Roast Pork on the Egg

Wines:

Domaine de la Vieille Julienne 2004 Cotes du Rhone
Kaesler Grenache Shiraz Mourvedre 2004
Sans Liege 2007 Cotes du Coast

Barbrix our new neighborhood restaurant has opened! Friday night we went to a Friends and Family Dinner and loved it! Perhaps we loved it a little too much because we both must have drunk a little too much and were not feeling that energetic on Sat. However, we pulled it together to cook a dinner using our Egg!
For those of you who know where we live, barbrix is right down the hill on Hyperion directly across from Baller Hardware.

Bea joined us and brought a fabulous wine. She also had been at barbrix. She also loved it.

We started with Nancy’s Chopped Salad. I love this salad! A 1960 staple that she has transformed! It is always on the menu at Pizzeria Mozza!

We Grilled a Herb-Crusted Pork Loin on the egg using the recipe from License to Grill by Chris Schlesinger, It was perfect! We really enjoyed it. The recipe can be found in our blog entry of: July 2, 2008. Click the date to get the recipe.

We made Potato-Parsnip Puree From the Food of Campanile by Mark Peel & Nancy Silverton. This is a very rich rendition of mashed potatoes. It also holds well over hot water, while the meat cooks. Try this one sometime it is great!

We finished up with a Brownie from Clementine. Boy does Annie make good desserts (and soups, and salads, etc.).

Recipe: Nancy's chopped salad
Los Angeles Times
March 11, 2009

Total time: 30 minutes

Servings: 6

Oregano dressing

4 cloves garlic
2 tablespoons dried oregano
2 teaspoons kosher salt
1/2 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
2 tablespoons lemon juice, or juice of 1 lemon
1/4 cup good red wine vinegar
1/4 cup extra-virgin olive oil

1. Roughly chop the garlic and then add the oregano, salt and pepper. Chop the mixture together and use the side of a knife or a mortar and pestle to make a grainy herb paste.

2. Transfer the paste to a large salad bowl, and add the lemon juice and vinegar. Mix with a fork, allowing the salt to dissolve, then add the oil and whisk with a fork until well combined. The dressing should be thick with garlic and oregano.
Salad and assembly


1 (15-ounce) can chickpeas, drained
1 red onion, peeled and sliced into fine rings
1/2 pound provolone, sliced 1/4 -inch thick then cut into 1/2 -inch ribbons
1/2 pound salami, peeled, sliced 1/4 -inch thick then cut into 1/2 -inch ribbons
4 medium or 8 small pickled pepperoncini, sliced into rings
3/4 pound cherry tomatoes
Sea salt
1 head iceberg lettuce, cored, and cut in ribbons 1/4 - to 1/2 -inch wide
1 head radicchio, cored and cut in ribbons 1/4 - to 1/2 -inch wide
2 tablespoons dried oregano for garnish (optional, preferably Sicilian or Turkish)

1. Gently fold the chickpeas, red onion, provolone, salami, pepperoncini (including seeds and juice) into the dressing, one at a time. Halve the tomatoes lengthwise and season with 1 1/2 teaspoons salt. Set aside until ready to serve.

2. When ready to serve, gently add the tomatoes, lettuce and radicchio to the salad bowl, along with a couple of generous pinches of oregano, and toss to combine with the dressing. Serve immediately.

Potato-Parsnip Puree
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From the Food of Campanile Mark Peel & Nancy Silverton

Serves 6 to 8

2 large russet potatoes (1 1/2 pounds), peeled and quartered
4 large parsnips (1 ½ pounds), peeled and quartered
8 large garlic cloves, peeled
1 cup heavy cream
2 sticks (8 ounces) unsalted butter, cut into small pieces
Kosher salt

In this dish, the poor, unappreciated, underrated parsnip gets a chance to shine this is a variation on mashed potatoes, but the flavor is sweet and earthy with the essence of parsnips and a real suggestion of autumn. At Campanile, this dish could also accompany roast beef to add a little something new to a delicious traditional cold weather dinner. This can be prepared earlier in the day and warmed in a double boiler when needed.


In a large stockpot, bring approximately 2 quarts of water to a boil. Using a vegetable steamer, steam the potatoes, parsnips, and garlic over medium-high heat until very tender, about 20 minutes. In a medium saucepan, over high heat, scald the cream, about 2 minutes. Add the butter, remove the pan from the heat, and stir the butter in as it melts, about 1 minute. Using a food mill, electric mixer, or a potato masher (but not a food processor), puree the potatoes, parsnips, and garlic into a large mix¬ing bowl. Fold in the melted butter and cream to give the puree a smooth texture. Season to taste with kosher salt. Keep warm in a double boiler until needed.

