The Bitten Word

Hearty Tuscan Bean Stew with Sausage and Cabbage

Cook’s Illustrated (March & April 2008)

We noticed the other day that almost every recipe we've written about so far has been some shade of brown.  I promise we cook colorful meals, too!

But this Hearty Tuscan Bean Stew is not one of them.

The recipe -- as with all recipes from Cook's -- is accompanied by a lengthy explanation of the methods including an experiment between simmering beans on the stovetop vs. in the oven.  [Spoiler alert:  Near-simmered in the oven wins.]

The base recipe calls for pancetta, kale/collard greens and rosemary.  However, we chose one of the slight variations included in the recipe, which substitutes sweet Italian sausage, Savoy cabbage and oregano for these ingredients.  We had trouble finding Savoy cabbage and instead used a basic green cabbage.  We also decided to double the recipe and freeze the second batch. 

Doubling the recipe turned out to be a great idea, since we have loved eating this stew! Thawing a couple bowls out has made for a quick and extremely satisfying mid-week meal several times in the past few weeks.

Manti

Martha Stewart Living (February 2008) 

The February 2008 issue of Martha Stewart Living includes a nice essay about her recently deceased mother - "Big Martha" - and the love for polish food that she had instilled in the family, especially with pierogies, for which she was famous. 

Later in the issue is an absolutely stunning photospread titled "A World of Dumplings," showcasing Chinese wontons, Polish pierogi, Nepalese momos, Swedish kroppkakor, Italian gnudi, Indonesian onde onde, Austrian topfenknoedel and Turkish manti.  It's a truly beautiful spread and very instructive about the world's various dumplings.

The photo of the Turkish manti, though, is especially mouthwatering, with beautiful star-shaped dumplings drizzled in a yogurt and butter sauce and served in a gorgeous bowl.  Without even looking at the recipe, I knew it would be challenging, but also knew that we had to give it a try.  A relatively poor photo of the manti image in the magazine can be viewed below.  (Note to Martha, who's totally reading this blog:  Put this stuff online, please!)

Making Turkish manti is long, exacting work, but it could also make for a few lovely, meditative hours in the kitchen.

Pineapple Galette

Gourmet (February 2008)

After an impulse buy of a fresh pineapple from Peapod, we were glad to find a recipe for Pineapple Galette in the most recent Gourmet.  The recipe -- though a bit time-consuming due to the making and chilling of the dough -- was relatively simple and pineapple seemed a great way to brighten up our winter cooking.

Having only made dough a handful of times, we were a bit intimidated, but the recipe is very clear and the dough turned out extremely well.  At Christmas, we had received a Pampered Chef Pastry Mat, which we were very excited to use here. 

We did not have any semolina on hand, which the recipe suggests sprinkling over the dough prior to placing the pineapple, so we substituted all purpose flour, which seemed to work fine.  The galette was delicious -- sweet and also a bit salty -- and beautiful.  As you can tell in the photos, however, our galette was a much different color than Gourmet's final result, which was golden brown. Regardless, the result was wonderful.    

Recipe and additional photos after the jump!

Toasted Cornmeal Corn Bread

Food & Wine (February 2008)

Food & Wine recommends serving their Toasted Cornmeal Corn Bread with their recipe for Pork Cheek and Black-Eyed Pea Chili, and who are we to argue?  The recipe advertises the finished product as both sweet and moist, conjuring thoughts of Jiffy Corn Bread. 

Toasting cornmeal was something we had never done before.  Adding the cornmeal to a hot skillet and stirring constantly proved both a bit messy and also nerve wracking, as the cornmeal started to smell more burned than toasted.  Outside of this step, the recipe was easy and much like other corn bread recipes, except for its use of honey to sweeten the batter. 

Pork Cheek and Black-Eyed Pea Chili

Food & Wine (February 2008)

How hard could it be to find pork cheeks in our nation's capital?   

On a remarkably cold January weekend in D.C., our decision to make Food & Wine's Pork Cheek and Black-Eyed Pea Chili  was a no-brainer.  The photo accompanying the recipe, which was part of F&W's "Super Bowl Blowout," is beautiful, with chili resting in a teal dutch oven, accompanied by beautiful bowls filled with parsley, crème fraîche and smoked cheddar cheese alongside a basket of cornbread.  Is this the classiest Super Bowl food ever? 

Our first challenge, though, was finding five pounds of "cleaned and trimmed pork cheeks."  The recipe gives you the option of substituting pork shoulder, but it seemed like a cheat.  We started at the Dupont Farmer's Market on a Sunday.  One of the regular suppliers, who incidentally supplies pork cheeks to Momofuku, often carries them but did not have any this day.

After asking around to some other farmers, we trekked over to Whole Foods, where the butcher informed us that they do not carry them.  After consulting the Google, it seemed as if hog jowl may be an appropriate substitute for pork cheeks in some recipes, so we stopped by two grocery stores in our neighborhood to see if they carried jowl, but no dice.  Finally, we called the meat vendors at Eastern Market.  A 30-minute Zipcar reservation later, and we had our jowl, although it was salted and cured.

Why The Bitten Word?

We love food magazines and subscribe to Gourmet, Bon Appétit, Cook's Illustrated, Food & Wine, Everyday Food and Martha Stewart Living.  Over the last year, we only rarely put the magazines to use, instead allowing them to form a not so tidy pile in our apartment. Inspired by this post on Serious Eats, we're resolving to put our food magazines to work this year, cooking at least one recipe from each magazine.  We'll post our results, and show you how it turned out.