R2R: Parmigiana di Melanzane

Somewhere in the world eggplant is in season. I know this because my local supermarket just got in some real beauties. So in celebration here is an Eggplant Parmesan recipe for one of my favorite Italian chefs.

Eggplant Parmesan: Parmigiana di Melanzane
Recipe courtesy Mario Batali

Ingredients•2 pounds (about 2 medium-sized) eggplant

•Salt
•4 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil
•1 cup fresh bread crumbs, seasoned with 1/4 chopped fresh basil leaves and 1/4 cup pecorino
•2 cups Basic Tomato Sauce, recipe follows
•1 pound ball fresh mozzarella, thinly sliced
•1/2 cup freshly grated Parmigiano-Reggiano

Directions
Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F.

Wash and towel dry the eggplant. Slice the eggplant horizontally about 1/4-inch thick. Place the slices in a large colander, sprinkle with salt and set aside to rest about 30 minutes. Drain and rinse the eggplant and dry on towels.

In a sauté pan, heat the extra-virgin olive oil until just smoking. Press the drained eggplant pieces into the seasoned bread crumb mixture and sauté until light golden brown on both sides. Repeat with all of the pieces. On a cookie sheet lay out the 4 largest pieces of eggplant. Place 2 tablespoons of tomato sauce over each piece and place a thin slice of mozzarella on top of each. Sprinkle with Parmigiano and top each with the next smallest piece of eggplant, then sauce then mozzarella. Repeat the layering process until all the ingredients have been used, finishing again with the Parmigiano. Place the pan in the oven and bake until the top of each little stack is golden brown and bubbly, about 15 minutes.

Basic Tomato Sauce:

1/4 cup extra-virgin olive oil
1 Spanish onion, chopped into 1/4-inch dice
4 cloves garlic, peeled and thinly sliced
3 tablespoons fresh thyme leaves, chopped
1/2 medium carrot, finely shredded
2 (28-ounce) cans peeled whole tomatoes
Salt

In a 3-quart saucepan, heat the olive oil over medium heat. Add the onion and garlic and cook until soft and light golden brown, about 8 to 10 minutes. Add the thyme and carrot and cook 5 minutes more, until the carrot is quite soft. Add the tomatoes and juice and bring to a boil, stirring often. Lower the heat and simmer for 30 minutes until as thick as hot cereal. Season with salt and serve.

This sauce holds 1 week in the refrigerator or up to 6 months in the freezer.

Tips:
Fresh bread crumbs are required for the coating to stick without an egg wash.
The oil must be HOT HOT HOT or the eggplant will not cook fast enough and will be a greasy soggy mess.
The Mozzarella must be very thinly sliced or the eggplant tower will slide (it will still taste great)

Temper's Take:
I am in love, it was so much easier than I expected and oh soooo good! The only down side is I eat it alone as Indra does not like stinky cheese (she claims Parmesan smells like old gym socks). But that did mean more for me so maybe that was a positive after all. FYI it is also good made with zucchini just layered in a casserole and not fried.

4 stars and mushrooms

My love affair with mushrooms started in my childhood with Morels. Every spring my father and a bunch of friends would go morel hunting. Later while they were enjoying an orgy of mutual grooming (morel season is also tick season) Mom cook up the days bounty.

I will never forget the taste of those mushrooms. They were sweet and nutty and meltingly good. I have no idea what Mom did to them (other than use butter) but it was good. Every spring I still get the craving for morels but alas they are not to be found here in Texas and dried is just not the same.

It should there for come as no surprise when the Mushroom Council invited me to attend an event at Abacus to discuss mushrooms and their changing roles in cuisine and the food industry with recipe demo and 3 course meal by chef Kent Rathburn I jumped at it. I mean 4 star restaurant, Iron chef winner (take that Flay) and mushrooms, how could it be better?

I will tell you how, I got to meet Kelly of Evil Shenanigans, she was the other blogger present. The pictures in this post are from her since my camera batteries died after 1 picture. To be honest she did a better job then I ever could have. Go see her post about the event here.

Actually this post is just a teaser, I am writing an article about the experience for Blake Makes magazine that will have actual recipes and other cool information in it (but probably not alot of me gushing about how great it was).

