Category: Cheese

Huevos Old El Paso with Traditional Refried Beans

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The people at Old El Paso asked me to create a few recipes with their Traditional Refried Beans. I love refried beans and typically use them in a loaded nacho  type of dish. When given this assignment, all sorts of other ideas came to mind for me. I decided to do and elegant brunch dish working with a microwave egg poacher gadget. Using Old El Paso Traditional Refried Beans , I created a Latin inspired creative take of the classic Eggs Benedict. Rather than an English muffin, Hollandaise, etc, I’m  using a crunchy meal corn cake, topped with Old El Paso Traditional Refried Beans, poached eggs, sauteed peppers, Pico de Gallo and salsa. Your breakfast or brunch guest will be wowed with the presentation.

This is recipe that you can make many variations on. Here are my tips:

  • This would make a great Sunday Brunch Dish in which some components ( pico de gallo, sautéed peppers, can be made ahead to cut time.

  • The cornmeal cakes and eggs should be made closer to serving time.

  • Feel free to build upon topping with sour cream, more shredded cheese, chorizo, etc.

  • Use a microwave egg poacher dish, for quick, perfectly formed poached eggs.

Huevos Old El Paso with Traditional Refried Beans
 
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A brunch dish of cornmeal cakes, Old El Paso Refried Beans, Poached eggs, sautéed peppers, pico de gallo and salsa.
Author:
Recipe type: Entree
Serves: 6
Ingredients
  • Corn Meal Cakes
  • 1½ cups corn meal
  • 1 teaspoon baking powder
  • 1 teaspoon Kosher salt
  • 1 large egg beaten
  • 3 tablespoons melted unsalted butter
  • ½ cup warm milk
  • ¼ jalapeño pepper diced fine
  • ½ cup grated cheddar or Colby Jack Cheese
  • ½ cup vegetable oil for frying
  • Pico De Gallo
  • 1 cup grape or cherry tomatoes quartered
  • 2 tablespoons chopped cilantro
  • 1 tablespoon lime juice
  • 2 tablespoons minced yellow onion
  • Kosher Salt to taste
  • sautéed Peppers
  • 1 Green Pepper
  • 1 Red Pepper
  • 2 tablespoons minced parsley
  • 1 tablespoon vegetable oil
  • Kosher Salt and Ground Black Pepper to taste.
  • 1 16 oz can Old El Paso Traditional Refried Beans
  • 2 avocados
  • 6 poached or sunny side up fried eggs
  • 1 16 oz jar Old El Paso Thick and Chunky Salsa
  • *Pats of Butter for spreading on corn meal cakes optional
Instructions
  1. Seed and slice peppers into strips.
  2. In a small skillet, heat oil and on medium high heat saute peppers until softened.
  3. Toss peppers with salt, pepper, and minced parsley.
  4. Set Aside until plating.
  5. In a small sauce pan. Heat milk and butter, until butter is melted.
  6. Set aside.
  7. In a small bowl, mix together corn meal, baking powder, egg, salt, jalapenos, cheese, and milk and butter mixture, until mixture holds shape.
  8. Turn out onto a clean surface and roll to about ½ inch in width.
  9. Take a round cookie cutter and cut out6 cakes.
  10. Heat vegetable oil in a skillet to medium high.
  11. Drop corn cakes carefully into skillet and fry for 2- 3 minutes on each side until golden.
  12. Drain on paper towel and keep warm in a warming oven at 200º
  13. In a small bowl, add quartered grape tomatoes, cilantro, lime juice, onion, and salt. Toss to mix and set aside for plating.
  14. Heat the Old El Paso Refried Beans according to package instructions.
  15. Fry or poach your eggs to order.
  16. Peel and slice the avocado. Add some lime juice to prevent browning.
  17. On a plate, put a dollop of refried beans, add hot corn meal cake. Spread some butter on corn cake.
  18. Add a smear of Old El Paso Traditional Refried beans on top of buttered corn meal cake.
  19. Add the egg.
  20. Add A few assorted pepper slices ( green and red).
  21. Top with Pico de Gallo and Sliced Avocados and garnish plate with some.
  22. Serve with Old El Paso Thick and Chunky Salsa.
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*Disclosure

This is an endorsement of product from Old El Paso/ General Mills , in which I developed a few  original recipes for compensation.

Smørrebrød and Smörgås…Scandinavian Open Faced Sandwiches

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New Year brings new ideas, styles, way of doing things.With all the innovation and tends in food , sometimes we just need to look back at a simpler ,less complex time . A question on my mind with all the holiday catering, was how to deliver the most , for less, without sacrificing taste or quality. I was thumbing through my Catering trade magazine and saw Smørrebrød ( those famous beautiful open faced sandwiches from Denmark) listed as a trend to watch. It seems everyone is on the Nordic bandwagon. I knew after my first visit to Sweden in 2004, there was something special about Scandinavian food. Clean, pure, simple taste. Sparse , yet elegant. No overkill there with their food, and you are completely satisfied.

