Scallops with Marsala Shiitake Mushrooms & Peas

Decadence.

Indulgence.

Super freakin' easy.

Minced 1/4 shallot

Mike was away visiting his family for a few days so I had a minor shellfish festival for one.

I could have eaten this every day, but sadly, scallops can get pricy fast.

As do shiitake mushrooms.

But both are totally worth it.

After you clean your mushrooms with a damp cloth or paper towel and slice them to your desired size, sauté them in a bit of olive oil and butter on medium. (Maybe 1TBSP olive oil and 1 Tsp butter.)

Once they are browned, season with salt, stir, and then set them aside for later.

Do not wipe down the pan.

Add a new TBSP of butter to the pan, and once it melts place your scallops in it. Cook roughly 3 minutes per side.

Once you flip the scallops, add some frozen baby peas to the other side of the pan, as they only need about 3 minutes to heat through, but they can lower the temperature in the pan, so keep them on the opposite side as the scallops.

I also added about 1/4 of a shallot that I had chopped finely in with the peas.

Once the scallops are seared on both sides (but still tender and slightly uncooked at their middle) I remove the scallops, add a splash (1/4 cup) of marsala wine to the pan, add the mushrooms back in, and stir to combine while the wine reduces down to just a small drizzle

Plate it up and drizzle the remaining marsala-butter sauce over the scallops.

Devour.

Revamped Experiment

So, really, no takers on the Aztec Soup?
Damn.
It's quite tasty.

Stolen from my own post, mentioned below

Another very tasty dinner I made tonight is essentially this fabulous meal of roasted acorn squash, which is then mixed into quick-cooking polenta (along with elements that make polenta tasty such as half & half, butter, salt, and ground dried sage), which acts as a base for leftover roast chicken which I toss into some marsala and porcini mushroom gravy, and on top of it all, a dollop of mascarpone cheese and a scattering of pistachios.

It is KILLER people.
And it's going to become a slightly more common dish in this house, what with the almost weekly roasting of chickens that happens around here. Forget side dish. This is now a meal that is good-to-go.
It ain't low-cal, but it is absolutely delicious.

Get on it.
(And enjoy your weekend!)

Roasted Squash Polenta w/ Sage-Pistachio Mascarpone & Sautéed Mushrooms

OK - I'm getting one Thanksgiving-esque food related post in before the holiday is upon us. Then I'm back to my regularly scheduled randomness.

I totally winged this recipe in an attempt to recreate a new dish from one of my long-standing regular haunts, Five Points. 

The owner is now the chef and there have been a lot of overhauls, not all of which are stellar.

(Ahem: the "Limit 2" on the $5 Happy Hour Martinis. Boo hiss.)

However, this has been a starter on the menu lately, and I decided to try to make it at home.

The major reason I avoid making polenta at home is that a) it's time consuming, and b) I don't actually want to know just how much butter, cream, and cheese restaurants put in it to make it tasty.

However, I risked it tonight, and knowing full well that it would be both a fattening AND healthy dish.

And I did a pretty decent job recreating it, if I do say so myself.

And I do.

Obviously.

Raw and ready to roast!

I started by carving up an acorn squash, drizzling it with olive oil and salt, and roasting it in a 425º oven for 45 minutes, turning it once halfway through.

Serious color = serious flavah

For the mushrooms I used a combination of dried (reconstituted) porcini mushrooms and fresh baby bellas. I sautéed them in a combination of olive oil and butter until they were really catching color, at which time I added salt and one grated clove of garlic.

Once the garlic was fragrant I added some of the reconstituted-mushroom liquid and a splash of dry sherry and let it cook out a bit.

Bland base...

I used quick-cooking polenta because... well... it only takes 5-8 minutes! I was extra harried in the kitchen since I was experimenting without a recipe and juggling FAR too many things at once.
(Three pans on the stove as well as the oven and I just did not have 35-45 minutes to stand there stirring regular polenta. Why so many pans? Well I had to make something the hubs would eat as well, what with his anti-mushroom feelings. Grumblegrumblegrumble...)


If you were to eat the quick-cooking polenta plain it really is sub-par.  It needs LOTS of help.
Luckily all the additions here make it fabulous. I followed the instructions on the box, made about 1/2 a cup dry to the one acorn squash, heavily salted it, and about a minute before it was done cooking I added a mix of milk and cream.

It was still rather dull, until...

... now super tasty

... you add the roasted squash! I just carved the flesh out of the skin and mixed it all together with a knob of butter. Suddenly it was an interesting flavor and texture. (Check for seasoning again.) But it was missing the big finish:

Mascarpone!!

I used about a tablespoon per serving (hefty but worth it), and had previously mixed 3 TBSP of mascarpone with 2 fresh leaves of sage, finely chopped, as well as a couple shakes (probably only 1/4 tsp) of dried sage, and 1/4 cup of chopped pistachios. 

Voila!

Serve up the squash-polenta mixture, top with a dollop of the sage-pistachio mascarpone, and then top with the sautéed mushrooms and extra pistachios.

Be sure to stir the mascarpone into the mix while it's hot to create a really decadent mouth-feel and flavor.

Of course, when I served this to the hubs, I omitted the mushrooms and served it as a side dish to some rosemary & pecorino-stuffed pork tenderloin. But that's his own problem.
Well, technically it became my problem as that made for the extra pan on the stove and in the oven while doing other things for the first time.
But it all worked out, and he really liked the dish sans mushrooms. 
So he gets to live.
I mean, hey, 'tis the season and all that.

