Happy Earth Day! – GREEN KALE CROSTINI WITH SKORDALIA

Earth Day Eats

For the 40^th anniversary of Earth Day…shop local, eat global.  Much is made of the locavore movement, which is really just a return to the way that people have eaten for most of human history.

To get all of the ingredients, I didn’t leave my own little corner of the planet.  The olive oil and vegetables came from the Farmer’s Market or my yard and the bread came from a local bakery.  The little platter was made my a local artist, even the leftover lemon made a great cup to hold the skordalia!  The inspiration came from Greece where greens are gathered and eaten daily.  Skordalia, the Greek version of aioli – it is perfect for an Earth Day meal – you can recycle potatoes from last night’s dinner and use any type of nut you have on hand.

Sauteed Kale

Sautéed Russian Kale

2 TBL olive oil

1 bunch Russian kale, washed/dried

1/2 tsp red pepper flakes

Salt/black pepper to taste

1 TBL white wine or lemon juice

Cut off the kale stems and put in the compost (it is Earth Day!) and cut leaves into finger-width ribbons, set aside.  Heat a large skillet on the stove and add 1 TBL olive oil and swirl to coat the pan, add red pepper flakes, a pinch of salt and pepper.  Put the kale ribbons in the pan and coat well turning them in the hot oil.  Cook on high for a few minutes until kale is wilted.  Add tablespoon white wine or lemon juice, stir in and lower heat to medium and cook until kale is firm and flavorful but not crunchy.  Adjust seasoning and set aside to cool.

Skordalia

8 cloves of garlic

1 cup quartered potatoes (scrubbed, with peels)

1/4 cup toasted walnuts

1/4 cup olive oil plus 3 TBL

Salt

Roast the garlic cloves and potatoes with 3 tablespoons of olive oil and a pinch of salt in a hot oven until soft and brown.  While they are roasting, pulverize walnuts either with mortar and pestle (very green!) or in the food processor, add the garlic and potatoes and emulsify while drizzling in the 1/4 cup olive oil.  Blend until smooth.

Toast slices of bread, slather with skordalia, top with warm kale and enjoy with your local beverage of choice!  Happy Earth Day!

Kale and Skordalia Crostini

CATALAN ROMESCO SAUCE

Catalan Romesco Sauce

The cuisine of the Catalan region of Spain is rich in tradition and rich in flavor – and romesco sauce is its ‘little black dress’.  Romesco is served hot or cold with every type of vegetable, greens, meat and fish.  Drawing its name from the mild romesco pepper of Spain, the sauce doesn’t bear a distinct pepper flavor but is a smoky blend of roast garlic, tomatoes and peppers with almonds and a tang of Sherry vinegar.

In the spring, the most popular way to eat romesco is at a “calçotada”.  “Calçots” are young onions (similar to a large scallion or small leek) that are roasted on an open fire and when charred packed into a clay roof tile and allowed to steam in their own heat.  They are served in the concave roof tile with the romesco.  After sliding off the charred outer leaves, the onions are dragged through the bowl of romesco sauce and lowered into the mouth biting off the tender green root end and tossing the charred greens.

Onions steamed in clay roof tile with romesco sauce

Romesco goes perfectly with grilled vegetables or fish, roast potatoes or chicken — and with music of Ojos de Brujos and a sunny afternoon.

Romesco sauce takes a little while to prepare but will keep well for several days refrigerated, that is if it lasts – you’ll find yourself putting it on everything!

Ingredients

1/4 cup plus 2 TBL pure olive oil

6 ripe, fleshy tomatoes – cored

5 cloves garlic

1/4 teaspoon red pepper flakes

6 red bell peppers

1/2 cup unsalted whole almonds

2 TBL Sherry vinegar

1/2 tsp smoked paprika

salt to taste

Preheat the oven to 450 degrees.  In a shallow baking dish, roll the whole cored tomatoes and garlic cloves in 2 TBL olive oil, sprinkle with the red pepper flakes, roast in the hot oven, turning the tomatoes until the skins are beginning to char on every side.  Remove from the oven and set aside to cool.

