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Al Forno in Providence, RI, is a legendary Italian restaurant that was established in 1980 and has graced the pages of many a food magazine ever since. Chefs Johanne Killeen and George Germon made it a culinary destination, creating dishes that many have copied, but never equaled. 

One of those creations was the grilled pizza. These days, you can find grilled pizzas just about anywhere in the country, but it was Al Forno that started it all.

Sadly, George Germon passed away in 2015, but the restaurant continues. And although the menu offers a wide variety of dishes, the one my daughter and I crave–that isn’t on the menu–is their 5-cheese pasta dish. It’s not baked ziti. It’s not lasagna. It’s something way beyond. (They do offer a four cheese pasta dish with pumpkin, but it’s just not the same, as far as I’m concerned.)

 

Taking the recipe from one of Johanne and George’s cookbooks, my daughter and I decided that we would re-create this magical dish at home as best we could.

One element obviously missing in our home is a wood-fired oven, something Al Forno uses.

And looking at their list of 5 cheeses (mozzarella, Pecorino Romano, fontina, ricotta and gorgonzola), I found that gorgonzola was a bit of a surprise. Having had the 5-cheese pasta dish at least 4 times at Al Forno, I never detected even a hint of blue cheese. In fact, if I would have, I don’t think I would’ve ordered it again. So we chose to remove the gorgonzola and add another favorite, sharp provolone, instead. It turned out to be an excellent choice.

 

Other than that, we stayed true to the recipe, using shell pasta because that’s what we always got at the restaurant.

2 cups heavy cream
1 cup chopped canned tomatoes in heavy puree (San Marzano’s, if you can get ’em)
4 oz. thinly sliced mozzarella cheese
1.5 oz. grated Pecorino Romano cheese
1.5 oz. coarsely shredded Fontina cheese
1.5 oz. grated Provolone cheese
2 tablespoons ricotta cheese
3/4 teaspoon Kosher salt, plus more for the pasta water
6 fresh basil leaves, coarsely chopped
1 lb. conchiglie (medium shell) pasta
4 tablespoons unsalted butter, sliced thinly
Shavings of raw scallion for garnish (optional)

Preheat the oven to 500°, or as close to it as your oven will get.

Bring a large pot of salted water to a boil.

In a mixing bowl, combine all the ingredients except the pasta and the butter. Stir well to combine.

Drop the pasta in the boiling water and parboil it for about 4 minutes. Drain it in a colander and add it to the ingredients in the mixing bowl. Combine it well.

Divide the pasta mixture into small ceramic dishes, or just use one large baking dish. You want it to sit in a relatively shallow 1-inch layer.

 

Dot the top of the dish with the butter, and bake it until it’s bubbly and brown, about 7 to 10 minutes at 500…a little longer at lower temperatures.

It’s the creamiest, cheesiest pasta dish you’ll ever have…and everyone will fight over those little charred pasta shells!

Optional: When I ordered this dish at Al Forno, they would top it with thin shavings of raw scallion on top. I loved that touch and do that at home as well.

 

Good things come to those who wait. Risotto makes you wait!

 

When I recently made my slow-cooked braised beef short ribs, my daughter requested more than just a simple starch to go with it. One of her favorite dishes in the whole wide world is risotto, and though I’ve never made it before, I knew it wasn’t difficult…just time consuming. Well, a recent rainy Saturday was the perfect day to give it a try.

Like many great Italians dishes, risotto requires love. It requires patience. And it requires few ingredients, but they need to be the best quality ingredients you can get your hands on.

1 tablespoon unsalted butter
1 tablespoon olive oil
1/2 medium onion, chopped finely
4 cloves garlic, minced
1 cup Arborio rice (basmati is a good substitute)
1/4 cup dry white wine
4 cups chIcken or vegetable stock, kept warm on the stove top (homemade is best)
3 tablespoons chopped fresh parsley 
1 cup frozen peas
1 cup freshly grated Parmigiano Reggiano 


In a large pan, heat the butter and olive oil over medium heat. 

 

Add the onions and sauté them until they’re translucent.
Add the garlic and sauté for 10 seconds.

