Sausage and Rice Stuffed Eggplants

More eggplants? Well, vegetable gardens are prolific this time of year. My eggplants this year have been producing more quickly than rabbits in heat, and it's hard to keep up with them all. The eggplant "fries" from my last post have been a big hit, but man does not live by eggplant fries alone. Stuffed eggplants hit the right notes for my husband, with a filling of Italian sausage, rice, mozzarella and parmesan cheese. It's like eating eggplant parm but with the extra benefit of more protein. If you're vegetarian and want to eliminate the sausage, it will still be delicious. 

I started with these "fairy tale" eggplants, which I've never grown until this year. They're tiny, even when mature, reaching only three or four inches in length. They tend to morph from white to yellow when they ripen, with a purple striation that turns beige when cooked. But you can use those longer, glossy, all-purple eggplants too. I trimmed most of the green from the top (see the one that isn't trimmed below as well as the ones that are trimmed) but left a little nub at the top to keep the eggplants from opening up too much.

Make a crosshatch in each one, being careful not to break the skin. Smear with some olive oil, salt and pepper.

Then flip them over and bake at 350 degrees for 1/2 hour.

They'll come out of the oven looking like this. 

Scoop out the insides, being careful not to break the outer shell, if possible.

Chop the interior into small pieces.

I saved some of the interior for later use to make eggplant "meatballs." Cut up a mozzarella, and use half in the stuffing, then save half to spread on top.

Mix all the filling ingredients together.

Spread some tomato sauce on the bottom of a pan, then place the stuffed eggplants on top. Spread the remaining mozzarella and a little more tomato sauce over everything.

Bake in a 350 degree oven for 45 minutes, covered with aluminum foil, but remove the foil for the last 15 minutes. Sit down and enjoy these beauties.

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Sausage and Rice Stuffed Eggplants

8 small "Fairy tale" eggplants, or three large eggplants

3 cups cooked rice (brown or white)

1 cup parmesan cheese, grated

1 lb. Italian sausage (raw)

2 eggs, lightly beaten

8 ounces mozzarella cheese, grated 

salt, pepper

minced parsley

marinara sauce

Trim the stems of the eggplants but leave a little "nub" at the top to help keep it together when it bakes in the oven. Cut the eggplants in half lengthwise, then make crosshatch marks on each half, being careful not to cut through the skin. Rub with olive oil, season with salt and pepper and place skin side up on a cookie sheet. Bake in a 350 oven for 30 minutes.

Remove the eggplants from the oven and when they are cool enough to handle, scoop out the interior with a spoon. Using a sharp knife, chop the cooked eggplant into small pieces.

Meanwhile, in a large bowl, add the rice, parmesan cheese, raw sausage, eggs, salt, pepper, parsley and about 1/2 of the mozzarella, keeping the other half aside to use on top.

Add the chopped eggplant to the bowl, along with 1/2 cup of marinara sauce. Mix everything well, then stuff into the eggplants.

Line a casserole (or two as I did if using the fairy tale eggplants) with some marinara sauce. Place the eggplants in the casserole and then top each eggplant with more of the mozzarella and more of the marinara sauce. Cover with foil and bake in a 350 for 45 minutes or until the sausage is cooked and the dish is piping hot. Remove the foil during the last 15 minutes.

 

Crispy Oven Baked Eggplant Fries

It's the end of August and like many people with vegetable gardens, you may be finding yourself with a surfeit of eggplants. We sure have an abundant supply and for the first time, they're not those typical shiny oblong purple eggplants that are used in Italian cooking. The ones growing in our garden are called "fairytale eggplants" and they are small and stripe-y looking. The grow only about three to four inches long when mature, making it a little difficult to cut large, long slices. I was trying to figure out what to do with them when I came up with the idea of making baked eggplant fries. 

In order to get the stick shape I was looking for, I cut thick slices (about 1" thick), then sliced the slices into three or four pieces. See photo below:

Using the traditional method of breading anything from chicken cutlets to vegetables, I arranged three plates with flour; beaten egg; and a bread crumb mixture. The bread crumb mixture contained both regular and panko bread crumbs, plus parmesan cheese and fresh, minced oregano. The first time I made these I used only panko, but they were so crunchy it hurt my teeth, so I tempered it with regular bread crumbs.

