Rooftop Gourmet

Last week, I had a few friends over for a family style dinner including my friend Dave who recently moved to Chicago. I wanted to make something that had a connection to his new city and to the unforgettable, family-style Italian dinners thrown by his grandfather… some of my earliest food memories. Growing up with Dave was great, because every so often he’d call me up and say, “hey… want to go eat at Pa’s”? It was one of the most exciting events of the year.

If you’re eating at Pa’s… you better bring your appetite because there is never any shortage of food. We would roll into his Italian Cantina, or private basement kitchen with six hungry guys, and he’d have enough to serve twenty. The entire industrial range would be swarmed with pots and pans, filled with homemade sauces that had been simmering for what seemed like days.

Platters of Italian cold cuts, antipasti, and freshly baked bread covered the giant oak table in the heart of the kitchen. The smell of his signature Amatriciana sauce catches your nose, he greets you with a smile and a hug, and instantly you feel like part of the family. Pa is an amazing cook but when I think back on the countless feasts I’ve endured in his kitchen, it’s not the amazing food that sticks out in my mind.

 Rather, it’s his demeanor in the kitchen. He is an entertainer, and you can see it in his eyes, he truly loves having everyone around. His generous warmth and love for sitting down at the table and eating, laughing, and drinking together is so apparent. Pa’s Cantina is definitely where my love for cooking and entertaining developed. Being around family and friends and watching them eat and enjoy your food is one of the most rewarding feelings for me.

No wonder Pa would plop another bowling ball-size meatball on my plate, even after I loosened my belt. Now that Dave was stopping by, it was my chance to recreate that family-style dinner feel in my own kitchen.

 It appears that Dave brought some of the windy city with him to Boston, because the monsoon-like conditions outside made a slow cooked meal sound even more enticing. When I think about Chicago cuisine, it’s all about the sausage. From Abe Froman, Sausage King of Chicago, to Upton Sinclair’s shocking novel, The Jungle, about the citys’ meat packing district.

 I immediately ran over to the Butcher Shop in the South End to pick up a few links. The Butcher Shop makes their homemade sausage the old school way. They buy whole hogs, grind up the pork and spices, and pipe the mixture into the natural casings… absolutely delicious!

I love that they link the sausages together they way you’d see them hanging in a storefront in Italy, or toying with a dog in an old Tom & Jerry cartoon. I brought the links home and hung them from my kitchen cabinet where they dangled away like a savory wind chime. I wanted to keep everything whole, and rustic, all roasting away together in one pan so I didn’t do much to my ingredients.

I gave my roasted tomato sauce a simple base of garlic and shallots, which I smashed, and sliced. I set my oven to 350 degrees and the stage was set. I pulled out my giant roasting pan, big enough to fit a suckling pig, and gave the smashed cloves and sliced shallots a head start in the oven. I wanted to ensure that the sweetness of roasted garlic and caramelized shallots came through in my sauce. Once they obtained a rich caramel color to them, I tossed in three dozen vine ripe, cherry tomatoes that were about the size of a Titleist Pro V1.

 Roasting whole tomatoes in the oven brings a whole new flavor to the ballgame. It’s so much different than making a sauce from a can because you’re using fresh tomatoes that pop, wilt, and stew in their own natural juices. When you throw in a few other simple ingredients, like shallots, garlic, and fresh herbs the result is comfort food at its finest.

After the tomatoes had popped and softened up, I took the pan from the oven and gently pressed down on them with my tongs, just to release the rest of the liquid. I placed the entire chain of links right into the roasting pan along with some fresh rosemary, oregano and thyme that I snipped from my garden. Back in the oven it went, where we could forget about it for an hour, giving us more time to catch up. The woodsy aromas of the fresh herbs and sweet garlic filled the kitchen as we poured some more wine and hung out over the stove. Typically, you wouldn’t think to use such strong herbs such as rosemary and oregano in a tomato sauce, but in this case, the dish is hearty and rustic. Save the basil for the delicate marinara sauce.

