Wednesday
Aug032011
#augustbreak: replete
Wednesday, August 3, 2011 
My new favorite pasta: tripolina lunga, the magic expanding pasta. That’s about 110 grams before cooking, or four ounces. It looks like way more than it is. Which is great, because around here our eyes can use some deceiving.
The bowl is mostly sautéed vegetables—zucchini, cubanelle, red bell pepper, and tomatoes. I mound the veggies below and put the pasta on top, and Myron is none the wiser. (Sorry, love. There is trickery between us.)
One chicken breast, sliced in half to create two thinner cutlets. Pound if you like, to create more surface area. Coat with a little dijon mustard and (panko+thyme+kosher salt+dehydrated garlic+cayenne+grana padano). Bake until lovely.
Reader Comments (10)
It's lunchtime and I am salivating openly on my desk. Your food photography is gorgeous and I can almost taste the flavours going on on that plate.
I love the look of that pasta. It reminds me of Octopi.
Mmm bravo. Gorgeous photos and what an incredible looking meal! Tripolina lunga looks like the edges of lasagna noodles, all shaved down into strips. I want!
Also, you must explain what grana padano is. So curious!
I so wish that both you & Heather would come to my home and cook all of these delicious meals for me. Brian would eat this.. he actually LOVES zucchini. One of about 3 veggies he'll eat.
GET IN MY BELLY! That pasta is awesome. I agree with Heather about it looking like the edges of lasagna.
That looks fabulous! I have never seen that kind of pasta (I have no idea if I can get it at our grocery store; I'll check or is it a specialty item?). I've made a similar chicken, adding a little lemon juice to the dijon, and you are right, it's lovely!
I think the delicious part of my brain might be overloading. Chicken is my favorite food, and that looks darned tasty.
In fact I think this is going to go on my list of things i Need to learn how to cook.
Oh my gosh, I'm so hungry. Your gorgeous photos inspire me to be a better cook. :)
Also, just want you both to know I am digging the August break as a reader! I LOVE LOVE LOVE to come to your blog and read your gorgeous words and thoughts. But sometimes I put pressure on myself to try and write what I hope are engaging, thoughtful comments, so then I get in this bad pattern of waiting to visit my favorite blogs until I'm "feeling smart" or that I have something to contribute. Which is just silly. So this is something different, and it gives my brain a different way of thinking in the middle of the day, and reminds me that the point is to visit and absorb and think and sigh and revel, and not get comment stage fright!! I hope that makes sense. :) (And this doesn't mean that I can't wait for Sept. to come and bring back the words!)
these look so scrumptious. i have comment anxiety even for these posts...that said, i'm coming over for dinner. how does tomorrow sound?
They look like octopus legs. This makes me giggle. How fun they must be to eat!
Oh, hurray! I love to hear that this kind of stuff makes you hungry. My appetite hasn't been great lately so I'm trying hard to stimulate it back up again.
Stereo and Jeanette, they do look like tentacles, don't they? Like they have little suckers on them. *pop* *thwack* *thwop* YES, *thwop*. I knew I would come up with the right onomatopoeia soon enough. But...
Heather and Brandi are also right that it looks like lasagna ends. The ends of lasagna are the most fun, right? Unless you get one of those terrible overcooked end bits that didn't have enough sauce on it. H, grana padano is a hard grating cheese. You've heard me rant about food prices here. Well, TIIC of our local grocery store hasn't figured out that he should charge a similar for g.p. as he does for his (not great) parmigiano-reggiano, so until he wises up, it's a decent substitute. And in fact even more salty, so a little goes a long way. The cutlets don't taste cheesy, just... kinda nice. If I make this with vegetables instead of pasta, I sometimes make a butter-lemon-caper sauce to go on top. And so should everyone. (Jeanette, it would be good on thinly-sliced pork or veal, as well.)
Julia, it's not *that* much of a specialty item, but I think it would probably depend on the size of your grocery chain. The one I got is from la Molisana, which is a Canadian import company, but I found enough pictures on Google image search that I feel good about your chances. When I lived in the US I used a lot of DeCecco pasta (do as the grandmother does!) and they make it as well, although the ripply bits aren't quite as ripply. And they make nested noodles! Mine were packaged straight like spaghetti.
http://www.dececco.it/EN/Semolina-Pasta/Specialities/Gastronomic-Specialities/tripoline-211/?Prodotto=123
And if there's a town or area nearby with a lot of people of Italian descent, they usually have tiny hole-in-the-wall stores with imported pasta, and this is the kind of thing I consider when I plan vacations.
Mr. Brotherton, (I can't call you M.A., I just can't; I used to know someone named Mary Ann and we called her M.A. and whoagettingofftrackhere) it's really easy. You can saute it or bake it, and then once you've mastered your panko mix you can adjust it a million ways. But I love to use mustard instead of the milk-flour-egg type of breading. It's easier and cleaner and has more flavor. Let me know how you like it, and hit me up if you have questions.
Dominique, there is a place at the table waiting for you and the bouncer at any time.
Noël, I saved you for last because... I KNOW! And most of the time you aren't going to be able to say anything about a pic at all except that it's nice, which is nice to hear but doesn't need to happen every day. And I think I'm going to make "comment stage fright" a blog topic when I start writing again in September, because It Exists. (And selfishly, I kind of like not thinking about what I'm going to write and letting the pictures dictate. I might be sick of it by the end of the month, but for right now, it's quite a relief.)