Tomato Kumato

I did some investigative cooking recently and attempted one of the recipes from the Mange Mon Geek episodes I posted over at Accidental Hedonist last week.

The results? Come check it out…

I’ve never really understood why people feel the need to turn sweet potatoes into dessert. I get that they taste good with marshmallows and nutmeg every once in awhile, but carrots and pumpkin don’t seem to suffer the same fate all the time.

I love sweet potatoes. They’re an excellent source of vitamins, as well as beta carotene, which helps with eyesight and aids against lung cancer. I would love to have more of them in my diet, but I don’t have many recipes that include them (except for this awesome Sweet Potato Chili that I’ll start making again as soon as it gets cooler.)

I found a great sweet potato recipe at Green Lite Bites. Of course, I had to adapt it, and it’s no longer quite as “lite” (more cheese and olive oil instead of cooking spray), but it’s quite tasty, and I’m sure the healthy version is good too, if you like that sort of thing.
Savory Stuffed Sweet Potatoes (adapted from Green Lite Bites)

1 sweet potato
1 tsp olive oil
1 onion
salt
1 tsp. curry powder
1/2 tsp. ground ginger
1 oz. gouda cheese
1/2 tsp. black pepper

Preheat the oven to 400 degrees Farenheit. Pierce the sweet potato all over with a fork, and then bake until tender, about 45 minutes.

Meanwhile, sauté the onions in the olive oil with a little bit of salt. When the onions are very soft and brown, (after about 10 minutes), turn off the heat and add the curry and ginger.

When the potato is cooked, slice in half and remove the flesh from the skin. Add to the pan of onions, and stir to combine. Add the potato mixture back into the skins, and place the cheese on top. Put back in the oven and cook until the cheese is melted, about 5 minutes. Sprinkle the black pepper on top and serve.

Chicken parmesan was one of my favorite dishes growing up, so when I saw this recipe for “new” chicken parmesan, I had to try it. However, I had one glitch: it was an oven dish, and all I had was a hot plate.

I did some quick thinking and came up with this variation. I’ve never tried the real thing, but mine was awfully tasty…

New Chicken Parmesan (adapted from Bon Appétit)

2 tbsp. extra-virgin olive oil
1 garlic clove, minced
5 ripe tomatoes
Large pinch of dried crushed red pepper

2 skinless boneless chicken breast halves (about 6 ounces each)
3/4 cups finely grated Parmesan cheese, divided

salt and pepper

Heat the olive oil in a frying pan over medium-high heat. When hot, add the garlic and stir just until fragrant. Add the tomatoes, red pepper, and salt and pepper. Cook over medium heat, stirring occasionally, until the tomatoes have released their juices and the sauce has thickened somewhat.

Meanwhile, season the chicken in salt and pepper. When the sauce has cooked, remove it from the pan, add a bit more olive oil if necessary, and heat the pan over high heat. Sear the chicken on both sides. Add the sauce back to the pan and reduce the heat to medium. Cover and cook ten minutes, until the chicken is nearly cooked through. Top with parmesan cheese and re-cover. Cook until the cheese is melted, about five more minutes

Just in case some of you out there think I make myself crazy meals every night… I decided to share a secret. I have a foodie vice: frozen veggies.

My freezer is absolutely stocked chock full of frozen vegetables. At any one time, I could have peas, green beans, spinach and broccoli, and roomie has just thrown frozen Brussels sprouts into the mix. Many evenings, when I’m too tired to do anything else, I grab anything green, toss it with pasta and add pesto sauce. Instant dinner. More often than not, I snack on frozen veggies on their own or topped with tons of black pepper.

And then, of course, it gets worse.

In high school, one of the ways I survived on dining hall food was to take raw broccoli from the salad bar, top it with orange grated cheese, and nuke it in the microwave. It was one of my favorite foods, and I ate it for more lunches and dinners than I care to admit.

In Paris, we don’t have grated orange cheese… we go one better: there is a French version of American cheese. They call it a cheddar-emmental mix, but I know better: it’s square, it’s shiny, and when it’s raw, it tastes like plastic. But when it’s melted over a bowl of frozen broccoli and topped with black pepper and a tiny bit of grated emmental (hey… it was in the fridge, and I don’t discriminate when it comes to melty, cheesy goodness)… it’s heaven. And it was my lunch twice this weekend.