As the sausages roast in the bed of tomatoes, they release their flavorful pork fat drippings into the pan and add another element to the sauce. When the links were cooked through, I removed the pan one last time and finished the sauce with a healthy glug of 25 year old Balsamico. The syrupy vinegar adds more depth and sweetness as well as some striking acidity to help cut through the pork fat. I dumped the sauce onto a platter, and gave everyone a plate and a tear of chewy bread. The skins of the sausage were nice and crispy, perfectly encasing the moist, juicy meat. That signature “pop” of every bite made me smile. The sauce was packed with flavor, totally deserving an equally special wine.

I opened a bottle of 2004 Col D’Orcia Brunello di Montalcino, a wine that I have a special connection with. During my first trip to Italy in 2001, my family visited the small town of Montalcino and got a chance to swing by the hillside, Col D’Orcia estate. There we met with the winemaker, and got a tour of the facility followed by an amazing lunch on the back porch. We were privileged to be able to taste the highly acclaimed 1997 Brunellos before they were even released to the United States. Spending four hours at the table with my entire family, throughout a twelve course meal in the heart of Tuscany wasn’t a bad afternoon. Brunello translates to “nice dark one”, in the local dialect and is the unofficial clone of the Sangiovese grape. It is known as the King of Tuscany due to it’s complexity, power, and price tag.

 Brunellos are often compared to the fine Pinot Noirs of Burgundy because of their smooth tannins, and ripe, fruit driven character. The wine is a deep ruby color, with loads of plum and raspberry fruit, impeccably balanced with slight nuances of oak. The tannins are so smooth, that the wine just rolls off your tongue as masterfully as the Italian language. The wine’s striking acidity makes it food friendly and inviting. As most great Tuscan wines do, this Brunello has faint aromas of cherries and fresh herbs, and a sneaky licorice taste on the finish. This mini family-style feast would make Snooki and the cast of the Jersey Shore jealous…. and the Brunello is far better than Ron-Ron Juice. We even had a slight “Situation” when I burnt my arm on the roasting pan, and I dropped my camera into the bubbling, hot sauce (thank God I bought the warranty). Just like in Pa’s Cantina, it wasn’t about the food we ate or the wine we drank, it was all about the great company we did it in.

The closest I’ve come to Hawaii is spending a week at the Disney Polynesian Resort, where I got up on stage and learned to hula dance as a four year old. I have always wanted to go to Hawaii but over the years, my reasons for making the trek have changed. Growing up, I was intrigued by the volcanoes and amazing beaches, but now I find myself completely captivated by the islands’ diverse cuisine.

The wild ingredients, fresh fish, and cooking techniques all seem to be a fusion of cuisines brought together by multiethnic immigrants over the years, particularly American, Asian, and Portuguese. One of the most traditional Hawaiian dishes is a kalua pig which is the equivalent to what we know as a pig roast. The kalua pig is typically the star of a Luau and it’s wrapped in banana leaves and slow roasted underground.

I wasn’t breaking out the jackhammer in Southie and digging myselff a hole in the sidewalk, so I tried to create a pork dish that would show off some of Hawaii’s contrasting flavor profiles. I love the balance that they use between sweet and spicy, and most of their traditional recipes have great contrasting textures.

I decided to slow roast a pork tenderloin, which is the tender, most delicate part of a pig. That sounds kind of strange referring to a fat animal that snorts around in its own poop as delicate, but believe me, when a pork tenderloin is not overcooked, it melts in your mouth. Why do you think you grew up smothering your pork in apple sauce? Well for one, pork and apples taste great together (as do most fruits), but also because it was overcooked. I remember chewing my grey pork for days at the dinner table, fighting to swallow even the smallest bites.