Add the rice and stir really well, so that every bit of the rice gets coated with the butter and oil mixture.
Add the wine, and stir gently, letting the rice absorb it.

 

Add a ladle of the stock to the rice, stirring gently, letting it absorb all the stock. Only once the stock has been absorbed do you add another ladle of stock. Repeat this process until all the stock has been used and the rice has softened. This should take about 25 minutes, and you need to be standing there, stirring gently, the entire time.

 

Just before the last bit of stock has been absorbed, add the parsley and the peas.

 

Stir for a bit and then add the grated cheese.

 

Serve immediately!

 

AL MILUKAS

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My blog about food, travel, high octane spirits, and living the live.

Although beef short ribs can be an expensive dish at many a fine restaurant, the expense is not in the ingredients, but in the time it takes to prepare it. But it is definitely worth the effort!

I used grass-fed beef short ribs for my recipe, and I think it made a huge difference in taste. But use what you like, and can easily find. Short ribs can be extremely fatty. Although you want to keep some of the fat, remove any excess fat that will only make the final braising liquid taste greasy.

I didn’t have a Dutch oven, which is really the right tool for this recipe, so I seared my beef and cooked the veggies in a pan, and then transferred everything to a deeper oven-safe pot with a lid when it was time to cook.

In doing my research for this recipe, I found dozens of variations. I wound up going with a hybrid of two, both from Food Network chefs: Ann Burrell, and Robert Irvine. Burrell’s recipe was heavy on the wine, and used water. Irvine’s was heavy on stock, a little wine, and no water.



3 to 5 lbs. grass-fed beef short ribs, trimmed
3 large carrots (200g)
3 stalks celery (200g)
1 medium onion (200g)
3 cloves garlic
Olive oil
Bacon fat (optional)
1 can (6 oz.) tomato paste
2 cups red wine, like a Cabernet Sauvignon
3 cups chicken or beef stock (homemade is best)
Kosher salt and pepper

About an hour before cooking, trim the beef short ribs and season them all over with Kosher salt. Set them aside.

Pre-heat the oven to 325.

Place the carrots, celery, onion and garlic in a food processor and process until you get something that resembles a paste.
Right before searing the short ribs, re-season them with salt and pepper.

Heat a large pan on high, and when hot, add enough olive oil to coat the bottom. Sear the beef short ribs in the oil, making sure they’re nice and brown on all sides.

Set the beef aside in a bowl, pour out the fat in the pan, and replenish with new olive oil, (and some bacon fat if you have it and want to use it), just enough to coat the bottom of the pan.

Pour in the veggies from the food processor, season them with salt and pepper, and sauté them until they really caramelize. You want them to start taking on a brown color. 

 

If the veggies start sticking to the pan, turn down the heat, but the stuff that sticks to the pan is full of flavor. Let that happen! It will all come off later when you deglaze with the wine.

 

Add the tomato paste and let it cook down for 5 minutes or so.

 

Add the red wine, and you’ll see how it deglazes the pan and cleans all those tasty brown bits off the bottom. Add the stock and continue stirring.

 

Place the beef short ribs (and any juices that may be in the bowl) into a Dutch oven or large oven-safe pot. Pour the pan with the veggie-wine-stock mix over the top. Add water if needed to cover the beef.

Cover the pot and place it in the middle of the oven. Cook for 3 hours, flipping the beef ribs once halfway through. Add water at the halfway point if it looks like the meat is exposed.

 

After 3 hours, remove the lid off the pot and cook for another 45 minutes to an hour. This allows the braising liquid to reduce and concentrate its flavors.
You can turn the oven off at this point and just leave the pot in it until you’re ready to serve.

 

Serve with the braising liquid.

The risotto I made to go with it will be posted in another blog.

Cauliflower seems to be the “it” veggie these days. You’ll find it riced to take the place of rice or mashed potatoes, in a crust for pizza, and now, the dish du jour is a cauliflower steak. All you need to do is to slice the cauliflower into thick, steak-like pieces, and then bake them. The thicker cut gives the cauliflower a more meaty texture. Of course, with a meat sauce, I’m using cauliflower as a pasta substitute in this dish.

