Cabbage noodles
In college I roomed with my best friend from high school. She was also a vegetarian, and trying to keep kosher to boot. Unlike me, she was lucky to have a grandmother that was a) still around, b) in town, and c) a good cook. Her grandmother was Hungarian and would regularly stock our mini-fridge with various vegetarian Hungarian dishes. My roommate was kind enough to share her grandma’s food with me. One of the dishes that I remember fondly is “cabbage noodles.” Despite the name, the noodles aren’t actually made from cabbage. As far as I recall, the dish was simply lots of rich, oily cabbage mixed with curly egg noodles and plenty of salt and some black pepper. I don’t know what kind of fat Sarah’s grandmother used to cook the noodles, but I recently found a recipe on Salon for noodles and fried cabbage, or “Hungarian ice cream” that seemed similar, and it calls for butter. Read the rest of this entry »
Cacio e Pepe
Derek had had a really excellent version of cacio e pepe in one of Mario Batali’s restaurants, and was very excited about trying it. Mario Batali’s version has quite a bit of olive oil and some butter, but the Cook’s Illustrated recipe looked unusually light for a cream pasta. They cook the pasta in very little water so that the water ends up very starchy, and can be used to help make the sauce more cohesive. We decided to give it a try. Read the rest of this entry »
The captious vegetarian 