Osteria's Treats: Short of Expectations

Rama Sarraj  

In an attempt to find Italian dessert that would be as authentic as Iorio’s gelato, my friend and I decided to explore Mani Osteria on East Liberty. The atmosphere was great – bustling, bubbly, and fun. Our main meal was impeccable, so naturally we had high hopes for dessert. We ordered the mini cannolis, which come in three flavors (lemon-ricotta, chocolate, and pistachio), espresso panna cotta, and Limóncello flavored gelato. Unfortunately, the desserts were not on par with our expectations. The cannolis, though flavorful, were slightly dry. For those looking for a rich and satisfying dessert, they are also too light and small (they are bite-sized). They were also not sweet enough to satisfy my (difficult-to-satisfy) sweet tooth. Moving on, the panna cotta was better in terms of size and taste, but it was lacking coherence in flavors. It is a rather unusual for a panna cotta; it comes in a cup and is divided into several layers: the first layer consists of a white cream topped with candied almonds, the second a jam/jelly-like substance, and the third a rich espresso-flavored mousse. The candied almonds were crunchy, caramel-flavored and delicious. The whipped cream, however, was more like heavy whipping cream. It seemed to have no sugar and was very flat. The second layer, though sweet and tasty, had an odd, gooey texture that did not blend in with the cream at all. On the other hand, the third layer, the espresso mouse, was not as soft as one would expect and tasted very strongly of coffee. For coffee-lovers, this might be a treat. But for cream-lovers like myself, the panna cotta contains very few hints of the creamy goodness of the authentic Italian dessert. The Limóncello gelato was the best of the three desserts – it was creamy yet zesty and refreshing, a difficult combination to get right, but the three-scoop portion was more than enough for two!

Though the overall quality of the desserts at Mani was high, there were too many inconsistencies in the portions, textures, and flavors. With a little work, these classic Italian desserts could be fabulous. This is not to say that Mani is not a first-class restaurant – perhaps it is because the main course food is so great. I would strongly recommend a main course at Mani, but Ann Arbor has many other restaurants and cafés that can offer a scrumptious Italian dessert treat.

Wolverine CuiZine loves Al Dente!

Carmen Lee  

With the chilly weather upon us, there is nothing more comforting than spending quality time inside with good friends and great food. And that is exactly what Wolverine CuiZine did over Winter Break – we feasted on two delicious dishes made from Al Dente’s sizzling pastas and sauces.

The potluck was delicious!

The first of the two was a simple and fabulous Al Dente spinach fettuccine tossed in roasted garlic sauce and mozzarella. Al Dente’s “tender but firm” pasta has a distinct and not too overpowering spinach flavor and a beautiful texture, making it a great canvas for Al Dente’s aromatic roasted garlic sauce. This dish was a huge hit, as people kept coming back for more.

Delicious roasted garlic sauce from Al Dente!

Right next to the generous dish of spinach fettuccine was a huge bowl of baked goodness: egg fettuccine with Roasted Garlic sauce, organic turkey sausage, and loads of mozzarella and Parmesan. What is there not to like about great pasta, flavorful sauce and melted cheese? The recipe also couldn’t get any simpler – there is minimal prep work, and the oven does the rest!

Our fundraising potluck sponsored by Al Dente was a major success as we raised money toward our year-end publishing goals, all while eating very well and enjoying the great company. Return trips to the table to get seconds and thirds were not uncommon, as people really enjoyed the fresh made pasta made with truly quality ingredients. Al Dente’s pastas and sauces elevated our fundraising dinner to another level, making the event something extraordinary.

Thank you Al Dente!

Carbonara on a Chilly Day

Carmen Lee  

This article continues our series featuring Al Dente pasta.

There is something so comforting about a big bowl of pasta that warms you up on a chilly day. Inexpensive and easy to make, this Spinach Carbonara is great for entertaining or for those rainy days when all you want to do is curl up on the sofa with a great movie and a hearty bowl of pasta.

