Reminiscing over Italy and the sandwich that came of it.

If you were to rewind ten years back you would find me eagerly stepping off a boat on a rainy April morning onto Italian soil. Six weeks of backpacking in South East Asia had left me ravenous for some good, crusty bread and I knew I wouldn't have to look far. An apparent dependency on all things yeasty had surfaced amidst the many bowls of perfect Pad Thai and sublime Nasi Goreng, and despite my love of those flavours, I couldn't help but dream about the focaccia and calzone of 'the Boot'.

I had arrived in Brindisi via a flight to Turkey and a boat from Greece and to me, this port town had it all going on. No, there was no Ponte Vecchio or Trevi Fountain, but I quickly found all I needed- a bakery.
It had just opened it doors for the day and the shelves were stacked high with the most knee-weakening array of Italian specialties I could have ever hoped to see. This small-town Canadian girl nearly swooned at the perfectly dimpled Focaccette al Rosmarino, fruit and nut studded Cantucci and Biscotti, rustic peasant Pagnotta and perfect Grissini.

I don't remember all that I purchased, but it was way more than I could possibly eat for breakfast. Standing at a small bar, I washed everything down with a perfect café and the gruff yet efficient clerk wrapped up the leftovers in brown paper and string for me, rations for the long train ride to Roma.
The rain soaked me as I walked the nearly deserted streets, but I barely noticed. My belly was happy and so was I.


I was to stumble upon a market a little later in the day and again satiate my bread-lust with a roasted vegetable-laden focaccia and a sausage-stuffed panini--both of which today's immense sandwich reminded me of.
I guess that is why we took this little trip back in time; flavors have a strong tendency to transport one back to a certain spot, no matter how many years have passed. How amazing that memory fails, but taste buds do not!

I finished my gastronomical feasting for the day with a lemon gelato and another coffee before heading to the station to catch my train. Brindisi had been good to me and the rest of Italy awaited.



Ciao Brindisi Panini
serves 2

1 Italian sausage, grilled, sliced lengthwise
2 slices slab bacon, cooked, or Pancetta
4 slices Provolone
1 red pepper, quartered and seeded
1 zucchini, sliced lengthwise into four
4 thin slices of lemon
1/4 red onion, sliced into 4 wedges
olive oil
salt
Two crusty bread rolls, Ciabatta or 'petit pain'

Preheat grill.
Combine red pepper, zucchini, lemon and red onion in a bowl with a generous splash of olive oil and toss to coat. Season with salt and grill everything until soft and cooked. The lemons will only take a few seconds on either side.
Reduce the heat of the grill to low.
Slice buns in half, brush generously with olive oil and grill slightly. Pile all ingredients onto the bottom two buns and place the top bun on the pile. Yep, it will look gigantic!
Grill in a panini press until cheese is melted OR, if you are like me and don't have a panini press, simply wrap a brick with tinfoil and place it on top of the two sandwiches on the BBQ. You will need to flip the panini once if you are doing this.

Enjoy possibly the best sandwich you have ever had.

WFD? Pizza Quattro Gusti (four flavors)

After months and months of putting up with my current refrigerator randomly freezing items out of spite, we've broken down and purchased a brand new one. For some of you this may not be such a big deal, but for us, it's our first official appliance purchase. Ever. Until now we've made do with family cast-offs and the generosity of former landlords and friends.

We try not to be big consumers; if something is broken or needs replacing, we don't run out and buy the item brand new. There's always someone around who wants to upgrade or is moving into a furnished place and generally, if we come and get the washer/stove/whatever, it's ours for the taking. So far this has worked in our favor...until this renegade fridge came along.

Too long I have endured solid yogurt, rock-hard berries, and frostbit greens. Too long have I spent extra money for fresh seafood--only to have it frozen in my refrigerator before I get a chance to cook it. I was due for a brand new appliance and that's what I got.

It arrives tomorrow.


