If you can’t take the heat, make pesto

Pasta with Pesto

To me, there are a few things that are sure indications of the arrival of summer: the first fireflies, the smell of honeysuckle, and the first pesto of the season.  While you can buy hothouse basil year round, at least in New York City, it’s a pale imitation of the local and seasonal variety.  In addition to being delicious, pesto has the advantage of keeping the kitchen cool on even the hottest of days, requiring no heat besides what’s needed to boil pasta.

Basil is thought to have originated in India, but had made it’s way to Italy several millennia ago; a cheese spread containing basil may have been among other Roman accomplishments.  Pesto as we know it originated in Genoa, probably in the 17^th century, and the word itself is derived from the original method of preparation; the basil and other ingredients were pounded, and even today, esteemed Italian cooking authority Marcella Hazen insists that the best and most authentic and way to prepare pesto is with a mortar and pestle. 

I have a mortar and pestle, languishing at the back of a cupboard.  It was originally purchased for correct and authentic food preparation, and eventually got downgraded to occasional use for pulverizing spices.   Finally, I bought an extra coffee grinder for that purpose, and while it, along with the modern food processor, grind rather than pound ingredients, the difference in texture is negligible, possibly even improved, and preparing food is not meant to be penance or historical reenactment. I suspect that a 17^th century Genoese housewife would have been delighted to have a Cuisinart ™.   

Marcella also tells me that “true” pesto is made with pine nuts and finished with Parmesan and Romano cheeses, and butter.  I do not use butter, but cream, and while pine nuts may be cheap in Italy, they’re expensive in Brooklyn, so I use walnuts. Strictly speaking, pesto is made with basil, but there are many wonderful pesto-like variations that can be made with mint, arugula, or parsley, with different kinds of nuts, and oil in more or less the same proportion.    I’ve even seen varieties without nuts but with the addition of olives, sun dried tomato or another savory ingredient.  The food police will not batter down your door for trying new things.

The following pesto recipe is not the most authentic, but it is the one I make.  I like it.  My kids like it.  You might like it too.

BASIC PESTO

One pound of pasta, made as directed, will serve four hungry people.

Ingredients:

2 Cups fresh basil leaves, washed and patted dry

4 cloves of garlic, peeled and smashed, less if you don’t care for a raw garlic taste

1 Cup shelled walnuts

1 Cup olive oil, extra virgin preferred

1 Cup grated Parmesan

¼ Cup grated Romano

The Method:

• Place basil, walnuts and garlic in the bowl of a food processor, process until coarsely chopped.
• With the motor running, slowly add the olive oil.
• At this point, if you want to freeze some (it will keep for months) do so before proceeding to the next step.
• Turn motor off, add cheeses, and briefly process until just combined.

For pasta with pesto:

• Put water up to boil.  Before draining, reserve a little water, maybe a half a cup.  Drain pasta.
• Combine ¼ C of cream with 1 Cup of pesto and a liberal grinding of black pepper.  If you like, add salt to taste, but keep in mind that the cheese itself is salty. 
• Toss the pesto mixture with one pound of pasta.  If the sauce looks too thick, add reserved pasta water as needed.

While pesto is excellent on pasta, you can also mix it with (preferably homemade) mayonnaise, put it on fish, use it in a sandwich, even mix it with scrambled eggs; you’re limited only by your creativity, and even if you make a single batch, you’ll have plenty left over for experimentation.

About the pasta:  many restaurants use penne.  Italian cooking purists use spaghetti or a fine linguine.  I like a smaller, shaped pasta that will hold the sauce and prefer campanelle, easily available in my traditionally Italian neighborhood.    Go ahead, use whatever shape you like best. 

campanelle

If you’re having a busy week, you can make the pesto the night before.  On your way home from the subway or however you get around, pick up a loaf of crusty bread, and while the water is boiling, you might want to make a tomato and onion salad.  If you happen to have a bottle of crisp white wine, you have a perfect summer meal.

Buon Appetito!

What's for dinner? The new food plate.

“I’m having my wisdom teeth out tomorrow.  What should I get?”  My friend Janie was not asking a pharmacist, physician or even a local drug dealer, but a waitress.  We were in college, eating lunch at a macrobiotic restaurant in Soho (my suggestion) and my friend looked expectantly at the waitress as if she were the sibyl at the Oracle of Delphi.  After some deliberation, minus sheep entrails, and failing to speak in hexameter, the waitress answered. “Burdock root.  It purifies the blood.”  Janie seemed pleased with the answer and dutifully ordered the gummy root.  I know now what I knew then:  Janie’s teeth would have come out uneventfully regardless of what she had for lunch, and she would have lived to tell about it even if she’d had a cheeseburger.