It's a messy job to dip the eggplant sticks into the three separate mixtures but keep a moist paper towel handy to clean up your fingers when you need to. Grease a cookie sheet with olive oil, then arrange the eggplant sticks on top and drizzle with more olive oil. Bake in a 425 degree oven. 

Flip them once while they're in the oven, and after 15-20 minutes, you'll have these crunchy, delicious baked eggplant fries. They make a great side dish, or serve them as an hors d'oeuvres, with a marinara sauce or aioli.

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Crispy Oven Baked Eggplant Fries

3 or 4 "baby" eggplants or 2 traditional purple eggplants

3/4 cup panko breadcrumbs

3/4 cup regular breadcrumbs

1/2 cup parmesan cheese

2 eggs, beaten

a handful of fresh herbs, minced (I used oregano but basil, thyme or marjoram would be nice too)

olive oil to drizzle on cookie sheet and over top of eggplants

Instructions:

Preheat oven to 425 degrees.

Slice the eggplants into thick 1" slices, then slice each slice into three or four "sticks."

In three separate plates, place the flour; the beaten egg; and the bread crumb mixture, made by mixing the two bread crumbs with parmesan cheese and minced oregano. 

 Dip each stick into first the flour, then the egg and finally the bread crumb/parmesan mixture.

Smear a cookie sheet with olive oil, then place the "sticks" over the olive oil. Drizzle more olive oil on top, then place in a 425 degree oven for 15-20 minutes, flipping once. 

Serve with a marinara sauce or aioli, or just plain.

Seared Tuna With Salmoriglio Sauce

Seared tuna is a delicious meal that takes only a couple of minutes to cook. Serve it with this salmoriglio sauce and you've got a real winner, for company or for any night. But first you need to be sure of getting really fresh tuna. We were fortunate to receive this gift of fresh tuna last week from our friend Lou, who had just returned from an overnight fishing trip, where he and friends travel 60 miles offshore in search of the prized catch. It doesn't get much fresher than this, unless you cook it onboard the boat.

These are the pieces I cooked. One is thicker than the other, so you need to factor the thickness into your cooking time. Cooking time depends on not just the thickness, but how rare you like your tuna. I don't like it raw, but I didn't want to overcook the fish where no pink was showing. I first smeared the fish with a little olive oil, then pressed some "everything seasoning" into the flesh. In the past I've used a combination of white and black sesame seeds and served it with an Asian-inspired sauce (see that recipe here), but I wanted to use some of my fresh herbs, so I decided to make salmoriglio, a commonly used sauce in Sicily and Calabria. We loved the combination of flavors.

One mistake I would caution you not to make is not to have the pan "screaming hot." It burned most of the seeds and I had to scrape them off. I would cook it at medium heat, and just flip it once, with about three to five minutes per side for a thick piece (1 inch or so), and just a minute per side on a thinner piece.

This will give you a pink interior, but a bit more cooked flesh near the surface. If you want it even more rare, then adjust and cook it less. I served it with baked eggplant fries (recipe coming soon).

Salmoriglio sauce is traditionally made with parsley and oregano, but my parsley seemed to have fizzled out mid-summer, so I grabbed a few other herbs, like marjoram, chives and oregano, that were still going strong. There are no rules, so use what makes your taste buds happy. This was definitely a happy marriage of flavors.

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Seared Tuna with Salmoriglio Sauce

about 1 pound of fresh tuna

a little olive oil to smear over the fish

1/4 cup of "everything seasoning" or a mixture of white and black sesame seeds

for the salmoriglio sauce:

zest of one lemon

3 tablespoons fresh lemon juice

1 tablespoon water

1/2 cup- 3/4 cup fresh herbs (use parsley, oregano, marjoram or chives or a combination of them)

2 cloves garlic

salt, pepper to taste

1/3 cup olive oil

Remove the fish from the refrigerator and let it sit at room temperature for 1/2 hour. 

Meanwhile make the sauce. Place all ingredients into a blender and whir until almost smooth. It's ok if there are tiny bits of herbs showing. Set it aside while you cook the fish. 

Pat the tuna dry and smear with a little olive oil on both sides, then press the everything seasoning or sesame seeds into the flesh. Sear the fish in skillet (I used cast iron) on medium heat, flipping it once after a couple of minutes. If you like your tuna cooked more, sear it longer. If you want it rare, cook it less. A lot depends on the thickness of the tuna.

