invented this one cleaning out a friend's refrigerator one night on B'way and 107th street above Cannon's bar, when on a trip home to NYC was asked to cook for my friends. The dish later became the "signature" pasta dish at Riera's Restaurant on Solano Ave, in Berkeley, CA.
Fresh egg fettuccine
butter
evoo
sheep's milk (ie real) imported Feta, high fat like Corsican
minced garlic
fresh tomato chunks that have been chopped from peeled and most juice and seeds removed ripe tomatoes
bacon slices cut in hunks, or pancetta cut similarly
shredded fresh basil
fresh ground pepper
With a bit of evoo in a med-hot saute pan, fry the bacon or pancetta until almost crisp
Get the fettuccine boiling (takes about 5-7 minutes)
Put the minced garlic in with the bacon and cook until redolent (but not at all browned) and the bacon is crisp
Add a spoonful or two of the pasta boiling water into the pan, along with feta crumbled or cut to smallish pieces, swirl: as the feta melts partially it will make a creamy sauce
Add a small walnut sized hunk of sweet butter and the tomato hunks, while continuing to swirl the pan.
Now the pasta should be ready, and as you drain it (but not till dry you want a bit more of the pasta boiling liquid for the sauce) toss in the fresh shredded basil first, plenty of it, and then the fettuccine. Toss or swirl well.
Plate and grind fresh pepper over it to taste.
This dish makes your classic Carbonara wince in shame.
Give it a try.
We had a great menu at Riera's - not too big, with an awesome fresh pasta list of Emiligia Romana style Lasagne Bolognese al Forno, of course Bolognese, fresh seafood over fresh linguine, Alfredo, Marinara, etc...
And this dish, we called it Pasta della Casa, outsold them all and always received rave reviews. Plates came back to the kitchen wiped clean with our home made Panne Integrale.
Do NOT salt the pasta boiling water or the dish itself (until the very end as needed), it tends to be salty enough just from the bacon and feta.
Don't be skimpy with any ingredient, but the whole of it should have a nice balance. It might need a squeeze of a lemon wedge for juice/ acid balance just before adding the pasta. Taste the sauce to see.
But for a 2 person serving - what would work in a 10" saute pan - IIRC it would take 6-8 oz of fresh pasta (before cooking) and pretty much a handful of each of the other ingredients. Only 1-2 tsp of minced garlic of course, about twice as much feta as bacon (large handful former, small handful latter), =/- equal volumes of feta and chopped tomato. The basil shrinks to very little after it hits the hot pan...
But you'll see the right amounts for yourself while you make it if you cook well at all.
But for a 2 person serving - what would work in a 10" saute pan - IIRC it would take 6-8 oz of fresh pasta (before cooking) and pretty much a handful of each of the other ingredients. Only 1-2 tsp of minced garlic of course, about twice as much feta as bacon (large handful former, small handful latter), =/- equal volumes of feta and chopped tomato. The basil shrinks to very little after it hits the hot pan...
But you'll see the right amounts for yourself while you make it if you cook well at all.
How big are your hands?
I'll be honored. Just fix it once at home first of course to see the balance you like and the timing, but it's really quite simple to execute well and there's no "right" balance to the ingredients. The type of cheese - high fat content sheep's milk feta - is the one truly crucial part. It will not be nearly as good (nor the same) with any other type of "feta" - particularly one made from cow's milk which is in fact, in the EU, outlawed. In the EU "Feta" is made from sheep's milk, with some small % of goat milk permissible. Cow's milk cannot make "Feta".
Sounds excellent.
One of the best chefs I ever worked with had been educated at the Culinary Institute of America in Hyde Park NY. He was a Columbia University drop out, so sharp as a tack. His favorite lesson from the CIA was what their Italian cooking instructor taught them - "simplicity is the model of beauty."
That line, along with "Good food tastes like what it is" were my mantras for how I wanted to cook and for my restaurants. Based on the financial and critical success we received, those mantras appeared to have been good ones for our cuisine.
Extra Virgin Olive Oil.
btw, Zeke points out that Italian Olive Oil is now a product with great variation via Mafia infused dilution.
