Author: marga (Page 32 of 112)

Ravioli in Truffle Sauce Recipe

Plus what I learned about truffles & are the truffles sold at the Berkeley Bowl any good?

During a very brief stay in Barcelona, my daughter fell in love with a dish of truffle ravioli in a parmesan and truffle oil cream sauce at one of the Sensi tapas restaurants. So when she asked that I include a pasta dish for our Christmas dinner, I immediately thought of that dish – and started researching recipes and truffles.

Truffles, I knew, were very expensive and rare fungi that grows naturally in Italy and France and is only available at exorbitant prices for a few months of the year. What I didn’t know is that it’s extremely hard to preserve them – because it’s their aroma which actually gives dishes the ethereal earthy flavor that we so like. Infusing them in oil doesn’t really work, but food scientists were able to isolate its most prevalent odorant – a compound called 2,4-Dithiapentane – and replicate it. This is what is mixed with olive oil, butters or salt and sold as “truffle” whatever. That is to say, this is what most of us know as truffle flavor. The little pieces of truffle we see in commercial products are apparently there mostly for show.

There seems to be a revolt against truffle oil among some top chefs, who belief its fake flavor confuses diners and stops them from being able to appreciate the subtleties of real truffles. Thinking back to the truffle dishes I’ve had, I think this is likely to be the case. I still dream of Aquerello‘s ridged pasta with foie gras, scented with black truffles, which I believe is topped with real truffle, but most other truffle dishes I recall did seem to be rather one-dimentional. Years ago, my husband gave me expensive botles of black and white truffle oil for Christmas, so I know those flavors quite well. While I didn’t care much for the white truffle oil, the black truffle oil does impart a rather tasty flavor.

I found many recipes online for pasta in a truffle sauce, and at first my decision was on whether to use truffle oil or butter. While researching what was easily available to me, I found that the Berkeley Bowl was actually carrying fresh black truffles for about $160/lb (via instacart). Given that the page offered no information about these truffles, and that French black truffles are currently selling for $95/oz (a regular truffle weighs an ounce or less), I was quite doubtful of these – but I did learn that truffles are also grown in the West Coast – indeed, as close as Napa Valley – so I imagined they were domestic. My daughter suggests, however, that they might just be expired truffles – not fresh enough to retain much of their flavor. She might have been right.

Ultimately, I decided to give them a try – and so far I’ve had mixed results. I first used them the night I got them by shaving them on a dish of plain pasta served with vegan butter. The truffle shavings completely failed to impart any flavor on the dish. It was a total failure.

For my Christmas Eve dish I decided to do something different. I took part of a truffle and chopped it very finely and infused it in good quality melted butter early in the day – so that it was solid by the time I actually made the sauce for this dish. This, by itself, didn’t give the sauce much truffle flavor, but I think it helped it build, so by the time all the ingredients were combined – the truffle ravioli, the sauce and the shaved truffle on top – the results were delicious. The dish had a very earthy flavor, truffly but not as strong as truffle oil.

I was lucky enough that I was able to follow this recipe closely, as I was able to find the called-for taleggio cheese at the Berkeley Bowl as well. The recipe writer suggests that you can substitute this cheese with Fontina, Robiola or Brie, though to me its flavor was closer to camembert. Indeed, I added a couple of ounces of camembert, as I hadn’t gotten as much taleggio as the recipe called for. I’d probably had done better using less cheese, as the sauce was a tad too salty – I’m making this recommended adjustment in the recipe below.

I wanted to make ravioli in the first place, and was happy to find porcini & truffle ravioli from the Pasta Shop at the Berkeley Bowl. These are made with “truffle essence”, that is to say, the artificial aromatic compound. They were tasty by themselves, but they were really elevated by the sauce and the shaved truffle.

To store truffles before using them, dry the surface with a paper towel and then place in a bowl filled with uncooked rice (to help draw moisture away). Store in the fridge or a cool place in your house.

Ravioli in Truffle Sauce Recipe

Ingredients

  • 12 oz fresh or frozen mushroom ravioli
  • 2-3 Tbsp truffle butter
  • 8 oz taleggio cheese, cut into 1/2″ cubes
  • 3/4 cup heavy cream
  • 1 truffle
  • Parmesan cheese to taste

Instructions

Cook the ravioli according to package instructions, drain.

Meanwhile, melt the truffle butter, cheese and cream over medium heat – stirring frequently. Transfer the ravioli to the sauce and coat all over. Transfer to a serving dish or individual plates.

Shave truffle and Parmesan cheese to taste.

Based on Jacqui’s recipe at The Pasta Project.

