Categories
Hors D'Oeuvres & First Courses The Book

72. Tuna Empanaditas p.37

The recipe

These bite sized party favours are built with the duct tape of the home entertaining wold: puff pastry. A filling of oil-packed tuna, pimientos, capers, and onion is added to rounds of puff pastry, which are folded into semicircles and crimped. They can be frozen at this point, and baked whenever your heart desires.

The filling was very salty, and didn’t really taste like tuna. As I mentioned yesterday I don’t have much love in my heart for pimiento-stuffed olives, and they failed to impress me again here. The capers were really the saving grace, they contributed to the salt problem, but they brought a lot of flavour along with them. With more tuna, and better olives I think this could have worked out really well though. The ideas are sound, but I get the feeling they tried to make the dish too easy. Asking us to pit a quarter cup of olives isn’t an unreasonable demand, and they certainly don’t shy away from it in other sections of The Book.

The puff pastry section of the recipe was trickier than I would have guessed. The recipe calls for a round cookie cutter in the special equipment section. I didn’t have one and tried to make do with the edge of a wine glass. This isn’t a good idea, both because my glass couldn’t cut through and it took forever to go around the edges with a pairing knife, and because using a blunt instrument on puff pastry interferes with the puff. Puff pastry is made by layering butter and pastry, and when it hits the heat the water in the butter creates steam, thus puffing the pastry. Smooshing the pastry too much can compress the pastry layers, and displace butter messing with the puffing. In any case, this recipe makes 50 hors d’oeuvres, and the cutting, folding, crimping process takes quite a while. The recipe suggests it should take one hour active time, but I’m sure it took me two. I was quite late to the dinner party I was bringing them to, which is pretty bad form when you’re bringing the appetizers.

Before you’re ready to serve the empanaditas are baked on a cookie sheet at 400 degrees. The recipe says this should take 20 to 25 minutes. Mine were overcooked and dry within 15. As I was cooking these at a party, I had no way of checking that the temperature I set the oven to was really the temperature inside the box, but that’s a pretty big discrepancy.

In the end these didn’t come out too well. A few changes to the lineup in the filling, and more attentive baking on my part might have improved them dramatically. As is, mine were dried out and heavily salted. I like the concept of an empanadita, people might feel sheepish admitting it, but everyone likes mini versions of regular sized food. In this case the execution left something to be desired though.

Categories
Hors D'Oeuvres & First Courses The Book

71. Baked Cheddar Olives p.28

The recipe

I should have planned an old-timey supper from The Book instead of doing them all separately. There are some great retro recipes in here, and as some of you may have guessed I’m a sucker for dishes that recall church suppers of a bygone era. Here pimento stuffed olives are wrapped in a buttery extra old cheddar dough, and baked. I love imagining the genesis of this cocktail party nibbler. Did someone think that olives weren’t rich and salty enough on their own? Maybe someone ran out of cocktail weenies and made olives in a blanket instead? Maybe a guest spilled the dregs of her martini into the cheese biscuit dough? or perhaps it was part of a wrapping perfectly good foods in dough craze that swept the nation? The world may never know.

The dough was absolutely delicious, it came together easily, and didn’t require any special shopping. All it requires is good sharp cheddar, flour, butter, and the secret ingredient: cayenne. The cayenne sets the richness of the cheese off, and makes the whole crust sparkle. The dough bakes up perfectly, it gets wonderfully crisp on the outside, and the inside is rich and chewy.

My only issue with the dish was the pimentos. I can’t say I love them. I’m a big fan of olives, but I tend to stick to black ones (Kalamata, nicoise, or the Moroccan salt-cured wrinkly ones). Pitted and stuffed cocktail olives have never held much appeal for me. Neither do the sliced olives you find in low end of the spectrum pizza joints and hot-dog stands. I don’t know if it’s the nature of pimentos I don’t like, or a quality issue. Canned and jarred pitted olives tend to be of pretty pathetic quality and flavour compared to whole olives from the olive bar. I don’t know of anyone who produces high end pimento stuffed olives, but with the cocktail renaissance we’re living though someone must have tried to reinvent the martini olive. In any case, I used pretty run-of-the-mill olives, and they tasted pretty run-of-the-mill when I bit into them.

If you’re the sort of person who will happily pick away at a bowl of pimento stuffed olives, then they will be vastly improved by baking them in this cheesy dough. I can think of half a dozen other things I would have preferred to swaddle in this heavenly cheese dough though.

