recipe: panzanella.

part one of the dead bread trilogy

i cannot finish a loaf of bread. my freezer is an icy graveyard of half-consumed loaves of wholegrain, pan de mie, pullman, and rye, diminished batards and baguettes that look like toppled gravestones and markers. there is only so much one can do with breadcrumbs, so i have a passel of recipes i file under "dead bread".

one of my favourites is a tuscan bread salad known as panzanella. it is extremely simple to make, but completely dependent on the freshness of your ingredients for it to be successful. perversely, the bread you use for this has to be as stale as possibly without being rancid or moldy--bone dry is best.

this particular recipe is based on my favourite version of panzanella, from the quietly fantastic angeli caffé in los angeles. it is the first version i'd ever tried, and i have not been able to find another that is comparable to it in freshness, simplicity, and flavour.



cut up at least two large ripe, but firm beefsteak-type tomatoes--you will want to use the juiciest and sweetest tomatoes possible(romas aren't juicy enough and cherries are too acidic)--in a rough dice. glug a generous amount of high quality extra virgin olive oil (about 1/2 cup) and a scant 1/4 cup red wine vinegar on top. add a fistful of rinsed, drained capers and leave to marinate. roughly chop 3 cups of stale bread (ciabattas or baguettes work well--anything with a lot of crust), into 1-1 1/2 inch cubes. peel a common slicing cucumber, cut in half and de-seed it by running a spoon through the middle. cut into bite-sized crescents. de-seed a large green bell pepper, cut into strips. mix the bread in with the vegetables in a large bowl, dump the tomatoes and the all the marinade on top. season generously with salt and pepper. the marinade soaks through the bread, just enough to give it chewiness. the bread and the cucumbers foil the acidity of the tomatoes and vinaigrette, and the bell peppers add a nice greeny touch.

name that fruit!: dayap

citrus aurantiifolia (christm. et panz.) swingle (?!), dayap, or native lime. in the philippines that is. sometimes called a mexican lime, west indian lime or key lime. it can be used any way a lime can, or even be a substitute for lemon.

i know the absolute easiest way to juice any citrus fruit is to microwave it for 20-30 seconds (to release the juice), cool it, cut in half, then stick a fork in it and twist, but i love my little lime juicer i picked up in los angeles at the farmer's market, one of my most favourite places in the world. if you ever go, stop by bennett's ice cream stand. not only are all the ice creams, sorbets, and frozen yogurts homemade, they have freshly made lemonade and limeade. one of my secret la tips: order the limeade with carbonated water--it's fresh, not too tart, not too sweet, and an absolute quencher on a hot summer's day. also, it's not on the menu; you'll be tipped as an old school los angeleno, rare to find these days.

beckham's nuts

fish+chips, guamish style

[i should really set y'all straight and let you know that "guamish", "guammy", "guamanese", "guamese" aren't real words. having said that, as you can tell, i'm not above using them as if they are]



parrot fish fillets, dipped in a batter of equal parts of flour (seasoned with sea salt) and some crazy dunkelweiss (dunkelweizen?)?, a dark, malty wheat beer. those carbon looking sticks are deep-fried rota sweet potato wedges--blackish on the outside, but that pearly purple on the inside. this v. excellent sweet potato fries recipe was found on the v. excellent sydney food diary.



bonus onion rings with the leftover batter! (no mars bars, sorry)

ginger-soy glazed salmon with purple mash

glaze for the broiled (grilling or barbecuing would work a treat, though) salmon consisted of hoisin sauce, soy sauce, grated ginger, crushed garlic, and some mirin to thin in out. sweet potato mash was made with the rota sweet potatoes, coconut milk, and a tiny bit of grated ginger and red pepper flakes.

purple sweet potatoes

generally known as the okinawan purple sweet potato--beni imo--but on guam, known as the rota sweet potato, as the nearby island is the main producer of this crop.

i like these better than the yellow or orange sweet potatoes (are the yellow ones yams? i get confused), as they are quite dense and starchy but not dry, and have an almost nutty taste to them. and they are crazy purple.

beer for blood

the cleveland regional transit authority is giving out vouchers for free beer if you donate blood to the local blood banks. somehow, it just seems sort of wrong.


why, in the name of all that is unholy, did you pick a bud light?!"