Smørrebrød can be sweet or savory. They are served for celebrations, lunch, dinners, late night bar/ club snacks.So you see they are very versatile. They can be savory or sweet. So the imagination can run wild with how to compose cheese, fruits, condiments, vegetables, meat and seafood. Like wines or beers, a full menu of Smørrebrød is progressive , starting with fish,meat or poultry, and then dessert. A thick smear of butter on the base of hearty rye , pumpernickel , or white bread, insures the bread doesn’t get soggy, as well as enhances flavor. Because of this seal of fat, they can be premade and refrigerated before serving.

I thumbed through some of my favorite Scandinavian Cookbooks for inspiration. A good one to consider is Scandinavian Cooking by Beatrice A. Ojakangas and The Scandinavian Cookbook by Trina Hahneman.

The trick to beautiful Smørrebrød or Smörgås ( Swedish) is an organized mise en place.It’s about structure and balance, so you will want your ingredients prepped and laid out. You needn’t spend a fortune. I found a great  dense European style bread at Aldi for pumpernickel and rye. The shrimp and smoked salmon will be a bit more expensive, but many things you will have on hand.

Butter ,Lettuce,Poached chicken , marinated cucumber with dill, sugar vinegar, tomato wedge and bacon

Butter, Lettuce,Mayonnaise,Small Shrimp, Dill, Lemon, Tomato.

Butter,Raw Honey, Crumbled Blue Cheese, Sliced Pear brushed with Lemon, Bacon

See  how easy these sandwiches can be?  The carnivores, pescatarians, vegetarians, and picky eaters will be happy. Mix cheese , nuts and fruits.Try to make your own compound butters, cream cheese, or may blends. Fuse cultures, the possibilities are endless and it wont break the bank.

 

Making Petit Brie at Home and Baked Brie with Caramelized Onions

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As you can see from the last few posts I have been busy experimenting with Cheese making. Out of all the experiments I found the process of making Brie the most fascinating, even if not the most successful.  Don’t get me wrong, it’s still a success but I need to practice it more. The collage shows various stages of the  cheese with the bloom forming over the curds to make a white rind. The process takes at least a few months . I could have  been neater from the beginning with the curds . But I ended up with nice even smooth rind. Out of curiosity I cut into a  wheel and found my rind completely formed and it very runny inside. It was also a tad salty. The trick is to maintain proper temps in your fridge with aide of plastic boxes and later cheese wrapping paper, to create and control the climate and humidity .  Did I follow the temps exacatly? No , but I did the best I could with what I had and pretty pleased with the result. Like with the Feta, I followed two recipes from Home Cheesemaking and The Cheesmaker. I’m going to continue to age the other wheel and track the changes and see how far I can take it.

I don’t think I will be offering my clients my homemade Brie anytime soon, but I did make this great dish for a recent Baby Shower I catered. Imagine hot  oozing Brie baked in its crate  and topped with caramelized onions to be scooped on bread or crackers.  It will be hit for your holiday entertaining and a different twist on the old Brie wrapped in pasty and filled with jam.  I adapted this go to recipe from Hors d’Oeuvre at Home with the Culinary Institute of America.

 

Warm Baked Brie with Caramelized Onions
 
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Appetizer
Recipe type: Coco Cooks
Ingredients
  • 1 wheel of Brie frozen for 30 minutes in wooden crate
  • 2 tbsp butter
  • 2-3 large onions thinly sliced
  • 4 cloves of garlic chopped
  • Fresh Thyme minced
  • ½ cup Sherry or Cognac
  • Fresh ground black pepper to taste
Instructions
  1. In a skillet, melt butter.
  2. Add onions and saute until tender. Reduce heat. Do not brown the onions. Constantly stir until onions soften.
  3. Add garlic and salt and Thyme..
  4. Continue to cook onions until the start to become golden and soften.
  5. At 10 minutes intervals add a bit of the sherry or cognac and continue to cook onions on a low heat as they absorb the liquid. Continue to stir. Repeat this until all the liquid is used and the onions are soft and brown.
  6. Preheat oven to 350.
  7. Remove onions from heat and reserve or refrigerate until ready to use.
  8. Freeze Brie for 30 minutes before baking. This prevents the cheese from running out of the wooden crate.
  9. Cut off the top rind only.
  10. Spread the caramelized onions on top of Brie.
  11. Cover with foil and place wheel of Brie back in crate.
  12. Place cheese on a baking sheet and bake for approx 30 minutes or until cheese is melted.
  13. Serve in its wooden box.
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How To Make Feta Cheese at Home and Chicken Rollups with Feta and Spinach

