Italian Culture

Antipasti

Roasted balsamic-glazed shallots

Home-baked

Lets eat already!

Cannoli!

He's Italian, right?

Garlicky Garlic Pasta

My dad always made this when I was a kid.  He still makes it, but I'm not a kid.

1lb wheat fettucini
A boat load of garlic, then a few more cloves
12oz whipping cream
1/2 stick of butter
2 bunches of scallions
a few handfuls of crimini mushrooms
Parmesan
Salt
Black Pepper

First, melt the butter and fry the whites of the scallions, the mushrooms, and half the garlic.  Once the flavors mingle and get to know each other, add the the whipping cream and the rest of the garlic.  Whisk the sauce for a little bit.  Let that sit for a little while, whisking every so often.  Once you think the flavors are all good friends with each other, grate a bunch of parmesan until the sauce is at your desired consistency.  Add salt and black pepper to taste.  Boil the fettucini at some point, but not too early or too late, obviously.  Make sure you boil it with a splash of oil, too, so it doesn't stick together--this is too often overlooked.  Combine the pasta with the sauce and voila!

Gnocchi


Since gnocchi is one of my all-time favorite foods, and Italian is my favorite cuisine, and gnocchi is Italian, I figured I owed it to gnocchi and Italy to give homemade gnocchi a go. My indulgence in gnocchi is generally limited to restaurants, and the occasional store-bought variety, though I have yet to find a brand that truly matches up to the real thing. I was pretty damn nervous about making this, given what a painstaking and finicky process making your own gnocchi can be.  Many gnocchi recipes use a potato ricer or potato mill, though you can also hand mash the potatoes (it just can take a lot longer to get the consistency right). It's all about the consistency, and although I can't claim to be a gnocchi expert (well, I can claim it, I just can't back it up) after my single gnocchi-making experience, I did recognize my downfall was in cooking too many potatoes. I figured since Potluck Culture has gotten so popular and has become so well-attended (people are lining up in the streets! There's a 2-year waiting list just to be invited), I'd better make a ton, which equals roughly 4 lbs of potatoes. This was a mistake. It takes an absurdly long time to knead all that dough, and mine never fully lost its stickiness. While it did taste pretty damn good nonetheless, there was so much that we had to make huge gnocchi, which were pretty soft and kind of fell apart when tossed with the pesto (fresh basil, shaved parm, walnuts &olive oil). No matter how much flour I added, it just wouldn't quite make up for the mass quantity of potatoes. Less is more.

http://www.101cookbooks.com/archives/how-to-make-gnocchi-like-an-italian-grandmother-recipe.html

2 lbs potatoes (I used close to twice this amount, thinking I'd just double- don't make my mistake!)
Egg
1 c. flour

Pesto or any light sauce - don't over sauce b/c gnocchi's delicate and you want the flavor to stand out.
When you've been kneading the dough all night and you're covered in flour and you don't even know who's @ this potluck b/c you're stuck in the blazing hot kitchen kneading gnocchi dough and guzzling wine (don't forget the wine, an essential ingredient to gnocchi-making. Just not for putting in the gnocchi.) while dancing around singing Mambo Italiano, then it's time to call in the big guns (ie. Chris & Pippa) to help you roll it out, boil/toss in sauce and get it on the damn table. Look out for Gnocchi: Take Two (the True Story), featuring far fewer potatoes and hopefully less time. Buon appetito!


Roasted Shallots with a Balsamic Reduction

This is the best smelling, best tasting Italian veggie side on the planet. I got my shallots at the O.N.E. farmers market hours before the potluck. $3/lb for organic shallots, dude, try and beat that. The sauce is sweet and tangy, and the roasted shallots make your apartment smell like heaven.

Ingredients:
whole shallots, peeled
balsamic vinegar
salt
pepper
brown suga
butter

First cut the ends of the shallots and peel them. Melt some butter and mix in sugar, salt, and pepper, then toss the shallots around in this mixture. Caramelizing, mmmmm. Toss the shallots in the oven at about 425. Put a bunch of balsamic in a saucepan. You want to reduce it to about a third of the original volume. Reducing is pretty easy, just cook the stuff on medium heat, add a little brown sugar if you want, and just stir it around making sure it doesn't burn. You know its done when its all dark and syrupy. Cover the shallots with the reduction and serve either warm or room temp.

Eggplant Parmesan
Linguini Bolognese
Bruschette

N'awlins Culture

Fried Okra

King Cake

The King

Pig's feet, yo

Shrimp'n'grits


Simple and simply delicious!  The trick to this dish is to make sure you get enough spice and flavor in everything, because shrimp and grits can be pretty plain tasting.

