Dutch Sandwiches

Toasted artisan bread spread with garlic mayonnaise then topped with grilled chicken and tomatoes makes a lovely lunch. 

Long ago, in an era we call BC (Before Children) we lived in Abu Dhabi and I worked at the InterContinental Hotel. My boss was head of marketing and I was in charge of Public Relations, which meant I entertained the journalists who came to see a performance at the hotel, or attend a restaurant opening, and I produced our in-house brochures and newsletter, among other tasks. I got along well with my boss and his wife, a Dutch couple of enormous height with an equally large sense of humor. Aside from me, all the executive staff lived in the hotel. (As I already had accommodation through my husband's company, I opted for a transportation allowance instead.)

One day they invited me to their hotel apartment for sandwiches. Much to my surprise, they brought out bread with ham and cheese on top. Apparently, in the Netherlands, all sandwiches were open-faced. And there I was thinking that a sandwich was a sandwich all over the world. From them, I also learned that the Dutch kiss three times upon meeting. Left cheek, right cheek, left cheek or the other way around. It doesn’t matter as long as it’s three times. Both lessons have stood me in good stead in the years since.

Here, then, I offer you, my Dutch sandwiches:

Ingredients
1 very small clove of garlic, minced finely
1 teaspoon of lemon juice
2 tablespoons of mayonnaise
1 grilled chicken breast (Those of you who read Caesar Salad with Grilled Chicken might have been wondering what happened to the third breast. Here it is.)
1 tomato
6 slices of artisan wholegrain bread

Method
Add the lemon juice to the minced garlic in a small bowl. The lemon juice will reduce the sharpness and pungency of the fresh garlic so leave it to steep for at least five minutes before adding the mayonnaise and mixing thoroughly.

Meanwhile toast your wholegrain bread slices, slice your chicken breast and your tomato.








Add a nice spread of the garlic mayo to each golden slice. Top with chicken and then tomato. Finish it off with a good grind of fresh black pepper and a sprinkle of sea salt, if desired.

1. Garlic mayo 2. Grilled chicken 3. Tomato slices

Best served with a glass of crisp white wine and eaten while watching England trounce poor Romania in the Rugby World Cup. I wonder how many times the Romanians kiss upon meeting. They could sure use some love right now.



Enjoy!

Best Spaghetti Sauce with Meatballs

This weekend I am going to visit my grandmother. Yes, you read that correctly, my grandmother. I am 48 years old and I am blessed to have one grandparent still living.  She is full of life and an inspiration to us all. One of her favorite meals is spaghetti and meatballs so I am cooking a good pot to take with us.

Several years back, I made sauce with Italian sausage, removed from the casing and browned and chopped up to look like ground beef, and loved the way it flavored the tomato sauce as it cooked.  Then a couple of years back I watched a Jamie Oliver show where he used sausage but pinched an inch or two out of the casing at a time to make meatballs, which he pan-fried before adding them to the sauce. I thought this was brilliant and, for a time, that was the only way I made meatballs as well. Happily, this coincided with our move from KL to Singapore and Cold Storage in Singapore has wonderful, flavorful fresh sausages in a variety of flavors. To cook with Puy lentils, I would buy the small herb and garlic ones. For spaghetti sauce, the spicy Italian.  Lamb with rosemary worked beautifully for a dinner of mashed potatoes and a vegetable of some sort. Quick, easy, delicious.

Now, of course, you know if you’ve been following along lately that since reading Eating Animals, I try not to buy meat from a regular supermarket (at least not here in Houston because alternatives are readily available) because I cannot know its provenance and how the animal was treated. I would prefer to support the family farmers who raise cows and pigs and chicken out in the pasture, eating what animals should eat, by which I don’t mean antibiotics and other unnatural feed.  Unfortunately that means the selection of sausage is not that great.   So, I was back to making meatballs the old-fashioned way, but trying to mimic the flavor of my beloved sauce with Italian sausage.  

Ingredients

3 lbs or 1360g ground pork, preferably pastured pork

1 oz or 30g hot Italian sausage seasonings (I bought mine from a great supply store off of I-45 at Airline but you can get them online at Penzeys or in their store, also near me. I love the Heights in Houston! If you buy Penzeys, you might want to add cayenne or crushed red pepper since theirs isn’t hot.) 