Asparagus Pasta

If you don't like to cook, here is a recipe that anyone can make! We make Asparagus Pasta several times in the spring when Asparagus is the freshest. Nothing could be easier. You can find the recipe in our blog entry of: May 11, 2008. Click the date to get this easy delicious recipe!

Fabulous Lasagna

We had a farmer’s market dinner that was wonderful. Pixie Tangerines are in the market and are delicious. We made a delicious salad from The Zuni Café Cookbook called: Mixed Lettuces With Mandarins, Hazelnuts, & Hazelnut Vinaigrette. We added shaved Manchego Cheese to the salad. We really liked it!

Actor John Pleshette likes to cook. We see him all the time at the farmer’s market, and have seen him in several plays. He also sends out recipes. He sent us a recipe for Spinach And Burratta Lasagna. This to us was unique we never have baked with burrata cheese. We decided to make it. When we went to the market, we saw that David the Mushroom purveyor had morels. Cathy decided to enhance the recipe with morels that she first sautéed in butter. It worked. The dish was delicious. We will make it again. Big shout-out to John P.

Spinach And Burratta Lasagna
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1pound of dried lasagna
2 medium leeks
2 bunches of spinach
1 pound of burratta
1/2 cup of fresh-grated parmesan cheese
chives

pre-heat oven to 400

bring a large pot of salted water to a boil. Add a splash of oil. drop in the lasagna and boil 8-10 minutes, stirring occasionally to keep the sheets from sticking to each other. When lasagna is still a bit underdone, drain and lay on a tea towel to dry.

Trim root ends and dark green leaves from leeks. Split lengthwise and rinse under running water. chop into one-inch pieces.

Dump the spinach in a sinkful of water. trim off stems and drain leaves in a colander.

Melt 4 tbsps of butter in a large saucepan. add leeks and cook over low heat for a few minutes until softened but not browned.

Raise heat. Add the spinach a handful at a time, turning with tongs. Cook until wilted but still green. Salt and pepper. Remove with tongs and drain in a strainer and squeeze gently to remove excess liquid.

Rub the inside of an au gratin dish with butter. Put a layer of spinach on the bottom. Slice burratta and using your fingers, top the spinach with thumbnail-size pieces. lay a sheet of lasagna on top. Sprinkle with parmesan.

Continue to stack the spinach, burratta, lasagna and parmesan until you end up with about four layers. You may need to make two stacks, side by side. Top final layer with lasagna. Dot with burratta, sprinkle with parmesan and place in the oven.

Bake for about 20 minutes or until the cheese bubbles and the lasagna is slightly browned.

Garnish with chopped chives and serve.

Serves 4


Mixed Lettuces With Mandarins, Hazelnuts, & Hazelnut Vinaigrette
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From the Zuni Café Cookbook

Use silky young lettuces, by themselves or mixed with endive or arugula. Fragrant mandarins come into season in December, and are refreshing and beauti¬ful in salads. They will taste best in this salad if they are at room temperature or just cool, not cold. Frangelico is a hazelnut liqueur that perfumes the salad as the alcohol releases its sweet, nutty scent. For a toastier flavor, substitute a few drops of hazelnut oil. A beautiful variation on this salad consists of arugula, blood oranges, slivered fennel, and toasted almonds mixed with sherry vinaigrette, per¬fumed with Arnaretto, Cointreau, or Grand Marnier. Another joins endive,fnsee, tangelos, and pistachios with coriander-scented vinaigrette, garnished with a driz¬zle of creme fraiche. The combination of satiny, scraggly, tart, nutty, crunchy, and creamy ends up being elegant.

This salad is good before or after a main course, particularly one featuring game birds or lamb.

for 4 servings:
About 24 hazelnuts {3/4 ounce, or a scant 1/4 cup)
2 to 3 mandarins {about 8 ounces}
1/4 cup extra-virgin olive oil
1 tablespoon Champagne vinegar or white wine vinegar
A splash of Frangelico liqueur or hazelnut oil
4 to 5 ounces mixed young lettuces,carefully washed and dried

Preheat the oven to 325°.