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I may not have been posting as frequently these days, but that doesn’t mean I’m not working on some great culinary projects.  In August The Alchemist and I went to a cheese making class were we learned in a group setting how to make various cheeses. Our section worked on making Feta. As the class was only a few hours, it was condensed, and the finished product which we had to divide and share, wasn’t salted or complete. But we learned the theories and principles. So armed with my own copy of Home Cheese Making by Ricki Carroll.  I found a great site for cultures and supplies and decided to commence on two projects. Feta Cheese and Petit Brie. Over the past year I also have aquired some supplies from this source. So you see it really isn’t that complicated to get started on your own cheese. Naturally raw milk, if you can get it, is best. Check with with your local CSA’s or farms.It’s worth the effort. However , if you can’t access raw milk, use PASTEURIZED but NOT ULTRA PASTEURIZED milk. I have found a good brand of goats milk from Whole Foods, but nothing compares to fresh. Read the labels to make sure it’s just pasteurized. In the beginning making your own cheese is not cheap, but its so worth it.

Feta is a Greek cheese that is soft and crumbly and is made from sheep (preferably) or goats milk. Feta literally means slice or piece and references the process of cutting the curds in the cheese making.   As time goes on with the aging process, the salt added to the cheese draws out more liquid. It can be aged in Brine as well. Lipase is found in goats milk which gives Feta a stronger and distinct flavor. You can purchase lipase( from your cheese making supply) and add it if using another sort of milk. But traditional Feta is made with either sheep’s or goats milk. Today Feta has Protected Designation of Origin ( POD) by the EU. That means only  cheese made in the traditional Greek style/ method of sheep  and or goats and sheep milk can legally be called Feta. Unlike the similar Danish cheese made with cows milk, which really isn’t Feta under this law. Think of it like sparkling wine or authentic Champagne made in the Champagne region of France.

I followed three recipes and found they were mostly  similar. I took my Feta an extra step and made a Brine with the leftover  whey and salt to age for 30 days. The salt mellows out over time and it’ s  wonderful but stronger in flavor than fresh Feta. So if you have the patience it’s worth it. If you don’t, you can have the Feta cheese in few days after aging . Count on setting aside a day for the process. A lot of it is waiting  for it coagulate , ripen, stir, and  mostly draining. So you wont be glued to the kitchen.

I have a recipe for you today for a dish I  made with Feta. But here is a good recipe for the actual making of the Feta Cheese. I urge you to invest in Home Cheese Making by Ricki Carroll. You can get everything you need and the recipe here. I find that even though I used store purchased goat’s milk, my cheese held up in the brine . I used Angelic Farms recipe for the brine . 5 tablespoons of salt ( Kosher or sea salt) dissolved in 20 oz of Whey. It did not disintegrate. I also invested in Mad Millie’s Feta Mold and Brining Container.

I hope to share my Brie posts with you soon. It’s aging nicely in the fridge.

“Blessed are the Cheesemakers”

Monty Python’s Life of Brian

 

Chicken Rollups with Feta and Spinach
 
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Entree
Author:
Recipe type: Cheese
Serves: 4
Ingredients
  • 4-5 Boneless skinless chicken breasts
  • 1 lb Fresh spinach
  • 1 cup of Feta
  • I small can stewed tomatoes or canned cherry tomatoes
  • Marjoram
  • Black Pepper
  • Salt
  • Olive Oil
Instructions
  1. Pound your chicken breasts with a meat tenderizer. Salt and Pepper to taste and set aside.
  2. On a cutting board roll up and julienne your fresh spinach leaves and place ribbons into a bowl. Reserve some for the later.
  3. Add Feta and crumble and mix with the Spinach.
  4. Taking the breasts, sprinkle the feta and spinach mixture on top and carefully roll up.
  5. Place in a oiled casserole or stainless steel pan that goes into the oven. Seams side down.
  6. Sprinkle with Marjoram and more salt and pepper to taste.
  7. Pour the stewed tomatoes and juice on top of the stuffed chicken breasts.
  8. Add the rest of the spinach and mix into the liquid so it stays moist.
  9. Preheat oven to 375.
  10. Cover with foil or cover and bake ½ hr . After ½ hour remove foil cover and let continue to cook until chicken is done and the liquid is bubbling. Be sure the spinach on top stays in the juices so if softens/ wilts and cooks. This will take approximately one hour.
  11. Serve with pasta or rice.
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Chocolate Chip Whey Brioche and The Four Pounds of Cheese Project

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A few weeks back Jeni invited me and many other people to to her special Facebook project to raise awareness for weeks period on what we waste food wise. We were asked to photograph and write about it. Here is the Facebook page , where a lot of discussion and tips are available. I had every intention to jump right in and photograph and blog about my own personal waste, but life got in the way with the new job and catering gigs. I am aware that I do waste, no matter how hard I try not to. The biggest culprit being the spoilage of my bi weekly organic vegetable box. I can’t make or eat the produce fast enough and it spoils quickly being organic. As a chef I’m old school, and raised by a mother who used everything up in the kitchen , as she learned from her mother. Bones, end and pieces all go into the pot. But there are some things you can’t save and use fast enough when its past being good. Here is a photo  of some stuff I threw out that week to make room in the fridge for more. Certain Someone gets on me all the time for this.

