Luxirare Pennoni à la Vodka

The canned tomatoes I use are by Coluccio. Their whole tomatoes taste the best I think. In any case, always be sure to look for the D.O.P stamp. That means they were canned fresh from Italy.

So my ingredients are prepped. I used a painter's dish from PEARL PAINT to seperate ingredients. Garlic, salt, pepper, red hot chili peppers, basil, tomatoes, tomato paste, Parmesan cheese and blah blah. I really love making my own sauces because the taste difference is night and day.

Olive oil..extra virgin..unlike me. ha ha ha.

Braseole and garlic sauteeing in Olive oil. Pancetta and sausage can be used in traditional vodka sauces, but I prefer the Braseole.

I've added the ravaged tomatoes, and hot chili flakes. If you add too many tomatoes it will be more like a marinara and less like a creme sauce.

Time for the white stuff. So silky I love the feeling of it pouring out of my hands into the sauce. So pleasurable.

Freshly grated Parmesan.

Now..time for the sauna. I've also added the vodka, the whole bottle which is about 1/2 cup. (The alcohol cooks off through the steam) You can add more; I like the strong flavor of the vodka. If you want to get drunk while you eat pasta I guess you could add even more at the end before the alcohol cooks off. At Luxirare inebriation during lunch hour is a-ok.

Pasta boils in salted water. Undercook the heck out of it, because the pasta will continue to cook in the sauce. This is called carry over cooking. Nothing is worse than Penne without Bite.

Divine. The alcohol has cooked off and its ready to blanket the pasta. But it needs a little herby greeny something.

Ahhh yes, basil.

Luxirare Ideal Cheese Tartine

Girolle goes to work. 360 degree blade. I imagine you can use this for other semi "hard" cheeses. No pun intended.....

Closeup Time. The shaving creates a flower like shape.

I spoon the shaved cheese. Soft and delicate like lace.

Second Part, I wanted to pair a Fig Compote to go with the bread and cheese. Since the cheese has a slight flowery scent, I decided to spice the figs..

Cinnamon, Clove, lemons, ginger rocks, and sugar crystals.

Dried Figs. It's good to score them so that the wine I'm about to pour in soaks into it.


Burn !!!

Bubbly goodness, all the flavors fornicate in a hot wine bath.

Time to setup, the bread I used was a soft butter roll from Big Red Tomato which is a Japanese bread store on St.Marks street.

So I just place the fig compote on top of bread with cheese but I also want to drizzle some more sauce on top.

I make ice shot molds at home so they are always ready for me when its 8 pm. You know how they sell ice popsicle molds? Well they sell shot molds too. My hand looks extremely creepy in this picture but I was trying to pour it at a weird angle. Sorry !

Devil's lubrication. Mixed drinks cause hangovers, this doesn't. Goodnight.

Luxirare Miso Cod

Ingredients snapshot. Miso paste, butter, ginger, honey, korean pear, sake, and soy sauce are used for the Miso Marinade. Ginger Flower and Enokitake Mushrooms (Flammulina velutipes) are side dishes. Truffle oil, soy sauce and butter are the side dish marinades. Of course the
star ingredient is, Black Cod- the fattier cousin of Cod.

Before I mix it, I grate the ginger and pear into the marinade. Pear adds another dimension of sweetness next to honey. Ginger neutralizes fishy stench.

This is the mushroom and ginger flower marinade, truffle oil, butter, and soy sauce. Very simple !

Fish should sit in Marinade for at least 2 hours.

I love these Enokitake mushrooms, they came all stuck together like a family, I kept it that way in the broiler.

Caramelization. I like for the fish to burn a little bit.

Meal snapshot. Soy sauce and shichimi (spicy pepper) are for the rice. Purple pickles, or Shibazuke are usually served for Japanese breakfast, but they also eat it at other mealtimes. I love it with rice, and its PURPLE ! You can tell the mushrooms are still together, but dead. Bamboo leaves are from Takashimaya in Japan.


