Cheap Tricks Vol. 3: Beginnings

A trio of simple appetizers
makes a memorable first impression.

Taste & See: Well folks, as promised, I'm on a roll. Keeping it simple, much like these three 'recipes' for fancy-looking, delightful-tasting, amusingly-easy starters. They're a perfect way to impress guests at a fancy dinner party (or better--make guests feel taken care of), but are simple enough to whip together for friends who drop by unexpectedly.

It is a universally acknowledged fact that a single fig in possession of delicious flavor must be in want of goat cheese and prosciutto. All the more so with a bundle of figs. These ingredients just go together so well . . . do a google search and you'll find a hundred variations: fig-goat cheese-prosciutto tarts, prosciutto-wrapped figs, goat cheese-fig-prosciutto bundles. Fig crostini an optimal mix of easy to do, fancy-looking result. And with ingredients like these, obviously delicious.


Do it Yourself: This tasty little number is made by letting whole dried figs swim in a sea of honey, balsamic vinegar, and a splash of alcohol (top choice is port; a springy red is also good), reduced down to a syrupy mess. There's no set ratio; adjust to a flavor you like, and try experimental additions! The figs soften up, making almost a jam. Toast baguette slices for a minute or two per side while you're waiting. Spread with goat cheese and prosciutto and spoon figgy goodness on top of that. If you keep kosher, I'm sorry. (Just kidding: it still tastes good without prosciutto.)


Next, this glossy dish is brilliant in its jewel tone . . . but deceptively so. Apricot pecan brie is about as hard as making brownie-mix brownies. Probably easier: It is nothing more than a wheel (or slice) of brie warmed up slightly, a jar of warmed apricot jam pour over the top, and a handle of lightly toasted pecans tossed in.


Another delicious version, baked brie, takes ever so slightly more work. Set brie atop sheets of phyllo dough, rub with curry powder, and pour the (cold) jam over. Wrap up the brie, jam safely tucked inside, and bake for about 15 minutes. The crispy phyllo dough is a very satisfying contrast to the buttery brie. Again, experiment with different fillings; for example, it is also delicious with fig jam.

Last but not least, the cheese tray. Really, who doesn't like picking at cheese off a cheese tray?

Below: Multiple cheeses; apricot brie dish; smoked salmon, lemon & crackers; rolled ham; toasted pecans; jam; dried figs.


Let me attempt to convince you to never throw another event without a cheese tray. One, if your food isn't done yet when guests arrive, they'll still have something wonderful to munch on--something that involves bite sized pieces and is ripe for interaction. Two, no one can really go through that much cheese all at once, so an individual, or even couple, is limited to trying different kinds very slowly, bits at a time. Cheese trays let you make mass exploratory voyages. Three, very very little prep time. Four, it just tastes good!

Convinced? Now, how about trying this pair? Pear & aged Irish cheddar, no pun intended.

Un-buttoned

Stuffed mushrooms-a-la-Faux Gourmet,
a little more chic city girl, a little less 50s housewife.

Taste & See: I had a Christmas party last night. I was so busy in December (the dearth of posts!) I didn't have time to cram my loved ones into my tiny apartment and force them to consume massive amounts of my cooking, so I thought perhaps I'd have a go at doing so in January. I tried to use holiday-esque flavors to recall the holiday season but somewhere amidst the cinnamon and sugar, the candy cane peppermint, the cranberry & turkey, I got a hankering for stuffed mushrooms.

Mushrooms are not a beautiful food. Button mushrooms are particularly unassuming, the pudgy vanilla kid-brother of the mushroom family. Sure, they're handy in a pinch. They go with a wide range of cuisines & best of all, tend to come pre-chopped. A lazy Faux Gourmet like myself can unwrap and toss them in practically anything to add a little bulk. But they're not really a beacon of flavor; they're more like background noise.

Which makes them the perfect vehicle for flavorful stuffings. Button mushrooms, especially when cooked, do have a nice neutral earthiness, into which inspired Faux Gourmets like you can pour all your artistry. They're so perfectly round and empty, just waiting for you to fill them.

The recipe below is my on-the-fly for last night's party, a hit if their rapid disappearance was any indication. But don't let my ideas limit you! Open wide the fridge and in true Faux Gourmet style, assemble a mishmash filling of whatever lovely flavors you have available. Even in these economic times, a container of mushrooms is still only a dollar or two, making this a cheap experiment to fail and try again.

Do it Yourself:

Pesto Chevre Stuffed Mushrooms

Amounts listed made about 80 mushrooms, a good amount for a party with 30 guests. For a smaller gathering, definitely do half or even a quarter the amount; making so many mushrooms is pretty tedious. Think of the amounts as flexible suggestions, to be altered based as needed.