Who knew that shopping for a fridge would open my eyes to all the possibilities that I never considered as options? Suddenly I needed a built in Britta drinking water system--how do I get by without one? And it sure would be handy to know the exact temperature of my fridge displayed digitally for me at all times. How about a beeper that goes off when the door is left ajar? I do that ALL the time, it drives Danny nuts.
Oh well, for now I'll just have to content my self with a fridge that 'just' keeps things cold--not frozen. Although if anyone hears of a second-hand version of this model looking for a good home, I've got dibs on it. I would love the glass door. That is the coolest.


So, I've been cleaning out my old fridge in preparation for the switch. I don't want a pile of items just sitting around on counters for extended periods of time while the new fridge is installed and starts cooling. (Apparently you can't plug it in for THREE HOURS after it arrives?? Help!)
As usual I have dozens of small leftover items that need finishing off to fully empty those drawers: half a stick of Chorizo, a teeny block of feta, a tired bundle of asparagus, a rind of Parmesan; those items and many more were the inspiration behind this pizza.

If you can call it inspiration. More like desperation.

I made a batch of Jamie Oliver's pizza dough, rolled it out onto a cookie sheet, divided it into four quadrants and proceeded to disguise my fridge odds and ends as pizza.


Guess what? It rocked! Everybody ate it--even the baby, who particularly loved the soft cross of crust that divided the pizza. Clockwise from top left the flavors are:

• Chorizo, Olive & Mozzarella
  
• Spinach, Egg, Fresh Garlic & Feta
• Bacon, Plum & Cheddar
• Asparagus, Cippolini Onion & Parmesan

I'm passing on the pizza dough recipe, because I like it a teeny bit better than my other one. It was softer and the bottom colored beautifully. I like a dark, crispy pizza underside. If you haven't gathered from this post, pretty much anything goes for toppings.

Pizza Dough
Adapted from Jamie at Home
this recipe will make 2 11x15 rectangle "Pizza Quattro Gusti". You can make one for dinner and freeze the other ball of dough for another night, or make tons and enjoy the leftovers.

7 cups white bread flour
1 Tablespoon sea salt
2 Tablespoons dry yeast
1 tablespoon raw sugar
4 Tablespoons extra virgin olive oil
2 1/2 cups lukewarm water

Sift the flour and salt onto a clean work surface and make a well in the middle. In a large measuring cup, mix the yeast, sugar and olive oil into the water and leave for a few minutes, then pour into the well. Using a fork, bring the flour in gradually from the sides and swirl it into the liquid. Keep mixing drawing larger amounts of flour in, and when it all starts to come together, work the rest of the flour in with your clean, flour-dusted hands. Knead until you have a smooth springy dough.
Place the ball of dough in a large flour-dusted bowl and flour the top of it. Cover the bowl with a damp cloth and place in a warm room for about an hour until the dough has doubled in size.

Now remove the dough to a flour-dusted surface and knead it around a bit to push the air out with your hands - this is called punching down the dough. You can either use it immediately, or keep it, wrapped in plastic wrap, in the fridge (or freezer) until required. If using straightaway, divide the dough up into as many little balls as you want to make pizzas - this amount of dough is enough to make about six to eight medium pizzas. (or two huge rectangles)
When you are ready to fire the pizzas, crank the oven up to 500F. Dust your work surface with a little flour, punched-down dough and divide in two. Roll out dough into a rectangle about 3/4 inch thick. Grease a cookie sheet generously with olive oil and spread out your pizza dough on it, using your finger tips to push it into the corners.
Trip a 1/8 inch strip off of one long and one short side of the rectangle and lay these in the shape of a cross in the middle of your pizza. Top with your four flavors of choice and place pizza in preheated oven. Bake for about 10-15 minutes until the dough is golden brown.
Enjoy!

Carrot , Leek & Apple Soup with Garlic Croutons

The challenge of creating a spectacular-or at least edible-dish out of fridge odds and ends is one that I have always relished. I believe it to be a sign of a good cook: creative, resourceful and an independent thinker rather than just open a cookbook. I have to say I'm pretty good at visualizing how ingredients can come together for a potential meal-probably thanks to all the practice I got making 'staff meal' when I worked in a professional kitchen. No, we didn't tuck into a lamb chop from the menu when we were hungry or munch on foie gras pâté and croutons, we ate a family-style meal together every night just before service that was prepared by one of the chef de parties.
I should have kept a log of the random items that were held on the shelf designated for staff eating. It was not uncommon to have to put together a meal for fourteen using some or all of the following:

