A Perfect Meal: Salad, Pasta, and a Good Stiff Drink

A friend and I had a tough day and we needed a quiet place to have dinner and recover. We happened across Matteo's, a West LA fixture since the Frank Sinatra Rat Pack days.

The menu is Old School, with sections for Antipasti, Salumi, Insalta, Pasta, Seafood, Chicken, Chef's Specialities, and Weekly Specialties. I'll definitely come back for Tuesday's Roast Pig alla Porchetta Dinner. Tonight I settled on a Caesar salad, Spaghettini alla Vongole, and a Perfect Manhattan with a twist. I have to say, the combination was about as right as it could have been.

The dinner reminded me that a salad, pasta, and a drink was a good way to settle down and switch gears from work-manic to social. Tonight I decided to do my own version of this trifecta and make an Arugula Salad with Feta and Olives, Spaghetti with Parsley and Bacon, and a Perfect Manhattan.

Perfect Manhattan

A Perfect Manhattan mixes up easily and should be the first thing you make, so you can sip while you cook.

Yield: 1 serving

Time: 2 minutes

Ingredients

4 oz. Bourbon or Whiskey
½ oz. Sweet Vermouth
½ oz. Dry Vermouth
1 twist of lemon peel, 1" long, ¼" wide

Method

Keep the Bourbon in the freezer so it will be extra cold. Pour the Bourbon and both vermouths into a martini glass, stir, drop in the twist, and sip contentedly.

Arugula Salad

Yield: 4 servings

Time: 5 minutes

Ingredients

1 bunch arugula, washed, dried, the leaves pulled off the stems
10 oil cured black olives, pits removed, cut in half
1 scallion, washed, trimmed, sliced, the white and green parts
¼ cup feta, crumbled
2 tablespoons olive oil
2 teaspoons reduced balsamic syrup
Freshly ground black pepper
Sea salt

Method

Toss the arugula, olives, scallions, and feta in a salad bowl, then drizzle the olive oil and reduced balsamic syrup. Taste and season with pepper and sea salt as desired.

Spaghetti with Parsley and Bacon

Yield: 4 servings

Time: 45 minutes

Ingredients

1 pound dried spaghetti
½ cup Italian parsley, washed, the leaves finely chopped, the stems not used
4 strips of bacon, already cooked, finely chopped
2 cloves garlic, peeled, thinly sliced
1 tablespoon olive oil
1 cup homemade chicken stock or pasta water
1 tablespoon unsalted butter
Freshly ground black pepper
Sea salt
Freshly ground Parmesan or Romano cheese

Method

Put a large pot of salted water (1 teaspoon of Kosher salt to 1 gallon of water) on a high flame while you sauté the parsley, finely chopped bacon, and garlic in the olive oil until softened, not browned. Add the dried pasta to the boiling water, stir well, and check every 5 minutes, stirring each time, until cooked al dente.

To capture 1 cup of pasta water, put a measuring cup in the sink next to the colander. Empty the pot into the colander, filling the measuring cup with pasta water as you do. To keep the pasta hot while you finish the sauce, put the spaghetti back in the pot, drizzle with olive oil, stir well, and cover.

Use the chicken stock or the pasta water to deglaze the pan, adding the butter and mixing with the parsley-bacon-garlic mixture. Simmer for 10 minutes until the sauce has thickened. Taste and season with sea salt or black pepper if needed. Serve with grated Parmesan or Romano cheese.

Chicken Breasts with a Cilantro-Butter Sauce

Chicken breasts are boring. No question they pick up some flavor when grilled, but all too often they are served dried out, with little to recommend them, except that they're lean. More of a "jumping-off point" than a flavor-destination, chicken breasts need a sauce to make them worth while. Trying many different combinations, I remembered a Thai style chicken stir fry that featured a cilantro and black pepper sauce. Looking for a way to better meld the flavors, I added caramelized onions and a pat of butter.

Chicken Breasts with a Cilantro-Butter Sauce


Serves 4.