Roast and peel the red bell peppers per the instructions on the Technique Tuesday link. Set aside the peeled strips of pepper.

Using a food processor, pulse the tomatoes, garlic along with the pepper flakes and the oil from the baking dish until chunky.  Add the pepper strips, the almonds, smoked paprika, sherry vinegar and process drizzling in the remaining 1/4 cup olive oil.

Taste and salt lightly – adjust seasoning accordingly:  there should be the zing of the vinegar and a little heat from the paprika and red pepper flakes.

Grilled Albacore, Roast Fingerling Potatoes, Grilled Asparagus

Roast Red Peppers

Today, let’s talk peppers.  Peppers are used all over world from the honking big Bells that are sweet and as big as a shoe to the tiny and killer spicy Habaneros and Birdseye Chilis.  For now, let’s talk about roasting those lower on the Scoville Scale, the peppers you won’t need rubber gloves and a mask to handle.

Roasting bell peppers is so easy and not a mess if you follow these steps!

What you need:

Peppers

Tongs

Large Paper Bag

Heat Source

2 Baking Sheets

Wire Rack

You can use the barbecue grill or a gas burner, but the quickest and tidiest way to roast peppers is in a hot oven.  Preheat the oven to 450 degrees.  Remove any tags or stickers from the peppers and place on their sides on a baking sheet.  Put the baking sheet in the oven and after about five minutes check your peppers, if they are brown or black on the top side, give them a quarter turn using the tongs and replace in the oven for another approximate five minutes.  Repeat until the peppers are blackened all around – they may not all darken at the same time – remove with the tongs the peppers from the oven as they done and place in a large paper bag.  Fold the bag to seal and allow the peppers to steam as they cool.

When the peppers are cool enough to be handled, remove them to a wire rack and placed in the sink.  DO NOT turn on the water – you will not need water to clean the peppers.  Water washes away some of the flavor you have worked to obtain!  The skins will slide off (keep the bag handy for the discarded skins/seeds/stems), keep a damp towel to your side to clean your hands of pepper skin bits or seeds.

For strips or to use in Catalan Romesco Sauce (come back tomorrow!):  Hold the pepper by the bottom and split toward the stem end, carefully remove the seeds and membrane and remove the stem and seed cluster.  Replace the peppers on the rack to drain. Shake lightly to remove any stray seeds.

For stuffed roast peppers:  Carefully cut around the stem and pull out the seed cluster with the stem, gently remove the sides seeds and membranes.  Do not wash them out!  Cut the seed cluster from the inside of the stem and remove any bits of skin from the stem.

You can now stuff them, slice/dice/puree them.  Make soup or sauce, dress them with a very simple vinaigrette – just eat them right there over the sink!

TECHNIQUE TUESDAY

Charred Bell Peppers

Cake baked in a bowl?

Tomatoes with Chili Peppers and Garlic

Tear free Horseradish

Every Tuesday, I’d like to share a technique that will come in handy with the recipes that follow in the days to come.  Knowing the techniques to make the foods you like will the cooking world a much smaller place!

MOLTEN CHOCOLATE VOLCANO CAKE

Molten Chocolate Volcano Cake

The feisty Icelandic volcano with the almost unpronounceable name — Eyjafjallajokull – causing trouble for people all over Europe and the Western Hemisphere with canceled and disrupted travel is the perfect excuse for an oozey-gooey chocolate cake.  It’s causing more headaches than the morning after a Brennivín party!  Brennivín is the national alcohol of Iceland, a kick ass Icelandic cousin of moonshine and Aquavit, nicknamed the “black death”.  So when the going gets tough, the tough need chocolate! What better way to commiserate a weekend spent on the floor of Heathrow, than over a warm plate of molten chocolate cake.  Skál!

