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Tomato Bread / Pan Con Tomate

7 Jul

I am a bread lover… I inherited that from my dad.  And I already established I am also a tomato lover…  so what would be best than to put those two loves together??

Pa amb tomàquet, as it is called in Catalan, is the official bread tapa of choice in Barcelona and all of Cataluña.  You get a plate of it as soon as you sit down in any restaurant.  And it’s also used as the bread of choice in a bocadillo or sandwich in that area.

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It’s a true testament of how great ingredients come together in a beautiful harmony…

 Pan con Tomate

 PAN CON TOMATE

1 demi baguette whole grain bread
2 ripe tomatoes, organic preferably
Spanish olive oil – Spanish oil made from arbequina olives from the Penedés region would be extremely appropriate in this application
Salt and Pepper to taste
 
  1. Slice the baguette into 2 halves.  Drizzle with a bit of olive oil and sprinkle with salt and pepper.  Place bread in a grill pan or pannini grill to toast.  I use my George Foreman grill…
  2. Meanwhile, take 1 tomato and chop it into small pieces.  Set aside.  The other tomato, slice it in half and set aside as well.
  3. When the bread is toasted to your satisfaction, take one of the tomato halves and rub the flesh against the bread.  The tomato flesh will kind of disintegrate and soak the bread with its juices and goodness.  You’ll be left with just the skin of the tomato in your hand.  Use one tomato half for each half of bread.
  4. Sprinkle some of the chopped tomato on top of the bread halves and a bit more salt and finish with a final drizzle of olive oil. 

Cut into pieces and serve as an appetizer or tapa.

 

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Asparagus Dip

15 Jun

Inspired by these asparagus sandwiches or maybe a little bit lazy for not wanting to roll out sandwich bread for an upcoming Francophones party…  I decided to make an asparagus dip.  All the flavor and texture of the sandwich filling in an easier-on-the-cook format…

 

Asparagus Dip 3

 

ASPARAGUS DIP

1 jar of asparagus spears
¼ cup of egg-less mayonnaise
8oz of cream cheese
Garlic salt to season to taste

 

  1. In the bowl of a food processor combine the asparagus, egg-less mayonnaise, cream cheese and the garlic salt.  Pulse until it becomes a paste. 

 

Serve with crackers or on top of crostini…

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Tarragon Almonds

4 Jun

This is another recipe I made for my college get-together using ingredients from my CSA box, tarragon.

Tarragon is a new herb for me.  It’s not something you use in Latin cooking at all.  But it’s “licorice-y” taste gave me the idea to pair it up with something sweet and salty at the same time.  I already showed you my Rosemary Almonds, so I decided to give it a go with tarragon to see how people would receive them.

The test was a success… people were asking me what was in them.  Hold on… not just anyone was asking – my friend Mariví, the most finicky eater of all my friends, and Alejandro, the husband of my friend Angie, who always comes to my dinner parties after eating something before.   They were all over the bowl of almonds… 

I guess they don’t serve these at the Argentinean restaurant next door to my house…

 

 Tarragon Almonds

TARRAGON ALMONDS

1 cup of raw almonds
2 tbs maple syrup
2 tbs maple sugar
½ tsp kosher salt
A few grinds of the peppermill
1 tbs fresh tarragon, chopped finely

 

  1. I prefer to skin the almonds… so you need to do this in advance using the method I show you here.
  2. After the almonds are skinned and dry, toast them in a 350F oven for about 15-20 minutes.  Keep an eye on them… they will take a bit longer than skinned almonds because we’ve soaked them in water, but they could burn if left completely unattended.  The idea is to toast them a bit before you add the sugars because if not, the sugars will burn before the almonds get toasted…
  3. Take them out of the oven and let them cool a bit. 
  4. In a medium bowl mix together the maple sugar, syrup, salt, pepper and tarragon.  Add the almonds and toss to combine.
  5. Return them to the oven for about 10-15 minutes until the sugar and syrup dissolves and forms a caramel on top of the almonds.
  6. Take the out of the oven and immediately but very carefully place them in a shallow dish to cool.  BE CAREFUL THE SUGAR BURNS!!!

After they’ve cooled, you can separate them with your hands.  If you live in a hot humid climate like Puerto Rico, you might need to place them in the fridge so they do not get sticky…

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Spinach Pinwheels

2 Jun

Originally this was going to be one of the dishes I was going to prepare for my goddaughter and our little experiment.  However, I forgot completely to defrost the puffed pastry and, by the time I remembered, it was too late… and I did not want the kids to arrive and see evidence of spinach before they had to actually taste them.

So, I made them a week later in a get-together I hosted for my bunch from college.  It had been almost a year since our last get-together and we needed to get up to speed with all our lives.  So my friend Aniette and I decided, democratically we needed to get-together NOW!

