Je Mange la Ville » Sandwiches & Wraps

Grilled Moroccan Carrot and Goat Cheese Sandwiches

mlb — Thu, 09 Feb 2012 03:38:24 +0000

This is going to be a very short intro for this recipe. Mainly, because I’m tired but also, because it’s a grilled sandwich and really, is there a lot to say about that? Not really. There’s cheese and it melts, so you know it’s delicious.

The original recipe called for making your own green olive tapanade, but hell, if you want to just buy some, I won’t tell anyone. That’s actually what I did. And the sandwich was still great!

I’m trying to post more but I’m busier for the next couple of months*, so it’s going to be a little difficult. I will (hopefully) get my French Fridays with Dorie post up on…Friday!

Anyway, here’s some spiced carrots, goat cheese, arugula, green olives and mozzarella. Mmmm!

Grilled Moroccan Carrot and Goat Cheese Sandwiches
adapted from Gourmet Magazine
1 tbsp sugar
1/2 tbsp fresh lemon juice
1 tsp sweet paprika
1/2 tsp ground cumin
1/4 tsp cinnamon
pinch cayenne pepper
1/2 tsp salt
2 tbsp olive oil
4 medium carrots
4 slices good-quality sandwich bread
2 tbsp store bought (or homemade) green olive tapanade
a handful of arugula or spinach leaves
2 oz soft mild goat cheese
2 slices mozzarella cheese
Olive Oil for grilling

Prepare carrots:
Whisk together sugar, lemon juice, spices, salt, and oil in a large bowl until sugar is dissolved. Halve carrots crosswise and then chop into 1/2-inch pieces. Cook carrots in a pot of boiling salted water until crisp-tender, about a minute. Drain well in a colander and immediately toss with dressing.

Cool to room temperature, stirring occasionally, then marinate, covered and chilled, at least 4 hours and up to overnight. I just made my carrots the night before.

Make the sandwiches
Spread tapenade on two slices of bread and goat cheese on the other two slices. Top the goat cheese sides with some of the greens and then the carrots (you will have some leftovers) and the slice of mozzarella. Now, you may be asking yourself, “Do I really need two kinds of cheese on this sandwich?” Well, yes. Yes you do.

Turn the olive tapanade side on top of the mozzarella and heat up a heavy skillet. Add a little olive oil to the pan and grill each sandwich, pressing down a bit with a heavy lid or another pan (kind of like you were making a panini). It’s no big deal if you skip that step, but kind of nice if you do have something to press it down with a bit.

Grill until each side is golden and mozzarella starts to melt. Slice them up and you have dinner for yourself and a friend. Perfect! And we had our leftover carrots the next day for lunch with some fish, which worked out perfectly.

Mmmmm…melt-y cheese!

* One of the reasons I have been so busy lately is that I am taking a pottery class Thursday nights. It’s handbuilding (which I’ve always liked way more than wheel throwing).

I’ve been spending some of what would normally be blog-posting time, making odd chicken pots in the basement. Up next? Hopefully a pig pot.

Mediterranean Tuna Melt

mlb — Mon, 16 Jan 2012 15:02:31 +0000

While growing up, a tuna melt was one of my go-to, out to eat meals. Through the years, I’ve been guilty of mixing up some tuna salad, slathering it on an English muffin and melting copious amounts of cheddar cheese on it and calling it dinner. Bonus: A pretty quick dinner at that! Now, while that version is still pretty tasty, it’s not the healthiest dinner (hence the guilty).

Lately, I’ve tried to stick to my tuna melt roots but I’ve also tried to lighten it up a bit. It started by adding greens and just a touch of mayo. Now, I’ve come across this recipe that actually convinced me to give up the melted cheddar. I know! Crazy talk!

But, this version was really very good. So maybe give it a try next time you have a hankerin’ for a tuna melt. You can always add more feta…I won’t tell anyone.

Also, just as a note: without the mayo and the cheese, there’s not a lot of “glue” here to hold all of the toppings on the bread. So, don’t be surprised if it gets a tad messy.

Mediterranean Tuna Melt
Adapted from a recipe in Everyday Food; makes 2 servings, so find a friend.
1 can (6 oz) tuna packed in oil, drained*
1/2 cup canned garbanzo beans, drained and rinsed (save the rest of the can for another use)
2 tbsp minced red onion
2 tbsp fresh lemon juice
1/4 tsp dried oregano
1 tbsp chopped green olives
1 tbsp capers, rinsed
1 garlic clove, minced
1/2 tbsp Dijon mustard
Salt and pepper
2 sliced Whole Wheat (or other) bread, toasted
1/2 cup baby spinach or arugula
1/4 cup crumbled feta cheese (you could also use provolone or mozzarella here, if you wanted that more “melted” experience)
Optional: Balsamic Vinegar for drizzlin’ over the top

Heat broiler. In a bowl, combine first nine ingredients (tuna through mustard); season with salt and pepper to taste.