So you see? No one’s perfect.

One blog that I read regularly is Two Fat Als. The blog is written by Alanna and Alex, and it documents their foodie journey now that they’ve moved to NYC. I love the recipes, because they’re simple, often good for you, and they appeal to a young crowd.

One recipe that I tried a few days ago especially hit home for me. Al and Al called it Pasta with Dueling Sauces, but I thought of it more as Pasta for the Indecisive… namely me. I can almost never decide what I want for dinner, and the scene in front of the fridge deciding between pasta sauces that Alanna outlined in her post is a familiar event in my kitchen.

I had purchased some gorgeous September tomatoes on the vine on sale at my local supermarket and was looking for ways to use them, so the second I read this recipe, I not only bookmarked it, but I moved it straight to my weekly menu (as opposed to the ever-growing list of things to try that only gets longer and longer. I believe I’m nearly at 25 pages now. How embarassing.)

I had to replace the ricotta with a somewhat similar French cheese known as fromage blanc. For those of you who have tried fromage blanc, you may not see the similarities: fromage blanc has a lot more in common with yogurt than with this Italian cheese, but after buying expensive ricotta one too many times here in Paris, I’ve realized that while fromage blanc lacks the curd-y texture of ricotta, it can often be used to serve the same purpose in recipes, namely adding an faintly cheesy flavor and the cooling quality of dairy.

Although I used a jarred pesto instead of the pesto recipe included, the pasta dish was genius. Instead of tossing it together as Al and Al did, I scooped sauce out to individual pieces of pasta (I used farfalle), relishing the separate flavors coming together on one fork.

The next day, I made a similar version, replacing part of the pasta with a combination of frozen peas and string beans that I just tossed into the pot of cooking pasta a few minutes before it was done. It’s a lot healthier and just as delicious!

For the original recipe, click the link above… and get on this dish before all the tomatoes are gone for the winter!

Yesterday, I decided that today was baking day.

I haven’t baked in more than four months. It doesn’t seem that long… I nearly never bake in the summertime anyway, but yesterday we had one of our first tastes of fall weather here in Paris: a drizzle that lasted all day and turned the skies gray and dreary, and the first thing I thought of was pulling something hot and delicious out of the oven to share with Em, Alex, and anyone else who happened to drop by my apartment, which, as of late, is quite a few people.

But what to bake? I knew I wanted to try a new recipe: it’s been awhile since I checked something off my “to try” list, and that always makes me a bit anxious. But I also knew that I wanted something that would definitely work, something that wouldn’t leave me depressed at the end with a bitter (or burnt) taste in my mouth and mountains of wasted flour and sugar.

My first instinct when I get a craving like this is usually to make muffins or cupcakes. They’re easy, they’re permissible as both breakfast and dessert (so they get finished more quickly), and I have tons of recipes on my list of things to try. But my new roomie had something else in mind: scones.

I love scones, but I have never attempted to make one… I guess I was a little bit intimidated by what seemed like such a difficult thing to make. Now I have no idea what was stopping me: the recipe I tried from Foodie Farmgirl was one of the easiest baking recipes I have ever attempted. The dough came together in a flash, and the scones baked as I was making my pasta dinner (a new recipe that I’ll share tomorrow… so good!). The scones themselves were buttery without being greasy and quite tasty. The recipe says to split the dough in two and cut each dough into six pieces for twelve small scones, but instead, I made one circle of dough and cut it into eight medium scones: for me, this was just the right size for breakfast.

In the future, I may add a little bit more sugar, but mostly because, unlike many others, I don’t like to enjoy my scones with jam, but simply warm and plain with a bit of clotted cream, if it’s available.

Head over to get the recipe and try these scones out for yourself. I promise, you won’t regret it.

It’s Saturday, and you know what that means ’round these parts… time for a post over at Accidental Hedonist! This week I’m writing about an internet find called Mange Mon Geek… a French web-based cooking show for… well… geeks. It makes me giggle.

I wish I knew how to say giggle in French.

