We went to Aldi’s the other day and happened to find what appeared to be a perfectly cut and Frenched 4-pound pork rib roast for about $12.00. I decided to prepare it the following night, using a recipe by Frank Stitt from the Food & Wine website. Since I hadn’t intended to write It up for the blog, there are no photos. However, the roast turned out so well, that I decided to post my adaptation of the original recipe, which was influenced by the National Pork Board’s video for cooking this particular cut.
One of my father’s favorite dishes pastafagioli; whenever we dined at our neighborhood Italian restaurant, it was always his choice for a first course. He glowed with contentment as the waiter set the bowl of beans and pasta in a thick tomatoey broth in front of him and after a few spoonfuls, he’d inevitably proclaim it as “a meal in itself.”
A slew of hot and sticky summer days, as well as nights, elicited the subject of this post: a coronation chicken salad. On one of those sultry evenings, our neighbors surprised us with a huge rotisserie chicken: “It’s too hot to cook” they said, “take the night off.” The bird was so big that its legs and wings were enough to sate our appetites, leaving us with more than enough meat for another meal. The following day was another scorcher, which made that leftover chicken sitting in the fridge even more appealing.
During COVID, we relied heavily on home delivery of our groceries from the supermarket as well as from shopping channels like QVC and HSN. And even now that the pandemic has been declared officially over, we still do a lot of shopping online since we’ve opted not to have a car and also because I’m still wary of crowded stores with narrow aisles. Throughout this period, one of our staples has been frozen salmon fillets which have been remarkably good albeit challenging to cook owing to their irregular size. So, when we get two almost identical fillets, I turn to one of my favorite recipes for them: salmon meuniere.
I’ve never been into grilling; yet despite my stance on it, we’ve owned three. Our first one was a small electric that we had purchased for our small terrace in our New York studio apartment. We used it three times. When we moved to a downtown-San Diego one-bedroom condo, with a considerably larger terrace, we bought a medium-size gas grill and used that no more than four times before we gave it away when we moved to New Jersey. So last year, now situated in a rural suburban townhouse, with quite a large deck that’s fitted with a natural-gas hookup, we bought an even larger grill and, as you might have already guessed, we used it maybe five times. This year, however, we decided it was time to join the grilling craze and began our outdoor grilling season with a huge ginger-soy London broil.
Several weeks ago, my better half asked me to watch an episode of The Barefoot Contessa on the Food Network. The show featured Ina Garten making an oven-roasted Southern shrimp boil. Although I was skeptical at first about a roasted boil, I eventually understood that boiling was being swapped by pan roasting but maintaining all the makings of a shrimp boil. Needless to say, I was impressed.
So yesterday, shortly after our weekly grocery shipment arrived, my husband called me into the kitchen, where he had artfully arrayed all the ingredients for the dish and said, “Guess what we’re having for dinner?” It wasn’t until later that evening, after we started to prep, that we realized we had way too much food for two. A few minutes later, my husband returned with a slight grin and said “Guess who’s coming to dinner?” He had extended a last-minute invite to some neighbors who were planning to dine out and happily agreed to partake in our spread.
It was a feast indeed, perfectly tender shrimp in their shells, accompanied by spicy kielbasa, sweet, almost-summer corn, earthy roasted potatoes, all spiced with the typical seafood boil Old Bay seasoning, drizzled with lemon juice, and sprinkled with fresh parsley. A quintessential summer meal with which to celebrate the Memorial Day weekend on our deck.
Oven Roasted Southern Shrimp “Boil” (adapted from “Be My Guest with Ina Garten” on the Food Network.)
Ingredients
Ingredients
1 pound small (1-inch diameter) Yukon Gold potatoes, halved Extra-virgin olive oil Old Bay seasoning Kosher salt and freshly ground black pepper 3 ears corn, husked and cut across in 1½-inch chunks 1 pound smoked kielbasa, sliced ½-inch-thick diagonally 1½ pounds large (16- to 20-count) shrimp in the shell 2½ tablespoons minced fresh parsley 2 lemons
Prepped Ingredients
Directions
1. Preheat the oven to 425 degrees F.
2. In a large (13 x 16-inch) roasting pan, toss the potatoes with 1½ tablespoons olive oil, 1½ teaspoons Old Bay seasoning, ½ teaspoon salt, and ¼ teaspoon pepper. Spread the potatoes in a single layer, cut sides down, and roast for 12 minutes.
Potatoes with oil and seasoning
3. Meanwhile, place the corn in a medium bowl, add 1½ tablespoons olive oil, 1½teaspoons Old Bay seasoning, ½ teaspoon salt, and ¼ teaspoon pepper and toss well.
Seasoned corn
4. When the potatoes are done, turn them with a small spatula and spread out in the pan.
Turning the potatoes
5. Add the corn and kielbasa, toss with a spatula, and roast for 10 minutes.
Adding corn and kielbasa
6. Meanwhile, place the shrimp in the same bowl and toss with 1 ½tablespoons olive oil, 2 teaspoons Old Bay seasoning, ½teaspoon salt, and ¼ teaspoon pepper.
Seasoned shrimp
7. Add the shrimp to the pan and roast for 10 to 15 minutes, tossing halfway through, until the shrimp are just cooked through.
Adding the shrimp
8. Sprinkle with the parsley and the juice of one lemon.
Sprinkled with lemon juice and parsley
9. Cut the second lemon in wedges and serve hot in large warmed bowls with the lemon wedges and an extra bowl for discarding the corn cobs and shells.
Plated
Wine Pairing: Sauvignon Blanc, Chardonnay, or Beer
Although I’m fearless when it comes to preparing seafood, I wince when it comes to cooking fresh fish. But every so often, I come across a recipe that prompts me to face my fears and take on one of those scaly creatures. I must admit, however, that having skinned and sliced salmon fillets makes the feat far less daunting.
Sometimes I just want or even have to cook something simple yet tasty. Such was the case yesterday, when I realized all the work my initial recipe for this post required and that I didn’t have the time to make it. Consequently, I opted for a far less complicated dish that despite its simplicity yielded loads of flavor: Crispy Baked Chicken.
Last week, I decided to proffer a farewell to winter and welcome in spring with a classic beef stew. Although my original choice for a recipe, one from Sally Schmitt’s Six California Kitchens, appealed to me for its simplicity, on second look, its lack of a thickener for a gravy and its relatively quick time for cooking the vegetables (15 minutes on high) after simmering the meat on the stove for two hours gave me some pause. Eventually, a search through my bookshelves led me to a similar recipe from the Cook’s Illustrated Cookbook that addressed my concerns with the first and required only a little more effort. That it called for oven rather than stove-top cooking made it even more attractive.
Spotting two perfectly plump pork chops on a recent trip to the market inspired this week’s post. Each weighed a little more than a pound and measured at least 1½-inch thick; the ideal size for an Italian-American recipe I’ve been wanting to make for some time: Pork Chops with Vinegar Peppers from Patsy’s Cookbook by Sal Scognamillo.
Similar to a dish I wrote about here almost 9 years ago that was based on my mother’s recipe, this one also has a family tie. My father was the attorney for Patsy Scognamillo and urged him to buy the building on New York’s West 56th Street, where Patsy’s continues to be one of the city’s landmark restaurants. It was one of the few restaurants that met my father’s stringent standards for the Neapolitan (or at least Italian-American) food with which he grew up. Who knows; these pork chops could have been a favorite.
Cooking from Books 