2020 Christmas Eve Dinner

Marga’s favorite recipesMarga’s Party & Holiday Recipes

Pasta with Creamy Pesto Sauce

My vegan daughter wanted pasta with a creamy pesto sauce for Thanksgiving, and I, of course, obliged. I was fortunate to find this amazing recipe online and both my daughter and her non-vegan sister loved it. It did require a couple of adaptations from the original recipe, noted in the one below.

Ingredients

  • 12 oz pasta
  • 2 cups plain, unsweetened oat milk or another vegan milk
  • 1/3 cup vegan pesto
  • 2 Tbsp corn starch
  • 1 Tbsp nutritional yeast
  • 1 tsp salt

Instructions

Make pasta according to package instructions.

Meanwhile, add the milk, pesto, corn starch, nutritional yeast and salt to a medium sauce pan. Heat over medium-high heat, whisking constantly, until it starts to boil. Turn heat down to medium and continue whisking until it has the consistency you want, add more cornstarch if necessary.

Adapted from Monica’s recipe at The Hidden Veggies.

Vegan Pesto

This is very good recipe for pesto, that tastes just like a good non-vegan pesto. I made it for my daughter using the basil she herself grows. It makes about 1/3 cup (I know, it doesn’t seem possible, but sometimes the sum is lesser than the factors).

Ingredients

  • 2 cups basil leaves
  • 3 cloves garlic, peeled
  • 1/3 cup nutritional yeast
  • 2 Tbsp pine nuts 
  • 1/2 tsp salt
  • 1/2 tsp lemon juice
  • 1/2 cup olive oil

Instructions

Put all ingredients, save for the olive oil, in the bowl of a food processor or blender and process into a paste. Gradually add the olive oil and blend in.

Adapated from Monica’s recipe at The Hidden Veggies

Vegan Pecan Pie Recipe

I made this recipe for vegan pecan pie for Thanksgiving, and my vegan daughter was quite happy with it. Unlike most vegan pie recipes this one didn’t use corn syrup and it wasn’t too sweet. It had the right consistency, however, and the pie set perfectly – no need for eggs.

I was cheap and made it using a Safeway refrigerated pie shell and it was horrible! There are far better vegan pie shells out there. The filling, though, was good:

Ingredients

  • 1 pie shell
  • 3/4 cup canned coconut milk
  • 3 Tbsp cup corn starch
  • 2 Tbsp vegan butter
  • 6 oz pecans, chopped
  • 1/2 cup brown sugar
  • 1/4 cup maple syrup
  • 2 tsp vanilla extract
  • 1/4 tsp salt

Instructions

Preheat oven to 350°F. Bake pie crust for 7 minutes. Set aside to cool.

In a bowl. whisk together the coconut milk and corn starch until dissolved. Set aside.

Heat butter in a small saucepan over medium heat until it melts. Add the pecans and cook, stirring constantly, for 30 seconds. Whisk in the coconut milk mixture, brown sugar, maple syrup, vanilla extract and salt.

Pour the mixture onto the pie crust. Bake in the oven for 30 minutes. Cool on the counter for two hours and then let cool completely on the fridge.

Adapted from Ana’s recipe at Making thyme for health

UeNo Dora Magical Tales: Coconut Flavoured Egg Rolls – review

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I picked up these snacks at our local Asian market. They’re made in Malaysia, and they are sort of an Asian version of pirouline. They are much shorter, however, and a bit thinner. They come in many flavors, but I chose the coconut ones.

I was a little disappointed. They don’t have enough filling, so they’re pretty dry. The filling is fine, though maybe not as coconuty as I’d liked.

They were around $1.50, I believe, but they still felt overpriced given how few there were and how small they are. Still, if they hadn’t been as dried I might have given the other flavors a try.

Canelés de Bordeaux – French Canelés Review

Canelés are a specialty of the Bordeaux region of France. These small pastries are made from eggs, milk, flour, butter, sugar and rum in special molds that make them look like a tall mini bundt cake (but they don’t have a hole in the middle). I first came across them almost two decades ago when I started researching Bordelaise cuisine. For years, I considered making them until finally giving up on the idea – buying a mold for something I’d only make once seemed too wasteful. Still, my curiosity about them stayed.

Then a week ago, I found that Costco was selling these “Made in France” canelés. They were quite expensive, almost $10 for a package of 16 (each weighing a bit over 1 oz), but I had to see what they were like. Unfortunately, they weren’t very good.

The pastries are pretty dense, though I liked their airy, somewhat chewy consistency. They didn’t have much flavor, however. The rum masked whatever else was there, without really adding that much. And while I enjoyed the consistency, they were a bit too dry. All in all, I wouldn’t get them again. Now, if I ever find myself in Bordeaux, I might give a bakery-baked one a try.

