Greens, Eggs & Ham

"Stuffed" Portabella Caps

Here's another homebrewed recipe I delivered recently. It's quite filling, and should be complemented with lighter sides and drinks. Though this mix is great the way it is, you could also substitute sausage for the scallops, and I'm thinking about replacing the artichoke with leeks next time.

Scallop-"Stuffed" Portabella Caps

Everything in this recipe (other than the mushroom caps) should be chopped finely, so that it will hang together once the bread crumbs and cheese are added.

• 10 portabella caps
• 1 yellow onion
• 6 T salted butter
• 4-5 bay leaves
• 1 yellow bell pepper
• 1 red bell pepper
• 2 c bay scallops
• 1 large can (22 oz) crushed tomato
• 1 large zucchini
• 1 jar marinated artichoke
• 1 t cayenne pepper
• 1/2 t black pepper
• 2 cloves of garlic (about 2 tsp)
• 3/4 c bread crumbs
• 1-1/2 c shredded cheddar cheese

Rinse and pat dry the portabella caps. Set them aside on a broiler pan. Preheat the oven to 350°.

Saute the onion in butter with ground-up bay leaf until the onion starts to become transparent. Add both bell peppers and saute for a few more minutes. Add the scallops, crushed tomato, zucchini, artichoke, cayenne, black pepper and garlic. Cook on low heat for fifteen minutes, or until about two-thirds of the moisture is gone. The zucchini pieces will release some water as they cook, so this will be a gradual process.

Add the bread crumbs and cheese, and mix well.

Scoop the mixture onto the mushroom caps. The caps will release quite a bit of water and will lose rigidity, so if the mixture is too close to the edge some may fall off.

Bake the caps on the next-to-top rack for 15 to 20 minutes.

Moroccan Pastries and the Curses of Filo Dough

About a year ago, I purchased a Moroccan cookbook, breaking my cardinal rule against buying specialized cookbooks that I won’t use on a regular basis. However, this particular book, despite its impracticality, included a recipe for b’stilla, a sweet and savory pie of shredded, spiced chicken and almond paste wrapped in delicate warka pastry, with which I had been obsessed since a dinner many years ago at a Moroccan restaurant in Santa Barbara. My roommates and I expressed such delight over the pie that the chef actually sent us a second b’stilla to take home at the end of the night. The memory of that fabulous meal (which in no way was influenced by our very hot waiter enticing me to try belly dancing with him) has remained so strong that I bought the book for this one recipe without a thought.

Other than one laborious but rewarding evening spent making said b’stilla, the cookbook has sat on my shelf unused, a mocking reminder of my rule-breaking lapse. So when I needed inspiration for New Year’s Eve hors d’oeuvres, I pulled it out, determined to add a Moroccan recipe or two to my list. I wanted appetizers that would be a little out of the ordinary yet appeal to a range of palates. I settled on two savory pastries, one cheese and one meat, folded in dough triangles and fried golden brown. The cookbook offered a recipe for traditional warka dough, but I opted for the safer and less time-consuming option of pre-made filo dough.

The morning of the party, I put together both fillings, starting with the meat. The recipe called for sautéing 8 ounces ground beef in a skillet with 2 cloves minced garlic, 1 teaspoon ground cumin, and 1 teaspoon ground coriander. I instinctively doubled the amount of garlic, but a sample of the browned meat still tasted bland. After consultation with my “sous chef,” I realized the recipe lacked salt and pepper, so I added pinches of both. This brought out the other spices in the meat and I put the combination aside to cool.

The cheese filling included 8 ounces of goat cheese, ¼ cup butter (because there’s not enough fat in goat cheese, apparently), 2 tablespoons fresh thyme, salt and pepper to taste, and 1 lightly beaten egg, all mixed well in a large bowl. As I gathered the ingredients, I realized in the craze of party preparations, I’d neglected to buy fresh thyme. With no time to head back to the store, I turned to the internet for a solution.

While several websites suggested I could substitute 1 teaspoon of dried thyme for every tablespoon of fresh thyme in the recipe (http://bit.ly/f3m4gX, http://anse.rs/hBM0SI) at least one said this should only be done in recipes that called for a long cooking time to break down the woodsy dried leaves (http://bit.ly/if5SRx). Leery of serving my guests pastries concealing small wood chips, I considered omitting the thyme altogether but feared the pastries would be dull, especially given the very mild goat cheese I’d purchased. I settled on 1 teaspoon of dried thyme, an amount that dispersed well through the cheese mixture but presumably wouldn’t turn it fibrous if the leaves didn’t soften during the short frying process.

I began assembling the triangles late in the afternoon and was almost thwarted by a filo disaster of epic proportions. To make the pastries, I had to separate 10 sheets of dough and cut each sheet into 4 strips. However, when separating the sheets, always a delicate process with filo, I quickly ripped through an alarming number. Afraid of running out of dough before I separated a single sheet intact, I again turned to the internet for help. The problem stemmed from my thawing method. The directions on the box called for thawing the dough either over 24 hours in the refrigerator or over 2 hours at room temperature. In my party planning rush, I had opted for the latter. Unfortunately, all the filo dough tips I found online insisted that the dough really needed to be defrosted in the fridge to maintain the appropriate balance of moisture in the dough for the sheets to separate.