Now a days, we don’t have to cook our “other white meat” as we do chicken, because we know where our pigs come from, and what they eat. Pork should have a slight pink hue to it in order to remain juicy. Instead of apples, I decided to use plums as my fruit to compliment the pig. I seasoned the plums with Chinese Five Spice, which is a staple in Hawaiian cuisine and now one of my new favorite “reach for” spices in my cupboard.

It’s a blend of dried star anise, cloves, cinnamon, ginger, and fennel seeds. It’s very aromatic and Christmas-sy. I sprinkled it generously on top of my raw plums and then gave it a zest of fresh tangerine peel before I threw it into my oven to roast.

Roasting the plums brings out the natural sugars and juices, forming a sticky, sweet sauce that oozes out of every slice. The spice mix and citrus zest combined with the sweet fruit would have been a killer dessert with a scoop of vanilla ice cream.

I also made a paste in the food processor of garlic, fresh ginger root, and tons of macadamia nuts. This was going to act as my crust over the tenderloin as it roasts, to infuse flavors, add texture, and keeping the pig moist. I turned my oven way down to 300 degrees and let the pork cook slowly and gently. As the paste started to roast, the sweet garlic and spicy ginger perfumed the kitchen as the buttery nuts turned golden brown.

Thankfully, the tenderloin was cooking in a low oven because there were plenty of other steps involved to create this Hawaiian feast. I actually learned how to make sticky sushi rice for the first time. Surprise… it’s very similar to making regular rice except it’s extremely sticky. I stuck my fingers in to taste whether or not it was over cooked and I pulled my hand out covered in white specks. Most of Hawaii’s meals are served over a simple patty of rice so my goal was to form this ball without making a huge mess.

I failed miserably and found small kernels of rice stuck all over my body (don’t itch your face when rolling sushi rice). Siobhan rinsed her hands in rice wine vinegar which completely wiped all of the stickyness away. I also made a pineapple-habanero sauce to drizzle over the juicy roast and add a slight kick to the meal. I started off by sauteing some shallots in butter along with a halved habanero chili and some cubes of fresh pineapple.

As the fiery chili roasted, you could smell the sweetness in the skin, and the burning fire in your nostrils. I tamed some of the heat with a glug of honey before I pureed the sauce. It was quite ironic drizzling the sauce over the plate because it actually looked like a thin applesauce.

When my internal meat thermometer read 145 degrees, I pulled my roast from the oven and let it rest. The meat is still cooking even though it’s out of the oven, so a ten minute nap will bring the meat up five degrees. I thinly sliced the delicate tenderloin trying to keep the crumbly, nutty crust in tact. I plated a few slabs on top of the sushi rice and adorned it with the pineapple-habanero sauce and a few slices of roasted five spice plums. I paired this Hawaiian meal with a German Riesling from esteemed producer Dr Loosen.

The 2007 Dr Loosen Ursiger Wurzgarten Kabinett from Mosel is a terrific wine with Asian cuisine and spicy food (I just spent 20 minutes trying to find out how to get those cool, German dots of punctuation over the “U’s” on Wordpress with little success) Typically, you’ll see most pork dishes paired with medium bodied, fruity reds like Malbec, but in this case the pig is delicate and has lots of spicy flavors swarming around your palate. At around 8% alcohol, this Riesling is rather sweet, but not overly syrupy like some dessert wines.

The grapes are grown in red clay soil at a wicked high elevation creating a clean, minerally wine. The nose is spicy and fruity with an odor that smells like frozen honey. There is tons of acidity, with flavors of lime and tropical fruit. The touch of sweetness helps calm the heat in the sauce and wakens all of the flavors in the spice rub. I have never quite experienced an earthy white wine, but I can truly taste hints of the soil in the finish despite how crisp and refreshing the acidity is.

The juicy pork melted in your mouth and the crispy Macadamia nut crust was loaded with roasted garlic and ginger flavors. Hawaii is also famous for SPAM… ground pork in a can, which this dish was the polar opposite of. The pig was definitely still the star, but when dressed with all types of flavors from different cuisines it brought it to a whole new level… so good that I was tempted to break out the hula moves that Minnie taught me 23 years ago.

