Frankie's Sputino & Buttermilk Channel Quickies

Out with a few friends last night I finally got a chance to having dinner at Frankie's Sputino, the Carroll Gardens stalwart that's impossible not to love. Well, unless you're waiting an hour or two for a table or trying to pay with a credit card, that is. Our wait was projected to be two hours, though it only ended up being 45 minutes, and they were happy to take a cell phone number and call us when when a table was available. We also put our names down at Prime Meats, figuring we'd grab whichever one opened up first. Frankie's won, so there we went.

Logistical quirks aside (seriously, bring cash), Frankie's really is the kind of restaurant you need to make a point of getting to if you never have. I had the sweet potato ravioli (something I've been meaning to make forever, myself), and it really was impressive. We also tried the gnocchi, cavatelli with sausage, and the pappardelle with lamb. I know the cavatelli and the pappardelle were home made, but I'm not sure about the ravioli, only because it didn't specifically state it on the menu. It tasted fresh, in any event. Sorry about the lack of pictures, but I wasn't in my usual restaurant review mode. No complaints from anyone, and the cavatelli in particular was very good.

While their dessert menu looked good, we decided to scoot down the block to Buttermilk Channel, another place I'd never tried. I had the roasted apple bread pudding, and it was very good. It was lighter and fluffier than most bread puddings I've had, which wasn't bad, but I prefer something more dense and overtly artery-clogging. it was very good, though, and I'd get it again. Two of my cohorts ordered Doug's Pecan Pie Sunday, which is a pecan pie and ice cream parfait in a big float glass. Don't pass this up if you have even a passing interest in pecan pie. It's really unconscionably good.

I'd be remiss if I didn't point out one really awfully annoying caveat to our dessert, though. Most of us were ordering drinks (beer and wine), but since I was driving I decided to just have a club soda. Well, it turns out that a club soda at Buttermilk Channel costs you $4. Really? Come on. The dessert was good, but that was annoying enough that I'll think twice about going back again, or at least bringing my own water.

Information:

Frankie's Sputino
457 Court St.
Brooklyn, NY
718.403.0033
http://www.frankiesspuntino.com/

Buttermilk Channel
524 Court St.
Brooklyn, NY
718.852.8490
http://www.buttermilkchannelnyc.com/

Pasta and Sausage and Beer and Football

Sometimes it's Sunday. And sometimes, on some very special Sundays, it's a Sunday with playoff football. No matter what anyone tells you, everyone loves playoff football. Even people who claim that playoff football is stupid and they'd rather host a gaggle of chatty women to watch the Golden Globes and talk about dresses and Jeff Bridges' beard and Christina Hendricks' breasts actually love playoff football. Those people especially love playoff football.

However, sometimes the norms of society dictate that instead of watching playoff football, your girlfriend is actually going to host a gaggle of chatty women to watch the Golden Globes and talk about how drunk all the beautiful people are and how stupid Avatar is. What to do in such a situation? Why, you come to my house, where there was no talk of Golden Globes, attached to Christina Hendricks or otherwise. Instead, we watched a lot of football and drank a lot of beer and ate a lot of pasta. Pasta that I happened to make that very day. I now do as is required of me and bring you pictures.

Basically we just wanted to eat a lot.


I went with my basic pasta recipe, hand cut into pappardelle.


I kind of winged it with the sauce. Initially I was just going for a basic butter and sage, but I threw in some half & half that was leftover from last week's alfredo in order to thicken it up. It didn't come out as well as I'd hoped, but it served its purpose - add some flavor to the pasta.


In order to make sure we absolutely couldn't move after eating I also fried up a pound of hot Italian sausage that I picked up at Arthur Ave the day before.


There's really not much more to it - I've given you all these recipes before in some form or another. It was just a lot of really good food, some really good football, and an unprecedented lack of Hollywood awards shows.

Rigatoni with Chicken Alfredo

Regular readers know well my fondness for homemade pasta. Well, this Christmas I was blessed with a pasta press attachment for my mixer, and last night I decided to put it to use and make some homemade rigatoni along with a chicken alfredo sauce.

I didn't do anything different with the basic pasta recipe, so if you're curious about that, check out this post. The only difference here is that the pasta needs to be broken up into walnut-sized balls in order to work properly with the press.

I've never made homemade tube pasta before, so this was new for me, and the results were pretty great. Consider this a hearty recommendation for this particular Kitchenaid attachment.

As for the alfredo? Well, it wasn't particularly fancy, but it sure was good.

