This wonderfully-satisfying pasta dish should be an absolute cinch to put together, once some good fresh smoked eel has been located, but I seem to be married to the original recipe I had found a while back, even if I’ve modified it slightly since, and I still have to pay attention to its instructions and a sequence of the steps that seems not quite intuitive.

By the way, I halved the recipe this time, meaning I decided deliberately not to have leftovers for another day

Still, it really isn’t at all difficult, especially since I didn’t have to go out to some cold shore in early February with my ancient 7-foot Rhode Island eel fork.

• two large cloves of Rocambole garlic Keith’s Farm, sliced thinly, heated in a vintage high-sided, heavy, tin-lined copper pot over a medium-high flame, along with one whole dried pepper Itria-Sirissi chili, peperoncino di Sardegna intero from Buon Italia, until the garlic was almost starting to color, 11 ounces of smoked eel from P.E.& D.D. Seafood in the Union Square Greenmarket, skinned, debonedand broken into small pieces, added and tossed until warmed through, half of some savory pangrattato* prepared only a little earlier mixed in and combined with it, the cooked and drained pasta (8 ounces of Afeltra 100% grano italiano spaghetti, produced in Gragnano, from Eataly Flatiron), added to the pan, tossed with the eel and pangratto and stirred over low heat for a couple of minutes, just under a cup of the reserved pasta water gradually added while doing so, served in low bowls, where the pasta was sprinkled with more pangrattato and finished with chopped Japanese scallions from Norwich Meadows Farm

*For the preparation of the pangrattato about a third of a cup of homemade breadcrumbs were added to about a fourth of a cup of olive oil in which two thinly-sliced Keith’s Farm garlic cloves and 2 large salted anchovies from Buon Italia, rinsed and filleted, had been heated for a short while, then stirred for 4 or 5 minutes, the mixture then drained on paper toweling, bringing it back to room temperature

• the wine was an Italian (Marche) white, La Monacesca Verdicchio di Matelica 2013, from Garnet Wines & Liquors
• the music was Mozart and Da Ponte’s 1786 opera, ‘Le Nozze di Figaro’,  John Eliot Gardiner
  conducting the English Baroque Soloists and the Monteverdi Choir, with soloists Rodney Gilfry, Susan McCulloch, Carlos Feller, Bryn Terfel, Hillevi Martinpelto, Francis Egerton, Julian Clarkson, Constanze Backes, Lucinda Houghton, Pamela Helen Stephen, Sarah Connolly, and Alison Hagley

It was the eve of Christmas, La Vigilia, in southern Italy, and in Italian-American families, Festa dei sette pesci, but as we’re neither Italian nor Catholic, I thought we could get away with just one fish last night.

But it was a very special fish, and there was pasta too!

• one large cloves of Rocambole garlic from Keith’s Farm, sliced thinly, heated inside a deep enameled cast iron pan over medium-high flame, along with one dried whole hot pepper, dried Sicilian pepperoncino from Buon Italia, and a bit of crushed, dark, home-dried heatless Habanada pepper (gathered fresh from Norwich Meadows Farm last year), until the garlic was almost starting to color, pieces of half of a skinned and boned smoked local eel from P.E. & D.D. Seafood added and stirred until warmed through, half of the amount of a savory pangrattato*, prepared earlier, mixed in and stirred to combine, the cooked and drained pasta (8 ounces of Setaro spaghetti from Buon Italia), added to the pan, tossed with the eel and pangrattato and stirred over low heat for a couple of minutes, adding more than a cup of the reserved pasta water while doing so to keep the mix moist, the dish served in low bowls, where it was sprinkled with more pangrattato and finished with slices of several tiny scallions from Willow Wisp Farm

*The pangrattato was prepared by adding about a third of a cup of homemade breadcrumbs to about a fourth of a cup of olive oil in which more thinly-sliced Rocambole garlic cloves and 2 rinsed salted anchovies from Buon Italia had been heated for a short while, and, after being stirred for 4 or 5 minutes, the mixture was drained onto paper toweling, bringing it to room temperature, then placed inside a small bowl

• the wine was an Italian (Toscana) white, Villa Antinori Bianco 2016
• the music was a recording of a beautiful performance of Handel’s 1738-1739 oratorial, ‘Saul’, with Rosemary Joshua, Emma Bell, Lawrence Zazzo, and Jeremy Ovenden, among others, René Jacobs directing Concerto Cologne Berlin RIAS Chamber Chorus [while it was Christmas Eve, we thought we’d already listened to a lot of New Testament music this week, so we’e go for the old one for a change]

Yes.

