Fatty Friday Issue #9: continued

OK, first, I have to thank M and D for opening their home to me and my tapas last Friday night. Second, I have to thank all my buddies for offering to be human guinea pigs for my tapas. I'm pleased to report that everyone is still alive and they seemed to enjoy themselves trying my treats.

Here's what we feasted on:
asparagus and primo sale tartlets
asparagus, bacon and onion tartlets
stuffed tomatoes with aioli, sardine and black olive paste
mini sandwiches with sweet onion relish, speck and sweet gorgonzola on ciabatta loaf
spicy fava beans
gazpacho

Want to make these treats on your own? Of course you do! Some were a little time-consuming, but overall, they are fairly easy to make.

For starters, I made the tart dough on Thursday night. This was a typical tart dough recipe, referenced here. I let it sit overnight because, well, I wanted to challenge my earier belief that chilling it didn't make a difference. You know what? It did! I was so foolish back then!

Once the dough was chilled the next morning I rolled it out, cut discs, placed them in muffin tins, and threw a few pie weights in each. I did this because the dough must cook at least a little bit before filling the tarts, or else the dough will stay raw and that's gross. They came out from the oven like this:


Also, while you're looking at that old post, you might as well reference the egg filling recipe, too. I recycled that for this one, because it was so light and fluffy. As for the filling, I chose asparagus for the tarts because now (from late April to early-ish June) is the peak time of year to eat the spiky, green shoots. Knowing this makes me want to plant my own for next year... In fact, an awesome, hands-on book about locavore cuisine is Barbara Kingsolver's "Animal, Vegetable, Miracle". But I digress. I prepared the asparagus by trimming off the bottoms and sauteeing them with three large cloves of garlic in olive oil. I added salt, ground pepper and lemon to taste.

I've always liked lemony asparagus, but I recently learned that lemon helps to keep it green. Nice!

On the filling front, I wanted one veggie tart, so I made one with just aparagus and primo sale and the other with asparagus, bacon, onion, sage, and what I think was tarragon (it wasn't labeled, but I bought it because it was pretty. Famous last words...). Check it out:

asparagus and primo sale
asparagus, bacon, onion, and herbs

Next, I prepared the tomatoes with aioli, sardines and black olive paste (adapted from Tapas. Paragon Publishing. Bath, UK. 2004)
aioli
1 large egg yolk, 1 tbsp lemon juice
2 or 3 large garlic cloves, peeled
salt and pepper, to taste
5 tbsp extra virgin olive oil
5 tbsp corn oil

canned sardines
canned and pitted black olives

place yolk, lemon, garlic and salt in food processor and blend well (or whisk by hand). Slowly add the olive oil and then the corn oil, then increase to a steady stream, while blending. The sauce should be thick and smooth. Remove from processor bowl. Then add two or three sardines (I used sardines from the can) and four or five pitted black olives. Grind these in the processor. Then add about half to 3/4 of the aioli, until the mixture is thickish. Refrigerate for one hour.



While the filling is chilling, prepare your cherry tomatoes. You will need a pairing knife or something close to it. Insert the blade into the top of the tomato and make a circle, cutting out the top. Then seed the tomatoes. Do this with about 15-20 tomatoes.


Once the aioli mixture is chilled, remove it from the fridge and spoon into the tomatoes. Cover and refrigerate until ready to serve.


My next task was preparing the mini sandwiches with sweet onion relish, speck and sweet gorgonzola on ciabatta loaf. These sandwiches could not be easier to prepare. First off, I picked up the speck and the gorgonzola at my local, favorite salumeria, Dave and Tony's. I sort of stole the idea for the sweet onion relish from a sandwich I inhaled at Il Bambino (do yourself a favor and go - no questions), which also featured speck (cured ham) and a mild italian cheese, on the provolone side.

Perfection. Il Bambino-style.

I tried to recreate the recipe myself. Mine wasn't as sweet as theirs, but, I gotta tell ya, it wasn't half bad, either.

1/2 vidalia onion
1/2 red onion
2-3 tbsps good quality balsamic vinegar
about 2 tsps of sugar, to taste
salt and pepper, to taste
olive oil

Dice onions and sautee on low/med heat in the olive oil until soft. Then add the vinegar and the sugar, salt and pepper. The onions will release a lot of liquid at this point.


Lower the heat and allow the onion mixture to reduce, until it is thick and the onions and sugar have caramelized. Trust me, it's worth the wait.

beeeeautiful!

Then, slice your bread - or better yet, have it sliced beforehand. One of the only critiques I recieved was that the bread was sliced a little thick. As a result, some guests got more of a bread carnival, but less of a total, complex flavor carnival, with each bite. Now I know what to do for next time.


Next, I began to layer the sandwiches.
First, the gorgonzola on one slice of bread, then the relish on another, like so:


Next, the speck and then put it all together. Whee!

Buen provecho!

Moving on! We've got spicy fava beans. I got the idea for this recipe while standing on line in my veggie market. It's really simple.

1 lb fava beans, with shells on
2 or 3 cloves of garlic, peeled and smashed with the side of a knife
two or three spicy dried japanese peppers
olive oil
cayenne pepper
juice of a quarter of a lemon
salt and pepper to taste

Bring a pot of water to a rolling boil and add the fava beans. Blanch the beans for about 3-5 minutes.


Remove, strain in a colander and wash with cold water. Shell the beans. This website gives good instructions.

Once all the beans are shelled, sautee the smashed garlic in some olive oil, add the beans and the hot peppers and the seasonings. Sautee until the beans look bright green and a little bit browned, like this:

As a final touch, add the lemon and place in a bowl. These are very tasty right off the stove or at room temperature.

Finally, I whipped up some chilled gazpacho. I adapted a recipe from my trusty edition of 1080 Recipes (Ortega, Simone and Ines. Phaidon Press. NY, NY. 2007). Gazpacho takes a lot of prep time (chopping, seeding, peeling) which can be made easier if you have a food processor.

5 cups of water
juice of half a lemon
3 tbsps sunflower (or vegetable) oil
2 tbsps bread crumbs (I used 4-C)
2 cloves garlic
handful fresh parsley
3 plump, ripe plum tomatoes, seeded and finely chopped
1/4 of a finely chopped onion (I used red)
1 smal cucumber, peeled, seeded and finely chopped
1 small bell pepper (I used yellow), seeded and finely chopped
salt and pepper, to taste
cayenne pepper, to taste
cholula hot sauce, to taste (optional)
worcestershire sauce, to taste (optional)

Stir the lemon juice and salt together in a pot until dissolved. Then, add the water and the bread crumbs. Chop the garlic and parsley in a food processor and add to the pot. Chill for one hour in the fridge. Then add the remaining ingredients, adjusting spices to your desired taste.

look at those beautiful colors, would you?!

The consensus (including me) was that the soup was good, but could have used a little more kick. So go crazy with the hot sauce, peoples!

Overall, I had a great time making and eating tapas. It was great to share them with my buddies. Here's to fast metabolism!