Pesto - UNPLUGGED!

You heard me. No blender, no food processor, nothing that goes whir in the night. We are making this pesto like nonna would have in the old country back in the day when the only running water was what trickled down the hillside after a good rainstorm. And once you make this pesto, store-bought will make you absolutely cringe. It's horrifying, the stuff they sell in those little plastic tubs, the taste of it, and the amount of money that they charge you to suffer through it.

I know what you're thinking (internally whining, maybe?) 'Why can't I just use my Cuisinart?' You could, but then you would miss the opportunity for your friends to think you were a true bad ass after you busted out a piece of granite and banged away on a few leaves and nuts, only to emerge with the most amazing pesto they could ever dream of eating. If you want that kind of status, then dispense with the machinery (and the whining), and gather these ingredients:

Basil, olive oil, Parmigiano-Reggiano, garlic, almonds. And you'll need your mortar and pestle.

Almonds? In pesto? Well, traditionally pesto calls for pignoli, or, pine nuts. But I love the crunch and the toasty taste of almonds in my pesto. Don't get me wrong, pignoli are lovely. So, if you want to be traditional, TOAST some pignoli (much tastier than using raw), and get them in your pesto. I'll leave the choice up to you.

Listen up.

The first thing you have to do is toast the nuts. If you're using pine nuts, just pop them in a 350 degree preheated oven for, oh, I don't know, 8 minutes? Until they turn golden. Remember to shake the pan every couple of minutes so your nuts don't overcook on one side and develop a black spot from constant contact with the pan.

If you are using almonds, you will ultimately want to skin them. You can do this one of two ways 1) toast them then rub them between your fingers when they're cool to get *most* of the skin off 2) blanche them to remove all of the skin, and then toast them. I'll show you both ways. But incidentally, I'm using method no. 1, because aside from the crunch, I love the reddish color that the skin remnants impart to the finished pesto. Another factor  that makes pesto unplugged so much better. Using a Cuisinart will grind the elements to a singular, boring consistency. When we use a mortar and pestle, we can control how much or little we grind our elements to produce disparate textures and a much more interesting pesto. With a food processor, the pesto arrives at a uniform flavor, while the unplugged way allows you to distinguish the elements, and they still maintain an undeniable harmony.

OK.

Method 1) Toast your almonds in a 350 degree oven. When they're properly toasted, pull them out and let them cool.

Then rub them between your fingers,

or put them in a dish towel, fold up the sides to make a sack, and rub them all together vigorously until most of the skin comes off and you end up with this:

Method 2) Blanch your almonds for a minute, drain them in a mesh colander and run cold water over them until they're cool.

Slip the skins like this, they come right off.

Till you get a pile of these for the compost:

And a pile of these:

Which you will pop in a 350 degree oven and toast till golden like this:

Be sure to shake the pan every couple of minutes so that the almonds don't develop black spots from being in contact with the hot pan for so long.

Set your nuts aside, and peel a large clove of garlic. Mine was a monster clove, which was perfect for my pesto because I like it good and garlicky. Now, mortar this clove like mama taught you how over many, many blogs.

Now, get your basil in there, just the leaves, yeah? So, pluck them from their robust stems, and toss them right on top of the garlic.

Now mortar them. Yes, this will take some time. You are going to have to break down all of the fibers in the leaves. Use an up and down motion, a grinding motion, just keep pounding.

And little by little the fibers will break down.

DO NOT be tempted to use salt to create friction like we do when we mortar garlic. You will end up with oversalted pesto. Salt your pesto at the end. And it is very likely that the salt that you used to mortar your garlic may well be enough for your finished product. Keep adding leaves right on top of your mortared basil as you break down one batch after another until you form a smooth paste.

Keep going, till you arrive at this:

Now time to add the nuts.

Grind your nuts, and stop at whatever consistency you want. I like mine relatively crunchy. You could stop here,

Or here,

Wherever you want. Next, get your olive oil in there.

Don't be cheap. Pesto IS olive oil and garlic and basil and nuts. So, be liberal in your use of ingredients. Your finished product should be glossy like this:

Now get some Reggiano-Parmigiano in here like this:

It's up to you how much. Grate some, stir it in, taste it, add more if you want. The parmesan will soak up some of the oil, so you will probably have to add more oil as you get more cheese in there.