 One of my favorite vegetables has always been broccoli no matter how it’s prepared. Steamed, roasted, sauteed, or even grilled… its vitamin rich, dark green stalks are always delicious.

The bitter flavor is great on it’s own but when combined with other flavors such as garlic or chilies, the broccoli lives up to its full potential. One of my favorite Italian pasta dishes is orchiette (small, ear shaped pasta) with sauteed broccoli rabe and sausage. There’s something about the combination of spicy pork, and the buttery, wilted greens that really wakes up my taste buds.

Broccoli rabe, or rapini, is a member of the broccoli family that tends to be quite leafier. The stalks are edible and within all of the dark leaves, tiny little florets sprout out at the ends.

 Last night we decided to make pizza in a pan, and I wanted to incorporate all of the flavors of my favorite dish. Due to the warm weather, I have been grilling broccoli a lot lately, and the char from the grill combined with the bitter greens and some great olive oil is a wonderful combination of flavors.

 I dumped three huge bushels of rapini on my fiery hot grill and let them char on one side before removing them. I made a pesto-like concoction in my food processor with the charred broccoli rabe, lemon juice, salt, pepper, and some Pecorino cheese.

The bright green pesto was laced with black speckles from the grill and it added an amazing smoky flavor to the spread. Unfortunately we didn’t have time to make homemade pizza dough, so I grabbed some from the the supermarket and left it on the counter to rise a little bit.

 Once we had it ready to roll out, I realized that I don’t have a rolling pin, pizza stone, or anything else that is generally needed to make homemade pizza. We improvised rolled out the dough by hand and stretched it into a large skillet. The final result didn’t come out as thin as we had hoped but it was still absolutely delicious.

 I spread a thin layer of creamy mascarpone cheese on the dough before lathering on my charred broccoli rabe pesto. Next, I sliced up from fresh balls of buffalo mozzarella and arranged them on top. The contrast in colors was very eye catching. On top of all that, I sprinkled some spicy Italian sausage that I rendered down in a pan, and a dusting of Parmigiano-Reggiano.

Into the oven the pizza went, where it baked for about twenty minutes. I popped the light in the oven on a few times just to watch the thick slabs of mozzarella bubble and ooze down the sides of the crust. By the time we cut the pizza into slices, I needed a pair of scissors because the cheese was so stringy. I popped a bottle of 2006 Poliziano Vino Nobile di Montelpulciano from a small town in the hills of Tuscany. Vino Nobile or ‘Noble Wine’, is primarily Sangiovese, known locally as Prugnolo gentile, with small traces of local varieties blended in such as Caniolo Nero and Mammolo.

 This wine truly accentuates the terroir and the ancient Tuscan bond between soil, man, and culture. It’s deeply concentrated and well structured with aromas of herbs, oak and red fruit. On the palate, the wine is bursting with acidity and tons of black cherry flavor.

There is a subtle, leathery, tobacco note in the finish that plays nicely with the charred broccoli rabe. The pizza dough was crispy at the crust and pleasantly chewy in the middle. All of my favorite flavors came together on every single slice. The good part about making a huge batch of the broccoli rabe is that we have a wonderful pasta dish for tomorrow night.

I like to think of myself as a sporadic coffee drinker. I go through phases where I’ll have a few ice coffees during the summer but for the most part, my coffee intake consists of an after dinner double espresso or a scoop of coffee heath bar ice cream (sometimes single espresso and double scoop).

I don’t need the caffeine fix, I just truly love the roasted, bitter flavor of espresso. Similarly to the way the Spanish incorporate bitter chocolate into their rich mole’ sauce, I set out to infuse a barbecue sauce with the pungent flavors of dark roasted espresso beans.

The barista at Starbucks thought I was a wacko when I approached him and ordered six shots of espresso in one cup. Little did he know, I wasn’t pulling an all-nighter, but rather basting a massive pork loin roast with my java. There’s no real basic recipe for barbecue sauce.