Tomato sauce is one of those things that is worshiped by some and mindlessly eaten out of a can or jar for others. While I have nothing against some (emphasis on SOME) jarred tomato sauces, there is something so satisfactory about making your own. It’s a lot less expensive, and you can adjust the sauce to cater to your own tastes.

A lot of people try to follow a recipe for tomato sauce, but the best, and less daunting way to approach this Italian classic is through an outline of sorts.

1. Tomatoes

First of all, are you going to use canned or whole tomatoes? Your decision will affect the method you will use.

Either way is fine: my mother swears by San Marzano canned tomatoes and never makes her sauce with fresh, but even if you can’t afford San Marzano, regular canned, whole tomatoes (with no added flavoring) are great, even better than fresh tomatoes when they’re not in season.

However, if fresh tomatoes are in season, you may want to use those, and fresh tomatoes may take a bit more preparation.

2. Method

For the preparation of fresh tomatoes for tomato sauce, I’ve heard it done two ways: firstly, you can score the bottoms of the tomatoes (make an X about an inch long in the bottoms), quickly drop them into boiling water, remove them into cold water after a minute, and then remove the skins. Now the tomatoes can be used as canned tomatoes would be.

To make tomato sauce from either these prepared fresh tomatoes or canned tomatoes, simply heat some fat (olive oil, butter, bacon or sausage grease, or some combination) in a Dutch oven or other heavy-bottomed pot. When the fat is heated, add your aromatic vegetables (see below) and sweat (cook over medium-low heat until the veggies are cooked and transparent, but not browned.) Add your spices (not your herbs) as well as some salt, and cook for one minute to release the flavors. Add the tomatoes and herbs, and cook for about an hour. Use an immersion blender to achieve a more fluid consistency, or simply use a wooden spoon to break up the tomatoes and serve the sauce as more of a chunky, rustic dish.

This is my go-to method in the winter. It is a fine recipe (and the best method for canned tomatoes), however my preference for fresh tomato sauce is roasting: roasting tomatoes (along with aromatics like onions and garlic, which I’ll address in a minute) concentrates their flavors and brings an element to the sauce that is impossible to achieve in any other way. In the summer, my favorite tomato sauce is simply roasted tomatoes, onions and garlic with a little bit of olive oil and salt. When the mixture comes out of the oven, I use my immersion blender to achieve the correct consistency, and I mix in some salt and dried basil for flavor.

3. Aromatics

I’ve already addressed this slightly in the above paragraph, but it deserves a section of its own. What makes a great tomato sauce special isn’t just the tomatoes, but the aromatics added to them. Traditionally, onions and/or garlic can both play a role (some purists claim that onions and garlic should not both be in the same tomato sauce, but I’ve always made it that way, and I’m not changing my mind now.)

Other aromatics that can make their way into your tomato sauce are carrots, which add another dimension of sweetness, and celery, which, when combined with carrots and onions, makes up the Italian trifecta of vegetables known as soffrito (a sort of Italian version of the French mirepoix). Any and all of these veggies can make an appearance in your sauce, depending on what you like. Traditionally, celery is reserved for meat-based sauces, while the other three can appear even in a regular tomato sauce.

4. Herbs and Spices

Salt, of course, is number one in tomato sauce. Tomatoes just don’t taste like tomatoes without a bit of salt.

Aside from salt, though, what other spices and herbs can appear in tomato sauce?

Both black and red pepper bring a nice heat and spiciness to the sauce, but in different ways. I use a little bit of both in my sauce. I also sometimes cook some red pepper in a bit of olive oil and add a ladleful of my regular old tomato sauce to make a quick and easy version of an arabbiata, or spicy tomato sauce.

As far as herbs are concerned, both basil and oregano are traditional parts of Italian tomato sauces. I like to use the dried versions, reserving fresh for dishes like pesto, where the fresh truly make a difference. If you are lucky enough to have a garden, feel free to use fresh basil, but stick with dried oregano: the flavor is usually better.

Oregano is what makes pizza sauce taste different from regular tomato sauce: if you like that pizza sauce flavor and can’t figure out the missing ingredient in your homemade sauce, 9/10 times, what you’re missing is oregano. I usually don’t use it in my pasta sauce, but some people like the taste.

