Holiday Shopping for Gourmets (or Gourmands) - ChefShop.com

I've mentioned ChefShop.com on the blog before, because they are a local Seattle business that I really believe in. Tim Mar is a stone cold killer when it comes to tracking down incredible food products. He maintains contact with dozens of small producers, and brings in shipping containers from Europe every year, packed with goodies you often can't find anywhere else. A shipment just arrived, so now is the time to get the coolest new stuff.

The two items above are both from the US. Katz vinegars from the Napa and Suisun valleys in California are terrific. This Late Harvest Zinfandel Vinegar is agrodolce (sweet and sour), with strong, specific fruit flavors. It isn't at all like a generic wine vinegar. The June Taylor Candied Seville Peel is from Berkeley. If you like marmalades, you will love this. Big chunky pieces of Seville orange-peel. They go amazing with Spanish cheeses like manchego, or in any holiday cake where you would use candied fruit.

ChefShop is a great place to buy holiday presents for the good cooks or good eaters on your list. You'll probably find something your friends haven't seen before, and everything they carry is top-notch. If you are in Seattle, drop by the store at 1415 Elliot Avenue West, or otherwise browse the online catalog. You can see some of my other favorite items in my pantry on the site. (This isn't a promotion, just an opportunity to share stuff I love).

Dessert Express - Cookbook Review With Chocolate-Chili Pudding Cake Recipe

Chocolate-Chili Pudding Cakes From Dessert Express

Lauren Chattman has a mission for her book Dessert Express. She wants something sweet, and she wants it now. She knows that a little treat at the end of a meal makes it satisfying, memorable, special... or just gives her that extra leverage to get the kids to do the chores. Whatever the reason, she's figured out 100 recipes to get that treat on the table in 30 minutes, from desire to first bite.

Chattman doesn't shade the truth when she says 30 minutes. A lot of times when you see "quick and easy" promised, it really means 30 minutes if you had the forethought to make the dough the day before and chill it, or if you have 30 minutes to make it and can wait another hour for it to come out of the oven. None of that here. Any home cook can make and serve anything this book in the allotted time, barely breaking a sweat.

To deliver on her pledge, Chattman has developed a bunch of techniques. Some of them, like spreading a filling on (high quality) store-bought cookies seem kind of pointless to me. But others make great culinary sense, like working in smaller batches, baking in individual serving sizes (mini-muffin tins, ramekins, madeleine pans), pushing temperatures as high as possible, and cooking in non-traditional ways. I've pan-fried cookie dough before (yum!) but I never thought to do it in a waffle iron. Dang!

If you are a regular reader of this blog, you know I don't shy away from "project" recipes, but when I do need something fast before popping in Mad Men, Dessert Express is definitely going to get a workout.

Here is her recipe for chocolate-chili pudding cake (aka lava cake). If you haven't had one before, a pudding cake is just a cake that is intentionally underbaked a bit, so that the outside is fairly dry but the inside is still molten chocolate. See the picture above. Naturally you can omit the chili if that doesn't sound good to you.

Chocolate-Chili Pudding Cakes
From Dessert Express, by Lauren Chattman
Serves 4
Vegetarian; not vegan or gluten-free

• 1/2 cup butter, cut into pieces plus a bit more for greasing ramekins
• 6 ounces bittersweet chocolate, chopped
• 3 large eggs
• 1/3 cup granulated sugar
• 1/4 cup all-purpose flour
• 1/4 teaspoon salt
• 1/4 teaspoon ground cinnamon
• 1/4 teaspoon cayenne pepper

1. Preheat oven to 375 degrees. Grease 4 six-ounce ramekins with butter.
2. Combine the 1/2 cup butter and the chocolate in a small, microwave-safe bowl. Melt the chocolate in the microwave on high for 30 seconds to 1 minute depending on ther power and size of your microwave. Stir until smooth. Set aside.
3. Combine the eggs and sugar in a medium bowl and beat on high with an electric mixer until pale yellow and thick, 3 to 5 minutes. Stir in the flour, salt, cinnamon and cayenne. Stir in the chocolate mixture.
4. Spoon the batter into the prepared ramekins, arrange on a baking sheet, and bake until the cakes are firm around the edges but still loose in the center, about 12 minutes. Do not overbake. Transfer the baking sheet to a wire rack, let cool 5 minutes, and serve.

