Giambotta (Vegetable Stew) – My Childhood Summers in a Bowl

The night before I left New York, my mother and I were invited to my Aunt Joyce’s for dinner. When I heard she was making “Cha-bought,” I knew I had to bring my camcorder to film this unusual and delicious dish. As a child, I probably had this for lunch 3 times a week during the summer at my grandparents. Everyone (at least all the Italian-American families) had backyard vegetable gardens; so fresh green beans, zucchini, sweet and hot peppers, and herbs were always plentiful.

This simple vegetable stew was pronounced “Cha-bought” by my grandparents. I’ve always wondered what it meant, or what the actual Italian name was. Thanks to Scott from Boston I was informed that the dish I had grow-up on was really called "Giambotta." Scott says this translates to "everything/a mess," which makes a lot of sense due to the array of vegetables that can and were used in this stew. He said his mother dropped the “a” from the end, and called it "Giambott.” So, to make a long story even longer, what I called “cha-bought” was actually a mispronunciation, of a mispronunciation.

Now, what made this dish so unusual was that it was made with hot dogs! That’s right, an ancient Italian vegetable stew made with 100% pure American hot dogs. Why? Here’s my theory. This dish was originally made either with all vegetables, or with the addition of Italian sausage. Growing up, I do remember this being made with sweet Italian sausage occasionally, but most of the time it was hot dogs. I believe that hot dogs were simply the least expensive sausage available, and so my grandparents, needing to feed many mouths without many dollars, chose this lower cost alternative. The strange thing is, it really works! It tastes wonderful no matter what sausage you chose, and since I grew up on it I think I actually prefer hot dogs, even to this day.

For me, there is no better mid-summer meal than a large bowl of steaming Giambotta and a couple slices of Italian bread. Of course, that’s not all we ate that night. Aunt Joyce and her friend Steve also made grilled sweet corn, and a beautiful fresh mozzarella tomato salad (all pictured above). It was a great meal, and a great way to end my visit to New York, and to re-connect to my culinary roots. Enjoy!



Ingredients:
4 oz sweet Italian sausage (optional)
1/2 onion sliced
4 cloves garlic, chopped
1 tbl olive oil
Slowly sauté above ingredients on low heat until onions and garlic turn translucent (do not brown garlic)

Then add (as seen in the video)
about 36 oz. tomato puree (any combination of whole peeled tomatoes, plain tomato sauce, or canned tomato puree) ERROR ALERT: IN THE CLIP I SAID "JUST OVER 2 QUARTS" BUT I MEANT ONE QUART...OOPS
3-4 zuchinni
3-4 russet potatoes
2 bell peppers
1/2 pound green beans (*blanched)
2 pounds hot dogs (or any sausage)
1/2 bunch fresh basil
salt and pepper to taste

*I’ve read that adding raw green beans to a tomato sauce can cause the beans to “toughen” as the acid in the sauce reacts with the fiber in the beans. So it may be better to blanch the beans for a few minutes before adding to the sauce. Having said all that, I have added them raw and they are OK, but I do think the texture is better if they are blanched first… someone get me Alton Brown’s phone number!

 

Chef John verses the Garbage Plate

Before I left New York, as promised, I experienced the legendary Garbage Plate. My biggest fear with this post is that someone visiting my blog for the first time, possibly during their lunch break, sees the photo on the left, loses said lunch, and never returns.

Anyway, that’s just a chance I’ll have to take. The first thing I’d like to say about the Garbage Plate is that it actually tasted way better than it looked. I know what you’re thinking… how could it not? The culinary logic behind the dish is pretty solid. If you like pasta salad, homefries, hot dogs, and chili, then you certainly will enjoy them in huge quantities all piled on top of each other.

I didn’t make it to the home of the original Garbage Plate, Nick Tahou’s in Rochester. I decided to try mine at a trusted lunch spot in Canadaigua, called Charlie Riedel’s. I have been coming to Charlie’s for years. They serve some of the best burgers around, and their fish sandwich (a huge, perfectly fried piece of haddock on a soft roll), is the best I’ve had anywhere. But, in all my visits to Charlie’s I had never tried a Garbage Plate. By the way, as you’ll see and hear in the video clip, they don’t call it a Garbage Plate.

I was going to give you the entire history of the Garbage Plate here, but then I found an old FoodTV clip on the subject, so I’m posting that below mine. There’s not much else to say, except that I hope you enjoy the clip. I’d like to thank the staff at Charlie’s, which could not have been nicer. Thanks Barb, Jessie, Andy and Noah! There was also another girl working the counter, but I never got her name. So, whoever you were, thanks to you too. Also, to Scott the Manager (who wasn’t there that day), your loyal staff did charge me full price for the plate. They were not about to be bought merely for the promise of Internet fame. Enjoy!