Categories
Hors D'Oeuvres & First Courses The Book

67. Roasted Pumpkin Seeds p.5

The recipe is just like this one from Epicurious, except that The Book gives proportions for the ingredients. I think the Epicurious version is more honest. This is barely even a recipe. Toast pumpkin seeds in a dry skillet ’till they’re browned and smell good, toss with olive oil and sea salt. That’s it.

Despite it’s tenuous recipe status, I’m glad it was in there. I probably wouldn’t have remembered how delicious toasted pumpkin seeds are, and never would have thought to put them out for guests. I ate some of them warm , and some at room temperature the next day. They’re totally delicious either way. I find the flavour of pumpkin seeds hard to pin down, they’re nutty, and they do have squashy pumpkin flavours, plus a whole other level of aromas that make them their own. You could serve sunflower seeds like this, but it just wouldn’t be the same.

Finding fresh green pumpkin seeds wasn’t as easy as I thought it would be. My grocery store carries them sporadically, and the ones at the health food store sometimes look a little ratty. The Book warns that pumpkin seeds spoil quickly, so a place with high turnover is key. They’re frequently used in Mexican cuisine, so a latino food shop might be the way to go to find a good fresh supply.

Since pumpkin sees freeze well I’ve taken to keeping a bag on hand. The Book seems to call for them fairly frequently, and I’ll never be without a tried-and-true last minute appetizer if friends drop by unexpectedly.

Categories
Hors D'Oeuvres & First Courses The Book

63. Cheese Fondue p.72


the recipe

My God I love fondue. Everything about it is good. Incredibly rich gooey cheese swaddling a crunchy bite of bakery fresh baguette, what could be better than that? It’s an easy to prepare and casual meal, that’s inherently social and fun. It’s horrible for you, which makes it even better to share with close friends you don’t mind relaxing around. Its got traditions, like the communal kirsch shot that’s taken half way through (one for each participant, and one goes into the pot to keep things from thickening), and inventive punishments for the poor soul whose bread falls off their fork. Better yet, there’s a special surprise at the bottom of the pot where the sterno bakes a perfect little cheese crisp. Just in case it wasn’t enough fun, it involves alcohol and an open flame.

Fondue enjoyed wild popularity in the ’60’s and ’70’s and has since slipped from vogue. I feel privileged to have my mother’s fondue pot as a relic of that renaissance. I’m not sure what caused this fall from grace for this near perfect food. Maybe people just got tired of it, maybe it got watered down with poor packaged versions and less than stellar bread. I can’t say, but I think it’s ready for a comeback. I wonder sometimes if sushi will go down the same road. Now that almost every grocery store has a sushi counter, how long can it remain a hip thing to eat? And, when sushi goes, what will come next?

This particular cheese fondue recipe worked out wonderfully. It has a couple of nice touches, like a mixture of emental and Gruyère, the occasionally overlooked rubbing of the pot with a clove of garlic, and directions for a zig zag stirring method that keeps the cheese from clumping or breaking on you. It lived up to the standards set for me by a Swiss friend, and great fondue aficionado.

I was lucky to be able to find good quality cheeses at reasonable prices, and as Montreal is overrun with good quality french bakeries a beautiful baguette was no trouble to obtain. On a recent visit out west I was introduced to the French stick. My understanding of this term is that it’s a baguette, only bad. I’ve started calling the grocery store fluffy interior mushy exterior baguettes French sticks, and reserving the term baguette for a loaf with a crisp crust, and a chewy interior, made with baguette flour. I’m not sure if the term French stick came about because people don’t like food with weird French names, and the only baguettes in those places happen to be bad. Or, if the French stick is an entirely different animal, and the standards for judging what makes a good one are just different. I find the division useful, if a bit snobby. But I’m certainly not above a bit of francophilic food snobbery.

I don’t have enough good things to say about fondue in general, and this fondue in particular. Make it, love it, share it.

Categories
Hors D'Oeuvres & First Courses The Book

61. Shrimp Dumplings With Dipping Sauce p.59

No recipe is available online.

These were fairly good, and easy to prepare. Here, a filling of chopped shrimp, water chestnuts, scallions, ginger, and egg are mounded onto wonton wrappers. The wrappers are folded over and sealed with water, then they’re browned in a skillet with a bit of oil. Water is then added and they’re allowed to steam, covered, until they’re cooked through. They’re then served with a simple soy, ginger, sugar, scallion dipping sauce.

