Author: James Cooper

Gallo restaurant in Ridgefield

Gallo in Ridgefield (5 Grove St) is an outstanding Italian restaurant with excellent service. We went last Saturday, and while it was busy, the staff was more than up to the challenge. The menu is varied and imaginative with several really creative touches from Chef Raffaele Gallo and Executive Chef Giuseppe Castellano.

On weekends they utilize valet parking, so there is no parking problem and we were seated immediately at a spacious table not far from the windows. Interestingly enough, there was a little girl coloring with crayons on the floor near our table, although her family had come early and was about done. It is refreshing to see how welcoming they are.

They provide you with a basket of delicious breads a bread sticks with olive oil, although butter was quickly supplied on our request.

For appetizers, one of had a spectacular Caesar salad ($12) with lovely slices of parmigiana cheese and an excellent homemade dressing.

Our other entrée was called Ceci ($17), Chickpea fritters with stracciatella cheese, prosciutto San Daniele and fresh figs, and from that unique description, we simply had to try it. The crunchy fritters blended well with the Stracciatella cheese and the prosciutto. It was such a large serving that you could probably split it if you anticipate having a large entrée.

One of our entrees was an excellent Emiliana-style meat lasagna ($23, above). It had a really rich flavor and excellent meaty texture, and certainly was a substantial portion. You could go there just for their terrific lasagna and be perfectly happy.

Our other entrée was Orata, or Pan seared sea bream filet with wild mushroom and lemon sauce ($31), where the lemon sauce was buttery and terrific. Our only comment was that one of two pieces of fish was a bit dry. But it was honestly quite wonderful.

Despite all those entrees, we ordered dessert, an amazing mocha ice cream cake. And yes, we shared that one and still came out really satisfy.

Don’t let the plain white building put you off. This is an excellent restaurant that we’ll be going back again and again.

The best way to cook corn on the cob!

Boiling, microwave, Instant Pot. Which is best?

There isn’t much to cooking corn on the cob: you just shuck each ear, maybe cut off some of the stem, peel off the corn silks and drop them into boiling, salted water, and cook for 5 minutes. That’s it. The water should be salted enough that it smells like the ocean, and it is easiest to use kosher salt to achieve this. Serve with butter and salt on the side.

What’s wrong with this? Nothing except you might need a big pot for a large crowd. And, of course, you are steaming up your kitchen.

But some people rave about using the microwave or the Instant Pot for cooking corn, so we compared all three methods.

Microwaved corn

Some people claim that the microwave does the best job and you don’t have to heat up the kitchen with a pot of boiling water, so we tried this.

We cut the base off an ear of corn, but left the husk on, and using our best Internet research, microwaved the corn for 4 minutes. Taking a hot ear of corn out of the microwave requires hot pads and some care, and removing the hot, steaming husks is a challenge. And, all the silks come off smoothly, unlike the other methods.

The disadvantage again, is one of scale: you can only microwave a few ears at a time and removing the steaming hot husks from a bunch of them is best done with gloves or oven mitts. And, frankly, the corn tastes awful! (more below)

In the Instant Pot

Lots of people are enthusiastic about corn on the cob cooked in an Instant Pot. You have to shuck the corn as usual and pull of most of the silks by hand, but you can probably get 4-6 or more ears in an Instant Pot at once. We recommend putting the ears on the little trivet so they don’t stick to the pot. Add a cup of water and cook the ears for 3 minutes. Of course, by the time the water in the pot comes to a boil, this actually takes at least as long as boiling the water on the stove would, but you can cook a lot of ears quickly, and you don’t have to deal with scalding yourself on the husks.

How do they compare?

Cooking the ears in a pot of water tastes the best.
Ears cooked for 4 minutes in an 1100 watt microwave are hot and hard to handle, because the cobs are very hot, too. Further the corn takes on a bitter, cobby taste from the cob being heated. Actually they are really terrible.
We repeated the experiment, cooking the corn for only 3 minutes and this removed some (but not all) of the bitter aftertaste.
Our best corn came from cooking for 4 minutes at 50% power, where the bitterness is least apparent.

Surprisingly the corn cooked in the Instant Pot was little better.

Pressure cooking the corn for 3 minutes also cooks the cob, and some of that bitter aftertaste was present in the Instant Pot corn.
So, we repeated the corn cooking at low pressure instead of high pressure, which removed nearly all of that bitterness. But 3 minutes was not nearly enough. Six minutes at low pressure seems better. Quick Release either way.

