Restaurants: Locanda Vini e Olii

Matt and I didn’t feel like wandering too far for dinner last night, so we checked out a little Italian restaurant called Locando Vini e Olii a couple of blocks from his apartment. The restaurant seemed full, but we were able to get a table in about 10 minutes without a reservation.


When we sat down, we were given 3 wine bottles that were actually the wine lists: a little kitschy, but fun.


We were immediately given some delicious homemade bread and a lettuce pesto. It looked like an Italian salsa verde, but tasted like a mixed green salad. That description probably doesn’t sound appetizing, but it was actually refreshing and tasty.


We got the Crostini Plate for appetizer, which had four different types: classic Tuscan, zucchini/anchovy, swiss chard, and tomato/basil. The classic Tuscan was topped with a creamy chicken liver spread. If you’re wary of chicken liver, I highly recommend you give it a try. It’s rich, earthy, and a little bit sweet all at the same time. The rest of the crostinis were good, but that one was the stand out for me.


We both ordered pastas for our main dishes because they're all made in house. I got the Chestnut Lasagnette with Chick peas and Luganega. Luganega is an Italian pork sausage that is seasoned with nutmeg, coriander, pepper, and cinnamon. The pasta had kind of a strange texture, almost like whole wheat pasta, but had a great nutty flavor from the chestnuts. I also didn’t think the dish looked very pretty, but it tasted like fall and I couldn’t stop eating it.


Matt ordered the Thyme Maltagliati with Golden Chanterelles and Nepitella. He loved it, and I kept sneaking bites. Maltagliati means "badly cut," so this pasta shape is typically made from scraps of pasta. Nepitella is an Italian herb that the waitress described as a cross between mint and oregano. That and the thyme were incorporated into the pasta dough, and the wide noodles were tossed with some olive oil and chanterelles.

This is a great little neighborhood place that has very solid food. I’d love to come back and try more of their menu.

Locanda Vini e Olii
129 Gates Avenue
Brooklyn, NY 11238

Restaurants: Muqueca

Muqueca is a little Brazilian restaurant in Inman square, and it quickly became a favorite when my parents first moved to Cambridge a few years ago. We even had them cater my college graduation party. At that time, prices were dirt cheap, they occupied a little hole in the wall space, and didn’t have a liquor license. They specialize in a seafood stew called Moqueca served in handmade clay pots. They recently moved to a slightly larger space across the street and got a liquor license. I hadn’t been to the “new” Muqueca yet, so my mom and I checked it out last weekend.

Let me preface this by saying that I generally really like the food here and that the service couldn’t have been friendlier, but they are definitely still working out the kinks in their new place. It was unclear whether or not we needed a reservation when we called. They also had only one bartender, and it was her first day. Luckily the owner is super friendly and constantly walked around to make sure everyone was okay.

We had ordered a couple of Caipirinhas and a frog leg appetizer at the bar, but got seated sooner than we had expected. The drinks eventually arrived and the appetizer shortly after. The frog legs were nicely crisp and well-seasoned, but I felt that the meat was a little over-cooked inside. I have to admit that I have never had frog legs before, so I can’t really compare them to anything. They have the texture of chicken, but taste kind of like fish. I’m not going to lie – I was a little weirded out that the frog legs seemed to still have toes, but I tried to not let it bother me!


This amazing spicy sauce was on the table, which was great with the frog legs. It tasted kind of like a piri-piri sauce. It was really, really spicy…in a good way.


We ordered two main dishes, but one would have been enough for the both of us. We went with the Fish and Calamari Moqueca and the Feijoada Completa, which the menu said is the Brazilian national dish. The Moqueca was really fresh and surprisingly light tasting. I thought it needed a little bit of salt, but the fish was all perfectly cooked. It came with a bowl of pirão, which is a yucca flour porridge that you can add as a thickener.


The Feijoada Completa was described as “Black beans stew with fresh & dried meat, pork, sausage & bacon." Served with collard greens, fried plantain, farofa & orange.” I’m seriously not sure what kinds of meat were in it, but it was really good. It was like a black bean stew with really intensely flavorful meat. It was a perfect contrast to the light seafood dish.


