I first had this dish in Florence and fell in love with the simple elegance of it. Cooked pasta turns eggs and bacon into a rich silky sauce straight from heaven. I make this at home when I can find farm fresh eggs or when I am lucky enough to get a few from friends. Mangia Mangia!
8 slices of bacon (diced)
4 eggs
3/4 cup of Parmesan cheese (grated)
1 pound of spaghetti
2 tablespoon of olive oil
1 clove of garlic (minced)
2 tablespoons of fresh parsley (chopped)
Salt and pepper (to taste)
Instructions
To begin with this carbonara recipe,
boil the spaghetti in a pot of water until it is done. Drain the pasta
well and then toss it with one tablespoon of olive oil. Set it aside.
Cook
the chopped bacon in a skillet until it is slightly crisp and then
remove it and drain on a paper towel. Add one tablespoon of olive oil
and heat it in the skillet. Add the minced garlic, cooking for a
minute. Place the cooked bacon in the pan along with the spaghetti.
Toss it so that it coats and heats through. When I find it becoming dry
or beginning to stick together, I normally add some more olive oil.
Add
the beaten eggs and allow it to cook while continuing to toss with
tongs until the eggs are just hardly set. You may then add a 1/2 cup of
cheese. I don’t normally add salt because the bacon and Parmesan add
plenty to this dish, although I do use a dash of pepper.
Sprinkle
this completed carbonara recipe with chopped parsley and serve it while
it’s still hot with the remaining Parmesan cheese on top.
Foodtravelinsider
Sunday, December 23, 2012
Monday, November 12, 2012
Simple Moroccan Chicken Tagine with Preserved Lemons
"Food is the most vivid expression of culture." This is a phrase that I have adopted and truer words are hard to find. I remember my first taste of Moroccan food vividly. I'm not sure if it was jet lag setting in or the long hours spent with cold airplane food, but what I was sure of was it was time to eat and the food smelled amazing! We had flown into Agadir, a small seaside town south west of Marrakesh. Warm greetings and hot mint tea awaited us at the Sofitel Agadir. After a quick refresh in my room, I hurried down to the lobby to begin my hunt for Tagine. A traditional North African cooking vessel, Tagine also refers to a slow cooked stew of meat, fruit and vegetables cooked in the pot. My conversation was very brief with the concierge before he understood what I was after. It was not long before I was digging into a Tagine of chicken flavored with coriander and apricots. A few common Moroccan spices such as cumin, cinnamon, coriander, chili and ginger where present, but not overwhelming. The meat fell off the bone and swam in spice infused bliss soaked up by couscous. Just as food expresses culture, the Tagine tells a story of Nomadic tribes wandering North Africa trading spices. If you don't have a traditional Tagine laying around you can substitute with a dutch oven or deep skillet with a tight sealing lid. The recipe following was written the other night after searching the web looking for some guidance on cooking with Moroccan Preserved Lemons. Preserved Lemons are whole lemons preserved in a salt water brine and widely used in Moroccan cuisine. I found some recently at an Arabic market near my house and have been curious to cook with them. There are a ton of resources online and some great YouTube videos on Moroccan cooking. This is a culmination of what I found as a very simple and traditional Chicken Tagine with Preserved Lemons and Olives. I hope soon to return to Morocco with my family and share this most amazing place with them.
Moroccan Chicken Tagine with Preserved Lemon and Olives
3-4 lbs bone in
chicken pieces legs and thighs are best
2 brown
onions
3 tomatoes
1 bunch
fresh cilantro (coriander)
6 cloves
garlic minced
2 tsp
grated fresh ginger (powdered is ok however reduce to 1tsp)
5 potatoes
peeled and quartered (optional)
1 1/2 tsp
tumeric
1 1/2 tsp
paprika
1 1/2 tsp
cumin
1/2 tsp
cinnamon
1 pinch
saffron soaked in a few ounces of water
1 tsp
salt
1 tsp
black pepper
2 Preserved
Lemons rinsed and thinly sliced (or zest of 3 fresh lemons)
8 oz pitted
green olives
1/2 cup olive oil
In a blender combine all spices, half of one onion, garlic,
ginger, 1 1/2 preserved lemon, olive oil and liquify. Pour mixture over chicken in a large bowl or
baking dish and toss to coat.
Refrigerate at least two hours to overnight. Reserve the left over marinade, there should
be a cup or two remaining. Unless you
have a traditional Tagine laying around, find a large heavy bottom pot with a
fitted lid. A deep skillet or a dutch
oven will work fine. Roughly chop about one cup tomato and one cup onion and
lay them in the bottom of the pot. Mix
half remaining marinade with the tomato and onion, this will act as a bed for
the chicken to sit on and help to prevent burning. Arrange chicken neatly around the bottom of
the pot and layer if necessary. If you
use potatoes mix them with some of the marinade and tuck them around the edges
of the pot and add the olives now as well.
