FOOD
Beaver Dam Daily Citizen
Beaver Dam Daily Citizen
Saturday, January 2, 2016
B3
Saturday-Sunday, January 2-3, 2016
B3
Try umami
You had no idea pasta this easy could pack this much flavor Melissa D’Arabian Associated Press
MATTHEW MEAD
This photo shows farro, grilled broccoli and sweet onions in Concord, N.H. Farro is great in soups, salads and as a substitute for short-grained rice in risotto-like dishes. Here, it is used as the base of a vegetable-studded side dish.
Quick and filling salad built on a base of farro Katie Workman Associated Press
At this point, many of us have embraced whole grains, become friendly with brown rice, maybe even casual acquaintances with quinoa. But there still are a number of grains out there that remain a mystery. Farro may well be one of them. I had enjoyed it in restaurants a couple times. A lot, in fact. It is chewy and hearty and nutty and really delicious. But I hadn’t cooked it at home. Time to overcome farro-phobia. Farro is a wheat grain popular throughout the Mediterranean. Italy is the capital of farro consumption; in fact, it was the main grain of ancient Rome. When you really dig into the world of farro, you’ll find there actually are three
FARRO WITH GRILLED BROCCOLI AND SWEET ONIONS You will get about 3 nice planks from a 10-ounce head of broccoli, and then there will be some loose florets from the sides, which you also should grill. If you have one, use a grill rack so the smaller pieces don’t fall into the fire. Start to finish: 30 minutes Servings: 6 1 cup semi-pearled farro 1 tablespoon butter 1 teaspoon minced garlic 3 cups low-sodium chicken or vegetable broth Kosher salt and ground black pepper 1 head broccoli (about 10 ounces), trimmed and cut into 3/4-inch thick slabs 1 sweet onion, such as Vidalia, thickly sliced 1 tablespoon olive oil
Heat grill to medium. Heat a heavy saucepan over medium-high. Add farro and cook, stirring frequently, for 2 minutes, or until the grains are lightly toasted. Add the butter and garlic and saute for 2 more minutes so that
species of farro, but the emmer variety is the one that is most commonly available. When shopping, make sure you buy the semipearled variety, which cooks much faster and allows you to skip the overnight soaking step. Not all packaging is very clear about this, so make sure to read the cooking instructions on the farro you buy to see if this step is necessary. Most brands that are commonly available in mainstream grocers are semi-pearled. Farro is great in soups, salads and as a substitute for short-grained rice in risotto-like dishes (often called farrotto). Here it is used as the base of a vegetable-studded side dish. You can change up the vegetables however you see fit, and if a grill isn’t handy go ahead and roast them in the oven.
the butter melts and the grains are well coated, and you can smell the garlic. Add the broth, season with salt and pepper, then bring to a simmer. Lower the heat to medium and simmer, stirring occasionally, until the broth has been absorbed and the farro is cooked through, but still has a nice chewy consistency, 15 to 20 minutes. Meanwhile, in a medium bowl, toss broccoli and onion with the olive oil, then season with salt and pepper. Arrange on the grill and cook, turning as the bottoms brown, for about 10 minutes, or until the vegetables are browned and tender. Remove the vegetables from the grill, let cool slightly, then roughly chop. Once farro is cooked, stir in the chopped grilled vegetables and serve warm. Nutrition information per serving: 190 calories; 50 calories from fat (26 percent of total calories); 5 g fat (1.5 g saturated; 0 g trans fats); 5 mg cholesterol; 150 mg sodium; 31 g carbohydrate; 6 g fiber; 4 g sugar; 7 g protein.
If you’ve been out to eat at any trendy restaurant during the past five years or have watched any food competition show, you probably have heard of umami. Umami is the pleasant savory flavor resulting from the interaction of certain amino acids with receptors on the human tongue. (It’s a wonder we don’t get into this level of detail on TV, no?) Translation: Dishes higher in these specific amino acids taste better to us, balanced and complex, even in low-salt dishes, which is good to know if you are watching sodium. Foods with umami have a meatiness or pleasant earthiness that can feel rich and satisfying. Anchovies, soy sauce, mushrooms, aged cheeses, yeasts and fermented foods all are rich in umami. This mushroom-miso pasta is a tad indulgent, but tastes far richer, creamier and more sinful than it actually is. Using nutty browned butter underscores the earthy mushroom’s umami flavors. Miso paste, or fermented soybean paste, is the real hero here, though, adding surprising depth to this easy weeknight dish, as well as a buttery, almost creamy taste to the sauce that brings all the flavors together. Miso paste, available in various strengths in most grocery stores — mild white, medium yellow and stronger red and brown — is a staple in my kitchen, as it brings flavor and richness to dishes without adding fat and calories (but note that it does have salt). Adding even more umami to this dish is the nutritional yeast. It’s an optional ingredient, but I think well-worth seeking out if you aren’t familiar with it. It adds a wonderful aged-cheese-like flavor that turns this simple mushroom-miso pasta dish into a veritable “umami bomb,” which is a good thing in the food world.
