Italian Imports & Spaghetti alla Carbonara

December 15, 2014 Stephanie Christofferson

Spaghetti alla chittara, bruschetta classica, and fusillo

One of the benefits of going to a grad school in a European city is meeting people from all over the world. I've met a German, a Swede, a Turk, a Jordanian, a Syrian, a Brazilian, a Croatian, an Australian, a Grecian, and an Italian. And sometimes, if you're lucky, one of these new international friends will bring you some treats from their home country.

My friend Violetta is from Turin, just under two hours west of Milan. More interesting to a food lover like me, Turin is located an hour north of Bra, the birthplace of Carlo Petrini and the Slow Food Movement, and current location of the University of Gastronomic Sciences. Read: there is very good food here. And I don't just mean delicious, as all Italian food purports to be with your usual pizza pasta stereotype. I'm talking about some of the most beautifully cultivated produce, hand-crafted products, and carefully tended animals, all of which is heralded as local above all else. Local isn't exactly a fad for Italy, it's a tradition. Violetta told me about the idea of "Zero KM," which is a label applied to products and ingredients designating their locality. Knowing my love for food (especially good food), Violetta had her mother bring me a couple pastas and a bruschetta from her hometown, which I used to make an absolutely amazing Italian feast in Paris.

On the menu: bruschetta, spaghetti alla carbonara, and chardonnay from Macon Valley in the Borgogne region of France.

That morning, I went to the market and picked up some good, crusty bread for the bruschetta (which was incredible and had unexpected olives in it) and some lard fumé, which may sound disgusting (smoked fat? really?) but is actually a much more accurate (and graphic) name for smoked bacon. This was to use in place of the traditional guanciale, which I could not find or just didn't translate to the French meat offerings. I chose to do a carbonara because I wanted to do something simple and not too overpowering in order to fully appreciate the pasta. Carbonara was perfect, because it added a slight accent to the pasta without completely hiding it. I was also intrigued by the term "chittara," which is the name of the machine used to make this particular type of spaghetti, and also contains egg.

Spaghetti alla carbonara is really quite simple. Pasta, parmesan, egg, pepper, and guanciale (or in this case, bacon). And it hits the perfect spot between refined and homey. With the thicker egg noodles, the yolk-sauce really coated the pasta and made for a wonderfully rich bite, lightly peppered, coated in parmigiano-reggiano, and studded with bacon. The white wine didn't hurt, of course - what with my recent wine-tasting adventure and a documentary I saw called A Year in Burgundy, I've been a bit obsessed with Burgundy wines, chardonnay and pinot noir to be specific.

The final product: spaghetti alla carbonara, served with some pain des amis, extra parmesan, and white wine of course

SPAGHETTI ALLA CARBONARA (for two)

Ingredients:

Spaghetti (about 250g)
Olive oil (2-3 tbsp)
Guanciale (or pancetta, bacon, any salted pork meat really)
Cracked black pepper
Parmigiano-reggiano
2 egg yolks (one for each dish)
Salt, to taste

Method:

While pasta cooks, sauté bacon in a separate pan. Drain pasta and mix in olive oil, bacon, cracked black pepper, and parmigiano-reggiano. Separate into serving dishes, and individually mix in egg yolk to each. Top with salt to taste, and more parmesan or cracked pepper if necessary.

ragoût d'agneau, revisited

November 18, 2014 Stephanie Christofferson

Everyone should know how to make a good stew.

A good stew is like an abstract painting. Both favor expression over technique; neither require advanced training or technology. All you need is a good sense of what works, which (in both cases) takes practice. Soups and stews are one of the easiest ways to achieve maximum culinary impressiveness. All you need is a basic knowledge of stew components, the ability to perform said stewing, and a few hours of waiting time.

As the cold weather slowly seeps into Paris, stews and hot chocolate are making for some cozy evenings after a long day of class and commuting. Last year I posted a recipe for lamb stew, which we make consistently around here. But lamb can really be swapped for nearly any protein, and as I considered this, I realized that the basics for soup-making are literally always the same. So here goes:

Stew Basics

Meat with a bone in it (at least a pound)
Onions
Carrots
Celery
Leeks
Herbs/spices
Water

Seriously. That's all you need to make a stew of any kind. After this, the abstract part comes in. This is where you can add some flair, like a starch (noodles, potatoes, beans, sweet potatoes, rice) or play with the seasoning (herbs de provence, thyme, bay leaves, garlic, quatre epices, red pepper flakes, paprika) add extra veg (green onions, turnips, asparagus, squash...anything in season) and mix in complementary proteins (bacon, sausage, seafood).

