Deconstructed Eggplant Parmesan

Ingredients:

1 Eggplant
½ Cup Breadcrumbs
1 Pint Cherry Tomatoes
2 Tablespoons Garlic
8 oz. Mozzarella Cheese
8 oz. Mascarpone Cheese
Olive Oil

Method:

I’m writing this recipe on a flight from Washington to Chicago, so I’m going off of the picture above and my memory. This will be a fun departure from my normal, “straight from the New York Times Food & Dining Section” accuracy.

Take your eggplant and slice it. Half an inch thickness is ideal. Too thin and the eggplant absorbs the oil and becomes an oily mess. Too thick and it won’t cook all the way through. Put your eggplant slices in a bowl and toss with salt. Leave them alone for 30 minutes. Come back and thoroughly dry each slice with a paper towel.

You next prep step is going to be to cut your pint of cherry tomatoes in half. As in, each of the tomatoes is cut in half. Finally, dice up your garlic.

You’re going to need to two skillets for this dish. Heat the first over medium-high heat with about a tablespoon of olive oil in it. Once the oil is hot, throw in your garlic for sixty seconds. After the garlic has been in there for a minute, add the tomatoes. This is going to sit for 30 minutes. As it cooks, you can smash the tomatoes with your spatula and make sure it doesn’t start to boil or burn. You’ll want to salt and pepper this to taste, as this will be the sauce for the dish.

In your other skillet, heat two or three tablespoons of olive oil over medium-high heat. Make sure it coats the pan evenly. You’re going to do the eggplant in batches. You may want to heat your oven to it’s lowest setting so you can keep the first batch warm while subsequent batches cook. Essentially, you’re browning the eggplants in the oil. Three or four minutes per side should be sufficient. Be sure to add more oil if the pan gets too dry and allow new oil to reach the appropriate temperature.

The browning of the eggplants should take 24-32 minutes. Once your tomatoes have simmered for 30 minutes, drop the heat to low and let them sit there. In the pan that you browned the eggplant in, add one more tablespoon of oil and let it get hot. You can scrape around any other delicious bits remaining in your eggplant skillet so that they are loose and can be incorporated into the breadcrumbs. Toss in the breadcrumbs and mix them in with the oil. You’re toasting the breadcrumbs in oil. You want to toast them until the breadcrumbs smell like toast. It’ll probably be about 4 minutes. Don’t burn them.

Now you’re reading to combine your dish. I’ll outline the method below and just repeat until all the eggplant slices have been topped.

Take an eggplant slice. Top it with a dollop of mascarpone cheese. Next, lay some sauce over the cheese. Sprinkle breadcrumbs over the sauce. Top it with a slice of the mozzarella.

Enjoy!

Meat loaf with green beans, roast potatoes and a salad.

Ingredients:
1/2 Cup bread crumbs
1/2 Cup milk
2 Pounds mixed ground meats (beef, veal, lamb and/or pork)
1 egg, lightly beaten
1/2 Cup grated parmesan cheese
1/2 Teaspoon minced garlic
1 Small onion, minced
1 Small carrot, minced
1 Teaspoon sage
3 Slices of bacon

Method:

Heat the oven to 350 degrees. Soak the bread crumbs in the milk until the milk is absorbed, about 5 minutes.

Mix together all the ingredients except the bacon. Shape the meat into a loaf in a baking pan; top the loaf with the bacon slices.

Bake for 45 – 60 minutes, basting occasionally with the rendered pan juices.

When done, the meat loaf will be browned lightly and firm. An instant0read thermometer inserted into the center will read 160 degrees.

Ingredients:

3 heads of garlic (roughly 40 cloves)
3.5 pounds of chicken (Thighs, Legs, or both together)
1 tablespoon of butter
2 tablespoons olive oil
3 tablespoons sweet vermouth
1.5 cups white wine
1 tablespoon of thyme
2 tablespoons of flour
2 tablespoons of milk

Method:

Separate all of the garlic cloves and place them in boiling water for 1 minutes. Remove them from the water and peel off their skins and set them aside.

Generously salt and pepper the chicken. Heat the oil and butter in a dutch oven over medium-high heat. Brown the chicken in the fat for 3-5 minutes on each side. Once the chicken has been browned, remove it to a plate.

