think — I now have standards as to what I imbibe!). A far cry from my drinking standards as recently as a year ago, that’s fo sho. To cut to the chase, I now present to you a tale of two brodos — one red and one white.

The red one was born first, out of an attempt on my part to fancy up a simple, hearty and not terribly sophisticated dish — cannelloni. At least that was the original idea. Kale cannelloni in a tomato brodo with sauteed thick wedges of portobello mushroom (I had to get the meaty mouth-feel somehow). I even wrote out a recipe, based on bits and pieces of other recipes that I lifted from the internet. But I ended up changing my mind last minute when I realized that I still had leftover wonton wrappers. So Nina and I instead made dino kale tortellini with portobello mushroom in tomato brodo. Sigh — I would not recommend making tortellini out of wonton wrappers. The texture and flavor are a bit off — the dough is thinner and less starchy or egg-y or something. The final product was very much dino kale wontons in tomato brodo. Which is quite funny and worked in its own weird way — I guess I could pass it off as some kind of fusion interpretation (wonton soup but with Italian flavors?) but this was definitely not my original intent. Anyway no harm done — just use real pasta dough or make cannelloni if you try this — the recipe is essentially the same.

Kale-Stuffed Pasta with Portobello Mushrooms in Tomato Brodo

You need:
- parmesan cheese
- lasagna noodles or other stuffable pasta
- 1 container ricotta
- 1 large can diced tomatoes
- 1 container chicken stock
- kale, stemmed and torn
- portabello mushrooms, stems separated and reserved
- fresh thyme
- white wine
- 1 shallot, medium slice
- garlic, minced
- 1 small onion (or less), small dice

- Preheat the oven to 350 F if you’re making cannelloni, cook the pasta al dente etc.

Make the pasta filling:
- Wash and chop the kale (if you’re making cannelloni a rough chop is fine; if you’re making tortellini you’ll probably need to chop the kale pretty well before you cook it, and then super finely after you cook it). Saute it with a *very scant* amount of olive oil with finely diced onion (very finely for tortellini) and minced garlic. Season with s&p.
- Once kale is cooked, chopped to desired fineness, then cooled a bit, add the ricotta and a good amount of grated parmesan. You can eyeball the proportions — I know I did! Mix well then assemble your tortellini or cannelloni.

Make the brodo:
- Mince the mushroom stems. Saute them with the shallot and some garlic in olive oil until browned. Add ½ a cup or however much white wine and scrape up the brown bits while on high heat. Add the broth and the diced tomatoes with their juice. Mash up the tomatoes and add whole sprigs of thyme. Season with s&p and simmer for a good while, until it reduces by half or however much you want.
- Strain the brodo when you plate the pasta.

Cook the pasta:
- If you’re doing cannelloni make sure you layer the bottom of the baking tray with some brodo and that you moisten the top with either olive oil or brodo so it doesn’t dry out. (Bake covered, seam side down, for 45 minutes. Or if you’re doing tortellini boil those bitches then set them aside, not overlapping because you don’t want em to stick.)

Do the mushrooms:
Take the thick slices of portobello mushroom cap and brown them on each side in butter. Season with s&p. When almost done cooking, throw in some minced garlic and toss the mushrooms with the garlic for a minute or two.

Arrange the plates with brodo as the base, followed by the mushies then the cannelloni or tortellinis. Pour brodo over the top right before serving. (Did you notice that if you substitute veg broth for chicken broth, this entree is vegetarian? Maybe I should start having a “vegetarian” tag, since I now actually have more than one vegetarian-adaptable recipe on here.)

(Do you like my subtle garnish? I think it looks like a little shrub lol.)

Olive Oil Poached Cod in Carrot and Potato Brodo with Parsley Salad

The other day I was watching the Anthony Bourdain holiday special, where he and his buddies cook up the greater part of a cow. In one scene he prepares this roasted bone marrow appetizer, and he makes a parsley salad with whole leaves of parsley picked from their stems, mixed up with capers, shallot, lemon juice and olive oil, to go with it. I loved the idea of a salad like this, because when you think about it, the flavor of whole leaves of parsley isn’t really that intense compared to say, arugula, so why not make it the base ingredient of a salad? I thought it’d be a great topping for some olive oil poached cod (which I’d been itching to attempt since I got my oil thermometer), but parsley salad works as a starter too.