Sous chef came to the rescue, suggesting I cut the dough into strips first and then attempt to separate the individual strips from the larger sheets. This method, combined with spritzing the dough lightly with water and a lip-biting amount of concentration, produced enough mostly untorn strips to make the pastries. With that Herculean task accomplished, I placed a spoonful of filling on one end of each strip, folding the corner down to form a triangle, and then folding the triangle at right angles to the end of the strip. The end result was a pile of pastries that looked like the paper footballs my brother and I used to make as children but that would hopefully prove tastier.

I left frying the pastries until right before the guests arrived, so the pastries would be crisp and warm as the party started. The triangles quickly turned a lovely golden brown in about an inch of oil and I soon had two plates piled high with crisp, savory pastries.

In the end, the beef pastries were a bit of a disappointment. Although tasty, they were a bit dry and lacked the complex sweet yet spicy flavor unique to Moroccan cuisine. If I make them again, I’ll increase the original spices and perhaps add some cinnamon and onion to the mixture.

The cheese pastries proved much more successful. The crispy, flaky exterior contrasted well with the creamy, soft filling. The dried thyme didn’t interfere with the texture at all and gave the filling a lemony, earthy flavor that combined perfectly with the soft tang of the goat cheese, which in turn was made richer by the addition of the butter (despite my concerns over the added fat, which its probably best not to contemplate). They also paired remarkably well with champagne. My guests seemed to agree, as the plate of cheese pastries emptied almost as fast as the bottles of champagne, helping us all ring in the new year in good spirits and with a full belly.

Vegetarian Satsivi

This New Year's Eve, several of us got together to make a mostly vegetarian, nut-themed dinner. I decided to adapt the Georgian dish satsivi for tofu. Satsivi, a dish popular throughout the former Soviet Union, is normally cold chicken served in a velvety walnut sauce. To make the tofu version, I knew I would have to start some extra firm tofu in a marinade several hours in advance. I also adapted a couple of different recipes so that I could combine some of the more promising looking techniques with some of my favorite Georgian flavors such as pomegranate.

The result, in my humble opinion, was a great success. The tofu was toothsome and flavorful, and the sauce was decadent and complex. It can be easily adapted to be vegan, as well. I will scale down the recipe a bit to serve 8.

Vegetarian satsivi

For the marinade:

2 large packages extra firm tofu

Four cubes of vegetable broth (you want the flavor to be concentrated)

2 cups hot water

2 cups unsweetened pomegranate juice

1 tbsp thyme

1 bay leaf

Put the thyme, bay leaf, and vegetable broth cubes in a large baking dish. Dissolve the vegetable broth cubes in the hot water. Add the pomegranate juice. Slice the tofu into ¼" square logs and place them in the marinade. Put a smaller baking dish on top of the tofu to slightly compress it and let it sit for at least four hours.

For the walnut pesto (adapted from this recipe):

3 cups walnut pieces

8 large cloves of garlic, coarsely chopped

1 large bunch fresh cilantro

1 tbsp Aleppo or other medium-hot Turkish pepper (or coarse Hungarian hot paprika)

1 tsp kosher salt

Make the walnut pesto in two batches (more if you have a small food processor). Use a food processor to make a fairly smooth paste of the walnuts, garlic, cilantro, pepper and salt. Remember to save a few sprigs of cilantro for garnish because the dish is a somewhat unattractive gray-brown color and cries out for a garnish when plated.

For the sauce:

3 tbsp unsalted butter (or olive oil for a vegan or lower cholesterol variation)

2 large onions, finely chopped

1 tbsp flour

4 cups of the marinade (pour it through a strainer to get out the thyme and bay leaf)

2 egg yolks (leave out in the vegan version, natch)

3/4 tsp sweet Hungarian paprika

1/4 tsp cayenne pepper, or more to taste

1/2 tsp ground fenugreek

3/4 tsp ground coriander

¼ tsp ground cinnamon

3/4 tsp ground turmeric

1/2 tsp dried tarragon

Salt to taste

¼ cup red wine vinegar

Cilantro sprigs and pomegranate seeds for garnish (optional)

Melt the butter in a very large pan over medium heat. Add the onions and saute until they just begin to color, about 8 to 10 min. Stir in the flour and cook, stirring for one minute more. Gradually stir in the marinade strained from the tofu. Let it simmer for 5 minutes without boiling.

Turn the heat down to low and gradually add the walnut pesto, stirring until blended. Add all of the spices and salt. Let this simmer for 3 to 4 min. Whisk the egg yolks in a small bowl, then stir in about a ladleful of the simmering mixture then blend the yolks into sauce (this step can be skipped if you're worried about the fat but they make the sauce velvety), and let it simmer for a few more minutes. Take another taste and adjust the seasoning. Turn off the heat and stir in the vinegar and the tofu, being gentle so as not to break the tofu down too much. Garnish with a few sprigs of cilantro and pomegranate seeds if you have them.

The dish is best served at room temperature, though warm is good, too.