Cooking with Mumu: [Update] There are 3 new posts in "Simply Recipes"

Simply Recipes

Here is the Simply Recipes update for cookingwithmumu@gmail.com

Grilled Polish Sausage
Broccoli Rabe with Caramelized Onions
Classic Pasta Primavera

There are 3 new posts in "Simply Recipes"

Grilled Polish Sausage

Attention sausage and sauerkraut lovers! I think it's time we had our own fan club, don't you? I nominate my Minnesota-raised father as the honorary chairman of that club. All I have to do is mention the words sausage and sauerkraut, and it doesn't seem to matter what else is involved. He's all over it. (Hmm, S &S pizza anyone?) In this case when I mentioned we were grilling polish sausages and then simmering them in beer with sauerkraut and onions, he couldn't get here fast enough. This is great summer grilling party food because you can keep those sausages simmering for a couple hours on the grill, ensuring you have hot food ready throughout the party. From what I understand, this dish is a summer standby in Wisconsin and Minnesota. Dad thinks it's pretty common in Nebraska too. I'm just happy it made its way to Northern California. My patio to be specific. Enjoy.

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Broccoli Rabe with Caramelized Onions

Have you ever cooked with broccoli rabe (usually pronounced "rob", also known as rapini)? It sort of looks like broccolini or Chinese broccoli, with longish stems, small green florets, and lots of leaves. It's actually more related to turnips than to broccoli, and tastes a little like mustard greens, slightly bitter but more nutty. Slightly bitter usually that is. The first time I cooked broccoli rabe it must have been really late in the season, because those greens were so bitter none of us (hardened bitter greens eaters that we are) could take more than one bite. Several chefs I questioned about the bitterness suggested blanching the rabe first to take the edge off the bitterness. So I've done that here, though if you like the bite of rabe, or you are working with tender young plants, you can skip that step. I also mixed in some slightly caramelized onions, to add some sweetness to balance the bitter of the green. Hmm, all this talk of "bitter", I'm not doing a great job selling you on rabe am I! We love greens, and we loved this. Not only did I serve this rabe to my parents and they gobbled it right up, but I had a bunch leftover which I ate cold, for lunch, the next day. If something tastes just as good cold as it did hot, you know it's good.

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Classic Pasta Primavera

Remember the 70s? Please welcome Hank Shaw as he shares one of his favorite restaurant pasta dishes from that era, pasta primavera. ~Elise

Pasta primavera. It's very name evokes the 1980s, nouveau cuisine, and bad food clichés. Done in its classic form, which is believed to be invented by the chefs at Le Cirque restaurant in New York City in the late 1970s, primavera is a riot of vegetation doused in butter, cream and lots of parmesan cheese. Our version is a pared down rendition of this classic, simplified and lightened up for more modern tastes.

Why resurrect pasta primavera at all? Because despite all the jokes, it was – and is – a good dish. Any of us who ate in high style in the late 1970s, or really anywhere in the 1980s, has eaten it at some point in our lives. I ate it a lot. My mother first had it at Le Cirque sometime around 1979, and loved it so much she learned how to make it.

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