 

The marinade I use for the cauliflower is pretty simple, with my favorite Italian flavors. I use fresh herbs when I can, but you can use dry as well.

 

1/4 cup extra virgin olive oil
1/2 cups chopped scallions
2 garlic cloves, finely chopped
chopped fresh parsley and oregano to taste
salt and pepper

Combine these ingredients in a bowl.

Slice the head of cauliflower across the whole head into 1 1/2-inch steak-like pieces. Place them on a baking pan covered with non-stick aluminum foil. Brush the cauliflower on both sides with the marinade. Use it all up!

Place the baking pan in a pre-heated 400-degree oven and bake it for about an hour, until the cauliflower is golden brown on the edges. Flip the cauliflower steaks over after the first 30 minutes.

 

 

This meat sauce I use is one that I make all the time with simple ingredients…

 

1 lb. grass-fed ground beef
1 medium onion, finely chopped
1 28-oz. can of whole San Marzano tomatoes
dried oregano, basil and parsley
granulated garlic
extra virgin olive oil
salt and pepper

 

Heat the olive oil in a pan and add the onions. Sauté them until they’re translucent, then add the ground beef. Cook the beef until it has browned completely. Add the can of tomatoes, chopping the whole tomatoes up with a spatula (or squeezing them with your hands), breaking up the big pieces into smaller chunks. (I like my sauce a little chunky.) Add the oregano, basil, parsley, garlic, salt and pepper to taste.

 

Let the sauce cook down until it has thickened.

 

When the cauliflower steaks are ready, place them on a plate and pour the awesome meat sauce on them. Garnish with some freshly grated Parmigiano Reggiano.

Every once in a while, my daughter finds an interesting recipe that we decide to try on our own.

A fatayer is a Middle Eastern savory pastry, usually made into the size of a hand pie. Trying to be efficient (and also being a bit lazy), I went the route of one large fatayer (basically a pizza) instead of 10 hand pies, which is what the recipe called for.

Our large fatayer, though not traditional, was still absolutely delicious, and the use of olive oil in the dough (a lot of it) and an egg wash on the crust gave a softeners and chewiness not unlike the best pretzel you’ve ever had! Really delicious!

The nice thing about my recipe is that you can use store-bought pizza dough. You don’t have to make the dough from scratch. I’m sure the crust would be even lighter if you did, but this system worked well for me…and I didn’t want to work as hard!

2 packages of ready-made pizza dough
1/4 cup extra virgin olive oil

3 cups freshly grated mozzarella (loosely packed)
1 1/4 cups crumbled feta cheese
a handful of chopped fresh parsley

Extra freshly grated mozzarella for stuffing into the dough

4 tablespoons unsalted butter
1/2 teaspoon granulated garlic
1/4 teaspoon Kosher salt

1 egg
2 tablespoons water

 

 

If the dough you’re using is frozen, let it come to room temperature and rise according to package instructions. This could take up to 6 hours or more.

While the dough is rising, make the cheese mixture, combining the mozzarella, feta and parsley in a bowl. Set it aside in the fridge.

Also set aside the extra grated mozzarella in the fridge separately.

Make the garlic butter mixture, combing the butter, garlic and salt in a bowl. Set it aside.

Make the egg mixture, whisking the egg in a bowl with the water. Set it aside.

Once the dough has risen properly, pre-heat the oven to 425.

Place the dough in a stand mixer and add the olive oil. Mix slowly at first, slowly increasing the speed, for about 5 minutes, until the dough and the olive oil have mixed together well.

It’s a messy process, but you need to knead the dough by hand on a clean surface for about 5 minutes, so dust the surface with all-purpose flour, and carefully remove the oily dough from the mixing bowl. It will be greasy and messy, but knead it as best you can, adding flour to the dough until it’s no longer an oily mess and becomes a nice, soft dough. Use as little flour as possible to make this happen. The less you use the lighter the baked crust will be.