Chef Kent Rathburn demonstrated three techniques for cooking mushrooms in three recipes featuring 6 diffrent readily available mushrooms. He did a 'Wood Grilled Portabella and Oyster Mushroom Pizza with Gorgonzola, Rocket Greens Salad', a 'Pan Roasted Shitake and Button Mushroom Linguine with Braised Veal Shank, Port Demi' and a 'Crimini and Maitake Mushroom Ragu with Grilled Romano Cheese Polenta'. It was easy to see why Chef Rathburn beat Flay on Iron Chef, all three dishes were fantastic and show cased the mushrooms beautifully. I have made up my mind it is worth saving the money for truely fine dining as opposed to eating out more often at chain resturaunts.

I will admit that the Pizza was my favorite (and with any luck it will be the recipe in the magazine). Two things in this dish reduced me to happy sounds and silly smiles. The first was of course the mushrooms, delicately smoked and oh so tender, good lord I could have eaten them straight up and been happy. The second thing was the oven roasted cherry tomatoes. They were like little savory raisins, sweet, tangy and a hint of herbs. These are definitely going on my make them often list and Indra can just suffer in her little tomato free zone, cause they are just that good. (I will put the instructions for these at the bottom of this post). He topped the pizza with a rocket and gorganzola salad, somehow all the flavors came together to make me like gogonzola and rocket salad with a lemon vinigret (not something I thought possible). This dish has made me rethink all those fancy cookbooks I have been shunning as pretensious and overly complicated.

The second dish was very good but just did not wow me. I will admit the veal was melt in you mouth smooth and flavorful, and perhaps that was the problem I wanted more of the delicious sauteed mushrooms darn it! Now I know veal is a bad word and I can understand the objections, I just am not sure I support the cause 100%. I definitly support eating tasty food, and veal fits that catagory, but all things considered it may be one of those foods that is just not worth the price for me.

The final dish was a revelation to me, the polenta cake was light and fluffy in texture, not something I thought you could do with polenta. Add some maitake mushrooms (Kelly and I both swore they had a sweet floral / honey note to them) and I was sold.

I learned that mushrooms are the only fruit or vegetable that contains vitamin D. Mushrooms are a very eco friendly crop (lots of recycling) and wasn't the video fun as it tried to avoid saying exactly what the major component in the growth medium was. We also learned that most mushroom growers would love to give you a tour of their facility. Definitely something I am going to try.

Don't forget to check out the Mushroom Councils website and Blog for recipes, news and contests.

To make Oven roasted Cherry tomatoes heat your oven to the extreemely high temprature of 180. cut your tomatoes in half and toss them with a little roasted garlic oil and herbs. spread face up on baking sheet and roast for about 1.5 hours. Nothing should get crispy. remove and enjoy, they will stay good for a week or so with proper care put they are not like raisin that you can stuff in the cupboard and will still be good months later.

Spaghetti Squash ala Esther

My Friend Esther is a true foodie, unfortunately she is also diabetic and managing it through diet, which means almost no carbs. I don't know about you but I don't think I could live that way. This was her suggestion of a side when we had Thanksgiving together.

Spaghetti Squash ala Esther

1 spaghetti squash, cut in half and deseeded
2 table spoons butter
Nutmeg (freshly grated is best)
Salt (kosher or sea, not table)
Pepper (fresh ground)
Dried Cranberries

Rub each half squash with a table spoon of butter, Sprinkle with nutmeg, salt and pepper to taste (I like it to look freckled) and then wrap in tinfoil.

Cook at 350 degrees until soft (test with a fork through the side or by squeezing gently).

loosen the sides with a fork and 'fluff'. I then sprinkle with the dried cranberries. It sits well and reheats great in the microwave making it great for family get togethers.

Temper's Take:
This turns out surprisingly rich tasting and the dried cranberries (my addition) offsets that beautifully. I have also used this method with Italian seasoning, a couple of meatballs, garlic and a sprinkling of parmesan with great results. As an additional plus spaghetti squash is cheap and it is easy to make, just what I want in a great dish.

R2R, Holopchi

This months challenge was Beet Leaf Holopchi. Our hosts for January were KatBaro of A good Appetite and Giz & Psychgrad of Equal Opportunity Kitchen. I changed up the recipe a little, the original can be found here. I used turnip leaves instead of Beet leaves and stuck some pork chops in the bottom of the pan with the extra turnip leaves. The pork chops turned out so tender and tasty I wish I had snuck a few more in and with the extra turnip leaves it was almost a one pot meal.