Preparation Time 20 minutes. Cooking Time 45 minutes.


Ingredients

1 bunch cilantro, leaves only, washed, dried, finely chopped
2 cloves, garlic, peeled, finely chopped
1 medium yellow onion, peeled, cut into thin rings
4 chicken breasts, skinless, washed, dried
½ cup homemade chicken stock
3 tablespoon olive oil
1 tablespoon unsalted butter
½ teaspoon freshly ground black pepper

Directions

In a bowl marinate the chicken breasts in 1 tablespoon olive oil for 30 minutes.

Sauté the cilantro, onion, garlic and black pepper 1 tablespoon olive oil on a medium flame, turning frequently, until lightly brown.

 Add the butter and chicken stock.  Reduce by half over a low flame and spatula the sauce into a bowl.

On a medium flame, sauté the chicken breasts in 1 tablespoon of olive oil until each side is browned with a crust. 5 minutes on each side.

The sauce and chicken breasts can be prepared ahead.

Just before serving put the cilantro-onion sauce and chicken breasts into the frying pan and simmer covered 5 minutes. Taste and adjust seasoning, if needed, with sea salt and black pepper.

To serve, use tongs to transfer the breasts to a cutting board. Either serve the breasts whole or slice them and place on a serving plate. Using a spatula, spoon the sauce over the chicken breasts. Serve hot with cooked rice, mashed potatoes or sautéed vegetables.

An Easy Sauté with Carrots and Brussels Sprouts

Rushing home with no time to cook anything complicated. That doesn't mean I'm ok with a throw-together dinner that is boring or visually uninteresting. The carrot and Brussels sprouts sauté turns a simple grilled chicken breast, piece of fish, or steak into a satisfying meal.

4 carrots, peeled, cut into 1" long slabs
1 lb. Brussels sprouts, washed, stem trimmed, quartered
1 garlic clove, peeled, jullienned
1 tablespoon butter
1 tablespoon olive oil
¼ cup water

Sauté the carrots, Brussels sprouts, and garlic in the olive oil and butter until lightly browned. Add water and cover. Simmer for 15 minutes.

Serves 4.

Preparation Time: 15 minutes. Cooking Time: 30 minutes.

Extremely Filling Chicken-Vegetable Soup

When my mother moved back to California after 20 years in Costa Rica, I started filling her freezer with easy-to-reheat meals. My own, personal version of meals-on-wheels. At first freezer burn was a problem, until I discovered that as long as the meat and vegetables were submerged in a liquid or coated with sauce, the food survived remarkably unaffected by their time in her freezer. Now that our older son, Frank, is back from college, living in his own place, I've added his freezer to my list of must-fills.

Freezing chicken soup works great and with enough meat and vegetables, the soup satisfies as an entree. I'll only use homemade stock. Not because I'm an overly fastidious foodie, but the high sodium content of prepared stocks puts me off. Making my own, I can also control the quality of the stock. Using raw bones makes a mild almost "neutral" tasting stock. If the bones come from a roasted chicken, the flavors have a deeper flavor. They're both good, either working well for a soup, although the milder stock is closer to the Jewish chicken soup of my childhood.

2 carrots, peeled, finely chopped
2 broccoli crowns, washed, roughly chopped (1 cup)
2 Yukon gold potatoes, washed, peeled, roughly chopped
1 small yellow onion, peeled, finely chopped
2 garlic cloves, peeled, finely chopped
2 tablespoons finely chopped Italian parsley, washed
1 cup cooked chicken, shredded
6 cups homemade chicken stock
1 tablespoon olive oil
1 tablespoon unsalted butter
Sea salt
Freshly ground black pepper

In a large saucepan, heat the olive oil over a medium flame and saute the onions and garlic until lightly browned so the onions caramelize, then add the rest of the vegetables and chicken, stirring and cooking until softened, being careful not to over-brown the vegetables. Deglaze the pan with the butter and season with sea salt and freshly ground black pepper. Pour in the chicken stock and simmer 30 minutes. Taste and adjust the seasons with additional sea salt and pepper, as needed.

