GARDEN PARTY - CONTD. PART 3 - TOMATOES & TOMATILLOS

Of course, it is a little late in the season to be talking about tomatoes and their brethren, but who truly cares.  Tomatoes are the best part of summer gardening and if you took some time to preserve them, you would be lucky enough to be enjoying them now.  Here are a couple of ideas that can be frozen for the wintry tomatoless months.  (Better yet, they are great easy recipes for tomato season and fantastic fresh)

GARDEN ROASTED TOMATO SAUCE

San Marzano tomatoes - cored, halved & de-seeded

Green Zebra tomatoes - cored, halved & de-seeded

4 garlic cloves - peeled & halved

1 Anaheim chile - roasted, peeled, seeded & chopped

1 jalapeno chile - seeded & chopped

1 small yellow onion - sliced into thin rings

3 anchovies - finely diced

3 Larry's smoked tomatoes (Boggy Creek Farm) - soaked in hot water until soft & finely sliced

Handful fresh parsley - finely chopped

Leaves of fresh oregano from a few sprigs - finely chopped

Handful fresh basil leaves - finely chopped

2 tbsps olive oil

sea salt

fresh ground pepper

Gently mix all ingredients in a bowl and then place tomatoes cut-side down in an oven safe baking dish.  Pour remainder of herbs and oil over the tomatoes.  Bake in a pre-heated oven at 425 degrees for approximately 45 minutes.  You can then either puree, chop or mash to your liking.  It all depends how rustic you like your sauce.  NOTE:  you may need to add a bit of lemon or vinegar to brighten it and some red pepper flakes to give it some bite.

I served the sauce tossed with Trofie pasta and grated parmesan cheese.  Trofie are a type of Ligurian gnocchi made with only flour and water.  They are little squiggly twisted short noodles and hold sauce very well.  They're a very easy fresh pasta to make.  No machine.  Just rolling dough out on a floured work surface, cutting into pieces, and rolling into a twist.  Delicious cakewalk.  

I also used the tomato sauce as a pizza sauce.  The only difference was that I ran it through a food mill until I had a very smooth tomato sauce.  

END NOTE:  We froze this sauce.  If you were going to make it for canning purposes you would have to adjust the acid content by adding lemon juice or vinegar.  Here is a link to a simple sauce designed for home canning.

ROASTED TOMATILLO SALSAS - TWO WAYS

MISE EN PLACE FOR BOTH SALSAS

2.75 lbs fresh tomatillos

7 dried chipotle chiles

6 fresh serrano chiles

3 fresh jalapeno chiles

1 fresh poblano chile

10 large cloves of garlic

1 fresh serrano chile - chopped with seeds

Roast the tomatillos on a foil lined baking sheet under the broiler until black spots show and the tomatillos are softened and juicy.  Alternately, you could use a grill with drip pan or a cast-iron skillet.  Collect the tomatillos and their juices in a bowl and set aside.

Flatten the dried chipotles (de-seed if you wish, depending on how hot you prefer your salsa).  Roast them on a griddle or cast-iron pan until fragrant, slightly toasted and darkened.  Soak the chiles in hot water for 30 minutes.

Roast the 6 fresh serranos, jalapenos, poblano, and 10 garlic cloves on a griddle until blackened.  The garlic should just be roasted until it shows black spots on all sides (peel when cool to the touch and reserve).  When roasted, put the chiles in a paper bag and close tightly for a few minutes.  This will loosen the skins.  Peel, seed, and roughly chop all of the chiles.

TOMATILLO SALSA

2 lbs of the roasted tomatillos

Roasted serrano chiles - peeled, seeded & roughly chopped

Roasted jalapeno chiles - peeled, seeded & roughly chopped

Roasted poblano chile - peeled, seeded & roughly chopped

7 cloves of roasted garlic - peeled & chopped

1 fresh serrano chile - chopped with seeds

1/3 cup fresh cilantro - chopped

juice from 1/2 of a lime

sea salt

1/2 small white onion - finely chopped, rinsed & drained

Mix ingredients together in a large bowl.  Take all the ingredients and run through the roughest setting of a food mill in batches (I love mine and wanted one, so that I didn't have to drag out the giant food processor to do simple tasks such as this recipe).  (Alternately, you can use a food processor, blender or molcajete )  Add 1/2 tsp sea salt to taste.  When seasoned to your liking, stir in the finely chopped white onion.  NOTE:  Using a mocajete is the traditional method and creates a very rustic memorable salsa, but also, a very labor intensive salsa.  A molcajete will season over time, much like a cast-iron skillet.  It will also impart a subtle flavor difference from the same recipe made with a blender or food processor.  The stone imparts some of it along with the seasoning.

CHIPOTLE TOMATILLO SALSA

12 ounces (3/4 lb) of the roasted tomatillos

3 of the roasted garlic cloves - peeled and chopped

7 dried rehydrated chipotle peppers - finely chopped (alternately, you could use 3-5 canned chipotles in adobo sauce)

1 tsp sea salt

1/4 tsp agave syrup

Mix all ingredients in a large bowl.  Run through the rough disk of a food mill in small batches.  Re-run the salsa through the food mill with a medium disk.  Check for seasoning.  (you could alternately use a food processor, blender or molcajete).  Note:  I make this salsa with both the canned chipotles and the dried.  I think that the dried give it a distinctly different result than the canned.  The dried give it a much more earthy deep flavor.  Try it both ways.  

