potato

Patatas a la riojana feeds the pilgrim body and soul

Patatas a la riojana feeds the pilgrim body and soul

Posted on by Pat and David
We have all become pilgrims, if only in spirit, during our days of worldwide plague. The sign above marks a bar in Plaza del Rey, San Fernando in Burgos, Spain, named ‶The Pilgrim.″ The insignia above the name shows the scallop shell of Santiago (St. James) on a field of blue—the universal marker along all the variants of the Camino de Santiago. We say ‶variants″ because there are innumerable paths that lead finally to the cathedral in Santiago de Compestela in Galicia, just as there are a multitude of paths to any form of enlightenment. One of the most popular routes of the Camino is the French Way across northern Spain from Roncevalles (where the Basques repulsed Charlemagne's forces led by Roland in 778) west...Read More

Recapturing a great flavor of New Hampshire

Posted on by Pat and David
Our latest book, Food Lovers' Guide to Vermont & New Hampshire (Globe Pequot Press), just arrived two days ago and it brought back fond memories of the research. One of our favorite meals was at the Bedford Village Inn, when Benjamin Knack, fresh from a season on Hell's Kitchen, had just take over the dining program for this romantic destination property. It so happens that Ben makes a killer gnocchi, which he claimed was so simple that even his then 4-year-old daughter could do it. There are a couple of secrets to getting just the right texture. The potatoes should be cooked so they “squeak like Styrofoam when you squeeze them,” he says. And they should be pushed quickly through the sieve so the potato...Read More

Stuffed tomatoes from Roman pizzerias

Posted on by Pat and David
Like many Roman visitors (and many Romans, for that matter), we took advantage of the city's many pizzerias for quick meals or snacks. Once our Zone 6 garden swings into production around mid-July, we hope to revisit the subject of Roman pizza for the myriad of vegetable versions. But it was in the pizzerias that we stumbled onto another quintessentially Roman dish: stuffed tomatoes on a bed of roasted potatoes. Tomatoes stuffed with rice are a standard dish in a lot of parts of Italy, but Rome was the first place where we had seen them served with a big batch of potatoes. The simplicity of the single combined dish appealed to us, as it clearly does to many Romans getting an inexpensive casual meal....Read More

Making pâté chinois the cooking school way

Posted on by Pat and David
In our most recent Montreal residency we were amazed by the explosion in cooking classes. Montrealers have always loved to go out to eat, but more and more they're also dining well at home. One of the pioneers in teaching classes for the general public was the Académie Culinaire (360 rue Champ-de-Mars, 514-393-8111, academieculinaire.com), which has its offices and kitchens in a modern facility on the edge of Old Montreal. The Académie created a modernized, jazzed-up version of pâté chinois that reflects the increased sophistication of even basic Quebecois cookery. We find it a wonderfully comforting supper dish on a cold winter night. The recipe required no tinkering at all, except that we adapted it for cooking in a 9x13 pan. If you prefer, individual...Read More

Making patatas a la Riojana at home

Posted on by Pat and David
We don't feel too bad messing around a little with tradition to make this dish with New England provender. This rich stew hails from the Ebro River valley in La Rioja, but until Napoleon brought potatoes to northern Spain in the early 19th century, this dish was made with chestnuts! Of course, nowadays the local potato varieties of the Ebro valley are highly prized—considered by many the tastiest potatoes in Spain. In fact, the Riojanos tend to keep them for themselves. Not only do they have the rich potato flavor of say, a Kennebec, they also keep their shape like a waxy potato while containing enough starch to thicken a broth. We discovered that a mix of waxy potatoes (Red Bliss are the easiest to...Read More

Sustenance for the long walk to Santiago de Compostela

Posted on by Pat and David
Full disclosure first: We did NOT walk one of the pilgrimage routes to Santiago de Compostela, Spain. But last spring, when we were in northern Spain to research a guidebook, we did see pilgrims everywhere. Guess we shouldn’t have been surprised. Pilgrims have been walking across Europe to Santiago de Compostela, ever since the tomb of St. James the Apostle was discovered around 814 A.D. Pilgrims often carry walking sticks with scallop shells, the symbol of Santiago. Alas, they also often throw rain ponchos over their backpacks. There’s a good reason the north is called “green Spain.” It rains a lot. Two of the main routes from France (the Camino del Norte and the Camino Aragónese) converge in Navarra and La Rioja, continuing west across...Read More