Tomato Kumato

March 30, 2009

What’s in a name?

Filed under: Appetizers, Side Dishes — Tags: , , — emiglia @ 7:42 am

When I introduce myself in French, I say that my name is Emilie, which it’s not. It’s Emily (which the French take to pronouncing Hem-lee).

I don’t know why I do it. Alex makes sure that everyone, including his English teacher, knows that his name is Alexandre, not Alexander.

I have never been terribly attached to my own name. It’s very common, the second most popular girls’ name for the year I was born. It’s not my parents’ fault that everyone decided that 1987 was the year to pull what had, until then, been considered an old-fashioned name out of the woodworks.

I much prefer the other versions of my name. Not Emilie, not really. I like Amélie, which is what Alex thought my name was for the first whole year I knew him. I like Emilia, the Spanish version of my name. But I don’t introduce myself as Emiglia in Italy or as Emilia in Spain. I always try to make the locals pronounce my name “Emily,” which never ends up sounding right anyway.

I have a theory that most bilingual people agree with me on: people who speak two languages often feel as though they have two versions of themselves. When they speak one language, they feel like one person, and when they speak the other, they feel as if they take on a different personality. The differences may not be extreme, but they’re there.

Maybe my two names is a version of this, a version that developed long before I became bilingual. Who knows?

I introduce myself as Emilie in French, and I don’t know why.

Children who are raised bilingual have a much easier time with the logic that changing the name of something doesn’t change what it is. The fact that you could, in theory, call a cat a dog and a dog a cat does not pose much of a problem in their logic. Children raised with only one language have a very hard time grasping this fact.

Maybe it’s because I wasn’t raised bilingual, but even though I can grasp the logic of this, I’m not sure I agree, at least when it comes to cross-linguistic borders. The names Emily and Emilie have different connotations in the two languages. Florence and Hortense in French are perfectly normal names to give a child, while their English equivalents are what Emily was in 1987: antiquated.

The zucchini has a similar identity crisis. Sometimes courgette and sometimes zucchini, it masquerades with two names, two names that apparently mean the same thing. But to me, they don’t sound the same. A courgette seems proper, something you could serve at a ladies’ luncheon or as an hors d’oeuvre at a cocktail party. A zucchini seems much more unassuming, like something you could toss in a soup or on the grill.

I don’t know if these are stuffed zucchini or stuffed courgettes. Regardless of the name, they were delicious.

As for me, I’ll content myself with being Emiglia for now: I have been for nearly four years now, and it’s suiting me quite well.

Stuffed Summer Squash of Some Sort (adapted from Almost Turkish)

1 zucchini/courgette
1 oz. feta cheese
1 egg
1 tsp. dried mint
1/4 tsp. black pepper
olive oil

Preheat the oven to 400 degrees. Wash and dry the zucchini and slice it in half, lengthwise. Rub a small amount of olive oil on the cut sides and roast, face down, for 10-15 minutes, until brown.

Meanwhile, combine the feta, egg, mint and pepper in a small bowl with a fork until smooth. (A few chunks of feta is OK.)

Scoop the seeds from the zucchini and dispose of them. Fill each side of the zucchini with the mixture. Return to the oven and bake until the egg is set and the cheese is browned.

March 29, 2009

Daring Bakers: Lasagne Verdi al Forno

Filed under: Beef, Carnivorous Main Dishes, Daring Bakers, Pasta, Pork — Tags: , — emiglia @ 3:02 pm

The March 2009 challenge is hosted by Mary of Beans and Caviar, Melinda of Melbourne Larder and Enza of Io Da Grande. They have chosen Lasagne of Emilia-Romagna from The Splendid Table by Lynne Rossetto Kasper as the challenge.

I was so excited that my very first Daring Bakers’ Challenge was something savory: I joined the Daring Bakers because I really do want to challenge myself, but if you take a look at some of the monstrous cakes the Bakers have made in the past, you’ll understand why I was a little bit nervous.

The lasagna was no easy task either: we had to make a ragu, homemade spinach pasta and homemade béchamel.