several litres of razor clam juice
60 or so scrawny quail legs
reject fresh pasta dough (presumably tough as nails)
soft/slimy cucumbers (tomatoes, peppers, spinach)
a jar of picked quail eggs
giant tub of dijon
mounds and mounds of venison scraps
a litre or more of beet purée

and so on and so fourth.
What I made was generally decided for me; it depended on how much time I could take away from my usual lengthy list of prep work. One has to think "is it really in my best interest to clean all the venison, grind it, make a bolognaise and a spinach béchamel, and roll the pasta for a lasagna?"
As popular as I would have been with my fellow chefs had I done so (comfort food rocks when night after night all you plate is ultra-finicky fine cuisine) the more realistic scenario was probably me tossing the quail legs in a speedy marinade before roasting them and serving with a pot of rice.


All that said, I recently made a memorable soup from my fridge scraps after a vigorous clean turned up some withering vegetables. There's hardly a better time to clean out the refrigerator than after the holidays (after a power outage is pretty ideal, too) and it's a New Year to boot, so if you haven't done it yet, get in there and toss those mouldy brussel sprouts and stale fruitcake. Be sure to wear gloves, though, it may be worse than you think; as it was in my case.

As I was making the soup, I took the time to scribble down what I was doing in loose recipe form in case I wanted to blog about it. Of course, I have no idea where that piece of paper/napkin/envelope is now, so I'm going to try and remember what I did because it's worth repeating.

Carrot, leek and apple: not a new combination by any means, but a trio that I had wasting away in my vegetable drawer; add a liter of homemade chicken stock in the freezer that needed to give way to three vital incoming pints of Hagen Daaz (good things come in threes), and voilà, soup! For fun, toss in some whole-wheat garlic croutons for crunch and bacon because--well, bacon needs no explanation, really.


Carrot, Leek and Apple Soup
(All measurements are estimates. Feel free to change up the recipe to suit yourself)

Peel four large carrots and chop into 1-inch rounds. Remove outer leaves from a large leek and discard. Wash the leek well and chop roughly. In a large pot, melt 3 tablespoons butter and add carrots and leek. Cook over medium heat until the vegetables start to soften and their color brightens.
Peel two apples (I used Granny Smith), core, chop and add to the pot. Add about 4 cups of chicken stock or water (enough to cover the carrot mixture by an inch or so), a bay leaf and bring to a boil. Lower heat, cover pot and simmer until carrots are tender. Remove pot from heat and discard bay leaf.
In a blender, puree soup until silky smooth. Season with salt and pepper and thin with a little cream to desired consistency.

For Croutons:
Cube several slices of bread into 1 centimeter cubes. Heat about 2 tablespoons of olive oil in a sauté pan. When it is very hot, add the cubed bread and a clove of peeled, smashed garlic. Toss gently to coat bread with oil and cook until brown and crispy. The oil will be all absorbed. Salt generously, remove from pan and cool on a paper towel. Discard garlic.

WFD? Warm Lobster Salad with Rhubarb, Fiddleheads, and Bacon

What's for dinner? Warm salad of Lobster, Bacon, Green Grapes and Tarragon, served over gently-poached Rhubarb and Fiddleheads.

Back in the day when I worked in a professional kitchen, I cooked lobsters by the tub-full around this time of year. It was nothing to add "cook and clean 20 lobster" to my already lengthy prep list every day and I had to be quick about it too. I may have winced the first few times, but eventually the task of grasping a live, writhing crustacean with my two hands and wringing him in two became as old hat as peeling potatoes.

Danny brought home a few lobster the other day, as they are at their most affordable right now, and it was fun to introduce Noah to them and show him the whole process. He was quite excited and couldn't wait to eat them.

If you've only ever dropped a whole lobster into boiling water to cook it, allow me to show you another way that, I believe, produces better results.
The tail of the lobster is more delicate than say, the claws, and doesn't need as long as a cooking time, so you start by separating the lobster into pieces. Here is a short video demonstrating how to do it (with Noah chirping away about how he wants to eat it).

