Sarnies smoked salmon spaghetti: A sublime, succulent sensation

Almost a year ago, I had one of the best brunch dishes of my life at a little, obscure cafe in Bangkok called Sarnies. It's a bit of a lox bagel in pasta form, which they call their salmon carbonara. It cured my hangover that morning, made me fall in love with my brunch companion, parted the clouds, and brought peace upon the earth. Or at least that's how I remember it. This pasta is that good. I actually think it's a better dinner entree but, fuck it, serve it for dinner, brunch, as a midnight snack, as a halftime treat for a soccer team, give it to the astronauts. It doesn't really matter the setting -- this pasta is insane and takes only a few minutes to whip together.

Prep time: 1 cocktails

12 oz dried sourdough pasta (I prefer fettuccini) - if you cannot find sourdough, your normal pasta will work
1 batch creamy coconut pasta sauce
2-4 ounces smoked salmon/lox cut into small strips or coin-size medallions
A small tin of salmon roe (it sometimes is really sticky; rinse if needed)
A handful of bonito flakes
Fresh dill bits
A few shreds of nori, 1/8" wide
A few spoonfuls of capers rinsed and drained (optional)
Lemon wedges for serving

Prepare the pasta.

While pasta is boiling, make the coconut cream sauce. Toss the pasta and warm sauce together and plate it. Top with salmon pieces, a few pinches roe, several big pinches of bonito flakes, dill, and nori (and capers too, if using). 

Serve with a lemon wedge or two for squeezing over the top, if you want, as well as any extra dill you might want.

All-purpose creamy coconut pasta sauce

Once in a while I want to make something that calls for some sort of basic creamy sauce, whether it's for vodka cream sauce, a hearty addition to a gnocchi or baked pasta dish, a white-sauce pizza, or just a plain alfredo-like cream sauce for a visiting friend's kid, keeping this on hand in the refrigerator or freezer (or making it real quickly on the spot) always comes in handy. Any and all additions you can think of make great optional enhancements: capers, fresh basil, baby spinach, salmon filets, etc. You can also make this vegan with fake butter and Parmesan without losing much of the great flavor. 

Prep time: 1 cocktail (but ideally you can let the flavors meld for a few hours or overnight)

3 TBSP butter or vegan butter

1 small shallot, finely minced
3-4 cloves garlic, very finely minced
1 5.5-ounce can unsweetened coconut cream (not coconut milk)

1/2 cup dry white wine

1 TBSP microplaned lemon zest

1 tsp dijon
1 TBSP nutritional yeast
1/2 tsp salt
1 cup pretty well packed parmesan, grated with a microplane (or a vegan version)

Generous several grinds black pepper
A few pinches' worth of nutmeg, fresh grated with a microplane (optional)

A little tapioca starch (optional)

Prepared pasta

On medium to medium-high heat, melt the butter and then add the shallot and saute really well, until it starts to turn light golden. Add garlic and continue sautéing another 1-2 minutes. 

Once garlic is fragrant, add coconut cream, wine, lemon zest, dijon, nutritional yeast, and salt. Use a whisk to incorporate it all and keep using it, stirring nearly constantly, until the sauce reaches a boil. Reduce to a simmer and keep whisking often.

After reducing to a simmer, you can start adding the parmesan. Add it a few pinches at a time; if you dump it all in at once, it'll make a big glob of a cheese mess. Keep whisking as you slowly add all the cheese. Once it's all incorporated and melted, you can add pepper and nutmeg to taste. 

If you want a thicker alfredo, now you can add a little tapioca starch and whisk it in well. But I prefer to let it cook down slightly and then cool before a quick reheat to serve. This gives me the right consistency without tapioca starch. Either approach is fine.

As you finish the sauce, adjust lemon, salt, pepper, and nutmeg to taste. Remove from heat and serve or (ideally) let the flavors meld for a few hours before serving. 

Charred broccoli rabe, lemon, and faux sausage tossed with pasta

Broccoli rabe (also known as broccolini or rapini) is an absolute treat out of the early summer garden. I came up with this recipe a few months ago when we were harvesting it like crazy. It is an attempt to make something of a vegetarian Carbonara that incorporates our bounty of broccoli rabe, as well as a couple vegan sausages we had to use up. 

This does call for a specialty gadget: a rasp grater or Microplane. Don't be a loser and buy pre-grated parmesan cheese or cut a corner and try to grate this with something else. Take the $16 hit and buy one of these if you don't already have one. It makes an incredible tool for citrus zests, hard cheeses, chocolate, and frozen garlic for a variety of applications. I'm seriously watching you. DO NOT disappoint me the way you have already done with your parents!