Store your pesto in an airtight container and refrigerate it. It will last a while. Be sure to pour a thin film of olive oil over the top of it before you pop the lid on to keep it from oxidizing. And yes, when you use it again, the top layer will be a little darker. It tastes just fine. You don't have to scrape it off and toss it.

I'm using my pesto for pasta. But don't be limited to that. I also toss it in salads, stir it into scrambled eggs, spread it on toast, put it on seafood and fish, spoon it over hard boiled eggs, stir it into soup...the possibilities are limitless!

A word on making pasta properly. I'm going to dispel the age-old myth of adding oil to your pasta water to keep it from sticking. It's a ridiculous theory, because water and oil don't mix. So, how is oil going to keep your pasta from sticking? It won't. It's a waste of oil. What you SHOULD do is SALT YOUR PASTA WATER LIBERALLY. Why? Because the pasta will absorb the salt and your dish will be thoroughly seasoned. How much salt? Let's say, your pasta water should be about as salty as the sea, or, about as salty as you would imagine your dish tasting. Finally, the only way to keep pasta from sticking is to keep it moving in the pot. So, bring your salted water to a boil, add your pasta and stir for the first two minutes continuously.

This separates the noodles. As the pasta starts to soften and get slick, it will cease to stick and you can stop stirring and let it do its thing. And by god, please do not throw your pasta against a wall to see if it's done! If you want to see if it's done, take a noodle out and taste it! It should be al dente, or 'to the teeth', which means that there should be a little yield in the bite. Nothing grosser than mushy pasta folks. You will lose all of your Italian dinner companions if you overcook your noodles.

I'm having my pesto pasta with a little Calabrian chile. Mmm. So good. If you don't believe that pesto unplugged could be better than pesto made in a food processor I'm sad to say then that you will live your life never knowing one of the seven wonders of the modern world! PESTO!

Mangia bene, vivi felice!

New York-Style Coffee Cake

There are several things that I love about Los Angeles. The fact that a perfectly normal looking woman, classy even, might be wearing rubber surgical gloves while reading a book and sipping her tea on the Whole Foods patio, as though it's perfectly normal. Fabulous! They play disco in the supermarkets for the women who shop there in platform hooker stilettos, regardless of age. I say, the older you are, the higher the hooker heel should be. LOVE IT. Finally, and best of all, simply being me makes me an iconoclast here in hooker heel town: I don't wear makeup and I never will. And I eat coffee cake while everyone else is sucking down fat free frozen yogurt as though every ounce will make them thinner. It won't.

Snap!

So here I am in my kitchen. Disco blaring loud, the windows thrown open. And yes, I am hooker heeled for the occasion of making this cake made in the style of the other coast.

I got our recipe from Bon Appetit and thought I'd give it a try because I'm the kind of girl who wants to eat the crumb topping off of crumby things, and this topping came out stacked as high as the platforms on my Christian Louboutins. You know I'm braggin'.

WARNING: What you're gonna need is a little alarming, but don't fret, this makes a pretty good-sized cake, so we can justify the almost four sticks of butter and over a full cup of full-fat sour cream. Come on, this is New York style, right? It's all about decadence. Let's show these Angelinos that they can keep their FroYo while we fearlessly indulge!

Lets grab our gear.

FOR THE TOPPING:

1 cup (lightly packed) dark brown sugar

1/2 cup sugar

1 1/2 TB ground cinnamon

1/2 tsp salt

1 cup (2 sticks) unsalted butter, melted, warm

2 1/2 cups all purpose flour

FOR THE CAKE

2 1/2 cups all purpose flour

1 tsp baking soda

3/4 tsp baking powder

1/2 tsp salt

3/4 cup (1 1/2 sticks) unsalted butter, room temp

1 1/2 cups sugar

2 large eggs (I used jumbo, and my cake came out smashingly. So yes, jumbo's fine, even though I'm sure a pro baker would flog me for saying so.)