It came with a side of rice, shredded collard greens, fried plantains, and farofa. I had never tried or even heard of farofa, but apparently it’s a type of toasted flour. The highlights of the side platter were the plantains and the collard greens. The fried plantains were literally the best I have ever had; they were amazingly sweet, but still firm enough, and perfectly fried. The collard greens were shredded and probably sautéed, which is a different, fresh twist on the typical slow-cooked collards.


Muqueca isn’t perfect, but I think it will only get better. Despite the quirks with the service, I really enjoyed my dinner here.

Muqueca
1008 Cambridge Street
Cambridge, MA 02139

Plum Cake Tatin

I noticed that my mom had bought some prune plums last week that were ready to be eaten. I’ve seen Ina Garten make this Plum Cake Tatin on her show Barefoot Contessa many times (you know how Food Network likes it’s reruns), so I thought it would be the perfect thing to bring when we our neighbors invited us over for dinner.

The recipe is kind of like a Tarte Tatin, which is an upside-down tart typically made with caramelized apples. The plums gave it an interesting twist, and the tarte was replaced with a lemony cake batter.

The recipe starts by pitting and slicing the plums in half and then arranging them split-side down in a buttered glass pie dish. I couldn’t find the glass pie dish, so I used a cast iron skillet instead:


Next, I made the caramel out of sugar and water and poured evenly over the plums. My last few attempts at making caramel have been kind of a disaster; I usually manage to get it right after the second try, but it clumps together and hardens on the first try. I always Google the issue when it happens and I found out that this is called crystallizing the caramel. Supposedly, you can prevent this from happening by not stirring the mixture while it’s cooking and making sure the pot is totally clean. I used a new pot for the second batch and, again, tried really hard to resist the urge to stir and…sure enough, it worked. I’m still a little baffled, but I guess practice makes perfect?


Finally, I poured the cake batter over the plums and caramel. The batter was really simple and consisted of eggs, sour cream, lemon zest, vanilla, flour, baking powder, and salt.


After putting the cake in the oven in 350 degrees for about 30 minutes, the cake was lightly golden on top:


The final step is to flip it over so that the plums and caramel are on top. I first let it cool for 10 minutes, then put a plate over the skillet, flipped (carefully!), and then transferred to the serving platter. The cake is really moist, so it may have been easier to just flip directly onto the platter. I dusted the top of the cake with some confectioners’ sugar and served with whipped cream. It was a huge hit!

Bucatini with Tomatoes, Olives, Marash Pepper, and Shrimp

I realize that this is yet another post about a tomato recipe, but Matt had a huge bag of them in his apartment that needed to be used last weekend. His fault!

I also wanted to use the Zingerman’s Marash pepper flakes he got me from his trip home to Ann Arbor the prevous weekend:


The bottle describes it as having “amazingly full flavor with just a moderate amount of heat.” I tried a little before using and it definitely had a kick, but not enough to stop me from using a sizeable amount in my meal. Also, it was insanely delicious. I decided to make a tomato sauce with the pepper flakes, some red bell pepper, and olives with bucatini pasta and shrimp. If you’ve never had bucatini, it’s kind of like thick spaghetti but with a hole running through the center like a tube. Not only is it really fun to eat, it’s nice and sturdy so it holds up well with a thick tomato sauce.

¾ lb. bucatini
½ c. red bell pepper, chopped
½ c. shallot, chopped
2 cloves of garlic, sliced
Red pepper flakes (generous pinch)
Olive oil
12 black olives, sliced (I used canned, but we both agreed that it could have benefited from some better quality ones…and maybe more of them)
3 ½ c. peeled and seeded tomatoes, roughly chopped
Kosher salt
Black pepper
Shrimp (3-4 medium per portion)
Parsley, chopped (for garnish)

1. Cook the bucatani until al dente in salted water and reserve some of the pasta water.

2. In a large sauté pan, sauté the pepper, shallot, garlic, and pepper flakes in some olive oil until soft. Add the olives and sauté for a few more minutes.


3. Add the tomatoes and bring to a simmer. Add some kosher salt and black pepper to taste. Cook these down until they become sauce-like.