Prep time: 2 cocktails

12 ounces bow tie (frfalle) or penne pasta
2 high-quality spicy Italian vegetarian sausages (like Beyond brand)
1-2 TBSP high-temperature cooking oil, like canola or avacado
2 grocery store bunches-worth of broccoli rabe, each piece cut into 2-3 more edible sizes
10 cloves garlic, minced
Juice of 1 lemon
4 eggs -- 2 whole eggs and 2 yolks only whisked in a small bowl
1 cup of fresh grated Parmesan with a microplane (I'm still watching you), plus extra for serving
Salt and pepper
Minced parsley and red chili flakes for garnish

Prepare pasta and rinse and set aside. Cook sausage in stovetop over medium heat until nicely browned. Remove and cut into 1/2" thick wheels.

Put oil into a frying pan over high heat. Once your pan gets very hot, add the broccoli rabe. The point here is to basically blacken parts of it, so make sure your pan is hot before adding. Fry it a few minutes until your desired amount of char is achieved, then turn off heat and stir in garlic. Saute another minute or until the garlic turns a bit golden but not browned or burned, then squeeze the lemon juice over the broccoli rabe and stir one last time. Transfer broccoli rabe and garlic to a plate. 

In a medium or large saucepan or dutch oven, heat the cooked and drained pasta over medium heat until it is nice and ward. Toss in a tiny dash of olive oil if it is sticking badly. Once pasta is nice and hot, add the egg and Parmesan, plus a lot of salt and pepper to taste. The goal is to have the egg cook just enough to have a creamy sauce-like consistency that sticks to the pasta but has a nice velvety texture and isn't fully cooked. This usually only takes a minute--maybe less. Once you're about at this point stir in broccoli rabe and remove from heat. Serve right away with additional parmesan, parsley, and chili flakes on top. 

Handmade pasta

This is my stock pasta recipe--good for any type of noodles or ravioli and tortellini. You can mix it up with herbs, squid ink, or spinach in the pasta. I prefer 00 flour because it is milled finer, which means the final noodles end up more soft and pillowy.

A vegan pasta is also easy to make, just substitute ground flax whisked with water. Use 3-4 TBSP of the flax meal and 3/4 cup of water.

10 ounces 00 flour
1 tsp salt
2 whole eggs
4 additional egg yolks

Mix ingredients well, then knead at least 10 minutes in stand mixer, add a touch of water or flour if the dough consistency isn't right--you want something like slightly firm Play-Doh that is smooth, firm, and elastic. Cover and let rest for 60 minutes, if possible (this will also enhance the texture, but you can skip if you're in a hurry). Divide into 4 equal balls and roll out dough with a rolling pin or pasta roller and cut noodles to desired thickness.

Toss directly into boiling salted water for 1-2 minutes or dust with flour and freeze.

Arugula pesto... Because I'm a cheap bastard

So last weekend, some friends came to visit. We were going to make a big arugula salad, but alas, we had too much food so we never got around to assembling the salad. So a sad bag of arugula languished in the back of the refrigerator for several days until I finally pulled it out last night. I was going to toss it since I'm actually not a lover of salads that are heavy on arugula. But that shit is expensive. So rather than toss it, I decided to try to do something with it. Because I'm afrugula.

Yep. That was a whole paragraph of buildup for a joke that your overly cheesy uncle Ray would be ashamed to tell. But rest assured, the pesto is much better than the humor around here.

Prep time: 1/4 cocktail

2 cups packed fresh arugula
1/2 cup grated fresh Parmesan (no canned or pre-shredded shit)
1/2 cup raw, unsalted walnuts
1/2 cup olive oil
1/2 tsp salt
1 clove garlic, minced
Pepper to taste

Combine all ingredients in food processor puree until smooth. Serve on top of pasta with your own terrible jokes. Excess pesto freezes well.

Puttanesca: A Perfect Pasta for the Whore in All of Us

In Italian, puttanesca translates to “whore-style.” Nobody’s sure where the name comes from, but one story is that this is a quick, inexpensive dish that enabled the prostitutes of Naples to prepare it between clients. But fear not: you needn't be a culinary whiz nor a lady of the night to enjoy this zippy, umami-rich delight. Really all you need are a few readily-accessible pantry staples and a few minutes. Plus enormous volumes of red wine, of course. 

