Nathaniel's Amazing Sausage and Apple Pizza

This pizza was created (and baked) by Nathaniel with me helping out. It is one of the best pizzas I ever tasted. It's based off of a bacon and apple one they do at Otto where here worked in Boston. The taste combination was just terrific. The sausage was called Linguica  from a local farm. It was mildly spicy and had a rich wine flavor, paring well with the apple, fresh mozzarella cheese and herbed crust.

Ingredients:

pizza dough, herbed (could use plain)
garlic, 4 large cloves minced
olive oil
half and half, about 2 T
oregano
about 1 lb. Linguica  pork sausage
med red onion, thin sliced
1 Gold Rush (sweet-tart) apple, thin sliced in crescents
Asiago cheese, about 2 oz. plane grated (could use a medium hot sausage of most kinds)
1 lb. ball fresh mozzarella cheese, sliced in rounds
fresh ground pepper
salt

8 slices
Preheat oven to 500 or Broil.

Directions:

1. If refrigerated, set dough out to warm while you prep.
2. Prep garlic. Put cloves of the minced garlic into 1/3 c. olive oil to steep. Reserve rest.
3. Slice sausage and cook in large skillet--high heat, then lower until cooked through. (About 1/2 in. slices or as thin as you can make it.) Remove from pan.
4. Add onions to pan on high heat until soft, then low for at least 5 min. 
5. Flatten and stretch dough to 16" circle. Sprinkle corn meal on pizza pan (or oil it), then lay dough on it.
6. Brush dough with garlic oil then layer on in this order: 1/2 Asiago cheese, black pepper, apple, cream, onions, minced garlic, mozzarella, sausage, oregano, salt, and top with rest of Asiago.
7. Cook on top shelf in oven 12 min. or until edges are nicely toasted.

 2 slices is a good serving as it's very rich and delicious!

Warm Winter Fish Chowder

This is a fish chowder I cooked up on a coldish rainy day in February. All foods were local and in season except for the tomato sauce I made last summer and froze. It's a not too creamy but well blended group of flavors and had a beautiful pinkish tinge from the cream and tomato sauce together. The Brussels sprouts were a bit of a risk but I used them in lieu of something sweet like corn. I think they worked well.  Here's how it went:


Serves 4-6 as main course.

Ingredients:

3 thick slices bacon
1 large onion, chopped small
2/3 of a head of garlic, minced
1 med carrot, chopped small
1 pt. Brussels sprouts, chunky chopped into 4-6 pieces each
2 large Yukon potatoes, peeled and 1/2 in. diced
1 small fillet flounder
1 med. fillet monk fish
4 large dry scallops
1 1/2 cups heavy cream
1 cup whole milk
2 T butter
salt and pepper
Cajun season mix
2 T olive oil
1/2 bunch parsley

Directions

1. In a large soup pot, slow cook bacon slices whole, rending as much fat out as possible.
2. While bacon is cooking (maybe 20 min, turned occasionally), prep veggies--onions, carrot, garlic, potatoes, sprouts.
3. Remove bacon from pan and reserve. Add chopped onions and carrots on high heat. Soften, then turn to low heat, add, garlic, mix through, and let caramelize for maybe 5-10 minutes.
4. While veggies caramelize, first prep parsley by rough chopping enough leaves to garnish soup--3-4 T. Then fine chop the rest, stems and all. 
5.  Prep fish by cutting into bite-size pieces--about 1 in. chunks. I cut scallops into eighths. Put in a bowl. Add 2T olive oil, 1 T Cajun season, 1/4 t salt, and fine chopped parsley. Stir in gently with rubber spatula and let sit.
6. After  veggies caramelized a while, push to sides of pot. Turn heat to high, and add sprouts to center of pot. Let sit for 3-4 minutes, then mix it and continue on high heat. 
7. After about 4 min., stirring frequently, add the tomato sauce. Heat through. 
8. Add the diced potatoes and then add enough boiling water to cover them well--probably 3-5 cups. Bring to boil, then let simmer until potatoes are soft.
9. Add fish and more water if needed to cover well. Bring to boil and simmer for 2-3 minutes or until fish tastes well done.
10. While fish is simmering, dice the three pieces of bacon for garnish.
11. Add cream and mile a bit at a time, stirring with rubber spatula. Add the butter and stir in.
12. Adjust for salt and a generous about of fresh ground black pepper.
13. Ladle into wide bowls and garnish first with bacon and then parsley.