I wanted the cod to sit in a clear, light brodo (like this olive oil poached cod I had at Commis a while back). My plan was to add some carrots and potatoes to the broth, to get some aromatic action going and to thicken the broth a bit with the starch from the potatoes. Then once it’d reduced sufficiently, I’d decide whether or not to puree the vegetables. I ended up pureeing the vegetables with my immersion blender, turning the broth into a really smooth puree (so, not clear at all basically). I ended up adding more chicken broth after I did this because I wanted it to be more broth-like. So maybe I should really call this a puree — but whatever, semantics. It’s a brodo or it’s a puree depending on how much broth you add/whether you decide to puree the vegetables.

You need: (for two peeps)
*for the fish*
- 2 cod fillets (In retrospect I would’ve gotten rock cod or halibut instead of black cod aka butterfish. Olive oil poaching makes the fish really tender and moist which butterfish already is.. and I was left wishing the end product was slightly firmer rather than melting on the fork before it even reached my mouth. I also would’ve gone for thicker fillets. Should’ve done my research.)
- olive oil (I cheated and mixed in some canola oil because I didn’t want to ass rape our olive oil reserves. I mean if you have mostly olive oil the flavor is still there.. I maintain that this is fine if you’re working with extra virgin olive oil which I was — but if I had to do this again I would get cheaper non-extra virgin olive oil at the store and just used 100% of that.)
*for the brodo/puree*
- 1 small bunch of carrots, peeled and diced
- 2 red potatoes, peeled and diced
- 1/2 a shallot, minced
- garlic, minced
- chicken broth
- white wine
- butter and/or bacon fat
- thyme (I used dried but fresh is obvi preferable.)
*for the parsley salad*
- Italian parsley
- capers
- 1/2 a shallot, minced (the other half of the one used for the brodo)
- extra virgin olive oil
- lemon juice or white wine vinegar

[Bacon fat and yellow carrots.]

Make the brodo:
- Saute the shallot, carrots and potatoes in melted bacon fat and butter. (I just happened to have some reserved bacon fat from the last time I cooked bacon and it’s really proved indispensable so far. For example, with this preparation, I cooked the vegetables in bacon fat because I needed something to deglaze. I’m sure it would kind of work with just butter but honestly if you don’t have bacon fat on hand I’d either fry up some fresh bacon and maybe even throw bits of that in the broth or I wouldn’t bother.) Season with s&p and fresh or dried thyme.
- Once the vegetables have browned and there’s a good layer of brown bits at the bottom of the pot, add some white wine and scrape up the brown bits on high heat. Once I did this it was lookin’ pretty good and gravy-like.
- Add the chicken broth and more white wine if you please.
- Simmer until reduced by about half. Allow to cool for a hot sec. Season to taste. Puree the vegetables with an immersion blender if you want. You could also try pureeing half the vegetables and leaving half of them in chunks. Perhaps this is what I should have done. (If the puree is too thick add more broth and bring to a simmer again.)

[A lovin' spoonful of bacon fat.]

[Pre-pureeing.]

Cook the fish:
- Season the fish on both sides with s&p.
- In a pot, heat up enough olive oil to cover the fish to around 120 degrees F.
- Submerge the fish in the oil for 3-5 minutes or until just cooked through.

Make the parsley salad:
- Rinse and dry the parsley. Pick some leaves from their stems.
- Mix the parsley leaves in a bowl with some coarsely chopped capers and finely minced shallot.
- Just before serving, toss the parsley salad with olive oil and lemon juice or white wine vinegar. Season with black pepper.

Plate the cod on top of some broth/puree. Top with parsley salad.

Mmmm but you know what’s especially awesome about this broth/puree business? This morning I heat up the leftover puree on the stove and whisked in some butter, cornmeal and freshly grated parm. Voila — breakfast polenta/grits type thing! Eaten with Italian pork sausages and a poached egg (which I kind of botched.. should have left it in longer — it was my first time poaching eggs, after all), it was the best thing ever. (Another testament to the usefulness of bacon fat — I cooked the sausages in some!)