ASSOCIATED PRESS
This photo shows mushroom miso pasta in Concord, N.H. This recipe tastes far richer, creamier and more sinful than it actually is.
MUSHROOMMISO PASTA Start to Finish: 20 minutes Servings: 4 8 ounces whole-grain penne pasta 3 tablespoons butter 8 ounces chopped mixed mushrooms (such as portobello, cremini, button, etc.) 2 cloves garlic, minced 1/4 cup dry white wine 1 tablespoon white miso paste 3/4 cup low-sodium chicken broth 2 tablespoons nutritional yeast (or more, to taste) 1 tablespoon Dijon mustard (optional) Kosher salt and ground black pepper
Bring a large saucepan of well-salted water to a boil over high heat. Add pasta and cook according to package directions. Drain and set aside. Meanwhile, in a large skillet over
medium, heat butter, allowing it to bubble and cook until it turns nutty brown, about 5 minutes. Keep a close eye on it, as butter burns easily. Add mushrooms and garlic, then cook until the mushrooms are tender, 5 to 7 minutes. Add wine and stir and scrape the pan to deglaze, then simmer for 1 minute to cook off the alcohol. Whisk in miso and chicken stock and cook for 2 to 3 minutes. Add nutritional yeast and mustard, if using, then stir until the sauce is uniform. Season with pepper, then taste and adjust with salt as needed. Remove the skillet from the heat and toss with the hot pasta. Nutrition information per serving: 340 calories; 100 calories from fat (29 percent of total calories); 11 g fat (6 g saturated; 0 g trans fats); 25 mg cholesterol; 290 mg sodium; 49 g carbohydrate; 7 g fiber; 3 g sugar; 12 g protein.
Vegan chef Tal Ronnen sacrifices animal products, not taste Kelli Kennedy Associated Press
MIAMI | Tal Ronnen’s food philosophy isn’t unusual for a chef of his caliber. It also isn’t complicated. Simply put: taste above all. And then you realize he’s vegan, an approach to eating that too often has been defined by foods so virtuous they taste worse than the packaging they come in. Except that’s not Ronnen’s game. For him, it doesn’t matter if the food is raw, organic, vegetarian, vegan, local, gluten-free , animalfree, free range or free spirit. If it doesn’t taste great, he isn’t interested. “Restaurants get it wrong all the time by serving fake meat that doesn’t interest meat eaters, or a vegan plate that’s little more than an uninspired pile of vegetables,” Ronnen writes in his new cookbook, “Crossroads.” ‘’Some still fall into the trap of thinking that vegetables or legumes need to be disguised as meat in order to be palatable.” In other words, you won’t find the hipsterfavored cauliflower steaks (all the rage, don’t you know!) at Ronnen’s Los Angeles restaurant, also named Crossroads. Instead, his main courses center around vegetables that aren’t disguised as burgers or steaks or other meaty dishes. Rather, they deliver savory, meaty flavors on their own power, things like roasted shiitake
mushrooms that pack in crispy bacon-esque flavor in a salad or pureeing yellow tomatoes into a creamy bearnaise sauce. It’s that sort of flavor that landed him catering gigs with serious star wattage. As in, Portia de Rossi and Ellen Degeneres’ wedding and Oprah Winfrey’s 21-day vegan challenge. And that same it-has-tobe-good-meat-or-not approach plays out in all his ventures, from the vegan menus he created at 24 restaurants for Wynn hotels in Las Vegas to his Crossroads restaurant (which he stresses is Mediterranean first and vegan second) to his impossibly good line of nondairy cheeses.
He’s the sort of chef who says there’s something so exciting about vegetables that it keeps him up at night. Quite literally. A few months ago when Ronnen couldn’t sleep, his decided to reinvent “fruits de mer” featuring lobster mushrooms that he batters and fries, hearts of palm “calamari,” oyster shooters made from shitake mushrooms poached in olive oil and kombu seaweed, and a crab louie salad along with a smoked “lox” made of heirloom carrots and kelp caviar. Two days later it was on the menu. “People went crazy for it,” said Ronnen, who turned vegetarian as a teen, at time when
the only veggie burgers available at the grocery store were dry mixes that had to be combined with water. Still, he spends lots of time catering to the omnivore’s palate. There are plenty of lentil dishes and healthy kale salads on his menu and featured in his latest cookbook. And most of his restaurant guests are neither vegan nor vegetarian. “They just like good food.” “Often times there’s a die-hard carnivore who’s coming to the restaurant and that’s not going to cut it for them, so diving into the pappardelle bolognese really wins them over,” Ronnen said in a recent telephone interview. Ronnen doesn’t shy away from carb-heavy pastas the way many healthy eating restaurants do. There’s no seaweed kelp “pasta.” Instead, all the pasta is handmade, including the chive fettucine with asparagus, morels and prosecco sauce and the cappellacci with spinach cream sauce made from cashews, all of which are featured in his cookbook. He also has taken his popular pastas to the masses with two ricotta ravioli dishes sold at Whole Foods Market stores as part of the Kite Hill brand he cofounded. The label has won over dairy loving skeptics with its smooth flavors and loyalty to the traditional cheese Please see VEGAN, Page B8