Prep time: 1 cocktail

3 TBSP olive oil

5 cloves garlic, minced

8 anchovy filets

1 teaspoon red pepper flakes

1 28-ounce can diced tomatoes, drained (or a few chopped ripened tomatoes)

3 TBSP capers, drained

½ cup Kalamata olives, pitted and chopped up a bit

¼ cup Italian flat leaf parsley or fresh basil, finely chopped

Splash or two of white wine (optional)

Prepared spaghetti or polenta

Fresh-grated Parmesan cheese (optional)

Heat oil in large pan over medium high heat and add garlic, anchovies, and pepper flakes. Stirring frequently, sauté until anchovies break down and garlic turns golden (but not brown), about 2-3 minutes. Add tomato and continue stirring frequently until tomato begins to break down a bit, about 8-10 minutes.

Stir in capers, olives, parsley or basil, and wine, if using. Simmer another 5 minutes. Salt to taste, top with Parmesan.

Spaghetti Aglio e Olio

This is one of the most simple, common sides in Italy. It is often said that this is the one dish that all Italian men know how to make. It takes only a few minutes and it is scaleable for large groups, making it an ideal side dish for any large get-together. 

Adding anchovies or anchovy paste a minute before the garlic is a great addition for those that eat fish. If you do add anchovies, just reduce the salt a bit. 

Prep time: 1/2 cocktail

8 ounces dry plain or whole wheat spaghetti

¼ cup high-quality extra virgin olive oil

1-2 cloves garlic, sliced very thin

1-2 tsp red chili flakes

1 TBSP fresh minced Italian flat leaf parsley, basil, or oregano (optional)

½ tsp salt

Fresh grated, top-quality Parmesan (no canned or pre-grated cheese!)

Prepare the spaghetti.

As your spaghetti cooks, heat the olive oil over medium low heat in a small frying pan. Once warm, add the garlic and chili flakes and sauté, stirring frequently until the garlic turns a light golden-brown, but is not burned. Add the herbs and remove from heat.

Once the pasta is ready, drain and toss with the garlic oil or drizzle the oil on top of plated pasta. Top with parmesan cheese and add salt and pepper to taste.

Cincinnati Chili: The Best Comfort Food You've Never Heard Of

Cincinnati chili may be my single favorite comfort food. It's rich, filling, easy, and is so, so good when it's cold outside. Or I just want to eat myself stupid. Or it's a day that ends in a 'Y'. Whatever. 

So, you may be asking, what the fuck is Cincinnati chili? Well, my pretty, you asked the right Wikipedia user! Invented in 1922, Cincinnati chili is different from Tex-Mex chili because it includes such additions as cinnamon, unsweetened chocolate (or cocoa powder), and allspice. This chili is also typically less spicy, usually topped with tons of cheddar, and is served over spaghetti. This dish was the creation of Macedonian immigrants whose restaurant in Cincinnati was doing poorly because the mostly Germanic population wasn’t particularly excited to eat Greek-style food. So, in an attempt to try something new, the restaurant owner, Tom Kiradjieff,tried to modify a traditional Middle Eastern stew with ingredients more suited to the American palate. His “spaghetti chili” was born and has been wildly popular in Ohio ever since.

Prep time: 2-3 cocktails

2 TBSP olive oil

1 large onion, chopped

6 cloves garlic, minced

2 15-ounce cans beans (black, pinto, or red), drained

1 28-ounce can crushed or diced tomatoes

1/3 cup TVP (textured vegetable protein--available at any natural grocer)

1 cup water

2 TBSP Worcestershire sauce

1 TBSP white vinegar

1.5 tsp salt

1 TBSP sugar

1.5 TBSP cocoa powder (unsweetened)

A few dashes cayenne

1 TBSP chili powder

1 TBSP ground cumin

1 tsp allspice

1 tsp cinnamon

¼ tsp ground cloves

4 bay leaves

8 ounces dry spaghetti

1 scant cup additional onion, chopped (optional)

Cheddar cheese, grated (as much or little as you want)

In a Dutch oven or large saucepan, heat the oil over medium high heat. When hot, add the large onion and garlic. Sauté, stirring frequently, until the onion becomes a bit transparent—about 5 minutes. Add all remaining ingredients EXCPET the last three (cheese, optional diced onion, and spaghetti). Bring to a boil, stirring frequently, then reduce to a simmer and cover. Simmer for at least 90 minutes, removing the lid periodically and stirring. This dish should have the consistency somewhere between regular chili and marinara sauce, so add more water as you go, if necessary.

When the chili is about 15 minutes from completion, prepare the spaghetti.

To serve, put the spaghetti on a plate, top with a generous amount of chili, then a big pinch from the additional scant cup of onions (if using), and finish with cheddar cheese. In Cincinnati, they top it with prodigious amounts of cheese—as much as the plate will hold. That might be excessive for some (myself included), so a medium-sized handful may be preferable.