Je Mange la Ville » Appetizers

FFwD: Just Wheat Blini with Smoked Salmon

mlb — Fri, 14 Oct 2011 04:37:34 +0000

Time for another French Fridays with Dorie? Yep, it sure is! This week: Buckwheat Blini with Smoked Salmon but even though I work at a place that uh, actually mills flours and I have access to all kinds of flours I don’t even know what to do with, I didn’t manage to get some buckwheat flour in time before I needed it for this recipe. Doh!

I had to use regular whole wheat flour for the buckwheat flour. Even so, these were really delicious!

Notes:
1. I let my batter sit in the fridge overnight, it got all bubbly.
2. I used a scalloped biscuit cutter to give the blini pretty edges. Plus, this way I also got to snack on the trimmings while waiting for jwa to get home!
3. I didn’t have dill on hand, so I garnished each with a cilantro leaf and also some finely diced red onion.
4. I held mine in a 200 degree F oven for about 30 minutes, I think it made them firmer. They were no problem to pick up and eat like a cracker.
5. I think these will definitely be an appetizer at Thanksgiving!

You can see everyone’s posts here! Okay, photo time:

The batter the next day, all bubbly and ready to add the eggs.

Post flip, nice and golden brown.

I made a half recipe and still ended up with more blini than jwa and I needed for a first course. So, someone is getting a stack of mini-pancakes tomorrow!

making the edges nice and scalloped with a handy biscuit cutter.

Salmon in place, creme fraiche and herbs to come.

Delicious!

Completely unrelated, but here is my awesome Halloween score this week! Life-size! He’s sitting at the dining room table right now…

Risotto All’Arancia Con Carote (or Orange Carrot Risotto)

mlb — Mon, 02 May 2011 03:35:57 +0000

This was sort of a happy accident in that I had no idea what to make for dinner and then I absentmindedly pulled a magazine from my desk drawer and came across this recipe. After doing a mental inventory of the fridge and cabinet I discovered that yes, I had all the stuff at home and yes, this is what I would be making for dinner. Happy! Accidental? Hmm, well, maybe not.

Anyway, this was very good! Creamy and orangey and cheesey. With healthy carrots on top.

And yeah, you can have fun with the leftovers too. Although, I did bake rather than fry my risotto balls but still quite delicious. Okay, let’s go with the recipe.

Risotto All’Arancia con Carote (or Orange Carrot Risotto)
Adapted from a recipe in La Cucina Italiana Magazine — about 3-4 servings)
3 medium carrots, diced
1 large orange
3 tbsp olive oil (divided)
1 shallot, finely diced
2 cloves garlic, minced
1 1/2 cups arborio or carnaroli rice
1/4 cup dry white wine
4-5 cups hot chicken broth (homemade or low sodium)
1/2 cup Parmesan cheese
1 tbsp unsalted butter
Kosher salt, freshly ground pepper and fresh chopped rosemary leaves (plus more Parmesan for garnish)

Steam the carrots until tender, about 4 minutes. Alternatively, you can also saute them in a little olive oil until tender, also about 4-5 minutes. Set aside.

Zest the orange peel with a microplane grater and the juice the orange. Keep the zest and juice separate.

In a heavy bottomed pan, heat 2 tablespoons of the oil over medium heat and saute the shallot and garlic until soft, about 3 minutes. Add the rice and orange zest and stir to coat with oil. Cook about 3 more minutes. Add the wine and orange juice and stir until absorbed. Then, add the hot broth by 1/2 cupfuls, stirring frequently. Wait until each addition is mostly absorbed to add the next.

Add the cheese and butter to the last addition of broth. Stir and season with salt and pepper. Let that last addition of broth cook down until the desired consistency. You may not use all the hot broth. Start tasting for doneness when you have about 1/3 of the broth left to add).

To serve, spoon risotto out into bowls and make a small indentation in the center of each. Add the carrots there and sprinkle it all with the chopped rosemary and a small drizzle with remaining olive oil. Garnish with more cheese if desired.

Leftovers?

Make Risotto Balls! (Arancini)
Take any leftover risotto and form little balls (I also added some chopped green onions and cilantro to mine — leftover from brunch), hiding a bit of mozzarella or goat cheese in the middle.

Chill to firm and then roll in a beaten egg and coat in breadcrumbs (I used panko).

Preheat your oven to 425 degrees F and spray a lined baking sheet with canola or olive oil spray. Lay the risotto balls on the sheet and spray with more oil. Bake about 30 minutes. Flip them over once, about half way through cooking time.

Let cool briefly and then devour!

Goat cheesey interior goodness…

FFwD: Mustard Batons

mlb — Fri, 22 Apr 2011 04:33:54 +0000

French Fridays with Dorie again. So, here’s what I made last week — yeah, I have to pay closer attention to the schedule! But regardless, these were delicious!

Things I learned/notes:

1. Super easy to make a half recipe here.
2. I used a mix of mustards — a stone ground one and a double dijon.
3. I also used a mix of poppy seeds on some and sesame seeds on the others. I liked both but I kind of loved the sesame seeds.
4. Next time I must try this with olive tapenade. And maybe some Parmesan cheese. Ohhh, or roasted garlic. Okay, lots of options here! I know what I’d doing with that other sheet of puff pastry in the freezer.
5. These are almost embarrassingly easy for how wonderful they are!

Here’s a link to all the Mustard Baton posts! And below, my pictures.

Mustards.

Puff pastry rolled out, mustard applied.

Sliced (I used a pizza cutter), egg washed, and seeds applied.

