Category: Produce

Baked Radicchio with Parmesan

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Spring is gradually rolling in . With that comes more vibrant and hued fruits and vegetables  for our table to take us out the winter doldrums. Last week in my organic delivery box, I received several heads of Radicchio. I really didn’t envision myself eating a bunch of salad with radicchio. Nor was I feeling making a starchy risotto which was also a very popular option with this  member of the Chicory family. Let me start off by saying Radicchio is bitter, very better and pairs either with more salt or sweet ingredients.  Many roast theirs with Balsamic for that sweeter edge and some with saltier cheeses, like I chose to.

Now my variety of Radicchio, the round Chiogga, is the type more used for salads. The Treviso , more elongated like Belgian endive, is actually milder and more suitable for cooking. Nevertheless it will still be bitter and its going to up to your personal preference if you enjoy this or not. I found after baking, some extra squeeze of lemon rounded out the flavor with the olive oil, cheese, and wine. I would pair this dish with pork or chicken  with a fruit or sweet based sauce to compliment the bitter spice of the radicchio.

 

Baked Radicchio with Parmesan
 
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Baked Radicchio
Author:
Recipe type: Side Dish
Ingredients
  • 5 heads of Radicchio cut into quarter wedges (you can use less and pare down your recipe to proportion)
  • Olive Oil to drizzle baking dish and radicchio
  • ½ cup dry white wine
  • 1 cup grated Parmesan cheese
  • salt and pepper to taste
Instructions
  1. Preheat your oven to 350 F.
  2. Coat the bottom of your baking dish with olive oil. Add quartered , washed radicchio.
  3. Pour wine over the vegetable and season with salty and pepper. Top with grated Parmesan.
  4. Cover with foil, to create steam and moisture, and bake for 25 minutes.
  5. Remove foil and bake for another 20 minuted until radicchio is wilted, color is more brown and cheese has melted.
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Duck Rillettes on Goat Cheese Croquettes with Black Pepper Balsamic Cranberry Relish…Marx Foods Iron Foodie

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I was stunned when it was announced by Foodie Blogroll and Marx Foods, that I was chosen as one of the twenty five challengers for Iron Foodie. I didn’t even see the email. As I said before, I have stopped with contests for a lot reasons. But this was real challenge that I believe is more about skill , than say…popularity.

Iron Foodie 2010 | Here's Why that will be me:
MarxFoods.com -- Fine Bulk Foods The Foodie BlogRoll

A mystery box was sent to all of us, with instructions to make a dish with at least three of the eight ingredients  in the box. The box contained Aji Panca Chilies, Dried  Wild Porcini’s, Smoked Sea Salt,Maple Sugar, Fennel Pollen, Bourbon Vanilla Beans, Dulse( dried sea weed), and Tellicherry Peppercorns.

I chose to use four ingredients in my Amuse Bouche. Smoked Sea Salt, Fennel Pollen, Maple Sugar, andTellicherry Peppercorns. There are three components to this recipe that will go a long way.

Rillettes are slow cooked meat such as duck, pork, rabbit that are cured with salt and spices , then simmered in fat for hours, and then beat into a paste to eaten as a spread. Wonderful for the holidays and long lasting if preserved and sealed in fat.

Black Pepper Balsamic Cranberry Relish is a new take on a holiday staple. Rather than cooked stove top, I roasted the cranberries with less sugars and balsamic vinegar. The true flavors shine and are not masked by heavy sugars like traditional cranberry sauces. The tartness offsets the rich fattiness of the Rillettes.

Goat Cheese Croquettes are inspired by of one my favorite salads of crusted fried goat cheese with apples. I decided to make small patties to top off with the other two components. I rolled them in fennel pollen ,orange zest and panko before frying.

Be sure to have the rillettes at room temperature when assembling. Many of the components can be made ahead, leaving the goat cheese for last.

I was expecting this to be really rich. It is rich but not unbearably so. It’s like the entire holiday meal in one luscious mouthful.

Check out my other challengers.

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Duck Rillettes on Goat Cheese Croquettes with Black Pepper Balsamic Cranberry Relish

Duck Rillettes

24-48 hours prep. Several hours cooking time.

  • 1 whole ducking quartered
  • 1 tsp  Marx Foods smoked sea salt
  • 1 tablespoon kosher salt
  • Bay leaves
  • 4 allspice cloves
  • 4-5 cloves garlic
  • Marx Foods Ground Tellicherry black pepper
  • 2 tsp Marx Foods Fennel Pollen
  • 1-2 cups vegetable stock
  • 1/3 cup Cognac

*you may want to purchase additional duck fat for sealing.

