Ingredients
I swooned the first time I made this. What makes it exceptional? It's hearty, deeply flavorful, lapped in a rich, glossy, savory sauce, spiked with red wine—serious wintertime satisfaction in a bowl. It is everything you want from a stew, from the seductive aroma with which it warms the house as it simmers, to its robust, filling substance and big, distinct ("manly," we might have said in pre-feminist days) chunks of potato and other vegetables. Dried shiitakes absorb the ragout; garlic (and no wimpy amount of it, either) is used almost as a vegetable in its own right. And, though it seems impossible that something so stalwart should be low fat, low fat it is.
These supions, as small cuttlefish are called in the South of France, are neither battered nor deep-fried, as fried calamari typically are in the United States, but instead lightly floured and pan-fried in shallow oil. It therefore becomes necessary to sweat out the water from the squid before those liquids can dilute the hot oil. This process adds to the cooking time and thus the risk of tough squid. Although extremely tender pan-fried calamari may prove an elusive goal, I discovered that cutting the squid into small pieces rather than rings produces a far less chewy outcome.
This is a wonderful dinner party dish, because it takes so little work for such a dramatic effect. It is also delicious cold.
Ravioli and macaroni are medieval Italian inventions, at the time so labor-intensive and expensive that only the rich could afford them. Macaroni such as penne was made in those days by rolling dough around a stick and drying it in the sun. Making pasta dough and ravioli is still time-consuming, so in this modern version of a ravioli recipe from the Middle Ages, I prepare the yummy filling ingredients as small meat patties and serve the patties in a golden medieval saffron sauce with store-bought pasta. The taste is just as spectacular, but with a fraction of the effort.
This has been one of our Christmas favorites. Garlic permeates the goose, especially if you stuff it a day ahead and refrigerate the bird until shortly before roasting. The garlic is discarded before serving.
In my recipe, I roast the chicken upside down on a vertical roaster to produce an incredibly succulent chicken. The porcini and sausage dressing below the chicken prevents splattering.
The Lazy Front Porch Supper menu includes: Pickled Red Onions with Cilantro, Corn and Haricots Verts in Lime Shallot Butter, Heirloom Tomatoes with Bacon, Blue Cheese and Basil, Shellfish Watermelon Ceviche, Grilled Steaks with Red Chile Sauce, and Fresh Fig Tart with Rosemary Cornmeal Crust and Lemon Mascarpone Cream.
Ingredients
Ingredients