Lay toasted bread slices on a broiler-proof baking sheet; top with spinach or arugula, then divide the tuna mixture between the two pieces of bread. Sprinkle with the feta. Broil until golden and delicious looking, 2 to 4 minutes. Drizzle a little balsamic vinegar over the top if you’d like a little extra something and then eat.

* If you want to use tuna in water, just drain and add about 1 tablespoon of olive oil to the tuna mixture.

FFwD: Cafe Salle Pleyel Hamburger

mlb — Fri, 26 Aug 2011 02:40:18 +0000

Oh! My! Another French Fridays with Dorie that includes red meat. Hooray! This was…wow. I loved it! And I am not a big-big-big burger fan, normally 3-4 burgers a year at Cafe Castagna, and I’m good to go. But, that may have to change.

Notes/Things I Learned:
1. I made a half recipe. I think I didn’t quite halve the tasty what-nots (sundried tomatoes, pickles, capers, herbs) right, as my burgers fell apart a bit. But after I flipped them, they seemed to hold together okay.
2. I toasted my buns and added some Parmesan there. I melted some Reserve, Extra Sharp Tillamook Cheddar on top because that’s how I roll.
3. Beaujolais is good chilled.
4. My red onion was large. I added about 1/4 cup Balsamic Vinegar and 2 tbsp sugar to the onion while simmering because I didn’t quite trust the water and butter to make the onion marmalade-y. Also, instead of coriander, I added 1/2 tsp dried thyme. The onion marmalade turned out delicious!
5. I added a bunch of arugula to each bun, topped with the onion marmalade.
6. There was no garlic in this meal. I can’t believe I didn’t add any in. *Hangs head in shame*
7. Did I mention the Beaujolais? Okay. Good.
8. Totally unrelated but, yay! Going to see The Decemberists tomorrow night and I can’t wait! Updated with my pics from last night here, if you’re interested…

And here’s a link to everyone’s awesome posts.

Okay. On with the pics!

Onion Goggles donned and ready for danger.

A mountain of red onions.

Red onions, water, butter, thyme, balsamic and a bit of sugar.

All the what-not ready to get chopped up in the processor.

Ready for burgers to happen.

Patties formed, wine opened, ready for fire.

Toasting buns with Parmesan cheese.

Buns. Check. Arugula. Check. Onion Marmalade. Double-check.

And we have burgers, people.

I love how there’s a bottle of glue on the table from an earlier craft project…

Cutty’s BLT Sandwich and Awesome Tomato Jam

mlb — Mon, 18 Oct 2010 18:29:51 +0000

I’ve wanted to make this Tomato Jam and sandwich for awhile now. Ever since I first read about it on Salon.com: The greatest off-season BLT on earth. Which was, uh, I guess just earlier in the month. It seems like it was longer. Okay, well, anyway, I made the jam and the sandwich! It’s really good. I even specifically bought bacon just to make this sandwich.

For the jam, I went to the store and bought some ‘not quite tomato season anymore’ looking romas. Worked perfectly here.

Cutty’s Tomato Jam
Recipe from Francis Lam, in Salon.com
1 1/2 pounds Roma tomatoes, cored and chopped coarsely
2 tbsp fresh lemon juice
2 tbsp brandy (optional)
1 tsp grated fresh ginger
1 scant cup granulated sugar
1/2 tsp ground cumin
1/4 tsp ground black pepper
1/4 tsp red chile flakes
1 tsp salt

Combine all ingredients in a medium-sized heavy-bottom pot. The original recipes says to use a nonstick pan, but I only have one nonstick skillet. So, I used a regular, heavy-bottom stainless pot. Worked just fine. No sticking or mess or anything.

Cook over medium-high heat until bubbling. Reduce heat to low and gently simmer, stirring occasionally, until mixture is thick and syrupy, about 1 hour.

Cool the jam; season with salt and pepper if necessary. Store in the fridge.

I really like the jam. It kind of reminds me of that awesome Tomato Chutney that Trader Joe’s discontinued on me. I will definitely make more of this and maybe play around with the sugar amounts a bit. I found it utterly delicious, but maybe a tad on the sweet side. I am already thinking of using this as an accompaniment to samosas the next time I make some.

Okay, so now you have your pot full of cooled jam. What do you do with it? Oh……this!

Cutty’s Bacon, Lettuce & Tomato Sandwich
Adapted from see above
2 slices of good quality white or wheat bread, toasted
Lemony mayo (mix 1/2 teaspoon of fresh lemon juice into 2 tbsp mayonnaise and add 1 chopped green onion)
4 strips of crisp bacon
Small handful of field greens or arugula
Cutty’s tomato jam

Spread lemony mayo on the bottom slice of toast. (The extra lemon in the mayo balances the rich sweetness of the tomato jam).

Add the greens and then the bacon strips. On the other slice of toast, spread a modest layer of tomato jam.

Put the sandwich together and (optional, I think) “yell, Tijuana!”

Great, now I want to go home and make another one of these for dinner tonight…

Experiments in Pulled Pork — Sandwiches (and then Enchiladas)

mlb — Wed, 21 Oct 2009 02:10:32 +0000

The main recipe here is originally from the Portland restaurant Meat Cheese Bread. It was in our local paper, in the weekly food section. I saw it, made Homer Simpson type sounds as I thought about how good it must be, and promptly decided to give it a try.