60 small to medium sized shrimp - detailed, like a car
1 cup grits - cooked with 4 cups water
2 bunches of scallions
A few handfuls of mushrooms - I prefer crimini
Parmesan
Cheddar
1 habanero
1 lemon - or lemon juice if you're a sucker
Garlic
Creole Kent's Spice Mix - you can't just find this stuff anywhere
Bacon fat - you should be keeping some handy in your freezer
Salt
Black pepper

Cook the grits with the diced habanero, some bacon fat, and salt.  Once the grits are at a good thick (but not too thick) consistency, add a good amount of both parmesan and cheddar.  You want enough so you can taste it, but not so much that the flavor is totally overpowered by cheese, unless you just really, really like cheese.  After the grits are done, or when they are close to done, cook everything else in a pan with a good deal of bacon fat--don't be shy.  I also whisked some flour in towards the end to thick up the bacon fat/lemon sauce.  Add salt and black pepper to taste.

"Black-Eyed Pea" (or Black Bean) Salad


Traditionally made with Black-Eyed Peas, if you Northerners can't come across 'em canned and you're shopping last minute, black beans are pretty dern tasty, too.

Black-Eyed Peas or Black Beans (canned, or if you have the time soak them the night before)
Lima Beans or Fava Beans
(Corn - I didn't have any in this particular instance and since we were already having corn maque choux didn't find it necessary)
Avocados
Fresh Basil
onion/scallions
Green pepper (red works too, but I had green)
garlic
Tomatoes (I just used some spicy salsa)
juice from a lemon
apple cider vinegar

Chop the onions and/or scallions, pepper and garlic and saute them in butter (til lightly browned, but still crunchy). Dice the avocado in chunks and mix with drained beans, basil and diced tomatoes or salsa. Toss in sauteed veggies and mix it all up with the lemon juice and vinegar. The avocado will sort of melt into a thick delicious consistency. Fresh with a nice crisp crunch!

African Culture

Samosas made egg roll style

Ingredients:

4lbs potato
8-12 small shallots
hot chili peppers
garlic
peas
turmeric
shredded ginger
ground ginger
chili powder
paprika
cumin
spring roll wrappers

All the ingredients for this dish can be easy located at any of your friendly neighborhood Asian markets.  I went to Thai Phat on North St. to get mine and just had a wonderful experience.

First your going to want to boil the potatoes until you can stab them with a fork pretty easily.  When they are ready, let them cool and in the meantime fry up the shallots, onion, garlic, peppers and peas for a little to soften them up. Next roughly mix in bowl the potatoes, fried veggies and all other ingredients. It should turn an interesting yellow color. Next wrap up in spring roll wrappers however you please. I found the egg roll strategy was the easiest, rolling them up like mini burritos.
 

Yam + Muffin = Yamuffin

The Aftermath

Sor Patel

Liver in the shape of Africa!

A collaborative effort from both Dan and Dylan was necessary considering the great lengths that they went to in order to create this magnificent dish.  First, we had to get pig kidney and pig liver.  This does not entail just some stroll down to the local grocery store meat deli.  We're talkin' a half hour drive down to Ferrisburg to get the offal from Vermont Livestock Slaughter & Processing.  Dan and I drove there and picked up about three times more offal than we even needed and it was five bucks, which was clearly an arbitrary price because they never sell this stuff (see picture below).  Everyone at the the slaughterhouse thought we were freaks.  We then went from there to the Brixton Halal Market on North Street where we got cubed camel to replace the traditional pork.  Pretty weird, but this is potluck culture, and how often do you get an excuse to cook camel?  It's pretty much like a fattier, gamier version of beef--be sure to stew it for a while to tenderize it.  Essentially, all you need to do is throw all these ingredients in a pot and stew it for 24 hours:

...unless you get it directly from the slaughterhouse.

3 pounds of cubed camel
1 pound of cubed liver
11 oz of cubed kidney
A bunch of the following:
      tumeric
      paprika
      black pepper
      hot pepper
      garlic
      ginger
      apple cider vinegar
      salt
      cloves (5 or so)

Before adding the spices, you can make an amazing paste by crushing the spice on a cutting board with a rolling pin and putting it in a bowl with the vinegar.  This paste looks and smells amazing--I dream about it.  Basically all you have to do to cook this is to simmer it until the offal breaks apart.  The recipe I got this from said that it disintegrates into the sauce in about an hour.  That is bullshit.  We simmered it for about 20 hours and there were still good chunks in the stew.  We ended up boiling the hell out of it and crushing the obvious chunks against the side of the pot with a spoon.  It comes out tasting like a super-flavorful African-spiced chili, and we chose to serve it with rice.