Get a large baking sheet and cover it with parchment paper. Place the dough on the sheet, and spread it out evenly with your fingertips to the full size of the baking sheet.

Take the extra grated mozzarella and sprinkle it around the edges of the dough, and then fold the edges of the dough over it, basically making a “stuffed crust.” The crust will be higher than the center, which will hold in all the tasty goodies inside.

Brush the center of the dough with all the garlic butter mixture. Don’t worry…it’s not too much!

Now add the cheese mixture evenly in the center of the dough as well, all the way up to, but not on, the crust.

Brush the crust with the egg wash mixture.

Place the sheet pan in the center of the oven and bake for 20 — 30 minutes, until the cheese is bubbly and the crust is golden brown.

Remove the fatayer from the oven and let it cool a few minutes before slicing.

I love my cocktails, and I feel the quality of the ice is as important as any other ingredient in my glass. After all, if the ice cubes are made from nasty water, it’s going to affect the taste of the drink.

And from a visual standpoint, a large, beautiful, clear ice cube really makes any cocktail look pretty darn impressive.

Since the tapwater at my house has chlorine and fluoride in it, I use a reverse osmosis filter to try to get as much of the bad stuff out. And I’ve been using that to make my own fancy cocktail ice cubes. But they were cloudy, so I was willing to try this new gadget.

 

Once I bought the Ice.Made.Clear system, and I read the instructions, I realized that, much like the ice cubes they promised, a problem became very clear: they recommend using water right from the tap– – hot tap water, in fact. Their reasoning was that the chilling process from hot to freezing, and the minerals in the tapwater, aid in the clarity process. (Also, warmer water holds fewer air bubbles, which causes the cloudiness in the ice later on.)

But I don’t want chlorine and fluoride in my ice cubes! So for me, tap water was out of the question.

As an alternative, they suggested buying spring water, claiming that using reverse osmosis filtered water would remove too many of the necessary minerals needed for the process to work. 

So I bought a gallon jug of Poland Spring to try this thing out, and it actually worked really well. But the problem was, it wasted a lot of water. Once the ice cubes are made, the container can’t be reused until you melt all the ice in it, empty it out, and start all over again. I wound up using almost an entire gallon of spring water to make six large ice cubes. That’s ridiculous. 

So, despite the fact that they recommend using tap water or spring water, I went back to my filtered water, because it’s cheap and plentiful. I heat it up a bit in a saucepan (not to the point of boiling, but warm) and then pour it into the Ice.Made.Clear system. The cubes aren’t as clear as they might be, but I know the water quality is the best it could be. And I still get pretty darn clear ice.

So here are the pros and cons of the Ice.Made.Clear system:

The Pros:
It really does make clear ice.
It’s not a big unit, so it fits in most freezers.
The whole system cost under 100 bucks, so it’s not outrageous in price.


The Cons:
It wastes a lot of water.
If you don’t have clean tapwater, buying water gets really expensive just to make a handful of ice cubes.
If you’ve got guests coming over, you better start making your cubes weeks ahead of time, because it’s a slow process.

 

I posted a way to make homemade clear ice cubes in a previous blog. I will repost it soon. It works really well, gives you plenty of rustic large ice cubes at once, and doesn’t cost a lot.

After all is said and done, if pretty ice cubes don’t matter to you at all, go down to your local convenience store and buy a bag of ice for two bucks, and you’re all set.

Some of my favorite recipes happen when I’ve got a few leftover ingredients in the fridge that I really want to use up. The challenge is to make them work together.

Burgers are easy solutions to this dilemma, because, let’s face it: just about anything can go on a burger!

My thoughts behind this recipe went to a combination of things: a little garlic bread, a little Caprese salad, and, of course, a burger.

I had some burrata in the fridge. If you thought you couldn’t improve on mozzarella cheese, get yourself some burrata. The outer shell of the burrata is mozzarella, while the inside generally contains stracciatella and cream. It can be made from milk, or if it’s really decadent: Italian buffalo milk.

I use burrata instead of mozzarella when I make my Caprese salads…a combination of the cheese, fresh basil, and ripe tomatoes, drizzle with a high-quality balsamic vinegar.