Best results

5 minutes in boiling, salted water
4 minutes at 50% power in an 1100 watt microwave
6 minutes at low pressure in an Instant Pot

Some recipes suggest adding sugar and butter to the water in the Instant Pot. This probably doesn’t do much, because the water doesn’t touch the corn, and sugar is not volatile.

We found that spreading solid butter on the hot corn gives the bets flavor. Butter is an emulsion and melted butter usually leaves out the aqueous part.

A Roman club sandwich

We ordered a club sandwich at our hotel in Rome and were really surprised with their interpretation. Instead of 3 kinds of lunch meat (usually turkey, beef and ham) this delicious sandwich was a BLT with large chunks of tender chicken and topped with a fried egg. Served with French fries, it was a fantastic lunch!

We set out to duplicate it using a fresh garden tomato and freshly picked lettuce.

3 slices toasted bread
Chicken breasts
Bacon
Lettuce
Tomato
Mayonnaise

We cooked the chicken breasts in our Instant Pot for 10 minutes, and let them slowly cool for 10 minutes before opening the pot. You could also cook them in a vegetable steamer or under a broiler. We added a bit of dried onion to the cup of water in the Instant Pot, but it probably wasn’t necessary.

When the breasts were cool, we cut them into cubes.

We fried 4 strips of bacon slowly in a fry pan and set them aside.

For each sandwich,

butter the toast.
Put lettuce and tomato on the bottom layer, with a dab of mayonnaise
Put chicken on the second layer of toast, and dab with more mayonnaise
Add the bacon on top of the chicken

Fry 2 eggs slowly in the bacon fat, turning them over once so the tops are cooked and the yolks are only slightly runny.

Top each sandwich with an egg and the top piece of toast.
Secure with toothpicks.
You can cut off the crusts before or after assembly or just leave them on.
Cut each sandwich in half.

We served ours with some French fries.

Blackstone’s Steakhouse, Norwalk

Sunday night we decided we had to try the well-known Blackstone’s Steakhouse in Norwalk. They also have restaurants in Greenwich, Stamford and Southport, each with similar but slightly different menus.

Despite it’s unprepossessing exterior at 181 Main in Norwalk, we are delighted to tell you that this is an excellent restaurant a a terrific atmosphere, excellent service and outstanding food. Of course, being a steakhouse, it is not inexpensive, but there are some non-beef items on the extensive menu that are more budget-minded.

The decor is warm and elegant with white tablecloth settings and wine and water glass already in place. You know when you enter that this is sure to be an excellent meal. And it was.

When you sit down, you are served a dish of colorful olives and a basket of warm bread, with a dish of real butter, not that drippy olive oil.

We each started with their Maryland Crab Cake ($14.95). It was pretty much all crab with very little filler and a mild, spicy flavor you could enhance with their cucumber/wasabi sauce. This was a great idea and added a lot to the crab cake.

The wine list is extensive and they do offer w number of wines by the glass.

For steaks, one of ordered the Steak au Blue, prime New York strip steak topped with Blue Cheese Gratinee’ ($41.95) The meat was juicy, tender and flavorful and cooked exactly medium rare. We loved it and brought home leftovers for a sandwich.

Our other entrée was essentially a bone-in Ribeye, although on sale that night for $43.95. We were impressed at how it was carved and served in little medallions, as well. Also, tender and flavorful.

Finally, we shared an amazing dish called “1/2 Cottage Fries and 1/2 Fried Onions.” The cottage fries were essentially potato chips, but the fried onions were spectacularly tasty and we alternated onion bites with bites of our steaks.

We didn’t have room for desserts, but they are fairly conventional: apple pie, chocolate mousse, carrot cake, lemon/orange sorbet, tartuffo, tiramisu, cheesecake, creme brulee and lava cake. Maybe we’ll get to try some next time!

We were incredibly impressed with the staff’s charm and professionalism and are sure to return to Blackstone’s whenever we feel like a great steak dinner.

New restaurant moves into Greydon House

When the Greydon House hotel opened in Nantucket in 2016, it was lacking a restaurant, but one opened in the late fall, headed by Chef Marcus Ware. And as people began to visit it, they were extremely impressed.

We first visited in August of 2017 and praised it highly. In fact, we called the food and service “extraordinary,”

However, this didn’t last, and by 2017, it was apparent that Ware wasn’t paying much attention to this island outpost among his many restaurants. We felt it had “slipped of its pedestal.” Similar dishes were prepared in much more slapdash fashion, and service was not what it had been.

Apparently, the management of Greydon House agreed, and replaced Ware and his restaurant with Via Mare, a new Italian small plates restaurant run by Chef Dre’ Solimeo and Sarah Todd from Ventuno, whom we have always praised highly.

