August 2009
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Month August 2009

Entries 4 Total

Cheese Ambassador

Aug 10, ’09 8:34 AM

Now that I’ve passed the intermediate certificate course at the International Wine Center for Wines and Spirits: Looking Behind the Label, the next goal is to learn more about cheeses. I jumped at the chance to try Cheese Ambassador’s Mediterranean package just to get me started at home.

I remember when I was younger (ahem) and I didn’t know much about cheese. My college professor brought in a platter of fruits and cheeses during the last day of Western Literature class and I mostly crinkled my nose at the stinkiest kinds. I was curious, however, how other people were devouring the wedges as if they were candy. I wanted to really like cheese and I didn’t know how to change my palate. Fast-forward several years later and I was in Amsterdam living with friends for a week. There was always cheese on the table before dinner. I knew I just had to try all of them to find out what cheese was all about. Back then, it wasn’t just Dutch Gouda I tasted; there was a crumbly blue, a creamy Brie and a few hard Italian cheeses. I ended up liking them all and proceeded to buy small wedges of them whenever we would go to the park to enjoy the last few hours of Dutch light.

Ever since then, I would stop by Di Palo’s for my monthly supply of cheese or pick up a wedge here and there from other stores whenever I see something I’ve never tasted before. But now that I work in Connecticut, it’s been difficult to run all over the city before the stores close. Enter the Cheese Ambassador where I can buy the Mediterranean Collection with three types: the Tipsy Goat from Spain, Port Salut from France and one of my favorite cheeses of all time, Piave from Italy. The American Collection includes an Aged Gouda, an Amish Cheddar and a Cave-Aged Blue cheese. Both packages sell for $34 on their Web site.

They make great gifts for both cheese beginners and fanatics. They’ve managed to package them nicely that when my box was delivered to work, I had to pull in several of my co-workers so we can do a fun taste test in the office kitchen.

Here’s the round-up:

Tipsy Goat from Spain:
- tangy
- melts-in-your-mouth goat goodness
- sharper than your average goat cheese
- tastes like socks (I’d have to disagree, but this guy probably just needs to stop eating his socks)

Port Salut:
- smooth, buttery and mild; reminds me of Laughing Cow
- smooth and simple;
- rich and creamy like Brie
- soft, spreadable, sweet and buttery; you can make shapes with it! (And he really did played with the cheese like Play-Doh!)

Piave:
- nutty, robust, reminiscent of Parmigiano
- like a creamy Parmigiano
- even better than Parmigiano; rich and nutty
- savory; nose like Manchego

Related post/s:
The Cheese Ambassador has your cheese!

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Stuffed Zucchini

Aug 7, ’09 12:46 PM

My new Microplane Ultra Coarse grater came in very handy when I was making this recipe. It’s not often that I find a giant zucchini on my desk at work, but Lisa brought me one of the bounties from her garden earlier this week. Zucchini bread and stuffed zucchini were both suggested by co-workers. I opted for the latter because I already had the ingredients handy; ground pork and bacon were in the fridge.

I’ve never owned a grater before–I’ve always used a vegetable peeler if I needed grated cheese when cooking and I simply shaved the cheese off. For a recipe like this, a peeler would have taken me an extra 10 minutes; it took less than one with the Microplane for me to grate all of the Piave I needed.

I realized how easy my cooking life would have been if only I’ve purchased one years ago. Without putting too much pressure on the grater, the Piave cheese I used with this recipe easily fell on the plate like soft snow. I loved the rubberized stand at the end of the grater: it kept it steady against a plate even when my cheese wedge came down to a small knob. The hefty handle also had a very firm grip–my hands didn’t even feel like they did any work.

Now I just have to find more recipes that require grating everything I can get my hands on!

Ingredients:
1 large zucchini, halved lengthwise, each chopped in 2 or 3 large pieces
1/4 lb of ground pork
4 strips of bacon, chopped
shiitake mushrooms, roughly chopped
1 small wedge of Piave cheese
1 small red onion, thinly sliced
3 cloves garlic, minced
red chili flakes
salt
oil

1. Take each zucchini piece and spoon out the flesh to make them hollow like boats. Roughly chop including the seeds. Set aside. Place the boats on a lined baking sheet and brush with some olive oil. Preheat the oven to 350º.
2. Make the filling. In a large skillet, render some fat by cooking the bacon pieces. Add garlic and sauté until brown. Add the onions until soft. Add the ground pork and brown while occasionally stirring to avoid burning. Season with chili flakes.
3. In the meantime, pass the zucchini flesh through a sieve to remove excess water. You might have to do this one more time before adding to the filling. When ground pork is cooked through, add the zucchini flesh to the skillet, stir until well-combined and keep cooking for another 5 minutes.
4. Salt the zucchini boats. Spoon the filling into the zucchini boats without pressing in. Finish off with a generous sprinkling of grated Piave. Bake in the oven for about 30 minutes or until the zucchini boats have heated through and a crust has formed at the top. Best served hot so the filling doesn’t dry up.

