Your Best Chili Pepper Recipes

We entered 2 recipes in food52's weekly contest "Your Best Chili Pepper Recipe."

The first: Ensalada de Nopalitos:
http://www.food52.com/recipes/13578_ensalada_de_nopalitos

The second: Tamarind-Glazed Lamb on Cumin Cabbage with Tangerine Salsa
http://www.food52.com/recipes/13579_tamarindglazed_lamb_on_cumin_cabbage_with_tangerine_salsa

Both are from the film Tortilla Soup, as featured in Cooking with the Movies: Meals on Reels.

Holiday Cherry Pie

Entered in this week's Whole Foods Market Cooking contest: our recipe for Holiday Cherry Pie, created for one of our meals from the film What's Cooking? in Cooking with the Movies: Meals on Reels.

http://rockville.wholefoodsmarketcooking.com/recipes/11173_holiday_cherry_pie

Raspberry Torte

Entered in food52's weekly contest, our recipe for Raspberry Torte from the film What's Cooking?
http://www.food52.com/recipes/7593_raspberry_torte

Summer Meal

Rusty cooked a splendid "summer" meal the other night for a small gathering.

The evening started with Baked Goat Cheese with Herbs:
http://www.cookingwiththebible.com/reader/?type=recipe&id=GR3410-357&q=baked goat goat cheese

Next we had Horseradish Deviled Eggs:
http://www.cookingwiththebible.com/reader/?type=recipe&id=GR3410-830&q=deviled eggs

A lovely summer salad followed--delicious with raspberry vinaigrette:
http://www.cookingwiththebible.com/reader/?type=recipe&id=GR3410-960&q=spinach salad

The main course was Rack of Lamb with Spicy Mint Sauce:
http://www.cookingwiththebible.com/reader/?type=recipe&id=GR3410-3332&q=rack of of lamb

And Bathsheba's Crispy Baked Potatoes with Rosemary:
http://www.cookingwiththebible.com/reader/?type=recipe&id=GR3410-1785&q=bathsheba

Thanks, Rusty, for a delicious dining experience!

All of these recipes are from our book Cooking with the Bible: Recipes for Biblical Meals.

www.cookingwiththebible.com

A Note about Italian Food from "Goodfellas"

Italian Food and Family Life in Film

As with many films about Italian families, Goodfellas relies heavily upon food preparation and meals to further the storyline.

One of the most memorable scenes in the movie shows Paulie Cicero slicing garlic transparently thin with a razor blade for the pasta dinner the characters are preparing while in prison. And it’s quite a dinner: in addition to the garlic, the tomato sauce includes veal, beef, pork, peppers, and onions; there is salami, prosciutto, cheese, and Italian bread; red and white wine and J&B Scotch is plentiful; the men have even arranged to have fresh lobster smuggled in!

Another scene that many viewers recall so vividly is the midnight pasta dinner served by Mrs. DeVito to Tommy, Jimmy, and Henry. It’s not the food itself that makes the scene (it’s standard pasta with gravy and bread) but rather the dialogue: having just beaten (and presumably killed) Billy Batts, Tommy stops at home for a shovel on his way upstate to bury the body, but surprising him as he enters the house, his mother asks him when he’s going to find “a nice girl”—and Tommy replies, “I get a nice one almost every night, Ma.” When Mrs. DeVito wonders how Tommy got his shirt so bloody, he stutters, “We took a ride out to the country and we hit one of those deers….” As the three men are leaving, Tommy grabs his mother’s butcher knife and explains, “Ma, I need this knife…I just need it for a little while…. We hit the deer and his paw—what do you call it?—the hoof got caught in that grill. I got to, I got to hack it off.”

Toward the end of the film, Scorsese recreates Henry Hill’s final day before he is arrested for dealing cocaine, and much of that day centers on Henry’s preparation of a special meal for his brother Michael, whom Henry has picked up from the hospital for the day. In his own words, “I had to start braising the beef, pork butt, and veal shanks for the tomato sauce. It was Michael’s favorite. I was making ziti with the meat gravy, and I’m planning to roast some peppers over the flames, and I was gonna put on some string beans with some olive oil and garlic, and I had some beautiful cutlets that were cut just right, that I was going to fry up before dinner just as an appetizer. … Now my plan was to start the dinner early so Karen and I could unload the guns that Jimmy didn’t want, and then get the package [the drugs] for Lois to take to Atlanta for her trip later that night.” Again, the food serves as a reminder that for this family, selling contraband weapons and dealing drugs is all in a day’s work.

Other meals underscore the typicalness of this extended family: a barbecue of sausages during an office picnic, a table spread with sandwiches during a poker game, a dinner of lasagna and sausages and peppers to welcome the men home after an extended absence, a restaurant dinner with the wives. Yet it is a typicalness that is more than slightly atypical: the business discussed at the picnic or the poker game might include plans for a major heist or a murder; the dinner was to welcome the men back after they had completed their prison terms; the men spent Saturday evenings with their wives but Friday nights with their girlfriends. It’s not exactly the usual lifestyle of the American family in the ‘60s and ‘70s—but then, who’s to say?

Another Recipe from "Tampopo"

Here's another recipe we created for our chapter on the film Tampopo. Unfortunately, space limitations prevented us from including it in the book, but we present it for you here.

Natto with Eggs and Rice

1 package of natto (fermented beans)
1 fresh raw egg
1 tsp. karashi (Japanese mustard)
1 tsp. soy sauce
1 strip Korean seaweed, cut into small pieces
1 tsp. sesame oil
1 c. hot rice

Prepare the natto according to the directions on the package. Add the raw egg, karashi, soy sauce, and seaweed. Put everything into a frying pan in the sesame oil and fry for 2-3 minutes. Mix in the hot rice, and fry again for several minutes. Serve immediately.

Yield: 3 servings

Roast Lamb with Rosemary

Not just for Passover: lamb with fresh mint and rosemary is quite a tasty dish for any time of year. This recipe is featured in our book Cooking with the Bible: Recipes for Biblical Meals.

Entered in "Your Best Spring Lamb Recipe":
www.rockville.wholefoodsmarketcooking.com/recipes/10981_roast_lamb_with_rosemary

Find more recipes at www.cookingwiththebible.com .