You won’t blow your top trying to make this either – this is a very easy cake, whips up in less than an hour, but looks like you spent all day.  Make the batter before dinner, and pop it in the oven as you and your guests start your entrees.  Use a small deep metal bowl for dessert to share between four people, or in four individual ramekins, or small bowls.  A little cinnamon spices up the molten “lava” in the cake’s middle.

1/4 cup all-purpose flour, plus 1 tsp for dusting

1/2 cup granulated sugar, plus 1TBL for dusting

1tsp unsweetened cocoa powder

1/2 cup unsalted butter, plus 1 TBL butter melted

1 cup bittersweet chocolate chips (70% cacao)

pinch of salt (1/8 tsp)

3 eggs at room temperature

1/2 tsp ground cinnamon

Prepare the bowls for the cake batter

Preheat oven to 400 degrees.  Mix 1 teaspoon flour, 1 tablespoon sugar and 1 teaspoon cocoa powder in small bowl.  Brush a 2-1/2 cup domed metal bowl (or four 1-cup ramekins) with melted butter, dust with flour/sugar/cocoa mixture swirl bowl and gently tap out what does not stick to the sides.  Set aside on baking sheet.

Melt butter and chocolate in small bowl over a small pot of water on very low heat.  Set aside off heat when melted and smooth.

Beat eggs, sugar and salt until the mixture is a light yellow and a little frothy.

Stir cinnamon into flour and fold by hand into egg/sugar mixture and then fold in melted chocolate.

Cake fresh from the oven

Pour batter into prepared bowls and place on baking sheet.  Bake the bowl of cake for 16 minutes – or 10 minutes for individual serving ramekins.  When you remove the baking sheet from the oven the cake should barely jiggle on top.

Place bowl (ramekins) on rack to cool about ten minutes.  Use a thin butter knife to loosen the cake and turn onto a serving plate, sprinkle with powdered sugar….and, if you would like, top with your own ‘ash cloud’ of fresh whipped cream.

FIG AND DATE CAKE

Fig & Date Cake

Many people are looking for gluten-free alternatives for dessert and while this looks like a cake, there’s no flour.  Or serve as an appetizer, with Spanish manchego cheese.  It’s perfect for a swanky party – you can make it a few days ahead – one less thing to worry about on party day!  Jane Newdick’s Sloe Gin & Beeswax is a treasured resource for living the homemade life.  This recipe is adapted from her book, it works great for dessert with a dollop of freshly whipped cream or fresh ricotta.

Ingredients & Chopped Fig/Date Mixture

1 lbs. dried calimyrna figs, roughly chopped

2 lb. dried mission or black figs, sliced in rings horizontally

1 lb. Halawi or Medjool dates, roughly chopped

1/2 cup unblanched almonds

2 tsp. dried fennel seeds

2 tsp. honey

2 tsp. Sherry

1 tsp orange zest

In a medium-sized bowl, stir together honey, sherry and half the fennel seeds and half the orange zest until fully incorporated.  Stir in chopped figs and chopped dates and set aside.

Line cake pan with parchment paper circle.  Layer the fig rings in a pave on the bottom of the pan.  Spread an even layer of fig/date mixture.  Sprinkle with 1/3 the almonds.

Sprinkle a pinch of fennel seeds and a pinch of orange zest.

Repeat the layers of fig/date mixture and almonds until all are used.

Top with circle of parchment paper, put flat plate on top and heavy weight (I use a 20-lb barbell in a heavy crockery jar, approximately 25 lbs.).  Place in a cool spot for 1 to 2 days for dessert.  Remove weight and turn onto plate.  Cut into small wedges and serve with whipped cream or fresh ricotta.  For appetizer, leave under weight for another 2 days to really dry the cake, then unweight and plate.  Cut into slivers and serve with manchego cheese, olives and a glass of Sherry.  Salud!

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France in July

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