Ingredients
4 containers Button Mushrooms
6 cloves Garlic
20 Sage leaves
10 oz. Chevre (soft goat cheese)
1/2 cup Pesto, then sample and add more until you're satisfied with the flavor
Parmesan cheese

Directions
1. Clean the mushrooms. I like to rinse and then pour the wet mushrooms onto a clean kitchen towel after rinsing to pat dry.

2. Twist off the caps and set whole mushrooms aside. (My friends A & C recommend soaking in wine . . . a delicious idea to try next time). Chop caps into smallish pieces.

3. Fry garlic in oil (I used Apres Vin Poivre Chardonnay, to impart a mild peppery flavor). Add chopped sage leaves and 1 tbsp butter. When leaves have fried, add mushroom caps and a few tablespoons water, wine or broth. Cover and allow caps to soften, about 5 minutes. Continue to let simmer with lid partially on until liquid is gone.

4. Allow mixture to cool, then add chevre and pesto. Set aside.

5. Dowse the mushrooms in melted butter. No need for a full dunking; a light touch is fine. A marinade brush works best if you have one. Set mushrooms in a baking pan.

6. Stuff each mushroom with a healthy teaspoon of filling, or enough to evenly distribute filling between the mushrooms.


7. Bake on 350 about ten minutes; check to make sure mushrooms are soft. Sprinkle with Parmesan cheese and continue baking a few minutes more, while cheese turns golden.

Voila, you are a hostess extraordinaire! Well done!

Firefly Bistro

Bistro under the big tent

(NB: There's a great recipe at the end of this so if you don't have the inclination to read about Firefly Bistro, at least go learn about toasted walnut madras curry dipping sauce, accompanying the oregano honeyed butternut doughnuts, pictured below. Killer combo.)

Taste & See: Firefly Bistro is a cute little restaurant in South Pas, a city in its own right, (as one would guess) just south of Pasadena, California. The chefs are the daughter and cowboy hat wearing son-in-law of the owner, who welcomed me in a hearty drawl as I entered. I'd expect nothing less than a family affair from such a neighborhood with such an "all American" feel. (In fact, the neighborhood, with its lack of palm trees and Spanish architecture, is often used as a filming location for Hollywood "middle America.")

And Firefly Bistro is in a tent.

Yes, the restaurant is in a tent. Genius, no? SoCal doesn't exactly have weather issues, and while it probably wouldn't stand up to an earthquake, a tent would be much easier to raise from the rubble than anything with real walls. And it adds unbeatable atmosphere.


Live jazz music on Wednesday nights in the summer, courtesy Jennifer Robin:


Lanterns swinging from the ceiling add ambiance:


But charming as the atmosphere is, the real find is the food (and drink). Owner Carl Weintraub calls it "Modern American Bistro." Bistro, as you may know, comes from the French bistro/bistrot for tavern/tavern owner, and refers to an informal restaurant serving wine. (Do my dinner parties count?) So it is only right the restaurant not only has lovely mixed drinks, particularly "Soju-tinis;" two kinds of sangria (red, pictured below) and a couple great specialty beers, but a great list of wines available by the glass. (A must for a single gal.)

The first time I was there, the restaurant had a lovely Spanish white special by the glass (a recent obsession), an albariño from Rias Baixas. Albariños are "perfumed, elegant wines . . . ", crisp and fresh with a full flavor, fruity notes but not too sweet. They're great with fish & seafood, but can also stand up to white meats. Apropos for an elegant lady on a cool summer night.


Rias Baixas is the region where the sturdy grapes are primarily grown. (The better known Portuguese Vinho Verde ("cheap and good"), long available at Trader Joes & other fine establishments, are made from the Portuguese varietal of the same grape.)

Most importantly, the importer was none other than Jorge Ordoñez (George Ordinary, as a mnemonic), the fabulous wine importer and "pioneer of an awakened Spain." Forget the year or the maker, if he's imported the bottle, I have been tipped, you will assuredly drink well.

Most food I've enjoyed at Firefly has all been stunning, lick the last bit of sauce off the place stunning. The two appetizers below have been my favorites thus far.

Cardamom Grilled Shrimp with warm bread and dried honeyed figs ($9.50):


The shrimp had the perfect texture and went well with the spicy, buttery sauce the restaurant called sirsie, seen in the background. Firefly says sirsie is an Ethiopian spicy dipping sauce but I can't seem to find anything on it. Perhaps they made it up and figured yuppies would be more likely to buy something "Ethiopian"?

Also delightful, Spicy Butternut Squash Doughnuts with oregano honey and toasted walnut-madras curry dip ($8.25):


These recall the butternut tapas from Zaytinya I wrote about previously, but the accompanying sauce swings Firefly's version way out of the ballpark. Taste the sauce separately and it is so-so, a bit heavy on the spice. Try a bit of just the oregano honey and it is a little sweet. But dip a chunk of squishy butternut doughnut with its crispy shell laced with honey into the flavorful sauce and WOW. The combination is incredible, simply incredible, a perfect illustration of flavors that are just better together. See the recipe, straight from the chef, below.