5. Extras

Other additional ingredients include tomato paste and sugar. Both ingredients are intended to strengthen the tomato flavor and cut the acidity of the tomatoes. If you’re using canned tomatoes, have a taste: they may taste a bit tinny, and sugar should take care of this problem. If your tomatoes are fresh, however, or the tinned tomatoes are of high quality, you can skip this ingredient.

I nearly always throw in a little extra tomato paste, for an extra kick of flavor, but this step is not on everyone’s list, and it can be skipped if you like.

Tomato sauce can be stored up to one week in your fridge, or up to a month in the freezer. Alternately, you can can the sauce and store it in your pantry for a year.

Yesterday, I addressed tapas, the traditional Spanish taster item that allows socializing at the bar to last well into the evening. Tapas have evolved from a mere bar snack to something gourmet: a sign of the fact that Barcelona is becoming a culinary capital in its own right.

However, with this title comes certain qualities, not all of them good. One of the unfortunate side effects of an increased popularity in the culinary culture of the city is the recent addition of nouvelle cuisine restaurants.

Don’t get me wrong: sometimes I love a tiny taster dish of something foamy, gelatine or powdered, just to keep up with the trends and to see if I can stumble upon anything truly creative. However, there comes a point when nouvelle cuisine goes too far, and I have to say that the steak-frites at Brown, a restaurant above Plaça Catalunya on the Rambla, is a prime example of this.

Brown comes off as a normal restaurant: a little fancy by Barcelona standards, maybe, but with normal menu items like pizza, pasta and steak-frites on the menu. The steak was lovely: perfectly cooked and seasoned. However, the steak was meant to be accompanied by fries. After he had downed one of Brown’s potent cocktails, my eating companion was looking forward to the large pile of fries that generally accompanies a steak in this sort of dinner situation.

There were, instead, four fries sitting in a perfectly constructed square next to the large steak. None of us quite knew what to say when the dish came out of the kitchen, and so the owner of the plate promptly reached down, picked one up, and took a bite. This was, of course, when the laughing and picture-taking began, thus the presence of three, rather than four, apparently delicious fries in my photo.

I understand small plates. I adore tapas. But there comes a point when it’s just too much, or in this case, too few, and fries are one of those food items when more is almost always better than less.

I am one of those people who, when in a restaurant, often ends up choosing at the last minute. Yeah… “Can you come to me last?” That’s me.

I know it’s annoying to others, but I can’t help it. There are always so many things on the menu I want to taste! When I was a vegetarian for a year, I was briefly relieved of this issue: there are seldom many vegetarian choices on most menus. However, when I came back to the dark (read: meat-eating) side, it was even worse. I am famous for always picking the best thing on the menu, but it often takes me a while to get there.

Not a problem at Txapela. This (difficult to pronounce) restaurant in Barcelona serves one thing: tapas.

As with most restaurants that specialize in one particular area, Txapela does tapas very well. You are presented with a menu of assorted tapas with both pictures and descriptions in order to make your decisions. Much in the vein of a sushi bar, you can order as much as you want to start, slowly ordering more and more if you are still hungry.

Alex and I visited Txapela in Plaça Catalunya when we were visiting Barcelona a few weeks ago. So as not to embarass him, I only took a few pictures.

This was one of my favorites. It was foie gras on applesauce served with fresh chives sprinkled over the top. I loved the combination of sweet and rich, and it was the perfect size for such a bite.

I try patatas bravas whenever they are offered, so I had to see how Txapela’s version measured up. The potatoes themselves were perfect: perfectly fried and hot, with just enough salt. To me, the sauce was a little bit too mayonnaise-y and didn’t pack the heat I usually love, but Alex loved the sauce and dipped his bread in it.

This was a cold, marinated octopus popsicle, of sorts. It was served with a mix of vegetables also marinated in the same acidic sauce. This one was delicious: the octopus perfectly tender and the veggie and marinade mix a perfect complement.

Other tapas that we sampled included melted brie with a spicy tomato sauce, a bite of filet mignon steak and spanish tortilla with baccala, or salted cod. Dessert was tapas-style as well, and though Alex was surprised to see that the ice cream he ordered could be finished in two or three bites, I was happy with my “cheesecake,” a slice of cheesy custard the consistancy of Jell-o with blueberry compote on top. I could get used to a restaurant where everything is bite-sized: no more decision making!