recipe

Tortellini in brodo is a Modena treat

Posted on by David
Before I visited Modena, I kept seeing references to the city as the home of stuffed pasta. It made little sense to me, but when I arrived, I discovered that the signature pasta of the region are those diminutive stuffed crowns known as tortellini. (They also serve tortelloni, which are much bigger and go better with tomato sauce.) Specifically, the classic dish of Modena is tortellini in brodo: the little pastas served in a strong chicken broth. Every home cook has a family recipe for the broth—and most people just go to the market and buy terrific fresh tortellini from local producers like Doremilia (www.doremilia.it). I got a chance to see Doremilia's pasta factory in the hill village of Monchio di Palagano, about 45 minutes...Read More

Pomodorina belies canned tomato image

Posted on by David
Pomodorina is tomato sauce rethought, and it's my most unexpected find on a recent research trip to Modena. We've already written about “What to buy in an Italian grocery store,” but here's a product I'd definitely add. Pomodorina has been the best-selling product of one of Italy's best food factories, Menù, since it was introduced in 1967. It's made only during the roughly six-week tomato harvest season and combines freshly harvested and cooked tomatoes with celery, carrots, onions, fresh basil, and some olive oil. Menù sells it as a base ingredient for sauces, but I discovered that some restaurants consider it good enough to sauce pasta on its own. That's spaghetti sauced with Pomodorina above, and it was delicious. Menù (http://en.menu.it/) is based in Medollo...Read More

Carrot mac & cheese for grown-ups

Posted on by Pat and David
We encounter a lot of great food when we work on researching and updating our Food Lovers' books about the New England states. But a simple and delicious plate of carrot mac & cheese from Daily Planet in Burlington (15 Center St., 802-862-9647, www.dailyplanet15.com) stuck in our minds. We ate it one chilly night at the bar of this bohemian downtown favorite with a moderately priced contemporary locavore menu and wondered why we had never thought of it ourselves. A quick Google search revealed that a number of cooks had thought about such a dish. But most of the recipes we could find used either grated carrot or puréed cooked carrots and seemed designed to fool the kids into eating a vegetable. The Daily Planet...Read More

Whiskey in a Jar from Dublin’s Quay 14

Posted on by Pat and David
The Morrison Hotel on the north bank of the Liffey in Dublin has a swanky, modernist feel, but the Quay 14 bar retains a nice clubby atmosphere enhanced by a crew of barmen who really know their craft. It's a good spot for a drink and quiet conversation. In fact, one evening we had a nice chat with Gary Campbell, who used to tend bar in Greater Boston before returning to Ireland and shaking drinks at some of the nicer Dublin hotel bars. Although we prefer our whiskey neat—the best way, we think, to appreciate Ireland's great contributions to the world of spirits—he persuaded us to try one of Quay 14's signature cocktails. It's a variant on the whiskey sour. Made with Bushmill's 10-year-old Irish...Read More

Le Drunch targets Dublin Sunday late-risers

Posted on by Pat and David
Coming from Cambridge, Massachusetts, we felt right at home when we spent our last few nights in Dublin at The Marker Hotel, which sits on Grand Canal next to the architectural landmark Bord Gais Energy Theatre. (That's the hotel on the right and the theater on the left in the above photo.) This corner of Dublin is known as the Silicon Docks, thanks to the presence of Google, Facebook, Yahoo, PayPal, Etsy, Eventbrite, and others. For those who know Cambridge, the Silicon Docks might as well be Kendall Square minus the robotics firms. It's a stunningly modern part of Dublin, as this night shot of the Samuel Beckett Bridge suggests. (Santiago Calatrava's design is often likened to an Irish harp, but we think it looks...Read More

Dublin gastropub’s inspired sweet potato soup

Posted on by Pat and David
Pubs have always had some kind of grub to sop up the suds, but pubs all over Ireland began to take the quality of their kitchens seriously about 10 years ago. The turn toward better food was a matter of survival. Pubs lost a slew of customers after March 29, 2004, when Ireland became the first country in the world to ban smoking in the workplace — including restaurants, bars, and pubs. Once a few pubs introduced quality food with strong Irish roots, it became clear that the gastropub concept was the way to win new customers. Two years ago, the Restaurant Association of Ireland began giving out awards for best gastropubs, and in the two competitions since then, one of the top contenders in...Read More
Making The Marker’s Irish brown soda bread

Making The Marker’s Irish brown soda bread

Posted on by Pat and David
If you're following our series of posts on dining in Dublin, you might recall that our last post called for Irish brown soda bread. We realize that unless you're blessed with an authentic Irish bakery (like we are, with Greenhills Bakery in Dorchester), you'll probably have to make your own. For folks who often flub yeast breads, a delicious Irish soda bread is almost a godsend, since it's hard to screw up if you follow the directions. At the chic and rather new Marker Hotel in Dublin's hip Docklands district, we tasted a spectacular version of Irish brown bread on the extravagant breakfast buffet. Seeds in brown bread are nothing new, though the classic recipes only call for oat groats to add texture. This version...Read More

Chasing Dublin’s most famous cheese sandwich

Posted on by Pat and David
Having spent a glorious hour or so sampling and buying farmhouse cheese at Sheridans (see last post), we thought it would be a great idea to lunch on the most famous cheese sandwich in Dublin, even if it doesn't involve an Irish cheese. Although much refurbished and modernized, Davy Byrnes Pub (21 Duke Street, +353 1 677 5217, davybyrnes.com) has been a downtown fixture just off Grafton Street since 1889. It was a popular watering hole among the literati long before James Joyce immortalized the bar in Ulysses, published in 1922. In chapter 8, “Lestrygonians,” Leopold Bloom stops in on June 16, 1904, and orders a Gorgonzola sandwich. The dish is still on the menu, though the pub now fancies itself “Dublin's original gastro pub”...Read More

Top food with a view at Sophie’s, Dublin’s newest

Posted on by Pat and David
When it comes to good eating in Dublin, the best choices at the moment seem to be either the self-styled gastropubs or terrific restaurants in some of the hotels. The latest arrival is Sophie's (33 Harcourt Street, +353 1 607 8100, sophies.ie) at the Dean (deanhoteldublin.ie), a chic new designer boutique hotel. Both restaurant and hotel opened at the beginning of December, so by the time we arrived on New Year's Eve, chef Darren Mathews (below) had Sophie's running on all cylinders. The top-floor restaurant and bar is surrounded on three sides by windows with views of the Dublin rooftops. It's a spectacular space, with banquettes and some booths lining the perimeter of the room and — in true Irish fashion — a big bar...Read More

Spanish orange & almond tart for Christmas

Posted on by Pat and David
Last year for the holiday season we made saffron shortbread cookies, and we were feeling bad that we didn't have a new holiday cookie this year. We got to thinking about winter sweets and some of our all-time favorite flavors, and the two sort of came together. Some of the quintessential tastes of Spain are almonds, saffron, and bitter oranges. Why not adapt our standard linzer tart recipe to reflect that different range of flavors? Instead of hazelnuts in the dough, we could use almonds. Instead of vanilla, we could use saffron. And in place of raspberry jam, we could use Seville orange marmalade. (OK, we know that the marmalade is more a Scottish than Spanish flavor, but it does use the bitter oranges of...Read More