I didn’t find that the flavours were particularly interesting, or desperately craveable. There was no A-Ha! moment, it was pretty standard fare. On the night I made them that was exactly what I was looking for though. As I’ve mentioned my dining companion is not a great fan of seafood, but we’ve been working on introducing her to various not-too-fishy parts of the sea’s bounty. I thought shrimp with a good deal of other flavorings would be a nice place to start. And guess what? she liked them. This dish gave us a toehold, which lead to other more shrimpy preparations (pan fried with a bit of pernod and tarragon, yum). I was shocked and delighted last week when she ate a beautiful diver scallop I’d made her. She’s also happy to eat raw oysters, tried some grilled squid, and is looking forward to trying lobster. It looks like the world of shellfish is a place we can explore together. Fish are still out, and she gagged a bit when I brought out a smoked salmon mousse surrounded with salmon roe, but that just gives us stuff to work on.

The flavours here were fine, the ingredient list reads like a mid ’70s “Chinese food at home” recipe card from the grocery store, but that’s not necessarily a bad thing. Everything in here is easy to obtain, most of it can live in the pantry or freezer, and the dumplings tasted pretty good. My main complaint would be the fry then steam technique used. The fry builds up beautiful caramelization on the dumplings, but then steaming washes most of it away and leaves them kind of mushy. I’m not sure if a steaming first would have made the dumplings too delicate to fry properly, but I think it would result in a better tasting dish.

The recipe itself wasn’t amazing, it had virtues, but it also had problems. I’ll always remember these fondly as the first fishy thing I made my dinning companion that she ate and liked. But, as a recipe I can’t give it better than average marks.

Categories
Hors D'Oeuvres & First Courses The Book

60. Prosciutto- and Parmesan-Stuffed Mushrooms p.27

No recipe, too bad.

These were an excellent appetizer. I brought them to a dinner party and they disappeared just like that. They’re mushroom caps stuffed with the cooked down mushroom stems, garlic, onion, bread crumbs, prosciutto, Parmesan, a useless dash of parsley, and an egg to hold it together. After the caps are filled they’re sprinkled with a bit more cheese, and drizzled with olive oil. Then they go into a 400 degree oven for 20 minutes.

The mushrooms just cook through, and the filling melts into the gills making the whole things creamy and delicious. The prosciutto and Parmesan add wonderful flavours of their own, as well as a good bit of salt which helps release the essence of the mushrooms. In theory the parsley is there to add some colour to the filling, but I didn’t find it very appealing. There is a lot of liquid in mushrooms, and the bread crumbs were there to soak it up. The 1/4 cup crumbs for 24 mushrooms the recipe recommends was a little on the low side. They could have stood to be dried out a bit.

This recipe worked really well, it was easy to do most of the prep at home, and then finish off the final assembly and baking at a friends place. I love appetizers that can be easily transported, either finished, or mostly finished. Almost inevitably you will be asked to bring things to a party more often than you’ll host a party of your own, so ease of transport is a key criterion in looking for a good hors d’oeuvre.

The filling would work equally well in little vol-au-vent, but stuffing the caps really emphasizes the mushroom flavour, and makes them more fun to eat. The balance of flavours was spot on here, the mushrooms were front and centre, with the prosciutto and Parmesan acting as capable supporting players. This recipe is a mycophobe’s worst nightmare, but a good trick to have up your sleeve if you’re asked to bring a little something to the party.

Categories
Hors D'Oeuvres & First Courses The Book

57. Onion Parmesan Toasts p.34


The recipe

These were remarkably simple little appetizers with some old school flair. It falls into the ancient and proud “stuff on toast” camp of appetizers. The secret to this style of appetizers is to give something either healthy or expensive prime billing in the name, but to make absolutely sure that most of your on-toast topping is creamy, cheesy, fatty, or preferably all three.

Here the role of healthy is played by a sweet onion, cheesy is played by Parmeigiano-Reggiano, and fatty is portrayed by mayonnaise. By volume there are 3/4 of a cup of onion, and a combined 3/4 of a cup of the cheese and mayo. By weight however the creamy fatty team makes up most of the toppings. A bonus rule for old school on-toast appetizers is to avoid unusual spices that might scandalize the croquet ladies. Garlic would be a bit outre, and curry powder is firmly in the province of those bohemian ne’er-do-wells that are tearing this country apart. My dining companion and I brought some guacamole to a family affair a while back, and when my grandmother tried it she said “who made this green stuff? It hurts my mouth”. Here the spices are kept safe and stayed, fresh ground black pepper. Of course pre-ground would be more familiar to the bridge club, but we can modernize a little bit.

I didn’t think I was going to like these all that much, broiled mayonnaise seemed a bit weird, but it really worked. The toasts, cocktail rye of course, crisped up nicely and the topping browned beautifully. I feared that the mayo would break under the heat, but that didn’t’ happen. The onions cooked enough to soften a bit and give off a great deal of flavour, and the cheese turned golden-brown and delicious. These were a fun easy throwback, that was yanked forward into modern times for some very good reasons.