Via Mare’s menu Is creative (and somewhat folksy in its descriptions: “taters” for example) but the overall we have of the menu is “we can’t wait to eat there.”

Here is their description of their farfalle:

Butterfly pasta, spring vegetables, parmigiano crema, prosciutto, black truffles.

Or how about their small plate black bass:

Black bass crudo white asparagus, pickled ramps & sorrel

They also have a couple of large options such as this delicious-sound steak:

Bistecca: Porcini & parmigiano crusted steak, black garlic aoli — black summer truffle

Welcome, Via Mare! We can hardly wait!

Via Mare is open Tuesday through Sunday 5:30pm until 10pm. The bar is open until 1am. Photos provided by Via Mare.

Simple chocolate cake (black and white)

This basic chocolate cake recipe has been around for years. Our simplifications are in using a scale and chilling the icing skim coat. As we have said before, you really don’t need to sift and measure the cake flour: just weigh it. And before you start mixing up the batter, weigh the mixing bowl. This will make it easier to divide the batter into two pans.

The cake

2 8-inch round cake pans
buttered parchment paper
3 1-oz squares baking chocolate (unsweetened)
2/3 cup sugar
½ cup milk
1 beaten egg
½ cup shortening (or unsalted butter)
1 cup sugar
1 tsp vanilla
2 eggs
2 cups sifted cake flour (224 g)
1 tsp baking soda
¼ tsp salt
2/3 cup milk

Preheat the oven to 350˚ F
Butter the cake pans and line them with parchment as we show here. Butter the tops of the parchment, too.

Put the chocolate, 2/3 cup sugar, ½ cup milk and beaten egg in a saucepan. Cook slowly over medium heat until the mixture thickens and the chocolate melts. Set aside to cool.
Put the shortening in a mixing bowl and stir to soften. Beat in the 1 cup sugar. Add the 2 eggs one at a time and beat until light and fluffy. Add the vanilla.

Weigh out the flour and add the soda and salt and stir briefly.
Add the flour mixture to the creamed mixture, alternating with the 2/3 cup milk.
Blend in the chocolate mixture.
Weigh the mixing bowl and the batter, subtract the weight of the empty mixing bowl, and divide by two.

Put one cake pan on the scale, set the tare to zero and add half the weight of the batter. IN our case the total batter weight 1146 g, so we put slightly under 573g in each cake pan. (Some batter will stick to the sides and the spoon, so allow for that. We went for about 560 g each.)
Bake in the 350˚ F oven for 25-30 minutes until a toothpick comes out clean.
Let the pans cool on the stove or on a rack, and then release the cakes from the pans and let them cool.

Simple buttercream icing

2 lb confectioners sugar
½ pound (2 sticks) butter
2-3 Tb milk
1 tsp vanilla
2 squares unsweetened chocolate

Place the powdered sugar in a food processor
Add the butter cut into 1 Tb pieces
Pulse until smooth
Add enough milk to mix until smooth and spreadable
Add the vanilla
Take out about a quarter of the icing to a separate bowl
Melt the unsweetened chocolate at 50% power in a microwave for 1-2 minutes
Mix the chocolate into the quarter of the icing.
Place one cake layer on the cake pan or on a cake spinner platform.
Ice the top of that layer with the chocolate icing.
If the top layer is flared out, trim it with a knife do the sides are straight, and set it on top of the chocolate icing.
Mix about 2 Tb of icing with about ¼ cup milk until uniform. This is the icing wash for the skim coat.

Spread the skim coat on the top and sides of the cake and chill it in the refrigerator for half an hour. This will make a smooth surface to ice that won’t crumble when you spread the white icing.
After the cake is chilled, spread the white icing on the top and sides of the cake, using a spatula to make the sides smooth.
Return the cake to the refrigerator while you make the ganache.

Chocolate ganache

2 oz semisweet chocolate chips
2 oz bittersweet chocolate (or use a little less baking chocolate and some semisweet)
½ cup heavy cream
½ Tb honey
¼ tsp coarse salt
1 tsp vanilla

Put all the chocolate in a heatproof bowl
Combine the cream, honey and salt in a saucepan.
Bring the cream to a boil, and pour over the chocolate.
Place the ganache in the refrigerator until it begins to firm up. If it gets too firm, you can remelt it in the microwave and start the chill again.
When the ganache is still just pourable, dribble or pour it over the chilled cake to make any pattern you like.
Serve with raspberries or strawberries.