Serve with the salmoriglio sauce.

Clams On The Grill

It's summertime and that means no-fuss, no-muss cooking. These clams, cooked in a disposable pan on the grill, fit the bill perfectly. We ate them as our main course, sharing a little more than forty clams, but enough to serve as an appetizer for a larger group. I was inspired to make these after reading about how much protein we "seniors" should be eating each day. A 70-year-old woman generally needs between 1.0 and 1.2 grams of protein per day for each kilogram of body weight. That's higher than the recommended intake for younger adults and is crucial for maintaining muscle mass, bone strength, and overall health. For example, a 150-pound (68 kg) woman would need approximately 68-82 grams of protein daily. When I checked how much food I needed to eat to consume that amount of protein, I realized I needed to 

up my game. We eat mostly fish, chicken or a grain main course, like pasta, and eat red meat only once or twice a month at most. Oatmeal is our breakfast of choice, but we'll be rotating that with yogurt or eggs from now on. When I looked up the amount of protein in clams, I was astonished to learn that 12 littleneck clams contain 22-28 grams of protein, meaning that my meal last night contained half if not more of my protein requirements for the day. Yea! Clams are also rich in vitamins and minerals and low in fat and calories. Win-win! The small amount of pancetta added even more protein and added more flavor. Are you on board?  Start by drizzling a little olive oil in a disposable pan, and place the pancetta inside. Place the grill on high heat and cook the pancetta until it's crisp and the fat has been rendered.

Add the clams and the rest of the ingredients -- a little knob of butter, dry white wine, garlic, salt, and fresh herbs.

Close the lid and let it bubble away for five minutes, then open the lid and stir to move the clams around. I also added more fresh herbs each time I opened the lid of the grill.

Cook for ten to fifteen minutes, or until the clams have all opened and had a chance to cook through. Toss more fresh parsley on top and serve with grilled bread that's been moistened with olive oil and sprinkled with coarse sea salt.

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Clams On The Grill

1 bag of littleneck clams (there were about 40 in the bag)

1 slice of pancetta 1/2" thick, cut into small pieces

2 tablespoons olive oil

2 tablespoons butter

six cloves of minced garlic

1/4 cup dry white wine

salt

minced parsley, plus other herbs to your liking (I used sprigs of thyme and marjoram)

Place the olive oil and pancetta in the disposable pan and cook over high heat until the pancetta loses its fat and starts to crisp. Add the clams, the garlic, salt, wine, butter and herbs, leaving some minced parsley to sprinkle over the top at the end.

Cover the lid of the grill, opening the lid occasionally to stir once or twice. When the clams are all open and have cooked for a few minutes, they are done. It may take 10 to fifteen or twenty minutes.

Serve with grilled bread, smeared with olive oil and salt.

 

Making Pasteis De Nata In Lisbon

If you've never eaten a pastel de nata (pastéis is the plural), a signature dessert of Portugal, you are really missing out on one of life's great treats. We have a large population of Portuguese people living in and around Newark, so they're easy to find here in New Jersey. But eating and making them where they were first created was like finding the mother lode. Pastéis de nata tarts are pastries inspired by an original recipe called Pastéis de Belém, which were created before the 18th century by Catholic monks at the Jerónimos Monastery in Belem (a Lisbon neighborhood). 

In the aftermath of the liberal revolution of 1820, following the dissolution of religious orders and in the face of the impending closure of many convents and monasteries, the monks started selling pastéis de nata at a nearby sugar refinery to bring in revenue. In 1834, the monastery was closed and the recipe sold to the sugar refinery, whose owners opened the Fábrica de Pastéis de Belém in 1837. The descendants own the business to this day.

Naturally, we had to try them at the source (where I was also inspired to paint the scene).

Cradled in a crispy, buttery pastry, and filled with a silky, custard interior, you'll find it hard to resist eating more than one of these luscious confections.

My husband, my daughter-in-law and I signed up for a class in Belem on our recent trip, to learn to make these treats. It was lots of fun, and they were easier to make than they look. First you need to make the pastry. Yes, you could buy puff pastry, but there's nothing like homemade and it really wasn't that difficult at all. The most important thing was to refrigerate the dough before shaping it into the tart tins. There's a lot of butter in the dough and you don't want it oozing out because it starts out too warm.

