Happy happy Sunday everyone!
I’m officially on vacation. Can’t wait to get my ass out of this slowly circulating bowl of filth so I can finally fly up to the rim of this world before this whole shitty load gets flushed the fuck down.
With that lovely image in your head.
It’s off to Toronto this week. Anyone flown Porter Air? Any suggestions? Recommendations?
Last words?
The weather looks cold as brass moose balls but I’m still up for an adventure.
Chance of snow on Wednesday but I’m still ready.
I have no fucking gloves, boots or heavy jacket but I’m all fucking set!
Who says I have to come back?
We’ve got everyone’s favorite type of recipe today.
Quick, easy and damn near unfuckupable!
Simple ingredients, simple prep, simply grab a drink and set the timer type of recipe. Yes sir and yes Ma’am we’ve got us another Three Ingredient Special!
Fire up the honking hype horn.
And who doesn’t love that shit?
Our menu today is prosciutto wrapped, pesto chicken (also bacon wrapped!) and real cacio e pepe. I’m talking REAL real, motherfuckers.
Let’s first talk about cheese.
This here is Pecorino Romano.
Yes, that is quite a slab of cheese. We can actually use as much cheese as we want today because…
We officially have ALL of the cheese.
Friend of the blog, fellow dick joke enthusiast and our resident Italian resident 2Pack was more than gracious enough to ship me a care package from Italy.
And just feast your eyes on that package.
Thank you so much again, 2Pack. I am humbled and extremely appreciative of this.
We had big fat slabs of pecorino Romano, grana padano – that’s that huge wedge up there – plus fresh asiago and aged asiago and let me tell ya, each one of these was more delicious than the next. Sensational shit right here. Those small jars of jams included a sweet onion jam, a spicy onion jam, spicy fig jam, mixed fruit and a white wine jam.
When you put a slab of cheese on one of those crostinis then put a dollop of the jam on top?
Your mouth, brain and entire body experience what can only be called a culinary orgasm. Mind blowing stuff.
You will also notice a pack of authentic Italian spaghetti AND a package of bucatini! I’mma use that shit today!
Again and again, thank you so much kind sir! I plan to put all of this to good use.
I’ll do this in pictorial form again today since you won’t really need a structured recipe. The main course is 3 ingredients and if you remember correctly, the pasta course is 4 ingredients.
That link was from 2016. Holy fucking shit.
Please note the difference in quality of my food photos.
We don’t need no stinking recipe for this!
Let’s get busy grating or technically “micro-planing” that cheese for the pasta.
Looks like a cups worth to me.
The rest of this shit is painfully easy to make so let’s get this shit going.
Procure chicken.
That would be the boneless skinless stuff I always bash about. This will be a good test to see if we can keep the finished chicken moist.
Next grab your cured meats. Fuck it let’s try two kinds today.
Bacon, I’m guessing, most of y’all have on hand but prosciutto di parma is getting easier and easier to find.
It starts by opening your wallet.
Speaking of.
Gather around folks.
Take a knee.
Don’t worry we’ll get back to the menu but I have to tell this story to you.
I tell this because this is how I was raised and this is a true representation of how my brain works.
I bought the prosciutto di parma from my regular Ralph’s store. Because I knew they would have it.
The way I shop is, if I have enough old grocery bags to carry what I plan to purchase I bring them along and reuse them. I usually put all of them in one bag, wad them in a ball and put them in the little seat area on the grocery cart. You know, where people put their little dipshit kids. As I shop I will also put a couple of smaller items in that same seat if they are light and won’t fall out as I shop.
I finished my grocery shopping and went to the check out. Dude, who was working the register is one of the regulars and this guy is a solid dude (for a Dodgers fan) and we always bullshit about sports. In fact the day this story happened was the first Thursday of March Madness so we had lots to talk about.
Anyway. I finish paying, take my groceries to my car and start to put the bags in the trunk of my car.
It was right then I noticed the prosciutto wasn’t in a bag but was just sitting in the seat area. I also noticed it was upside down and the bottom of the package was black in color thus rendering it difficult to see against that little seat flap dealie in the cart.
My brain doesn’t process the obvious at this moment. I close the trunk, returned my cart to the cart return…
EVERY. FUCKING. TIME!
Got in my car and drove away. I do my main shopping near where I work which is about 15 miles from where I live so at this time I drove back to work.
It was about half an hour later when I thought to look at my receipt from the store.
You already know that the prosciutto wasn’t on the recept.
I distinctly remembered the cost too because it was $10.99 and well. DAMN. I didn’t return to the store that day because that store gets crazy busy later in the day and I had to work.
Next day, I got ready for work, put the package of prosciutto in the bag along with my lunch and drove to work.
I put my lunch away, told my employees “I’ll be right back,” drove to the store, walked up to the cashier and said “I need to pay for this because it got into my cart yesterday without me paying for it.”
The checkout person gave me an odd look and said “Thank you!”
I drove back to work and finished my shift.
Truth.
Do I have to tell you that I had trouble falling asleep the night before just thinking about this shit?
If you really know me then you know the answer to that too.
As Vin Scully used to say, “Now back to this one.”
Go ahead and preheat your oven to 400 degrees.
Remember a few weeks ago when we did the basil and goat cheese stuffed chicken? We had enough basil to make pesto, remember that shit too?
Here it is now.
Let’s apply some to the chicken.
Put some on the other chicken too.
We wrap the first batch with the prosciutto.
Nice! Get it all wrapped up and snugly there.
The other batch we’re wrapping with bacon.
Think you get the idea. Wind that shit fully around the chicken.
Into a 400 degree oven these go for 25 minutes for the prosciutto and 30 minutes for the bacon wrapped.
For the cacio e pepe we’ll start, with the “pepe.” Grind this shit fresh. We really want the flavor to “pop.”
Now we get to the good stuff.
I can NOT wait to fuck around with this!
Into the boiling, salted water it goes.
Next grab a saucepan, add a little olive oil and toast that black pepper.
When the pasta is cooked al dente, we need to make sure to reserve some of the pasta water.
Add the cooked pasta to the stockpot with the toasted black pepper and stir.
Add the cheese.
NOTICE! This is me fucking up right here!
It’s supposed to be gradually add the cheese then gradually add a little water at a time, not dump the whole fucking batch of cheese in there at once.
Dumbass.
I ended up making a wad of cheese the size of a piece of chewed gum that never successfully re-incorporated back into the dish and for that I feel great shame.
Push along and do the best you can to recover.
Let’s plate this up already. I want to try both of those wrapped chicken motherfuckers too.
Makes a lovely plate doesn’t it?
This was absolutley excellent. Both types of chicken were delicious although I think I preferred the prosciutto wrapped version better. The prosciutto got nice and crispy. Don’t get me wrong, the bacon wrapped chicken was damn tasty, I just preferred the other.
That pesto did indeed add a layer of protection to keep the chicken from drying out and despite the fact that this was pure uncut pesto, street value well in the thousands, it didn’t overpower the chicken.
Just brought a lovely herbal note that worked perfectly.
Despite my solid attempt to fuck it up, the pasta was wonderful. It was missing a little creaminess but still fantastic.
Make this shit folks. I give it the full Sunday Gravy Stamp of Fucking Approval!
Today’s fun holidays courtesy of A Bit Of Good News: “April 13 is International Plant Appreciation Day, National Peach Cobbler Day and National Scrabble Day.”
GodDAMN does peach cobbler sound fucking amazing right now.
It’s on to Toronto!
See you next week right after I get back.
As always…
