Linguine with Mascarpone & Prosciutto

Today I am going to post some "real food" as Mr. Humble likes to call it.

Real food and well... a bit of a rant concerning staging food.

Now like most food bloggers, I stage the food that goes onto the blog. Meaning I pay a little more attention to how I arrange my plates than I would were just serving it up for the Humble household table. I think that is an acceptable level of manipulation, as it is entirely possible to recreate.

What I do not employ are tricks like rubbing barely cooked steak with shoe polish to give it that nicely browned look, using shortening mixed with powdered sugar for indestructible ice cream, or hair spray to make my cake slices look moist. You get the idea, taking food and rendering it inedible for the sake of looks.

Anyway, I don't like fooling people and I certainly don't like being fooled myself.

Like I was this weekend when I spotted a gorgeous Moroccan stew. It was lovely with chunks of lamb mingling with garbanzo beans, lentils, herbs and vermicelli.

So I made this stew for dinner Saturday night, following the instructions to the letter, only to have it come out looking like something my dog barfed up. Well, that is if I had a dog and it happened to survive solely on a diet of corrugated cardboard.

The stew was miserable looking. After simmering for two hours the fresh herbs and lamb were now roughly the same unattractive color. The lentils, garbanzo beans and vermicelli mingled in the insipid gray broth. It tasted alright but it looked awful.

So I took a second, critical look at the photo included with the recipe. The herbs shown are bright and vibrant! Clearly they had not been been simmering in a stock pot for two hours. The lamb chunks appeared to have been seared and then placed artfully arranged on top. The Garbanzo beans, neatly piled in the center of the bowl had the glossy, fresh from the can look... this soup was a LIE.

I was pretty annoyed. Okay I was really annoyed. I was going to post the photos of the soup as advertised and the real soup on my blog but it is so utterly depressing that I can't bring myself to photograph it nor inflict that kind of visual trauma on my readers.

Rest assured that I will never pull that kind of nonsense on this blog.

Anyway, lets get to today's lunch.

I'm still making an effort to deal with the surplus mascarpone I have on hand. So I decided to toss linguine with it, mixed with basil pesto.

To contrast the creamy sauce, I added salty slivers of pecorino romano and thick pieces of prosciutto. To give the dish a little color and texture I added some freshly toasted pine nuts and a scattering of fresh basil leaves.

A quick lunch for the little Humble and I, one that required less than 15 minutes of hands-on time.

Tasty and pretty, no shoe polish or hairspray needed.


Not So Humble Linguine with Mascarpone & Prosciutto
serves 8
1 lb linguine
1/4 cup pine nuts
1/2-3/4 cup mascarpone cheese
1/2 cup basil pesto
1 cup thickly sliced prosciutto, cut into bite sized pieces
pecorino romano
fresh basil
salt and ground pepper

Boil the pasta according to the package directions.

While the pasta is cooking, toast the pine nuts in a dry skillet over medium heat for a few minutes until they are fragrant.

Drain the pasta and then toss with the mascarpone and pesto to coat. Plate the pasta and sprinkle with the pine nuts, prosciutto, shaved pecorino romano, basil and season with salt and fresh ground pepper.

reade more... Résuméabuiyad

Potato Leek Soup with Pancetta & English Cheddar Puffs

More soup, because it is cold outside today. Actually, it is cold inside too.

Apparently Seattle is supposed to get some snow soon, which will be lovely... for anyone who doesn't need to use a car. I know folks from other Northern states who chuckle at the chaos that unfolds in this city when we get even a trace of snow, but they don't seem realize that the whole city is pretty much built on a 90 degree incline. I don't exactly get around in a monster truck, so word of snow puts me a little on edge.

Anyway, dinner tonight is potato leek soup with pancetta served with warm savory english cheddar puffs. Easy, hot and yummy. Exactly what I need.

Not so Humble's Potato Leek Soup with Pancetta:
Serves 8

1 leek, washed and the white portion finely chopped
1 large onion finely chopped
1/3 cup chopped celery
1/3 pound thick sliced pancetta, cubed
2 large boiling potatoes peeled and cubed
1 tablespoon olive oil
3 cups chicken stock
5 tablespoons butter
5 tablespoons flour
1 3/4 cups whole milk
salt
pepper

In a pot over medium high heat, add olive oil and onion and saute for 3-4 minutes. Add the leek, celery, pancetta and potatoes and saute for another 3 minutes stirring often. Add the three cups of chicken stock and bring to a boil. Once boiling, cover and reduce heat to a simmer. Cook for 15 minutes, or until the potatoes are tender.

Meanwhile, heat the butter in a separate pan until bubbly, add the flour and cook over medium high heat for about 2 minutes. Reduce heat to medium, add the milk and whisk until smooth. Once the sauce thickens, add it to the soup mixing well. Season with salt and pepper to taste and serve immediately.