While I do not suggest trying a new dish if you have company coming for the holidays, I definitely suggest trying this before squash season passes us by, because it is a VERY satisfying dish.

And I am seriously looking forward to leftovers tomorrow!

Mushroom & Asparagus Pasta

I've been on a bit of a mushroom-craving kick lately, which is hard to satisfy since mushrooms are one of the things the hubs won't eat. But for lunch the other day I made myself a delicious little mushroom pasta which you may recognize as being quite similar to the mushroom crostini recipe from back around Mother's Day.

I started with a combination of shiitake mushrooms and baby bella mushrooms, and decided to throw in some tender asparagus as well.

I sautéed the mushrooms in a little olive oil and butter, trying not to crowd the pan too much. (Slightly failed at that. Eyes bigger than my pan...) 

I let the mushrooms go for about five minutes before adding anything else to the pan, and then added about a teaspoon of dried thyme to the pan, which, as always, I crushed in my fingers before adding. (I had just run out of fresh thyme, much to my consternation.)

At this point I added the finely sliced asparagus and tossed it all together.

At this point I seasoned the veggies with some salt, and grated one large garlic clove into the mix.

Next I added a splash (maybe 2 tablespoons) of cognac, and let that cook off (we're talking seconds here.)

I finished what would become the pasta sauce with a splash of chicken stock and about 2 tablespoons of half and half (or cream or whatever you have) and let it all come together. Check for seasoning.

I then added the cooked pasta to the pan and let the flavors meld for another minute.

I finished the dish with a little good olive oil and some grated pecorino cheese.

Very satisfying.

Oh, and the HEAT went on in my building last night. August 1st and my radiators began hissing and suddenly I smelled that smell that old radiators emit when the heat starts up. It's a smell that I love come October, because it has just started to be regularly cold and it means fuzzy sweater and socks season has begun and thoughts of hot chocolate drift through my head.

I was denied that happy feeling as it was August 1st and instead I flew into a heat-stroke panic, checking with neighbors to see if it was just me, or just my "line" of apartments, and then called my less than stellar Super who reported "boiler trouble but fixed now." 

Yeah, 30 minutes and 90º later it turned off.

To top off the night, the hubs forgot his wallet while visiting a friend (UPS to the rescue) and lost his iPod on the plane back.

Not an auspicious start to the month.

Fingers crossed that yesterday is the worst day that we have.

Shiitake Mushroom Crostini

Yes, LOST ended last night, and we stayed up late watching it via DVR so we could skip the commercials, but I'm not going to get into a tangent on television that we were obsessed with and which we now must let go of because that wouldn't be very relevant. Only it is because it just happened, and it ties in to a post I don't think I ever posted about how I like to read books that are a series instead of solo novels because I get caught up in the characters and don't like to say goodbye to them after just one book. (If it's a good book, anyway.)
 And I shall just say that I was actually OK with how it all ended (yes, a few minor hitches, but I'm choosing to cling to the happy glow instead of picking it apart until I'm all CrankyPants about it), and was really happy because I always wanted Hugo to be the one. Yay! Also, I have decided the hubs needs to dress up as Nestor/Richard Alpert for Halloween, because he is just so pretty. So very, very pretty.

Hmm?
Oh. Right. Food.

This crostini came about completely by accident. In planning the Mother's Day Menu and scouring the fridge before hitting the store, I came across a package of pre-sliced shiitake mushrooms in the vegetable drawer, and so decided I could easily turn them into something tasty.

First I sautéed the shiitake mushrooms in a pan with about 2 TBSP olive oil and 1 TBSP of butter.  (Try not to crowd the pan or your mushrooms will just come out rubbery instead of tender and slightly browned.) 
Cooking those until beginning to brown, I then added about half a minced shallot (Go for garlic if making this for someone who is not allergic to garlic. I'd use one large or two small cloves, grated into a paste.) salt and about a teaspoon of dried thyme that I crushed between my fingers before sprinkling in.
(I would have preferred fresh, but I was working with a strange pantry.)

After another minute or so of cooking I deglazed the pan with white wine, (maybe 1/2 cup but I was eyeballing it) and let that cook down for a few minutes. Once most of the wine had cooked away I added about 1/3 cup of heavy cream, and again let that cook down, maybe another 4 minutes. You'll know it's ready when the pan doesn't have much of a noticeable sauce in it anymore. Rather, just the reduced wine-cream sauce coating the mushrooms.

Assembly:
On the toasted bread I spread a cheese akin to St. André, but any slightly tangy spreadable cheese would do. (You don't want the flavor of the cheese to overwhelm the subtlety of the shitake mushrooms. The cheese was really just glue with which to keep the mushrooms on the toast. Also, excuse to eat cheese.) I then spread the mushroom mixture on top and set them in the oven for a few minutes, just to make sure the cheese and the mushrooms melted together a tiny bit.

If making these mushrooms for crostini again, I would substitute 1/4 cup brandy or cognac in place of the white wine in the deglazing stage. I think it would add much more flavor to the dish, but as I was making this off the cuff, I only decided that at the end. When tasting in the pan, the mushrooms were delicious and I did a little happy dance in a circle. With the bread as an added component tho, I craved a little more zing from the mushrooms. (It could also have just been the particular white wine I was using. It was a very light and fresh white from around Venice.) 
However, if just using these mushrooms as a pasta sauce, the white wine should suffice, but then I would use a bit more wine and cream (maybe another quarter cup each) so there would be more sauce to coat the pasta.

Either way, very, very tasty mushrooms.

I think I shall be making these again later this week when the hubs heads to Philly...

(mushrooms being one of the Things Mike Won't Eat)