Downtown Stamford’s Summer Restaurant Weeks, which began this Monday enters its first weekend with dinner menus fixed between $19.09 and $30.09. Sixteen downtown restaurants are included, everything from Tigin Irish Pub to Market and Columbus Park Trattoria. You also get a couple of bucks off of an Avon ticket. Go see 500 Days of Summer, it ain’t bad.

For a list of participating restaurants: CLICK HERE

–CP

Alright, alright. This dessert “salsa” — served atop dulce de leche ice cream — proves our summer of salsa experiment, now in week 7, has veered steadily off the traditional salsa path. But what can we say, Rafael Palomino and Arlen Gargagliano, the authors of our trusty guide, Nueva Salsa, certainly know how to stretch the definition of salsa.

That aside, here’s what you need:

¾ cup of fresh blueberries
½ papaya, peeled seeded, and diced (about 2 cups)
½ cup almonds, toasted
2 ounces Frangelico
juice of one lime
1 tablespoon thinly sliced fresh mint leaves
Dulce de leche ice cream

From the book:

In a large bowl, combine the blueberries and papaya. Stir in the almonds, Frangelico, and lime juice. Let sit for about 10 minutes, then stir in the mint and serve. Or, cover and refrigerate for up to one day.

The first adventure to this dish was buying Frangelico, a hazelnut flavored liqueur. I had never tried it before, but it was easy enough to find at the local wine shop. A warning to the tight-walleted: my bottle, at about 750 ml, cost $25, and when I asked if the drink is sold in a smaller size, they said no. I later tried it on it’s own — stuff is pretty strong (!), but goes down smooth.

My friend and I had no hang ups preparing this easy dish, which we used as a denouement to a meal of eggplant parmigiana and broccoli soup (guess it was a vegetarian kind of day).

But I HAVE been having hang ups with the oven in my new apartment, so rather than sticking the almonds in there, we toasted them stove top. Again, worked out fine.

We had a bit of fun arguing over how a papaya should properly be peeled, let us know if you have any tips.

The dessert was yummy, and probably would go well with vanilla ice cream as well. I think this recipe would be a good starting point for experimentation with different combinations of fruits. We paired it with moscato D’Asti, a sweet, sparkling Italian dessert wine.

ABOVE: A slideshow of images I will be showing at the Slide Slam SoNo at the 22 Haviland Street Gallery in South Norwalk on Thursday, Aug. 13, 2009.

Head over to the 22 Haviland Street Gallery in South Norwalk tomorrow for their inaugural Slide Slam event. About ten local photographers are taking part in this, so it should be good.

READ MORE: On the 411

–CP

We’re back! After a brief hiatus due to overwork, Summer of Salsa is back for week six. In case you haven’t been following, CP and I are celebrating summer by making a salsa every week. We are following recipes selected from the book Nueva Salsa by Rafael Palomino and Arlen Gargagliano.

This time we made Lima Bean, Kalamata Olive and Roasted Garlic Salsa paired with orecchiette pasta. The recipe requires a little prep work, so keep in mind you’re going to need ample time if you want to serve this yummy dish.

HERE’S WHAT YOU NEED:
1 cup lima beans (or frozen edamame)
½ cup roasted red bell pepper, peeled seeded and julienned
1 roasted clove of garlic, minced
¼ cup kalamata olives, pitted
freshly ground pepper to taste
2 tablespoons minced fresh cilantro
(optional: 2 tbs. olive oil)

Okay, time for our big disclaimer. We didn’t use lima beans. We expected to be able to buy lima beans frozen or in a can, but when the grocery store only had dry lima beans we opted for frozen edamame as a substitute to cut down the three extra hours we’d need to prepare them. (Bonus: the edamame was already shucked). I think it worked just fine.

Here’s how to cook the lima beans if you want to go that route:

“Rinse and pick over the beans. Soak in water to cover by 2 inches for about 2 hours. Drain.
In a medium saucepan, bring 4 cups of chicken broth to a boil. Add the beans, reduce heat to a simmer and cook, uncovered, for about 1 hour, or until tender but firm. Add salt”

Next prep your roasted garlic and red peppers.