I got to thinking a lot about waste that week as my friend The Alchemist treated me to a cheese making course at Angelic Farms. I will post all about that later.They are all about the earth and lack of waste at the farm. I learned many things that day but especially how to use Whey, a run off product from making cheese after the curds form, that’s full of protein. It never occurred to me to bake with it, add it to smoothies, soups, even lemonade. So I dutifully froze a quart of Whey leftover from class , as I knew it would be a while until I got back to it.  I cringe about the Whey I have thrown out and wasted in earlier cheese experiments.

Then the other day I adventurously started the process of making Brie (it takes months to age, so that won’t be posted until later on the Fall). Naturally I had tons of Whey, I would say almost a gallon). As it was a rare day off packed with kitchen experiments, I dusted off the old Kitchen Aid and mixed some flour with just water salt and yeast and let rise overnight in the fridge , until I could get back to it. In my reading I saw most bread recipes with Whey called for fat, as the protein made a chewy but very tender  dough. So I bravely resolved to cut in the butter and eggs the next day to my starter dough, and it worked! I wanted a more of Brioche type of bread. I’m rather proud of myself for making a great recipe fully off the cuff. I’m am getting more confident as  a baker. I work now with a lot of Europeans who are very particular about their bread, and I took the brioche to work. They loved it and were impressed. That’s huge to me, as I love it when people enjoy my food. Unfortunately my shapes in the mini Panettone cups didn’t hold and the end result look like a limp part of the male anatomy ( according to one person) , but it was delicious , so who cares. I’m happy something I would have thrown away and wasted ordinarily in my past cheese experiments turned into something so good.


Chocolate Chip Whey Brioche
 
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A rich Brioche type of bread made with Whey
Author:
Recipe type: Bread
Ingredients
  • 6 cups All Purpose Non Bleached Flour plus 1 cup extra for kneading and the later
  • 1½ tablespoon instant yeast
  • 2 tablespoon warm water
  • 4 cups of Whey
  • 2 tablespoons sugar
  • ½ teaspoon salt
  • 1 scoop of Meyenberg Powdered Goat Milk ( approx 14 grams or 1 tablespoon)
  • 2½ sticks unsalted butter at room temp
  • 3 eggs
  • 1 cup semi sweet chocolate chips
  • Egg wash of 1 egg beaten to 1 teaspoon heavy cream
  • Extra butter for greasing rising containers or baking tins.
  • Disposable Panettone baking cups ( no greasing needed)
Instructions
  1. The night before in the bowl of the stand mixer add yeast, sugar and some water . Let stand for a few minutes until dissolved and slightly foamy.
  2. Add the flour, powdered goats milk,whey, and salt.
  3. Mix with the paddle first, then switch to the dough hook. Make sure you scrape down the sides to incorporate all the ingredients.
  4. Grease /Butter a rising container with lid to hold the dough.
  5. Add the dough, which will be more on the wet side, and cover with lid.
  6. Place in the refrigerator overnight to slowly rise.
  7. The next day take butter out to become room temperature and soft.
  8. Take the dough out and add to the stand mixer bowl.
  9. The next few steps will get a little messy and the workout the stand mixer.
  10. Punch down the dough and place in the bowl of the mixer. Cut the butter into small pieces and add.
  11. Add one egg at a time.
  12. Slowly with the dough hook cut in the butter and eggs. The dough will be wet and messy so you can add slowly the extra flour ( 1 cup) to help bind the dough.
  13. The final dough should be sticky but not too wet.
  14. Once all is mixed, add the chocolate chips and continue to need on a low speed with the dough hook.
  15. Turn out and scrape the dough into a floured surface and finish kneading with your hands.
  16. Place back into the a clean container , cover and allow to rest for 3O minutes.
  17. Preheat oven to 400.
  18. Prep your baking tins or cups.
  19. Shape you dough into desired shapes for the baking cups or tins.
  20. Brush with egg wash and let the dough rise for another 30 minutes or so.
  21. Bake until golden. Depends on size and shape to determine if finished.
Notes
This is a two day or overnight process.
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