Cheever Sauce

This definitely isn’t your classic risotto dish. In fact, there is nothing about this dish that resembles risotto other than the fact that it contains a grain that was slowly cooked in broth to a “creamy” consistency. I use that word lightly because I didn’t use parmesan cheese or butter, which most recipes call for. I did however include the classic risotto method of stirring in hot stock into the uncooked rice, a ladleful at a time, cooking slowly as the stock is absorbed. This is a crucial step because it releases the grain’s starches, giving you a nice creamy, velvety dish.

I recently bought some farro and oysters mushrooms at the farmer’s market, so my original intention was to cook just a mushroom risotto. However, because of time and budget restraints (whomp whomp), I usually need dishes to last me a couple meals. I figured the corn and edamame peas I had in my freezer would add some hearty flavor and diversity to the dish, making it more of a meal and less of a side dish. 

I have to say, despite the stockpiling of random ingredients I threw into this dish, it came together very nicely and tasted absolutely delicious. The dish as a whole is packed with energizing nutrients with no skimp on flavor. 

Onward to the recipe loosely adapted from Gourmetmix: 

The holiday season has been in my rear view mirror for about a week now, and while most Americans are looking to ring in 2012 with their soup fasts, juice fasts, slim fasts, or raw food fasts, I welcomed the New Year with carbs, carbs, carbs. Whoops. Now I’m all about healthy eating, but certain circumstances led this dish to fall into my lap whether I liked it or not (I liked it). 

The photographer I represent is in the middle of shooting an amazing portrait series of the top chefs in America, a.k.a a food bloggers paradise. Being on set with these people is probably how CW actors feel at the Academy Awards. When it’s brought up that I write a food blog, I nervously laugh it off “Ha, oh that? ha..oh it’s silly really…nothing compared to what you do…hah…(eye wander around the room during an awkward moment of silence)…Oh but if you want to check it out, link it to your website, or give me a shout out in your next Food and Wine interview, its C as in cat-H as in Harry-E-E-V…yes that’s V as in Victory-E-R-S-A-U-C-E.com.” 

As luck would have it, last week, chef Missy Robbins brought over some of her favorite ingredients for the photo shoot, and before I knew it, I had $200 of shaved truffles on my hands. This is what I know about truffles: 1. they are very rare and thus very expensive, and 2. I absolutely love how they taste. Cooking with truffle salt or truffle oil is always an added treat to any dish, but I had an inkling this would be the first, and possibly last time I would cook with fresh truffles. And when life gives you truffles…you make pasta. Starchy foods and liquid fats perfectly compliment this fancy ‘shroom, and you typically want to keep your ingredients simple so that no strong flavor overthrows the truffle, which typically infuses its flavor and smell to everything around it.

So how convenient it was that Chef Robbins also left me with some wonderful homemade pappardelle. This wasn’t any ordinary pasta. Her famed Italian dishes are known to be some of President Obama’s favorites, so when she offered me pappardelle made fresh that morning in the A Voce kitchen, it was something I just couldn’t turn down…I don’t care how many articles I’ve read telling me how bad white carbs were for me. 

I had the perfect recipe to compliment my ingredients - another Bethenny Frankel “healthier” spin on a classic Italian dish. I prepared my version a little different than hers, by melting the small amount of butter she called for in a separate pan, allowing it to brown so I could add the nutty flavor and aroma of browned butter to the sauce. I also let it reduce for about 15 minutes longer than she called for and added some sage to the mix. Overall the recipe was extremely easy to make, and bursted with flavor, tasting ten times more indulgent and decadent than it was. The dish can be made with just truffle oil, which is sold in most supermarkets these days, and I would recommend using whole wheat fettuccine when you make this at home, that is unless you have some of your own homemade pappardelle on hand :) . 

Onto the recipe adapted from Low Fat Creamy Mushroom Pasta: 

Lately I’ve been trying to take advantage of twitter (a social media outlet I used to roll my eyes at but now obsessively check every 15 min) by following other food bloggers. American’s Test Kitchen tweeted this recipe and I was immediately drawn to the lima beans it called for. Lima beans were like a one time a year treat my Yiayia would make at Christmas (my bet is on she boiled them in butter versus broth). I never really knew where to find them in the grocery store or how to cook them (I tend to steer clear of the frozen vegetable isle). 

But what really grabbed my attention was…ragoût. Ooo I’ve never made a ragoût before. How wonderfully French of me it would be.

Now I made this dinner last week (it’s been a busy week and I’ve been lagging behind in my blogging) when it was raining, and the dish was a perfect, classic, hearty dinner for a rainy day. When roasting a chicken the conventional way, one will season the raw whole chicken or chicken part, and then roast the meat in the oven. This recipe gave me a little quick tip, which I always appreciate, instructing me to brown the bone-in chicken pieces on the skillet before finishing them in the oven. This step is literally genius because not only does the skin get crisp on the stove, it also quicken the time the meat needs to be cooked through in the oven. As it cooks the ragoût simultaneously comes together in the stove. 

The beauty of this dish? After the chopped onions and mushrooms are sautéed with garlic, the sauce comes together with a wine and chicken broth reduction and a finishing toss-in of lima beans and olives. The ragoût and the roast chicken are then reunited on the serving platter.

This dish was amazing - the first night I cooked it my friend Skye inhaled it and the same goes for the next night when Sophie (who gave me the French approval) did the same thing. Literally - didn’t look up from her plate once while she ate. 

Onto the recipe: