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Goat Cheese Tapa

27 Jul

This was supposed to be part of my Spanish Delicacies series celebrating the Encierros de San Fermín… but I got too busy to write this post.  Unfortunately, my mom fractured her arm last weekend and I have nurse duties on top of all my regular work and blog work.

I LOOOOOVE this tapa… I always order it when I visit my favorite Spanish restaurant in Chicago, Café Ibérico.  When I was in Grad school, we used to go to Café Ibérico after our Latin parties almost once a month.  At the time I was not vegetarian and still this was one of my favorites.  But I have to admit, it was not something I saw frequently during my trip to Spain.  I am not certain what region it originated, but it’s definitely delicious.  Testament that the best dishes are usually the simplest…

 

 Queso de Cabra Tapa - KFC

 GOAT CHEESE TAPA

3oz of goat cheese, keep refrigerated until ready to use
2 peeled plum San Marzano tomatoes from a jar – you could also use a tomato puree or tomato passata for this
A drizzle of Spanish olive oil, plus more for bread
Salt and Pepper to taste
½ French whole-wheat baguette, sliced on a bias

 

  1. Take the bread slices, drizzle with a bit of olive oil, sprinkle some salt and pepper and toast in a toaster oven.  Set aside.
  2. Place the tomato in a food processor and pulse a few times until you get a puree.  If you’re using the puree or passata you can totally skip this step.
  3. Place the tomato puree in a small bowl and season with some sea salt, pepper and a drizzle of olive oil.  Mix well and place in a large ramekin dish.
  4. Cut a 3oz piece of goat cheese and place in the middle of the ramekin on top of the seasoned tomato puree.  You can drizzle a bit more olive oil on top of cheese to help it get a golden brown color.
  5. Place in a 350 – 400F oven for about 15 minutes to cook a bit the tomato and warm up the cheese.

Plate the ramekin along the bread toasts and enjoy.

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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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Re-creating the Pizzas at Co. Part 1 – The Popeye Pita Pizza

9 Apr

Recently, my friend AnnieMariel and I were bored and took a plane to spend a weekend in NYC…  during this visit we had lunch at Co., a new pizza restaurant in Chelsea. 

When we were talking about our travels and dining experiences to our French class friends, they asked us to please recreate for them the pizzas we had at Co.  They just though they sounded as delicious as we thought they tasted.  We described them in such detail they just could not be left out in the dark.

We gathered at the house of another friend, which meant I had to transport everything to her house to make the pizzas.  And since I am not dexterous in the bread-making department as you already know… I decided to make these pizzas on Pita bread.  Pita bread is perfect and super reliable t make quick pizzas at home and are in the round shape people expect.  You already saw the version I did for my “nieces” when we were traveling in Vermont.

Here is what you will need to make this spinach-lover pizza…

 popeye-pita-pizza-4

POPEYE PITA PIZZA

Makes 1 personal pizza

 1 whole-wheat pita bread, the larger the better
About 1 tsp olive oil
About 1 tbs gruyere cheese, grated
About 1 tbs pecorino romano cheese, grated
 3 slices of fresh mozzarella cheese – make sure it’s the fresh kind, not the part-skim processed kind
About 2 handfuls of fresh baby spinach, washed and dried in a salad spinner
Garlic salt and freshly cracked black pepper

 

  1. Pre-heat your oven to 450 F.
  2. Place pita bread in a parchment lined baking sheet.  Drizzle a bit of the olive oil and spread it all over the bread.  Grate the gruyere and the pecorino cheeses on top of the pita bread.  Place the slices of mozzarella on top.  Sprinkle a bit of salt and pepper.
  3. Now place as much spinach as you can on top of the pizza.  Try to accommodate as much of those 2 handfuls of spinach as possible, because it will cook down a lot.  Drizzle with extra olive oil and sprinkle with additional salt and fresh pepper.
  4. Place in the oven and bake until the edges of the pita bread start to toast.
  5. Take out of the oven and let it cool off a bit.  After about 3 minutes, cut into 4 slices using a pizza wheel slicer.

 

The girls could not believe how good this pizza was… they were raving all about it for days.  My mom had a chance to try it too the next day.  She was also impressed at the flavors and the look.

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Stuffed Baked Brie

18 Mar

The other night we got together to watch the French film La faute à Fidel…  a very nice film showed in a French film festival recently at the University of Puerto Rico.  I was not able to attend the original showing, so my friend Laura’s mother, who’s a film buff and loves to buy films, lent it to us for a night of French movies and of course, French food…

I’ve been meaning to make a different version of the Camembert Chaud at the Bistro de Paris restaurant we love so much… where they take a round of camembert cheese, take the top off and warm it up in the oven and serve with French bread toasts, walnuts and sour apples.

