Squash Gnocchi with Fried Sage--Halloween is Coming!

I am getting more and more nervous every day seeing pumpkins popping up everywhere.

When I came to America, almost from the first day, I met new qualities of life, which I embraced right away and forever--almost 300 sunny days a year in DC, smiling people (even though many Europeans may consider that superficial), 24 hour grocery stores and store return policy, the inclusive school system, and the great international diversity within the local community, just to name a few. But there is one aspect of living here that I have never really accepted--the American cuisine with its two main ingredients--the turkey and the pumpkin.

I know that as my son is getting excited about Halloween and pumpkin carving, he will eventually ask if I shared any pumpkin recipes on my blog, which I have not. I have tried a home-made pumpkin pie years ago just to discover that it was not my kind of dessert. Too bland. It could be a comfort food, but only for those who grew up here, I suppose. Back home, we ate pumpkins preserved in vinegar, as meat accompaniment, or in a sweet soup with milk and noodles, which I never liked either.

But I don't want to get in trouble with my American kids and the majority of my readers. Once in a while I try to make something new with pumpkins or their family members, hoping to be able to acquire some of the local taste. In this vein, last July, I made squash gnocchi.

I bought two squashes--acorn and butternut. At that time they were not local for sure. I used them to make the gnocchi and topped them with fried sage from my garden. They turned out to be a great hit. The sweetness of the squash was not overwhelmingly dominant and the crispy and aromatic sage helped to bring out the nuttiness of the squash. Since my family loves pasta and dumplings of any kind, this dish had a great chance to match our taste to begin with, but the result exceeded my expectation as the gnocchi disappeared in the blink of an eye.

We will certainly make them again this fall and again we will not have enough of them, especially that beautiful locally grown acorn and butternut squashes can now be found everywhere.

Squash Gnocchi with Fried Sage
(Serves four)

Ingredients:
1 Acorn and 1 Butternut Squash about 1 pound altogether,
1 1/2 cup flour,
1/4 cup grated Parmesan cheese plus extra for garnish,
20 leaves of sage,
1 stick (about 100g) of butter,
salt and freshly ground pepper.

Preparation:

Sage fried in butter
1. Cut sage leaves into strips,
2. Melt butter in a small pan and add sage leaves.
3. Fry the sage until it becomes darker and crispy.

Gnocchi
1. Preheat oven to 350F.
2. Cut squash in slices, remove seeds, and arrange on the well-oiled baking tin.
3. Bake until soft, for about 30-40 min.
4. Cool down, remove skin, and scoop up the flesh.
5. Using an electric blender turn the cooked squash into a purée.
6. Add flour and make a dough. If it is too sticky add a little more flour.
7. Make the dough into a long roll and cut it diagonally into small pieces,1/2 inch long--see picture.

8. Boil a pot of water with 1 tbsp of salt and drop the gnocchi in it.
9. Wait until they rise to the surface and, from that moment, cook them for another 3-4 minutes.
10. Drain the gnocchi on a colander, put them on a plate.
11. Serve them with the fried sage leaves and the butter in which the sage was fried, shredded Parmesan, and freshly ground pepper.

Watercress and Roasted Tomatoes--The Elegant Salad

A friend of mine, who works in the music industry, often says that he has two big regrets in life--one, that he will never record The White Album and two, (he is a baldish type) that he will never have hair like Robert Plant. My biggest regret is that I will never write a romantic bestseller like Sense and Sensibility, and that I will never cater a dinner for John Kennedy Jr, in his Tribeca apartment, like a host of Zen Can Cook was lucky to do.

It is entirely understandable that he was granted such an opportunity, as his dishes, and especially the way they are presented, are culinary art. That is exactly what I was expecting to be treated to when I went to a three Michelin star restaurant and what I dream and try to achieve, cooking at home for my friends and guests.

The idea of this simple salad has been in my heart for almost two decades, ever since I read about it when I was living in London. All I remember is that it was created by one of the top Australian chefs for his Sydney restaurant. I am not even sure if I can remember correctly all the ingredients, but I did my best to make sure that my version remains in the same healthy yet elegant style.

All the ingredients are very simple and well known, and the presentation is key. It would be one of the dishes that I would put under a title "How to impress....", let's say, someone you meet for the first time. I made it a few times for my guests, since I often feel as hosting a culinary blog obliges me to do more than just tasty food, and also because I simply enjoy eating and creating attractive compositions on my plate.