Chicken Alfredo

Ingredients:

2 skinless, boneless chicken breasts
4 cups chicken broth, separated
2 cups heavy cream
1 cup half & half
2 tbsp butter
1 1/2 cups freshly grated parmigiano reggiano
5 cloves of garlic, minced
8-10 basil leaves, chiffonated
2 tbsp fresh parsley, chopped
1 leave fresh sage, chopped
1 tbsp salt
2 tbsp freshly ground black pepper

Directions:

To start, pound out the chicken breasts between two pieces of wax paper. This helps them cook more evenly as well as making them easier to cube later on. Set aside 1 1/2 cups of chicken broth for the alfredo sauce, and heat the rest in a pot and bring to a boil. Cook the whole chicken breasts in the broth.

In a heavy-bottomed sauce pan, melt the butter and add the minced garlic. Add the 1 1/2 cups of chicken broth and bring to a boil.

Reduce the heat and add the heavy cream and half & half, as well as the basil, parsley, and sage. Bring the sauce to a soft boil and add the salt and pepper, stirring frequently. Add the cheese and let the sauce simmer, stirring frequently while it melts and the sauce thickens.

Remove the cooked chicken from the broth and let cool on a cutting board. Dice the chicken and add to the alfredo sauce.

That's it! A very simple and tasty chicken alfredo. You can let the sauce simmer while you cook your pasta, just be sure to keep stirring it from time to time. Once you've cooked and drained the pasta, combine it with the alfredo and stir it all together before plating.

I steamed some broccoli to go along with it, as you can see.


For dessert, we had a few slices of an amazing stollen my stepmom made for Christmas. It turned out to be a great dinner on a frigid night, and there were absolutely no leftovers, which is always a good sign.

The LWT Awards

Van over at Clinton Hill Blog, writer of the great Lunchtime With Tillie articles, has handed out the 2009 Lunchtime With Tillie Awards, a fun rundown of some of the better bites in our fair 'nabe this past year.

Give it a look!

Aqualis Grill Review

Aqualis Grill is a new Mediterranean restaurant that arrived back in July, and the other day I finally had an opportunity to stop in for lunch. I'd tried once before for brunch on a Sunday, but they don't open until noon and I was a couple of hours early.


The space is really simple and charming, and while I'd be concerned about crowding if it were full, that wasn't an issue when I was there, as we were the only customers in the restaurant for the couple of hours we were there. It felt a bit odd, but on the other hand, the service was superb since they only had to worry about one table.


The menu isn't very expansive, which certainly isn't a bad thing, and it's delightfully heavy on the seafood. If you're in the mood for fish, I'm not sure you can go wrong with Aqualis.


Before we started ordering, we got a customary bowl of bread. Usually I wouldn't mention it, but the bread at Aqualis is so good that it's worth making a point of. It's warm, soft, toasted bread with plenty of olive oil and rosemary, and I couldn't help but have more than a few pieces while we mulled over the menu. You also get a small plate of seasoned olives and il to go along with it.


To start, we got an order of fritto misto (fried calamari) and the sardines, which are grilled with herbs and olive oil. The calamari was really fantastic, and might be the best example of fried calamari I can remember having in the area. The batter is subtle, the pieces of calamari are huge, the dipping sauce is interesting and spicy, and the portion is massive. Now, I wonder a bit whether we got so many because we were the only ones there, but if this is a typical order, it's an incredible value. It's more than enough for two people as a starter.


The sardines were a little disappointing, but I'm not sure what I expected, really. For some reason, seeing sardines on the menu made me think of sauteed fresh anchovies (which are great), so I decided to order them. Of course, grilled sardines are nothing at all like sauteed fresh anchovies, so it's really my own fault for being disappointed. You get four large, whole sardines that have been grilled with the head, tail, and bones still in there. Getting to the meat of the fish meant some delicate surgery to remove the bones, and in the end I wasn't all that thrilled with what I got for the effort. It's not a bad dish, but I wish I'd ordered the calamari.


On the recommendation of our waiter, I ordered the cod filet with sauteed spinach and golden beets. Now, they did have Mediterranean sea bass on the menu, which was very tempting, but at $25 it was about double the price of everything else and I decided to pass. The cod was great, so there were no regrets. The spinach and beets provided an interesting contrast to the sauteed fish, which was decently sized and seasoned well.


The skirt steak was also good, though it was accompanied only by greens. You can definitely find a better steak in the neighborhood, so if that's what you're after, I'm not sure Aqualis would be your first choice. That said, it certainly wasn't bad, but you get the feeling that these guys really wish that every dish was seafood.