In the end, I found that all of the tasks were fairly simple. Yes, the ragu has to cook for hours before it’s ready to eat, and yes, the pasta requires a lot of rolling. But I paced myself and made the ragu separately a few days in advance. I had already made béchamel several times for other recipes, so it was quite simple as well.

That just left the pasta recipe, but in the end, I just asked myself why I didn’t make homemade pasta more often.

Especially now that it’s all gone.

I love the flecks of spinach in the homemade pasta!
I made half of the pasta recipe provided but I made all of the ragu and béchamel. I ended up making much thicker layers than were called for in the recipe: I used three layers of pasta and I used up all of the béchamel. Some ragú was left, so I tossed it with the leftover pasta.

They ate all of it.

Alex swooned and started telling people on the phone that I made homemade lasagna “à la main,” and then my friend Matt came over and finished it off.

As for me? I loved it. It’s definitely in the top two lasagne I’ve ever had in my life, and the fact that there were no artificial flavorings and everything was made by hand makes it shoot up to number one in my book.

I’ll definitely be making it again… but this time I’m making a bigger batch.

The recipe is available here.

Please, don’t be scared off by fresh pasta like I was: try this recipe. Your loved ones will thank you for it… with their mouths full.

March 28, 2009

Cake Day: Lemon Cake

Filed under: Cake Day, Cakes — Tags: , — emiglia @ 8:13 am


I’m starting to understand the distinction between what are traditionally considered “guys’ jobs” and “girls’ jobs.”

Of course, there are exceptions to all of these, but there are certain chores, certain jobs around the house that are generally considered to be one or the other.

First, an obvious one: the grill. Fire is manly, that’s easy. But maybe there’s something else? Grilling is straightforward. I know that–at least in my family–the grilling was definitely done by the man, but the pre-grilling, the menu planning, the seasoning, all of that was done by the women. All the guys had to do was throw a slab of raw animal on the grill and let us know when it was done (a feat in and of itself: I still have a hard time grilling.)

But I digress.

Some jobs are men’s jobs: grilling, driving, taking out the trash. Most of the other work around the house is traditionally considered to be “women’s work.”

(Yes, I realize this is changing, but it’s either all French men (and a few Canadians) or just those that I’ve met who seem to be stuck circa Donna Reed.)

I was thinking about this as I cleaned the kitchen and Alex took out the trash. All of the jobs that have typically been men’s work, from grilling to mowing the lawn, have immediate results and are clear from the get go: the trash is full, it must go out, now the trash can is empty: job over.

Even if cooking is now sometimes in the realm of men, one thing that seems to be staying a girl’s job is baking.

Baking is difficult, at least at first. There is a specific order in which you need to add things to a recipe, a specific way in which you need to combine each set of ingredients before moving on to another step. Unless you’re interested in chemistry (Alton Brown), at first, these steps can seem pointless, and I know several guys who would look at the list of ingredients and dump them all in a bowl: the first time I ever baked, I was baking cinnamon bread with my father. I was scared of yeast doughs for years after because the dough we ended up with was so expanded and so wet and messy that we dubbed it “the snot.”

Sorry, that was gross.

I have, however, managed to get over my fear of baking… enough to instate Cake Day at least, and so here’s this week’s contribution. (Remember: if you’d like your weekly baking featured here, just send me an e-mail with a permalink to your post, and I’ll include you).

This week’s Cake Day featured a Lemon Cake that I found at Nosh with Me, in honor of Lemon Day, a blog event devoted to everything lemon.

The recipe made enough for two loaf pans, but since I didn’t have two, I baked one loaf and a dozen muffins.

Then I licked the bowl. I’m not sorry.

I may be no Donna Reed, but I can definitely bake a cake.

Lemon Cake (adapted from Nosh With Me)

1/2 pound (2 sticks) unsalted butter, at room temperature
2 1/2 cups granulated sugar, divided
4 extra-large eggs, at room temperature (I used five medium eggs)
1/3 cup grated lemon zest (I used slightly less: the zest from four lemons)
3 cups flour
1/2 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon kosher salt
1/2 cup freshly squeezed lemon juice
1 cup plain yogurt

Lemon Syrup
1/4 cup sugar
1/4 freshly squeezed lemon juice

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F. Grease one loaf pan and one muffin tin.

