Pan de Tomate
June 20, 2007
Summer time brings the best out in BBQ. Whether you’re an omnivore or an herbivore, you’re food will taste radically different if exposed to the heat of an open flame. I had some slightly stale french bread laying around and decided to make it into Pan de Tomate. This dish really has a Catalan name and origin, but I simply referred to it as "tomato bread" with my friend Berta, a Catalan native of Barcelona with whom I visited in San Pol de Mar, Spain.
Berta went to a school for "hoteleria" (hospitality and hotel services study) and would return from the kitchen with stale bread. She and her friend Merced would take both ripe and unripe tomatoes, cut them in half, and intensely rub each piece of bread down with the tomato until it was pulp. They then doused each piece with a very green olive oil, usually rubbing it over the whole piece. They placed the bread in an oven on broil until crispy, or if it was really nice outside, over the grill to cook. I preferred this latter method of grilling the bread, but I have used the broil method for wintery days.
Using this process, the bread is resurrected from a tasteless and useless state to one of intense flavor, with a crispy outside texture and chewy to soft center inside. I ate this bread with slices of "jamon serrano" - quite literally a leg of pork that dries on your counter top from which you take chunks of meat from. The closest thing to jamon serrano I’ve found at typical grocery or butcher stores is Italian prociutto. Lay that on top of this bread with fresh slices of brie or manchego cheese and you’ve got yourself a heck of a "bocadillo" - a little streetside vendor type sandwich popular throughout Spain.
Now a bit about tomatoes: use vine ripened if you can. They are sweeter and have a lot more juice than steak tomatoes. Also, never ever put your tomatoes in the refrigerator! Exposing them to the cold air causes the sugars to arrest and the tomato completely loses flavor.
And for the olive oil: What I learned from Berta is that the greener olive oils are used most commonly in Spain in all their raw glory - that is, with fresh bread, or atop salad greens, or as a base for a dressing. The green olive oils tend to be cloudy and pungent and are wonderful fresh, but not so great for cooking. More about olive oils next time.
Finally the bread: Use french bread loaves as they tend to hold up better on the grill or under the broiler. Also, if it is too stale, it simply won’t work. If you don’t eat all your bread the day you buy it, store it in a plastic grocery bag up to a week if you plan on making it into pan de tomate.
Hummus Among Us
June 07, 2006
I absolutely adore chickpeas, whether in a soup or on a salad, the texture and matte flavor is a wonderful addition to your legume family. Chickpeas are native to southwest Asia and have been cultivated for over 9,000 years. They are unique in the legume family for being nearly 5% oil by weight, as opposed to 1-2%. Chickpeas, a.k.a. garbanzo beans, form a main staple in India where the legume is hulled and split to make chana dal, a ground flour for pakoras, papadums, and fried goods. If you eat at Graze restaurant in Albuquerque, the chef makes these great chickpea french fries by molding chickpea flour into little french fry shaped sticks and lightly frying them.
So anyways, I decided to whip up a batch of fresh hummus for some dinner guests last week and it turned out marvelous. Hummus is basically a chickpea spread that is flavored with salt, lemon, parsley, and olive oil. It is a great lunch spread for vegetarian sandwiches, and makes a good appetizer for a dinner, and finger food for a cocktail party.
You will need:
- 2 cans of garbanzo beans, drained
- 3 cloves of minced garlic
- handful of chopped flat leafed italian parsley
- juice of 1 lemon
- 1/2 c of olive oil
- 1 tsp of kosher salt
- pepper to taste
Step One: In a food processor (if using a blender, add 1 can of beans, and slowly add the second so as not to over fill the blender container), combine the beans, garlic, parsley, pepper, and salt. Roughly blend.
Step Two: Add lemon juice and turn blender on high. Through the hole in the top of the blender or the food processor, slowly drizzle in the 1/2 c of olive oil, adding more if necessary. The consistency should be that of a bean dip, and should not be runny. You can experiment with flavors by adding a handful of roasted red peppers or kalamata olives.
Scrape the dip out of the processor or blender and serve in a bowl; drizzle the hummus with olive oil. Eat hummus with toasted pita bread (you can heat it in the oven for a few minutes), a side of olives and peppers goes well with this.
Labels: garbanzo beans, Italian parsley, lemon, olive oil
End of the Month Fav: Linguini and Olive Oil Trio
October 30, 2005
At the end of the month, everyone is broke (including me) and eating the last of their stock pile of groceries. I personally turn to eating pasta as a way to tie me over until payday. IWhichever way you like it, the recipe is especially apt for spring and summer weather because it can also be eaten at room temperature. So leave the marinara in the cupboard and try this recipe.
You will need:
- 1/2 package of DeCecco brand linguini,
- bunch of fresh basil, parsley, chopped
- 3 fresh cloves of garlic,
- 2 tbsp capers,
- 10 kalamata olives,
- 1 tomato, diced
- salt, pepper,
- 1/2 olive oil,
- parmesan cheese.
Cookware: Pot to boild pasta, bowl to mix ingredients.
Step One: If you are cooking for one or two, cook at least 1/2 of the box of linguini (4 servings yield). Be sure to boil the water first, add 1 tsp of salt and then add the pasta, fanning it out in the pan to cook evenly. Cook according to directions (usually 11 minutes). Drain and rinse in cool water.
Step Two: Take 6 leaves of basil and chop them up fine. If you don't have basil, use parsley for the cheaper version of this dish and chop up about a handful worth. Add this to the large bowl along with 1/2 cup of olive oil, 3 crushed and minced garlic cloves, 2 tsp of salt, 1 tsp of fresh ground pepper. Stir this up.
Step Three: I use cherry tomatoes and you should too, or else use tomatoes on the vine. Cut one half of the tomato into small bite size pieces (add more if you like). You can stop here and simply combine the pasta, the ingredients from step two, and some fresh grated parmesan cheese, or continue to step four for my favorite version of this dish.
Step Four: Chop about 8 kalamata olives (if serving for 2, and be sure to take the pits out). The easiest way to pit olives is to press the olive down on the cutting board with a spoon. Whatever you do, DO NOT use black olives for this dish! Combine the olives with 2 tbsp of capers. Add these ingredients to the olive oil mixture and tomatoes, then pour the pasta in coating it well. Serve in large pasta bowls with parmesan cheese.
I am now out of fresh veg for any more meals and so I will be blogging about groceries tomorrow. Until then, serve and enjoy.
