I went to Guidi Marcello for pasta and parm and the lovely woman who works there said I was making Pasta Norma. Marcella Hazan just called it eggplant with tomatoes.
I am in Santa Cruz. There’s a local fishmonger that does the farmer’s markets and has fantastic fish. I had local Sand dabs couple days ago. The tuna was already sliced thin and very fresh.
I can’t remember and I went and checked the recipe and she only calls for vegetable. I keep peanut oil and grapeseed oil on hand for deep frying and neutral flavor, respectively. I think I would have used grapeseed oil.
I’m adding another new recipe! I tried making Wenchang chicken. The recipe was in Saveur magazine. I wanted to make another recipe but didn’t have the 8 cups of salt it called for so did this one instead. It was a fairly simple list of ingredients and though you start the night before, not difficult to make. You salt the chicken the night before, then boil it for 10 minutes, leave it for an hour in the hot water, then plunge it in ice water. Then baste it with sesame oil and sprinkle with white pepper. I was not prepared for how amazing it would taste!
You put some of the cooking water, now chicken broth, including fat (though we had very very little fat in water) into cooked rice and also into a sauce you make to put over chicken. Made for an amazing meal!!
That’s an impressive use of tongs to remove the chicken. I usually just stick a wooden spoon in the cavity, send a quick prayer to the food goddess, and hold on for dear life while lifting.
Correction!! I made pasta alla norma last night and I used grapeseed oil. It smoked at the temperature I fried at last time, which was 380 f. So I must have used peanut oil!
I definitely had to keep the temp lower to keep it from smoking while I fried the eggplant, so next time will go back to the peanut.
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