Cream the butter and 2 cups sugar. Add the eggs, combining each one into the mixture one at a time, and the lemon zest.

Sift together the flour, baking powder, baking soda, and salt in a bowl. In another bowl, combine 1/2 cup lemon juice with the yogurt. Add the flour and buttermilk mixtures alternately to the batter, beginning and ending with the flour. Divide the batter evenly between the pans, smooth the tops, and bake for 45 minutes to 1 hour, until a cake tester comes out clean.

Combine 1/4 cup granulated sugar with 1/4 cup lemon juice in a small saucepan and cook over low heat until the sugar dissolves. When the cakes are done, allow to cool for 10 minutes. Remove the cakes from the pans and set them on a rack set over a tray or sheet pan. Poke holes in the cakes with a fork, and spoon the hot lemon syrup over the hot cakes. Allow the cakes to cool completely.

March 27, 2009

I Made My Own Roti!

Filed under: Beans and Legumes, Bread, Curry — Tags: , , , — emiglia @ 3:55 am

I have mentioned The English One on this blog before.

We met in college, and ever since, we have been best friends, even when he moved back to Wales and I kept living in Canada. Now he lives near London and I live in Paris, so we see each other a bit more often (still not enough). We do have some pretty good banter going on via iPhone/MSN, especially now that we’re in (nearly) the same time zone, and whenever I’m about to start making a new curry recipe (which, as you can see, is pretty often), he gets some sort of message.

“I’m making Indian food for dinner!”

Then, he translates whatever it is I say I’m making into Gujarati and tells me what his mom is making for dinner, which is invariably ten times better than what I’m making because a) She’s Indian, b) She has a spice pantry I would kill for, c) The woman makes her own yogurt, for chrissakes!

But I live in Paris, which may be famous for its duck à l’orange and blanquette de veau, but is definitely not famous for food of the spicy type, and so if I decide to venture into the world of curry, I must do so on my own.

I’ve gotten pretty comfortable with my flavor base after several tries, but then, of course, a challenge called, and I had to answer it.

Lavi at Home Cook’s Recipes is running this month’s RCI event, and the cuisine of choice is Lucknow. I didn’t think I knew what Lucknow cuisine was until I read up on it (read: wikipedia-ed it) and found out that most of the breads we eat at Indian restaurants like naan, paratha and roti are from this area.

I knew immediately what I wanted to do.

I had already bookmarked a simple lentil dish over at the Wednesday Chef. I checked the pantry and saw that I had green lentils, split peas and chickpeas–not quite five lentils, but close enough for someone who doesn’t shop at a lot of specialty stores, so I decided to make my very own roti to go with it.

I found a recipe for roomali roti online, and it seemed simple enough, although I was skeptical: I had seen chefs making naan in Indian restaurants, and it looked pretty hard. Plus, the recipe called for a sort of pan that I had never even heard of, much less bought to have around for roti emergencies.

Of course, I immediately notified the English One of my plans. (To protect his privacy [the British say it funny with a short "i"{I love having an excuse to use curly brackets}], I have changed his screen name for the purposes of this blog post.

emiglia: i’m making indian food tonight

emiglia: it’s very exciting

the english one: Ohh

the english one: What you gonna make?

emiglia: 5 lentil daal

the english one: My faaaave

the english one: Panch-kurki-dal <– this is where he tells me the Gujarati name!

emiglia: also this bread i’ve never made before

the english one: What bread?

emiglia: roomali roti

the english one: roomali?  <– this is where he has no idea what I’m making either.

Luckily for me, Google is well versed in many languages, and it kindly informed me of the fact that roomali means “hanky” as in handkerchief. As in, you’re supposed to fold the bread like a handkerchief.

