TREASURES FROM MY WINTER KITCHEN

Lasagne with spinach noodles~ten-hour Blackberry Farm braised lamb neck with honeynut squash, roasted beets and goat cheese dusted with lemon zest, arugula with cherries~duck fat baked potato chips

Spinach Lasagne alla Bolognese

Lasagne alla bolognese with spinach pasta with Parmigiano-Reggiano and béchamel

Flavor fatigue is real. It comes along several times a year. For example, when I’m over grillin’ I want to use the oven after months of warm weather to braise and bake. On top of that, I love cooking and eating seasonally. Winter spells baked pasta for me. So I took a 10-page-Google-dive into the internet for lasagna so you wouldn’t have to. I also consulted my memory of TIME-LIFE Foods of the World. There I found a recipe for lasagne made with spinach noodles and a white sauce called béchamel made with butter, flour, and milk. And no tomato sauce! This delicate recipe has stayed with me for decades. So, when a dear friend requested I make it again, I was on it.

For starters, here’s a guide from The Clever Carrot to making homemade lasagna noodles. Take note, there are several versions of lasagna from different regions of Italy. If you hunger for even more variety, check out two dozen more versions at The Spruce Eats.

There are actually two types of lasagna alla bolognese, both of which come from the Emilia-Romagna region of Italy. In the U.S., we are most accustomed to lasagna pasta sheets being pale yellow, but the more traditional lasagna recipe actually calls for green pasta ala The Spinach Tiger, made from spinach. I like to buy sheets of spinach pasta to save time if I can find them, at some—but not all—Whole Foods, plus some specialty markets or grocery stores. In both cases, beef is only a minor ingredient in this bolognese. Ground veal, pork, ham and lamb are dominant. Parmigiano-Reggiano and béchamel are also primary ingredients.

[Recipe adapted from TIME-LIFE Foods of the World published in 1968.]

BECHAMEL

Ingredients

• 3 Tbsp butter

• 6 Tbsp flour

• 2 cups chicken or vegetable stock

• 2 cups whole milk

• 1 cup heavy cream

• pinches of ground nutmeg

• 1 tsp sea salt

• 1/2 cup home-grated Parmesan cheese

Directions

1. In a heavy 2- to 3-quart saucepan, melt the butter over moderate heat and stir in the flour.

2. Remove the pan from the heat and pour in the milk and cream all at once, beating with a whisk until the flour is partially dissolved. Return the pan to the heat and cook, stirring constantly with the whisk.

3. When the sauce comes to a boil and thickens into a smooth cream, reduce the heat and simmer, still stirring, for 2 to 3 minutes. Remove from heat and season with nutmeg and salt.

BOLOGNESE

To make 2-1/2 cups

Ingredients

• 1/4 pound smoked ham, coarsely chopped (about 1 cup)

• 1 cup coarsely chopped onion

• 1/4 cup coarsely chopped carrots

• 1/2 cup coarsely chopped celery

• 4 Tbsp butter

• 2 Tbsp olive oil

• 1/4 pound ground beef

• 1/4 pound ground lean pork

• 1/4 pound ground veal

• 1/4 pound ground lamb

• 1/2 cup dry white wine

• 2 cups stock (chicken or vegetable)

• 2 cups red or white wine

• 1 cup whole milk

• ground nutmeg to taste

• salt

• freshly ground pepper

Optional ingredients: pine nuts, garlic, parsley, fresh thyme, fresh basil, mozzarella, pecorino romano, porcini mushrooms, pancetta, guanciale, chicken, chicken livers.

Directions

1. Combine the chopped ham, onions, carrots, and celery on a cutting board and chop together into very small pieces.

2. Melt 2 Tbsp of butter over moderate heat in a heavy 10- 12-inch skillet. When the foam subsides, add the mixture and cook, stirring frequently for 10 minutes or until lightly browned.

3. Transfer to a heavy 3- to 4-quart saucepan. Heat 2 Tbsp of olive oil in the same skillet. Cook the beef, veal, lamb and pork over moderate heat, stirring constantly to break up until the meats loose their color.

4. Stir in stock, wine, and milk. Bring to a boil, then reduce and simmer, partially covered for 2 hours or more, stirring occasionally.

   

   

   First place a layer of bolognese in a baking dish, topped with a layer of béchamel, Parmesan then pasta. Add second layer with more bolognese, then béchamel and sprinkle with Parmesan. Continue layers. The final pasta layer is topped with remaining béchamel and Parmesan.

ASSEMBLY

1. Spread a layer of bolognese about 1/4 inch deep evenly over the bottom of a buttered casserole.

2. Spread over it about 1 cup béchamel. Lay the lasagne on top, overlapping the strips slightly or not. Repeat the layers two more times, alternating as before. Allow about 2 inches to hang over the edge of the dish with the last layer, which you should fold over the top of the lasagne. Top with the rest of the bolognese and béchamel. Sprinkle with grated Parmesan.

3. Cover with aluminum foil, bake for 40 minutes at 375 degrees, remove the foil, and bake 10 more minutes or until the top has a nice crust. Let cool 15 minutes before serving.