A delicious winter picnic at home, with a very heavy German accent (the picnic, that is).

Unusual for this site, the leading image (here the only one) is of the entire old birch table, rather than just one of the plates: I thought it this view would cover more ground, so to speak.

The breads were nearly as important to the meal as the fish and the meat. The sturdy New York state sourdough combined the attributes of a traditional German bread with varieties introduced more recently into a culture looking for even more diversity in foods already very wholesome.

The pumpernickel however (on the upper right in the picture), with its “characteristic deep brown color, sweet, dark chocolate, coffee flavor, and earthy aroma” [a description found in Wikipedia], and especially when it is in this intense, compact form, is totally German. Its addictive virtues (along with those of all the other varieties of thin, heavy, moist Vollkornbrot), made it one of the first things I fell in love with when I arrived in Hannover in June, 1961; I ate it like candy. I think these pre-packaged treasures, of any grain, are the only commercial breads – and the only sliced breads – I would ever expect to bring home.

• one small (8-ounce) local (Long Island) whole smoked eel [Aal, in German] from P.E. & D.D. Seafood [for a picture, scroll down here], skinned, head removed, boned, and cut into small pieces, combined in a bowl with the zest and juice of one organic lemon and a small handful of scissored fresh chives from Two Guys from Woodbridge, allowed to rest a bit, and then, when ready to serve, sprinkling the eel with salt to taste, then a mix of crème fraîche from Ronnybrook Farm Dairy and a generous amount of grated horseradish root, both from Eataly, swiped across lightly-toasted and fairly thin slices of a sourdough wheat and rye bread with sunflower and flax seeds from Hawthorne Valley Farm, then spooning the eel with lemon and chives on top of the layer of cream
• thin slices of Lachsschinken from Schaller & Weber, twisted on the tines of a fork, arranged on a small glass plate, served with slices of an incredibly rich imported German whole grain pumpernickel (Delba-Backbetrieb)
• a little undressed upland cress, from Two Guys from Woodbridge, to be added to both canapés
• the wine was a German (Pfalz) white, Friedrich Becker Pinot Blanc 2013, from our much-missed former neighborhood wine shop, Appellation Wine & Spirits
• the music, on the eve of Saint Valentine’s day, was Georg Philipp Telemann’s 1726 opera ‘Orpheus’ [full german title: Die wunderbare Beständigkeit der Liebe oder Orpheus (surprisingly for the era, most of the opera is in German, thanks to the guten Bürger of Hamburg, who did not depend on highfalutin princes, for whom it was first produced, in concert form, at the Theater am Gänsemarkt)], this recording by the Academy for Ancient Music Berlin, and the Berlin RIAS Chamber Chorus [interesting note about the piece, from the opera’s Wikipedia entry: “Most of the work is in German but it also contains passages in French and Italian drawn from famous operas by Handel and Jean-Baptiste Lully. The music to these words is Telemann’s own, however. The manuscript score of Orpheus was not rediscovered until the late 20th century.”

Like all non-farmed fish, it’s essentially ‘game’, but unlike almost any other fish, it’s actually not ‘fishy’ at all.

We love eel, fresh or smoked. We are therefore always very grateful to the folks who are willing to go through the, literally, heroics of cleaning these magnificent creatures. With smoked eel however, the worst of the process, removing the very slippery skin, can be skipped, the consumers themselves inheriting the responsibility, made much easier after its surfaces have been tamed in the smoke oven.

The image below is of a single one-pound smoked eastern Long Island eel, displaying a beautiful green/gold sheen on our kitchen counter, after it had been removed from the vacuum packaging where it had lain, cut crosswise for convenience.