THE GARLIC:

“Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Peel the garlic, then place on a square of aluminum foil. Sprinkle with kosher salt and wrap in the foil. Roast for 12 to 15 minutes or until very soft.”

Obviously, it seems silly to heat up the oven to roast one clove of garlic. Go ahead, throw some more in there, for this dish or later use.

THE PEPPERS:
Changing it up again here. The book instructs to use the same roasting technique we used a few weeks ago for our Roasted Jalapeño and Citrus Salsa. But we opted for an easier route by tossing the red peppers in the oven along with the garlic (although not wrapped in foil). Post roast, the skin came off easily.

Now you’re done with the prep! Here’s what the book instructs to do next:

“In a large bowl, combine the beans, bell pepper, garlic, and olives. Gently stir, with a wooden spoon or your hand, just until blended. Stir in the pepper. Let sit for about 20 minutes, then stir in the cilantro and serve.”

While letting the salsa sit, go ahead and boil your pasta. Once the orecchiette are done, rinse to cool the pasta, and stir the pasta into your salsa with some olive oil. Voila! You have a light, summery meal.

VERDICT:
This salsa had plenty of flavor, and looks beautiful to boot. We had no trouble cleaning our plates. [I have a hard time calling this a salsa. I'll call it a pasta salad, and it was pretty good, though it needed some seasoning for sure. –CP]

–Magdalene Perez

POST SCRIPT: The pasta is from my new favorite neighborhood joint, L&G Deli on the West Side. At $3.29 a pound it’s more expensive than other dried pastas, but worth every penny. I have seen this pasta rebranded for Rao’s and priced-up. It should also be noted that L&G’s owner, Julio, is a fine bocce player as well.

ABOVE: My homemade pizza, it’s all about the crust. [Sadly, I ran out of fresh mozzarella]

7/27/2009

All this talk about pizza is making me hungry.

For a while now I’ve been making pizza at home, experimenting with dough recipes and technique and slowly, slowly getting better with each pie.

Napoletana-style pies are the way to go. I’m not just jumping on the bandwagon, pizza is an important staple of the LBC diet. And contrary to what some Frank Pepe fans might espouse, you don’t need a century-old brick oven fired to 800-degrees to make a decent pie. Technically a Napoletana pie should be fired in 45-90 seconds, but there is no way you are going to get a cooking time this rapid in a 550-degree gas oven at home even with a pizza stone, but that’s OK.

Crank that sucker as high as you can with a pizza stone on the floor of the oven and make sure to let it reach full operating temperature by waiting a good 15-30 minutes after the oven tells you it’s preheated. You are going to need all the help you can get.

THE SAUCE: This is the easy part. Grab a 28-ounce can of whole, peeled San Marzano tomatoes from the grocery store, strain and crush by hand. Throw those in a sauce pan with a little oil and season with salt and pepper. Go ahead and throw in a little garlic and oregano or fresh basil if you want. Its not an exact science. Cook that down a little but not too much. You are done.

THE DOUGH: Now this is where generations of pizzaioli are going to differ. Often vehemently. And with exagerated hand gestures.

You have three basic ingredients here [four if you count salt]: water, flour and yeast. But it’s not as simple as it may seem.

First, there are differences in the ingredients.

Do you use all-purpose, bread flour, or something more specialized like Italian tipo 00 [doppio zero], which is ground extremely fine and has a higher percentage of gluten?

Are you using dry instant yeast or fresh yeast? Where in the hell do you get fresh yeast anyway?

Some hard-core aficionados will go so far as to say that the mineral makeup of the tap water has huge consequences on the resulting pie, which is why many claim the best pizza in the country comes from New York.

HERE IS WHAT I’VE BEEN DOING: This is a dough recipe adapted from Peter Reinhart’s Napoletana pizza dough recipe. The amounts are the same, but the technique is not as involved.

4 1/2 cups all-purpose or tipo 00 flour

1 3/4 teaspoons salt

1 teaspoon instant yeast

1/4 cup olive oil

1 3/4 cups cold water

Cornmeal for dusting

Mix together the flour, salt and yeast in the bowl of your mixer with a large spoon. Mix in the oil and water.