Some other dishes were not so great, however. They seemed to overstretch themselves, try too many quirky parings, spin off a classic in too many directions. But like classy stars who end up fashion's worst-dressed lists, it is only because they're willing to be creative and push the boundaries. When it succeeds, this is a beautiful thing, so we're willing to forgive the failures. We just won't order them again.

Case in point, Calamari Relleno stuffed with chorizo, olives, and currants with caramelized sweet corn, black bean sauce and queso fresco ($9.50):


Squishy calamari as the basis for a relleno-style dish was more creepy than delightfully inventive.

Also not a fan of the (ill-coloured) Pecan Coated Catfish over sweet potato-andouilli sausage hash, with Firefly collard greens and mustard pan sauce ($17.50):


Nice idea but the flavors kind of fell flat.

Do it yourself: The toasted walnut-madras curry sauce with the honeyed doughnuts was more than enough to make a girl forget all her woes, squishy squid based or otherwise. Make some up for yourself, thanks to the waitress who thoughtfully handed the chef's secret.

Toast walnuts.
Fry chopped onion, garlic, ginger and curry powder on a stovetop.
Combine walnuts with onion mix and sour cream in a food processor or blender.
Serve with a contrasting honey sauce for maximum pleasure.

Garlic in Three Acts

Science + loads of garlic
= Ridiculously rich flavors.

Taste & See: I'm not so great at following directions, especially with no obvious rationale. If "Because I said so" barely works with a live person I trust, what makes some cookbook author think I'm going to take orders from their invisible authority? But explain to me why I need to stir constantly, or use two separate bowls for wet & dry ingredients, and baby, I'm all yours.

Enter Cooks Illustrated. Recipes in Cooks Illustrated (magazine + wonderful website with loads of archives) take some degree of commitment; the articles explain all the methods that didn't work before getting to the secret of, for example, the juiciest chicken you'll ever eat. But when you finally get to cooking, you not only know what you're doing, but why. And for me, that is the true secret of good food.

For example, garlic. How do you get the most garlic flavor out of a handful of cloves? The very idea of infusing garlic into oil in three different stages would get a laziness veto, absent more information. But after reading Cooks Illustrated's brief lesson on garlic molecules I'm all but a three-stage evangelist.

The Basic Science: The compound in garlic that gives it the garlicky flavor you know & love is called allicin. Allicin is produced when garlic is cut or crushed, but quickly degrades when exposed to air. However, if you put the garlic in oil, allicin dissolves & the garlicky flavor dissolve into the oil.

When you marinate something, for example, shrimp, in oil with garlic, the garlic flavor from the oil coats the shrimp--even parts of it not in direct contact with garlic--and infuses the shrimp with even flavor. It is important to add a little salt as well; salt draws water, containing allicin, out of the garlic, and into the shrimp, at a faster rate than it would migrate on its own.

Do It Yourself: My recipe is modified from a slightly more complex Spanish Style Garlic Shrimp, as featured in Cooks Illustrated.


I made the shrimp twice but found the oil took on an incredible richness even without the shrimp and have since used it as a dipping oil. According to Cooks Illustrated, the three stages of garlic bring out three different dimensions of flavor. According to my taste buds, Cooks Illustrated is right.

What you need:

1 Lb Prawns, peeled, deveined, with tails removed (or approx 6 per person, optional)
Olive Oil
14-16 Medium Garlic Cloves, peeled
Salt
1-2 Mild Dried Chilies
Bay Leaves
1 1/2 tsp Sherry Vinegar
1 tbsp Fresh Parsley Leaves, chopped

What you need to do:

The basic recipe has three steps to impart three different kinds of flavor. You can make shrimp in garlic oil, plain garlic oil, or just use these techniques as part of other recipes that involve garlic and oil to bring out the best garlicky flavor. [Photos, Cooks Illustrated]

1. Marinade: "Raw=Pungent: The minced garlic in the marinade gets cooked briefly with the shrimp, maintaining a hint of raw-garlic pungency."

Chop garlic into small pieces & add to oil with a little salt. Toss with whatever you want to marinate. Tip: Put in ziplock bag for even coating & easy cleanup.


2. Browned: "Browned=Sweet: Gently browning smashed whole garlic cloves infuses the olive oil with a sweet roasted-garlic flavor."

Smash 4-5 large garlic cloves by setting a large knife over the cloves and smashing on the knife with your fist. Cook over medium low heat in olive oil covering large sauce pan 1/2 inch. When bottom browns, about 4 minutes, flip and brown on opposite side about 4 minutes more. Take out & set aside.