Related post/s:
Williams-Sonoma carries the Microplane Ultra Coarse Grater
You can also stuff portobello mushrooms

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Rouge Tomate

Aug 5, ’09 12:45 AM

10 East 60th Street between Fifth and Sixth Avenues
212/957.5550
$72 each for a group of five, with tip
♥ ♥

I’ve been hearing about Rouge Tomate here and there so I wasn’t surprised when my girlfriends and I ended up there for dinner. The space is massive and perfect for big groups. It’s the first restaurant I’ve been in a long time where the servers all had custom-made uniforms versus the all-black outfit. The interior design screams money (from the architectural firm Bentel & Bentel) and I was saddened to think that the business might not make it past these economic times. Four days prior, I easily scored a table for five on a Friday night at 8pm. This would have been a difficult feat in regular New York time. It wasn’t exactly empty when we walked in, but the crowd did dwindle after 9:30 and we ended up being the last group by 10:30.

Rouge Tomate has been talked about as the latest restaurant that features local ingredients and farm to table philosophy. Yada, yada, yada, right? For the past two years, I’ve always said that that philosophy in the kitchen should not be a feature anymore–it should just be a given. Every restaurant should just be in that bandwagon today or risk being different, and not in a good way. That said, Rouge Tomate has some well-flavored dishes that spoke louder than they could present them–our waiter could not edge himself between us talkative women. Oh, this is not so bad, was the common response at our table after every taste even though we dismissed every waiter who approached our table.

I opted for the $35 lamb a la plancha. Our waiter explained to all my Spanish-speaking friends what “a la plancha” meant, but could not tell us which part of the lamb was on the grill. I’ve learned my lesson from other restaurants and I’ve always made sure that I’m not paying $35 for shoulder. When the waiter returned and confirmed it was loin, two of us ordered it. Another chose the Berkshire pork and the rest shared the fish in Thai curry. We thought it was a nice touch when they split the fish in two separate dishes, but alas, our bill at the end of the night counted for two of them. We had it corrected, to their chagrin, because our waiter had left mid-service and could not confirm the mistake he had made.

MIstakes aside, the lamb loin was so delicious I found it hard to share it with my group. It was perfectly medium rare served with string beans and tomatoes. The pork loin was naturally sweet that I could have eaten it without the vegetables on top. The Thai curry was delicious even though I always find sea bass a pretty bland fish. The appetizers fared better at our table: the fluke ceviche was bright and fresh; the frisée and fennel salad with prosciutto was my kind of salad, while the asparagus with maitake mushrooms and warm farm egg just made me happy.

I loved the blueberry crepe dessert that tasted like fluffy pancakes. Not too sweet, it was light enough to finish without forcing it down my throat after a pretty hefty meal.

Related post/s:
Some waiters don’t know–and worst, don’t care–about the difference between lamb shoulder and lamb chops
Only at Irving Mill did I have a waiter who left mid-service without telling us he was turning the table over to another server
Warm poached egg in salad? You got me!

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Pasta with Sundried Tomatoes and Arugula

Aug 4, ’09 6:17 AM

Dear, Anna. Believe it or not, the sun-dried tomatoes I used in this recipe are still from the batch you sent me a year ago after your trip to Argentina. I only had a handful left but I felt bad about throwing them away. After a few minutes in hot water, they softened up and I was able to chop them in smaller pieces. Off they went with some heavy cream and into my stomach for dinner tonight. Thanks again, Cia.

Ingredients:
2 cups of penne pasta
1 cup of sundried tomatoes, soaked in hot water, drained, roughly chopped
a few handfuls of arugula
pancetta, chopped
1 cup of heavy cream
3 garlic cloves, minced
1 small red onion, sliced
a handful of basil leaves, chopped

1. Cook pasta in salted boiling water until al dente. Drain pasta and set aside.
2. While cooking pasta, render some fat by cooking the pancetta. Remove the pancetta and set aside. Using the fat, sauté garlic until brown and then add onions until soft. Add the sun-dried tomatoes and add return the browned pancetta.
3. Pour in the heavy cream and simmer for 10 minutes. Mix every so often to avoid drying up. Turn off the heat and fold in the arugula to wilt. Add the drained pasta in the skillet and mix well. Toss with basil before serving.

Related post/s:
Fish with sundried tomatoes recipe
Sundried tomatoes with kale and white beans recipe

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