Long story short, that didn’t happen. The roti was really easy to make though, I just don’t think I rolled it out thinly enough to fold it like a handkerchief. The only other trouble I had with it was an ingredient I had never heard of before: maida. Google helped me out again, and I learned that maida is a finely-milled flour and that US cake flour would be a good substitute. Since French all-purpose flour is more finely milled than American all-purpose, I figured that it would work out well.

Rolled-out dough, ready to be cooked!
Making roti was one of those kitchen experiences where I sit down to eat and am suddenly overcome by the strange feeling that someone else made what I’m eating. It’s not that it was at all complicated: I just never thought that I would be making the bread that I usually eat out of a tinfoil wrapper from Indian takeout restaurants at home, and the bread that I made with a few simple ingredients tasted exactly like what I’m used to.

I’m really glad that I participated in this challenge. I’ve never been a huge fan of rice, so I usually don’t make anything to accompany my Indian food. I’ll be making roti as often as I make curry from now on.

Rumali Roti (adapted from Indian Food Forever)

Note: This makes six small roti. Three is about enough for one person. Feel free to double the recipe as you see fit.

3/4 cup Whole Wheat Flour
3 tbsp. Maida
1/4 tsp Baking powder
1 tbsp oil
1 tsp. salt
Water

Combine the first three ingredients in a bowl. Mix in the oil. Add water by the tablespoon until the dough comes together. Form a smooth ball, and then leave to rest in a glass bowl covered with a damp cloth for at least half an hour.

When you’re ready to make the roti, heat a dry skillet over high heat. Separate the dough into six even pieces.

Roll each piece into a ball. Flour a surface and then roll out the roti as thinly as possible: you should be able to see through the dough. Place the dough in the hot skillet and allow to cook, about a minute per side. Keep warm under the same damp cloth in an oven. Serve as soon as possible.

Three Légume Stew (adapted from The Wednesday Chef)

Note: When I make curries and dals and the like, I like to have a lot of leftovers for my and Alex’s lunches during the week. This makes a LOT of dal. Feel free to cut down if you like.

Secondary note: As always with dishes like this, you should continue to taste throughout the cooking process to see if you need to add a bit more spice. I know that I added as it cooked, but I don’t know exactly how much. Taste, and you’ll know if it needs more of something.

Dal:
1 28 oz. can chickpeas, drained
1 cup green lentils
1 cup split peas
2 teaspoon curry powder
2 teaspoon cayenne pepper

Spice blend:
1 tablespoon vegetable oil
3 large onion, finely chopped
1 clove garlic, finely chopped
1 tablespoon ground cumin
1 tablespoon garam masala
1 whole cayenne pepper
1 and 1/2 28 oz. cans whole tomatoes
salt to taste

Rinse and pick over the lentils and split peas, and place in a pot with enough water to cover by about an inch. Bring the water to a boil, then turn off the heat and add the curry powder and cayenne pepper. Cover the pot and allow to sit until tender, about an hour.

Make the spice blend: sauté the onion in the oil until translucent, about three mintues. Add the garlic and spices, and cook until fragrant, about one minute. Add the tomatoes and salt to taste, and cook, stirring occasionally, until the tomatoes have reduced, about fifteen minutes.

Add the chickpeas and the spice blend to the lentils. Cook together over medium-low heat for five to ten minutes to allow the flavors to come together. Taste for salt and seasoning. Serve hot.

March 26, 2009

Sweet Potato, Goat Cheese and Balsamic Onion Tart

Filed under: Pie, Vegetarian Main Dishes — Tags: , , , — emiglia @ 11:30 am


There aren’t a lot of things that smell better than onions slowly caramelizing in butter.

I’m not necessarily telling you all of this just so that you are immediately aware (if you weren’t before) of the joys of butter and onions slowly cooked together until they harmonize into something so sweet and so soft it’s almost spreadable. Rather, I am writing this to let my future self know that if I ever have a bad day, the first thing I should do is start caramelizing some onions.