Our chef and teacher Miguel showed us that we needed to put the block of butter in the center of the two layers of dough.

Keep pounding it down, (don't roll it) into a rectangle.

Then moisten the rectangle with water. It will help the dough stick to itself when you roll it into a "log."

Roll it tightly into a log shape. You should be able to get about 12 cuts in the log.

Cut it in pieces a little more than 1/4" thick.

Then using your thumbs, spread each piece wider to fit the individual tart pans, going all the way to the rim of the pan. P.S. You can easily find the tart pans online by searching "pastel de nata tins."

They should look like this:

Then pour the filling into the molds, about 3/4 of the way to the top and place them in the oven.

They'll puff up when they're in the oven, and will deflate after a couple of minutes when you remove them.

Here are the results of our labors. Optional: dust with powdered confectioner's sugar and/or cinnamon.

And here are our fellow classmates, who were visiting from Boston and from London.

Miguel, our teacher, offered us our choice of Portuguese dessert wines to accompany the tarts -- muscatel or ginja, a cherry-based liqueur.

If you find yourself in Lisbon and are interested in a fun way to spend a few hours, here is the info to contact Miguel.

In 2009, The Guardian listed pastéis de Belém as one of the 50 "best things to eat" in the world.  I think I have to agree with that. In 2011, following the result of a public vote, the pastry was announced as one of Portugal's Seven Wonders of Gastronomy, further cementing it as one of the country's most popular national dishes.

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Pastéis de Nata

For the Puff Pastry
230 grams (1 3/4 cups) of low protein flour
120 grams (1/2 cup) of cold water
4 grams (3/4 teaspoon) of fine salt
160 grams (2/3 cup)  of a square of butter proper for puff pastry (high fat, like French or Irish butter)

1. In a large bowl combine the flour, water and salt until you get a dough
consistency.
2. Change for a working surface and knead for 3 minutes. Wrap in cling
film and let it rest in the fridge for 10 minutes
3. With a rolling pin extend the dough creating 4 wings with a lump in
the middle. The wings should have size to cover the square of butter.
4. Place the butter in the center of the dough, close with the wings and press.
5. With a rolling pin extend the dough until get a rectangle shape
with 5mm thick (a little over 3/16 inch)
6. Fold in the pastry in three parts.
7. Repeat steps 5 and 6 one time
8. For the final fold divide the dough in 4 parts instead of 3.
9. Sprinkle the surface of the dough with water. Roll and press a bit
to form a roll. Refrigerate for 20 minutes.
10. Cut 8 mm (a teeny bit more than 1/4") thick slices of puff pastry. You should get 12 or a little more slices.
11. Place a disc of dough on the bottom of the tins and with your
thumbs press and stretch the dough until it completely covers the tin
interior.

For the Custard
200 ml of whole milk (3/4 cup plus two tablespoons)
200 ml of cream (35% fat content) (3/4 cup plus two tablespoons)
120 gr of sugar (1/2 cup)
1 tablespoon of cornstarch
2 egg yolks
Cinnamon stick
Lemon zest

1. Dissolve the cornstarch with a part of milk.
2. In a pot, combine everything, except the egg yolks. Bring to a low
simmering just to infuse the aromatics and thicken it up to a double
cream texture (6 minutes)
3. Let it cool to room temperature, before adding the beating egg yolks.
4. Fill up the tins up to ¾.
5. Bake at maximum heat (250ºC or 500 degrees Fahrenheit). Place the tray in
the middle of the oven, fan off with heat coming from top and bottom
either.
6. Should bake for 12/15 minutes. First the puff pastry will start to
flake. After a few minutes the custard will rise and form a dome. When
the black dots appear on top, Pastéis de Nata are done.

Optional: Dust with powdered sugar and/or cinnamon.

Spring Salad with Mint Pesto

Temperatures here in New Jersey have already reached 90 degrees, and that makes me crave salads. I recently ate something similar to this at Thompson Italian in Alexandria, Va., recommended by my friend Domenica Marchetti, who lives there. I split it with my husband as an appetizer, but could easily have eaten it all myself. I liked it so much, I had to try to recreate it when I got home. It's not exactly like the restaurant's version, but it's close enough, and so delicious and refreshing. Start by making the mint pesto. You need a heaping cup of well-packed mint leaves. That will give you more than you'll need for this recipe, unless you're serving more than two people. In that case, just double everything in the recipe except the pesto ingredients. The pesto recipe will give you plenty for four servings, maybe even for six, depending on how generous you are in applying to the salad. Freeze the leftover pesto, which would be terrific with lamb or fish.