 It’s not like you have to start with one of Escoffier’s fundamental mother sauces in order to produce a bottle of sticky, sweet muck.

There’s no real science to it but rather a few basic principals. You need tang from vinegar, and a balance of sweet and heat.

You can get those flavors from a million different ingredients from all different cultures. Even though I wanted my espresso to be the star of the show, I used an additional 25 ingredients to make my jet black mop sauce.

 I started off with a base of onion, jalapeno, and garlic, that I sauteed in some butter in a heavy bottomed pan. Then I started to layer all of the other ingredients. Dried spices came first (cayenne powder, all spice, smoked paprika), and then the vinegars (apple cider vinegar and aged Balsamic).

Then I added some traditional barbecue sauce ingredients like ketchup, molasses, Worcheshire sauce, and Soy sauce, followed by some not so typical ingredients like Cognac, Pepsi cola, Korean Black Bean paste, sesame oil, raisins, 62% Cacao dark chocolate, and of course my six shots of espresso.

 I let all of the flavors come together and reduce for over an hour until the sauce was dark and sticky. I blended it with my boat motor tool and added the last of the espresso before I transferred it to a stainless steel tub. I pulled out this rubbery mop that I picked up the other day that’s great for sloshing sticky sauces onto grilling meats and tossed it into the espresso barbecue sauce.

 I had this monstrous rack of half a dozen pork chops that I simply seasoned with salt and cracked black pepper, because once it hits the grill it would get dowsed with flavor. The tricky part about grilling a piece of pork this big is preventing flare ups because there is so much excess pork fat around the bones that constantly drips into the flames. I really had to keep an eye on it, moving it around to different parts of the grill and trying to keep the lid closed for the most part.

This is where a meat thermometer really comes in handy because a big charred piece of pork looks cooked to a crisp on the outside but the center could be still raw. Once I knew it only had about ten minutes left, I started painting my sauce on the rack. The sugars in the sauce made a sticky, sweet crust on the outside of the meat and the smoke coming out of the grill started smelling like someone was firing up an expensive espresso machine.

 While the pork was resting, I glazed some whole carrots by sauteing them in butter and a little bit of water. As the carrots cook, the water reduces and the butter glistens the orange stalks. When I cut into the roast, the meat was juicy and pink with a beautiful espresso crust. I opened a bottle of 2007 Quivera Zinfandel from Dry Creek Valley, California. Red Zinfandel is a great wine to pair with anything off the grill because of its jammy, peppery character.

 This Zin was loaded with fruits like black cherries and plums and it had an Asian spice kick to it in the finish. The fruit wasn’t too overpowering like some Zin’s can be. This bottle was much more balanced and elegant, which was great because it allowed for the espresso nuances to shine through in the sauce. I also liked the picture of the wild boar on the label because I have a minor pig obsession even though I was about to devour one.

 Ribs are something that can be prepared in hundreds of different ways, and depending on where in the United States you are, conversation about ribs can get pretty sticky. Carolina, St. Louis, Kansas City, Texas and many other BBQ hotspots are so adamant about how ribs “should” be prepared and served, that the pit masters could argue more than a Red Sox and Yankee fan.

 For the most part, American ribs are all smoked for a long period of time (which is a sign of authentic Barbecue)… but the question is, what type of wood chips should be used. Should you use a dry rub or a wet marinade? Wet sauce or no sauce at all? Vinegar based sauce or mustard based? Sweet sauce or spicy sauce? The variables are endless. I took the authentic Barbecue out of the equation because I don’t have a smoker and I wanted to create something a little bit different.

What American Q Masters don’t realize is that other countries cook just as much pork ribs as they do, but in different ways. Sweet and sticky pork ribs are a staple in Chinese cuisine, and the Italians would NEVER discard any part of a pig let alone mask the natural pork flavor by smoking it.