Caramelized onions were part of my dinner plans for tonight anyway. Slicing my hand open as a glass I was washing shattered in my grip was not. I held my hand above my head for an hour, contemplated stitches and bemoaned the time I was wasting on my stupid finger when I could have been: 1) Blogging, 2) Doing the online crossword puzzle, 3) Grocery shopping. I was kind of glad that I got to stop doing the dishes and that Alex did them for me when he got home, but that’s beside the point.

Luckily, caramelized onions changed all that. Sure, I still have a pretty impressive gash in the back of my hand, and sure, when I spilled the boiling soup that was supposed to be my lunch all over myself, including said gash, I still let off a string of expletives that would make a sailor blush, but when I think about the caramelized onions… well… none of that really seems to matter anymore.

I suppose I should move on: you see, caramelized onions were not meant to be our whole dinner. I love them, but not that much. Rather, the onions were one layer in a tart that I was constructing with sweet potatoes, goat cheese and balsamic vinegar.


Served simply with a green salad (as are so many things in my kitchen), this was our dinner. The potatoes were thinly sliced and turned crispy on the top, guarding the goat cheese and allowing it to melt through the caramelized onions. The crust was a homemade one that I seasoned with black pepper, and the butteriness of it made it somewhat decadent for a weeknight…

I deserve it. I’m wounded.

Sweet Potato, Goat’s Cheese and Balsamic Onion Tart

For the crust:
1 1/8 cup all purpose flour
8 tbsp. butter
1 tsp. salt
1/2 tsp. pepper
cold water

Combine the flour, salt and pepper in a bowl. Cut the cold butter into the flour, using your fingertips to rub it together until it is pebbly. Add cold water by the tablespoon, gently incorporating it, until the dough just comes together. Wrap in plastic wrap and keep in the fridge until ready to use. Meanwhile, prepare the filling.

For the filling:
1 sweet potato, thinly sliced (use a mandoline if you have one)
60 g. (about 2 ounces) goat’s cheese
2 onions, thinly sliced
2 tsp. balsamic vinegar
2 tsp. olive oil, separated
1 tbsp. butter
salt and pepper

Begin by heating the butter and 1 teaspoon of olive oil in a skillet over low heat. Add the onions and the vinegar and season with salt. Allow them to cook and gently caramelize for about twenty minutes, stirring occasionally. Allow to cool slightly before assembling the tart.

Preheat the oven to 375 degrees.

Assemble the tart by rolling out the dough and placing it in the bottom of a pie pan. Spread the onions over the dough, moving quickly so that the butter in the dough does not melt. Sprinkle the goat cheese evenly over the onion layer. Then, assemble the rounds of sweet potato in circles over the cheese layer. Press down lightly, and season with salt, pepper, and the remaining teaspoon of oil.

Bake for thirty minutes, until the crust is golden brown and the potatoes are cooked through.

March 25, 2009

My Legume Love Affair: Minestrone

Filed under: Appetizers, Beans and Legumes — Tags: , , , , — emiglia @ 7:52 am

When I lived alone, I was all about the legumes.

Canned chickpeas, white beans and brown lentils were the three that most frequently appeared in my pantry, and I never tired of ways of making them.

Now that I’m living with Alex and cooking for both of us, I aim to please, and those of you frequenting this site may have noticed a change from one-pot vegetarian meals to more traditional meat+2veg meals.

The truth is, sometimes I miss my stews, chilis and dals. And so, when Alex is at work, I spend my time putting together big, steamy pots of food that can be eaten out of a bowl with a spoon and hopefully take kindly to a few shakes of Tabasco sauce, which, as most people who have spent any significant amount of time with me know, is my favorite way to enjoy food.

Minestrone fits all three of these categories, and I made a huge pot of it last week to eat as lunch for a few days. Minestrone for me has a few characters that have a command performance: whole canned tomatoes, onions, cabbage, carrots, zucchini, white beans, ditalini and some sort of bacon. After I have assembled these ingredients, all bets are off: if I have extra veggies rolling around in the fridge, I toss them in. If I have a rind of parmesan cheese, that goes in too.

