Live a Little Rich

The holiday season always brings out the best in luxurious eating in Laura's Kitchen! This season, lux dish of the year was a lunch entree of Pan Seared Duck, served with Foie Gras and Celery Root Puree, and garnished with Apricot Demi Glace and Apple Mint Jelly. Just to hit the nail right on the head, the entire dish was scented with truffle oil for that intoxicating aroma.



It was such a treat for all of us, and I personally made a comment about how disgusted I was by how rich the entire dish was. It's a good thing we only eat like this once a year. Gone are the days when Foie Gras was a weekly menu item! (Yes, it's true! For a stretch, sometimes even nightly...) But this made lunch so much more special knowing that it was a rare occasion for such exquisite ingredients.

I'm also past the point of doing individual platings - for such a small party, family style dining is far more intimate with everyone having to help themselves from the same plate. It's sort of a fine dining food meets casual eating concept, and I'm kind of enjoying it so far!

My recipes are typically easy to work with, and can be whipped up in no time at all, but I thought that for this holiday season, posting a fine food recipe would be fitting. One of my favorite side dishes to serve is the celery root puree. It's sort of like an upgrade to your regular potato puree (I remember when Potato Puree was all the rage, it was basically butter with some potato), but with that unique hint of celery flavor, and neutral flavored enough to pair with almost any entree. Mmmmm...

Celery root (celeriac) is kind of an ugly vegetable, and looks like a turnip that has overdosed on some radioactive soil, with dirt trapped between the crevices of knobs sticking out of the surface. Tiny roots are usually still attached to the whole bulb, making it seem like it has a life of it's own. Ew. However, unlike most root vegetables, celery root only contain 5-6% of starch, so it's also a healthier alternative to something like potato.


I wasn't kiding about it looking like a mutated turnip

It's sort of amazing how an ugly vegetable can bring out such delicious flavors after just a little processing - so here's the recipe. Let me know what you think!

Celery Root Puree
1 ea Medium Sized Celery Root (about the size of a large potato)
1 ea Medium Yukon Gold Potato
1/3 cup Heavy Cream
2 Tsp Ground Nutmeg

Salt and White Pepper to taste

1. Using a knife, cut around the celery root to remove the thick skin
2. Dice the celery root and set aside
3. Peel the Potato, and dice into cubes the same size as the celery root cuts
4. Bring a pot of water to boil, and salt well
5. Add the celery root and the potato and cook until potato is just done, about 20 minutes, depending on the size of the cut
6. Strain vegetables and place in food processor. Add cream
7. Puree until very smooth, then season with salt and pepper to taste, pulsing to incorporate flavor
8. Serve immediately, or leave to cool
9. To reheat, place puree in a metal bowl over a water bath, and gently warm

Know Good Gnocchi

I had a couple of friends over for dinner on Saturday, and in keeping with the pasta craze, I served up an awesome potato gnocchi gratin.

Cooking with gnocchi frustrates me - for most of my life, I could only ever use gnocchi if and only if I made it myself (kind of like the same gripe I have with make carbonara from dried pasta). And, of course, Gnocchi is such a pain to make, I don't ever want to bother with it.

Trader Joe's saved me quite recently though - now that they have one open at Town & Country, I've spent hours perusing through the aisles and shelves, and have found the perfect packaged gnocchi. It's imported from Italy, fresh, vacuum sealed, not doughy or chewy, and overall, just made quite well! On a funnier note, that one day I stopped at TJ's to buy a bottle of rum, I forgot my ID, got carded, and was refused the purchase. Well, if I were them, I would card me too.

Anyway, I decided that since I seldom make my own pasta anyway, why should gnocchi have a different standard anyway? So, I caved into buying one (two actually) of those TJ gnocchi packs.

I had some Cambazola (a triple cream blue cheese) in the fridge, and wanted to use it in the sauce, but thought that a blue cheese gnocchi would just be too boring. After all, they sell the same stuff in the frozen section at TJ's already! The perfect winter sauce for me is always a brown butter, and I didn't get to make any brown butter pastas this fall, so I thought it would be a perfect incorporation into this dish! And, you can't have brown butter without having sage - it's a classic pairing!