7 Tips For Fast And Flavorful Pastas, Including A Recipe For Conchiglie With Chard And Smoked Mozzarella

Conchiglie Pasta with Swiss Chard and Smoked Mozzarella

This dish is kind of a blast from the past for me. Not the specific ingredients, but it is so much the way I cooked for most of my adult life. Nothing complicated, just a simple pasta mixed with a bunch of flavorful and harmonious ingredients. No real sauce beyond the melting smoked mozzarella and a little sherry.

From what I've seen in Italy, this style of pasta really isn't particularly Italian, where they tend to favor simple pastas with just a few components, often as a prelude to a heartier second course. This style is more of an American take, with a thoughtfully chosen "kitchen sink" of ingredients to maximize flavor and texture, interesting enough to be a meal on its own.

This is an easy way to eat because it requires no recipe and minimal technique, comes together fast, adapts well to whatever is seasonal and what is in your pantry, and pretty much everyone likes pasta. Let me see if I can write down some of the "rules" that make this kind of dish turn out great (choices for this particular dish are in [brackets]):

1. Shaped pastas, rather than strands, tend to work better with this kind of chunky "sauce" [conchiglie]
2. Salt the water aggressively (1.5 tablespoons / gallon), have it at a rolling boil, and be sure to pull the pasta out when it is al dente - a little of bite left, not flaccid.
3. Choose at least one ingredient with big flavor [smoked mozzarella]
4. Choose at least one ingredient with some crunch [toasted green pumpkin seeds]. Use it as a final garnish so it doesn't get soggy.
5. Short on fresh stuff? Open up the pantry or freezer and grab roasted red peppers, olives, capers, frozen baby peas, [artichoke bottoms, white beans] ...
6. Try to get a range of sweet [pasta, sherry], salty [cheese], bitter [chard], sour, herbacious [sage, thyme], umami [cheese] and spicy [chili flakes] flavors, so that each bite is a varied experience. You might not hit all of those notes, but try to have some contrasts.
7. Toss the cooked pasta with the "sauce" for a minute over a moderate flame, to allow the flavors to marry. Reserve 1 cup of the boiled pasta water and add it as necessary during that mixing to loosen and achieve a good serving texture. The water is salted and slightly thick from starch, so it will allow you to moisten without diluting your flavors. If you've never tried this before, trust me - it is magic.

Conchiglie Pasta with Swiss Chard and Smoked Mozzarella
Serves 3-4 as a main course
Vegetarian; not vegan or gluten-free but adaptable

• 3 tablespoons olive oil
• 2 cloves garlic, minced
• 1/2 medium white onion, thinly sliced
• 2 teaspoons fresh thyme leaves or 1 teaspoon dried
• 3 fresh sage leaves, finely chopped or 2 teaspoons dried
• 1 teaspoon dried chili flakes (or to your taste)
• 2 bunches of chard leaves (any variety), stemmed, cleaned, and roughly sliced or torn
• 1 can artichoke bottoms (or hearts, but bottoms are better), medium slices
• 1/2 can white beans
• 1/2 cup dry sherry
• 2/3 pound smoked mozzarella, cubed
• 1 pound conchiglie
• 1/4 cup shelled pumpkin seeds (pepita, they should be green), lightly toasted
• salt and pepper

1. Put one gallon of water to boil in a large pot with 1.5 tablespoons of salt.
2. Heat a very large skillet (preferably not a non-stick one) over a medium high flame. Add the oil, then a few seconds later add the garlic and onion. Saute for 1 minute, then add the thyme, sage, and chili flakes, and saute for 10 more seconds. Add the chard and 1.5 teaspoons of salt, toss, and cover for a few minutes. You can probably drop the pasta at this point.
3. When the chard is tender, remove the lid, and add the artichokes, white beans and sherry and reduce the heat to medium low. Scrape the bottom of the pan thoroughly with your spatula so the sherry picks up lots of caramelized flavors.
4. When the pasta is just barely al dente, reserve 1 cup of the water and drain it. Return it to the pot you cooked it in, toss with a little more olive oil, then empty in the contents of the skillet, being sure to scrape out all the flavorful stuff on the bottom.
5. Return the pot to the a medium low flame, add the mozzarella cubes, and stir constantly for one minute. If it seems a little "tight", add some of the pasta water. Taste and adjust for salt.
6. To serve, divide among the bowls, top with the pumpkin seeds and a grind of fresh black pepper.