This is my entry for My Legume Love Affair: 9th helping, which is being hosted this month by Laurie at Mediterranean Cooking in Alaska celebrates some of my favorite foods… legumes! The event was started by Susan at the Well-Seasoned Cook, and you can read all about it on her blog.

Unfortunately, this time around, I guess I outdid myself with this version of minestrone: Alex, who always looks for steak for dinner, ended up finishing my pot of minestrone. *Sigh*… guess it’s time to make some more.

Minestrone

Note: I am posting a recipe for the version I made this time around, but really, you can use any combination of vegetables you like.

3-4 ounces (100 g.) bacon, lardons or pancetta, cubed
olive oil
1 branch celery, finely chopped
2 onions, chopped
1 red pepper, chopped
4 carrots, cut into rounds
1 zucchini, cut into half-moons
1/2 green cabbage, chopped
1 28. oz. can tomatoes
1 tbsp. dried basil
1 tbsp. dried oregano
1 28 oz. can white beans
ditalini or other small pasta
4-5 leaves basil
salt and pepper

In a large heavy-bottomed pot, heat the bacon over medium heat until it begins to release grease and brown. Stir in the celery and onions, adding a pinch of salt. When the onions are soft, add the red pepper and carrots and turn the heat up to high. Stirring often, allow the vegetables to take on some color.

Add the zucchini and cabbage and stir. Cook about five minutes, stirring frequently. Add the canned tomatoes and a bit of water to get to the consistency that you like. Add the dried basil and oregano and allow to cook, stirring once in awhile, for a half-hour.

Right before serving, add the beans and a handful of pasta for each person who will be eating. Add a bit of water so that the pasta can cook, and simmer for five minutes, or until the pasta is cooked through. Taste for seasoning and then remove from the heat. Stir in the basil leaves and serve.

This soup keeps well as long as you don’t add the pasta and beans until you are ready to serve. I usually add beans and pasta to my serving and keep the rest of the beans in a tupperware to add as I continue to eat the soup throughout the week.

March 24, 2009

Lemon-Butter Shrimp with Basil and Feta

Filed under: Pasta, Seafood — Tags: , , , , — emiglia @ 7:37 am

This past December, I received a package from England.

When I opened it, I found this:

There’s a reason your best friend is your best friend: the English One knows me all too well, and he sent me this kit to grow my own hot peppers. The package said that the optimal time to plant them was March/April, so last week while the sun was shining in Paris, I planted the little seeds and wrote their names on popsicle sticks so I would remember which was which.

Too bad they haven’t born fruit yet: I would have loved to have used my own home-grown peppers in this Grow Your Own Challenge! I guess I’ll have to wait. In the meantime, I’ve been using the basil plant you can see hiding behind my peppers.

Basil is probably my favorite food ever. I adore the smell: it makes me think of summer days picking basil in my mom’s garden. I’ve been known to pick the leaves and chew on them all alone, but of course they’re better when they’re accompanying something.

I found a recipe for Gulf Shrimp with Feta Cheese and Lemon Butter Sauce over at Running with Tweezers, which has quickly become my go-to blog since I found it just a few short weeks ago. I edited the recipe a bit: Tami used tomato, which definitely isn’t in season yet, so I left it out. It’s harder to find uncooked shrimp here, and nearly impossible to find peeled ones, so I peeled my own cooked shrimp and used the shells to make shrimp stock to use for later. Feel free to use uncooked shrimp if you like: just head over to Tami’s site to see how she did it.

She also used cilantro, but I’ve recently learned that the boy is one of those weird people who doesn’t like cilantro. Since I have fresh basil, I decided to use that instead.

The result was a restaurant-quality dish that we both adored. I love to use angel hair pasta with seafood, and the delicate balance of the lemon-butter sauce over the capellini was incredible. I served it with a simple salad of soft lettuces with lemon vinaigrette. It was a delicious meal to remind us that spring is here, and, of course, it was great to use some of my own basil to make the recipe.

This is my submission for this round of the Grow Your Own challenge. Feel free to head over and submit your own recipes!