Spinach Carbonara
PREP IT
1 package of Al Dente Spinach Fettuccine (about 12 oz.)
½ package of bacon (about 8oz.), cut into 1-cm pieces
1 whole egg and 2 egg yolks, room temperature
1 cup of Parmesan cheese, grated
½ bag of baby spinach leaves, washed (about 3oz.)
Salt & Pepper

CREATE IT
I. Bring a large pot of salted water to a boil. Add pasta and cook until tender, saving the pasta cooking water.
II. Meanwhile, crisp the bacon in a skillet over medium heat for about 10 minutes. While the bacon crisps, combine Parmesan cheese, egg and egg yolks, salt, and pepper in a small bowl; add half a cup of hot pasta cooking water to eggs and whisk well.
III. Drain pasta and add to skillet with bacon. Add egg blend to the skillet, tossing to prevent the eggs from scrambling. While tossing pasta, ladle pasta water into the skillet of pasta until you form a great, silky sauce.
IV. Gently toss in the spinach leaves with the pasta.

SERVE IT
Garnish with Parmesan cheese and serve. This dish is wonderful, eaten among friends and family or simply as a personal treat.

An Entrée into the World of Food Blogs

Molly Donahue  

There is something about food blogs that lures me to sit in one place, drink several cups of coffee and gather a list of recipes to recreate for more time than I care to acknowledge. The internet is flooded with food blogs and food enthusiasts alike generating gorgeous images of their kitchen creations. It is almost guaranteed that the visit to one food blog will inadvertently take you to another. They all link up - tempting you to click onto another and then another. It is a vicious cycle of flour, eggs and butter - vicious yet innocent.

Smitten Kitchen: Deb Perelman serves up consistently delicious meals from her small New York kitchen. The photos of her dishes are beautiful - the pictures alone will have you in the kitchen. She uses ingredients that you would probably already have or can easily find - nothing fussy. Her first cookbook, which will feature 80-100 recipes written and photographed by Deb herself, will be released in fall of 2012.
Recipes to try: mom’s apple cake, meyer lemon and fresh cranberry scones, mushroom lasagna

Joy the Baker: Joy, based out of Los Angeles, has a food blog that constantly induces new cravings. Her voice is unique, informal, and honest. Joy is relatable - she eats popcorn for dinner, has a drawer of chocolate, and makes friendship bracelets. If her blog has you hooked, check out her podcast. Joy, along with Tracy Benjamin from shutterbean have a free weekly podcast where they discuss the “most important unimportant” topics.
Recipes to try: cinnamon sugar pull-apart bread, curried sweet potato soup with goat cheese biscuits, chocolate espresso sandwich cookies

KathEats: Kath Younger from Charlottesville, Virginia is a registered dietitian. Her blog captures her daily meals and various aspects of her life. The trademark of the blog is “Kath Eats Real Foods” and it is evident that she does. Posting three times a day, you may feel like you know a bit too much about her life but, you’ll keep reading. KathEats does not focus on recipes but rather on her resourcefulness in cooking. She pieces together impressive meals daily and utilizes left-overs.
Recipes to try: overnight oats, risotto with butternut squash + ‘shrooms

101 Cookbooks: Heidi Swanson, based out of the Bay Area, is the author of Super Natural Cooking and Super Natural Everyday. Her blog features healthy, vegetarian recipes. The images on her blog capture moments of her life while her dialogue makes you feel like you are having a conversation with her. Reading her blog, will naturally slow you down, if only for a moment.
Recipes to try: macaroon cherry tart, pumpkin and feta muffins, roasted delicata squash salad