(Just a quick shout out to Mother Humble in London: See Mom! I used that cheese you left behind! You can stop worrying about it going to waste now.)

These are wonderful savory little puffs, packed with cheddar flavor. They make great appetizers and they are also great with tonight's soup.

If you can't find a nice English cheddar, be sure to substitute a sharp cheddar. Milder cheddar cheeses don't pack enough flavor for these puffs, so keep that in mind. This recipe also calls for french fried onions, for which I've provided a recipe at the bottom of the post. If you don't want to go through all the trouble of making your own fried onions, feel free to substitute the store bought variety.

Not so Humble's English Cheddar Puffs:
yields roughly 32 puffs

1/4 cup butter
1 cup plus two tablespoons all purpose flour
3/4 teaspoon kosher salt
4 eggs
1 2/3 cup packed, grated sharp English cheddar
1/2 teaspoon fresh ground pepper
1/4 teaspoon fresh thyme
1/2 cup french fried onions

Preheat your oven to 375°F and line two baking sheets with parchment paper.

In a small pot, add the butter, salt and one cup of water and bring to a boil. Grab a wooden spoon, reduce the heat to medium and add the flour. Mix with the wooden spoon for about 2-3 minutes until the dough is glossy and has pulled away from the sides of the pan.

Add the dough to your stand mixer with the paddle attachment. Beat in the eggs, one at a time, mixing well after each one. Add the cheddar, thyme and pepper and mix on medium low speed to combine. Then add the french fried onions, mixing until just incorporated.

Add the dough to a pastry bag with a wide round tip and pipe 2 inch blobs onto the parchment, about an inch apart. Alternatively you can just spoon blobs onto the parchment, if you don't want to bother with a pastry bag.

Bake for 25-30 minutes until puffy and golden. Serve immediately.


French Fried Onions:
1 small yellow onion
1 cup flour
oil for frying

Prep the onion by peeling, halving and then slicing very thin.

Pour a couple inches of oil into a pot, enough to cook your onions without crowding them. Heat the oil to 350°F using your candy/deep frying thermometer. Take the onions, a small handful at a time, and coat them in a bowl with the cup of flour. Shake off the excess and sprinkle them into the hot oil. Let cook until a golden brown color, roughly 3-4 minutes. Remove and place on paper towels to drain. Repeat with the remaining onion, allowing the oil to reheat to 350°F between batches.

reade more... Résuméabuiyad

The Bacon Cake is a Lie

I don't know what possessed me to do this. It just came to me and I had to try. I had to make a bacon cake. Just to see what it could look like.

So I plotted my cake. I knew I had a big chunk of fondant waiting to be played with, so I figured I'd make a bacon-esque shell out of that. But, what would I fill it with? Maple seemed like the obvious choice to flavor my cake batter. Though, it seemed wrong to make a bacon cake and not actually include bacon IN the cake. To do so would make the cake a total lie. So I decided to whip up a batch of candied bacon and crumble that into some maple butter cream frosting.

Everything tastes better with bacon, so why not cake? ...Right?

So I made up some candied bacon, starting by par-cooking a half dozen slices of bacon in my skillet for a few minutes to remove most of the fat. This keeps it from sweating off all the sugars in the oven later. I then collected my bacon and massaged it with a mixture of one teaspoon pure maple syrup and 1/2 cup brown sugar. Once each piece got a thorough rub down, I set them into a roasting pan lined with parchment. I sprinkled the remaining sugar on top of each slice and placed them onto the top rack of a 350 degree oven.

I baked them for about 14 minutes, turning once. I pulled them out and let them cool on a wire rack. The result was sweet, crisp, candy coated bacon.

I then mixed three cups powdered sugar with 1/2 cup unsalted butter and 2 teaspoons of pure maple syrup. Adding a little milk to whip the mixture into a frosting. I then took 2 pieces of my cooled bacon and crumbled them into my food processor and pulsed a few times to make candied bacon bits. I mixed these into my frosting and tasted... pretty good! Pancakes with a side of bacon good. I figured that maybe there was some hope, maybe this cake wouldn't be some hopelessly gross hipster experiment.

Not wanting to bother with baking a cake from scratch today, I just grabbed a box of mix and flavored it with one teaspoon maple extract. Once my cake was baked and cooled, I cut out a wavy bacon shaped chunk, trimmed the edges and divided it.

I sandwiched a layer of the bacon butter cream in between my layers of cake and then crumb coated it with a little more butter cream. I set this into the freezer to quickly chill while I got working on tinting the fondant. Once the crumb coat had chilled I pulled it out and applied a thicker coat of frosting to the outside of the cake, then put it into the refrigerator to chill.