To serve, ladle out a generous portion of the vegetables and chicken and top with homemade croutons.

Serves 6.

Preparation Time: 30 minutes. Cooking Time: 30 minutes.

Comfort Food: Meatballs, Sausages, and Spinach Soup

When it's cold, I want to eat something substantial. Tramping around in the snow all day, when we get back to the condo, we're cold and very, very hungry. With a fresh baguette or a bowl of steaming pasta, the Meatballs, Sausages, and Spinach soup is really satisfying. Add in a glass of Merlot or Pinot and it's all good.

1 ½ lbs. extra lean ground beef 7%
2 sweet Italian sausages
3 cloves garlic, peeled--2 finely chopped, 1 roughly chopped
1 medium yellow onion, peeled--½ onion cut into thin rings; ½ finely chopped
¼ cup freshly grated Parmesan or Romano
1 bunch spinach, washed
4 cups homemade chicken stock
Sea salt
Black pepper

In a bowl, combine the lean ground beef, finely chopped garlic, ½ an onion, and the Parmesan. Using your hands, mix well and form 48 medium-sized meatballs. Sauté the onion rings and roughly chopped garlic in olive oil on a medium-high flame until lightly browned; remove to a plate. Return the pan to the stove and sauté the meatballs with 1 teaspoon olive oil. When they’re browned on all sides, remove and drain. Do in batches.

Cut the sausages into ¼” rounds and sauté until brown. Remove and drain. Pour off the excess oil and add 1 tablespoon of olive oil to the pan. Heat again and add the spinach. Turn frequently until the spinach wilts, then add the onions, meatballs, and sausages. Add the chicken stock and simmer for 30 minutes.

To eat as a soup, serve hot, with grated Parmesan on the side. To have with pasta, cook 1 pound of spaghetti and add to the meatballs and sausage. Serve with grated Parmesan

Serves 8. Preparation Time: 30 minutes. Cooking Time: 60 minutes.

Comfort Food: Sausages and Chicken Wings with Shitake Mushrooms

Every winter we go to the Sundance Resort in Utah where my wife runs a feature film program at Robert Redford's Sundance Institute. She stays for most of the month but I go back to LA after a long weekend, then fly back four days later to go to the Sundance Film Festival in Park City.

When we're at the resort, my sons go skiing. I tried it a couple of times and realized it just isn't my thing. I wish I had my sons' athleticism. I don't. But I'm completely happy because Sundance is the perfect setting to cook. The condo has a simple kitchen set-up. No oven and only a 2-burner stove top, but outside the snow covered mountain is postcard perfect and inside it's nice and warm.

I do a lot of cooking at the resort, but I'm not cooking for the time we're here. I'm cooking and then freezing the food so we can have home-cooked meals when we're at the Festival, where watching 3-4 films a day means there's no time to cook. If you're lucky there's the occasional party where you can grab a mini-crab cake or some cheese and crackers.

I wanted to make comfort food. Nourishing, warm dishes that would revive us after a very long day.

Before we came up to the resort, we stopped at Macey's, one of the local supermarkets, and picked up basics: 2 Gold'n Plump organic chickens, a couple of pounds of extra lean ground beef, a package of Italian sweet sausages, and a selection of fresh vegetables.

Since all the dishes had to be able to survive freezing and reheating, everything would have a sauce or be in a soup, that would protect against freezer burn and drying out. That meant the first thing I needed to do was to make chicken stock.

CHICKEN STOCK
Cutting up the 2 chickens, I had the carcasses and wing tips for the stock. Simmered on a low boil with 16 cups of water for 1 hour, then strained to remove the bones, I had 8 cups of stock. I pulled 1 cup of meat off the bones, perfect for chicken soup. Because I needed a lot of stock, I used the now-picked-clean bones for a 2nd boil by covering the bones with water and simmering for 30 minutes. Straining out the bones gave me an additional 2 cups of stock. If possible, refrigerate the stock overnight so the fat can be removed.

