Heating Things Up From The Inside Out

There is nothing like a freezing stormy day that adds to the atmosphere of cooking up a great pot of soup. I just love brewing up a hearty soups and when the wind is blowing hard enough to rattle the windows it inspires me to create a soup that will warm you right down to your toes.

This weeks recipe is for our Roasted tomato and Pesto Bisque Soup. Now don't let the term bisque scare you. This recipe was created to pack in the flavor and bulk up the soup without adding tons of cream.

Roasted Tomato & Pesto Bisque

5 lbs of ripe Roma Tomatoes or you can use cherry tomatoes if you wish
2 large carrots
1 onion
8 quarts of vegetable broth
2 cups of half and half
1 quart of tomato juice
1/4 cup of olive oil
1/2 cup flour
3 tablespoons of unsalted butter
3 bay leaves
Kosher Salt
Coarse black pepper
1 tbs. minced garlic
1 cup of basil pesto (pre-made is ok)


cut your tomatoes into quarter pieces, removing the core.
spread in a cookie sheet and coat with oil, then salt, pepper and garlic.
place in a 450 degree oven for 20 minutes or until caramelized.
remove and set aside.

mince your carrots and onion in the food processor.
Do this by pulsing until they are finely minced but not made into liquid

Heat 1/4 cup of olive oil and unsalted butter in the a heavy bottom stock pot.
Add minced onion and carrot and saute until soft.
Sprinkle your flour over the sauteed veggies and slowly add in your
vegetable stock and tomato juice.
Add your caramelized tomatoes and bay leaves, let this simmer on the stove for 30 minutes.

Remove your bay leaves, then using your stick blender, blend the soup until smooth.

At this point taste your soup and salt and pepper to taste.

Take your 2 cups of half and half pour it into a cup and add some of the hot soup, as to temper
the cream so it will not curdle.
Now stir the half and half into the remainder of the soup.

This soup should be creamy and smooth but not thin.
Some tomatoes are juicier than others, if you find at this point
that your soup is too thin, prepare a simple butter and flour roux in a sauce pan
and add this to your soup to thicken it up to your liking. Do not boil your soup once you
have added the cream to avoid it separating.

Ladle the soup into a bowls and drizzle the pesto into the top.

This soup is striking to look at and amazing to eat!

enjoy!

If your feeling ambitious, cut up some leftover bread into small chunks
toss in a bowl with oil, parmasan cheese and salt and pepper.

Place in oven or fryer to create some great croutons.
Drop a few into your soup.

Community of Cooking in Delmar

I love my job and all the opportunities it presents to be part of my community. People come in an share their lives with us. Food seems to just have a way of involving us into people celebrations, holidays, happy times, sad times too. Often, when someone has a loss, folks come in and ask us to create some meals that provide a bit of comfort.

It is one of the benefits of this business that I never expected. I have lived in my home for over 15 years and sad to say I know very few of my neighbors. Here in Delmar, I feel like I  have been blessed with a community that knows my name, gets my sense of corny humor and appreciates and reflects back to me my passion for food and flavors. Not only do they buy my food, but they share their cooking styles, experiences and recipes. Some times I am even lucky enough to have a customer bring me a taste of the things they have cooked. Many times when catering a party, people will give me treasured recipes and ask me to recreate them.

I had one customer come in and ask me to create a beef bracioli using raisins, olives, cheese and pignoli nuts, then simmer it in a tomato sauce. (For those of you who are not familiar with bracioli, it is a piece of flank steak, pounded flat and stuffed with all sorts of ingredients then rolled and tied and placed to simmer in sauce.) I had never made one this way before, seems like each Italian family has its own way of stuffing these. I was a wreck thinking that this was just going to be a disaster. Instead when this gentleman came to collect his order, he was so anxious to eat it that he opened it up and ate a piece on the spot. Tears came to his eyes, no, not from my cooking, but rather the memory of his grandfather. You see, for a moment he could conjure up his long lost "Papa" and remember what it was like to be in his kitchen. Cooking, food, family, friends...they are all connected.

Think about how often food has brought you and your loved ones and neighbors together.
How will does food and cooking effect you and bring you a sense of community this week?

