Another Caponata Recipe

I know I've posted caponata on the blog before, but it's such a go-to recipe that I'm not surprised to see it up here again. Caponata is easy to make, very flavorful, and a true crowd-pleaser, even among the most carnivorous eaters. I made it this time as my contribution to a potluck lunch at work in honor of a colleague's last day, and was quite surprised by how popular it was with the meat-lovin crowd. I promised them I'd post the recipe, so even though I've already got a caponata recipe on the blog, here's one more.

This one takes its inspiration from a favorite dish that my mom used to make, called Huachinango a la Veracruzana, or Red Snapper, Veracruz style. It's essentially a whole red snapper (we used filets), baked in a tomato sauce that's laced with jalapeno peppers, green olives, capers, and raisins, and spiked with cinnamon. The flavors are assertive but balanced, and the dish is really tasty. I basically substituted eggplant for the snapper, and held the olives but put in some olive juice to lift the other savory flavors. I also had been eating too many jalapenos, so I subbed in chili flakes instead. If you've got green olives, they'd go great in this dish. I also browned the tomato paste in its own pan to make its flavor more complex, though that step is totally optional.

One of the best things about a chunky caponata like this one is that in addition to being a dip, to be eaten on crackers or baguette, it can double as a pasta sauce. I spooned some if it on top of some whole wheat rigatoni and topped it with feta cheese for an easy and tasty lunch.

This caponata also helped break a slightly frustrating cycle where everything coming out of my kitchen was just so-so. I leaned over this caponata pot, smelled its strong tomato and onion aromas, and thought, oh yea. This is gonna be good.

How good? Good enough that I ate it on pasta the next day.

Another Eggplant Caponata Recipe

olive oil, about 1/4 cup 6 garlic cloves 1 onion, coarsely chopped 1/2 tsp cloves 1 tsp cinnamon 1/2 tsp paprika 1/2 tsp chili flakes 1/2 tsp. cumin 1 tsp. coriander seeds, optional 2 eggplants, cubed into 1-inch pieces 2 Tbsp capers 1/2 cup tomato paste 1/3 cup raisins 1 1/2 cups water several leaves chopped fresh basil, optional 1 tsp dried italian spices (basil, oregano, etc) -- I use Penzeys Tuscan Sunset 1 Tbsp date honey (regular honey is also fine) 1/3 cup green olive juice (can also add 1/3 cup olives, if desired) 1 red bell pepper, coarsely chopped

In a large soup pot, heat olive oil on medium heat. Add onion and garlic; stir to coat, and cook for 3 minutes, or until translucent. Add all spices, toss to coat onions, and cook 2 minutes more. Add eggplant, stir to incorporate, and cook about 5 minutes until eggplant starts to soften and brown in spots.

(If you want to brown the tomato paste in a separate pan before adding to caponata, do so now. Put tomato paste in a small pan over medium heat, mush around, and cook about 5 minutes, until the bottom of the pan starts to turn brown. Add 1/2 cup water and, using a wooden spoon, scrape up the brown bits (called fond) into the tomato liquid. When all the fond has been incorporated into the tomato liquid, add the whole thing into the caponata along with the remaining 1 cup water. If not browning tomato paste, simply add it and all the water to the caponata. Stir to incorporate.

Add all remaining ingredients except for red pepper, stir to combine, and allow to simmer over medium-low heat for about 45 minutes, until well-incorporated. Now -- here's the tricky part -- taste it. Does it need more salt? More spice? Is the sweetness of the raisins and honey coming through enough for your taste? Add with a light hand in whatever direction you see fit, and continue to taste and adjust until what's in the pot makes you happy. Then add the red pepper pieces, and cook 15 minutes more.

Caponata will keep for at least 1 week stored in an airtight container in the fridge.

Butternut Squash Cannelloni

First, let me just say that if you're not in Washington right now, I'd be surprised. This city has officially been infiltrated: hundreds of thousands of tourists have descended upon the nation's capital to witness this historic event, and boy does it feel crowded around here! The weekend was relatively quiet -- I say relatively because Adams Morgan simply isn't a quiet place, ever ever ever -- but today the hordes arrived. Friends and I walked down to the Mall after lunch, and and apparently so did the rest of the country's citizens! Boy was it crowded.