I liked these because they were easy to make, you can prepare them ahead of time before your guests arrive and bake while people are talking so you have something hot to pass out.   Kind of felt like a short order cook because I would make them, put a plate on a table and by the time I turned around the plate was empty.  So I went back and did some more… and I went back and did some more… and some more… maybe the plate was too little??

 

 Spinach Pinwheels

 

SPINACH PINWHEELS

2 sheets of puffed pastry, defrosted in the refrigerator overnight – I just buy it and place it in the fridge…
1 heaping cup of frozen spinach, it will become about ½ cup defrosted and squeeze it dry
1 tbs butter, melted
About 1/3 cup parmesan cheese, grated
About ½ cup gruyere cheese, grated
A little whole-wheat flour so the pastry doesn’t stick when we roll it

 

  1. Open the puffed pastry (which comes folded in three).  Place some flour onto a clean surface and flour the rolling pin too.  Roll out the pastry so that it loses the creases where the folds were.
  2. Cut the pastry in half.  Set one half aside and work with the first one.
  3. Spread some melted butter on top of the pastry, sprinkle some parmesan cheese, spread an even layer of spinach leaving a border on one edge and sprinkle the grated gruyere on top of the spinach.
  4. Start rolling from the farthest edge from the border you left without spinach.  Roll the pastry onto itself until you create a log. 
  5. Repeat steps 3 and 4 with the second half of pastry.  Place both logs in the fridge covered with a moist paper towel for about 10-15 minutes or until you’re ready to bake them.  This is important for the pastry to harden a bit again.  It’ll be easier to cut if the pastry is cold than if it is at room temp.
  6. Slice the logs into ½ inch pieces. Place onto a baking sheet lined with parchment paper and bake in a 425F oven for about 10-12 minutes, until the cheeses smell great and the pastry is puffed and golden delicious.

Transfer them to a cool plate and serve them immediately.

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Breadfruit Tostones

29 Apr

This is another of the recipes related to my Foodbuzz’s 24,24,24 April event… A Very Veggie Experiment.

 

Tostones in Puerto Rico are typically made from plantains… but you can make tostones also out of Breadfruits.  We call them PANA in Spanish. 

Breadfruits are very polarizing – people either love them or they hate them.  For example, my dad does not eat them at all because in Cuba, breadfruit was given as food to the pigs.  And in his mind, he could not bring himself to eat pig’s food.  However, my grandpa on my mom’s side LOVED them.  He would always make a big deal when one of the breadfruits would fall from the tree behind the house.

It’s very typical to eat breadfruit boiled in salted water, just like you would boil potatoes.  But it’s not a root vegetable… it’s a fruit that grows on a tree.  It’s weird because you treat them in the culinary sense just like you would other VIANDAS or root vegetables- potatoes, sweet potatoes, yucca, malangas, etc.  I guess it’s the same way as eating green bananas boiled too.  It is very traditional to eat them with codfish in a dish called serenata.  Now that we’re vegetarians, we enjoy them with some Tuno Antipasto on top, amongst many other preparations.

 

                                          pana-tree         pana

This time around we’re making them fried.  With the breadfruit tree behind my grandma’s house in full bloom and splendor,  I decided to expose Mariví’s kids to breadfruit.               

 tostones-pana

BREADFRUIT TOSTONES

½ breadfruit
2 garlic cloves
Kosher Salt to taste
Canola Oil for frying

 

You make breadfruit tostones the same way you make regular tostones…

  1. First you cut the breadfruit in half and then into wedges.  Peel it and remove the center where the spongy part and seeds are.  Wash the wedges well under running water to take away any “mancha” or stickiness it may have.  Because the best breadfruits for tostones are still pretty “green” or unripe.
  2. pelando-panas-3        pelar-panas-1   pelando-panas-2
  3. Cut them into smaller pieces and fry them in canola oil under medium heat until they’re cooked inside, but not really golden.
  4. friendo-panas
  5. Flatten the breadfruit pieces using a tostonera or two plates like I use here.
  6. If you’re making them to eat right away, fry them again in the same canola oil until they’re crispy and golden brown.
  7. Sprinkle them with garlic salt and enjoy right away.

 

If you want to make a whole batch to freeze and save for a later time,

  1. Fry them only once, smash them and wait until they cool off a bit.  Store them in a Ziploc bag in your freezer. 
  2. tostones-de-pana This is how they look fried only once and flattened…  a bit pale, no??
  3. When you’re ready to fry them the second time,  defrost them in salted garlicky water and fry them again right before eating them.  Make sure you pat the dry a bit before frying so the oil does not splatter.

 tostones-pana-y-platano  These are breadfruit and regular plantain tostones side by side so you can notice the differences…

These breadfruit tostones were a complete hit!!!  Everyone wanted to be in the kitchen with me when I fried them and everyone gobbled them up.  Even the little ones went for the tostones first before they started on the fixed-up mac and cheese.

diego-eating

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