Bibb Lettuce Salad - Salad De laitue, Simply Beautiful and Delicious too!

Very simple and elegant salad, perfect for entertaining my family who will otherwise get really bored with the same salad dressing. I honestly think that Thomas Keller is a brilliant chef. He always able to turn a very simple recipe into edible art, visually beautiful and delicious.

I was flipping through the pages of his book "BOUCHON" and this salad really caught my eyes, it is visually beautiful (you know what I mean if you see it in the book) nothing compare to mine. The way he stacked and arranged the bibb lettuce was pretty amazing, I couldn't get it right, no matter how hard I tried. What intrigued me about this salad was the use of tarragon in the dressing. I really like tarragon more then any other herb in the world. I didn't have to think to much, always have butter lettuce in my refrigerator, so I made it!. The dressing was pretty easy to make as long as you have fresh tarragon, shallots, chives, Italian parsley, chevril leaves, lemon juice, red wine vinegar, Dijon mustard, and canola oil. Pretty simple right, now you can have both very beautiful and delicious salad. I hope you will like this as much as I do!

Ossobuco And Arancini

For a special day, or when we are having guess for dinner, I tend to cook something more special and more often  time consuming dishes. I never  had a chance to take a  photographs, as I don't really want to make my guess waiting. 

During the week, our meal is pretty simple and I don't normally cook beef, or lamb. Earlier this week was a little bit special. I made ossobuco and served it with risotto. I didn't have a change to take a photographs for risotto. As you all know that risotto should be made when you are ready to eat. By the time my risotto done, my families were already in the kitchen waiting ...

I had some leftover risotto, and a little bit of the ossobuco that I turned in to Arancini. To make this arancini is fairly easy. You just need to fill the rice with the left over ragu, add mozzarella, form into a ball, coat lightly with beaten egg, roll in the  breadcrumb, then fry until golden. That is  it. I don't think I should post the risotto recipe, since everybody must know how to make a simple basic risotto. Right?

Recipe adapted from: Essentials Of Classic Italian Cooking

by: Marcella Hazan

Serve 6 to 8 people

1 cup finely chopped onion

⅔ cup finely chopped carrots

⅔ cup finely chopped celery

½ stick butter (I used olive oil)

1 tsp finely chopped garlic

2 strips lemon peel (I used orange peel)

⅓ cup vegetable oil (I used olive oil)

8  1½-inch-thick of veal hind shank, each tied tightly around the middle (I used lamb shank)

flour, spread on a plate (I skipped the flour)

1 cup dry white wine

1 cup basic homemade meat broth (I used canned, it's okay)

1½ cups canned imported Italian plum tomatoes, coarsely chopped, with their juice

½ tsp fresh thyme (I used rosemary instead)

2 fresh bay leaves

2 or 3 sprigs of parsley

Freshly ground black pepper

salt

* I've added about 10 juniper berries too!

• Preheat oven to 350⁰F.
• In a heavy large pot, saute the onion, carrot and celery with butter until translucent about 7 minutes or so. Add chopped garlic and lemon peel, cook for another 2 minutes. Remove from the heat.
• Add the vegetable oil in a heavy skillet over medium heat. Coat the veal with flour, shake of the excess. Fry them until browned on all side. Transfer them  to the vegetable pot. 
• Discard all of the oil, but leave about 1 tablespoon. Return the skillet to the stove,  add the wine to the skillet. Let the wine simmer over medium heat, scrapping the browned residue that stuck on the bottom of the skillet. let the wine reduce a little bit, then transfer this wine to the vegetable-veal pot.
• Put back the skillet to the stove, add the broth and bring to a simmer. Add tomatoes with their juice, the thyme, the bay leaves, parsley, salt and pepper. Pour this broth to the vegetable-veal pot. The broth should cover ⅔ all the way up to the top of the shanks. If it doesn't add more broth.
• Simmer, cover the pot tightly, and place in the lower third of the oven. Cook for 2 hours, or until the meat is fork tender. 

Serve with sprinkle gremolada and  saffron risotto. To make gremolada, finely chopped together parsley, lemon peel, and garlic.

It does look like arancine (little orange) no?

Nothing to do with the ososbuco or arancine!

I thought I just share this photo with you. I had a few cymbidiums in my back yard. This particular one is in the Japanese wooden pot, near my pool just right outside my kitchen, and right under the giant Phylodendrone. So, it is really easy to miss it. My husband who was the one to inform me that it started to bloom. So, I took my camera (actually, my son's camera) then took photographs. Then, I went out to my vegetable garden, and saw that all of them are blooming, unfortunately some are almost done. I'll probably able to take some more photos and post them in my garden blog. We'll see.