We usually base our soups off of what's on sale at the store, and this week there were some huge fatty chunks of joint-in lamb leg on sale. We also added some white and red beans just to change it up and give the soup a little more texture. After six hours in the stew, the bones slipped out and we were left with a thick, rich, melt-in-your-mouth, herby stew that warmed you from the inside out. Here's the recipe we created:

Lamb Bean Stew

At least 1 lb of bone-in lamb meat (any cut, we used leg)
1.5 cups each white and red beans
1 large celery stalk, chopped
2 large carrots, cubed
1 leek, stem only diced
1 onion, roughly chopped
2 garlic cloves, diced
1 bay leaf and 4 sprigs fresh thyme, bundled
1 tsp herbs de provence
3 tbsp butter (or other fat source...duck fat, oil)
Salt and pepper, to taste

Method:

In a large pot, sauté celery, carrots, leek, and onion in butter on medium-high until translucent
Add garlic and herbs/salt & pepper and sear meat until browned
Add enough water to cover ingredients and bring to a boil
Reduce to simmer and let stew, stirring occasionally, for at least 2-3 hours (optimally 4-6)

big sur

July 15, 2014 Stephanie Christofferson

Anyone who has been to Big Sur understands the devastating quality of its beauty. This place grips you, pulls you in completely and unwaveringly, and in doing so absolutely terrifies you. It is a place that makes you feel small and insignificant, a creature clawing your way through great forests with towering trees and decades of growth beneath them, dancing with terrifyingly powerful waves, climbing crumbling rocks that have seen centuries pass. You realize, in some poignant transcendentalist moment, that you are but an accident of nature, a pure result of the scientific workings of the world, and that this alive part is all real. You feel less and less connected to society, to the world from which you came, and this makes you question your sanity a little bit. It forces you to look at yourself, at your true animal self, which is never a thing anyone enjoys doing. So while you gasp at Big Sur’s beauty, so magnificent it hurts, you are also gasping and marveling at your own place in that beauty and that is a difficult thing to understand.

I spent a week traversing the coast up and down Highway 1 and reading Jack Kerouac’s “Big Sur,” which (although breathtaking in its own right) did not help my already fading grasp on reality, and found he put this sentiment I've been grasping at so much more clearly than I ever could: “The empty blue sky of space says 'All this comes back to me, then goes again, and comes back again, then goes again, and I don't care, it still belongs to me.” Like all great writers, and following the show-don't-tell mantra, he finds a way to bring words and understanding and feeling from within you without really saying it outright.

I fall in love with cities because of their stories. But the stories told in Big Sur are of a different nature. They are more elemental, more basic, more chemical. They speak of the natural world, the world of which we are all formed and born and made, the world that gave birth to our cities. Big Sur tells stories of ocean carving shapes in rocks, of moss dripping down crevices in cliff faces, of trees that were born before Jesus, of madness and instinct and survival. It is an escape and a refuge from so-called reality, but Big Sur is a challenge. It’s what I imagine heaven, if such a thing existed, would be like.

camping essentials

- a good book

- cheap beer

- cast iron skillet

- fishtail braid

- Dr. Bronner's magic soap & hair care

- Shiseido UV protective stick foundation with SFP

- s'mores :)

On the Range Meaty Baked Beans

My favorite camping recipe that finds a way to utilize canned food and leftovers - one of the most important things to do when you find yourself lacking proper refrigeration. When I camp, I usually have a quality meat the first night or two, while it will keep in the cooler, and then find myself getting more and more creative. This recipe usually comes in for me at a time when I absolutely have to cook the rest of my bacon for breakfast that morning, and when I have had some beer brats or a nice steak with caramelized onions the night before.

Ingredients:

- 1 can Bush's original baked beans

- kernels from 2 ears of corn, grilled (cook directly on grill, shucked - this is often a leftover ingredient for me)

- leftover bacon, chopped

- leftover steak or bratwurst from last night's dinner (or both, from the past 2 nights), chopped

- caramelized onions from last night's dinner

- 1 jalapeño, diced (the more seeds you leave in, the spicier your dish will be)

- 1/2 bell pepper, diced

- bread, for dipping

- salt & pepper, to taste

Simple as mixing all your ingredients together in a pot and letting simmer as long as you can wait. I like to throw a splash of beer in there, to let reduce off for extra flavor.

So go to Big Sur. I promise, it will change your life.