Aroma Cucina

Challenging Leftovers

I hate leftovers.  I’m not talking about when you made spaghetti bolognese and you freeze half for later, I’m talking about having one quail or a small piece of tri-tip steak. Or  roast pork that is fabulous when it comes out of the oven, but two days later, what do you do? Jeff says he loves them, but that’s because I’ve ‘repurposed’ them.

Never underestimate the ‘composed salad’, or as the French say, “salade compose”. In this case, the quail meat was shredded, the last precious bits of Rogue River blue cheese were crumbled and pomegranate arils were scattered to make a very satisfying salad. I barely remembered I was eating leftovers.

Don’t forget about shepherd’s pie. Chopped tri-tip steak, lots of sauteed chopped carrots, celery, and onion, green peas, all topped with horseradish mashed potatoes.

Or, how about a nice curry? That left over pork roast is going Bollywood. I know pork curry sounds as heretical as a Kosher hotdog, but with a little garlic nan bread on the side, we’ll embrace this multi ethnic dish.

Maybe I don’t really hate leftovers. Maybe I just need to think of them as challenges.  Maybe we can start a reality TV show called “Leftover Challenges”? Hmmm...maybe not.

Barely Heat Kissed

The orto, our garden, is producing and life is good. Our store-bought produce has dwindled to lemons and oranges. If we could figure out a way to bring  lemon or better yet, lime trees, inside for the winter, then life would be just about perfect. Most people around here have lemon trees in large pots that they bring inside for the winter, but with our nomadic lifestyle, that won’t work.

I like to play with fire, so after harvesting some ripe tomatoes and a fistful of basil,  I decided to experiment with adding just a kiss of heat to two different dishes.  Just a bacio of heat to soften up the tomato sauce, and another kiss to add a warm parmigiana crust to a fresh tomato salad, why didn’t I try this sooner?

Spaghetti d’Estate
Summer Spaghetti

5 plum tomatoes, chopped
1 large handful of fresh basil leaves
1 small red onion, or sweet white onion, thinly sliced
2 cloves of garlic, thinly sliced
1 handful of small olives
Cheese for grating
Olive oil
500g pasta/serves 2

Put your pasta water on to boil. Choose a fine spaghetti like angel hair, spaghettini, or vermicelli.
Finely chop the basil and place in a bowl large enough to hold the cooked pasta. Chop the tomatoes and set aside in small bowl.
While the pasta water is coming to a boil, gently heat the sliced onion and garlic in a few tablespoons of olive oil. Turn the pan off if you hear the faintest sound of a sizzle, you want to wilt the garlic and onions, make them loose their crunchy rawness, but that’s all.

When the pasta is done, before you drain it, take about 1/2 cup of the pasta water and add it to the basil/oil mixture. Now drain the pasta and toss with the basil oil. Plate the pasta in a big bowl. Turn the heat back on and warm up the onion/garlic mixture, add the tomatoes and olives and toss until the tomatoes are just warm...about 30 seconds.  If you are using an electric stove, preheat the coil so when the pan is put on there is quick heat.
Add the warmed tomato sauce to the basil pasta and serve with a soft, quick melting cheese. In Umbria, I use ‘caciotta’ which is a fresh cheese made from sheep and cow milk. Try to find a soft, fresh cheese, not too aggressively flavored, or else use just a fine mist of freshly grated parmigiana.

Jeff wanted to know why the pasta felt so ‘velvety’ in his mouth. The secret is that bit of pasta water added to the basil oil and left to sit for a few moments while you heat kiss the tomatoes and olives. Don’t skip this step, ok?

Heat Kissed Tomato Salad
1 gorgeous tomato
Freshly grated parmigiana
Oregano, Olive Oil, Salt, Pepper

Turn on your broiler to its highest setting, and move the oven rack up as close as you can.

Now, slice and arrange that gorgeous tomato in a heat proof dish. Sprinkle with salt, pepper and oregano. Add a little drizzle of olive oil.
Generously grate the parmigiana over the tomatoes, making sure to cover all of the exposed tomatoes.

Place in the broiler and remove as SOON as it melts! In my oven, it took under 30 seconds.   The bottom of the dish wasn’t even warm, and it was out of the heat, making a crispy cheesy veil over the barely warmed tomatoes. It was almost as if the tomatoes were only sun warmed from the garden.

Add another tiny drizzle of olive oil and enjoy! A crust of bread to sop up the tomato juices would be a fine thing.

Tomatoes in August are a reason to live.

Fennel and What’s Love Got To Do With It?

What’s fennel got to do with love? I mean romantic love, and carnal love, not a love of fennel salad.