I love to put soy sauce and shichimi with wasabe sesami seeds on my rice. Soy sauce and rice is just good for some reason.

Hana-Awaka is a very girly sake drink. They call it sparkling sake. Sort of a mixture between champagne and sake with a very flowery scent. I love the taste but if you want to get tipsy it will take you a very long time with these-this drink has a low alcohol percentage.

Party Time.

This was what I served the rice in. This wooden thing is also a sake cup, but what does the pine tree mean ? Well this is made out of pine wood and it diffuses sake with the clean refreshing scent of pine, and it does the same for rice. Japanese people always have the cleverest things.
 

Luxirare Blackberry Mojito (Park Hyatt Bar, Paris)

I love traditional mojitos but I've also had a fantastic blackberry mojito at the Park Hyatt bar in Paris. It isn't your most likely flavor combination (blackberries and lime ??) but it is really really delicious.
Recipe; rum, ravaged mint, whole mint leaves, lime juice+rind, club soda, powdered sugar or brown sugar, black salt, and blackberries

Robiola

The Cabbage is supposed to add a fresh veggie type flavor to the cheese, but I
had yet to experience this subtle flavor.

Nature's imprint always leaves a mark. The ridges are the imprints of the cabbage that is wrapped around the cheese for about 1-2 months to develop the soft and delicate rind.

The best way I can describe the flavor is this; think Brie cheese with the tangy mixture of a Chevre. It was so delicious, especially the buttery rind. As you reached the middle of the cheese it was harder and tangier, and I think this picture shows exactly that.

Health experts say this is the worst kind of cheese for you. The kind where it's runny and soft. The healthiest cheeses are the semi-hard ones. Do I care? No, I'm not about to considering the fact that I'd eat Steak Tartare for breakfast if that was socially acceptable.


Salami exterior. You can tell it's been through alot. The post-effects of using starter cultures such as sodium nitrate or Salt-peter which is also used in giving Pastrami their pinkish color.

Uh, don't even get me started. Distribution of fat to lean meat is pretty obvious.
I will remember these lardons when I'm 10 minutes into the elliptical. HELL! Working
out is by far the most viscious thing ever.

I love using this weirdo melon to balance the unctuous flavor of Salami+Cheese on bread. It tastes like sweet cucumbers and refreshes my palette.

July = Luxirare Purple Corn Tacos

Another snapshot of spices and variety of red pepper grinded. I also included "Sula" which is a Mexican version of sour cream. It tastes more like a combination of sour cream and Mayonnaise. Saltier and creamier. I prefer regular sour cream. Also included here is some Queso Blanco, authentic "white cheese".

Marinade for Chicken. As you can see I prefer the dark thigh meat over breast meat. It is juicier.

Some Alcohol for the chicken.

I wish you could smell this. Hopefully in the future they will have computers that spray aromas as you view pictures. I always wished my TV had an aroma spray for FOODTV.

Yikes. Spicy hot dried peppers for a mole/warm salsa sauce. I can take alot of heat. I don't know about you.

Decomposing.

Purple corn grinding. Oldschool style.

Purple corn powder, I worked hard !

After some warm water, and flour and purple corn maize, this is what you get.

Taco Machine, again oldschool.

Look at the little speckles that didn't get fine enough.

Okay so salsa with jalapeno, onion, cilantro, garlic and all the fixings is great. But I also like reallly simple finely diced tomatoes with onion juice and salt. Really fresh and you taste the actual tomato.

Green tomato, the OTHER salsa. Look at the greenscale !


Instead of guac, I like fresh avocados with fresh cilanto laid down on the taco.

All the fixings, along with some spicy chorizo browned up. Adds a little salty bite.

All year long (Fresh corn only in July) = Luxirare Steak'n sides

Same with peppers. The long peppers are the ones that look like skinny acorns, those are the spiciest. The red peppercorns are my absolute favorite. It has a perfumy, rosy taste to it. Salt and pepper flavorings can change the flavor of the meat.