  1. In a dish season raw duck with salt, bay leaves, allspice, garlic, pepper, etc.
  2. Cover and place in the fridge for at least 24 hrs, but up to 48 hours.
  3. Place seasoned duck in Dutch oven.
  4. Add vegetable stock and fennel pollen.
  5. Place and cover in oven at 250.
  6. Cook for 4-5 hours until liquid is mostly gone, meat is tender, and fat is rendered.
  7. Remove carcass bones and skin, allspice, bay leaves.
  8. Add the soft garlic cloves to meat pile.
  9. Strain liquid and fat and add to shredded meat with cognac, and continue to cook for a two more hours in oven.
  10. Reserve some fat.
  11. Beat meat with fat but not to make a paste.
  12. Place in jars or one dish.
  13. Cover with reserved fat to seal.
  14. Stores for several months in the refrigerator as long as sealed well in fat.

Black Pepper  Balsamic Cranberry Relish

Can be made days ahead

  • 1 bag /1lb cranberries
  • 3 tablespoons Marx Foods Maple Sugar
  • ½ cup packed dark brown sugar
  • 2-3tabslespoons balsamic vinegar
  • 1 tablespoon water
  • Ground Marx Foods Tellicherry Pepper
  1. Wash cranberries.
  2. Place in metal baking pan.
  3. Add maple sugar, brown sugar, balsamic vinegar, pepper, and 1 tablespoon of water.
  4. Toss all ingredients.
  5. Roast at 350 for 45 minutes to 1 hour.
  6. Stir halfway through roasting.
  7. Remove from heat and cool.

Goat Cheese Croquettes

  • Log of goat cheese (4oz log makes 7 croquettes)
  • 1 tsp Marx Foods Fennel Pollen
  • Orange zest( 1 orange)
  • Panko bread crumbs
  • Vegetable oil to coat pan
  1. Zest orange peel and add to fennel pollen.
  2. Make round patties with goat cheese by hand.
  3. Dust with fennel pollen mixed with orange zest.
  4. Roll in Panko.
  5. Heat oil. Fry croquettes on each side for a few minutes until panko crust is browned. Be careful and only turn minimally (once on each side)

Assembly

Take a croquette. Top with rillettes. Top with cranberry relish. Garnish with dusting of fennel pollen and orange zest.

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Roasted Honeyed Sweets

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Here is a quick and  easy recipe to add to your holiday or just regular table as a side. A little back story…growing up I hated sweet potatoes. Candied or in  pie, I just couldn’t fall in love with them.I dreaded when holidays arrived and I  had to eat my obligatory spoonful. No matter who made them, I just didn’t like that orange sweet mush.Now, I love them. I love them most in their simplest form, roasted. So rather than dump a ton of brown sugar, butter, and marshmallows (shudder) on your sweets, next time try this. Honey is a natural healing sweetener that pairs perfectly with this root vegetable chock full of anti oxidants.

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Roasted Honeyed Sweets

* I used  a raw honey which is  pure, healthier, and is more solid in form. I melted it slightly before use on the stove. Use either clarified runny or raw honey. The choice is yours.

Quantities can be adjusted for amount of servings.

  • Sweet Potatoes with skin , washed
  • Olive Oil to coat
  • Kosher Salt to taste
  • 1 tablespoon honey for every sweet potato used
  1. Preheat oven to 375 F
  2. Line a baking sheet with parchment paper.
  3. Cut sweet potatoes in wedges , with skin.
  4. Toss in olive oil generously to coat.
  5. Place on baking sheet.
  6. Sprinkle with Kosher Salt to taste.
  7. Roast  for 15 minutes until tender.
  8. Take honey( which has been pre melted if raw) and toss over sweet potatoes on baking sheet.
  9. Continue to roast for another 5 minutes or so.
  10. Serve hot.

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Salt Pork (Sidfläsk) and Onion Sauce…Classically Scandinavian Cuisine

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Some dishes are so simple and basic, they really don’t elicit the need for a recipe or a enthusiastic response from most. Yet that very simplicity, which some might disdain, is comfort for others. A simple man’s dish  can be regal and revered  for it’s pure minimalism. While in Stockholm, having lunch with friends in a swanky cafe off of Stureplan, I ordered the  lunch special. It was a basic hearty dish of fried salt pork served with boiled potatoes and a white creamy onion sauce.My friend rubbed her hands in glee in anticipation of this childhood favorite, and Certain Someone naturally leaned over to fork up a few of the tasty morsels. I knew this was a dish I had to replicate back home.