The very ancient and now extinct, giant fennel plant known as silphium became associated with lovemaking because it was thought to be a powerful birth control agent.  And guess what the seedpod of the silphium plant was a dead ringer for? It looked like the stylized version of the heart that we’ve all come to know: the rounded orbs at the top descending into the pointy bottom. How wonderfully ironic: the sanitized symbol of a heart is derived from the need for birth control.  Hanky-panky and fennel, who knew??

 

I love random bits of culinary trivia like this, and I have the author, Robin Maxwell, to thank for clueing me in to the fennel connection. Her new book, O Juliet, is being released this February and her blog and love games contest are a fun diversion from the relentless bad news that seems to surround us. It is actually OK to take a break and think about something romantic for a change.

 

It’s a pity that this giant fennel plant is now extinct; although I’m pretty sure I’ve seen relatives of it in Italy.  But there is plenty of fresh fennel in the markets right now so at least we have that to comfort us although I would caution against relying on it for birth control.  If a guy whispers in your ear, “Hey Baby, come on let’s have some fennel and we can party all night.” Girl, you know he’s talking nonsense.

I recently found fennel in a supermarket under the sign for anise, so be warned. Just for the record, they are not the same plant, although they both belong to the Apiaceae family of plants. With the fennel plant you can eat: the pollen, the seeds, or the fresh bulb. With anise you just eat the seeds.

Wild fennel pollen or “finnochio selvatico fiore” is a staple in every Umbrian household. I use it on roast meats like pork and fowl: a liberal sprinkling of this magic dust, a bit of salt, and you get the most delicious, crispy skin on a roast chicken. If I’m making roast pork, I’ll coat it with the fennel pollen on the surface and then right before serving, pour a bit of pomegranate molasses on the meat. There is something about fennel and pomegranate that is a match made in heaven.

 

Fennel seed can be used just like you would anise seed: in sweet and savory preparations. I love the Indian custom of serving a little bowl of after-dinner dried roasted fennel seeds that you chew to freshen up your mouth and aid digestion after a spicy meal.

 

A fresh fennel slaw is a refreshing palate cleanser. It’s the perfect side dish when you have some thing rich and unctuous because it’s a clean, crunchy flavor counterpoint.

 

Fennel Slaw

1 bulb of fennel

1 orange

10-15 black pitted olives, roughly chopped, use more or less according to taste

Olive oil, pinch of salt, red wine vinegar if needed

 

Very thinly slice the fennel into a bowl. Working over the bowl so all the juices will run onto the sliced fennel, peel the orange, using a knife so that there is no white or pith left on the orange, discard the peel, then slice out the individual orange segments, roughly chop and mix with the sliced fennel. By the way, you have just ‘supremed’ that orange. Squeeze the left over core of the orange to extract all the juice. Add 1-2 T of olive oil, toss and check for acidity. Sometimes just the orange juice is enough and sometimes you need a bit more acid so you can add a little red wine vinegar. Toss in the olives right before serving, they will stain the fennel and if you put them in too soon the fennel gets all black pocked marked and diseased looking. Yes, I’ve done it and that’s why I don’t do it anymore.

Roast Fennel

And if you like your fennel hot: roasted fennel is a tasty side dish, you can even serve it in place of roast potatoes if you like.

1 fennel bulb

Grated parmigiana cheese

Butter or Olive Oil

Prosciutto (optional)

  Cut the fennel up into large, lengthwise chunks and par boil for about 7-10 minutes until just a little soft, but not mushy.  Drain and lay the chunks in a single layer in an ovenproof dish. Dot the fennel with little chunks of butter or a drizzle of olive oil and then sprinkle liberally with grated parmigiana cheese. Roast in the oven (350F/180C) until the cheese turns bubbly and brown. For extra oomph and if there are no vegetarians coming for dinner, drape slices of prosciutto over the fennel before you add the cheese. 

If  you are into distilling your own absinthe, and who wouldn’t love to do that, fennel is one of the original botanicals used when making absinthe. One of these days, I’m going to get a still, retire into the hills of Umbria and start making moonshine.

  Still not convinced that fennel is a wondrous plant?  Here’s a list of the reported benefits of eating the fresh fennel bulb: lots of fiber, high in vitamin C, and a source of potassium. Fennel also contains “Anethole”, an essential oil that gives fennel its flavor and is being studied as a cancer preventative, and liver protector.

 So the next time you walk by fresh fennel in the supermarket and you wonder what you would do with it, now you know!  And if all this talk of fennel has put you in the mood for love, don't blame me, blame Robin.

 

 

 

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.