Add all the garlic to the pot and lower the heat. Sautee the garlic for 5-10 minutes. Turn the garlic over frequently. Once the garlic is evenly browned on all sides, add 2 tablespoons of vermouth and the wine. Scrape the brown bits off the bottom of the dutch oven as the alcohol deglazes the pan.

Get the liquid in the pan boiling and return the chicken and its accumulated juices to the dutch oven. Add the thyme to the pot. Cover and simmer over low heat for 30 minutes.

After 30 minutes, remove the chicken to a platter and cover with tin foil. Remove 1/2 a cup of the liquid from the pot and mix it together with the flour in a bowl. Whisk this mixture back into the sauce. Add the remaining tablespoon of vermouth and the milk and return the liquid to a boil. Boil the sauce for 3 minutes. Salt and pepper the sauce to taste and serve it in a bowl so it can be spooned over the chicken.

3 Tablespoons butter
1.5 Pounds of thin fish fillets (flounder or sole)
Lemon wedges for serving

Method:

Turn your broiler on high and place your pan(s) that you’ll be using into the over for 5 minutes to heat them up. Salt and peper the fish.

After 5 minutes, remove them from the over and add the butter to pan(s), divided as necessary. Once the butter is melted, add the fillets in one layer to the pan(s).

Broil the fish for 90 seconds to 2 minutes. Collect the pan juices after you remove the fish to a platter and drizzle them over the fish.

4 Tablespoons of olive oil
4 Large garlic cloves, peeled and diced
8 Anchovy fillets (About 1 canister)
1/2 Teaspoon of red pepper flakes
6 Cups of Spinach
1/2 Pound of Linguine

Note: I used 1 pound of pasta instead of a half pound but kept the rest of the recipe the same. The original recipe calls for arugula instead of spinach, but I prefer spinach.

Method:

First, start your water boiling and salt the water.

Next, heat the olive oil in a pan over medium heat for 1 minute. Add the garlic, anchovies, some of the anchovy liquid, and the red pepper flakes. Once the anchovies have broken down and a sauce has formed, turn the heat down to low.

Cook the pasta according to the directions on the box. Reserve about 1/2 cup of the pasta water. Add it to the anchovy mixture to create a sauce. Put the sauce onto the pasta to prevent it from sticking together. Toss it all together, adding the Spinach until all the 6 cups have wilted.

Crispy Bacon, Cantaloupe and Feta Cheese

Ingredients:

1/2 lbs. Thick-cut bacon
1/2 of a cantaloupe
Feta cheese crumbles

Note: This is enough for 4 small appetizer portion. Adjust proportions according to your needs.

Method:

Cut the bacon in half or into thirds, depending on how long it is to begin with. Fry the bacon in a pan until it is crispy. A good trick for achieving this is to fry the bacon over medium-high heat. The bacon should be done after 6 minutes per side. To ensure its crispiness, do roughly 2 minutes more per side, until there are brown marks on the white fatty sections and the bacon is “popping” in the pan. Remember: Do not burn, just crisp.

Cube the cantaloupe and place it onto the plates. Sprinkle the feta cheese over the plates to your liking. Divide the bacon evenly between each plate.

Garnish each plat with some tomato romesco sauce.

Caramelized Figs With Honey and Crème Fraîche

That is an actual question I asked. It sounds like something that would be found on StuffWhitePeopleLike.com.

135. Crème Fraîche
136. Acute Accents
137. Circumflexes

I needed the crème fraîche to go with the caramelized figs I was making for dessert. I’m not a big dessert person, but the New York Times had featured this recipe in its Food & Dining section, so I had to make it. The New York Times says, “Jump!” and I say, “How high should I jump so that I can minimize my carbon footprint?”

I really, really liked this dish. It’s super easy to make. You cut some fruit in half, drizzle honey on it and then cook them in butter for a few minutes. Prep to table time is 10 minutes. If I could do it over again, I would have waited until after dinner had been cleared to make this. I made dinner and the figs all at once, and they’re best enjoyed hot, so my roommates and I had dessert for an appetizer. We’re depraved.

Whatever you do, do not forget the crème fraîche. It really makes the dish a home run. Here’s a hot tip if you can’t find it at your local grocery store: sometimes the cheese specialists have a stash if you can’t find it with the sour cream, cream cheese and other dairy.