Lemon-Butter Shrimp with Basil and Feta (adapted from Running with Tweezers)

1 pound cooked shrimp with heads and tails
1 clove garlic, cut in half
2 tbsp white wine
1 tbsp lemon juice
1 ounce feta cheese
1 tbsp butter
5 leaves basil, ripped into pieces
salt and pepper, to taste
7 oz. cappellini

Melt the butter over low heat and add the garlic to infuse it. Meanwhile, remove the heads and tails from the shrimp and boil water for the cappellini.

Increase the heat under the butter and add the wine. Cook for two minutes to reduce slightly. Remove the garlic cloves.

Add the cappellini to the water and add the shrimp to the skillet. Toss and cover. Cook for one minute, just to heat through: be careful not to overcook the shrimp!

Remove the skillet from the heat and add the lemon juice. Stir to combine. When the cappellini is done (it cooks for about three minutes total) use tongs to remove it from the pot and add it to the skillet, stirring to combine. Add some pasta water if necessary. Taste for seasoning.

Move the pasta and shrimp to a serving dish. Top with basil and feta cheese. Serve immediately.

March 23, 2009

Frisée Salad with Lardons and Fried Eggs

Filed under: Pork, Salad — Tags: , , , — emiglia @ 6:06 am

My family, as I’m sure many do, have a lot of emotional attachments to food. Of all the people in my family, though, my father is the worst when it comes to emotional cravings.

My dad doesn’t really cook, but he knows when something is the way he wants it, and after he’s tasted “the one,” no other version will do.

The foods he wants always seem to be something difficult to get, like a specific pasta from a specific restaurant or my aunt’s version of 1-2-3-4 cake. Or my brownies, when I live in France.

One of those things is this salad, which he gets from a very specific restaurant in New York. I don’t know if my mother ever tried to make it: somehow I doubt it, seeing as she would never have a craving for runny eggs. I, however, am like my father, and when I was trying to come up with a salad I could eat as lunch, I remembered this one. I threw the ingredients together easily and tasted… it was spot on.

I don’t know if my father will ever agree that this salad is as good as the one he gets in New York: it may just be the thrill of the chase that makes him crave it so. All I know is that I now have one more thing to add to my rotation of quick, healthy and tasty lunches.

This salad is my submission to the “No Time to Cook” recipe roundup for March. This roundup is a great idea, offering “simple, nutritious and interesting recipes in under 10-15 minutes.” I love the idea, and I hope you do too. You can submit your recipes any time before the 25th, so put your thinking caps on for something simple and healthy!

Frisée Salad with Lardons and Fried Eggs (serves two)

100 g. lardons or bacon, cut into small dice
4 eggs
bagged winter lettuce or an assortment of winter lettuces like frisée, radicchio, spinach, etc.
olive oil
cider vinegar
salt and pepper

Heat a skillet over medium heat and add the lardons. Stir occasionally until they have given off grease and darkened, about 3-5 minutes. Remove the lardons to two plates.

Add a touch of olive oil to the pan if necessary. Crack the eggs into the pan and season with salt and pepper. Allow to cook until the white is cooked through but the yolk is still liquidy.

While the eggs cook, top each plate of lardons with a few handfuls of greens. Season the greens with salt, pepper, olive oil and cider vinegar to taste. Top each plate with two fried eggs.

When the egg yolks are pierced and mixed with the oil and vinegar, an incredible dressing is formed. There’s a reason my father loves this salad so much.

March 22, 2009

Cake Day: Elvis Presley Banana Bread

Filed under: Cake Day, Quickbreads — Tags: , — emiglia @ 6:50 am

I’ve told you all about cake day before, but as I was making this Elvis Presley Banana Bread, I realized that I wanted to share cake day with all you out there in the blogging world even more.

So I’ve decided to post my cake day creation every Saturday (I realize that today is Sunday, but I made this late last night and didn’t have time to post), and I also want to invite all of you to post your cake day baked goods with me! If you want me to include your cake day post (it doesn’t have to be cake… just a sweet treat to share with those around you), just send me the link to your post via e-mail (tomatokumatoATgmailDOTcom), and I’ll include a link here.