Exploring “I” cuisines

In the last few months, I have (mostly) finished cooking “H” cuisines and I’ve been making my way through the I’s. I still have five of these cuisines to go (Indonesian, Iranian, Irish-American, Italian Renaissance and Italian) but I figure this is a good time to announce the many new cuisines I’ve added to my International Food Project:

  • Haryana: I made pakora, butter chicken and garlic cauliflower
  • Iceland: baked fish, chicken with saffron and pepper cookies
  • Imperial China: a chicken wing recipe from the 8th century, braised chicken from the 10th-13th and beef and walnuts from the 18th.
  • India: chickpea, red bean, and chicken curries plus chicken and tofu tandoori
  • Indo-Chinese: noodles and cauliflower
  • Iraq: lentil soup, two types of kibbeh, chicken in yogurt sauce, lamb shanks, rice, and farro pilaf
  • Ireland: Irish stew, beef & stout pie, potato biscuits, and bread and butter pudding.
  • Iroquois: ghost bread and three sisters stew
  • Israel: corn shakshuka, meatballs in tahini sauce, lamb shawarma, grilled chicken and olive oil cake
  • Italian-American: minestrone, fetuccini alfredo, baked zitti, spaghetti and meatballs, lasagna, vegan lasagna, chicken scarpariello and chicken parmesan.
  • Ivory Coast: grilled chicken, roasted lamb, stewed chicken and peanut sauce.

Benihana Yakiosba Steak Review

Benihana Yakisoba Steak Frozen Entrée (10 oz) - Instacart

As much as I love to cook, sometimes I fall off the cooking bandwagon and I then rely on frozen food. I’ll be honest, most frozen entrees suck – so I was pleasantly surprised to find this particular one. It actually tasted like something I’d want to eat. The beef was tender and looked like beef, the noodles were good and the sauce was tasty. The main problem was that the entree wasn’t very big – but maybe I was specially hungry.

Vegan Chick’n Tetrazzini

I set out to make chicken tetrazzini as part of my exploration into Italian food for my International Food Project. Alas, after doing a bit more research into the dish, I found out that it’s not Italian at all. Rather, it was apparently created by chef Ernest Arbogast at the Palace Hotel in San Francisco in honor of Italian soprano Luisa Tetrazzini. I had already bought the ingredients to make it, though, as well as those to make a vegan version for my daughter, so I went along and made it for dinner last night.

The regular chicken tetrazzini I made was good, my husband in particular liked it, but not special enough for me to repeat it – so I’m not going to write down the recipe (to make it, I combined this recipe by Ciao Italia with this one by Giada di Laurentiis). My daughter would like me to make the vegan version again, however, so here is the recipe (yes, this blog is mostly for myself):

Ingredients

  • 8 oz spaghetti
  • 2 Tbsp vegan butter, divided
  • 1 Tbsp olive oil
  • 8 oz cremini or button mushrooms, sliced
  • 1/2 onion, chopped
  • 2 garlic cloves, minced
  • 1 tsp dried thyme
  • salt & pepper to taste
  • 2 tsp flour
  • 1/2 cup coconut milk
  • 1 1/2 cups unsweetened oat, soy or almond milk
  • a dash of nutmeg
  • 1/2 tsp white wine or apple cider vinegar
  • 4 oz vegan chick’n strips, cubed
  • 1/2 frozen peas
  • 1/2 cup shredded vegan mozarella
  • 1/4 cup vegan panko breadcrumbs

Directions

Preheat oven to 350°F

Cook spaghetti according to package instructions and set aside.

Melt 1 Tbsp vegan butter and olive oil in a medium or large saucepan over medium heat. Add the mushrooms and cook, stirring occasionally, until the liquid evaporates. Add the onion, garlic and thyme and cook until the onion is soft, stirring occasionally. Season with salt and pepper. Transfer mixture to a bowl and set aside.

Add remaining tablespoon of vegan butter to the saucepan and melt over medium heat. Add the flour and whisk until you have a thick paste. Whisk in the coconut milk and let cook a few minutes until it thickens, whisking occasionally. Add the non-dairy milk and cook a few more minutes until it thickens. Season with salt, pepper and nutmeg. Stir in the vinegar and turn off heat.

Add reserved spaghetti, mushrooms, chick’n and peas to the sauce. Mix well. Transfer mixture onto an 8″x8″ or similar size oven-safe dish. Top with mozarella and breadcrumbs.

Bake for 20 minutes.

Adapted from Alissa’s recipe at Connoisseurus Veg

Vegan Parmesan Recipe

My vegan daughter loved this super easy alternative for Parmesan cheese.

Ingredients

  • 1/2 cup raw cashews
  • 2 Tbsp nutritional yeast
  • 1/2 tsp oregano
  • 1/4 tsp garlic powder
  • salt & pepper to taste

Directions

Place all ingredients in the bowl of a mini-chopper, food processor or blender and process until smooth.

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