Roast the hazelnuts on a small baking sheet until the skins darken and begin to split, 10 to 15 minutes. While they are still hot, bundle them in a towel beanbag-style, then scrunch and massage them to rub off most of their skins. Pick the nuts from the chaff and chop them coarsely.

Slice both ends off each mandarin, cutting just deeply enough to expose the juicy flesh. Setting the fruit on end, use a paring knife to carve away the skin and pith in a series of smooth, arcing strokes from top to bottom, rotating the mandarin a little with each stroke as you work your way around the sphere. {Most of us mis¬judge and miss a little pith on the first go-round, but this is easy to trim once you've removed the bulky skin.) Slice the mandarins evenly into i/4-inch-thick pinwheels. Collect the slices and juice on a plate.

Combine the oil, vinegar, Frangelico or hazelnut oil trickle of juice from the mandarins, and salt to taste! Dip a lettuce leaf in the dressing, taste, and cor¬rect. Spoon a little of the vinaigrette over the mandarin slices. Tilt the plate to distribute it.

Drizzle and toss the lettuces with enough vinaigrette to coat them lightly but evenly. Taste. Toss in the hazelnuts, then distribute most of the leaves among individual plates. Slide and tuck the sliced mandarins among the leaves, then scat¬ter with the remaining leaves and the hazelnuts. Drizzle the vinaigrette from the mandarin plate over the salads.

Roast Chicken and Bread

We saw this recipe for Garlic and Thyme Roasted Chicken With Crispy Drippings Croutons in the New York Times and I couldn’t resist it! It is very simple and clever. Basically you roast a chicken in a hot oven. Under the chicken you place good bread that catches the chicken drippings and becomes a giant crouton that you can break up and use in a salad. We used the salad from the Zuni Café Cookbook that they make with their Roast Chicken. Following Billy’s advice we used the left over chicken to make a great chicken soup!

With the chicken we served Fava Bean Potato Hash from a recipe that Corina gave us from her restaurant Canele. It was a perfect accompaniment. You can get the recipe for the hash from our blog of May 26, 2008. Click the date to get the recipe.

Zuni Bread Salad
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Generous 1/2 pound slightly stale open-crumbed, chewy, peasant-style bread (not sourdough)

6 to 8 tablespoons mild-tasting olive oil

1 1/2 tablespoons Champagne vinegar or white wine vinegar

Salt and freshly ground black pepper

1 tablespoon dried currants

1 tablespoon red wine vinegar, or as needed

2 tablespoons pine nuts

2 to 3 garlic cloves, slivered

1/4 cup slivered scallions (about 4 scallions), including a little of the green part

2 tablespoons lightly salted chicken stock or lightly salted water

A few handfuls of arugula, frisée or red mustard greens, carefully washed, dried and torn

Spoonful of pan juices from the roast chicken

Garlic and Thyme Roasted Chicken With Crispy Drippings Croutons
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March 11, 2009
New York Times
Recipe

Time: 1 hour 25 minutes, plus 10 minutes’ resting
Country bread, ciabatta or other sturdy bread, preferably stale, sliced at least 1/2-inch thick
1 tablespoon extra virgin olive oil, more as needed
2 teaspoons kosher salt, more as needed
1/2 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper, more as needed
1 4- to 5-pound chicken, patted dry
1 garlic head, sliced in half horizontally, through the cloves
1 bay leaf
1/2 lemon
1/2 bunch thyme sprigs.

1. Preheat oven to 425 degrees. Arrange oven rack so that it is in center of oven. Lay bread slices in a thick, heavy-duty metal roasting pan in one layer. (Try not to use a thin or dark colored pan, which may cause bread to burn: see note.) Drizzle liberally with olive oil and sprinkle with salt and pepper.

2. Rub 1 teaspoon salt and 1/4 teaspoon pepper inside cavity of chicken. Stuff cavity with garlic, bay leaf, lemon and thyme. Rub outside of chicken with 1 tablespoon of olive oil and sprinkle all over with remaining salt and pepper. Place it breast side up on bread.

3. Roast chicken until it is deeply browned and juices run clear when thigh is pricked with a knife, about 1 hour 15 minutes. Let rest for 10 minutes before carving. Serve chicken with bread from pan.

Yield: 4 servings.

Note: If you use a thin or dark roasting pan, you might consider lowering the oven temperature to 375 degrees to prevent the bread from getting too dark. Check the pan periodically during cooking and lower the temperature as necessary (you can open the oven door for a minute to reduce heat quickly.) It may take longer for the chicken to cook through at a lower temperature.