Next you'll need some fresh snap peas. I was lucky enough to get these from my friend Karla, who invited me to pick these beauties from her garden, along with some truly delicious strawberries and lettuces. I took some of her tarragon too, for another use.

Just trim off the hard end of the snap peas, and any stringy bit that comes with it. After trimming them, I left these whole for the salad.

You'll need asparagus too, which I always peel to avoid the tough outer layer. Cut them into pieces about 2- 2 1/2 inches long, then cook the snap peas and asparagus in boiling water for only 3 to 4 minutes. I didn't want them to be raw, but I didn't want them soft and limp either, so cook them just a short bit, remove from the boiling water and drop them immediately into ice water to stop the cooking, then drain and pat dry. They'll still have a slight crunch to them.

The restaurant menu said the dish contained preserved lemons, and I didn't have any more homemade from my own lemon tree, but I found some at my local supermarket, McCaffrey's, which seems to carry almost everything I want. If you can't find preserved lemons, I would suggest washing a fresh lemon, cutting it into small pieces then chopping roughly it in a food processor with a little salt and water before adding to this recipe.

Here's what one preserved lemon looks like straight from the jar. I cut it in small pieces before adding it to the food processor to make the pesto.

And here's what the pesto looks like after everything is all blended. Give it a taste to decide whether it needs more salt. Unlike a lot of pestos, this one doesn't use any parmesan cheese. There's already feta in the dish, so parmesan would only compete with it. Even without cheese, the pesto was so delicious, I found it hard to resist digging in with a spoon (ok, so maybe I dipped a finger in -- quality control and all that.).

Add a good dollop of the pesto - maybe 3 or 4 tablespoons - to a bowl with the cooked (and cooled) asparagus, snap peas, toasted walnuts (again cooled) and feta. Mix everything well with a spoon.


Serve on a plate surrounded by radicchio or salad greens of your choice. I dressed the radicchio first with a simple addition of salt and pepper, olive oil and vinegar, then placed the green salad in the center.

I've made this salad twice in the last two days, and decorated it the first time with some yellow calendula leaves (also from Karla's garden). If you've got nasturtiums blooming, they'd be lovely too -- totally optional, but it does add a nice pop of color to the mostly green salad.

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Spring Salad with Mint Pesto

(makes two servings but extra pesto for another meal or the freezer)

For the Mint Pesto

1 cup packed mint leaves

1/2 cup toasted walnuts

1 small clove garlic

1 of a preserved lemon 

1/2 cup olive oil

2 tablespoons water

salt, pepper to taste

Put everything in a food processor and blend, scraping down sides of bowl occasionally. Taste to see if it needs more lemon or salt and pepper. 

Salad Ingredients:

6 or 8 spears of thicker asparagus, peeled and sliced at an angle about 2 inches-3 inches long each.

snap peas trimmed and in the shell (I used about a dozen for this recipe)

1/4 cup (about 2-3 ounces) feta cheese, diced

1/4 cup toasted walnuts, chopped roughly

the pesto from above recipe

lettuce for the base, plus vinegar and oil to drizzle on the lettuce

calendula petals (or nasturtium flowers or other edible flowers) - optional

Procedure:

Make the mint pesto and set aside. Cook the asparagus pieces and the snap peas in boiling water for only about four minutes. You don't want the vegetables to be mushy, they should have a slight bite to them. Remove the vegetables with a "spider" and drop immediately into a bowl of ice water to stop the cooking, then pat dry to eliminate any water that still clings.

To a bowl, add the barely cooked vegetables, the feta cheese, the walnuts and some of the pesto. (The above recipes makes more pesto than you'll need for this recipe, but you can freeze the leftover. Mint pesto is delicious with fish, lamb or even pasta.) Mix everything together. Place some lettuce leaves on a plate and season them with salt and pepper, then drizzle a little olive oil and vinegar over the leaves. Arrange the asparagus, peas and feta salad over the lettuce leaves and scatter the edible flowers on top.