Subcontinental Comfort Food

There was a time when my wife (that's Mrs. Enobarbus) and I seemed to get sick much more often, and more severely, than we do now.  We caught colds that turned into coughs and then hung around for weeks and weeks.  Looking back on it now, it seems very odd since, while we do still get colds, we never suffer anything that terrible.

That was about the time we discovered kichadi, an Indian stew of rice and dried, split mung beans.  Owing to its transliterated name, there are as many ways to spell this dish as there are to cook it.  (Depending on the source, you may see kichadi, kichari, kichri, kitchdi, or any of the above with a kh- at the front or an -ee at the end.  The British rice and fish breakfast dish kedgeree also derives from kichadi.)  The esseentials are typically the same:  rice, beans, and spices are cooked in water until they develop a porridge-like texture.  Essentially, it's one part dal, two parts rice, six parts water, cook till soft.

One particular variety is said to contain a bundle of ayurvedic goodness for curing what ails your lungs, and I made it this week for the first time in several years.  We weren't sick; we just missed the taste.  You add a couple of diced sweet potatoes to the beans and rice and spice it with ginger, garlic, onion, coriander, cumin, turmeric, cardamom, salt and pepper -- and an unusual seed called ajwain, which tastes a bit like caraway.  I used whole spices sauteed with the onion, garlic, and ginger, then threw it all in a food processor to make a spice paste.

It's amazingly satisfying, nearly vegan (a little clarified butter), and the kind of thing I know I should be eating instead of yet another dose of Five Guys.

(Odd health side note: Traditionally, a touch of asafetida is added to the mixture -- said to reduce the gassy properties of beans, also recently shown to kill swine flu.)

Bottega Cucina, West Springfield

On the prowl for spaghetti and meatballs, my wife (that's Mrs. Enobarbus) came across some Yelp reviews for Bottega Cucina that praised its cuisine -- if not its ambiance -- fairly highly, even suggesting that a significant wait on a weekend night was not unusual.

The restaurant also got a hat tip from the "local hero" crowd for its use of Pioneer Valley produce.  While I don't fetishize the use of local ingredients (I'm not sure how one usefully can, in New England), I do use it as a fairly reliable indicator that the chef is giving some thought to his or her ingredients.

Our first impression was of a clean, comfortable space making the best of its location -- a small storefront next to a mini-mart just off Route 5.  Parking is limited, but turnover is quick, since much of the traffic is for the mini-mart.

Bottega Cucina (meaning, roughly, "artisan kitchen") succeeds and falls short in roughly equal measures, which leads to a somewhat frustrating dining experience.  There were three red wines available by the glass -- too few, I think, to properly meet the demands of a fairly extensive menu.  (We chose the house cab, which was certainly tasty.)  The salads were fresh if unimaginative versions of menu staples -- a Caesar for her featuring a nicely eggy dressing, heavy on the croutons, and spinach/red onion/gorgonzola/walnut for me, marred only by some leaves of rather tired looking spinach in the mix.

The bread, on the other hand, was useless.  For me, the bread tells the tale of an Italian restaurant.  Without great bread, I can't truly love any restaurant.  Even the chains (Olive Garden, Bertucci) have made efforts recently to improve their bread.  Here, we received a measly five pieces of roughly baguette-shaped bread.  The crumb was reminiscent of bread-machine loaves -- uniform, crumbly, and without the tooth of a decent rustic loaf.

Main dishes seemed more promising.  Portions were generous and simply presented.  The pasta in my spaghetti alla puttanesca was nicely cooked, and the sauce balanced olive and anchovy flavors well, along with some garlic and chili heat that is too often missing in this style.  Mrs. E's spaghetti and meatballs looked delightful on the plate; alas, the meatballs, while well flavored, were too heavy on the bread crumbs and ended up with a slightly gummy texture.  (I still haven't had a killer meatball since I left New Jersey.)

[Excuse the side note, but I can't let dessert pass without it:  Even when the featured cuisine doesn't support it, most restaurants will have some kind of "Mississippi Mudslide" horror, it seems.  Why, in heaven's name does the American diner feel that no meal is over without defibrillation doses of chocolate?  Nearly every dessert list I see concentrates on chocolate nearly to the exclusion of all else.  If there is a cake on the menu, it's going to be chocolate, and probably flourless.  Pie?  Chocolate turtle.  A mousse or pudding?  Chocolate.  The variety of desserts in American and European cuisine is so astounding; it's a crime that restaurants limit their selections to a few gooey chocolate fiascoes.]

Desserts here were no exception:  almost all featured chocolate, save only the crème brulée, which was fine.  The cannoli (in this case the plural is accurate: two small ones on a plate) shells had lost their crunch from sitting in the refrigerator, and the filling was so blandly sweet that you would guess the mascarpone had been left out.  Chocolate chips (naturally) studded the filling.

So don't go for the wine, or the dessert, and don't expect radically new ideas.  But for simple, traditional Italian dishes, this is a good pick.