D was talking to her Bubbie the other day about inauguration festivities, and what was Bubbie's one question? (Remember, this is in her adorable Czech accent) "All those people standing outside for the inauguration, where are they going to go to the bathroom?" Well, let me assure you, the sheer number of port-o-potties was massive. There's plenty of room to pee.

Now, for today's recipe:

Martha's recipes have become an ever-increasing portion of my cooking repertoire. When Epicurious fails to inspire me and I'm too lazy to start leafing through cookbooks, marthastewart.com inevitably has a good suggestion, and usually, her recipes are accompanied by some mouth-watering photos. Granted, some of her recipes are way, way more fuss than they're worth, and not all recipes actually turn out tasty, but I've been having mostly good luck.

Because I often get accused of only posting my successes and never my failures, I've decided to post this recipe even though it was kind of a flop. These cannelloni were about a 3 out of 10 on the good luck scale: cannelloni themselves were tasty, if a bit bland; squash filling was smooth and pretty, and the chive wrapping was particularly elegant (and elicited some oohs and ahhs). The sauce was another story, though -- it was altogether bizarre. I was really excited about it, but seriously, the color alone was enough to turn me off. Gray food is just not appetizing.

I've provided the original recipe here (with my adaptations in parentheses), but I recommend doctoring it up even more. I don't think the recipe is unsalvageable: an enterprising cook can certainly fiddle with the proportions, add some extra elements, and make it tasty. But as is, it's pretty unspecial. One way to make these squash bundles tastier would be to serve them with hazelnut or almond brown butter and some grated pecorino or parmesan. If cream sauce is your thing, it'd be good with these, I suppose. Like I said, the sunchoke vinaigrette is weird -- but I actually salvaged it by adding some honey and some of the cooking water from the squash, which I (very fortunately) stowed in the fridge.

One last note: I used egg pasta sheets, but the eggroll wrappers Martha recommends would also work.

Butternut Squash Cannelloni with Sunchoke Vinaigrette adapted from Martha Stewart

Serves 4 as a main course, 8 as an appetizer Vegetable oil, for baking sheet 1 butternut squash (about 1 1/4 pounds), halved lengthwise and seeded Coarse salt and freshly ground pepper 4 ounces ricotta cheese 1 1/2 ounces creme fraiche 1 small bunch chives (preferably garlic chives) 8 spring-roll wrappers or egg pasta sheets 1 egg, lightly beaten (for egg wash) 1/4 cup canola oil Jerusalem Artichoke Vinaigrette Shelled edamame, cooked, for garnish (optional)

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Lightly oil a small baking sheet. Place squash on small baking sheet, and season with salt and pepper. Bake until tender when pierced with the tip of a knife, about 45 minutes. Remove from oven, and let cool. Scoop out flesh, discarding skin. Transfer flesh to a damp cheesecloth-lined sieve set over a bowl. Refrigerate overnight. Place ricotta cheese in a second damp cheesecloth-lined sieve set over a bowl. Refrigerate overnight. Transfer squash to a large bowl. Pour squash liquid into a small saucepan, and place over medium-high heat. Cook until reduced and slightly thickened, 5 to 10 minutes. Add to squash. Season with salt and pepper. In a small bowl, stir to combine drained ricotta and crème fraîche. Stir into the squash mixture. Prepare an ice bath; set aside. Bring a small pot of water to a boil. Add chives, and blanch for 15 seconds. Transfer to ice bath to cool. Drain well; set aside. Working with one wrapper at a time and keeping the others covered with plastic wrap; lay wrapper on work surface with a long side facing you. Spread scant 1/4 cup of the squash mixture along one long edge leaving a 3/4-inch border on either side. Roll up like a jelly roll to enclose filling, brushing edge with egg wash to seal. Tie each end closed with a chive. Repeat with remaining wrappers and filling. Heat oil in a large skillet. Add cannelloni, and cook until heated through and evenly browned, about 1 1/2 minutes per side. (I didn't do this: I just heated the cannelloni in a low oven in a big pyrex pan.) Serve with Jerusalem artichoke vinaigrette, and garnish with shelled edamame, if desired.