Pair it with a dessert wine (Gewurtztraminer or Riesling) and go nuts. This is a classic case of something that looks and tastes impressive but could not be simpler to do. You can sit around with your fabulous friends, eating honey caramelized figs as you all ask yourselves, “What’s with all the umlauts in the New Yorker?”

Caramelized Figs With Honey and Crème Fraîche

Ingredients:

3 tablespoons mild honey
6 plump figs, trimmed and halved
1 1/2 tablespoons unsalted butter
4 tablespoons crème fraîche.

Note: The actual recipe also calls for four fresh thyme sprigs. I omitted it because I’m rarely able to make use of all the fresh herbs I buy and they end up going to waste.

Method:

Cut the stems off of your dates and cut them in half. Anywhere from 6-8 figs will work with these proportions, so don’t stress about how many figs your grocery store packages together.

The recipes calls for 3 tablespoons of honey, but what you’re essentially doing is covering the cut side of the fig in honey. Basically, fill the hole of each fig with honey. Once you’ve done that, put all the figs together and drizzle a little more honey over all of them.

Melt the butter over medium-high heat. Once the butter sizzles when you move the pan, put the dates in honey side down. Let them sit in the pan for 5 minutes. After 5 minutes, turn the dates over and let them cook for one minute on the other side.

Remove the dates to a plate. While still over heat, put 5 tablespoons of water in the pan to deglaze the honey. Use a wooden spoon to work the honey loose from the pan and into the water to make a sauce. Let this boil down for a minute or two. Pour it or spoon it over the figs, depending on how picky you are about presentation.

Serve with crème fraîche.

Penne Carbonara With Fava Beans, Peas and Pecorino

Ingredients:

1 3/4 pounds young fava beans in their pods (about 1 1/2 cups shelled)
3/4 penne
4 eggs
2 1/2 ounces pecorino, grated (about 1 cup), plus extra for serving
1 1/2 cups fresh or frozen shelled peas
2 tablespoons unsalted butter
A small handful of chives, finely snipped or sliced.

Note: My local Whole Foods was out of fresh fava beans, so I used a 15oz can instead. Drained off the juice. Worked fine. Didn’t use the chives either. I generally subscribe to the “Smoke ‘em if you got ‘em” approach to garnishes or minor herbs because I’m on a budget.

Method:

If you have fresh fava beans, get the beans out of their pods. If not, open the can and drain the juice. Set the beans aside in a bowl.

Grate your pecorino until you have 1 cup.

Next, you need to get your 4 egg yolks into a bowl. The best way to do this is to crack an egg and, using the two halves of the cracked shell, separate the yolk from the whites. Just transfer the yolk back and forth between the two halves until most of the whites have separated off and fallen into the sink. Be careful not to break the yolks. Once you separate a yolk, put it into a bowl. Repeat 3 more times.

At this point, start 6 cups of water boiling on your stove. When the water comes to a boil, put the Penne into the water. Set your time for 11 minutes, or whatever is two minutes less than the al dente cooking time of the pasta you’re using. Salt the water once the pasta is in.

While the pasta is cooking, put the grated pecorino into the bowl with the egg yolks. Salt and pepper the mixture and stir the cheese and yolks together. It should form a pasty yellow mix.

When your timer goes off, add the peas and beans to the pasta and cook for two more minutes. Before you take the pasta off the heat, reserve 1/2 cup of the cooking water.

Drain the pasta and return it to pot. Add the egg yolk and pecorino paste, the reserved cooking water and the butter. Toss together until there is an alfredo-like sauce coating the pasta.

Steak Frites with a Tomato Romesco Sauce

Ingredients:

16 oz Cherry Tomatoes
1 Jalapeno Pepper, chopped
3 Cloves Garlic, chopped
1/3 cup Red Wine Vinegar
1/3 Olive Oil
1/2 tsp Cayenne Pepper

Method:

Put the tomatoes, jalapeno and garlic in pan under high heat and cook until one side of the tomatoes is blackened. Transfer to a food processor.

Add the red wine vinegar and olive oil to the food processor, along with the cayenne pepper.

Process on medium until well blended.