I wanted to see if I could challenge myself and work with some phyllo dough I had bought and was always afraid of using.  I always do that, I like things at the market, but then leave them in the fridge or the pantry and do not use them immediately.   I built myself some courage and this is what turned out…

 

 brie-relleno-1

STUFFED BAKED BRIE

A 4.5 ounce round of Brie cheese
2 tbs of guava jelly
1 ½ tbs toasted walnuts, cut into small pieces
2 tbs caramelized onions – recipe here
4 sheets of whole-wheat phyllo dough – defrosted
4 tbs of butter, melted
Canola spray

 

  1. Take a baking sheet and line with parchment paper.  Spray with canola oil.
  2. Take one piece of the phyllo dough and place on top of baking sheet.  Brush lightly but evenly with melted butter using a pastry brush.  Place the second sheet of phyllo crosswise, perpendicular to the first sheet.  Brush again with the melted butter.  Place the third sheet of phyllo diagonal to the frist two, as if covering the spaces left open by the first “cross”.  Brush again with melted butter and place the fourth and last phyllo sheet perpendicular to the 3rd sheet, therefore creating another cross with the sheets.  Spread  the last sheet with the remaining butter.
  3. Cut the brie cheese into two halves, creating a top and a bottom half.  We’ll be making a “sandwich” using the two brie halves.
  4. brie-relleno-por-dentro
  5. Place the bottom half of the cheese in the middle or the phyllo sheet stack.  Spread the caramelized onions on on top of the brie half.  Now, spread the guava jelly on top of the onions.  Place the walnuts pieces on top of the guava jelly. And now top everything off with the remaining half of brie cheese.  It may get a bit messy, but it’s all good.
  6. brie-relleno-antes-de-cerrar
  7. Now you’ll start wrapping the brie with the phyllo… take one section and fold it over the cheese.  Now try enveloping the cheese with another side… you’ll see you’ll have a lot of phyllo left over that you won’t know what to do with it.  Just take it all and gather it on top of the cheese like making a bun…  I just could not take pictures of this because my hands were so messy with melted butter.
  8. Place the stuffed brie in the fridge for about 30 minutes to set a bit… 
  9. After 15 minutes have passed, pre-heat the oven to 450 F.  When the oven is ready, bake the brie covered with a piece of parchment with a foil paper on top for about 10 minutes.  Then take off the parchment/foil covering and let the phyllo get golden brown.
  10. Take out of the oven and wait about 2-3 minutes for the cheese inside to adjust to the temperature and cut and serve immediately after.  We served them with water crackers and apple slices.

 

brie-relleno-2

We loved the mixture of the tangy brie with the sweet guava jelly and onions.  But I had a few mishaps and I want you to learn from my mistakes.  So here are some tips when making this Stuffed Brie:

  • Use the same baking sheet where you’ll bake the brie to set it up.  I transferred the brie from that baking sheet to something smaller to put it in the fridge and I almost lost the entire bottom when transferring it back to the baking sheet to bake.
  • The temperature of the oven is important… if the temperature is not that high, your phyllo dough takes longer to cook and get golden and might give your jelly an opportunity to seep out. 
  • This is not a good dish to assemble at home and transfer somewhere else to bake…  I suggest you assemble and bake in the same premises.  I have not tried yet the bake first and then transfer and reheat… if you do, let me know if it works better.

 

Hope you love it as much as we did…

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Pita Pizzas with Arugula Salad

3 Mar

I just came back from a skiing holiday in Vermont with my little “nieces” Mariana and Natalia – they’re the daughters of my 2 best friends.

We stay at a slope-side apartment with a fully equipment kitchen.  We love to buy stuff for breakfasts, dinners, and the much needed après ski break.  Mariana and Natalia specially requested this time around for me to make them pizzas.  And my kind of pizzas is Pita Pizzas – especially because I was not going to “bake” any crust in an unknown kitchen.

This is what we came up with to satisfy the kids and adult tastes alike…

 pita-pizza-w-arugula-salad

PITA PIZZAS with ARUGULA SALAD

Serves 4

 

4 whole-grain pita breads – about 6″ in diameter
1 cup of your favorite jarred tomato sauce – you may not need as much but I did not measure the sauce after I already placed it on the pizzas.  You can also make your own… mixing crushed tomatoes and seasoning them with some garlic salt, pepper and Italian seasonings.
Shredded cheese – I like the Italian Blend type, but you can certainly go as fancy as you want … using fresh mozzarella, Fontina, gruyere, etc.
1 tomato, sliced thin
1 small onion, sliced thin
About 1 cup of Parmesan cheese, grated or shredded
Arugula Salad – click for recipe here

 

 

  1. Pre-heat oven or toaster oven to 400 F
  2. Take the pita bread and smear some tomato sauce leaving a ¼” border.  Not too much so they do not turn soggy.  
  3. Top each with pita a few slices of fresh tomatoes and onions.  Sprinkle some parmesan cheese and top with the Italian-blend shredded cheese mix.
  4. Place in oven for about 10 minutes until the cheese melts and turns a nice bubbly golden brown in sections.
  5. Top each pizza with a handful of arugula salad for a nice contrast of freshness and tang.
  6. Sprinkle with additional shaved parmesan cheese on top of salad.

 

Have to admit, the girls ate the pizzas on their own and left the salad to the side, but the adults loved it.

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