1 large yellow or white onion

4-5 cloves of garlic

One large 28 oz or 794g can whole peeled tomatoes

One large 12 oz or 340g can of tomato paste – not sauce – paste. The really thick stuff.

2 heaping tablespoons of oregano

2 bay leaves

2 tablespoons of sugar

Method

For the meatballs

Preheat your oven to 375°F or 190°C.

Mix half the seasonings into the pork thoroughly. 

Fry up a small piece to taste. 

Add more seasonings, frying a little piece after each addition. Only you know your family’s taste and you don’t want it too spicy or salty.  That said, some of the seasonings will be transferred when the meatballs cook further in the sauce so don’t panic if you find it suddenly spicier or saltier than you think it should be.

Grease a baking tray with olive oil and drop the meat mixture spoonful by spoonful on the tray. 

With your oily hands, roll each piece into a ball and return to the greased tray.  

When all the balls are rolled, pop the tray into the oven for 20-25 minutes.

Tray one

Tray two

Meanwhile, get started on your sauce.  Chop your onion and garlic and sauté them gently with a little olive oil.  

When they are soft and translucent, add the can of tomatoes (and a can full of water) and the can of paste (and a can of water.)  Add oregano, bay leaves and sugar and bring to a boil.  Turn down to simmer and cover. (Yes, my meatballs are already in for this photo. Truth is, I forgot the oregano and bay leaves and had only added the sugar.  It doesn't really matter if you put them in before or after the meatballs but I thought the instructions should reflect how I MEANT to do it.)

When the meatballs are browned, add them to the sauce pot, making sure to scrape any sticky meaty goodness out of the pan and add it to the pot as well. (Add a little water to the pan if you have to.) Stir gently and cover the pot again. 

Simmer for as long as you can before serving over pasta boiled according to package suggestions. The finished sauce you see here is a little thicker than I would usually serve it but since I am transporting it across state lines, I let it cook down and will add some more water as I reheat it.

All my life, my grandmother has cooked for the family and, like most folks from New Iberia, LA, everything she makes is made with love and spice. She doesn’t cook as much as she used to, although she’ll still fry chicken when begged. (I have watched her and written down her every move but I will be darned if I can replicate her chicken. Hers is still the best!) Every summer I am grateful that Gram is still around and grateful that she can still enjoy some good home cooking.  Preparing one of her favorite meals has given me great joy and it will be even more joyful when we can sit together to share it.  (I’ll add photos after the meal.)

The finished bowl

After note:  The spaghetti and meatballs were a hit!  I could not get a good photo of Gram, despite younger daughter and I both trying with two different cameras.  She does not pose and when we asked her to smile, it reminded us of the Friends where Chandler and Monica were taking engagement photos. Here are a couple anyway.

Duck eggs poached in tomato coulis

In Kuala Lumpur, our satellite service has the Asian Food Channel instead of the Food Network but the concept is the same: Lots of shows with people cooking or traveling around the world and eating and cooking.  Through AFC, I have been introduced to many chefs and cooks who have inspired me to try different methods and different foods. One of these is Kylie Kwong.  

Kylie is an Australian of Chinese descent and she often invites her mother to join her in the kitchen during her shows. She has a restaurant in Sydney  where her dishes are Chinese with an Australian flair, with a great emphasis on fresh, lively ingredients with lots of spark and chili. Last year I watched her make a duck egg omelet on the beach at a family get-together and I wanted to try duck eggs. You know, just to see if they were any different from hens’ eggs.

Saturday at the farmers’ market I had my first chance.  Duck eggs were 50 cents a piece, so I bought six. Pricey, I suppose, if that was going to be the only eggs you bought and used but $3 seems reasonable for a possible new taste sensation.  I am disappointed to report that we couldn’t really tell the difference between the delicious pastured hens’ eggs we had for breakfast yesterday and the duck eggs we had today, but that won’t stop me sharing the recipe for how I served them because it would also work quite well with normal eggs.

Eggs poached in tomato coulis

Ingredients

4 duck or hen eggs

2 well-ripen tomatoes, chopped

1/4 cup finely chopped onion tops

1 Serrano pepper, seeds removed and finely chopped

2 tsp soy sauce

Sea salt and freshly ground black pepper

Olive oil

Method

This is going to work best in a non-stick skillet. Sauté the chopped tomatoes, Serrano pepper and two-thirds of the onion tops in a little olive oil. 