One way around that is to buy Genco Olive Oil.
From a little town in Sicily called Corleone.
btw, Zeke points out that Italian Olive Oil is now a product with great variation via Mafia infused dilution.
One way around that is to buy Genco Olive Oil.
From a little town in Sicily called Corleone.
Pop had Genco. I got Blue Lou.
Second, no, you don't drain the bacon or pancetta. I wouldn't call the dish fatty, and it seems to me the fat from the butter and what melts out of the Feta is more than the bacon or pancetta fat - maybe that gives one a pointer for the relative amounts of the base ingredients. But the flavor of the pig fat is crucial to the dish as part of that triumverate of fats - pig, sheep's milk, and butter. It works because of the pasta water, which is a bit starchy or course but not at all fatty (oh, didn't mention, neither salt nor oil in that pasta water.)
But perhaps what I call fatty and you call fatty are two different things; certainly it's a rich dish. But it's lighter than Carbonara, with its wallop of heavy cream, egg yolk, bacon and parmesan, for sure!
For the life of me, I am 100% certain the original prototype created by the "see what you've got in the fridge method" contained bacon. None of the group of friends who lived in that apartment were ethnically Italian. But in the restaurant I just don't remember if we used bacon or pancetta. I think bacon, but not 100% certain.
The fresh basil was the lone ingredient NOT in my friends' fridge that day, so that was the inspiration of what would pull the dish together and elevate it to something kinda special, but it was almost an accidental addition. Walked half a block to the nearest small grocery seeking fresh Italian flat parsley initially. But at the grocery, there were big beautiful bunches of fresh basil and it clicked - basil, not parsley!
For those of you who cook like this, I'm sure the process rings a bell to something lovely you've concocted at one time or another.
Lastly, it's funny how menu planning and prep work in a restaurant and how one dish can lead to another. Another "creation" of mine was veal scallopini with a sauce of demi-glace, white wine, shallots, pine nuts, diced tomato hunks, shredded basil reduced and mounted with butter and lemon juice. We called it "Veal Boccincini" and I created it out of curiosity if there was a nice scallopini prep that I could make mostly with mise-en-place ingredients already on the line.
This one, the use of that particular type of cheese in a fairly rapid and easy process, assuming your staying right over the pan the entire time.
Gotta try that part.
While the olive oil business has always been fraught with fraud, it's really pretty easy to buy good quality evoo nowadays. I agree the Kirkland evoo at Costco (don't recall if it was Organic or not) I last tried was genuine and good quality. Most good EVOOs are not country specific anymore but rather blends of oils from Europe, North Africa, Australia, and South America. California produces many good EVOOs and so does Israel. In Israel there is an olive oil quality control council that chemically and taste tests every oil that carries their logo. These oils are inevitable dated for "use by" as well.
But with retailer-producers like Kirkland and Trader Joe's taking perhaps the lead in volumes of good EVOOs produced, bottled, and sold it isn't hard too find good ones.
Good EVOO has a fruity olive smell, and a sharp peppery aftertaste. If neither of these qualities are obvious in your evoo, probably then something is wrong. If one of them is obvious, you're OK, and if both are obvious, you've clearly got good good quality authentic evoo.
Anyway, this dish barely has any evoo in it at all. It's an "unhealthy fat" melange dish of pig fat and milk fat from sheep and cows. The bit of evoo at the beginning is just to help render the bacon and ensure it crisps evenly.
It's like with fresh squid.
It's either super quick flash heat or super long simmer, as far as I can tell, anything between you get chewy.
But there is nothing like the smell of italian style squid sauce for pasta.
For sure there are many ways to skin the cat. The important things to recognize are the stages of flavor release when cooking with garlic. Garlic heated in oil or fat releases flavor differently from garlic cooked in aqueous solution. I learned pretty early that for MOST recipes I want my garlic flavor "fully released' but without any hint of maillard reaction as it changes the garlic flavor dramatically. Chopping garlic more coarsely vs more finely vs minced affects that too. You figure out what works for you, your stove top, and your pans.
I like garlic a lot compared to many people. But less than Koereans...