4. Add the pasta to the sauce with a little bit of the pasta water.


5. Meanwhile, season the shrimp with salt and pepper and saute in some olive oil.

6. Top the pasta with a few shrimp, some chopped parsley, and another dash of pepper flakes. The shrimp is of course optional - the vegetarian went without.

Here’s another view of the final dish. It was pretty tasty!

Choice Greene

I’m spending the day kind of playing around with my blog while Matt is working/GRE studying/trumpeting, so I thought I’d check out some of the places in his neighborhood while I’m at it. I went to Choice Greene when I was here about a month ago and had an over-priced, kind of funky tasting egg sandwich. I’m drawn back today because of the outdoor patio with wifi and am enjoying some surprisingly good sushi. I’m not usually a fan of grabbing sushi from the refrigerator case, but I saw them making it fresh behind the fish counter so I figured it must be decent. I picked up a Salmon Avocado Roll ($6) and some Wakame Seaweed Salad ($4).



Both were really fresh and (I think) reasonably priced. Note to self: avoid the eggs, get the sushi.

Gazpacho with Smoked Paprika Croutons

I‘ve been making a lot of gazpacho this summer to make the most out of tomato season. In the past, I’ve made it the very traditional way with stale bread to thicken the soup, but we had a huge heirloom tomato from my neighbor’s garden last week that was so good that I just pureed it with some cucumber, garlic, olive oil, and sherry vinegar. I tried to roughly measure out what I used:

1 large heirloom tomato (about 2 cups chopped)
2/3 c. cucumber
½ clove garlic
½ Tbsp good quality sherry vinegar
1 ½ Tbsp good quality extra virgin olive oil
Salt and pepper

I was going to strain it to remove the seeds and skin, but I found it not even necessary. This one tomato was kind of freakish in that it didn’t have many seeds and had a really thin skin. It was completely delicious, and less work for me!

To go on top, I made some smoked paprika croutons. I would normally use some kind of leftover, crusty bread to make croutons, but the only leftover bread I could find in the house was frozen hamburger buns. Not ideal, but it worked in a pinch! I removed the crust, cubed, tossed in some olive oil, salt, and smoked paprika. I put them in a 350 degree oven for probably about five minutes, until they were browned and crispy.

I served the gazpacho topped with some of the croutons, chopped chives, and a drizzle of really good extra virgin olive oil.

Gnocchi (and Football)

Matt was psyched for the first Patriots game of the season last Sunday and we had been talking about making homemade gnocchi for awhile, so we combined the two and made a day out of it. We slow-roasted some amazing tomatoes from my neighbor’s garden and pureed it into a sauce to go with the gnocchi.

I had never made slow-roasted tomatoes, probably because I don’t usually have the time or patience. Matt insisted that it was worth it, so we cut them in half, drizzled with olive oil, sprinkled with plenty of salt, and let them sit in a 175 degree for about 4 hours.


Eventually, they shrivel up and get super sweet. You can actually roast them on an even lower heat overnight if you plan ahead.


We followed Mario Batali’s Gnocchi recipe, which calls for just russet potatoes, flour, an egg, salt, and oil. The recipe is really simple; the key is to use a food mill to mash the boiled potatoes so that they are smooth, but not gummy from being overworked.

Our shaping of the gnocchi was kind of…rustic. At least they looked homemade! We first rolled out the dough into ¾-inch dowels (roughly):


Then, we cut them into one-inch pieces and “flicked” with a fork:


To cook the gnocchi, we dropped them in batches into a huge pot of boiling water and took them out as soon as they floated to the top (about a minute). Then, we shocked them in ice water and tossed them in olive oil to keep until our sauce was ready.


When the tomatoes were done, we pureed them whole and then strained to get rid of most of the seeds and skin. What resulted was an intensely flavored, sweet tomato mixture. The only thing we decided to add was some garlic, which we sautéed in a skillet with some olive oil before adding the tomato puree. We cooked that down until it thickened a little and then added some of the gnocchi, cooking just until they were heated through.


We tossed in some torn basil leaves at the very end and topped with some parmesan cheese. Finally, time to eat!