Having dental surgery?  Depressed?  Need energy or a memory boost? There’s a food for that.  I have no idea if burdock root really is good for the blood, stimulates digestion, promotes optimal kidney function or makes hair grow on your chest.   Eating medicinally is, I think, anything from unwise to ineffective, although I would never deny the benefits of certain foods.  If you happen to be stuck on a sailing vessel for months at a time, limes, which will keep well without refrigeration, really will prevent scurvy.  If you’re stationed in the tropics without access to modern medicine, quinine will help prevent malaria, and the caffeine I’m drinking now is making me more awake, or at least less likely to nap immediately.  Food is not meant to be prescriptive, but fuel for the body, although there can be no doubt in the relationship between health and what we eat.  Significant excess weight around the mid-section is statistically linked to increased rates of type II diabetes, high blood pressure, and heart disease, and more people will enjoy better health if they carry less excess weight and eat more vegetables.  Mrs. Obama and I agree on that much.  Actually, as a lifelong Democrat and an Obama supporter, we agree on much more, but I do not like her food plate.

As a simple reminder to eat more fruits and vegetables, it’s great.  As an advisory of what to eat, it’s confusing.  This is what it looks like: 

The old pyramid

Dr. Walter C. Willet of the Harvard School of Public Health pointed out that it would be hard not to improve on the most recently used food pyramid, and he’s right.  It gave almost no indication that it had anything to do with nutrition and looked like a gay pride icon for overcoming obstacles.    It’s an improvement that the new plate actually lists food groups, but I’m not sure what it’s telling me to do and I’m a slender and informed whole foods enthusiast.  Someone with less interest or knowledge would be lost.  The Web site, www.myplate.gov, has some good explanations and additional guidelines, but it’s preaching to the choir; people who aren’t already interested are unlikely look at it.  Still, there doesn’t seem to be anything controversial or debatable on the plate, unless you consider all those fruits and vegetables.

A moderately active grown man might consume 2,000 calories a day, and the drawing of the food plate doesn’t indicate if proportions are intended to be volume or calories; we can only hope for the former.   It would be difficult for even the most enthusiastic salad lover to eat 1000 calories of vegetables and fruits daily; a person would need to eat nearly constantly.  Even 50% in volume could be unattainable.  Fresh food is expensive, and while it costs more money to raise, feed, and slaughter and process cattle than to grow plants, it’s cheaper to feed a family from the McDonald’s dollar menu.  That’s not even considering the realities of many urban neighborhoods, were the only local store might be a bodega with a few anemic-looking limes and onions, and some bunches of plantains.  The new food plate would have been far more newsworthy if it was unveiled with an accompanying new food policy.

Food should not be difficult to understand.  We have this chart on our refrigerator:

Whether you agree with it or not, it’s broken down into proportions you can visualize, and even has pictures, in case you’re not sure what constitutes a grain or what a legume might be.  I like this one even better because it shows people engaged in daily physical exercise: 

 They’re not at a gym, but look like they’re having fun, doing things like walking and dancing.  It also shows red wine, considered a key component in both the misnamed Mediterranean diet, and in the French Paradox.

Until recently, when fast food started to make serious inroads, the French had the second lowest rate of heart disease in the world, but consumed more saturated fat than any other nation.  Country pates, cheese, lots of meat, amazingly rich desserts, it seemed like the French ate whatever they wanted.  In truth, on a daily basis, they ate smaller portions than we’re accustomed to, walked more, used tons of garlic in their cooking and drank wine with meals, which metabolizes differently than a drink without food.  Incidentally, the nation with the lowest rate of heart disease was Japan, with a diet rich in fish and vegetables.

On average, Americans eat half a pound of beef a day and over 3 cups of sugar a week.  Eating smaller portions, less fatty meat and less sugar can’t be anything but good, but that doesn’t mean we have to banish old favorites forever.   Eating is both pleasurable and emotional for most people, and it should be.  It should taste good.   If anyone had consulted with me when new guidelines were being drawn up, this is what I would have said. 

• Walk a little each day.
• Choose fresh food over processed when you can.
• Have a cheeseburger if you like, but maybe weekly rather than daily.
• Cut down on sugar; you don’t have to cut it out.
• Seriously, eat your vegetables, the way your mother told you do to.
• Enjoy what you eat.

Good and clear food charts are available, and I’m not sure why they couldn’t be modified for our plate shape.  Presumably the best and the brightest minds in Washington worked on the problem and it’s hard to believe that this is the best they could do. I’m a big fan of Michael Pollan and can’t top his seven-word advice.  Neither could Mrs. Obama or her advisors:

Eat food.  Mostly plants.  Not too much.

