Moroccan Eggplant-Olive Tagine

Posted on August 4, 2020 by dgourmac

I love eggplants.  When done properly, they are extremely satisfying.  We cook them often, so I am always on the lookout for new favorites to add to our repertoire.  Yesterday, I tried a Moroccan Eggplant-Olive Tagine that made the grade.

As I’m sure you know, Tagine is both a clay pot and the name of dishes made in those pots, as well.  We do have a small tagine, which is rarely used.  I found it on a shelf under the stairs in our house, and that inspired me to try this recipe.

After assembling all the ingredients and doing the prep work, I agonized over the question of whether or not to use my tagine, or to make it in another saucepan.  Authenticity suggested the tagine, but its small size and the fact that I was unable to locate the heat diffuser we used to have to ensure that the pot did not crack when placed directly over our gas burner — these drawbacks convinced me not to risk it.  I will not recover the 27 minutes I spent looking for the diffuser all over the house, but c’est la guerre.

It all came together smoothly, and it was ready to eat in less than 45 minutes.  I chose to serve it with quinoa (as recommended above), which I enriched with wild rice I had cooked earlier in the day.  We now have a new favorite eggplant dish.

Posted in Food, Vegan | 2 Comments

Best Meals of the Month

Posted on August 1, 2020 by dgourmac

The dishes I will remember most from July include:

  • my sourdough bread
  • octopus
  • Portuguese Ventresca tuna from Luças
  • the vegetable bounty of our summertime

Sourdough

Recently my Tartine-style breads have been quite good, and I’ve settled on a recipe for the dough which is now 20% whole wheat.  Also, small amounts of Spelt in the mix seems to add considerable ‘extensibility’ to the dough, making it much easier to do ‘stretching and folding’ during the development phase.  The result is a well-formed loaf when it’s baked.

I now make one boule and one batard, giving me some variation in shapes each time.  Rather than split the dough 50/50, I make the batard with ~40% of the dough and the boule with 60%.  That way the batard fits better in my oval Le Creuset Dutch oven, and my custom-made ceramic breadpot from Judy Motzkin easily handles the large boule.

Octopus

Now that Harold McGee taught me how to cook octopus simply, I can enjoy it when I want, and in small quantities, too, because my fish market will sell me as many or as few tentacles as I want.  Last week I did just 3 tentacles from a 4-lb. octopus, and it provided several excellent dishes — pulpo al la gallega, and a variety of octopus salads, for example.

Ventresca

Another of my seafood passions is Ventresca tuna.  According to Google: “often considered ‘foie gras of tuna fish’, Ventresca, also known as Belly Tuna, is a tender and flavorful hand cut fillet that is packed by hand in easy to open cans.”

Last summer when I was in Porto, Portugal, I bought a can that was incredibly good — and reasonably priced, as well.  Here is a photo of that can:

I searched high and low on the internet to buy more of it, but was unable to locate any.  Then I decided to explore it with the management of Portugalia, a market with all things Portuguese, less than 2 hours’ drive from my home.  It took a few months, but they were able to import it, and they delivered!  I recently placed two large orders, and now am ready for a meal with delicious tuna on a moment’s notice.  With some of my bread grilled, sliced lightly-pickled red onions, plum tomato fillets, fresh basil from the garden and several glugs of smooth Portuguese olive oil, lunch is on the table in 10 minutes.

Vegetables

Vegetables are still the main elements in our food.  July highlights included a Zucchini-Tomato Gratin from Patricia Wells, homegrown microgreens from Hamama, flavorful plates featuring beets, and a pasta dish with zucchini, carrots and tomatoes.

Posted in Bread, Food, Wine | 1 Comment

Homemade Pasta with a Sardinian Accent

Posted on August 1, 2020 by dgourmac

At least once a month I insist on making some fresh pasta.  This particular one featured tagliatelle, prosciutto, Sardinian Pecorino, and Cannonau wine, along with fresh summer squash and peas from our local farmers, and sage from my herb garden.

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Chanterelles and Basque Sheep Milk Cheese Bruschette

Posted on August 1, 2020 by dgourmac

July has been a good month for my sourdough breads.  I bake two loaves every other week.  Lunches are often simply bruschetta and vegetables leftover from previous night’s dinner.  One of my favorites is made with sautéed chanterelles, topped with Brique de Brebis — a French Basque cheese made from sheep’s milk.  I buy it at Formaggio Kitchen’s Kendall Square store.

It pairs beautifully with Villa Creek’s Rousanne.