What is nice about this salad is that everything can be prepared in advance (tomatoes and asparagus even a day earlier) and just assembled and served at the last moment.

Watercress and Roasted Tomatoes Salad
(for 6 people)

Ingredients:
1 bunch of watercress,
6 medium or 12 smaller (cocktail, but not cherry) tomatoes,
1 bunch of asparagus,
6 slices of Pancetta,
1/4 cup of shredded Parmesan cheese,
balsamic vinegar,
extra virgin olive oil,
salt and freshly ground pepper.

Preparation:
1. Preheat the oven to 350F.
2. Remove skin from the tomatoes. In order to do that, put the tomatoes first in the boiling water for about 20-30 seconds and right after that put them in the cold water. Take them out and remove the skin.
3. Place the tomatoes on a baking pan, salt them, and drizzle with oil.
4. Bake for 20-30 minutes, depending how big the tomatoes are, or until soft, and cool them down.
5. Cut 1/3 off asparagus stalks and blanch in the hot water for about 3 minutes, or cook on a frying pan in a little bit of oil and water for about 5 minutes, until they become softer, but still firm (al dente, if you will).
6. Cut the pancetta into smaller pieces and fry on a dry pan until gold and crispy.
7. Arrange the watercress, asparagus, and tomatoes on a plate. Sprinkle with a coarse sea salt and freshly ground pepper.

As I served this salad to my friends, I was wondering "Would John Jr. be smitten?"

Stuffed Peppers--On the Wild Side

Recently, while going through my recipes, thinking what I should cook next and share on my blog, I discovered that the most popular vegetables in my own notebook are not tomatoes--as I expected--but peppers.

Peppers are extremely fragrant and can enrich or be turned into practically any dish. Tropical cuisines tend to use the spicy varieties of pepper, the cold-climate ones, including from the Central Europe, rather have sweet peppers on their menus. I have written down multiple dishes in all categories based on pepper--pastas, tarts, entrées, soups, and salads. I even have several recipes on how to preserve peppers.

All my childhood I was eating peppers either raw, for instance in sandwiches, or stuffed and baked with meats. I also ate a lot of them in a Hungarian lecsó dish---which became very popular in Poland when meat was in short supply--similar to ratatouille, which is made with peppers cooked with tomatoes and squash as main ingredients.

Later, when I started to travel, I became familiar with roasted peppers and ate them in soups, quiches, and various side dishes. As I have plenty to share on the subject of this versatile vegetable, I will certainly return to it in the near future.

But today I have made something rather well known--stuffed roasted peppers. The only innovation in that recipe was the choice of rice. For the first time I made them with wild rice to change the texture of the stuffing and add some nutritious value to it. I think that this experiment produced encouraging results, although the stuffing became much more firm than when made with white rice as prescribed in traditional recipes.

For that reason it is important to use ground meat that is not too lean, as lean meat would additionally harden the stuffing. I would say that, for this particular recipe, beef of chicken can be too lean. All in all, I think that this recipe is worth trying--peppers stuffed with wild rice have beautiful presentation, great taste, and much more value as wild rice is more reach in minerals and vitamins than white rice.

Peppers Stuffed with Wild Rice

Ingredients:
6 red, yellow, or orange bell peppers,
1 medium onion,
1 pound ground pork or lamb,
1 cup wild rice,
1/2 cup Italian cheese mix,
2 tbsp oil,
3 tbsp butter,
1 tbsp of any herb mix (can be any grill seasoning),
salt (about 1 tsp) and pepper.

Preparation:
1. Cook wild rice in salted water according to the instruction on the box and cool it down.
2. Preheat oven to 375F.
2. Peel onion, cut into small cubes and fry in oil, just so it is not raw.
3. Put the meat in a bowl, add rice, onion, spices and working with a hand make a smooth stuffing.
4. At the end add cheese and gently incorporate it into the meat stuffing.
5. Cut off pepper tops and remove the seeds.
6. Fill up the peppers with the stuffing and put the pepper tops back on.

7. In a heat-proof dish put a little bit of water and butter, and place all the peppers.
8. Cover with the aluminum foil and bake for about 45-60 min. You can remove the foil after about 40 minutes and let the pepper tops become gold.

Serve with green salad as accompaniment and, if you wish, a baguette.