Offal Good™

Nduja the spicy spreadable meat treat

To some the idea of a spreadable salumi is a bit out there, to me it’s perfectly rich, spicy, porky goodness. Nduja is  a classical salumi from Calabria that has spread its way into my heart and others around the country. The most commonly asked question is what do I do with it? There are so many uses; pizza, crostini, bruschetta.  So, here are a few recipes to keep everyone busy for a while, one is from me and the other from the great pastry chef and italophile Gina Depalma.

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Argentina 444

Offalgood readers, I’m writing to let you know about a food-themed travel series I’m doing next April. It’s called Argentina 444: 4 chefs, 4 cities, 4 seasons. Each season next year, one US chef will travel with a small group to four cities in Argentina. We’ll experience the best food, wine and restaurants of each region. I’ll be teaming up with chefs down there on what I’m sure will be some pretty incredible menus- the whole thing will be a great adventure for me and will definitely mean great meals for everyone who comes along. It’s all guided, exclusive, first-class, and the activities and restaurants being lined up sound incredible. I’ll be going on the Spring U.S./Fall Argentina trip in April 2010 and you can come with me! Bookings are open to the public, to get  more details. Contact Alberto Inza, who is organizing Argentina 444. You can email him directly at alberto@argentina444.com. Alberto can answer any questions you might have about the cities we’ll be visiting and the restaurants we’ll be dining in, as well as trip pricing and timing. Hope this all sounds as exciting to you as it does to me. I’d love to see you at the table in Argentina next year! Cheers, Chris

No Reservation Deleted Scene

This didnt make the cut for No Reservations, but just the ability to see him drink FU2012 was priceless. The ability to work on such a special project with lance at hanger 1 has been great. He is a mad scientist and genius with distilling Enjoy the video.

No Reservations comes to SF

A few years ago Anthony Bourdain came to Incanto for dinner and my buisneess partner Mark Pastore wrote a great letter called “when royality comes calling”. It was a crazy day when he came for dinner a few years back nervous and star struck I cooked and cooked, hoping not to blow it. Now fast forward to this march an I get a phone call from zero point zero production that they want to film No Reserations. I am honored to be part of such a great show which has been stacking up the emmy nominations. Thanks to my team and all staff on hand the restaurant looked great on the show. Thanks!!

Word of Mouth NPR

please check out the word of mouth NPR show I was interview by Virginia Prescott about offal cookery and the sustainability of it all.

Click on the image to hear the show.

Mint love!!!

I love mint, and there is no if’s, and’s or but’s about it. More importantly, I have found it to be the most widely used herb in Italy. After doing a lot of research I found a few cool bits of info I thought would be great to share.

The mint family, also known as Lamiaceae or Labiatae, is a large family of aromatic herbs which include the likes of basil, rosemary, sage, savory, oregano, thyme, marjoram, and lavender. I use all of these herbs with frequency, but I can’t get enough of the mints. With over 25 species and hundreds of varieties such as bergamot, chocolate, citrus, pineapple, spearmint, and nepitella just to name a few, their range of use is immeasurable. Attached below is a post by the great pastry chef Gina Depalma from Serious Eats.

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Where foodies go live interview

On august 5th at 1pm PDT/ 3pm EST I will be interview live on:

WWW.wherefoodiesgo.com

So if you have any questions or things you might want to know make sure you get your questions in.

Bicycling Magazine gets hungry

Photo credit:

Deft Chef

By Michael Frank

When Cosentino couldn’t source the meat he wanted for his restaurant, he didn’t change his recipes—he changed the system. That’s typical of the 37-year-old executive chef of the widely acclaimed Incanto, in San Francisco’s Noe Valley, which specializes in Italian cuisine—and an array of meat and fish dishes that some would term adventurous. “Things like blood sausage, jowl, salumi, headcheese—these are as old as time in Italian cuisine,” Cosentino says. He explains that his need for these and other unique items on his menu prompted in-house dry curing, which snowballed into a business all its own. Boccalone Salumeria, purveyor of “tasty salted pig parts,” as the firm’s tagline reads, now features both online and storefront distribution (the latter in San Francisco’s renowned market in the Ferry Building).

Cosentino doesn’t see anything extraordinary in taking over an entire USDA meat-processing facility in Oakland to stock Boccalone, just as he doesn’t think it’s challenging to cook recipes that span the breadth of Italy. “I’m just cooking seasonally,” he says. Maybe after racing 24-hour solos on a singlespeed against pros—as Cosentino did during the late 1990s and early 2000s—he learned to appreciate stiff challenges. Or maybe it’s just that he’s used to taking chances, like in 2001, when he quit his career as a chef to race full time. “I’d get up at 5 a. m., ride, work five hours at the farmers’ market, then ride home— and then get in 120 miles.”

Those farming relationships—”those were my sponsors. The ranchers gave me meat, the farmers gave me vegetables”—are still the backbone of Cosentino’s success at Incanto. “Your food doesn’t come from Whole Foods,” he says. “Food is somebody’s livelihood; getting to know who grows your tomatoes is no different than getting to know the owner of your bike shop.”

In case you missed it, Cosentino isn’t shy about his agenda. “We’ve lost the basics of food and family,” he says, “of traditional recipes and of understanding how to cook by using every part of an animal. People say that’s just theater, that I’m obnoxious by suggesting people try warthog asshole or a piece of foie gras. I say judge me by what’s on the plate, by how it tastes.”

Post-Long-Ride Feast
Lobster Puttanesca

Salt, to taste
2 1-lb. lobsters
2 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil
2 tablespoons garlic, slivered
2 red Fresno chilies, sliced
1 tablespoon capers
22 anchovy fillets, salted and packed in olive oil
1/3 cup fresh basil, roughly chopped
1/3 cup fresh mint, roughly chopped
1 pint cherry tomatoes, cut in half
Freshly ground black pepper
1 tablespoon fresh lemon juice
1/2 lb. bucatini pasta

This is a fast-cooking dish, so have all ingredients ready before you begin. Prepare an ice-water bath to shock the lobsters after cooking.

In a pot, bring to a boil one teaspoon of salt and enough water to cover the lobsters. (At this time, boil another pot of water to cook the pasta.) Add the lobsters and blanch for four minutes; remove and add to the water bath. When the lobsters are cool, remove the meat from the tail, claws and knuckles. Cube it and set aside. In a saute pan over medium heat, add the olive oil, garlic and chilies, then the capers and anchovies, stirring constantly for about two minutes. Add the lobster meat and cook for two minutes (and put the pasta into the boiling water; cook until al dente), then add the herbs and tomatoes. Finish with lemon juice and extra olive oil if desired.

Add salt and pepper to taste, and serve immediately over pasta. Serves: 2

CALORIES PER SERVING 1,145
FAT 19.6g
CARBS 184g
PROTEIN 58g

More From Cosentino
WORST RACE INJURY: “I crashed at night in Winter Park [Colorado] and popped my patella. They popped it back, and I finished.”
CURRENT BIKE: A Retrotec Half
FUTURE BIKE: “Inglis is building us a hot-dog bike with a warming chamber so we can serve Boccalone hot dogs at the ballpark.”
EAT AT INCANTO: 1550 Church Street, San Francisco; 415/641-4500; incanto.biz

sing a song of brains and eggs

When my brother in law  Michael Hearst asked me for a recipe to turn into a song I was a bit surprised. He had already finished a CD with authors ” As Smart As We Are” so I knew it was a fun project. If you look in past posts I included the song on the site here. Its looks like gourmet magazine found out about the project and wrote it up take a look after the break.

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