Mario Batali's Profile
The Ten Most Recent Posts By Mario Batali
From Recipes
Posted by Mario Batali, February 12, 2008 at 1:30 PM
- serves 4 -
Ingredients
1 pound fresh crab meat
4 scallions, thinly sliced, plus 4 scallions
1/4 cup basic tomato sauce
1 recipe basic pasta, rolled out to thinnest setting
6 tablespoons butter
1 tablespoon poppy seeds
Procedure
1. Bring 6 quarts water to boil; add 2 tablespoons salt.
2. In a mixing bowl, stir together crab, scallions, and basic tomato sauce until well blended. Cut pasta into 4-inch squares; place 1 tablespoon filling in center. Fold into triangles, exude air and seal edges. Bring points of long side together to form a ring (or a hat!) and seal with pressure between fingers. Place tortelloni in water; boil 8 to 10 minutes. Meanwhile, melt butter with poppy seeds. Drain cooked tortelloni carefully; place gently in pan. Add remaining scallions; toss to coat. Serve immediately.
From Recipes
Posted by Mario Batali, February 12, 2008 at 1:15 PM
- serves 4 -
Ingredients
4 skewers, soaked in water 8 hours
8 quail, boneless
4 pieces pancetta, cut into 1-inch cubes
2 ounces balsamic vinegar
2 ounces virgin olive oil
2 tablespoons honey
1 tablespoon black pepper
1 medium red onion, cut into 1/4-inch dice
4 cups water
10 sage leaves, chopped
1 cup polenta
1/2 cup Asiago, freshly grated
Procedure
1. Check quail for bones or feathers; place in mixing bowl. Add pancetta, vinegar, olive oil, honey, and black pepper; toss to coat. Set aside and preheat grill.
2. In a 3-quart saucepan, place onion, water, and sage and bring to a boil. Thread one quail, followed by one piece of pancetta, followed by one quail on each of four skewers; place on hottest part of grill. Cook 4 to 5 minutes on each side, until just pink at the leg bones.
3. Meanwhile, pour polenta slowly in a thin stream into boiling water, until all is incorporated and polenta thickens, 1 to 2 minutes. Switch to a wooden spoon, add Asiago, and cook 1 minute more, until as thick as paste. Remove from heat; pour on to a service-ready cutting board. Pile skewers on top of polenta, and serve.
From Required Eating
Posted by Mario Batali, February 12, 2008 at 1:15 PM
This year for Valentine's Day, I'm taking my kids and wife, Susi, out for our traditional fondue fest at Artisanal. We all send Susi a dozen wacky flowers (never roses—way too common), and then it's out for the first seating at 5:30 p.m. for some cheese and chocolate, and then home early!
My ideal menu celebrates the most mysterious and romantic town of Italia—Venezia—and is based on Carnevale, which always falls near, and sometimes overlaps, with Valentine's Day. The celebration is simple and based on seafood and birds from the Venetian lagoon—or the closest lagoon to you.
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From Recipes
Posted by Mario Batali, February 12, 2008 at 1:00 PM
- makes about 2 pounds of cookies -
Brutti ma buoni translates roughly to "ugly but good."
Ingredients
4 egg whites, room temperature
3/4 cup sugar
3 tablespoons flour
1 tablespoon vanilla extract
1 tablespoon amaretto
1 tablespoon cocoa powder, bitter
1/2 cup chopped hazelnuts
1/4 cup chopped almonds
1/4 cup pine nuts
Zest of 4 oranges
Procedure
1. Preheat oven to 325°F. Butter and dust cookie sheet.
2. Place whites in the bowl of an electric mixer; whip to soft peak. Add sugar steadily, and beat 2 minutes. Stop machine; add flour, vanilla, amaretto, and cocoa powder. Mix 1 minute, and stop machine. Stir in nuts quickly; place 2-inch blobs on cookie sheet. Bake 30 minutes until crisp. Remove and let cool.
From Recipes
Posted by Mario Batali, February 12, 2008 at 12:45 PM
Ingredients
3 or 4 large eggs
10 ounces all-purpose flour
Procedure
1. Make a mound of flour, create a well in middle, add the eggs, and mix with a fork, slowly incorporating the flour. (Or mix all together in a KitchenAid mixer.) If too dry, add a fourth egg yolk. If still too dry, add the white. Once dough forms a ball, knead 15 to 20 minutes. Wrap in plastic; let rest for at least 30 minutes.