Update: Monday, March 23rd, 2009 @ 8:40 AM

When I saw Peter M commented that he wants to see the inside of this Arancini, I felt bad. I should have done that before anybody would ask. So I went to my trash bin, and VOILA PETER, I found photo that show the inside of the arancine. It is not to make you in an AWE to see it, just to show you that I've tried it, and was not satisfied with the photo, that is why I didn't put it in the blog. 

Simple Tomato Tart With Pesto

A very simple meal to serve during the week, when time to spare in the kitchen is limited. It is light and delectable serve with simple spinach or green salad. It can be serve as an appetizer as well. 

The ingredients I have below is for a rectangular  tart pan (4½ inches by 14 inches), use any size of pan available to you and adjust the amount of ingredients accordingly. 

Ingredients:

1 sheet store bought puff pastry (if you can. buy the one that has "butter only" as the main ingredient), thawed in the refrigerator overnight, or according to package direction

2 - 3 cups cherry tomatoes, cut in half

1 cup ricotta cheese (I used low fat)

1 large egg

¼ cup (or more) parmesan cheese 

1 tbs finely chopped Italian parsley

Salt and ground black pepper, to taste

½ cup pesto*

• Preheat the oven to 375⁰F. Grease the tart pan lightly with butter. Roll out the puff pastry thinly, transfer onto the prepared tart pan. Trim off the excess.
• Mix ricotta, egg, parmesan cheese, Italian parsley, salt and pepper in a small bowl. Pour this mixture on top of puff pastry. Arrange the cherry tomatoes neatly on top of the ricotta mixture. Dot with with pesto.
• Bake in the middle rack for 45 to 50 minutes until the pastry is golden.

Pesto for the tart:

1 bunch (about 2 cups) fresh basil

1 small clove garlic

¼ cup pine nuts

½ cup olive oil

salt and pepper to taste

• Process all ingredients in a food processor until you have the consistency of a paste. With the machine still running, slowly add olive oil, mix until the oil is well incorporated. Taste and adjust seasoning as needed. Of course you can make this pesto in a mortal and pestle too. To do that, you need to pound the ingredients all together except the olive oil. Then slowly drizzle the oil with one hand, while the other hand keep pounding (you get the idea, I am not that good in explaining this, sorry)

Purple Yams Soufflé

Honestly, I am not sure how I suppose to serve this Souflé, I just eat it by itself. I suppose I can also serve it with maybe grilled poultry or fish, and some stew vegetables. It's good on its own.

This recipe goes to the monthly PHd, created by Cathy and Krysta. This month event host is Krysta. Care to join? Have any potato dish that you would like to share with us? Please visit this site to find the information. It's totaly easy!



I was surprise how easy it was to unmold this Souflé, So I took a chance to photograph it, now you know how the inside of this souflé look like. Pretty, ain't it?

I found therecipe in one of my very very dilapidated cookbook, Modern French Culinary Art, by Henri-Paul PELLAPRAT. The original recipe call for potato, but I really want something with vibrant and beautiful color. First I thought, I might use sweet potato, but I already use sweet potato a lot for my bread, when I saw purple yams, I didn't even think twice. Just grabbed them and go!

Recipe Adapted from Modern French Culinary Art

by Henri-Paul PELLAPRAT

Ingredients:

2 cups mashed potatoes (I use purple yams, and mashed but still had some chunks to it)

½ cup hot milk

¾ tsp salt

¼ tsp ground black pepper

1 tbs minched onion (I used shallots)

½ tsp powdered mustard

2 tsp water

¾ cup grated gruyerèor cheddar ( I used 1 cup gruyerè)

1 whole egg

2 large eggs, separated

• Mix the mustard and water, let stand for 5 minutes. Beat the whole egg, and the 2 egg yolk together. set aside. Butter only  the bottom of 4 ramekins, set aside. preheat oven to 350⁰F.
• Combine the smooth mashed potatoes with milk, salt, black pepper, and minced onion, and beat until fluffy. Add mustard - water mixture, the cheese, and the beaten egg. Mix to combine.
• Beat the egg whites until form a soft stiff peaks. Carefully fold on the potato mixture. Divide the mixture evenly among the ramekins. Bake the souflé until well puffed and the top is flecked with brown, about 20 minutes. Serve at once!

Just to show you how stunning this purple yam is, it just blow my mine. Taste wise? it's plain, I like yellow or orange yam better.