Attach the paddle and mix on the slowest speed for a couple of minutes, then switch to the dough hook [again on the slowest speed] and knead, bringing the total time to no more than ten minutes. The dough should pull from the sides of the bowl and become smooth and glossy. A little flour or water may need to be added to achieve the correct consistency.

On a lightly floured work surface, turn the dough out and divide into 4-6 sections and roll into balls. Place then in oiled bowls and cover in plastic wrap. Let these sit out on the counter and rise for 3-5 hours; they will at least double in size.

After they have risen, punch the dough down and throw them in the fridge, covered, overnight. You can keep these in the fridge for a couple of days, or even freeze the dough ahead of time.

The next day, when you are ready to make your pie and the oven is pre-heating, pull the dough out of the fridge and let it warm up.

NOW YOU ARE READY TO MAKE YOUR PIE: Dust a cutting board with cornmeal and stretch the dough out to the appropriate size for your pizza. You can stretch or toss it, but generally try to avoid rolling it out [though I've been known to resort to this method].

Lightly oil the dough and conservatively sauce the pie. The biggest mistake people make when making pizza is to over-sauce the pie. Don’t go crazy.

The same goes with the cheese: less is more. I prefer fresh mozzarella, but don’t want to spend the extra money on buffalo mozzarella unless I can get it at Costco, where it is sold for a reasonable price.

Add some fresh basil and maybe a little garlic, and you are ready to throw this pizza margherita in the oven. The toppings are limitless, so use your imagination. I like making white pies as well. [Check out Jim Lahey's pizza bianca]

INTO THE OVEN: Slide the pizza onto the pizza stone, if you did not dust it with enough cornmeal, it’s going to stick and you are going to have a mess [trust me, I've done this]. Properly dusted, the pie will slide off beautifully and you are pretty much done, admire your creation for a half second then shut the oven door. Check the pie in about 5 minutes – it’s going to take between 7 and 10 minutes total. Pull the pie out of the oven when the crust is golden brown and the cheese is starting to brown a little.

That’s pretty much it.

–CP

ABOVE: Alfonso Carozza from Amore explains what makes his pizza special in this short video.

7/23/2009

As the cornmeal dust settled, a victor emerged from the brick oven; the Stamford Pizza Tour announced their #1 pick in their pizza “tournament,” Amore Restaurant on Hope St.

“We at the Stamford Pizza Tour can confidently say that the very best pizza in town comes from Amore Restaurant, and while we’re torn between the Bruschetta and the Margherita pies, it seems they can do no wrong because both were extraordinary.”

In case you haven’t been following, the SPT blog run by three guys from Stamford, set out to find the best pie in the city and sampled about 50 restaurants in the process.

Stamfordites – and even transplants like myself – are passionate about their pizza. Over the past week I’ve been taking an informal poll and I haven’t encountered a single tepid response.

After the SPT tourney champion was announced today, I headed up the street to Amore with photographer Bob Luckey to see what all the fuss was about. I picked up a few tips on dough making and sauce production.

A NOTE ON THE SAUCE: Amore’s sauce is very simple but very good. They use whole, canned San Marzano tomatoes [the same kind you can get at the grocery store, but in much bigger cans] and add olive oil, salt, basil, and possibly a couple of other things and leave this simmering on the stove. Simple as that.

READ THE STORY: HERE

–CP

Last month I wrote about the superb bread from Wave Hill Breads in Wilton, and its relative scarceness around Stamford.

Co-owner Mithcell Rapoport checks in today telling me that in addition to Mrs. Green’s Natural Market, Wave Hill’s bread is available at both of the Wednesday farmer’s markets [Fashion Plaza and The Barlett Arboretum] and they have recently added new accounts at Fratelli Market and Rye Ridge Deli.

I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: It’s good stuff. [And now a little easier to get your hands on]

–CP

The end is near.

The Stamford Pizza Tour has taste-tested its finalists, tallied the votes, and is counting down to number one. Who makes the best pie in Stamford?