IMBB 8—Raise Your Spirits High

sunday, september 19, 2004 hosted by there's a chef in my kitchen. the only rule: use wine or spirits as a central component of your recipe. check here for details.

sorry for the lack of flourish (fluorish? no that's something with toothpaste. flourish? no cake. so confused). little cranky and lot sicky suddenly overcoming me.

recipe: turon.

banana lumpia, banana spring rolls, known as turon (tooróhn). you'll find dozens of variations, with all sorts of interesting additives from the traditional strips of langka(láhngkah)--jackfruit--to the radical chef's eclectic addition of cheese.

this is the most basic recipe, as the bananas were exceptional--perfectly ripe, creamy, substantial and sweet. no need for additional sugar or flavouring. you'll need lumpia or spring roll wrappers, saba bananas, a little water, cooking oil. cut the bananas lengthwise in half, place cut-side down somewhere towards the bottom of one wrapper horizontally, fold the vertical ends of the wrapper over the banana half, then the bottom end over it as if it was encased in an open envelope. roll the banana half away from you until completely wrapped, seal the exposed edge with water. heat a generous amount of oil up, deep fry turon until golden.

gack!

kinda cute, until you realise what it is.

beautiful failure

dark chocolate banana cake with white chocolate mascarpone ganache.

i'm not even going to post the recipe, it sucked so hard. i thought it would work, but the added bananas made the cake wet, the unsweet dark chocolate worked with the sweet bananas but not the ganache, which was sweet and creamy, but made me feel fat. maybe the two separately...? blecch. nevermind.

salabat

i'm usually not physically sick, just--as my mom would put it--"sick in the head". but yeah, i've got some bug, itchy, scratchy throat, and some interesting effluvia. it'll pass. in the meantime, i'm sipping salabat(sahlabáht), ginger tea. occasionally spiked with citrus, but mostly as is: thinly sliced peeled ginger root, brown sugar to taste, boiled in water. i like mine super-spicy, so i use a thumb-sized bit of ginger for every cuppa i make.

a tip (possibly the only thing i've ever learned from martha stewart): an easy way to peel ginger is by using the side of a spoon.



no more slicy fingers and bits.

i really was going to swim today, but i'b sick. drats.

old cookbooks never die....

saw this story about a cookbook shop in nyc. yahoo! considered it headline news, right up there with hurricane frances, the tragedy in russia, and the conflict in darfur. bless.

what's *your* favourite cookbook? do you collect old ones? is there one you would fight tooth-and-nail (or by wwe smackdown, for that matter) to own or keep?

cherry marys

[soundtrack can be found here--click "samples" then "girl wants (to say goodbye) to rock 'n' roll".]

mighty monkeys! it's labour day weekend already, which means the summer season is nearly kaput for most people who live where there are actual seasons, and nearly beginning for our antipodean friends, so perhaps i should roll out some of those recipes i've been meaning to get to.

a while back, anthony at spiceblog was envisioning a rock (music) themed meal, which involved a lot of musings, dischordant rants, and i think even a few dishes. i promised a suitable starter, so i lifted one from a peculiar cookbook, "loving and cooking with reckless abandon" by kevin gould. the hardback edition looks like it was conceived by a hopped up junior high school yearbook editor pre-apple IIe days (namely: me, then), the recipes odd but plausible (butter sesame carrots with fizzy water, f'r'instance), and the ramblings...well, rambling (this post would do it proud).

so what's the recipe, already? you impatiently ask. why, it's the cherry mary. originally christened by kevvy kev something incredibly naff--"tomatoes with a love injection"--it has been universally reborn as what it really is: a baby bloody mary injected into a cherry tomato. i also like the name because it reminds me of my favourite character, mary cherry, from the misnomered, quickly cancelled teen bitchfest "popular" (which comes out on dvd in september, yay).

I DIGRESS.

here, quickly, the recipe, slightly tweaked:

12 cherry tomatoes, brought to room temperature
a good pinch of salt
juice from one small lime
1 tbsp worcestershire sauce
1 tsp red or green tabasco sauce
a dash of celery salt
1 crushed garlic clove
200ml good quality vodka

using an empty syringe, enter each tomato through the skin near its green head, and remove as much juice as you are able. dissolve the salt in the lime juice, add the rest of the ingredients, except the vodka. zap in the microwave for a minute, cool. strain in cheesecloth, muslin, or even a paper towel. add vodka. fill the syringe with the filtered liquid and tap it a couple of time to remove any air bubbles and to appear professional.



inject a small amount into each tomato--take care, inject too much and the skin will split.



chill for an hour or so. serve with accompanying napkins as they can spurt alarmingly.

why, you ask, does this fit the rock and roll theme? well, it doesn't really, but it does spawn some rather rude remarks on my part and there *is* something about hypodermic needles....oh, chef kev says you can pick up a 10ml needle over the counter at your local pharmacy. this probably works everywhere except the u.s.; i work at my local d.e.a.-regulated pharmacy, and i'm telling you that even if you're nice to me, unless you have a prescription, i'm not giving you one. update: whoops. apparently you can get syringes in all but 7 states and territories. you may get hassled a bit, but you'll never know if it's because of regulations or because the pharmacist thinks you're a bit nutty for wanting to inject tomaters.

kampai!

