Aroma Cucina

Roast Pear Salad with Blue Cheese

Life gets hectic this time of year so it’s time to rely on quick, easy, satisfying and easy to clean. If it’s going to be dinner, then it needs to satisfy

 

1 Pear, a firm pear, not over ripe

Salad greens for two, a mild green like baby romaine works well

Vinaigrette (olive oil, vinegar and mustard)

3-4 oz blue cheese like Gorgonzola or Bleu d’Avergne

Optional: pomegranate arils, walnuts, bacon or pancetta bits

 

Preheat oven to 180C/350C

Slice the pear in half and scoop out the seeds and core, leaving a half circle. Taking half of the cheese, press the cheese into the pear, keeping the cheese within the confines of the scooped out area. Roast the pear until the cheese is melty and bubbly, about 15 minutes.

 

Meanwhile wash your salad greens. I don’t care if the bag says triple washed; wash the greens anyway. 

Make your vinaigrette: 3 parts olive oil to 1 part vinegar and 1 teaspoon of grained mustard.

 

Prepare your optionals: toast the walnuts, fry the bacon or pancetta, separate the arils from the pomegranate.

 

When the pear is ready, toss the salad with vinaigrette, add your accoutrements (that would be the walnuts etc.), open a bottle of wine, put on a good movie on and enjoy.

 

Potato and Onion Torte

Potato and Onion Torte

Arevederci to ‘our’ Australians!

We spent a wonderful week cooking for an Australian family, and we are sad to say good-bye to them. Hopefully our paths will cross again, maybe in New York. They are a very special family, who understand the value and pleasure of spending time together.

Potato and Onion Torte
1 ½ pounds white potatoes, thinly sliced
1 large yellow onion, thinly sliced
1 cup grated fresh pecorino
1 cup grated aged pecorino
½ cup grated parmigana
1 cup scalded milk
olive oil, salt, pepper, nutmeg

Preheat oven to 325 degrees F.
After slicing the potatoes, rinse them in cold water a few times to eliminate the excess starch. Keep the slices in a bowl of water as you assemble the other ingredients.

Use whatever cheeses you have available, don’t use anything too wet, like a mozzarella or the torte will be too runny.  I think an all gorgonzola torte would be spectacular!

Bring a cup of milk just to the boiling point and then turn off the stove. There, now you have scalded milk, which in theory, will now not bubble up in the oven and make a huge mess. As an extra precaution, use a deep baking dish and only bring the potatoes up to about the ¾ mark on the dish.

To facilitate getting the whole thing out of the pan, line your baking pan with parchment paper, and then you can lift the torte out of the pan when it is done.
Pour a tiny bit of olive oil in the bottom of a baking dish and start layering the slices of potatoes, onions and cheese. Add a bit of salt and pepper to each layer and a tiny bit of oil every two layers. Finish with the grated parmigana and a dusting of nutmeg on top.

Bake at 325 for at least an hour and a half, remove when the potatoes are soft and the top is brown. 

5 Nut Pesto

Sometimes an idea is so good, you wonder why didn’t someone think of it sooner? The other night, our friends John and Libby handed us a jar of pesto that they had made that day. John did it old skool style: in a mortar, by hand.   Now, I’ve always been a food processor girl, but the taste and texture difference was significantly better than blender style. Damn. Now that I know this, you can’t go back…
What made this pesto so intriguing was that they used 5 different kinds of nuts. Now, I haven’t seen them today to ask, but I’m guessing the nuts were: pistachio, pine, hazlenut, almond and walnut. There was a bit of chili in the pesto as well, which gave it a brighter flavor, and this in turn, enhanced the sweetness of the pistachios.
I poached some shrimp in olive oil, added it to the pesto, and we had ourselves one outstanding dinner last night.
Grazie mille John and Libby!!

Old Favorite

It's sort of like going closet shopping. You know when you go to the back of the closet and dig out some forgotten gem? 
We were hungry. There wasn't much around in the kitchen. What to make for lunch?
I had eggs, a bit of swiss chard and a leek.
Sformata! I had forgotten all about sformatas! They are savory baked custardy Italian treats.
Preheat the oven to 375F.
Take some eggs, break them into a bowl. Add a small fist full of cheese. A small shot of cream, salt, pepper and whisk all together.
Saute some  swiss chard and leeks.  Blanche the swiss chard first..it needs to be cooked twice to tame some of the bitterness.
Let the vegetables cool down a bit, and then whisk together with the egg mixture. Ladle into individual muffin tins.  I use a silpat form...very easy and not much will ever stick to them.
Bake in the oven in a bain marie (water bath) until firm, about 25-30 minutes.
I garnished these with some crispy parsley leaves, and a shot of balsamic vinegar.
Enjoy!

My Recipes

These are some of the recipes that I've created this summer. They are meant as a guideline to creating a similar dish in your kitchen.  All of us have access to slightly different ingredients, some of us like lots of garlic and spice, some don't. That's the beauty of cooking at home, you get to cook things exactly as you like them. So let your imagination run wild, let inspiration come in through the open window and enjoy.
Let me know what works, and what doesn't.  It's always more fun when there are lots of people in the kitchen.