Fresh from the oven.

FFwD #1: Gougeres

mlb — Fri, 01 Oct 2010 15:03:22 +0000

Okay, so here it is — post number one of French Fridays with Dorie. The recipe: Gougeres. The cookbook: Around My French Table by Dorie Greenspan. Go!

To start, here are a few notes from my Gougeres-making experience:

1. Cheese + butter + flour + eggs + heat = delicious!
2. Don’t set the speed of your stand mixer too high, or you could end up with dough on the floor…not that I would know of course…la la la la la.
3. Remember to turn the oven down, or your gougeres will be a little darker on top (but still delicious)!
4. Freeze some for later!
5. I want to try making these with Manchego next.
6. Using a small ice cream scoop (a tiny bit bigger than a tablespoon) was a great help!

The main ingredients.

Making the Pâte à choux.

Mixing the dough & eggs in the stand mixer. I actually lost about a half dollar sized dollop when it flew out of my mixer and landed on the floor. oops.

Cheese added!

Scooped out. I’ve sprinkled some smoked paprika on top of a few.

Out of the oven!

Cheesey, airy and gooey.

I baked a couple of the frozen ones a few days later. Here’s one, alongside dinner, slathered with a little French Dijon mustard. Awesomely tasty. Also on the plate? Fennel slaw and seared albacore tuna with fennel pollen.

Okay, there’s my wrap up. Want the recipe? Go buy Around My French Table by Dorie Greenspan. It’s ~~a lot~~ 37% off at Amazon right now. Thanks to FFwD for organizing this. I’m looking forward to making the mustard tart!

Edited To Add: Here’s a link to all of the gougeres posts!

Awesome Vietnamese Salad Rolls

mlb — Wed, 04 Feb 2009 04:15:04 +0000

First off, this is funny — my friend Christy just posted about her salad rolls too! The ones she made look great and she has much better pictures of her “rolling station” than I do. The main difference seems to be that some of her sauce type ingredients are on the inside as well, tossed with the noodles, which sounds like a great idea. My inside ingredients are just plain but wow — this dipping sauce is really tasty!

I’ve actually made these twice in the last month — once with shrimp and once without. I deviated from the original recipe by not using pork and by using spinach instead of a different type of lettuce. I also omitted the bean sprouts. This is one of those recipes where (if you’re not trying for authenticity), you could probably put a lot of different combination in the wrappers and be really happy with the outcome.

I found this on the Splendid Table web site, which is becoming a nice resource for me when I remember to poke around there.

Vietnamese Salad Rolls
Adapted from From The Best of Vietnamese and Thai Cooking, by Mai Pham — I totally want this cookbook!
12 medium-size raw shrimp with shells
8 (12-inch) round rice papers (keep extra on hand just in case you tear some)
1 bag baby spinach (you won’t use the whole bag)
1/4 pound rice vermicelli, cooked in boiling water 4 to 5 minutes, rinsed, and drained
1 red or orange bell pepper, cut into thin strips
12 cherry tomatoes, halved
1/2 cup fresh thai basil leaves

Cook the shrimp in boiling salted water until just done, about 3 minutes. Shell, de-vein, and cut in half lengthwise. Refresh in cold water and set aside.

Just before making the rolls, set up a salad roll “station”. Fill a large mixing bowl with hot water. If necessary, keep some boiling water on hand to add to the bowl if the temperature drops below 110 degrees. Choose an open area on the counter and arrange the following items in the order used: the rice paper, the hot water, a kitchen towel or cloth napkin for working on, and a cutting board or plate to hold all the stuffing ingredients.

Working with only 1 rice paper sheet at a time, dip the sheet, edge first, in the hot water and turn it to wet completely, about 10 – 15 seconds. You will be tempted to leave it on the water for more much longer. Don’t do it. It won’t feel that pliable when you first take it out of the water, but after you finish layering all the ingredients, the wrapper will be nice and soft.

Lay the sheet down on the towel/napkin and stretch the sheet slightly to remove any wrinkles. Line the bottom third of the wet, pliable rice sheet with 3 shrimp halves, cut side up. Make sure the ingredients are neatly placed in a straight row. Place some spinach on top of the shrimp. Next, top with a little vermicelli, bell pepper strips, cherry tomatoes and 2 to 3 basil leaves. I even added a little grated carrot here. Make sure the ingredients are not clumped together in the center, but evenly distributed from one end to the other.

Using your second, third, and fourth fingers, press down on the ingredients while you use the other hand to fold over both sides of the rice paper. (Pressing down on the ingredients is particularly important because it tightens the roll.) With fingers still pressing down, use two thumbs to fold the bottom edge over the filling and roll into a cylinder about 1-1/2 inches wide by 5 inches long. Finish making all the remaining rolls.

To serve, cut the rolls into two equal pieces and place the cut rolls on an appetizer plate. Serve with Vietnamese dipping sauce on the side. If you like, garnish the rolls with mint or cilantro sprigs.

Vietnamese Dipping Sauce
Makes 1-1/2 Cups
2 small cloves garlic, sliced thinly
1 tsp chili paste
1 fresh Thai bird chili, chopped (optional — I didn’t use)
1/4 cup fish sauce
2/3 cup hot water
2 tbsp fresh lime juice with pulp
1/4 cup sugar
2 tbsp shredded carrots

Place garlic and chili paste in a bowl and mix briefly.

Combine the garlic mixture with the remaining ingredients. Whisk until the sugar has dissolved. Ladle sauce into serving bowls and float the carrot slivers on top.