cinnamon brioche rolls

some time ago, chika at she who eats blogged about some granola from la brea bakery, which led to a short discussion about the cinnamon rolls from said bakery. veronica, the chef and owner of cup and saucer (see previous posts of purchased pretty pastries), told me it was basically a brioche dough recipe, so i set about not trying to recreate it (impossibility), but to make a semi-approximation of it that would satisfy my craving, without having to fly to los angeles.

i've been attempting brioche for awhile, with varying results. the recipe that intrigues me the most is from gordon ramsay's "just desserts", but i have yet to recreate it successfully. for this particular item, i used a recipe from either ben o'donoghue or curtis stone, but it isn't in their cookbook, dagnabbit. it's somewhere in the stacks, i'll find it one day. anyway, i used one of the aussie boys' recipe for brioche, rolled it out, sprinkled brown sugar and vietnamese cinnamon over it, did all you do to make cinnamon rolls, and wa-hey, here you go.

the la brea bakery cinnamon roll is larger, with much thinner layers (i'm sure the actual recipe is in nancy silverton's pastry book), but the flavour was close, and the texture quite pleasing. less flaky due to my lack of finesse in the layering department, but tender and buttery, but not so much to overpower the spices.

wine recommendations, please!

i'm steeping fruit in vino. i am doing mixed berries in red, yellow peaches in red, and white peaches in white. i don't have a clue about reds, but i'm leaning towards a pinot grigio or even a moscato d'asti for the white peaches.

could someone suggest wines to use as steeping liquids for each of these?

mushrooms on toast

sadly, pathetically, there is a celebrity chef recipe attached to this. i know, how much more self-explanatory can this recipe possibly be? i've been reading nigel slater's autobiography, "toast" (see sidebar), and well, i've been craving it. so here is relatively complicated recipe for a v. simple dish, courtesy of bill granger's "bill's food":


1 1/2 oz. unsalted butter
1 tbsp. olive oil, plus extra, for brushing
2 garlic cloves, finely chopped
1 lb. mixed mushrooms
sea salt
freshly ground black pepper
1 tsp. balsamic vinegar
2 tbsp. chopped fresh flat-leaf parsley
1 tsp. chopped fresh tarragon
1 tsp. grated lemon zest
4 slices sourdough bread
1 garlic clove, extra, for rubbing on bread
1 cup ricotta cheese

put half the butter with the oil and chopped garlic in the saucepan over a medium to high heat. add the mushrooms, 1/4 cup water and salt and pepper, to taste. cover and cook, stirring occasionally, for about 15 minutes, or until the mushrooms are cooked and the liquid is syrupy. stir in the balsamic vinegar, parsley, tarragon and lemon zest. taste for seasoning and adjust if necessary. whisk the remaining cold butter through to thicken the mushroom sauce.

brush the bread on both sides with the extra virgin olive oil. grill until golden on both sides, then rub both sides with a cut garlic clove and place on serving plates. top with ricotta and then mushrooms and serve immediately. serves 4.

of course, adjust recipe to whatever mushrooms, herbs, bread or even cheese is handy. i used a multigrain sourdough malingering in the freezer, and omitted the cheese altogether. mmm. fungalicious!

in my shopping basket: izze.

izze, a mix of fruit juice and soda water. it either tastes like dried clementines or old tinned orange juice, depending on your cynicism. i just like the label.

recipe: oatmeal cherry almond cookies.

i don't know if i've mentioned this, but i'm not a cookie person. they're not the first baked good i want to eat, nor make. but, my mom wanted oatmeal cookies, so i obliged. i made these from a so-tweaked-its-no-longer-anything-like-the-original-recipe recipe i found on the web (hence, no link, because it's really not the same cookie).

1 c. loosely packed brown sugar
1 c. unsalted butter, slightly softened
1 c. dried cherries
1 c. slivered almonds
2 large eggs
1-2 tbsp. golden syrup (optional)
2 c. self-raising flour
1 1/2 c. flaked oats
1/4 tsp. baking soda

cream sugar and butter. add eggs and golden syrup; mix well. meanwhile cook cherries in water (to cover) in microwave for about a minute to plump them up. discard half the liquid, cool. mix flour, baking soda, oats and nuts together. add cherries and cooking liquid to the wet ingredients; mix well. loosely fold the dry ingredients in, leave batter to sit for at least half an hour (can be refrigerated overnight, but the cookie texture will be different). drop teaspoons of the batter onto a greased cookie sheet. bake 13-15 minutes at 350˚F. cool before storing.

they are soft, a little chewy, and not particularly sweet. i slightly undercooked half the batch, to see if they'd become chewier (not really), then baked the other half until golden brown for crispy edges. i have to confess, i thought these cookies were just okay. other people loved them, though, and my mom liked them enough to request a second batch.