I had kaiser rolls in the freezer. I wanted to go one step further, so I slathered them with my garlic bread smear, and toasted them.

And my burgers are always grass-fed beef, seasoned with salt and pepper, and pan-seared before finishing them in the oven.

I started with the garlic bread spread first.

Pre-heat the oven to 350.

1 stick (4 oz.) unsalted butter, softened
1 large clove garlic, squeezed through a press
1/2 teaspoon granulated garlic
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon oregano
1/2 teaspoon parsley

I combined these ingredients in a bowl, mixing well, then smeared them on my kaiser roll halves, toasting them in the oven.

I got a pan very hot on the stovetop (cast iron is always best) and added a little fat. I use bacon grease if I have it. Otherwise I go with a high smoke point oil like avocado oil.

I seasoned the burger with salt and pepper, and placed it in the hot pan, searing it on one side, then flipping it to the other. I just want to sear the meat. I don’t want to cook the burger in the pan or it will overcook when I place it in the oven to finish.

I cut the burrata in half (it gets a little messy), and placed half of it (cut-side-down) onto the burger.

I placed the pan in the oven to finish cooking the burger and to melt the cheese. (If your pan isn’t oven-proof, get a tray that is, and just move the burger onto it and into the oven.)

I cooked the burger until it was medium-rare and the cheese had melted.

I placed the burger on the toasted roll and added a nice slice of farm-fresh heirloom tomato. (Fresh basil is optional.) And I drizzled over the top with some good balsamic.

That took a cheeseburger to a whole new level!

I’m pretty good at keeping the zucchinis in my garden harvested on a regular basis, so they don’t get too big. But once in a while, I miss one, and it gets to be huge. That’s when it’s time to make zucchini bread.

 

 

I was recently told that zucchinis are green…summer squash is yellow.  I use the word “zucchini” interchangeably, but technically, the variety I grow is, in, fact, a zucchini…or both, depending how you look at it!

 

 

Whatever you call it, use it! And make some delicious bread!

I slice the zucchini lengthwise, and remove the center section with all the seeds, because I don’t want that in my bread. Then I grate the rest. This recipe needs about 2 1/2 cups of grated zucchini, about 16 ounces.

When it comes to baking, I use my small kitchen scale to make most of the crucial measurements, because accuracy counts. It’s much more accurate than going by volume. But this recipe has both measurements, so you can try either method.

Substituting gluten-free flour for the basic all-purpose flour, will make this recipe gluten-free. I like to use the all-purpose GF flour by Cup4Cup.

And I like using olive oil as my vegetable oil, because I love the flavor and its health benefits. But feel free to use whatever vegetable oil you like.

 

2 cups (227g) all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon baking powder
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon Kosher salt
1/2 teaspoon cinnamon, optional

1 cup (213g) light brown sugar
1/2 cup (100g) granulated sugar
scant 3/4 cup vegetable oil
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
2 eggs, lightly beaten

2 1/2 cups grated zucchini (about 16 oz.)

Preheat the oven to 350°.

Grease an 8 x 8“ or 5″ x 10″ loaf pan with some of the vegetable oil. Then line it with parchment paper…it makes it easier to remove later.

In a bowl, mix together the first five ingredients.

In a separate bowl, combine the remaining ingredients except the zucchini.

Add the grated zucchini to the bowl with the flour mixture and toss it around to coat.

 

Add the dry mixture to the wet mixture and stir until it’s combined.

 

 

Pour it into the pan. 

 

 

Bake until a toothpick comes out clean, about 45 to 60 minutes…but it could be even longer. Every oven is different, and different zucchini can have different moisture levels, so you may need to cook yours longer, depending on your situation. Even with all the high-tech thermometers I have, I find the good old-fashioned toothpick method works best.

 

 

Remove the baking pan from the oven and let it cool for 15 minutes. Then turn it over on a wire rack, removing the pan, and let the zucchini bread cool completely to room temperature before slicing.

This bread is so good, I just might let the zucchini overgrow more often!