The Book is a celebration of Gourmet Magazine’s 50th anniversary. A lot of the recipes are weighted towards the ’80’s and ’90’s though. It’s nice to see one that very clearly showed up in the earliest issues.

Categories
Hors D'Oeuvres & First Courses The Book

56. Rosemary Walnuts p.5

No recipe this time, sorry.

This is the second recipe in the book, with only Candied Walnuts coming before it. It’s a very strong start. It combines my favorite things, simple, delicious, and affordable. It’s a shame that the recipe isn’t available online, but the proportions aren’t that important anyway. All you need to do is melt butter with crushed dried rosemary, salt, and cayenne. Then toss the nuts in the butter and bake the whole thing at 350 for ten minutes.

Those of you who’ve been paying attention will have noticed that the above photo has been contaminated with non-walnut nuts. My excuse? The grocery store was out of walnuts an hour before my guests arrived, so I went with what they had. In combination with the walnuts I had in the freezer I figured it would count. As a matter of fact the walnuts weren’t event the best part. I found that the cashews and pecans really sparkled with this treatment.

The star of the show in this dish is the cayenne, it’s unexpected, and it plays a beautiful counterpoint to the richness of the nuts. But wait! clearly the rosemary is the star. It gives the dish body, and takes the flavours to a more sophisticated place. Without the rosemary the dish would risk being brushed off as “spicy nuts”. Maybe neither star is enough to carry the show, but together they light up the stage like Sonny and Cher.

My only tiny change would be to reduce the butter by about half. Ideally there would be just enough to coat the spices onto the nuts without pooling and carrying flavours away.

These were are really excellent appetizer, and no one could help themselves from having just one more. If you find yourself in the kitchen singing “I’ve got you babe” to a dish of these, I won’t blame you.

Categories
Hors D'Oeuvres & First Courses The Book

46. Eggplant Caviar p.11

No recipe this time, but honestly you’re not missing all that much.

I think this came out to be less than the sum of it’s parts. Essentially it’s broiled eggplant, sweated onions, garlic, and green pepper mixed with fresh tomatoes, lemon juice, sugar, salt, and pepper. All good stuff up to this point, but it all went for a spin in the food processor, and came out a mushy unappealing terra cotta.

The idea is to chill this for a few hours and then serve it with crackers or baguette. In this regard the texture was way off, it had tiny chunks in a soupy liquid destined to slip and slide. Its texture was wrong in the same way that store bought salsa can be wrong. If it had been completely smooth and thickened it could have worked well, if it had been left chunkier with something to bite into it might have been nice. As it was all the ingredients lost their individual identities, but didn’t really meld into a flavour partnership. Bland, watery, and ugly was the take home message of this dish. I had 12 hungry people in my living room devouring anything put in front of them, but there was plenty of this left at the end of the evening.

A day or two later I cooked down some the remainder and used it as a pizza sauce. It worked remarkably well in that incarnation. Eggplant, tomato, and onions all have a lot of water in them, I think the water either had to be left in the cell structure of the vegetables, or cooked out. Food processing it just left is soupy and uninspiring.

Categories
Hors D'Oeuvres & First Courses The Book

45. Hummus with toasted pine nuts, cumin seeds, and parsely oil p.14


The recipe

I made this for one of The Boys going away parties. He’d just finished his Ph.D. and was heading off to a very fancy post doc in the states. I was throwing a party in his honor, and I wanted to make things he would like. I think I did alright in pleasing him, but I totally forgot that his girlfriend is allergic to garlic, and couldn’t eat even one of the dishes I’d prepared. I apologized at the time, but I’ll say it again. I’m sorry.

I love hummus as party food. It has all the virtues of a good crowd pleaser; it’s intensely flavored, can be dipped with anything your heart desires, it neatly avoids almost all dietary restrictions, it’s substantial, and it costs pennies to prepare. The only downside to hummus it that it’s oatmeal like appearance doesn’t make for the greatest visual impression. Here a very basic hummus recipe is given a face lift with a rather attractive topping of pine nuts, cumin seeds, and drizzled parsley oil. The nuts also add a nice texture and bursts of flavour, giving you a little something to look forward to in every bite. The vibrant green of the oil really set the dish off. That colour happens to have been attained with parsely. Maybe it’s not so useless after all? That might be going too far.

I think this dish is being added to my repertoire of party standards. It’s a way to take the ubiquitous bowl of hummus at college parties along with you into the adult world.