Bracioli - My Grandfathers Recipe 


          2 lbs of flank steak
          2 cloves of minced garlic
          1/4 cup of chopped flat leaf parsley
          1/4 cup of grated parm cheese
          1/4 cup of bread crumbs
          Salt and Pepper to taste



Pound the flank steak between two sheets of plastic wrap, until thin but not broken

Salt and pepper the meat

mix the the remainder of the ingredient together
and spread it over the meat
roll the meat tightly and with butchers string tie into little bundles.

When preparing your tomato sauce sear the meat bundles in oil and remove.
Add all your sauce ingredients and put the meat back in and simmer until your sauce is done.


enjoy!

It's Greek to Me!

Maybe it's the cold, maybe its about being home bound, but these days my thoughts are turning to dreams of Greece, therefore my menu has been sprinkled with Greek dishes.
I thought I would share my Moussaka recipe. Seems like our customers like my recipe. I use beef instead of lamb, you can use either.

1  28-oz. can whole peeled tomatoes,
   undrained
4 tbsp. extra-virgin olive oil
1 lb. ground beef or lamb
1 tsp. cayenne
1⁄2 tsp. ground cinnamon
1⁄4 tsp. ground ginger
1⁄4 tsp. ground allspice
Kosher salt and freshly ground black pepper,
   to taste
6 cloves garlic, finely chopped
2 medium yellow onions, finely chopped
1 red bell pepper, stemmed, cored,
   and finely chopped
1 cup red wine
1 1⁄2 cups canola oil
1 1⁄2 lbs. eggplant, cut crosswise
   into 1⁄4"-thick slices
1 large russet potato (about 1 lb.),
   cut crosswise
   into 1⁄4"-thick slices
6 tbsp. unsalted butter
1⁄2 cup flour
2 1⁄4 cups milk
1 bay leaf
Freshly grated nutmeg, to taste
1⁄2 cup plain Greek yogurt
3 egg yolks
1 cup grated Parmesan

1. Purée the tomatoes in a blender and set aside. Heat 1 tbsp. olive oil in a 6-qt. pot over medium-high heat. Add the lamb, cayenne, cinnamon, ginger, allspice, and salt and pepper and cook, stirring to break up the meat, until browned, about 5 minutes. Transfer lamb or beef to a large strainer set over a bowl and drain; discard any liquid left in the pot. Return pot to the heat and add the remaining olive oil along with the garlic, onions, and bell pepper and cook, stirring occasionally, until soft, about 10 minutes. Add the wine and cook, stirring occasionally, until almost evaporated, 10-15 minutes. Add the reserved tomatoes, and meat and bring to a boil. Reduce the heat to medium-low and simmer until thickened, about 30 minutes. Remove from the heat and set meat sauce aside.
2. Heat the canola oil in 12" skillet over medium-high heat. Working in batches, add the eggplant slices and fry, turning occasionally, until tender, about 5 minutes. Transfer eggplant slices to paper towels. Working in batches, add the potatoes and cook until tender, about 5 minutes, and transfer to paper towels.
3. Make a béchamel sauce: Melt butter in a 2-qt. saucepan over medium heat. Add flour and cook, whisking constantly, until pale and smooth, 2 minutes. Whisking constantly, add the milk in a steady stream until incorporated; add the bay leaf and cook, whisking often, until reduced to 2 cups, about 15 minutes. Season with salt, pepper, and nutmeg and discard the bay leaf. Let sauce cool for 5 minutes. In a small bowl, whisk together the yogurt and egg yolks and whisk into sauce until smooth.
4. Heat oven to 400°. Place the reserved potato slices in the bottom of an oval 3-qt. baking dish (or two 1 1⁄2-qt. baking dishes) and season with salt and pepper. Put the eggplant slices on top, season with salt and pepper, and then cover with the meat sauce. Pour the béchamel over the top of the meat sauce and spread evenly with a rubber spatula. Sprinkle Parmesan evenly over the top and bake until browned and bubbly, 45–50 minutes. Let cool for at least 20 minutes before serving.
SERVES 12