Icelandic Yogurt

Katie Trucco  

Out with the old and in with the…Icelandic? Yep, as soon as you were getting used to the Greek yogurt craze, another country has taken over grocery store shelves with their own take on a dairy staple.
I found a brand of Icelandic yogurt called Siggi’s, which makes “Icelandic style skyr.” Skyr is a protein-rich strained yogurt that has been a staple in the Icelandic diet for thousands of years. When skim cow’s milk is combined with live active cultures, skyr is formed. Then the water from the cow’s milk is strained, which creates the thick and creamy texture.
The understated label tells the story of why Siggi Hilmarsson decided to bring his native Icelandic yogurt to the United States. He wanted to make a yogurt that had a more subtle flavor than other more popular brands like Yoplait yogurts. Siggi’s is flavored not with processed sugars or aspartame, but with natural ingredients like organic agave nectar and Madagascar bourbon vanilla. It is the only yogurt that I’ve seen with only five ingredients, all of which I can pronounce. It also doesn’t contain any gelatin or artificial flavorings, and the cow’s milk used is free of growth hormones, or more scientifically known as rBGH..
So what does Icelandic yogurt taste like? The first time I tried it, I was not a huge fan. The thick and somewhat grainy texture made it feel like I was eating vanilla flavored toothpaste. However, I gave it another chance. I added some honey to it, which neutralized the bitterness and gave it a much smoother texture and now I can’t stop eating it! Plus, it’s 14 grams of protein—heads up, vegetarians!
Siggi’s comes in many flavors, such as vanilla, mixed berry, peach, strawberry, pomegranate, and blueberry. My honey technique tastes best with the vanilla flavor; the flavoring is sweet enough in the fruit flavors that you don’t really need to add anything else.
Siggi’s is available at Whole Foods. Try one and see if you are ready to jump from one foreign yogurt to another.

Cooking’s New Frontier

Nate Kristel  

Let’s start with an overview. I could throw in my own opinions, experiences and ideas on the topic of molecular gastronomy, but to be honest they aren’t completely formed. I, like many other diners, am new to this modern cuisine (new to it, but all the while intrigued) and haven’t experienced enough of it to pass judgment. What I can tell you about molecular gastronomy are the facts. It’s defined as “A style of cooking in which scientific methods and scientific equipment are used. This type of cooking examines, and makes use of, the physical and chemical reactions that occur during cooking." (about.com). But which methods are these? Which pieces of equipment are used? Which additives manipulate these reactions?
To answer these questions to their fullest, you’d probably need a five-part, 2,438 page book about the topic. Fortunately there is such a book! Modernist Cuisine is the new ultimate guide to modern/molecular gastronomical cooking techniques; and by the way, it costs $625. But I haven’t the money nor the time for such a book, and perhaps neither do you. The point is that molecular gastronomy is a very exhaustive topic, and going for it all in one article would be overreaching.

Image from Time.com book review

Here are some of the basics:

Sodium Alginate and Calcium Chloride: Sounds tasty, huh? Actually, they’re flavorless, all natural, and can be used in the spherification of foods. Sodium alginate is “a salt extracted from the viscous liquid from the cell wall of brown algae". (Molecular Gastronomy Network). Calcium chloride “is obtained as a byproduct of the manufacturing of sodium carbonate [baking soda]". (Molecular Gastronomy Network). One of the coolest recipes I discovered using these two additives, was a recipe for Mango Ravioli, which to me seemed more like a mango egg yolk. Basically, sodium alginate is mixed with a mango puree and then dipped into a bath of calcium chloride and water. When dropped in the bath, the sodium alginate reacts with the calcium chloride to create a surface gel around the mango puree. There you have it, a gel capsule filled with tasty mango puree. Put it in your mouth, bite down, and boom, a gush of mango.

Tapioca Maltodextrin: This turns fatty items, such as peanut butter, caramel or olive oil, into powders. Tapioca maltodextrin is a sugar obtained from tapioca and then dried into a powder itself (Molecular Gastronomy Network). Making olive oil powder is very easy: Take tapioca maltodextrin, mix it with olive oil in a food processor, and then pass through a tamis (basically a strainer). Once made, it can be served as a condiment, used as flavoring or used for texture. I’ve never made it, but it seems really easy and I can’t wait to experiment.