Thinly slice remaining tomato and onion and arrange slices on top of the
chicken. Chop remaining cilantro and mix
with remaining marinade and a sprinkle if water and add this to the top of the
onions and tomato. Do not add too much water as the chicken, onions and
tomatoes will give up quite a bit of liquid to the pot. Cook tightly covered over med-low heat for 1
hour or until chicken pulls apart easily.
Serve chicken with couscous covered with plenty of the sauce.
Marinading Chicken |
Ready to cover and cook |
Ready to serve over Couscous |
Saturday, October 27, 2012
How to see Statue of Liberty and Lower Manhattan Skyline for Free
Statue of Liberty from the Staten Island Ferry |
Lower Manhattan Skyline |
Staten Island Ferry with Lower Manhattan in the background |
Brooklyn and Manhattan Bridges from Staten Island Ferry |
Freedom Tower and 9/11 memorial just a few blocks from the Staten Island Ferry Terminal |
Wednesday, October 10, 2012
One Of Many Simple Reasons Why I Love Italy
Even though the sign above the door clearly states the name, I walked past it 3 times. In fact, I returned to the hotel to get redirected as the graffiti and bland buildings looked the same for miles in both directions. With the insisting of the hotel concierge I reluctantly walked in. We were the only guests in the entire place and the wait and kitchen staff could not care less that we were standing in the doorway. After a few minutes of feeling like a complete fool, a quick gesture came from the chef pointing to a table. Sitting down and getting completely ignored gave me the chance to slow down and watch the real story unfold. It wasn't quite race time and the pit crew was giving final touches to the race car. The staff was in one constant fluid motion working in silent harmony to put the final touches on the dinning room and kitchen for the lunch rush. Five minutes to noon all the motion stopped, a tiny wooden door to the kitchen opened and out came the chef and his sous chef. They brought with them a bottle of unlabeled Grappa. The rest of the staff joined them in a quick toast of espressos mixed with grappa and it was on. A well oiled and finely tuned show ensued. Pasta orders came fast and furiously each cooked to order and flowed quickly through the tiny pass.
Beautiful, thick cuts of Prosciutto were cut by hand and served in generous portions.
Pasta Fagioli, one of my favorite Italian comfort foods was drizzled with beautiful local Olive Oil.
The chef, I never got name, invited me very briefly into his work place. It was an,, inferno of flying freshly sauced pasta and giant stockpots full of boiling pasta water.
A most amazing pizza followed my brief kitchen visit topped with house cured Salumi and a free range localy grown fresh egg, perfection!
Once again, its a reminder to slow down a minute and really take a look at the surroundings you are confronted with. You may see something you never thought possible, a diamond in the rough perhaps. The chef and a woman, introduced to me only as "Mi Amore", bid us farewell with a nip of that secret grappa with our afternoon espresso. Oh, and yes, I returned for dinner and will again!
Monday, October 8, 2012
Northern California Abalone Adventure
Tom Chung and I getting into the 50 degree Nor Cal Waters |
My brother (left) and I after a dive with our daily limit of tasty Red Abalone |
One Daily Limit of 3 Red Abalone |
Preparing fresh Abalone Sashimi |
Fresh Red Abalone Sashimi and Fresh California Yellow Tail Sashimi taken free diving with a spear gun by Ken Okutake, Check out Ken's Amazing gyotaku fish prints at http://okutake.com/#home |
Fresh Asian inspired Abalone Salad with Chili and Mint |
Traditional preparation sliced, pounded thin, breaded and fried |
This is the favored preparation by my Chinese friends. It is stewed for 24 hours until it's fork tender |
Monday, September 24, 2012
5 beautiful photos of the world from above
Innsbruck Austria |
Maldives |
The South of France |
Zagros Mountains Iran |
Puget Sound, Washington State |
Friday, September 21, 2012
Space Shuttle Endeavor, Last Flight
This morning my family and I witnessed history when the Space Shuttle Endeavor graced us, minutes before landing for the last time in Los Angeles, Ca. It brought me back 30 years when I was small and my dad brought me along on a news assignment to Edwards Dry Lake to photograph the Space Shuttle landing. I can still feel the shattering thunder of the sonic boom when Space Shuttle Columbia re-entered the atmosphere that morning. Today I reminisced with my daughters about that day and felt a very familiar thunder from Endeavor's F18 escorts and the B747 she was perched atop.
Emotion and tears completely consumed me as the air crackled over the southern California sky.
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