Growing up black, with a mother who cooked southern style, salt pork was normally reserved for greens or beans. I don’t think she ever fried it up for us to eat, although I know many do. As salt pork is cured and packed in salt , its essential to soak it overnight and even blanch it to lessen the saltiness. It’s poor mans food that cheap but adds a punch of flavor to any dish.Salt pork can be entirely fatty or lean with some meat. Its made from the pork belly, like bacon, yet cured in salt. Originally it was created as shipboard ration, much like the European cured cod in salt.

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Salt Pork with Onion Sauce

serves 2-3

  • 1 lb slab of salt pork( streaky with meat and fat)
  • oil or leaf lard for frying
  • small red skinned potatoes ( enough for 2-3) peeled
  • 1 stick butter
  • 1 1/2 white onions minced
  • 2 tablespoons flour
  • 1 1/2 cup of milk
  • white pepper
  • sea salt
  • *pinch of nutmeg optional
  1. Soak the salt pork overnight in water. Refrigerate, changing water periodically.
  2. Boil peeled potatoes in water with a pinch of salt until tender.
  3. Heat a pot with boiling water. Black salt pork for 1 minute to leech extra salt after soaking.
  4. Remove from water and cool.
  5. Slice salt pork .
  6. In a frying pan with oil or leaf lard, fry salt pork until crispy. Drain on paper towels and set aside.
  7. Check potatoes, drain , and toss lightly in butter when done. Cover until ready to use.
  8. In a frying pan melt 1 stick of butter.
  9. Add minced onion.
  10. Saute on med heat until onions are translucent .
  11. Season to taste with salt and white pepper.
  12. Add flour to butter and softened onions. Mix until you form a roux.
  13. Continue to cook for one minute to slightly brown the roux.
  14. Add milk and* nutmeg.
  15. Mix briskly to incorporate onions, roux and milk.
  16. Sauce will start to thicken.
  17. If sauce is too thick add more milk, adjust.
  18. Plate potatoes with sauce ladled over them. Top with a few slices of salt pork per person.
  19. Serve hot.

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Onion and Broccoli Bhajji

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The other week Certain Someone and I had the opportunity to catch up with old friends and some new ones at Jaipur, a  new Indian restaurant in the West Loop. As our friends were Indian, this place passed their critical palate. One of the food items I couldn’t get enough of was the Bhajji, a fried onion fritter. I decided to replicate these at home and realized I had all the ingredients sitting in the pantry. The main ingredients are Gram flour( chickpea flour) and sliced onions. The spice ratio can be adjusted to your tastes. I decided to add some chopped broccoli for color.The taste to me is similar to a Falafel, but more spicy I served these one night for dinner and Certain Someone couldn’t get enough. They serve well as leftovers too. No wonder this is among the most popular snacks and starter courses throughout India. I like mine plain, but serve with a pickle or chutney on the side. And it’s Gluten-free if that’s what you require.

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Onion and Broccoli Bhajji

  • 2 onions halved and then sliced thinly
  • 3/4 cup chopped broccoli
  • 2 cups Chickpea Flour
  • 1/4 cup Rice Flour
  • 1 teaspoon baking powder
  • 1 teaspoon turmeric
  • 1/2 teaspoon curry
  • 1/2 teaspoon black onion seeds/ nigella seeds
  • 1/2 teaspoon chili powder
  • 1/2 teaspoon coriander seeds crushed
  • 1/2 teaspoon cumin
  • salt to taste
  • 3/4 cup or more of water
  • Vegetable Oil or Canola Oil for frying
  1. Slice onion.Chop Broccoli.
  2. In a bowl mix all dry ingredients and spices.
  3. Add onion and broccoli.
  4. Add water a little at a time and mix until all ingredients are moistened and form a ball. You may need more or less water.
  5. Heat oil for frying.
  6. Make small balls of mixture and drop in for frying.
  7. Turn and make sure browned on all sides.
  8. Drain on paper towels.
  9. Serve  with lemon, lime, or Indian pickle or chutneys.

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Consider this for upcoming Meatless Monday options.