As for this week’s cake day, I decided to make banana bread. I’ve never made banana bread before, although I’ve had it dozens of times. Bananas are one of the only foods in the world that I will not eat, but when they’re in banana bread, I actually really like them (it’s a textural issue). I combined banana bread and peanut butter, which I realize I’m not the first to do, but I used chunky peanut butter so that the texture came through in the final product.

Most banana bread recipes use more flour than this one, but I’ve found that the banana flavor comes through much stronger with less flour. Just be sure to grease your pan well: I used a nonstick pan that I usually don’t grease, and I had a hell of a time getting the bread out.

This quickbread is my submission to BBD #18- Quickbreads which is being hosted by Mansi at the Fun and Food blog. You can submit your own entries until April 1st.

Elvis Presley Banana Bread
1 3/4 cups all-purpose flour
1/2 cup granulated sugar
1/2 cup packed brown sugar
1 Tbs baking powder
3/4 tsp salt
1 tsp ground cinnamon
1 1/2 cups mashed banana (about 2 medium bananas)
1 cup milk
3/4 cup peanut butter (I used chunky)
1 large egg

Preheat oven to 350 degrees, and grease a loaf pan.

In one bowl, combine the mashed bananas and milk. Mix in the peanut butter until the mixture is smooth. Add the sugars and the egg, and mix until combined.

Add the flour, baking powder, cinnamon and salt and slowly mix in to the wet ingredients.

Pour the batter into the prepared loaf pan and bake for about 50 minutes until a tester comes out clean with a few crumbs attached.

March 18, 2009

Wednesday How Tos: Mac and Cheese

Filed under: Pasta, Vegetarian Main Dishes, Wednesday How To, cheese — Tags: , — emiglia @ 8:02 am

Macaroni and cheese is definitely one of my (and many other people, I’m sure) comfort foods. It can come in any form: Stouffer’s reheatable, Kraft bright-orange-in-a-box, hell, some shredded cheese on top of pasta stuck in the microwave was my go-to meal in the high school cafeteria.

The thing is, homestyle baked macaroni and cheese is actually not that hard to make. I like mine complete with a crunchy breadcrumb crust and parmesan cheese, but you can do whatever you like.

First off, you have to pick a pasta shape. I usually go with shells, like in this picture, but I’ll use whatever short pasta I have lying around. Tube pasta like penne or maccheroni are great for getting even more cheesy sauce.

The first thing you have to learn about baking a classic macaroni casserole is how to make a white sauce.

White sauce, also known by the French name béchamel or the Italian name besciamella. Making white sauce can seem difficult at first, but while the sauce can be fussy, it’s actually not too hard to make. Simply heat a tablespoon of butter with a tablespoon of flour in the bottom of a pot (this is called a roux). Stir until smooth, but don’t allow it to darken. Then add a cup of heated milk, slowly, whisking until it’s encorporated and the sauce is thick. If you keep these proportions, you should have no problems. The only issue I ever have is sometimes the flour in my sauce clumps. You can either pass the clumps through a strainer and then mix them slowly back in, or you can do what I do (which is probably breaking about a hundred culinary laws) and stick your immersion blender in there for a second.

Remove the sauce from the heat: now it’s time for cheese.

Once you have removed the sauce from the heat, add whatever cheese strikes your fancy. Grate it or at least cut it into a dice before adding it to help the melting go more quickly: if you have to turn the heat back on to melt the cheese, your sauce may get grainy.

The classic macaroni and cheese uses cheddar or American, but you can really use any cheese you want. Once you have the basics down, you can try a variety of different versions.

Adding parmesan and nutmeg will give you a macaroni that tastes more like alfredo sauce than a typical casserole, but it’s quite delicious. I prefer to serve this version without baking, like in the second picture.

A mix of cheeses and spices can make your macaroni and cheese taste Tex-mex (try pepper jack, cheddar, cumin and black pepper).

Throw in some veggies, and mac and cheese gets a little healthier.

The possibilities are endless!

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