Jerusalem Artichoke Vinaigrette Makes about 1 1/2 cups 5 Jerusalem artichokes, washed and very thinly sliced 3 sprigs fresh tarragon, picked of leaves, stems reserved 1/3 cup sherry-wine vinegar Coarse salt and freshly ground pepper 2 small shallots, minced 2/3 cup grapeseed oil (optional) Directions

In a small saucepan, combine Jerusalem artichokes, tarragon stems, and half of the vinegar. Add enough water to cover by about 1/2 inch. Season with salt and pepper. Bring to a boil over high heat, reduce to a simmer, and cook until tender, about 25 minutes. Drain, and place in a blender. Add just enough of the cooking liquid to purée until very smooth. Add reserved tarragon leaves, remaining vinegar, and shallots. Pulse to combine. Add either grapeseed oil or a little of the cooking liquid depending on the desired consistency.

Menu for Hope Raffle Results

Well, Menu for Hope was quite a success! Over $60,000 raised for the UN World Food Program in Lesotho...very impressive, especially considering the rough times.

To see if you won one of the many fantastic prizes, head over to www.chezpim.com for the complete list of winners.

Also, if you're the lucky lady who won my Big Ole Box of Sweets (UE07), shoot me an email -- Rivka(at)Notderbypie(dot)com -- and I'll be happy to discuss allergies, preferences, timing, etc. Very excited!

Congrats to all the winners and I hope everyone has a lovely weekend!

Cocoa Pear Crisps

It's not every day that a half-eaten fruit turns into something truly out-of-this-world. I suppose I should thank the odd confluence of events that brought about these treasures: one, I bought a mandoline last week. After reading oodles of reviews about the best mandolines on the market, I learned that the two cheapest models (the Benriner and the OXO) are actually the best. My waffling back and forth about whether the 75 bucks was worth it was for nothing: I threw restraint out the window and got my new toy guilt-free. That's one.

Two, Sarina and Robbie had iron chef night this weekend. Each of us picked a course, they revealed the secret ingredient, and we had a couple hours to make a dish featuring that ingredient and bring it over for show and tell. Is it screamingly obvious that there's nothing I'd rather do on Saturday night than play iron chef? I was thrilled. And the secret ingredient was cocoa. Awesome.

Three, iron chef awesomeness notwithstanding, my fridge was pretty empty this weekend. Having come down with an ugly cold last week, I didn't do much cooking at all -- and this weekend, we were off the hook again, so my supply was limited, which meant I needed to get pretty creative for the competition.

Four, I took a sliced pear to work, and had only eaten half of it -- so I had three and a half pears, the half of which was desperately in need of being used. After poking around in vain on Martha and Epicurious for some good pear recipes, I found one for pear chips. They were meant to be sliced paper-thin, sprinkled with a ginger-cinnamon-sugar mixture, and baked/dried in a very low oven until golden and crispy. What would happen, I wonder, if I added some cocoa to the mix? I'll tell you what -- pure magic.

Truth be told, I went cocoa-happy. I wanted the chocolate flavor to be assertive, despite its supporting role. I added 2 Tbsp of it, and I'm glad I did. Pears and cocoa get along marvelously, and the final product was tangy and spicy and a bit rich and bitter from the cocoa, not to mention perfectly crisp and crunchy. Is your mouth watering, too?

I should mention that I also added galangal, a lovely spice I got from Penzeys earlier this year. It's similar to ginger, prominent in Thai cuisine, and has spicy notes but is also an assertively fruity flavor. It's truly something special. If you have it, definitely use it here. If you've got a mandoline, you MUST try this recipe. If not, get yourself to amazon and have a mandoline for the price of dinner tonight. It's kinda totally worth it.

Cocoa Pear Crisps adapted from Epicurious

1 tablespoon sugar 1/4 teaspoon ground ginger 1/4 teaspoon galangal, optional 1/4 teaspoon cinnamon 2 tablespoons cocoa 20 paper-thin pear slices (from 1 pear)

Preheat oven to 275°F. Mix sugar and spices in small bowl. Place pear slices on rack set over baking sheet. Alternatively, place slices on silpat-lined baking sheet. Sprinkle with spiced sugar. Bake until almost dry, about 1 hour. I flip the slices half way through to ensure even baking. Cool on rack or sheet. Store airtight up to 2 days.