In the end, the sauce was a simple bechamel, laced with sage brown butter, and then spiced with cambazola for a the final kick! I stuck the whole gratin in the oven till the sauce started bubbling and the top got all crusty, and there we had the perfect winter side dish!



Here's the recipe:

Gnocchi Au Gratin with Sage Brown Butter & Blue Cheese
Serves 4

20 ea Sage leaves
8 Tbs Butter
4 cloves Garlic, Minced
1 Lb Spinach
2 Tbs Flour
2 cups Milk
1 tsp Nutmeg, ground
0.5 cup Creamy blue cheese, like cambazola or gorgonzola
0.5 cup Bread crumbs
2 Tbs Oil
Salt to Taste
4 Servings Gnocchi, cooked

1 Melt the butter in a small sauce pan, until bubbling and just turning brown
2 Add the sage leaves and fry until crispy, remove with a slotted spoon and blot on paper towels. Salt
3 Remove 2 tablespoons of browned butter into a saucepan, and throw in the garlic and spinach
4 Saute until spinach cooks down and then remove from heat to reserve
5 Add the flour to the remaining browned butter and cook over low heat, whisking constantly
6 Once flour is cooked through (about 5 minutes), add the milk and whisk until sauce is smooth
7 Add the nutmeg, and season the salt, under-salting to compensate for the cheese
8 Cook the sauce for another 5-10 minutes, then remove from heat and stir in the cheese until everything is smooth
9 Crumble the fried sage leaves, and mix together with the breadcrumbs and oil
10 In an oven proof dish, toss the Gnocchi, blue cheese sauce and spinach together.
11 Top with generous sprinkles of sage breadcrumbs
12 Bake in the oven at 350F until top is browned and sauce is bubbling, about 20 minutes

Vongole on Steroids!

Following my attempt towards the 101 ways with Pasta, I stopped for clams and pappardelle at the market before heading home one evening. Unfortunately, it turned out that the pappa was not the right noodle for the dish, but it was a very good dish nonetheless. A thicker, rounder pasta like spaghetti or linguine would probably have worked out better, because thin pastas like pappa tend to absorb all the sauce. With a thin sauce like this one, you don't want to dry the dish out.

I usually go all out with my staple white wine & clam juice base plus a bunch of other stuff (recipe here), but I wanted this pasta to be ready in 20 minutes, and just plainly delicious. I could have gone with the classic vongole, but with the pancetta in my fridge, I thought I would just kick it up a notch, (as well as saving it from going bad)! Plus, I also made a quick green pea soup, and thought that a sprinkling of pancetta would go very well!

The result? And overwhelming medley of flavor - this is one dish that does not go by the nickname "Bland"! Because it's such a bold pasta with plenty of layers, this is not the clam pasta that goes with a crisp white wine! Serve with a nice pale ale, and all will be well!



Vongole on Steroids

5 cloves Garlic, thinly slices
2 oz Pancetta, diced
1 Tbs Olive Oil
1 cup Crisp white wine, like a Sauvignon blanc, Riesling, Pinot Gris, (no chardonnay)
1 cup Chicken Stock
1/5 Lbs Clams, fresh
4 oz Baby Spinach Leaves
2 Tbs Butter, Cold
2 Tbs Parsley, Minced
2 ea Anchovy fillets, mashed

1/3 cup Grated hard cheese

Cooked Noodle Pasta for two - Linguine, Fettucine or Spaghetti works well

1. Heat the olive oil in a large heavy bottomed saute pan
2. Add the diced pancetta, and cook till nicely browned. Remove from pan and reserve
3. Add the garlic slivers to the pancetta drippings and saute until just cooked, but not browned
4. Add the White wine and Chicken stock, and bring to a boil
5. Reduce white wine mixture until about 1/3 cup
4. Add the clams and spinach to the liquid, and cover
5. Steam clams for about 5-7 minutes, or until the open up
6. Take the saute pan off the heat, and swirl in the cold butter, parsley and anchovies
7. Toss with pasta and cheese
8. Garnish with browned pancetta and serve immediately