END NOTE:

I freeze both salsas in single serving sizes, so that we can always have some salsa when needed. These salsas are intended to be eaten fresh or frozen, but not for canning.  They are low acid salsas and would require the addition of an acid such as vinegar or lemon juice in the right proportion to home "can" safely.  Here is a link to some salsas appropriate for canning with a hot water canner.

BEER SNACK - JAMBON DE PARIS, PROSCIUTTO, AND ANCHOVY SANDWICH

Busy with work, I was looking for something simple to make, yet full of interesting flavors, not too heavy, and would go well with a nice bottle of Lagunitas Maximus beer. A friend of mine had read my post recommending cookbooks for the holiday season and he brought up a book I had perused but hadn't purchased, Stephane Reynaud's, "Pork & Sons". I picked up the book over the holidays and fell fast for it. Reynaud educates the reader on the annual tradition of the pig kill in France. The book is filled with beautifully photographed food and interesting and entertaining musings on the rich history of this rustic tradition. The book covers the pig nose to tail and like another book close to my heart, Martin Picard's, "Au Pied De Cochon - The Album," it demonstrates a deep respect for the animals and how they are raised through the methods of their slaughter. It's basically a celebration of all things porcine, containing recipes that act more as guide than ones set in stone, allowing room for improvisation and substitution. There are recipes ranging from sausages, charcuterie, roasts, salads, and a great section on offal, which most Americans are averse to, yet we should learn to appreciate more out of respect to the animals that we eat. Waste not, want not.


While flipping through the book, a recipe caught my eye immediately, a sandwich layered with ham, prosciutto, anchovies, sun-dried tomatoes and black olive tapenade tucked between two toasted slices of crustless white bread. I'm a sucker for anchovies, so I had to make this sandwich. They add such a nice touch when combined with certain meats, but that's for another time. My bottle of beer had found its companion.


I adapted Reynaud's recipe for two people and made some small changes. It calls for Jambon de Paris, which I couldn't procure without driving all around the city, so I used some wet-cured, unsmoked sliced ham. Plus, I am trying to buy locally produced meats as much as possible. Jambon de Paris is basically the square loaf fully-cooked sandwich ham that most American kids were familiar with, but of a higher quality. (Much the same as Chipped Ham, for those of you from the Pittsburgh area, yet sliced thicker) There are local producers, but it's not something widely available, but almost any good quality sliced ham could be substituted. Another thing I changed was to use shallots instead of onions. That was just a personal preference. In addition, I used some really nice oven-roasted tomatoes I had in the fridge instead of the sun-dried ones in the original recipe. Sun-dried would work as well. The recipe has instructions for a quick tapenade without anchovies, but in the name of ease, I used a jarred tapenade that I had on hand. Good olive tapenades are so easy to find nowadays and so useful, I always seem to have a jar in the fridge or pantry. I used some nice salt packed anchovies from the deli section at our Whole Foods. For prosciutto, I used the buttery luscious, La Quercia Rossa - Heirloom Breed Culaccia. The La Quercia Prosciutto Americano is amazing and would work just as well. La Quercia is a small earth-friendly artisan meat company located in Iowa. They use humanely raised animals and cure using traditional methods instead of using nitrates, nitrites or vegetable derived substitutes. I highly recommend searching out their products and supporting this great company.

I've been a big fan of the Northern California, Lagunitas Brewing Company for a long time. Their Maximus is one of my favorites. They describe it as an "IPA Maximus," but it probably falls more into the somewhat disliked label of "Extreme Beer" than an IPA. I'm going to call it a Double IPA, because at 7.5% abv, I feel it's a little low in alcohol to call it an Imperial IPA or Triple IPA. I guess Extreme Beer is just as easy a name because it's simpler to remember and it seems to encompass all those other labels. Maximus is very aggressively hopped, so, it's not for the faint of hops. It wears it's bitterness like a badge of honor. Surprisingly, it maintains a shimmer of a malt balance, though the piney and grapefruity hops keep lingering on. There is definitely some nice sweetness that comes out as the beer warms a bit. Not a beer for everyone, but that's okay. That's what makes life fun. We're all different. Plus, there'll be more for me.


A perfect light fulfilling dinner or an elegant beer snack. However you may look at it.

Jambon de Paris, Prosciutto, Anchovy Sandwich
adapted from "Pork & Sons" by Stephane Reynaud
makes 1 (easy to figure out how to make more)

2 slices white bread with crusts cut off
1 jar black olive tapenade
2 thin slices prosciutto - cut into strips
1-2 slices jambon de paris (basically, unsmoked ham, sandwich ham) - any kind of wet cured will work.
oven roasted tomatoes or sun dried tomatoes cut into strips
2 salt packed anchovies (much better than using oil packed)
1 shallot sliced into rings and separated

Pan fry the shallots in butter or olive oil. Don't let them burn or they'll become bitter. Slowly fry them till their golden. Remove them from pan onto paper towel to drain. Toast the bread. Spread tapenade on one side of each slice. Layer the ham strips on top, then the prosciutto, tomatoes, fried shallots, anchovies and finally the other slice of toast.