Fresh beets, shallots, corn, Gnocchis.

Spinach is cooked and drained in cheesecloth. Getting prepared for creaminess.

Meat and stone. Very archaic no ? Notice the marbling on the meat. EPIC !

Fresh beet. Ladies, please note that this can also be used as a lipstain.

Onion + Garlic sauteeing in olive oil and butter...getting ready to meet ravaged beets.


Time for C.R.E.A.M...Cash Rules Everything Around Me.


Slightly boiled gnocchi in flour.

With mini onion rings, OR shallot rings.



Gnocchi pillows.





Pantone Sides. My favorite was dipping the gnocchi into the creamed spinach....


I only use the pink salt and red peppercorn after the meat is cooked. You can crush the peppers but I like to chew on them.
 

September to February = Moule Pasta

I just invested in this antique fettucini machine. I absolutely love the look of it, and I'm constantly in awe of old food making devices ; they just seem a lot more interesting in its functionality than the ones we see today.







So what's cool about this device is the name of it. Its called "La Chitarra" which in italian, means GUITAR, and if you look at the structure it does mimic the base structure of a guitar. Someone should really invent such a device for cutting fabric strips of BIAS, especially for super annoying fabrics like chiffon. If you're an avid sewer you know you just dread the feeling of having to cut bias strips yourself. If you're interested in La Chitarra, you can buy them here!! Or if you're not hooked on the price, you can also google "chitarra pasta maker".





So apparently you're supposed to use this roller and apply pressure on the pasta sheet so that the wires cut through the sheet.
It took a while to do this, longer than I thought it would take anyway.



After you keep rolling back and forth, the pasta sheet starts to separate through the metal strings and falls into the box below. I had a hard time with this and realized you have to flour the sheet so that it doesn't stick.










One of my favorite ingredients about making a pot of Mussels are the shallots. I like a lot of shallots, and sliced garlic.





Theres nothing easier/simpler to make than mussels, just sweat some garlic/shallot/red pepper flakes and thyme in some olive oil, put the mussels in, and pour in a good helping of white wine. I obviously don't measure how much wine I put in there, the alcohol cooks off and as most of you already know.. always use a wine that you wouldn't mind drinking! I used white wine because I wanted a simple broth. Actually, the simpler the method, the tastier the mussels I think. I've used tomato sauce for mussels but I like the clean taste of just the mussels and white wine.





I served the mussels in a pot before adding the pasta. I've added the pasta in before, but its a nuisance to eat pasta in a haphazard bed of mussels.



Proper way to eat mussels; use an empty shell to clasp onto the meat of another mussel. There are no forks used in France.





Pasta water.



So after a good deal of the mussels are done, I just used the same pot and placed the cooked noodles inside of the broth and remaining scattered mussels.

All year long = Luxirare Sanguine Twist

Sanguine Twist

Classic Borscht Soup ingredients broken down into a Pasta sauce + Parpardelle noodles.

Typical ingredients of Borscht include, beets, onions, dill, yogurt or cream, beef broth, and etc.

Beet juice is perfectly good for lip stain. My lips still look pinched.

Durum Flour and Egg.

Dill, garlic, onions, beats, some fennel. These will be extracted into juices.

Yogurt. Full fat content. A typical garnish for Borscht soup

Uncomfortable sourness + thickness.




Onion extract, garlic extract, fennel extract, beet extract..more on "why" later...


Dough is slowly coming together< Beet extract makes sense now?



Dough should be somewhat transparent.

1 inch wide.

Drying rack. Super fresh pasta is mushy and just plain weird.


Its like a Damien Hirst Animal incased inside a transparent box......mummified dill leaves !


Yogurt warming up with onion, fennel and garlic extract. Very little amounts of extract is used, these juices are powerful.


Yogurt is slightly warmed with fresh dill, garlic extract, onion and fennel extract. Beet Parpardelle sits in the middle.