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Food and Pop Art

Posted on August 1, 2020 by dgourmac

Adobe has recently released several new iPhone/Android apps, with fascinating filters to jazz up one’s photos.  I played around with these apps and our food adventures, and I’m happy to share them with you in this post.

Lilies of the Valley in Our Garden

Slice of a Tentacle in an Octopus Salad

Prosciutto  and Arugula on Grilled Bread (no filter)

Barbara’s Burger Buns from a King Arthur Flour Recipe

These were used for vegan burgers.

Posted in Artistic, Flowers, Food, Photography | Leave a comment

A “Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society” Potato Pie

Posted on July 3, 2020 by dgourmac

My wife reads a lot of books.  She enjoys watching British movies and period pieces.  And she is a very good cook.  Last night those elements all came together in a terrific dinner.

Several months ago, she read The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society. Not long after that, we watched the movie on Netflix.  It’s a fascinating story of how the residents of this small location in the British Channel Islands managed to cope with the bitter German occupation during WW II.   The stories inspired Barbara to invent a vegetarian dish which we named after the title of the book.  It’s actually similar to some layered potato casseroles or Strata, characteristic of Liguria, and it tastes extremely good.

We’ve had it twice now, and I want to share it with you.  The main ingredients are potatoes, chopped greens (any combination of spinach, Swiss Chard, and kale), Parmesan cheese, and homemade dried breadcrumbs.  Here’s the finished product after we had two servings each for dinner:

For my wine I chose a medium-bodied Spanish red from Montsant, 2018 La Selección.  It’s a delicious blend of Garnacha Tinta,  Macabeo,  Cariñena,  and Garnacha Blanca grapes.

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Pasta Trenette

Posted on June 23, 2020 by dgourmac

This post is about Pasta Trenette from Liguria, Italy — a delicious vegetarian linguini-like dish with pesto, potatoes and green beans.  Why?  The reason is that I found a box of Trenette pasta in a far corner of my pantry.  And why was I in that far corner?  I was searching for some accessories to my espresso machine, because my old one was not working, and I was giving it to my friend, Gemma, on Sunday, in hopes that she would be able to get it fixed at a reasonable cost and then use it as happily as I did for 13 years.  That’s why I made the dish yesterday for dinner.

The recipe I liked best from several that were similar was from a blog by Tori Avey.

Here’s the link to her recipe.  What I found intriguing about it is that the potatoes and green beans are cooked together in a pot.  Then they are removed, and I use the same pot to cook the pasta.  The dish is finally assembled in a serving bowl, in which the pesto sauce was made by mixing an Italian pesto (preferably with Ligurian basil as its main constituent), with hot pasta water.

It was easy and delicious.  For me, they key to its success was the quality of the Pesto Genovese, supplied by Gustiamo.

The wine was an old favorite, Minutolo from Polvanera.  It’s from Puglia, a long way from Liguria, but a good match nonetheless.

Posted in Food, Vegetarian, Wine | 1 Comment

Inspiration and Necessities: The Development of a New Recipe

Posted on June 19, 2020 by dgourmac

Last night it was my turn to cook.  We had not made pasta for a week, so it was a no-brainer for me.  I would make pasta.  But which one?

When choosing what to cook, I get my inspiration from 3 primary sources: (1) ingredients, (2) cookbooks, and (3) online blogs and articles.  Another dimension of the decision process is constraints, or “Necessities”.  These might include ingredients that must be used tonight, ingredients we can not get in time, and ingredients one of us can’t or won’t eat (peppers, spicy, milk products, etc.).

I think you might enjoy walking through that process with me now, as an illustration about developing a new recipe for a pasta dish.  However, not all of my readers have the patience or an interest in this long-winded tutorial (my wife for one; “just put dinner on the table by 6:30”).  If you are among this latter cohort, go straight to the bottom of the post to find the resultant recipe.

I began thinking about dinner in the early afternoon.  Three thoughts came quickly to mind:

  • Fettuccine all’Abruzzese — a fine dish I had made twice before, from Diane Darrow’s blog, Another Year in Recipes.
  • Penne with Roasted Shiitakes, Eggplant, and Sambal — from another favorite blog, Lemons and Anchovies.
  • Melanzane in Potacchio — a vegetable dish from the March region.  Not a pasta, but could be paired with one.  This was from Our Italian Table.

These all sounded good to me, but filtering them with “Necessities” was a required next step.  One specific requirement was the need to use the small Italian eggplant that was getting soft in the refrigerator.