This will get really juicy at first. Cook down for about five to 10 minutes until the liquid is reduced by a quarter. Add one teaspoon of the soy sauce. Stir well and then make small holes in the tomato in which to drop the eggs.

Break the eggs carefully and drop them into the tomato coulis. Sprinkle the yolks with a little sea salt and black pepper.  Turn the fire down to medium and put a lid on the saucepan. 

Used to normal eggs, I was surprised by how long it took the duck eggs to poach. I ended up spooning a little of the hot tomato over the whites so cook them faster because I didn’t want the yolk cooked through and it looked like they might be by the time the whites were completely opaque.  I also took the lid off after just a few minutes for the same reason.

Spoon the hot tomato over the whites to help them cook faster.

Right at the end, I drizzled the second teaspoon of soy sauce over the yolks and added a drizzle of good olive oil, also bought at the farmers’ market.

Serve with toasted, buttered whole grain bread cut into soldiers for dipping and sprinkle remaining onion tops to garnish. 

Enjoy! 

Oven-roasted Tomatoes with Pasta

So I was browsing food blogs today and came across a recipe for stuffed roasted tomatoes that are served over pasta. It sounded delicious, except that it called for anchovies and pancetta and I am catering for a mixed group which includes one well-loved vegetarian.  I fully support her decision not to eat meat so I modified the recipe and, frankly, did my own thing ingredient- and method-wise.  Which is my way.

Ingredients

4 fair-sized tomatoes
3/4 cup bread crumbs
3/4 cup freshly grated Parmesan for recipe and extra to sprinkle on when serving
4 cloves of garlic, finely minced
1 tablespoon of butter
Sea salt
Freshly ground black pepper
Dash of ground cayenne
450g (about 16oz.) of pasta
1-2 tablespoons freshly chopped flat leaf parsley

Method

First, cut the top of the tomatoes, just under the stem base.  If the openings to the seeds are not visible, slice another thin piece off of the tomatoes, until they are.  You want to be able to scoop the seeds and the top of the core out of the tomatoes. I used a grapefruit spoon and it was the best tool for the job!  The grapefruit spoon allowed me to cut less off the top and still scoop all the innards out without a hassle. Save the top slices of the tomato and chop into small bits. Discard the tomato seeds and top of the core.

Preheat the oven 350 degrees F or 180 degrees C.  Heat a small saucepan on the stove with some of the olive oil and slice the four garlic cloves right into the heated pan. Sauteé the garlic until soft and then add the chopped tomato bits, salt and pepper (don’t forget the cayenne too) to the mixture as it cooks gently, until all the juice from the tomatoes is gone. Remove from heat.  Add the butter and let it melt.  Transfer the mixture into a small bowl and stir a few times until it cools. 

Add the bread crumbs and the Parmesan, stirring until fully incorporated. 

With a spoon (or I used a spoon and then my fingers) fill the tomatoes with the mixture and pack in the holes. Top the tomatoes with the balance of the filling.

Place in an oven proof dish, trying to keep the tomatoes upright.  At first I had mine in a non-stick baking dish, then I transferred them with tongs to a muffin pan (Thanks, Mom!) because they wouldn’t stand up.  Drizzle tops with olive oil and bake for at least 45 minutes.

About 15 minutes from done, put your water on to boil for pasta. Add salt and a little olive oil.  I boiled all 500g of the bag of rigatoni and had leftovers of the pasta because someone at my house (read: youngest daughter) will always eat leftover rigatoni but 450g will surely do, even for four generous servings.

After the pasta is done, drain it and return to pot. Drizzle with a little olive oil to keep it from sticking together. (If you aren’t serving for a while, save a little of the pasta water to use to loosen the pasta again before serving and don’t put the tomatoes in yet. You will need to be able to stir the pasta vigorously while warming. ) Gently add the roasted tomatoes and the juice from the roasting pan and sprinkle with the flat leafed parsley.  Let each person scoop up some pasta and one tomato to serve.  Offer the extra Parmesan to sprinkle as needed.

(As suggested in the original recipe, I had fried crispy bacon to add but I kept it separate on the side so that each person could add or not add bacon as they saw fit.)