Balance is hard

A friend of mine who lives in NYC was telling me that she was going to Felidia, one of Lydia Bastianich's restaurants in New York, for a family celebration.
I always like to give a look to Italian restaurants abroad.

Checking on the online menu, an antipasto caught my eye: Le Barbabietole, marinated beets, goat cheese, peach, watercress, balsamic vinaigrette.
I've never been a fan of beets, until this summer, when I felt the urge to buy some and I actually ate them!
So, instantly, I needed to know how a similar combination would taste.

I took some of the last peaches around, some beets, goat cheese, basil instead of watercress.
Goat cheese here in Italy is not as tangy as the one you normally find in the US, so I should have known that the balance came all down on the vinaigrette.
But for some reason, I decided to divert from the balsamic vinaigrette and put together something that could probably be called a "Bellini Vinaigrette": champagne vinegar, a hint of peach syrup (home made), olive oil, a dash of salt, pepper and Dijon mustard.



I had to work on that dash and on the proportions of the vinaigrette quite a lot, because all the other ingredients were on the sweet side.

The result wasn't too bad, but not exciting either, that's probably why my name is not Lydia.
I think I'll try that vinaigrette on something more appropriate.



But as for now, I'm still curious to know how those "Le Barbabietole" taste.

Zol-au-Vent and Vol-au-Rocher

The September 2009 Daring Bakers' challenge was hosted by Steph of A Whisk and a Spoon. She chose the French treat, Vols-au-Vent based on the Puff Pastry recipe by Michel Richard from the cookbook Baking With Julia by Dorie Greenspan.

This was a nice challenge, but I had an accidental shortcut to it.
September has been pretty hot here, not exactly the right climate to make puff pastry.
BUT!



I had in the freezer some I had made in late spring. I kept it there as a last resort, waiting until the last moment to see if I had a cold day to document the entire challenge, but the cold day never came (and I can't say I'm sorry for that), so I hope that my word on being the maker of the pastry is valid enough as for the accomplishment of the challenge.
It must be, because if I had bought it, it sure would have risen much better!



Vol-au-vents are tricky to eat: the puff pastry crumbles a lot (at least, you hope it does!) and when they are big you risk The Big Splash Of Content.
That's why I went for bite-size.
Maybe too much, but in my opinion this is a case where smaller is better.

I made an appetizer and a dessert.
The appetizer involves one of my family's all time favourites: gorgonzola, which was paired with pears.



Nothing else: the pears were ripe and juicy enough to give out the right amount of liquid and only a few seconds of heat were needed to melt the zola in order to mix the two.



The dessert was a reinterpretation of a Ferrero Rocher, the puff pastry playing the part of the wafer.



A quick ganache with Nutella and whipped cream, added with ground hazelnuts.

In my intentions, a whole hazelnut was to be in the center of the vol-au-vent, but a whole hazelnut didn't fit in the bitesize structure without pulling the balance with chocolate too much.




I wish my husband took some classes of creative food writing: asking for an opinion and just getting "MMMMHHHH!" for an answer, as much as participated it is, is starting not to be enough for me.

Dare to confine

This month's Daring Cooks Challenge is hosted by Debyi of healthyvegankitchen.com. She chose Indian Dosas from the refresh cookbook by Ruth Tal, and you will find the detailed recipe and procedure on her website. I'll just say here that they have a chickpeas filling and a coconut-curry sauce.

Dosas weren't that hard to cook, but the challenge was to go and see how you can have a delicious meal while going vegan. And lactose free. Am I forgetting something? Oh, yes, about 99% oil free, considered that you will need some oil to grease the pan while preparing the dosas.



The dosas were very quick to prepare, and not harder than panning crepes.



What I loved most of going into this challenge was the mise en place.



I find it very relaxing to prepare all the things I will need to cook or bake something, the more the better. I love checking the ingredients on the recipe and marking them off, lining up all the bowls, even washing them afterwards (if anyone living with me is reading, he's invited not to comment the last one).

Besides, what's not to love in handling such vivid colors in a late summer Sunday morning?



I do not like it when garlic's flavour is too strong, so I leave the whole cloves in my recipes while they're cooking, then pull them out in the end, so that there's just a hint and I don't pay it forward too much.