Cooking your Lobster:

Once you have your lobster divided up into four parts (tail, head, claws and legs from claws), prepare a poaching liquid, or in French, a court bouillon.

1 large pot of cold water
1 carrot, peeled and chopped into 4
1 onion, same as above
1 generous handful of parsley
5-6 whole peppercorns
1 leek, washed and roughly chopped

Bring everything to a boil and let simmer a few minutes. Skim out solids and discard; bring your fragrant liquid to a boil again and salt generously, as you would for pasta.

Now you are ready to poach your lobster! Boil the claws for 7 minutes, the legs 6 and the tail 3 minutes. Cool everything and remove from shells.

This recipe just kind of evolved, but the result was amazing. I knew I wanted to use bacon and some fresh tarragon from my garden, but that left me with an incredibly rich and poorly balanced dish! I decided to add some sweet green grapes and do a compote of rhubarb for some tartness. Fresh lemon supremes added a perfect element of citrus. I wondered if I had too many elements, but in this case more was indeed merrier!
I also did a lobster butter using the carcass of the lobster (instructions below) and this is what I tossed the salad with. It was fantastic.

Warm Salad of Lobster, Bacon, Green grapes, and Tarragon with Poached Rhubarb and Lobster Butter
Serves 2

Ingredients:
Meat from one poached lobster
1/4 cup green grapes, sliced in half
1 lemon
8 slices thick slab bacon
2 Tablespoons fresh tarragon
1/2 cup lobster butter (recipe to follow)
poached rhubarb (recipe below)
fiddleheads, pre-blanched

For the poached rhubarb:

2 cups apple juice
5 or 6 thin stalks of rhubarb, washed

Slice rhubarb diagonally in to 1 inch lengths. In a medium pot, bring apple juice to a boil. Add rhubarb and turn off the burner. Allow the mixture to cool for about 10 minutes and occasionally check the rhubarb for doneness with a knife. Remove when tender. Time will vary depending on thickness of rhubarb. Keep at room temperature.

For the lobster butter:

2 Tablespoons olive oil
1 leek, washed and chopped
1 carrot, peeled and roughly chopped
4-5 whole black peppercorns
2 lobster carcasses, crushed slightly
1 pound butter, cubed

In a heavy-bottomed pot, sweat leek, onion and carrot in olive oil. With the heat on medium-high, add lobster carcasses and color them. Keep stirring the mixture, scraping the sticky parts off the bottom and being careful not to burn anything. When the carcasses take on a nice red color, reduce the heat to low and add the butter. As the butter melts, stir the mixture a few times.
Allow to cook very gently for a half an hour or so. Turn off heat and allow to cool. Cover and place in the fridge overnight.

The next morning, heat over a low flame until the butter re-melts, strain through a fine sieve and discard the lobster carcases and vegetables. You should have a beautiful, golden and fragrant lobster butter.


For the warm salad:

Slice whole lobster tail in half lengthwise (pictured above on the left). Roughly chop claws and leg meat. Cube slab bacon into 1/2 inch pieces. Fry until golden, dry on a paper towel and reserve. Cut lemon into supremes and roughly chop those supremes. Chop tarragon into 1/2 inch lengths.
In a saute pan, melt 2 tablespoons of lobster butter. Add the two tail pieces, cut side down and heat gently, basting with butter. Season with salt and pepper. Remove from pan a keep warm. Melt 1/4 cup of the lobster butter in the same pan. Add lemon supremes and swirl in the hot butter until they disintegrates into little pieces. Add chunked lobster, bacon, green grapes and tarragon to the pan and coat in the lemon-butter mixture. Heat gently while you add salt to taste.
Caution: do NOT cook over high heat OR more than a few minutes or your lobster will over cook and be rubbery and your grapes will turn to mush.
Turn off heat and reserve.

In another pan, saute fiddleheads in the remaining lobster butter.

To Dress:

Microwave the poached rhubarb to warm it slightly and place in the center of the plate. Place the 1/2 tails of lobster, cut side down, on top of the rhubarb. Top with half of the warm lobster and grape mixture and drizzle a little lobster butter around the plate. Add fiddleheads to plate any way you like and serve.