1 1/3 cups sour cream

1 tsp vanilla extract

PRELIMINARY: position the rack in the center of the oven and preheat to 350 degrees. Butter a 13x9x2 inch pan. (I also lined the bottom and sides with parchment paper which keeps the cake from sticking and scorching. To do this, smear a little butter on the sides and bottom of pan to get the parchment to stick, then cut a piece large enough so that when you lay it in the bottom, it comes up the two longest sides. Cut out two smaller strips to lay along the short ends. Then butter this. See the picture below, you can see how the parchment comes up the sides of the pan, with strips cut out and applied to the short ends.)

FIRST: make the topping. Mix both sugars, cinnamon and salt in a bowl till thoroughly incorporated. Add your warm melted butter and stir to blend. Add flour and mix till incorporated. It will form moist clumps and look slightly wet. Set aside.

NEXT: make your cake. Sift together your dry ingredients - flour, soda, baking powder and salt in a medium bowl. How do you sift? I place a mesh strainer over a bowl, dump in my flour, then measure out the salt, soda and powder over the flour, then shake it into the bowl. Et, voila! Sifted!

In a separate bowl (large enough to hold the your wet ingredients and eventually your dry), add the room temp butter and beat with an electric mixer (either your stand mixer, or a hand held, doesn't matter) till smooth and pale yellow. Add your sugar and beat till light and fluffy. Then add your eggs, one at a time, beating until well blended after each addition. Add the sour cream and vanilla and beat till just blended.

Now, here's the part where you become a pro. You are going to add your flour in THREE ADDITIONS, you will NOT dump it in all at once or it will form horrible, irreparable lumps, ruining your batter. And who needs that? Oh, and for this part, DO NOT use your mixer. Use a flat, rubber spatula and FOLD IT IN delicately by hand. If you use your mixer or beat it vigorously you will work the gluten in the flour and your cake will be tough and rubbery. Gross.

Wait a minute, how the hell do you 'fold'? Well, the process of folding means to delicately incorporate your dry ingredients into your wet ingredients so that you don’t overwork the flour, or deflate your mixture (never would you add your wet to your dry or you will have to work extra hard to incorporate your two entities, thus deflating your cake).

Deflate? Yes, all that hard work that we did whipping our butter and eggs adds air to our wet ingredients which gets trapped in the cake and creates pockets in our cake known as ‘the crumb’ or ‘sponge’, while it bakes. When the butter melts and the cake begins to do its thing in the oven, the little air pockets are suspended in the crumb/sponge. If you beat the crap out of it, you will deflate those little air bubbles and your cake will be a dense, rubbery, oily mess. Air=light, airy, moist crumb.

Onward!

Now, to fold, sprinkle one third of your dry ingredients over your wet. Using a large rubber spatula, reach down through the center of the mixture to the bottom of the bowl, turn your wrist and scoop up some of the batter along the bottom, then scrape the spatula over the side of the bowl, then up over the top of the dry ingredients. It's a circular motion, pulling down through the dry, on through the wet, then turning the wet over on top of the dry. See? As you turn your wrist to deposit the batter on top of the flour, turn the bowl few degrees and perform this maneuver again. See how you are delicately incorporating? Be careful, don’t squash your air bubbles! Now add another third, fold in the same way, add your last third, fold in the same way. Don't be tempted to beat the hell out of it, or you'll be able to bounce this cake all the way from New York to Los Angeles.

Pour this batter into your prepared pan. It will be thick and gloppy and look like you did something wrong. You didn't. Smooth it in evenly. Now, grab your crumb mixture. It will probably have solidified a bit. It's okay. Just break it up, but not too much, you want chunks, and spread evenly over the top of your batter. You want medium, uniform chunks like this:

I pressed down on it ever so lightly to make sure it was all even and flat.

NOW BAKE: The recipe says bake for an hour, but I know better. I started checking in at about the 45 minute mark. How do you do this? Slide the blade of a thin knife in the center, and if it comes out clean (no wet batter) it's done. Mine was done in 52 minutes. Another eight would have dried it out. So, start checking early. Here's my finished cake cooling:

A little closer now, Mr. De Mille!

Cool your finished cake on a wire rack, IN THE PAN. About 30 minutes. Eat while still warm. And hot damn! It sure is good!

Mangia bene, vivi felice!