3. Poached: "Poached=Mellow: Sliced garlic cooked gently in low-temperature olive oil loses its harsh flavor, becoming soft and mellow."

Slice 6-8 garlic cloves thinly, length wise and add to oil. Heat, stirring occasionally, until slices are soft but not brown, about 6 minutes, and re-add browned cloves and add other herbs as you desire.


To make Spanish Style Garlic Shrimp (or just Garlic Oil):

Marinate shrimp in 2 tbsp olive oil, 2 cloves minced garlic, and a bit of salt & let sit at room temperature for about 30 minutes. Omit this step to make oil only.

Brown 4-5 garlic cloves in oil as directed above. Remove cloves from oil and set aside.

Poach the remaining garlic cloves on low heat as directed above.

Add 1 bay leaf (or 1 tsp crumbled bay leaves) and 1-2 small whole dried chilies. Careful, the heat gets infused into the oil quickly so only use 1 if you don't like it hot. Increase heat to medium low.

Add shrimp with marinade, if using, in single layer in pan.

Leave shrimp undisturbed until oil gently bubbles, then flip shrimp and cook until cooked through, about 2 minutes per side.

Increase heat to high and add sherry and parsley, stirring constantly until shrimp are fully cooked and oil is bubbling vigorously, 15-20 seconds. The oil, if made with shrimp, is not unlike the lusty shrimp I described from Zatinya:


Enjoy with crusty bread and good wine!

One Hot Date

Beautiful, delicious, and incredibly easy:
Another amazing faux gourmet trick

Taste & See: My obsession with dates met a rather lovely match the other evening in Xunta, a Spanish tapas bar. Somewhere between the flamenco show (Thursdays @ 8:30, Saturdays @ 9:30) and the sangria (Small Pitcher, $21) I chanced upon a new delight, grilled bacon wrapped dates (Tapa $5.50).

I'm not a huge bacon fan but the salty crunch was a perfect counterpoint to the sweet, caramelly softness of the dates. I immediately made some for a dinner party & they were a hit with my hungry guests, who enjoyed nibbling on them as I scurried to finish up the rest of the meal. The appetizer literally took minutes to make and minutes to cook. Not to mention- they were delicious.

Do it Yourself: Why wait for a dinner party to make some for yourself? Treat yourself by throwing some in the oven; they'll be done before you even have a chance to decide on a take-out order.

Notes on Ingredients:

I substituted prosciutto for bacon; I find it easier to work with and like the taste better. Plus, for health reasons you can easily pick off the side fat without sacrificing any taste, a questionable exercise with bacon.

I also added cheese. Soft white goat cheese--chevre--is one common addition, as seen in this photo from Self Magazine below:


I, however, tried small slabs of a rich brown cheese from Norway, also made from goat's milk.

Domestically the cheese is known as Gjetost, but in Norway itself it is called Brutost. The cheese is thick, fudgy, and a little creamy, like cold peanut butter. It is utterly difficult to describe because it is utterly unlike any cheese I've ever had; the flavor is distinct, a bit sweet with notes of caramel and apricot. It is best in small doses, eaten slowly to take in the rich flavors little by little.

Gjetost seems to have a cult following, albeit a love it or hate it kind. One guy has even provided a helpful recipe for making it yourself, boiling whey down like a syrup to concentrate the salts, sugars & proteins left when whey is separated from the curds. I don't feel like I miss out by buying a slab at my local deli.


I may no longer be a date virgin, but I'm still pretty inexperienced so I don't have any real thoughts on the kinds of dates to buy. One date vendor claims Medjool dates are the best:
"Grown exclusively for royalty in ancient times . . . Medjool Dates will delight even the most discriminating connoisseur."

All I know for sure is pitted dates remove about half the prep time, so my Faux Gourmet self is a major fan. I have only ever had dried dates so I'm not sure how the same would work if you could get your hands on fresh ones.

What you need:

Dates, approx 4 per person
Prosciutto
Gjetost, brown Norwegian goat cheese
Skewer sticks

What you need to do:

Turn on oven to 350 F
Wrap dates with strip of prosciutto and sliver of cheese
Spear with skewer


Set skewers on pan and place in oven for about 5 minutes on each side, or until prosciutto is nicely crispy and brown



That's it! Now all you have to do is sit back and take the compliments from your dinner guests or engage in your own sighs of satisfaction.

Dig a Little Deeper: If you want to get creative with your Gjetost or dates, check out the ideas (and tasty photos) on these other food blogs:

Spoonful of Sugar has a lovely little ode to Gjetost & some suggested ways to eat it, including a recipe for reindeer stew
Ooh you tasty little things offers a creative use of Gjetost in the form of little apple tarts
Mango Power Girl shares her momma's recipe for Winter Dates & some lovely photos