Rhubarb-Currant Mostarda

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Rhubarb & Dried Currant Mostarda

If you were to snoop around my house, through my mess of a purse, and in the depths of my pockets, you’d find a thousand little scraps of paper covered in scribbles about things I want to cook.  A few weeks ago, I jotted down one of these notes to myself with the heading “late spring/early summer”.  The list ended up looking like it should simply be titled “10 things to do with rhubarb”.

Well, we tackled the first thing on the list a couple of weeks back: a batch of ginger-rhubarb swirled ice cream that was awfully good.  Today, we’ll make a mostarda so we can eat our rhubarb with some savory dishes too.  

Mostarda, if you’re unfamiliar, is in Italian condiment made from simmering fresh and/or dried fruits with mustard seeds, vinegar, and sugar until it reaches a thick, jammy consistency.  This one is a sweet-tart mix of fresh rhubarb and dried currants with an assertive mustard pop.  It’s great used as an accompaniment to cheese or cured meats and I’d be willing to bet it would be pretty spectacular with a grilled pork chop.  If I have any left by the weekend, I’ll be sure to test the theory.

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Traditional Bolognese Sauce

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Bolognese SauceBolognese sauce ranks pretty high on my list of favorite things to cook in the dead of winter.  It’s the ultimate comfort food–hearty, homey, and warming.  Plus, it requires you to spend a slow-paced afternoon in a toasty kitchen with an open bottle of wine.  What more could you ask for?

This recipe makes a big batch of Bolognese sauce that will keep you warm for several winter nights.  It’s a combination of beef, pork, and veal that is slowly simmered with wine and tomatoes until it becomes unbelievably rich and luxurious.   I used half of the batch in the lasagna I served on Christmas Eve and there are 2 small containers of it squirreled away in the freezer that will dress pasta or top polenta some time later this month when I’m snowed in and need nourishment.

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Grilled Steak Salad with Italian Salsa Verde

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Grilled Steak Salad with Italian Salsa Verde

When you’re a kid,  spring and summer stretch out endlessly.  Each day is perfection, filled sunshine and free time.  But suddenly, you realize your childhood is long gone and perfect days like these have almost vanished with it.  I’m talking about days when the weather is gorgeous, there’s no where you absolutely have to be, and nothing you can’t put off doing until tomorrow.  When these gems of days (or even just an afternoon or evening) roll around, you’ve got to seize them–head to the backyard, grab a lawn chair, and fully soak up the perfection.

Now, obviously, we have to eat and days like this call for simplicity.  Delicious simplicity–nothing complicated and nothing that’s going to keep us standing in the kitchen when we should be kicking up our feet outside.  We want something inherently good, like a grilled steak.  We can dress it for perfection with a salsa verde that’ll be put together in less than 2 minutes.

Before we go on, I should remind you this an Italian salsa verde and not to be confused with a spicy Mexican green salsa.  No tomatillos or jalepeños, just a green sauce made with a bunch of fresh herbs, garlic, capers, and olive oil.  Think pesto with fewer rules.

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Lamb Bolognese Sauce with Peas & Mint

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Lamb Bolognese with Peas & Mint

I’ve been trying so hard to think spring and be optimistic, but spring in Minnesota is really just an extension of winter.  I’m enjoying the fact that it’s staying light past 7 pm.  That is awesome.  I’ve been able to find baby artichokes and good asparagus at the grocery store.  Excellent, I can taste spring, even if I can’t see it.  I bought a new sundress in anticipation of better weather.  I finally spotted my first robin of the season.  Who cares if it was perched on a nasty, gray pile of snow?  Positive thoughts, think positive thoughts.

Enter, Lamb Bolognese Sauce with Peas & Mint.  It’s the perfect way to celebrate spring flavors in a realistic, still-cooped-up-in-the-house-and-freezing-my-behind-off kind of way.

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Mushroom Bolognese with Mascarpone Polenta

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Mushroom Bolognese Sauce over Creamy Mascarpone Polenta
For the record, I didn’t set out to make a vegetarian ragù that would masquerade as the king of Italian meat sauces. In fact, I’m normally a little annoyed when people disguise vegetables as classic meat staples.  Hot dogs are not supposed to be vegetarian.  Nor is bacon and meatloaf is simply not meatloaf when it does not contain meat.

But for this sauce, I’m willing to make an exception.

This sauce looks very much like the real-deal Bolognese sauce.  Other than the quartered Crimini mushrooms, it is very finely textured and velvety.  It smells of earthy, woodsy Porcini mushrooms, reduced red wine, tomatoes, and rosemary.  It doesn’t exactly replicate the taste of a meat-based Bolognese but that is not its main objective.  It’s main objective is to satisfy and comfort.

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