Sautéed saUSAGES AND CHICKEN WINGS WITH SHIiTAKE MUSHROOMS
4 wings, washed, cut into pieces, the tips used for stock
2 Italian sweet sausages, cut into ¼” rounds
½ bunch spinach, washed, roughly chopped
1 cup shiitake mushrooms, fresh, or dried, soaked for 2 hours in hot water, stems removed
1 cup chicken stock
½ cup shiitake mushroom soaking water
2 cloves garlic, peeled, finely chopped
2 tablespoon olive oil
Sea salt
Freshly ground black pepper

On a medium flame, heat 1 tablespoon of olive oil, season with sea salt and freshly ground black pepper. Saute the chicken wings until brown on all sides. Remove and sauté the sausage rounds until brown, drain and remove. Pour off the excess oil.

Add the 2^nd tablespoon of olive oil and sauté the shiiake mushrooms and garlic until lightly browned. Deglaze the pan with the 2 stocks, add the spinach, then put back the wings and sausages. Simmer for 30 minutes lightly covered with a sheet of tin foil.

Serve in a bowl with soup spoons and lots of napkins because this is finger-eating food. Or, to make a more substantial entree, add pasta or rice to the bowl.

Serves 2-4. Preparation Time: 20 minutes. Cooking Time: 60 minutes.

For everything going into the freezer, I use an airtight container, like the ones made by Ziploc, and make sure that the liquid covers the meat and vegetables to avoid freezer burn.

Shrimps on Fire

I started teaching my sons how to cook when they were barely tall enough to reach the kitchen counter. The first thing anyone needs to learn is good knife skills. I still remember his mom looking in horror when she walked into the kitchen to find me showing 5 year old Frank how to use a 10" chef's knife to chop Italian parsley. No blood was spilled that day, but the quality of my parenting was a topic of discussion for many months afterwards.

When Frank went away to UC, Santa Cruz, I put together a cookbook with recipes I thought would be quick, easy, and economical. Periodically I'd get calls from him for cooking tips, like the time he was in Costco and he wanted to know what he could do with frozen red snapper, since it was on sale for $1.35/lb.

What's really fun is when the student becomes the teacher.

On one of his trips home, Frank taught us how to make shrimps wrapped in bacon, an appetizer he used to make for parties. Hors d'oeuvres are my favorite part of the meal. Nothing is better than little bite sized taste treats. For a vision of heaven, check out Mark Bittman's episode of his Best Recipes in the World about tapas in Barcelona.

Frank's bacon wrapped shrimp is on my 10 Best Appetizers list. Since I can't resist tweaking any recipe, I added a bit more flavor by coating the shrimps in a seasoned olive oil marinade, otherwise, the recipe is his.

Bacon Wrapped Shrimp

Yield: 4 servings

Time: 30 minutes

Ingredients

1 pound shrimps (25-35 count/lb.), washed, shelled, deveined
10-12 strips of bacon
2 tablespoons olive oil
1/4 teaspoon sea salt
1/8 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
1 garlic clove, peeled, finely chopped
1 shallot, peeled, finely chopped
2 tablespoons Italian parsley, washed, finely chopped
Toothpicks

Method

Heat the olive oil in a pan and season with sea salt and freshly ground black pepper. Sauté the finely chopped parsley, garlic, and shallot in the olive oil until lightly browned. Let cool.

Spoon the seasoned olive oil over the shrimp. Toss well and let sit for 30 minutes.

Get organized so you can work assembly-line.

Cut the strips of bacon into 3 equal pieces. Toss the shrimp again, then take one shrimp and lay it on the piece of bacon, rolling the bacon around the shrimp. Take a toothpick and push it through the bacon-shrimp-bacon to hold it together. Set aside and do the rest.

Using tongs, put the shrimp on a hot grill and close the hood. If you're using an oven, set it at 450 degrees and put the shrimp on a wire rack over a cookie sheet.

Turn every 2-3 minutes so they cook evenly and don't burn, about 10 minutes. Serve on a platter with napkins.