Red Rooster Pub opens in Wilton

After a couple of months of downtime, the former Portofino restaurant has been transformed into a Red Rooster Pub. While the owner, Tony Ramadani, remains the same and the kitchen staff much the same, this is a new restaurant with a new, somewhat more informal menu.

Ramadani owns two other Red Rooster Pubs, one in Ridgefield and one in Newtown. While the menus are much the same among the 3 restaurants, the Wilton pub adds an extra page of Portofino Classics, including Chicken Parmesan, Rigatoni Con, Capellini Piedmontese, Mushroom Ravioli, Jalapeno Chicken, Shrimp Papardelle and Seared Salmon, priced from $20 to $24, and a kid’s menu.

Their main menu is simpler than in the Portofino days, with appetizers including wings, tacos, chili, 8 salads (plus make your own from a checklist). The Mains section is just Fish and Chips, Mac and Cheese, Baby Back Ribs, New York Strip Steak and Fried Clam (strips) Platter with only the steak over $20.

Completely new is the In Hand menu of grilled chicken, veggies, steak, pulled pork, Reuben, DLT (duck bacon, lettuce and tomato), turkey wrap, French Dip, two Chicken Wraps all reasonably priced and mostly under $15. They also have 16 different “burgers” on the menu, several of which we have to try soon. All come with fries or onion rings.

The popular Portofino pizzas haven’t gone away either: there are still a whole page of pizza choices available.

Their beer list includes 8 on draft an about that many more bottled craft beers, and their wine lists includes about 10 red and white choices by the glass. Their dessert menu is simple but just what you want to go with this menu.

The Wilton pub opened last Thursday, and we understand it was packed all weekend, so we went Monday evening. At 5:45 there were plenty of tables, but by the time we left, almost all of them were full, which would seem to indicate that they have a success on their hands.

For our first meal there (but not the last) we ordered an excellent Mediterranean Salad ($12.95), which would seem to be more or less a Greek Salad with Baby Mixed Greens, Pickled Red Onion, Tomatoes, Cucumber, Feta Cheese, Olives, and Balsamic dressing. It was sizable and there was plenty for us to share. If you just want a little salad, you can get a “Sub Side Salad” for $2 with any of the In Hand menu items.

Then, one of us ordered the Shrimp Papardelle ($23.95) which was almost enough for two in itself. That night it was served with linguini, as they ran out of the wider papardelle noodles. Its served with shrimp, tomatoes, shiitake mushrooms, and pesto sauce. The shrimp were tender and flavorful and the pesto plentiful.

But we had to try out one of their new burgers, so we ordered the French Burger ($15.95) with mushrooms, caramelized onion, Brie, lettuce and tomato, and served with piping hot French Fries. Onion Rings and Sweet Potato Fries were also available, but these French fries were outstanding. And the Brie and caramelized onion worked very well on this enormous burger. We finally had to resort to a knife and fork to finish it, but every bite was worth it.

We didn’t have room for desserts, but we will sometime in the future.

This restaurant looks like a winner for Wilton and for Ramadani and we wish them well. Oh, and they take credit cards!

Stunning ‘In the Heights’ at Westport Playhouse

It may be jumping the gun to praise a show still in previews, but In the Heights at the Westport Country Playhouse is one of the best musicals the Playhouse has done in years, and in fact one of the best musicals I have seen in any venue. Let me suggest you book tickets while you can before even reading the rest of the review, because it is sure to sell out.

Lin-Manuel Miranda’s award winning musical (with book by Quiara Alegria Hudes) about life in Washington Heights grabs you from the very first number, the 12-minute “In the Heights” and never lets you go. His lively, Hispanic-inflected jazz score along with the stunning choreography by director Marcos Santana is outstanding from beginning to end, with Daniel Green’s 10-piece brassy orchestra keeping the music moving.

In his program notes, Miranda explains that after having played Bernardo in school and seen other contemporary shows that depicted Hispanics as violent, he was determined to write a piece that shows people growing up and living in an Hispanic neighborhood, in this case Washington Heights, which lies between 155^th and 190^th Streets in New York. The street sign on the set says W 181^st St.

The story revolves around Usnavi (a superb Rodolfo Soto), a young bodega proprietor who runs the shop along with his young cousin Sonny (Ezequiel Pujols). Both live with Abuela Claudia (the powerful Blanca Camacho) who raised Usnavi after his parents died. In case you might not think that “Usnavi” is a Spanish name, you are right. We learn in the second act that he was named for the phrase on a boat his parents passed before they landed in the U.S. (US Navy).