Eight finalists took part in the contest – Sergio’s was “scratched” because they declined to provide a pie at no charge, proving there really is no such thing as a free lunch. In the next couple of days the results will be posted with the the so-called best pizza in Stamford to be crowned on Thursday.

I previously took issue with the low score given to Colony, but felt redeemed when the popular vote for the Myrtle Avenue landmark [a landslide 38%] forced it into the final round.

CHECK OUT: The Advocate’s Story on the three guys behind the tour and vote in our decidedly unscientific poll.

–CP

POST SCRIPT: Yesterday, I found myself in the interesting position of explaining to the owners of Remo’s Brick Oven Pizza why I prefer Colony when Remo’s Napoletana pies are technically superior to the Colony grease fest in almost every way.

ABOVE: Chef Bill Taibe of Napa & Co. in Stamford.

7/20/2009

UPDATED

Stamford’s renowned Napa & Company is losing the executive chef who has been with restaurant since it opened three years ago. Chef Bill Taibe tells the LBC his last day at the restaurant will be Wednesday.

Taibe, 33, a Weston resident, is planning to open a new restaurant in Westport by the end of summer. Via email, Taibe offers this regarding his new venture, “The concept: old reclaimed barn wood, open kitchen, super casual farmhouse feel. Food will be what is available to me that day.”

Along with owners Mary Schaffer and Charlie Morgan, Taibe and his staff have remained close to the themes evoked by the restaurant’s name; Napa & Company’s hallmarks have been its deep wine list and a menu that changes frequently to reflect local and seasonal produce and cheeses.

“[It is a] great restaurant with a passionate group of people running it. Napa made me the chef I am today, and I’m very proud to say that,” says Taibe, ” I will miss it, but I need to be in a more hands-on environment, a smaller more intimate restaurant. I will miss Napa and its staff, I wish them all the best truly…

PLEASE READ: Schaffer’s comment to this post. Excerpted here, she writes:

…It is with pride that we announce that Bill Taibe has been offered a chance to do his own restaurant again. With change comes excitement, we are equally proud to announce the next rising star chef, Arik Bensimon. Arik is a culinary graduate from the prestigious Culinary Institute of America (CIA) in Hyde Park. He has the famed restaurants, Le Cirque and Picholine in NYC and La Panetiere in Rye, under his belt. His many years in the culinary scene of New York City shaped his passion and work ethic. And although, Arik shares the same “farm to table” philosophy as our former chef, we are very impressed at the sneak peaks of what’s to come out of the kitchen now.

–CP

ABOVE: Zucchini blossoms sold for $10-per-pound at the French Market in Stamford.

7/18/2009

The NPR Food podcast recently featured a segment on zucchini blossoms, something I’ve long been intrigued by never knew what do to with.

Inspired by this, I headed down to the French Market in Stamford today in search of the yellow and gold flowers. Grossly overestimating the weight of an individual zucchini blossom [essentially nothing], I took my $5 worth of the flowers – which turned out to be about 50 of the beautiful specimens – and headed home, not knowing the first thing about cooking these.

Turns out there are a wealth of recipes out there and a lot of them boil down to this: stuff them with some sort of cheese and seasoning. Lightly bread. Fry.

I’m a sucker for anything deep fried, and a cheese-stuffed flower is no exception. These were fantastic; so light and airy and cheesey and salty and good.

They ain’t bad raw either.

CHECK OUT: More recipes here.

–CP

POST SCRIPT: I had a conversation Thursday with the Greek lady at Ron’s Deli [presumably Ron's wife] about Greek restaurants in Astoria. I’m heading down there later today and plan on hitting up Taverna Kyklades for seafood, but I’ve also heard good things about Agnanti near Astoria Park. She said her favorite is Telly’s Taverna and that I MUST visit it this weekend. I called my friend Kerry, a former resident of Astoria, to confirm this and she hasn’t been super-impressed with Telly’s. When I saw the Greek deli woman at the French Market today, all she could say was “you go and you tell me. Maybe she don’t know how to eat!”