There were two marks against the Fettuccine.   One: too much time and work required to make fresh pasta,  Two: it was not that long ago that I made it previously; variety is important.  It could be accompanied by an eggplant side dish, but not a great match.

I could not make the Penne with Shiitakes as it was written, because the Sambal is too spicy for Barbara, and it seemed to be integral to the flavors of the dish.

The Melanzane was very appealing, but insufficient by itself.  How do I get my pasta?

My solution was to borrow from all three recipes, and to combine them into a new, integrated pasta dish featuring the best of each of the elements.  I decided to use the Melazane dish in its entirety, as a major component of the finished pasta dish.  I liked the simplicity and elegance of the approach.  I borrowed the Penne and the roasted Shiitakes (including the white Balsamic), plus some onions and shallots, to get more flavors into the final product.  And I took the pancetta, onions, and basil from the Fettuccine recipe because I like them so much, and they seemed to complement the rest of the meal.

Here’s what we got:

By happy circumstance, my open bottle of red wine (2012 Damiano Ciolli’s Cesanese Riserva) is from the Marche region (like the Potacchio).  It is one of my favorites, imported by Jan D’Amore.

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Cianfotta (A Neapolitan Version of Ratatouille)

Posted on June 15, 2020 by dgourmac

Summer is coming soon (at least in this hemisphere).  That means the arrival of great fresh vegetables, which for me, often get celebrated by making one of the amazing European roasted vegetable dishes.  Among my favorites are:

France: Tian/Ratatouille.  https://dgourmac.wordpress.com/2013/09/05/from-the-sublime-to-the-ridiculous/

Italy: Cianfotta   https://www.splendidtable.org/recipes/cianfotta-neapolitan-style-ratatouille

Greece: Briam/Tourlou.  http://thegreekvegan.com/tourlou-tourlou-briam/

Spain: Escalivada:  https://food52.com/recipes/31025-escalivada-catalan-roasted-vegetables

In anticipation of this season, I decided to make Cianfotta last night, as a way to utilize the eggplant in the refrigerator which was beginning to show its age.  I’ve tried two or three versions over the years, and you can find them in previous posts by entering “Cianfotta” in the search box on the top right side of any of my blog pages.   The one I made yesterday was a recipe from Katie Parla’s book, Food of the Italian South (see link above).

This dish braises the vegetables (added sequentially, based on their cooking times) very slowly in their own juices, so they are tender and easily digestible when done.  I usually accompany it with a nice, crusty country-style bread.  A slice or two of my Tartine bread, toasted, did the trick.  Katie’s version is similar to the others I know (Viana LaPlace, Verdure, and Arthur Schwartz, Naples at Table), only a bit simpler and quicker to prepare.  Note that ingredients can be modified from time-to-time, depending on preferences and availability.

For wine, I normally choose a rosé or red wine from the country matching the dish.

Wishing you a marvelous, tasty, healthy summer.

Posted in Food, Greek food, Vegan, Vegetarian, Wine | Leave a comment

Bruschetta, Newschetta

Posted on June 13, 2020 by dgourmac

As much as I enjoy the cooking and baking, I get that much pleasure and more from the eating.  Here are a few highlights with my sourdough bread and remaining octopus.

This particular bread has been a thrill, the best I’ve made yet in 9 years.  It was baked only two days ago, and the two of us have already eaten almost all of the 884 g in the finished boule.  In spite of the fact it could have benefited from a little longer in the oven during the browning phase, the taste and texture are great, especially when toasted.  Last night for dinner, I ate three pieces, just toasted and drizzled with a little olive oil, alongside an octopus salad, containing grilled tentacles, celery, red onion, leftover potatoes, salt-packed capers, cannellini beans, arugula, red wine vinegar, and olive oil.

You already know I often make bruschetta, one of my favorite meals or snacks.  This bread was perfectly suited to both old and new versions — hence, “new”schetta (my apologies).  Since I had just made the bread yesterday, I soaked Ranch Gordo’s Marcella cannellini beans, so they could be cooked today.  The goal was to make a coarse white bean purée to serve with grilled bread.  We had a little leftover Swiss Chard from Small Farm, which was wilted and chopped, ready to go atop the purée.  That consumed three more thick slices and made a fine lunch.

In the meantime Barbara had gone shopping and found our favorite goat Brie cheese at Trader Joe’s, so the end of that meal was goat Brie on grilled bread.  Superb.

The good news is that we have a second loaf available for the next few days.  And “no”, I don’t gain weight on my own bread — ever.

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