The set looks much like that area in New York, with some graffiti and several shops, a beauty shop run by Daniela (Sandra Marante), with Carla (Amanda Robles) and pretty, young Vanessa (Nina Victoria Negron, who is Usnavi’s love interest), and Rosario’s Car Service, where Kevin (Rony Chiroldes) and his strong-willed wife Camilla (Doreen Montalvo) dispatch drivers, assisted by Benny (Gerald Cesar), and ambitious black man who does not yet speak much Spanish. He is trying to learn it from the drivers so he can take over the dispatching duties. He later remarks that he has learned that Puerto Rican Spanish and Dominican Spanish have completely different swear words.

The story begins moving when Kevin and Carla’s daughter Nina (the outstanding Didi Romero) returns from her first year at Stanford, only to eventually reveal that she has lost her scholarship. Benny and Nina reconnect and are soon in love, and sing beautifully together, especially in “Sunrise.” And meanwhile, Usnavi gets Sonny to ask Vanessa out for him, and they soon connect as well.

While there is some dialog throughout, much of the show is really the songs, dancing, costumes and lighting that keep the show moving and thrilling from beginning to end. And I must especially praise the Piragua Guy (Paul Aguirre), who pushes a Piragua cart (flavored shaved ice) and sings in a fabulous tenor voice throughout.

This nearly all Equity 18-member cast, several of whom were in the original Broadway production, produce one of the most professional, high energy shows the Playhouse has ever presented and to see how these amazing singers and dancers tell the story of The Heights, you simply must see this excellent production. Some neighbors in the audience noted that this production was actually better than the Broadway production. Don’t miss it!

In the Heights plays at the Westport Country Playhouse April 23 through May 11, now extended through May 19th.!

Above, front row (L–R): Randy Castillo, Nina Victoria Negron, Amanda Robles, Tony Chiroldes, Edward Cuellar, Alison Solomon. Second row: Jonté Jaurel Culpepper, Marco Antonio Santiago, Melissa Denise Lopez, Sarita Colon, Blanca Camacho, Rodolfo Soto, Sandra Marante, Doreen Montalvo, Gerald Caesar, and Didi Romero. Back row: Ezequiel Pujols, Paul Aguirre, director/choreographer Marcos Santana, and music director Daniel Green. Photo by S. Emerick

Buttermilk biscuits in 4 minutes

I made this article and movie to show that if you can make buttermilk biscuits from scratch in 4 minutes, there is no reason to resort to mixes or refrigerated (oy!) dough. The recipe is just

2 cups flour
1 Tb baking powder
½ tsp baking soda
½ tsp salt
1/3 cup unsalted butter
1 cup plus 2 Tb buttermilk

Here’s the whole movie:

And after baking 10 minutes at 450 F, you have hot, tender, layered biscuits.

It’s that simple.

Chicken Noodle Soup in an Instant Pot

There is nothing more comforting than a bowl of chicken soup with noodles, and you can make in an Instant Pot with very little effort and just over an hour elapsed. Our recipe here is for a 6 quart Instant Pot, but it will work in an 8 qt just as well, and you could make more there for larger groups if you wanted.

1 4 lb chicken, cut into serving pieces
2 cups water
2 tsp salt
1 leek, cut into 3-inch pieces, use the white part and a little green part.
2 carrots
2 stalks celery
1 bay leaf
1 tsp dried thyme
4 cups water
6 oz noodles (half a bag)
Parsley

Put the cut up chicken pieces in the Instant Pot, and add 2 cups of water and the salt.
Close the pot and cook for 20 minutes using the Poultry setting or the manual setting.
Do a quick release and remove the meaty pieces and cut the meat off, and set aside.
Add all the bones back into the pot, add 4 more cups of water and the bay leaf and thyme
Add the leek, one stalk of celery and one large carrot, cut into pieces.
Cook for 45 minutes on manual high pressure.
Cut up the chicken meat to add to the soup later.
Meanwhile, cut up the other carrot and celery and sauté in butter over low heat until softened.

Quick release and remove the bones and cooked vegetables.
Strain the broth to remove debris and pour it back into the pot.
Bring the broth to a boil using the Sauté setting and add about 6 oz of dried noodles. Cook, loosely covered for 7 minutes.
Add the cut-up chicken and the sautéed vegetables and stir together.
Ladle into bowls and sprinkle a little parsley over each bowl.
Serve at once, with a little bread and butter on the side.

And there you have it. A delicious comfort food in little more than an hour. You may have some chicken left, but toss it into any leftover soup and freeze it for another day. You can always add more stock when you serve it a second time. We figure this makes at least 4 hearty servings. And since my mom always served bread and butter with soup, I do too!