That said, I tweaked it a bit. Not so much for taste or anything, more due to what ingredients I had and the level of time on a Wednesday that I had to devote to this. Mainly, I crock-potted it while working, so that when I came home, the house would smell so good that I would almost fall over after stepping through the doorway.

One Saturday or Sunday, I will try this in the oven but it did work pretty well for me to turn it on low in the AM before leaving for work (7:00 AM) and return around 5:00 PM to a crock pot full of fragrant, porky goodness.

That said, this isn’t a complete ‘pop it in the crock pot and forget it’ kind of thing. Well, okay, actually it is, but you need to do stuff before you get everything in the crock pot. Stuff like: sear the pork and briefly saute the onions and peppers. Then you pop it all in the crock pot and set it to low.

I’ve got both conventional oven and crock pot directions below. Pick your heat source and give it a try!

Cuban Pulled Pork in Orange Mojo
Adapted from a Recipe from Meat Cheese Bread, via Oregonian Food Day, September 22, 2009
2 pounds pork shoulder
Vegetable oil
1 orange (original recipe said to use one and a quarter oranges)
1 small onion (sweet, yellow or white), quartered
1 red bell pepper, stems and seeds removed, cut into 1-inch pieces
1 tbsp firmly packed brown sugar
1 tbsp kosher salt
1 1/2 tsp freshly ground black pepper
1 cup freshly squeezed orange juice
1 1/2 cups chicken broth
1 medium tomato
2 tbsp freshly squeezed lime juice
6 garlic cloves
3/4 tsp ground cumin
3/4 tsp ground coriander
1/4 cup white wine
8 6-inch hoagie rolls (or ciabatta rolls, which is what I used)

Preheat oven to 375 degrees, unless you are doing this in a crock pot.

Remove excess fat from the pork shoulder and cut crosswise into 2-inch thick pieces. When I was doing this, I read it wrong and cut it into 2-inch cubes. So, I’m here to tell you that if you accidentally do that, it will still work. Anyway, heat a large Dutch oven over medium-high heat, and coat bottom of pan lightly with vegetable oil. Sear the pork until browned on all sides.

While searing the pork, use a vegetable peeler to remove zest from the oranges. Reserve the zest and cut pith from the orange, exposing the orange pulp. I quartered my orange, although the original recipe said to leave it whole.

Oven: After pork has seared, add the orange quarters and orange zest, onion, red pepper, brown sugar, salt and pepper, orange juice, chicken broth, tomato, lime juice, garlic, cumin, coriander and white wine to the roasting pan. Stir well and cook uncovered at 375 degrees for 2 1/2 to 3 hours. Check the braise occasionally to make sure it does not get too dark. If meat starts to darken, turn pieces over and push below liquid level. Remove from oven when pork pierces easily with a fork.

Crockpot: After pork has seared, remove it with tongs and add to the crock pot. Turn it on low. Return to the hot pan and add the onions, garlic and bell pepper. Saute for 3-5 minutes over medium until they start to get a little color. Add to the crock pot. You will notice all manner of tasty things on the bottom of the pan. Deglaze!

Add the wine and orange juice to the pan and use a wooden spoon to get up any brown bits.

Add all the pan contents to your crock pot. Next, add the orange zest, brown sugar, salt and pepper, chicken broth, tomato, lime juice, garlic, cumin, and coriander to the crock pot.

Put a lid on it and leave it alone for about 8-9 hours.

Oven & Crockpot, after cooking time:

Using tongs, carefully remove pork from the braise liquid and put on a carving board, allowing meat to rest for 10 minutes. Using two forks, pull apart the meat, removing any excess fat you come across. Place in a large bowl.

Purée the braising liquid (original recipe said “including the solids”, I opted to not use the whole orange pieces. After tasting the liquid, it seemed orangey enough to me), in a blender or food processor and adjust the flavor to taste.

When blending hot liquids, leave the lid insert off and cover the rimmed lid with a towel!

Add enough puréed braising liquid to moisten the meat well.

To assemble sandwiches, cut hoagie roll in half horizontally. Using tongs or a slotted spoon to allow some of the juice to drain, top bottom piece with roughly 1 cup of the pulled pork mixture. Repeat with remaining rolls. I added spinach leaves, tomato and sliced, smoked fontina cheese.

Leftovers

If you are not making 8 sandwiches, you will have leftovers. Here’s what I did — pork enchiladas!

I added some onion, yellow bell pepper, a diced jalapeno and some diced yam and sweet potatoes (all sauteed up for a few minutes in a pan with some olive oil), to the pulled pork and about 1 – 2 tsp of chili powder to the Mojo sauce.

I used the pork as a filling (added a little Queso fresco in there as well, along with about a teaspoon of sauce). The I wrapped the filling up in corn tortillas and covered with the sauce.

A little more cheese (okay, a medium-sized amount) on top and about 40 minutes in the oven on 375 degrees F.

Delicious with some diced avocado and some sour cream!