We didn't order any dessert, but the staff was kind enough to provide us with some anyway - two orders of Greek yogurt with nuts and honey. Very good, and very welcome.

Aqualis certainly has a lot of competition in the area, being steps from the great No. 7 and a stone's throw from Pequena, Stone Home, the Smoke Joint, etc - there are a lot of ways to spend money on good food nearby. Still, if you're in the mood for reasonably-priced seafood, you'd be hard pressed to find a better choice than Aqualis Grill. I'll certainly be back, if only from the amazing fried calamari.

Information:

Aqualis Grill
773 Fulton St
Brooklyn, NY
718.797.3494

Google Map

Christmas Dinner

This year I had the great honor of cooking our Christmas dinner, which is always an adventure when you're trying to squeeze in entertaining family for the holidays. I'll leave it up to my guests to determine how successful I was in all endeavors, but I did enjoy the cooking.

I went back and forth over what to make for a while, and I thought I'd settled on a chateaubriand until I actually tried to find one on Christmas Eve. Poor planning on my part, to be sure. I ended up at the Columbus Circle Whole Foods, and they did, in fact, have a beef tenderloin. For $29.99 a pound. I would have needed about 2 1/2 lbs, so that ended up being prohibitively expensive for me. Fresh Direct, which I usually think of as being convenient and awesome, but expensive, actually has then for $21.99/lb. Food for thought.

What I ended up doing was getting a giant top round roast, which while not nearly as tender, is a more manageable $7.49/lb. Cooked slowly, it can certainly be a tender piece of meat, and I planned on making a similar sauce to go along with it.

The initial inspiration for the chateaubriand was this recipe at Epicurious, and I played with it a bit to end up with the recipe for the roast and the sauce. The end result was pretty different, but the goal was the same - a tasty meat.

Christmas Roast Beef

Ingredients:


Roast:
1 3-4 lb top round roast (mine was 5 1/2 lbs, but I'm a bit of an idiot)
Celery salt
Kosher Salt
Freshly-ground black pepper

Sauce:
1 lb sliced baby portabello mushrooms
4 tbsp butter
1 1/2 tsp minced fresh rosemary leaves
1 1/2 cups beef demi-glace
2/3 cup port

Directions:



Preheat the oven to 300 degrees. Rub the roast down with the celery salt, kosher salt, and black pepper. I'm very liberal with the spices. Insert your meat thermomometer. PLace the roast in a roasting pan or other suitable vessel and cook until the thermometer reads 120 degrees. This will take 20-25 minutes per pound of beef, but I keep a close eye on the thermometer, not the clock.



For the sauce, start by melting the butter along with the mushrooms and rosemary. Mix the contents of a 1.5 oz pack of demi-glace (I use Demi-Glace Gold, which is amazing stuff) into 1 1/2 cups of water and then add to the mushrooms. Once that has simmered a bit, add the port (or a dry red wine).

Once the mushrooms are soft and cooked through and everything is combined, you can remove from the heat and set aside until you're ready to quickly reheat and serve.

The beef and sauce turned out great, and I sliced the leftover meat and have kept it in the fridge marinating in the leftover sauce. I can tell you with all sincerity that this stuff makes the best roast beef sandwiches ever.

We needed some sides to go along, and I ended up making a potatoes gratin along with some kale as well as a quick salad.

Yukon Gold and Sweet Potato Gratin
Adapted from this recipe at Epicurious

Ingredients:

6 tablespoons (3/4 stick) butter, room temperature, divided
2 1/4 pounds Yukon Gold potatoes, rinsed
1 1/2 pounds red-skinned sweet potatoes (yams), peeled
2 cups whole milk
1 garlic clove, pressed
1 tablespoon kosher salt
2 teaspoons fresh thyme leaves
1 teaspoon ground black pepper
1/8 teaspoon ground nutmeg

1 cup whipping cream


Directions:

Preheat oven to 400°F.* Coat 13x9x2-inch glass baking dish with 2 tablespoons butter. Thinly slice all potatoes; place in prepared dish. Bring milk and next 5 ingredients to boil in medium saucepan; pour over potatoes. Dot with 2 tablespoons butter. Cover with foil. Bake until potatoes are tender and milk is almost absorbed, about 50 minutes.



Bring cream to boil in saucepan. Uncover potatoes, pour cream over, and dot with 2 tablespoons butter. Bake uncovered until top is golden brown in spots, about 25 minutes. Cool slightly.