It's like with fresh squid.
It's either super quick flash heat or super long simmer, as far as I can tell, anything between you get chewy.
But there is nothing like the smell of italian style squid sauce for pasta.
Good observation. Squid is particularly unforgiving.
I've got a huge bag of lovely sugar snap peas to cook up later this week, and was thinking about some or another pasta dish. No mushrooms? Love the combo of sugar snap or snow peas with mushrooms and pasta.
Look forward to hear how it works out.
Quote:
Your recipe is on my calendar for dinner Monday
Look forward to hear how it works out.
I've got a half pound of frozen homemade pasta dough. The only thing is, I'm probably going to fudge on the feta- I've got crumbles from Costco. Is that a deal breaker?
BlueLou, big feta lover here (feta, with fresh sliced tomatos, olive oil, red wine vinegar and some pita: fantastic quick lunch) so I'm going to try your creation next week. Big thanks.
Quote:
In comment 14467045 Bill in UT said:
Quote:
Your recipe is on my calendar for dinner Monday
Look forward to hear how it works out.
I've got a half pound of frozen homemade pasta dough. The only thing is, I'm probably going to fudge on the feta- I've got crumbles from Costco. Is that a deal breaker?
Doesn't matter where you bought the feta, what matters is if it is a high fat content sheep's milk feta.
Use cow milk "feta" - which, as noted, cannot even legally be called feta in the EU - and you're dead to me Bill. I take no responsibility for how your dish comes out.
CHP I'm a big feta lover myself. TJ's imports an excellent one from Israel, that they sell in approximate 1 lb blocks, that is a high content Sheep's milk Feta. I use it many ways - in salads, frittata, omlettes, with pasta, on panini... It is outstanding in my vegetable based white lasagne as well.
So how did he explain we used a French cheese in our signature pasta dish? He called it "Sardinian-style Sheep's milk Feta".
As if 90% of fookin' Americans can peg Corsica as a French territory, but Sardinia (Sardegna) as Italian.
Most average Americans have a hard time pegging Wyoming right on an untitled outline map of the continental US, and can't name and locate more that one third of the continental sates on that map.
But he wouldn't call the cheese we used "Corsican" in print!
Use cow milk "feta" - which, as noted, cannot even legally be called feta in the EU - and you're dead to me Bill. I take no responsibility for how your dish comes out.
Point taken, Lou :)
Quote:
Use cow milk "feta" - which, as noted, cannot even legally be called feta in the EU - and you're dead to me Bill. I take no responsibility for how your dish comes out.
Point taken, Lou :)
I looked at the container and it says something about Europe, but lists the ingredient as milk. I assume that means it's cows milk
You have 5%, 10%, 15%, and ~30% brined cheeses, but if they are cow milk based they'll call them "Bulgarian cheese" - Bulgarit in Hebrew.
Then of course we have fetas too, called feta, but specified to the majority milk content as Sheep's or Goat's. The Sheep's milk Feta is usually 24% Fat and the Goat Milk Feta 18%.
I use only the 24% fat Sheep's Milk feta for everything except crumbling on salads.
Is the label rubbed off?
If it's produced in Europe and labeled feta it has to be a majority sheeps milk product.
Is the label rubbed off?
If it's produced in Europe and labeled feta it has to be a majority sheeps milk product.
Just says President- Europe's Leading Cheese Experts
I will pass this along to my son who is a sous chef for a restaurant group in Denver.
Really appreciate it Buon Appetito
And BlueLou'sBack Thanks so much for your phenomenal recipe
Are you still producing your wine in Isreal?
Regarding squid. I never settled on any particular recipe. But as a young kid I'd get a flashlight and night spear them.
But, I'd say tomatoes yes with squid and garlic yes, and clean the squid properly and fully. Yes on the heads as well, of.course.
Save tenticles obviously.
I mean, tons of garlic, fresh, good tomatoes, black pepper, olive oil, squid, and time.
If going quick your talking seconds...otherwise hours.
If not, just follow the 1st part of any tomato concasse recipe or video, up until the cooking part.
Tomato concasse - ( New Window )
Link - ( New Window )