Ten-Hour Braised Lamb Neck

Braised lamb neck with honeynut squash, beets with goat cheese, and arugula

I've cooked uber special dinners before. The first time was decades ago on New Year's Eve. That dish was salmon en croute—salmon Wellington. A friend and I worked most of the day on it, only to toss the utterly failed dish in the garbage. The idea was terrific! The execution and technique were pitiful! With this year’s New Year's Eve dish I knew it would be a three-day effort. One that would undoubtedly be worth the effort. However, I wasn't sure of myself every step of the way since I've only made it once . . . with sweet success years ago. A couple weeks back, I bought the lamb. I purchased twice the weight of meat needed for the recipe but didn't figure that out until way into the cooking process. Live and learn. This lamb recipe is from a most remarkable cookbook. (The Blackberry Farm Cookbook) published by an intimate luxury inn—truly one of my favorite places on planet earth!—nestled in 4,000 acres in the Great Smoky Mountains called Blackberry Farm. (A newer sister property, Blackberry Mountain, a wellness culinary adventure, sits a couple miles down a winding road.) BBF, itself, is so isolated not a single other building can be seen from horizon to horizon from its front porch. Before making this dish the first time, I'd never even imagined a recipe such as "Ten-Hour Braised Lamb Neck." Recalling that first time I made it, ate it, and ever since just not being able to get it out of my head, there was surely no doubt it was worth repeating. This time, however, I had to substitute the neck with a block—a cut that includes part neck and part shoulder. No worries. That cut was the only one I could put my hands on this particular holiday.

New Year's Eve day was lamb cooking day. But before those 10 hours in a 250-degree oven with aromatics and red wine and stock, the normally fatty, bony, gristly cut seemed quite unworthy. But that turned out not to be the case. It was an unctuous flavor-filled delight.

Clockwise from top left: "The Blackberry Farm Cookbook" (2009) by Sam Beall. Lamb neck or block. Vegetables to roast lamb on. Ruby red beets. Honeynut squash hasselbacked and whole. Ruby red beets.

The meat was harvested from the block with a fork in what became a culinary mining expedition. To serve, the lamb was then dipped in the juices left over from its roasting then placed on a bed of arugula. It's actually a most-gratifying, full-flavored, moist indelibly memorable meat. But how to present the beets? It took me hours over a couple days earlier in the week to decide to simply cut them into 3/4-inch slices and top with a dollop fresh goat cheese and dust with lemon zest. And how to present the honeynut squash? Didn't do anything to the squash other than cut it hasselback style. Its color and the slicing would suffice.

This is one dinner where the main and each side was as otherworldly as the other, no matter what order we ate them in . . . .

Duck Fat Baked Potato Chips

Duck fat baked potato chips

Now we come to duck fat potato chips. But why? All across the pages of cookbooks and internet recipe finders are duck fat recipes for other potato recipes. So, why not try it with potato chips? In my search of recipes for duck fat baked potato chips I only found one from 2014. Well, duck fat baked potato chips simply needed some attention.

Pure duck fat from Moulard ducks, according to D'Artagnan, a New York City supplier of premium meats, poultry and seafood, is described this way on its website: “With a silky mouthfeel, subtle flavor, and a high smoke point, duck fat is perfect for high-heat cooking . . . [C]hefs consider it the best animal fat for cooking, and it enhances the flavor of anything it touches, from poultry to potatoes, and meat to fresh vegetables.”

Should you be motivated to try rendering you own duck fat, here is guidance from The Spruce Eats.

That was certainly enough of an endorsement for me. I used duck fat from a local grocery store. My approach here calls for the use of a baking rack and a finishing salt, Maldon sea salt flakes with their irregular, pyramid shapes and clean, crunchy texture.

SERVINGS

2

TOTAL TIME

1 hour to 2+ hours (if you soak the potato slices for 2 hours)

INGREDIENTS

• Mise en place. (Luv that French phrase . . . meaning y’all get all your stuff together in one spot before you start cooking) 1 large russet potato, scrubbed, unpeeled, and sliced into 1/32- up to 1/16-inch-thick pieces on a mandolin, preferably, and lengthwise which will result in larger chips and less work. Sheet pan and baking rack. (Recipe can be increased simply by adding to the above amounts of potatoes, duck fat, and salt. But this increases the number of sheet pans and baking racks you’ll need. Ovens generally only have three racks. Plus, each batch can add up to two hours of time, i.e. soaking sliced chips if you choose that approach, which I do recommend.)

• 4 tablespoons of fresh room-temperature duck fat

• 2 teaspoons Maldon salt

STEPS

• gather large sheet pan, baking rack, mandolin, large bowl of ice water, and ingredients

• preheat oven to 450 F

• slice potato lengthwise on mandolin for fewer chips and less work

• put slices in ice water immediately so they don’t turn brown, for up to 2 hours to rid them of as much starch as possible to keep them from burning

• dry slices on towel or paper towels on both sides

• spread duck fat on one side of each slice

• move the slices, duck fat side down, to the baking rack on top of the sheet pan

• spread duck fat on top side and sprinkle with salt

• place in the upper and middle third of the oven for 9 to 13 minutes or until chips are browned to your desire, watching closely after 9 minutes to make sure they don’t burn

• season the chips (if using additional seasonings) immediately after they come out of the oven so the moist ones can absorb maximum flavor

• when cool, place chips in a paper bag or an airtight container in a cool, dark place . . . refrigeration isn’t necessary to keep them for several days

Thank you for reading [VINTAGE MORELS] Adventures With A Home Cook.