I quartered the bread dough and still had enough left over to make a loaf of bread. In the end though I wish I had made more because they were good! Here are the measurements I used.

1 1/8 t instant yeast
2 T warm water
1/4 t sugar
1/2 c scalded milk
1 c warm water
1 T melted butter
2 c flour
1 beaten egg
1/2 T salt
1 t sugar
1 1/2 c flour plus more as needed

The sauce I halved, half of that went on the Holopchi as it was cooking (added after it started to brown) and the rest I added when it was done.

Temper's Take:
I learned alot from this recipe, For example, I like turnip greens, who would have guessed! Also dill, not a favorite herb of mine, was actually very good in this. And the whole pork chop thing turned out so well I am thinking of trying some other variations.

Spinach with Bacon

Spinach is not real high on my list of favorite vegetables. Canning and freezing are just not good for it. Fresh spinach on the other hand can be great.

Spinach with Bacon

3 pieces bacon
1/2 cup sliced Onions
1 clove chopped garlic
lots of Spinach
Parmesan
salt

Fry the bacon until crispy and then set aside to drain. Drain most of the bacon fat out of the pan(leave a table spoon or so), Turn heat to med low and add onions and garlic sauteing until the onions are translucent. Add the spinach (remember it cooks down alot)and salt to taste, continue sauteing until the spinach is wilted. top with crumbled bacon and Parmesan and serve!

Temper's Take:
Very good, though it took more salt then I expected. I think adding a splash of balsamic next time would be good too. (for a vegetarian option nuts substituted for the bacon could be quite nice)

R2R, Confit Byaldi

This is the first month Recipes to Rival has been around. Lori and I choose Confit Byaldi as the first challenge. Basically this is fancy Ratatouille, more specifically it is the Ratatouille from the movie of the same name. You can find the recipe we used (and assorted other information and links) on the Recipes to Rival June Challenge post.

I followed the recipe pretty closely, a first for me, and am very glad I did. The piperade was probably the most time consuming bit. Lots of chopping and peeling and then it is all sauteed in various steps. I had forgotten how much fun it can be to skin tomatoes, just dunk them in boiling water for a couple seconds and then douse them in ice water and the skin just slides off. Roasting the bell peppers did the same thing and made them much easier to chop (they smelled good too).

Fortunately for me the piperade could be made ahead and stored for a couple days. I was very tempted to make a second batch the first smelled and looked so good (ok I may have tasted it too). Everyone agreed the piperade was something we could see ourselves making for lots of other uses as well. Pizza, sandwiches and salads were just a few of the ideas, me, I thought it would make a good french type salsa dip thing (aren't I articulate?).

The actual Confit Byaldi went together easily thanks to my new slicer and dicer (it doesn't really dice but it sounded good) I got lots of extra thin veggie slices very fast. I had several problems with this step however, all of them concerning the ingredients. I could not find a Japanese eggplant and even the smallest eggplant I did find was considerably larger then the squash. One of my zucchini and two of my tomatoes went off before I could use them (I had to wait a week after buying them to use them) fortunately I had plenty left.

The balsamic vinaigrette was a great touch and allowed me to use some fresh herbs from my garden (about all that I can grow). I used thyme, bee's Balm (a mint) and oregano. I had never used balsamic vinegar before (expensive and I am not a big fan of vinegar) but boy was it good.

The end result was gorgeous and delectable. It stored well, heated up well and tastes good cold. It can be done in stages and even done ahead so it is a great dish to make for guests. Serve with some crusty bread, a salad and you have a light and satisfying meal. Unfortunately something caused Indra to have an allergic reaction so she couldn't eat any. We are not sure if it was the sausage I served with it, the Balsamic vinegar or the bee's balm. I however enjoyed it for lunch several days running.

Browned Sweet potatoe and honey butter.

I had a sweet potato left over from supper the other night. It was still firm and since I had gorged myself the night before I was up for something a little different.

I peeled and sliced the sweet potato into slices about an inch thick. I then fried them in butter (with a little kosher salt), turning often until they had some pretty caramelized spots on them.

to serve I topped with a dollop of Honey Butter and it was nummy.

it was a fast side that was pretty and used up left overs, all good in my book. Next time maybe with some cranberry dressing for some tartness.