Red Velvet Cupcakes

Like sunny days or the smell of fresh mown grass, it’s hard not to love a cupcake.  They’re light, bright, colorful, fun and irresistible.  It’s not that innovate bakers haven’t produced beautiful and elaborately decorated cupcakes, or used savory ingredients like salmon or blue cheese.  It’s not like there isn’t a place in baking for ganache or pate choux.  While those things are lovely, they’re foreign to the essence of a cupcake, which has more to do with simple and unbridled joy than sophisticated or complicated tastes.  Biting into a cupcake should make you feel happy, should be just enough for one person, and should be easy to look at and eat.  When you bite into a cupcake, your only culinary thought should be if it tastes good, and judging by the reception my red velvet cupcakes recently received, they got an enthusiastic yes.

The origins of red velvet cake are unclear.  One food historian will assure you that it’s a southern specialty while another will tell you that it originated in a Canadian department store.  Still others think that it’s a recipe developed at the Waldorf Astoria Hotel in the 1920s.   There are a few things everyone can agree on: the cake is red, contains cocoa powder, but not too much, and is usually topped with cream cheese frosting.  I had heard of but never seen it until sometime in the mid 1990s, when every New York City bakery started to offer it, first by the slice (or whole cake, if you were feeling either festive or piggy) and then in convenient cupcake form.  It’s easy enough to make at home, and because the batter doesn’t take well to large production methods, it’s also easy to improve on the red velvet cake and cupcakes of the most popular bakeries.  My cupcake recipe follows below, but first a few notes on the baking process in general and the red velvet process in particular.

• In baking, the proportion of dry to liquid ingredients is important, as is your oven temperature.  Be as precise as possible, work as carefully as possible, and only use large eggs or your liquid measures will be off.
• Make sure to completely integrate the flour mixture into the batter to insure an even crumb.
• In general, cake recipes do not always translate seamlessly into cupcakes, so if you’re using a cake recipe, do a test batch before serving to company.
• Unless you’re fortunate enough to have a completely non-staining countertop, like quartz, you will want to put something down on your work surface when adding the food coloring.   Otherwise, be prepared to put some elbow grease into removing the stain; red food coloring has a way of getting all over.
• I use a stand mixer, but a small handheld will work just fine.
• You will want to do some quality assurance, as well you should.  Resist the temptation to “test” your cupcakes when they’re still warm; the texture will not be the same as when served.
• Wait until cupcakes are completely cooled before frosting.

RED VELVET CUPCAKES

The Ingredients:

 2 1/2 cups all-purpose flour

 1 teaspoon salt

 1/2 cup (one stick) unsalted butter, softened

 1 1/2 cups sugar

 2 large eggs

 2 tablespoons cocoa powder, preferably Dutch processed

 2 ounces red food coloring (you can use a one-once bottle and it will still be plenty red, or go for the full two ounces; it’s a matter of how bright you like your cake)

 1 cup buttermilk

 1 teaspoon vanilla extract

 2 ounces water

 1 teaspoon white vinegar

 1 teaspoon baking soda

The Method:

• Let butter soften at room temperature
• Preheat oven to 350 and place pan liners in muffin or cupcake pan.
• Beat butter and sugar until creamy.  You’ll want to do this at a high speed.
• Add eggs and blend well.  You’ll want to reduce the speed or you’ll have a nasty mess.
• Make a paste of the cocoa and red food coloring and add to the butter mixture.
• Sift flour and salt together into this mixture, adding about ¼ of the total and blending in before adding more.  Use a low speed and be careful not to over beat.
• One at a time add the buttermilk, vanilla and water, integrating each before adding the next.
• In a small bowl, combine the vinegar and baking soda.  Remember making those volcanoes in grade school?  Same thing.  The mixture will get foamy.  Carefully fold this frothing mixture into the batter – the bubbles will make for a lighter and fluffier batter, so you don’t want to beat.
• Pour the batter into cupcake tins.  The neatest way to do this is to spoon, rather than pour the very red mixture.
• Bake for 15-20 minutes, until the cake springs back when touched.  For me, this was closer to 20 minutes, but your mileage may vary.
• Remove from the oven and allow to cool before remove the cupcakes to a wire rack to cool more.  If you have leftover batter (you probably will) wait until the tin is cool before putting in more liners, the rest of the batter and baking.

The Icing:

This is classic cream cheese frosting.  Some people like it sweeter, and if you’re one of them, by all means, use more sugar.  If you like and want truly psychedelic cupcakes, you can add a different food color to the frosting, but I prefer the contrast of red and white.

Ingredients:

2 8 oz. bars cream cheese

1 stick softened butter

1 teaspoon vanilla

2 ½ cups confectioners’ sugar

The Method:

Beat cream cheese and butter until fluffy.

Add vanilla.

Add the sugar, ½ cup at a time until you have the desired taste and consistency.

Frost cooled cupcakes with a spatula.

If you like, you can decorate with confetti or other cake decorations, or for the Fourth of July, try a garnish of fresh blueberries.

Have fun!