A Simple Pasta and a Grand Aioli
To use your roasted garlic!
Since I recently wrapped up developing recipes for my new book, I have started feeling more inspired to cook dinner again (it was hard there for a while). I’m basically always developing recipes, since real-life cooking is the perfect way to test out ideas before sharing them with you. I think the recipes that I cook off the cuff, without much forethought, end up being some of my best, so I’ll be sharing more of those with you this year.
I like to think I’m a little like my one-time boss, Nora Ephron, when she famously said, “Everything is Copy,” meaning anything and everything that happens to you is fair game to write about. I feel the same about cooking. Anything I might happen to cook has the potential to become a written recipe.
The pasta recipe I’m sharing today — Orecchiette with Roasted Garlic, Sausage, Clams, and Broccolini — was something I cooked a few weeks ago that was so good, I had to share it. The sauce is built on the heady clam broth that’s created when you steam open the clams. This step only takes a few minutes, and it serves the dual purpose of easily popping the clams open and capturing their briny essence in a flavorful broth. Combined with spicy sausage and flavor-bomb roasted garlic, it’s hard to beat for the effort:result ratio.
The second recipe I’m sharing with you today is Roasted (and Black — but that’s totally optional) Garlic Aioli. Alone, this aioli can be used for any number of things, such as a dip for steamed vegetables and as a condiment for sandwiches. But I encourage you to make a Grand Aioli spread with it. I included this photo to inspire you, but you can really choose your own adventure when making one. My latest book, Open Kitchen, includes a Winter Grand Aioli (shown here!), but I don’t feel it’s gotten the love it deserves.
Here’s the headnote from the Winter Grand Aioli recipe in my book (page 145 for those who have it):
A grand aioli is usually a summer dish of a big bowl of homemade garlic mayonnaise surrounded by steamed vegetables and some kind of seafood, like cold shrimp or poached salmon. It’s a lovely thing to serve in warm weather, but I like the idea of turning it into a cold-weather, eat-with-your-hands feast. The aioli itself is made more complex by using lots of roasted garlic, and black garlic if you can get your hands on some. It adds a bit of sweetness and a lot of umami to the aioli, which makes it really craveable. Here’s how I like to do this: Make a lot of seasonal roasted vegetables, steam an artichoke or two, buy a couple of whole cooked lobsters from my local seafood market, pan-roast a nice big piece of salmon simply seasoned with salt and pepper, set it all out ahead of time (room temperature is fine for all of this), and then after everyone sits down at the table, I deliver piping hot potatoes and a warm loaf of bread and let everyone have at it. Plates and forks are optional.
This is a really fun feast for a cold winter’s night. Here’s a fun video I made (shot by Tara Sgroi) to promote Open Kitchen. It culminates in us sitting down to a Winter Grand Aioli feast. It was a night to remember.
If you don’t already have my last book, pick one up now! It’s packed with great seasonal recipes like the ones you love here on Susanality.
