Friday night dinner.

Barry found the recipe. I do the cooking, but he’s very, very good at ordering. I don’t mean ordering me, but ordering food in restaurants or at take out, where I, on the other hand, usually freeze up. It turns out he’s also good at spotting recipes. This was a really good one.

I halved the recipe on the delish site, and I made a few changes, substituting mint for the dill I didn’t have; red onion for “onion”, because I love red onion; vesuvio pasta for spaghetti (same); smoked steelhead trout for salmon, because we’ve recently come to love our local steelhead, also because it’s what I had on hand that day; and finally, since I can’t usually leave good enough alone, and to enhance the visuals, I added a garnish, chervil here, one of my favorites.

• a tablespoon or so of olive oil heated inside a large antique copper pot over medium heat,
  one medium/large chopped shallot cooked until softened, one clove of chopped garlic added and heated until fragrant, 2 tablespoons of white wine [poured in and stirred until it had almost completely, 3 ounces of heavy cream and 3 tablespoons of lemon juice added and stirred until thickened, the sauce seasoned with sea salt and freshly ground  black pepper before 4 ounces of smoked local steelhead trout (farmed by Hudson Valley Fisheries, in Hudson, NY), a few tablespoons of rinsed large Sicilian salted capers and a generous amount of a mint hybrid (spearmint and Peppermint) mixed in and heated briefly, or just only until the salmon had warmed through, then 8 ounces of a Gragnano Campania pasta (Afeltra Vesuvio) cooked al dente added to the pot, along with almost a cup of the pasta cooking water, and tossed together with the sauce, adding more water if desired, before the dish was  arranged inside shallow bowls, scattered with a little more mint, and garnished with chervil from Eckerton Hill Farm

There was a first course.

• a few ounces of ‘Bulgarian feta” from Moxie Ridge Farm & Creamery sprinkled with a bit of crushed dried aji dulce pepper from Ekerton Hill Farm and some torn basil taken from a live plant purchased from Stokes Farm, drizzled with a bit of Palagio Tuscan olive oil
• slices of Runner & Stone ‘Bolzano’ whole wheat and rye sourdough miche

 

• the wine throughout the meal was an Italian (Sicily) white, Stefano di Blasi IGT Sicilia Zibibbo Catarratto 2019, from Naked Wines 
• the music (through some of the meal) was Paul Dessau’s 1978 opera, ‘Leonce und Lena’ (after Georg Büchner’s 1836 play of the same name), in a 1980 performance with Otmar Suitner conducting the Berlin Staatskapelle Orchestra and Berlin State Opera Chorus, with Peter Menzel, Reiner Süss, Carola Nossek, Edda Schaller, and others [noting here that the state at the time was the DDR, or Deutsche Demokratische Republik (German Democratic Republic)

I had some very good winter squash on the window sill, with no plan to use it soon. I was expecting Thursday to be a pasta day. I looked on line for ideas on how to combine both interestingly.

I quickly found three or four promising recipes. None of them seemed quite right however. I composed one myself, using elements from each of them.

• a tablespoon and a half of olive oil heated inside a large antique tin-lined copper pot over medium-high heat, roughly 3 ounces of medium (half inch) cubed guanciale added and the flame reduced to medium, the pork cooked, stirring occasionally, only until it had softened slightly and colored, then one small chopped green/yellow (that is, not fully ripened) Grenada seasoning pepper from Eckerton Hill farm tossed in and heated only until it had softened and become even more pungent than it already is when raw, a tablespoon or more of roughly chopped fresh sage added and stirred to coat, then, using a slotted wooden spoon, guanciale and sage transferred to a small bowl and set aside while, and ideally kept warm, then 10 or more ounces of cubed winter squash (Jester squash from Bauma’s Market in Bordentown, NJ, and purchased in the Union Square Greenmarket), added to the pot, along with one medium chopped shallot and one clove of chopped garlic, the vegetables seasoned with sea salt and freshly ground black pepper, cooked, stirring occasionally, until the onion was translucent, when it was joined by 8 ounces of Setaro Campania penne rigate from Buon Italia in Chelsea Market, cooked al dente, and everything tossed together well, some reserved pasta cooking water added to the mix and stirred over a medium to high flame until the sauce had coated the pasta well, several tablespoons of shredded Pecorino cheese stirred in and the pasta seasoned to taste with salt and pepper, served in shallow bowls topped with the previously reserved guanciale and sage, topped with some shaved Pecorino, and more pepper
• the wine was an Italian (Piedmont), Dolcetto d’Alba 2019 
• the music was the album, ‘Dai Fujikura; by ICE (International Contemporary Ensemble), a 2004 release on the label Kairos

I literally tripped over this Epicurious recipe recently while I was looking for something not even food related. I literally stopped in my tracks, because the picture accompanying it was very appetizing.

Tuesday evening I happened to have some excellent mushrooms in the apartment – and some heavy cream, which is somewhat more untypical. Both were critical for proceeding with the recipe, which I halved for the two of us.

The dish was even more satisfying than I’d expected. Also, as with most well-conceived pasta dishes, with good ingredients, it only got better the longer it sat on the table (or inside the pot, available for seconds). We tend to talk a lot during meals, and we eat very slowly, so we have a definite advantage there.

 

• half of an 8-ounce bag of superb small-ish Piopini mushrooms from Gail’s Farm in the Union Square Greenmarket, first separated from each other, tossed into a large antique tin-lined copper pot with one tablespoon of olive oil already heated over a medium-high flame, the fungi immediately sprinkled with sea salt, sautéed in a single layer, undisturbed, until their edges were brown and starting to crisp, or for about 2 minutes, then tossed and cooked further, stirring or tossing occasionally, until all sides were brown and crisp, or about 4 minutes more, then, using a slotted wooden spoon, transferred to a bowl, the other 4 ounces of mushrooms sautéed in the same manner, the process repeated with another tablespoon of oil, afterwards the heat reduced to medium-low and, with all of the mushrooms returned to the pot, one finely chopped medium shallot and one small astonishingly delicious chopped Grenada seasoning pepper added and cooked, stirring often, until the shallots were translucent and softened, or for little over a minute, then 8 ounces of really good artisanal Neapolitan spaghetti, boiled until not quite al dente and then drained, were added to the pot with a quarter cup of heavy cream and 1 cup of pasta cooking liquid, the heat increased to medium-high and the mixture cooked, tossing constantly, until the liquids had thickened, at which time the pot was removed from the heat and some lemon zest and juice (each the product of less than half of one lemon), chopped parsley, several tablespoons of butter, about a third of a cup of grated Parmesan cheese, and lots of freshly ground black pepper were tossed in and combined with the mix, more salt added if needed, the finished pasta divided between bowls and topped with more Parmesan cheese
• the wine was a wonderful Puglian red, Dominic Hentall Sangiovese Negroamaro IGT Puglia 2019, from Naked Wines
• the music was Ernst Krenek’s 1923 Schauspiel, ‘Orpheus und Eurydike’, with a libretto by Oskar Kokoschka, a 1990 performance by the RSO Wien and the ORF-Chor, conducted by Pinchas Steinberg