To me, these three additives embody the entire character of this style of cooking. By changing the physical properties of ingredients, a whole new world of creativity is opened up, and many chefs have taken notice. It seems that this style of cooking is constantly becoming more mainstream. Already, chefs have gained fame by running restaurants that base their entire menu on dishes primarily made with molecular gastronomical techniques. Some of the most famous restaurants are: Wylie Dufresne’s WD-50 in New York City, Homaru Cantu’s moto and Grant Achatz’s Alinea in Chicago, and Ferran Adrià’s El Bulli in Roses, Spain. I’d have to imagine that dining at one of these restaurants would be more of an overall experience than a dinner.


Craving more molecular gastronomy? Ian Rosoff recently wrote an article about El Bulli.

Why I hate Rachael Ray

Ben Thompson  

A lot of Americans love to watch the Food Network, whether it’s to learn new techniques and recipes, or just trying to jazz up their kitchen. I am among the crème de la crème and enjoy tuning in to my favorite channel for some inspiration in the kitchen. Yet among the variety of entertaining shows, there is one that I refuse to associate with; 30-Minute Meals. It’s not even the show that I dislike, it’s the god-awful host Rachael Ray.
Although tuning in to one of her bazillion shows poses the same risk as opening the Lost Ark, I decided to test my luck and watch a few episodes for the sole purpose of proving her lack of contribution to the cooking community. With this said, I have created a list of the top five reasons why I hate Rachael Ray.

She Has To Carry Everything In One Trip

By everything, I mean everything. She runs around the kitchen and grabs as many ingredients as she can fit in her arms, plus more. If she is fortunate to have a pan out, she just stacks everything on top. You may think to yourself, ‘Hey that seems like a good idea’ or ‘That is sure to save her some time during her 30-minute meal.’ However I believe this is just a ploy in making her appear more appealing, when in reality it just makes her look like she raided a K-mart. Her kitchen is the size of a dorm room in Markley; not that hard to take several trips.

Stupid Kitchen Lingo (EVOO and GB)

Unless you watch her shows, I’m pretty certain that you have no idea what EVOO stands for. For the curious reader, it stands for Extra Virgin Olive Oil. And GB? Garbage bowl...she had to abbreviate garbage bowl. Once again Rachael went above and beyond and created a new language to use in the kitchen. The only problem is that she is the only person fluent in it. Is it too much of a mouthful or is she just incapable of remembering ingredient names?

Meals Take Longer Than 30 Minutes

Have you ever tried to recreate one of her dishes from her show “30-Minute Meals?” I have and must say that it does not work like it does on the TV. The reason why she is able to finish her meals so fast is because she cuts corners. On her show, she has ingredients prepared ahead of time in order to speed up her cooking process. Also for those who actually pay attention, half of the time her food isn’t even cooked properly. Take for example Rachael Ray’s Super Bowl party special. She attempts to make chicken and chorizo chili in a polenta bowl. Sounds like a lot for 30 minutes. After tackling the chili, she tries to finish the polenta bowl in the last minutes of the episode, but fails miserably. You can even see it in her facial expression when she takes a bite out of the dish. Her mouth says ‘Mmm this is delicious’, but her eyes scream for mercy.

Annoying Personality

Besides the shows, Rachael Ray herself is an annoying specimen. She acts like a giddy high school cheerleader but sounds like a thirteen-year-old boy going through puberty. Watching her shows is honestly like watching a kid cook. She laughs at her own dumb jokes (“... pizzagna ... pizza and lasagna, why notta ...”), giggles to herself, and puts everything into the form of a question. And to top it all off, she is not even considered a chef among her peers. She uses ingredients from boxes/cans and has little knowledge of cooking techniques that differ from your everyday family chef.

She Is A Sellout

Rachael Ray can be found everywhere and on everything. She has several television shows including her own talk show, many cookbooks, her own product line (for both human and dog needs), and has even starred in several Dunkin’ Donut commercials. She sells her own soul just to put her face up on another billboard. It is hard to avoid her. Rachael Ray is like a virus; slowly spreading in hopes to one day take over the planet, or in this case, the food industry.
Overall she is just a television personality lacking in talent whose career only exists because of her blitzkrieg style of advertising. Fortunately there are plenty of other entertaining, talented chefs to watch on the Food Network. Take Guy Fieri for example... oh wait...