Growing up my mother taught me one way to make pasta. You boil the water, you put the pasta in for the time on the box, and then you drain it and pour the sauce over it. We won’t talk about her sauce here. The only time you did something different with the pasta was if you were making the boxed macaroni and cheese, in which case you added the powdered cheese, butter, and milk and stirred. That was how I was raised to think about pasta. My only other memories of my mother and pasta was when she was making a noodle kugel, but then she still made her egg noodles the same way or kasha varnikas in which she boiled the noodles and added them to the kasha. Overall, her basic approach was boil, drain, and use.
Read moreR is for Risotto
http://www.bonappetit.com/test-kitchen/common-mistakes/article/how-to-make-the-best-risotto-and-avoid-these-8-common-mistakes
As many of you know, most of my inspiration for this blog comes from my addiction (in a good way) to the show Chopped. This week is no exception as the episode I was listening to as I drifted to sleep (yes I fall asleep to reruns on the Food Network). What I woke up thinking about was how many times I have heard the judges discuss how hard it is to make rice on this show, never mind make the perfect risotto. I think it was Scott Conant I once heard talk about how many people have bad risottos. While it may be difficult to master, Bon Appetit magazine has identified as one of their favorite rice based dishes. They said the perfect “risotto is rich without being heavy, with al dente rice, a rainbow of seasonal vegetables, a shower of fresh herbs, all christened with a blanket of Parmesan.”[1] They did agree with the Chopped judges “it’s not always done right. In fact, it’s actually pretty easy to screw up.”[2]
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