Partly Cloudy with a Chance of Soup

Whenever I get to travel back east in the summer I’m reminded how lucky we San Franciscans are to enjoy such amazingly pleasant weather. We just don’t get many of those hot and humid days that I’ve heard referred to as “the air you wear.” Our cool, grey city, with is natural air conditioning, always welcomes you with a breath of fresh air. While not as foggy a city as its reputation would have one believe, we do get a good layer of fog, especially as the sun goes down in the summer. Most of the time, however, we are treated to mild temperatures and clear blue skies. And that’s why the picture of the beautiful, puffy cloud in today’s post (the other reason for the cloud photo will be explained shortly). This photo was taken near my Mom’s home in Clifton Springs. It is very rare to see such big, tall, shapely clouds like this in San Francisco. Our skies come in three basic styles; blue and completely cloudless, blue with thin little wisps of clouds, or the thin layer of grey fog I already mentioned. That’s pretty much it. In fact, the first time I brought my wife Michele back to meet the parents; she noticed (and fell in love with) these impressive looking clouds right away.

Anyway, today’s video is a re-run of my wonton soup recipe that I posted back in March. One translation of “wonton” means “swallowing clouds” and has always been one of my favorite all-time food translations (and properly made a very accurate one). I’m also having the family over today and wonton soup is on the menu! I’ll be doing it with ground turkey instead of the pork you’ll see in the recipe clip. I’ll just post the video below, but if you click on this link you can go to the original post to get the ingredients and full article. Enjoy!

And the winner is…Chicken Parmesan!

The viewers have spoken! Tomorrow’s post will be my version of the ubiquitous Chicken Parmesan. It was kind of cool letting you, the readers, decide on what I would demo. But, since I wanted to do the 3-Corn Polenta, this is the last poll I’ll ever have. As we all well know, democracy just doesn’t work! Ok, just kidding, I’m sure you will see the occasional poll posted here on various topics. Anyway, like I said in the original post, this was more of a test of how the polling software works, and much to my surprise it did work and was easy to manage. By the way, I will eventually demo all the other options listed in the poll. So, be sure to tune in tomorrow to see this Italian-American classic done Chef John style.

Stuffed Summer Squash with Goat Cheese and Romesco – Our least terrible test yet!

Well, the new microphone is hooked up and I think the sound is better. The intros and endings of these test clips still need a lot of work, and I just realized that I need to go out and pick up a digital camera for the still shots. Other than that, I think I’m starting to figure this new stuff out.

This has always been one of my favorite summer side-veggie dishes. Any summer squash you can cut in half will work. Anyone that has, or knows someone that has, a vegetable garden really needs to try this dish! I mean, what the hell are you going to do with all those squash? The completely irregular green starburst squash you see in this video were not the best choice to do a demo with since they are hard to slice in half evenly, but hey, if it works with these, it will work with any squash as I said.

The deep, rich flavor of the romesco mingling with the sweet blandness of the squash combined with the creamy tang of the warm goat cheese makes this dish a summer classic. Don’t serve too hot! This dish shines best served warm or at room temp. If you’ve never tried romesco, this is the dish to taste it in. It’s a medium-spicy, “pesto-like” sauce made from roasted red peppers, garlic, almonds, anchovy and other spices. We use it a lot in summer, as it is the perfect instant sauce for any grilled meat, fish or vegetables. One of these days I’ll show you how to make your own romesco, but for now you should be able find it at most high-end grocery stores. If you can’t find or make it, any flavorful sauce will work; salsa, roasted red pepper relish, olive tapenade, etc. Enjoy!



Ingredients:
3 small summer squash
6 tbl goat cheese
3 tbl romesco sauce
3 tbl olive oil
2 tbl plain bread crumbs
salt and pepper to taste

Scrambled Eggs – This is still a test…a soft, creamy, delicious test

Well, I’m still testing, and learning, and fumbling around with the new A/V equipment and software, but at least you can see an actual edible recipe during this experiment. I decided to do some very basic scrambled eggs.

First of all, my sister-in-law Nina requested an eggs demo, and secondly I wanted to see how much better quality the quicker stirring motions would come out verses the old camera. So, this is still officially a test video, so go easy on the comments… I’m getting a real microphone today, and still don’t have Photoshop on the new MacBook to do any decent screen shots with. Anyway, enough excuses, on to the recipe.

I’ve heard Chef Gordon Ramsey say that when he wants to test a young cook’s skills, he has them scramble a couple eggs. He wants to see if they are going to produce a plate of rubbery yellow clumps, or a smooth, creamy, custard-like delicacy. Today’s clip will hopefully show you how to produce the later. Speaking of Chef Ramsey, I’ve included his scrambled egg video recipe below mine. He goes into much more detail than I do (hey, I said this is just a test), so check that clip out also. It’s from a series he did a while back, and he’s quite different from the screaming maniac that you see on Hell’s Kitchen. There he is paid good money to curse and make people cry. On his “real” cooking shows from the BBC, he is a very good teacher and well worth watching.

A few key points before you watch; do not beat your eggs, do not salt the eggs until their cooked, and do not cook on high heat. If you’re going to add cheese, do it near the end when you add the butter. The rest of the tips you can catch while you view the clip. Oh, and serve on a warm plate!!

For larger groups you’ll need a larger pan of course, but the same technique will work; it will just take a bit longer. Also, make sure you have some heat-proof silicone spatulas around. As Alton Brown might say, “melted rubber is not good eats!” Enjoy.



Ingredients:
2 large eggs
salt and pepper
2 tsp butter
fresh chives