I took roughly 12oz of fondant and divided into three portions. I tinted each either brownish red, pink or ivory using red, soft brown and yellow food coloring gels. I played with the fondant a lot trying to get it to look something like bacon. I found that the best method of getting semi realistic bacon is to tear sheets of the fondant and arrange the torn bits back into one collective sheet.

I took my fondant bacon sheet and draped it over my cake, then smoothed and trimmed it. It looked like a giant slab of uncut bacon. Sweet.

I snapped a few photos and then cut a slice.



It tasted pretty good! Sweet like a maple bar with little crisp bits of bacon and probably just as deadly. This thing is a heart attack served by the slice.

All in all, it wasn't half bad, very sweet and the salty bacon was a nice contrast. I don't know if I would actually serve this cake at a party (it is just too strange), but as a little experiment, it was lots of fun.

reade more... Résuméabuiyad

Singapore Street Noodles

The first time I had this yummy noodle dish was in Singapore and they tried to hurt me. It was delicious but the meal's enticing flavor belied the evil lurking within. The noodles resulted in one of the longest bus rides in history, where I contemplated stomach churning, how mortifying it would be for me to get sick on a crowded Singapore bus.

I've made peace with this dish and it has long since made up for the wrongs it has done to me.

Not so Humble's Singapore Street Noodles (The non-evil kind):

150 grams of Rice Vermicelli noodles

2 tablespoons vegetable or peanut oil
1/2 onion chopped
2 cloves garlic minced
1 pound pork loin sliced sliced thinly
2 cups chopped chinese cabbage
2 thai chilies seeded and chopped
2 cups broccli florrets
1 1/2 cups small cooked shrimp
1 tablespoon turmeric
2-4 teaspoons green thai curry paste

chopped cilantro
shredded green onion


Cook or soak the noodles according to the package direction. Unless you have these noodles and then just treat them like you do other rice noodles (soak in hot water till tender) and hope for the best. I tried out a new brand today and though they were nearly twice as much as my normal rice vermicelli they were not as sturdy. Delicious though, similar to Japanese somen.

In your wok heat oil and add onion and garlic and cook a minute or two till the onion softens. Add the sliced pork and cook for a few minutes till pork acquires a little color. Add the broccoli and 1/2 cup of water and cover the wok for 2 minutes. Add the cabbage, chilies, and shrimp and stir fry a minute longer. Mix the curry paste with a few tablespoons of water and add it with the turmeric to the wok. Add the cooked rice noodles and gently toss with a pair of forks. Serve garnished with the green onion and cilantro.

reade more... Résuméabuiyad

Char Siu Bao

A Humble household favorite. Soft, fluffy and ever so slightly sweet buns stuffed with my homemade Chinese BBQ pork and special sauce.

reade more... Résuméabuiyad

Char Siu - Chinese BBQ Pork

Getting geared up to make my favorite Char Siu Bao tomorrow by whipping some Chinese barbecue pork. Sweet and smokey, this stuff blows away anything you could buy readymade. Lucky, there is plenty extra to slice up and munch on as a late snack.


Now, there are far simpler Char Siu recipes out there on the net, I know. I've noticed that mine is a bit lengthier than most (it gets longer each time I adjust it) but it is the one I like the best. I believe that this dish is typically made from a pork shoulder cut but I go for the loin simply because it is more convenient cut to obtain and trim.

Not so Humble's Char Siu:
2.5-3lbs pork loin cut into lengths approximately 1.5" thick x 6" long

Marinade:
4 tablespoons hoisin sauce
2 teaspoons dark soy sauce
4 tablespoons soy sauce
5 teaspoons honey
2 teaspoons dark brown sugar
2 teaspoons seseme seed oil
3 teaspoons tomato paste
3 cloves garlic
2 inch piece of peeled ginger cut into small chuncks
2 teaspoons mirin
1/2 teaspoon five spice powder (optional)
couple drops of red food coloring (optional)

Puree all the above in a food processor until it is a smooth liquid. Place pork into a container or bag and add the pureed mixture. Refrigerate for at least 4 hours, ideally overnight.



Preheat oven to 350°F and place the pork on foil lined pans (you'll thank me later when all those sugars caramelize) reserving the marinade. Cook for 30-40 minutes until pork reaches an internal temperature of 160°F.

Take the marinade and place it into a small sauce pan over medium heat. Add an additional 2 tablespoons of honey, soy sauce and ketchup and cook for about 6-7 minutes until it has darkened and thickened into the consistency expected of barbecue sauce. Baste the pork with the sauce occasionally while baking.

Remove from oven when done and allow to sit for 10 minutes before cutting.

reade more... Résuméabuiyad