The only real requirement for cooking pork ribs is that they must be cooked slowly over low heat in order to achieve that ‘fall off the bone” tenderness. I had nothing to do on Sunday afternoon, so I picked up a few racks and got started on a dry rub for my slow roasted, Tuscan style pork ribs.

I snipped a bushel of fresh sage and rosemary from my new herb garden that was overflowing on my deck. The bright green leaves were healthy and extremely aromatic. I chopped up the fresh herbs and added some whole fennel seeds, salt, freshly cracked black pepper, dried chili flakes, coriander, brown sugar, and tons of freshly minced garlic.

After coating the racks with extra virgin olive oil I gave them a thorough rub down with the seasoning I created and tossed them into the fridge to marinate. After about two hours, I took them out and brought them to room temperature.

Slow and low is the phrase that describes how these slabs of pork cook, because right off the bat, the meat is too tough to even chew. The low, steady temperature and hours of cooking time slowly breaks down the fibrous meat and leaves you with pork that melts in your mouth. I set my oven to 220 degrees, threw the racks in and forgot about them for five hours (well… it was was hard to completely forget about them with the smell of roasting garlic, fresh herbs, and dripping pork fat permeating the kitchen)!

In the meantime, I multi-tasked prepping my side dishes and flipping back and forth between the Celtics and Red Sox. I fired up the grill and tossed a bowl full of red and yellow bell peppers onto the smoking grates.

 I let the peppers char on all sides before returning them to the bowl and covering them with plastic wrap. Don’t worry if they look burnt… they are burnt, but when you carefully peel away the skin, you’re left with a juicy, tender, filet of roasted pepper. Make sure you cover the charred peppers right away so that they steam in the bowl to finish cooking and to let some of the smoky goodness seep into the flesh of the veggie. I sliced them into thin strips and tossed them with some extra virgin olive oil and a squirt of honey. I made a split second decision before the ribs went in, and realized that I should probably cook the potatoes first because no one wants to eat potatoes that were roasted at 220 degrees.

 A Tuscan feast wouldn’t be a Tuscan feast without a nice bottle of  red wine from the heart of Italy. The 2006 Gaja Ca’ Marcanda Promis is a “Super Tuscan”, which began as a marketing term but loosely refers to all Tuscan wines that blend their classic Sangiovese with other grapes such as Cabernet, Merlot, and Syrah.

 This wine is made by Angelo Gaja, a pioneer winemaker who is famous for his wines from Piedmont, but somewhat recently bought land in Tuscany to grow some different grapes. He made the Promis by blending 55% Merlot, 35% Syrah, and 10% Sangiovese. The elegant, and sexy Merlot blended with the Old World style Sangiovese is a great match, especially with a hefty chunk of Syrah to enhance the wine’s backbone. The wine is bright red, and full bodied with flavors of cherries, raspberries, leather, and grilled herbs (a classic Tuscan characteristic and perfect with the ribs). I opened it an hour before serving to let it breath and allow the flavors to develop. When the ribs came out of the oven, I sliced them in between the bones and scattered them in a pan.

They were delicious but needed something else. I decided to fire them under the broiler in a puddle of aged Sherry vinegar. The open flames crisped the outside of the ribs and the vinegar sizzled away. After a few minutes, they were perfect. The rich vinegar gave the savory ribs that extra pop of acidity and tang that they needed. Served atop a mound of roasted potatoes and shallots, and next to a pile of sweet,roasted peppers, these Tuscan style ribs were amazing. The meat was hanging off of the bones, and seemed to dissolve on your tongue. Flavors of the rich herbs, with the nutty fennel, sweet brown sugar, and spicy chili flakes made my lips tingle. After rifling through about a rack and half, I took a sip of the Super Tuscan. It seemed quite strange drinking such an elegant wine while holding my Riedel stemware in a hand covered in pork juice. I still went through about a roll of paper towels and needed a shower after dinner, but it was totally worth it.