• two large cloves of garlic from Tamarack Hollow Farm, sliced thinly, heated in a deep enameled cast iron pan over medium-high flame, along with one dried whole hot pepper, peperoncino Calabresi secchi, from Buon Italia, and a bit of crushed, dark, home-dried heatless Habanada pepper (acquired fresh from Norwich Meadows Farm last summer), until the garlic was almost starting to color, pieces of one skinned and boned smoked local eel from P.E. & D.D. Seafood added and stirred until warmed through, half of the amount of savory pangrattato* which had been prepared earlier mixed in and combined, the cooked and drained pasta (18 ounces of Afeltra Spaghetto from Eataly), added to the pan, tossed with the eel and pangrattato and stirred over low heat for a couple of minutes, adding more than a cup of the reserved pasta water while doing so to keep the mix moist, which was then served in low bowls, where it was sprinkled with more pangrattato and finished with most of one sliced spring onion from Norwich Meadows Farm

*The pangrattato was prepared by adding about a third of a cup of homemade breadcrumbs   to about a fourth of a cup of olive oil in which more thinly-sliced Tamarack Hollow garlic cloves and 3 anchovies from Buon Italia had been heated for a short while, and, after being stirred for 4 or 5 minutes, the mixture was then drained on paper toweling and brought to room temperature

• the wine was an Italian (Marche) white, Fattoria Laila Verdicchio dei Castelli di Jesi Classico Superiore 2015
• the music was the second half of the 1975 Philip Glass/Robert Wilson opera, ‘Einstein On The Beach’, in a new recording with Michael Riesman conducting the Philip Glass Ensemble, the complete list of performers included on the ArkivMusic page 

minimal, ungenerous? but it took so long to eat that it still felt like enough

 

There was also a primi, so the relatively small secondo seen in the image above would probably have felt like enough for a satisfying dinner even if we hadn’t spent a lot of time peeling those five or six fresh shrimp.  Grilling with the shells however, even pan grilling, is important for realizing the full taste of some wonderful fresh decapods.

I arrived at the Greenmarket just in time to grab the last of Jean Claude’s shrimp on Friday.  Since they weighed in at somewhat less than what I would have preferred, I just added a first course to our dinner;  this one could not have been easier to prepare, and it featured another great sea creature.

• less than half a pound of fresh whole Hudson Valley ECO shrimp, cut all of the way up the middle of their backs with a small kitchen shears (but still retaining the shells, as well as the heads and the tails), tossed with perhaps only two thirds of a dressing consisting of 1 large garlic clove from Northshire Farm mashed in a mortar along with a fourth of a teaspoon of salt and mixed with 2 tablespoons of lemon juice, ground black pepper, and most of one not-so-hot Cayenne thin red pepper from Oak Grove Plantation, finely-chopped, then one fourth of a cup of olive oil poured into the blend in a slow stream, while stirring, to emulsify it, and almost 2 teaspoons of super-pungent dried Italian oregano from Buon Italia added at the end, and left to marinate for less than 15 minutes; one lemon, cut into segments, lightly brushed with a little of the dressing, pan grilled until grill marks appear, and transferred to plates, immediately replaced on the pan by the shrimp, turned once, for about 4 minutes, or until cooked, served with the remaining dressing
• husk cherries from Norwich Meadows Farm, tossed with a handful of torn delicious ‘wild’ arugula from Lani’s Farm, dressed together with good olive oil, a drizzle of organic lemon, salt, and pepper, served in a bowl on the side [note; once again I forgot top halve the little fruits, which made picking them up about as tedious as removing the shells from the shrimp]

 

Before the shrimp we enjoyed a primi which was simply what had remained from the main course of a meal we had a few days earlier.

• two cazuelas holding a small amount of the smoked eel pasta served last Sunday, a little reserved pasta water stirred in, slipped into a 350º oven for about ten minutes, drizzled with olive oil, and sprinkled with a crunchy pangratatto
• the wine was an Italian (Marche) white, Le Salse Verdicchio di Matelica 2014
• the music was Poppy Ackroyd