All the colors melt in a golden and fragrant concoction of mildly spicy and tangy fragrances:



Coconut milk was required to prepare the sauce, which usually I find here, but not the morning I decided to take the challenge.
Did it stop me?



I'm afraid the coconut's are the only pics of the saucy part.




When it came to assemble the dosas with filling and sauce, I made what I often do with normal crepes: pile them up.
Maybe it was the Dobos Torte of teh last Daring Bakers Challenge that wasn't letting me go.



This configuration was very convenient when it became clear that I would be the only consumer of my hard work.
I should know by now that my husband has a very low spicy-ness threshold: the first meal I cooked after getting married was a pretty hot chicken curry. After 3 bites he politely asked if he could stop eating; he was all red in the face and some tears were rising in his eyes. I couldn't swear it but I clearly remember some smoke coming out of his ears.
The kids were not that enticed, either.



And that's how I ended having my own Indian week!



(Thanks Lisa Michele for kicking my butt! It was the first day of school yesterday, and with all the excitement I was forgetting to post this!)

TIMOC #3: Savory Apple Crepes

(to know what TIMOC means, read here)


Third book from the right on my top shelf, is this book that Costco was giving away to every customer one Saturday morning, a couple of years ago.
It may break the pattern of International and travel books, but in a sort of way it doesn't: the nearest Costco is about a thousand miles from here, so what was once a regular place of shopping for us, sounds now quite exotic! ;-)

Of course I didn't do my shopping there for the recipe I'm about to show: Savory Apple Crepes.
It is in the Breakfast section, but we had the crepes for a light lunch.

The recipe called for ready made crepes, but it takes 20 minutes to make them, so I always prefer to cook them from scratch.



My recipe (don't ask me where I got it, can't remember at all) asks for 1.5 tbsp of butter, melted, 3 eggs, 2 cups of flour, 2 cups of milk and a pinch of salt.



As for the filling, it's
4 tbsp butter,
2 tbsp shallots (I used green onion),
4 apples (I chose Granny Smith), peeled and diced,
1/3 golden raisins
(in a)
1/4 cup white wine,
2 tsp flour,
1 tsp curry powder,
1/3 whipping cream,
some slices of manchego cheese (I used local cheese, manchego is impossible to find here).

Melt the butter in a skillet, add the ingredients one at a time in the given order (hold the cheese).
10 minutes is all you need to have the apples cooked at the right point in a creamy sauce.



Place the filling on a crepes, and put the cheese on top, it will melt deliciously once you roll the crepe.



Voilà!

Lasagnette With White Asparagus

How is it to eat a botanical book?


There are things and ingredients that seem so nice and cute that you would really want to be inspired and enhance them properly.
Of course, when you want to have an idea you can watch out of your real or mental window and go on for months just blabbering inside.

This was the case for me with parsley-decorated lasagne, a concept I had seen flipping through some Martha Stewart's book: just before the final roll out of your pasta, when folding for the last time, add some leaves of parsley and those teeny tiny leaves of basil as a middle layer and you will find yourself with some of cutest vintage looking sheets of pasta.

In this case pasta was made with plain (AP) wheat flour, as rustic texture is not needed.
You will have to work with small pieces and roll them in different directions if you'd like the leaves to hold the right proportions.

Thing is, usually lasagne come with heavy and colorful dressing and sauces that hide all the magic, and I never made it other than for my personal pleasure.

But then, another ingredient comes over, another one of those you're not too sure about.

White asparagus are all the rage in North Eastern Italy during the month of May. Very subtle in flavour, people seem to be able to say if a particular kind is from a specific town or from a village 2 miles away. I didn't want to blog about the usual pairing with eggs or with salt and vinegar, and that's when the two odds paired in my mind.
The pale and delicate shades of asparagus would complement and go well together the fairy design of herbed lasagne.

To give flavour without disturbing the palette, pesto was the answer.

Cut the lasagne in squares, boil them individually for about 90 seconds and steam the cleaned asparagus (or place them in a microwave-proof dish with half an inch of water and nuke them for 5 minutes).

Lay one square on the plate, place an asparagus layer and brush with some pesto, previously diluted with one or two tablespoons of the hot and starchy water where you boiled the pasta.

Repeat, repeat, repeat, enjoy.