Winter Tomato Blahs

It's still winter here with just a little touch of sunshine and just enough warmth today to make me long for spring and summer to come. One of the things I long for all winter is that juicy summer tomato. There is nothing quite like that still warm summer tomato you pick off the vine and bite into right on the spot. This amazing tomato can inspire some of the most simple recipes. So today I am longing for just this kind of tomato. Nothing at the market can quite hit that note. There is this neat little trick we do here at the deli to improve that anemic winter tomato.
Simply cut the tomato into quarters, place these on a cookie sheet, toss with a good olive oil and sprinkle with salt, pepper and parmesan cheese. Roast these in the oven until the tomatoes cook down. Approx. 25 - 35 minutes in a 350 degree oven.
Remove from the oven and cover with foil for a bit.
Enjoy these tomatoes on a wrap or sandwich or toss with pasta.
Now they won't replace that summer tomato but its a way to improve those blah winter ones.
~enjoy

For Renee - Proscuitto Wrapped Stuffed Chicken

After reading my blog, my wonderful assistant here at the ad agency Renee, told me that it looked great, however my salmon recipe was the kind of thing that she would just pass by because it required too much time and who the heck has two hours to soak a board, never mind it was a cedar board that she had to go buy, ect. ect. ect....ok Renee, I get your point. So here is a recipe for a elegant stuffed chicken that's easy to make and has that wow factor. It is a favorite dish at the deli and we sell out as soon as it is put on the menu.

What you need

4 large boned chicken breast
1/4 lb. of Proscuitto de Parma
Wedge of Brie
Asparagus (1 bunch)
1/4 dry white wine
2 cloves peeled garlic
Organic, low sodium chicken broth
1 pat of butter

Prep

Place your chicken breast on a clean cutting board cover chicken with plastic wrap, take a mallet or if you don't own a mallot, find something large and flat and GENTLY pound your chicken breast to flatten.
Salt and pepper chicken and place in a roasting pan that has a touch of oil on the bottom
Boil water in a pot large enough to fit yor asparagus. To prepare your asparagus, hold the tip of the stalk and the end and bend until the tough end breaks off. Discard ends.
Gently blanch your asparagus, do not over cook.
Reserve 4 stalks and cut the remaining aspargus into aprox. 1" pieces
Take one slice of brie, and one aspargus stalk for each breast. Place this into the center of chicken fold your chicken over the aspargus and brie place them fold side down in your roasting pan.
After you have complete this, take your proscuitto and wrap it around the outside of your chicken.
Take the remaining proscuitto and dice it up.
In a small sauce pan on the stove top, sautee the garlic and proscuitto for about 3-5 minutes
Add the white wine & deglaze your pan.
Add a pat of butter to the sauce & 1/4 cup of low sodium chicken broth
Pour this over the chicken
Place in a 350 degree oven for 20 minutes or so, or until the internal temperate of the chicken reaches 165.
Plate your chicken and top with the remaining diced asparagus and sauce from the pan.
Enjoy!

Asian Glazed Cedar Plank Salmon

A fragrant and tasty salmon recipe.

First off forget buying those expensive cedar planks you find at your local gourmet shop or market. Simply go to your local lumber yard and ask for a plank of cedar (untreated) that will fit into your oven. (suggested size 6" x 14")
Soak the plank for 2 hours.
Dry it off and then rub it with oil.
Place it in 350 degree oven
for 10 minutes.

While the board is heating up, prepare your glaze.

Glaze for Salmon

In a small bowl combine
1 cup of honey
1 tbls. 5 spice powder
grated fresh ginger
and tamarind pulp

heat this in the microwave for about 1 minute.

rinse and dry your salmon fillets.
salt and pepper salmon


remove your board from the oven
rub it with more oil
place your dry seasoned salmon fillets on the board
brush salmon with glaze

Place in oven and bake until the salmon reaches an internal temperate of 135 degrees.

Gently brush cooked salmon with a bit more of the honey glaze.


enjoy!

Fresh Mozzarella

Use the best ingredients you can find!
Fresh mozzarella is unlike any other kind of cheese!
Forget about those plastic tasting cheeses you find at your local supermarket. Search out an Italian Deli and treat yourself to fresh made mozzie. It should be floating in water and hopefully made just a few hours ago.

When you cut into the mozzarella it should "weep" tears of milk.

Cut a few thick slices, grab yourself the best tomato you can find
and create ribbons of basil to top it with.
Make layers of tomato and mozzie, add some salt and pepper and top it with the finest extra virgin olive oil.
Grab yourself a loaf of crusty bread...a glass of wine...and enjoy!