2. You can now cut off a portion (about a quarter) and roll it out with a pasta machine. You can also roll it out by hand, on a floured wooden board with a wooden rolling pin. Roll dough out in one direction. Flip and roll out in the other direction. Flip, turn 90 degrees, and so on. The idea is to stretch the dough until it’s very thin—thin enough that you should be able to see the grains of the wooden board through the sheet.
From Required Eating
Posted by Mario Batali, January 30, 2008 at 4:40 PM
For the Super Bowl, I love to serve what I call "team icon food"—classics
from the hometowns of the playing teams. It's especially exciting this year, as New York
and Beantown have great options.
Here's my menu and timing, from pre- to post-game. Feel free to use it yourself. If you are going to do this at home, remember to keep the portions small—it's easy to have way too much food, and quarters don't last that long.
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From Required Eating
Posted by Mario Batali, December 25, 2007 at 9:00 AM
On Christmas morning, we wake up at 8, light the fire, open presents, and eat lightly: clementines, Marchesi panettone from gustiamo.com (which will become your only panettone once you taste it), and scrambled eggs with white truffles. Lunch really does not happen, but I fire up the pizza oven as we head out to ski.
For dinner we go to the American South for inspiration. I put a ham from Nodines with cloves and a brown sugar glaze in the slow wood oven and steal the rest from the Lee Brothers' excellent cookbook; we eat black eyed peas, collard greens, biscuits with black truffle honey from Otto and then finish with a selection of chocolate gifts from my friend Katrina at Vosges Haut-Chocolate and some cool confections from Camilo de Blas in Oviedo, Spain, including glazed hazelnuts, tiny bitter chocolate creams, and a bottle of orujo de hierbas to burn the path clear.
The rest of the week is devoted to football, ping pong, and snow activities with the boys.
From Recipes
Posted by Mario Batali, December 24, 2007 at 4:00 PM
Christmas Eve this year is the Feast of the Two Fishes. We are doing my linguine with clams, hot chiles, and pancetta, but I'm subbing my dad's "mole" salami for pancetta to give it a deeper spice component. The main course will be super jumbo stone crab claws from Joe's—yes, served with their mustard sauce—a green salad, and some Guido's garlic bread.
Desserts will be espresso drops and coconut balls (first step, find the coconut's legs) both from Martha Stewart's magazine Everyday Food because my kids find it very accessible and there is a photo for every cookie. I will make a version of Gina DePalma's chocolate hazelnut kisses, and we will surrender early to a deep mug of hot buttered rum from my mom's recipe file, which I'm sharing with you in this post here.
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From Recipes
Posted by Mario Batali, December 14, 2007 at 10:00 AM
Most purists in Italy consider any sauce for any fish to be nearly heretical, but in Liguria, the herbacious bath of pesto has the weight of barely floral scented spring and early summer breezes so, the odd exception is often made.
In this case the particularly briny shrimp from the Mare Tirreno marry well with a pesto with less cheese than normal and a slight increase in the pine nut content. The first time I tried this was at a seriously relaxed place on the high end in Portofino callled Il Splendido. There is a pool terrace and then a casual restaurant in the garden where they serve lunch only to high-roller Euro types and American heiresses who missed the boat to Clooney's house over on Lago di Como and where, despite the often kiss-kiss-mwah crowd, the food is actually killer.
They serve these marinated shrimp on the salad buffet (I know what you're thinking, and it is not that way here; it is truly exquisite), but they also do a piatto del giorno with a fresh puffy pillow of focaccia genovese, piled with shrimp, pesto, sun-dried tomatoes, and giant, nearly bitter arugula leaves. Two glasses of local vermentino and a plate of green melon and the nap by the pool puts you into the dreams of Gian Vincenzo Imperiale.
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From Recipes
Posted by Mario Batali, December 6, 2007 at 3:45 PM
Editor's note: Mario Batali had never participated in any Hanukkah rituals until he came to New York and met his wife, who loves making a big deal about Hanukkah for their kids. But just because he was a Hanukkah neophyte doesn't mean he didn't have a strong point of view about latkes and apple sauce, as you can tell from this. —Ed
We love to celebrate all holidays—especially the ones that have a specific food item. In the case of the first night of Hanukkah in our house, we make latkes and apple sauce. We celebrate alone with no guests and keep it very simple. We peel spuds and apples like devils and then make the stuff. Then we light the candles and say the prayers in our limited ability and then eat happily. It's a tradition.
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Website: http://www.mariobatali.com
Location: New York City
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Favorite foods: Italian
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