We ate this simply with some oil crackers and a mixed green salad with Balsamic vinaigrette.  Very warming, tasty, and satisfying.

Carnival 2013: with Roasted Beet Soup recipe

Just wanted to record the feast prepared for Carnival 2013, a nice quiet dinner for 6:

appetizer:

brochette with sauteed pea greens and garlic; brochette or cracker with Doe Run Barn Owl cheese (very bloomy); carrot squares with Shepherd's Hollow Blue de Ewe cheese. 

-->The sauteed pea greens and garlic came out particularly well. Small amount of oil to toast the two cloves of minced garlic, then what probably amounted to two cups plus of pea greens, just past wilted. One teaspoon full spread on each toasted baguette round. Also prepared the carrots in squares by using very large (but good) storage carrots--maybe a 1 1/2 to 2 in. diameter--and slicing them into 1/4 inch slabs then cutting those to roughly square pieces. Crumbled the blue on top. A great pairing.

soup:

variation on Roasted Beet Soup with Creme Fraiche

Here's the recipe. I altered a recipe from epicurious.com to create it:

Ingredients:

8 med. beets, roasted at 350 for 1.5 hrs.

3 med. leeks, white end only, sliced

1/2 med. red onion, thin sliced

3 T butter

1/4 t each of ground ginger, allspice, and white pepper

2 bay leaves

sprigs of fresh thyme

4 sprigs fresh parsley

3+ cups water

creme fraiche (optional)

salt to taste

Directions.

1. Roast and peel beets. Cut 1/2 of one into small cubes. Reserve for garnish.
2. Saute leeks and onion in pan until soft and starting to brown.
3. Add spices and beets, quartered. Simmer for 10-15 min. Adjust salt. Remove bay and sprigs as much as possible.
4. Puree and add water to make a medium consistency.
5. Let cool to room temperature. 
6. Serve each bowl with handful of beet cubes and garnish with sprig fresh thyme. Also garnish with creme fraiche if desired. (I served without and like the lightness of it as a first course.)

entree

my version of a traditional Galician Cocido: pork, chicken, beef, chorizo, greens, chick peas, cabbage, carrots, and potatoes

It will be based on what I did in 2011 (nice picture of Nathaniel eating it), the description of it in John Barlow's Everything but the Squeal, and my friend Anxo's description of what his mother prepared every Sunday.  This is also traditional Carnival fare in Galicia. 
This dish included:
*1/2 of a smoked chicken, about 5-6 lb. chicken
*about 2 lb. or country pork ribs that I covered in about 3 lb. of salt with a maybe a 1/2 cup of my dry rub mixed in. cured overnight in refrigerator.
*a beef chuck roast of about 2 1/2 lb.
*2 lb. of fresh Chorizo sausage
*about 2 lb. of pork cheeks
Seared all of the meats first, then braised in a lot of liquid for about six hours. Added soaked chick peas after about three hours of cooking. Also cooked separately: 5 Yukon potatoes, 2 very large carrots, 1 small head purple cabbage. Cooked cabbage, then changed water, added others, and added a few cups of the meat stock.

salad

Boston lettuce with radishes and mustard vinaigrette and salted sweet potato chips.

dessert

fried Haloumi cheese with pear and spiced dates
Recipe from Spice by Ana Sortun. Used Tina's homemade plum brandy instead of the recipe ouzo for flambe. 

chocolates by John & Kira with decaf San Francisco blend from Old City Coffee