*This was a very poor choice of recipe on my part since I had the oven at 300 for the roast. I felt the roast was more important than the potatoes, so I kept it at 300 and just cooked the potatoes a lot longer. It didn't turn out as well as I'd hoped. I think this is a good recipe, but not if you already need the oven set at another temperature. Amateur mistake on my part, there.

Kale with Panfried Walnuts
Adapted from this recipe at Epicurious

Ingredients:

3 pounds kale, stems and center ribs discarded
1 cup chopped walnuts (3 1/2 ounces)
3 tablespoons vegetable oil
2 garlic cloves, finely chopped

Directions:

Tear kale into large pieces, then cook in a large pot of well-salted boiling water, uncovered, until tender, about 6 minutes. Drain kale, and, when cool enough to handle, press out excess liquid.

Cook walnuts in oil in a 12-inch heavy skillet over medium-low heat, stirring occasionally, until pale golden, about 5 minutes. Stir in garlic and cook, stirring, until very fragrant, about 1 minute. Add kale and salt and pepper to taste and cook, tossing, until heated through.

Serve kale warm or at room temperature.

The salad was just spring mix with some walnuts, goat cheese, and dried cranberries tossed in along with a quick and basic balsamic vinaigrette. Nothing fancy there.

I hope everyone reading had a safe and happy holiday, and that not all of you feel as fat as me right now.

Red Velvet Cheesecake

Well, I've been talking about this one for a while on Twitter. There have been a few cheesecake ideas floating around in my noodle for a bit, but none of them have been enticing as a red velvet cheesecake. I mean, come on.

My main worry here is that with the Oreo crust and cream cheese frosting, this would end up being far too rich. Those worries proved to be valid, as it turns out, as this thing has no regard for human life whatsoever. You will get a rampaging sugar high from this, there's no two ways about it. I've been mulling over how I'd tweak the recipe in the future - maybe a mascarpone frosting instead? - but I haven't come to any decision yet. In the end, this is a very, very good cheesecake that should be consumed with extreme moderation. I think it goes well with any holiday dinner, but give yourself at least an hour after eating before you dig in. I post the recipe below. Use at your own risk.

Red Velvet Cheesecake
Adapted from the recipe at recipegirl.com

Ingredients:

Crust:
17 regular-sized oreo cookies, crushed finely (I use a rolling pin and a Ziplock bag - works wonders without having to get out the food processor)
¼ cup butter, melted
1 tbsp granulated sugar

Cheesecake:
3 8-oz packages cream cheese, softened
1 ½ cups granulated sugar
4 large eggs, lightly beaten
3 tbsp cocoa
1 cup sour cream
½ cup whole milk
2 tsp vanilla extract
1 tsp distilled white vinegar
2 1-oz bottles red food coloring

Frosting:
1 8-oz package cream cheese, softened
¼ cup butter, softened
2 cups powdered sugar, sifted
1 tsp vanilla extract

Directions:

Crust:


Stir together oreo crumbs, melted butter, and 1 Tbsp. granulated sugar; press mixture into bottom of 9-inch springform pan.


Preheat oven to 325°F. Prepare water bath: Fill large roasting pan (big enough for springform pan to fit into) with about 1 inch of water. Place in oven and allow to preheat along with the oven.

Cheesecake:


Beat cream cheese and sugar at medium-low speed with an electric mixer for 1 minute. Add eggs and remaining cheesecake ingredients, mixing on low speed just until fully combined. Pour batter into prepared crust.

Place the pan in the oven above the water bath. Note: Some recipes call for sealing the pan with foil and placing in the water bath itself. This is a great way to cook a cheesecake, but is also a bit more difficult. I choose to just cook with the water below the cheesecake in the oven.


Bake for 10 minutes; reduce heat to 300°F. Bake for an additional 75 minutes or until the center is firm via a toothpick test. Mine took about an additional 30 minutes of cooking before it was properly set, so be patient. Remove from the oven and let sit for 30 minutes before placing it in the fridge to cool further. I prefer to wait until the cheesecake is fully chilled before removing it from the pan.

Frosting:


Beat cream cheese and butter at medium speed with an electric mixer until smooth. Gradually add powdered sugar and vanilla, beating until smooth. Spread evenly on top of cheesecake. Garnish, if desired.

This recipe ended up making about twice as much frosting as I chose to use, so you could safely cut that in half. I'd also recommend using unsweetened cocoa instead of the cocoa/chocolate powder I used, but that was all I could find in the area.

This was a great cheesecake, if a little more work than usual. Not sure if it's my absolute favorite, but with a little tweaking, it might grow to be. I still have 3/4 of the cheesecake left if anyone wants to come try it.