Mustardy Goodness

Hello again  – so Summer came and went, didn’t it? And wow, so did Autumn! Now it’s just cold. Brrrr.. 😦 I’m on to thicker, richer flavors – as long as the food is hot!! As Thanksgiving looms in a land far away from me I keep finding excuses to make turkey breast, stuffing-like side dishes, and harvest veggies like squash and hard greens.

Panzanella is defined as “bread salad” but that is a rather colorless description of this Italian concept. The version I made of this classic can be found in August’s Bon Appetit and is traditional and still oh so simple. Panzanella is an ingenious way of using stale bread, which I end up with often enough these days for this be very useful 🙂 I thought the massive amount of savory, briny flavors added another dimension of flavor to this dish, resulting in what should be called “Italian stuffing” – and good enough to substitute for the thick stuff at the Thanksgiving table. As for the mustard, the recipes are pretty consistent: mustard seeds + vinegar = mustard, or something like that. When I made my first batch, one taste just about burned my tongue off so I ended up diluting here and seasoning there considerably. Be warned, mustard means business 😉 I decided to combine all my favorite types of mustard into one honey-beer mustard recipe that is sweet and spicy to boot. I think the result is much more fun than the standard recipe and worth the effort. After all, mustard goes in everything (and anything) you can think of, so spice it up! Add a dollop to vinaigrettes, pasta sauce, cheese platters, or scrambled eggs..

So yes, the star ingredient here is mustard. Its uses are endless and it adds ample taste in small amounts; oh, and did I mention it lasts 7 months (at least) in the fridge?! No there’s something useful. Mustard is also a host to health benefits based on the fact that mustard is mostly made up of mustard seeds and those seeds are full of potassium, magnesium, calcium, and phosphorous, among other things.. Have you seen a mustard tree? It’s huge. And a mustard seed? So small, itsy bitsy. It’s crazy that one turns into the other in a matter of years. So my motto this month is – eat more mustard! And you’d be surprised how easy that is 😀

Warm Tomato Panzanella with Capers, Olives, and Roasted Peppers

Ingredients

(for the mix)

1 whole-wheat baguette (can sub with any bread), slightly stale & broken into chunks

5 tomatoes

2 stalks of celery, thinly sliced

2 bell peppers, any color

10 kalamata olives, pitted & coarsely chopped

2 Tbs. capers, coarsely chopped

(for the dressing)

3 garlic cloves, minced

2 Tbs. sherry vinegar

3 Tbs. olive oil

2 Tbs. white wine

1 lemon, juiced

1 Tbs. spicy or whole-grain mustard

1 Tsp. chili flakes

1 Tbs. dried (or 3 Tbs. fresh) oregano

sea salt & cracked pepper

(1) Preheat the oven to 180 degrees Celsius (350 degrees Fahrenheit). Fill a large pot with salted water and bring to a boil on high heat. Line a baking pan with foil and spray with oil, add the peppers and season with salt and pepper, mixing to coat. (2) When the oven is hot, put the baking pan on the highest rack. Roast until peppers are soft and the outside skin is blackened and blistered, 30-40 minutes. (3) Cut an ‘x’ into the skin on the bottom of each tomato with a paring knife. When the water is boiling, add the tomatoes and boil for 1 minute or so until the skin starts to peel back. Immediately transfer tomatoes to a bowl of cold water. When cool, peel the skin and coarsely chop. (4) When the peppers are done roasting, seal in a plastic bag and let sit 15 minutes. Peel and discard the blackened skins and coarse chop peppers; set aside. (5) In a large bowl, add the bread, tomatoes, roasted peppers, olives, celery, and capers. (6) Make the dressing by whisking together the mustard, olive oil, oregano, garlic, lemon juice, chili flakes, white wine, and vinegar. (7) When ready to serve, add dressing to the bread and vegetable mix, tossing to coat. Season with salt and pepper.

Serves 4

Honey Whole-Grain Beer Mustard

Ingredients

1/2 bag/jar of yellow mustard seeds

1/2 bag/jar of brown mustard seeds

1/2 bag/jar of mustard powder

1 Ceres classic beer (sub any amber beer)

1/2 cup malt vinegar

1/2 cup tepid water

1/4 cup yogurt

5 Tbs. honey

salt & cracked pepper

(1) Combine mustard seeds, powder, and beer in a large container. Mix, cover, and refrigerate overnight. (2) Add vinegar & water to the mustard seed mixture and blend until most (but not all) of the seeds are pureed. (3) Add remaining ingredients, mix well, and taste. Season with salt, cracked pepper, and more honey 🙂 (3) Chill in the fridge 1-2 hours before using. Keeps in the fridge 7 months. Goes well with crackers, meat, and on rolls with pickled veggies or cheese.

So.. while being a bit time-consuming, it is possible to make your own condiments and once you’ve done so, you can use heaping spoonfuls of it in other dishes. As the sun begins to set earlier, the frost starts to cling to the corners of the windows – I’ll have to come up with even warmer, more comforting food to subsist upon 😛 Ah, it’s wintertime again!

My question:

what is your favorite type of mustard?

There are quite a few variations. My favorite is a toss up between french mustard (always a classic) and honey mustard.

Seriously, who needs ketchup? 😉

11.21.12

Chilled Sustenance for a Hot Summer

Summer has finally arrived here it seems and man is it hot (and humid)! Without an A/C in sight 😉 I decided it would be best to make some cold food that could chill in the fridge until it was needed. Pasta salad is still one of my favorite foods and simply I couldn’t resist the urge to make a different version that involved some other ingredients than what I normally use. Using a ready-made white Mornay sauce as a base for the dressing ensured that the salad had a creamy texture and was less likely to dry out in the fridge (luckily that’s still an easy fix; I’d recommend adding a little white wine if in need of some moisture).

I realize I’m a tad obsessed with Dill but the herb is very popular over here and it’s in everything–dressings, schnapps, seafood–they sell it frozen in bags already chopped at the supermarket so it’s very easy to use 🙂 The star ingredient in this recipe was the capers, which are awfully tiny little things but pack a lot of flavor. I always thought capers were seeds or dried fruit like peppercorns, but turns out they’re actually little premature flower buds (even cuter, right? At least tastier) Using some of the caper juice in the vinaigrette adds a briny taste to the salad that I think compliments the sweetness of the sausage and pickled onions. There is a cacophony of sausages made over here so I used mini pork & chicken sausages which were already cooked and brown in minutes.

My advice for anyone replicating this dish, don’t be shy with seasoning; taste as you go (imperative) and adjust accordingly. The pasta should not be overcooked as it absorbs a lot of moisture anyway and the dish may need to be dressed a couple of times if you plan on eating it all week like me 🙂 Adding 1-2 Tbs. more paprika contributes a little spice to the salad and you can substitute any procurable veggies–olives, celery, golden raisins (I know it’s not a veggie but still), chickpeas, corn, peppers, spinach–I’m telling you, the combinations are boundless }:-)

Chilled Pasta Salad with Dill, Chicken Sausage, & Pickled Onions

Ingredients

(for the salad)

1 lb. baby shell pasta (or elbow macaroni)

1 packet of chicken sausage

1 jar of small pickled onions, halved

1 jar of capers, with juice

2 cups cherry tomatoes, quartered

1 bunch of fresh Dill, minced (or 4 Tbs. frozen)

(for the vinaigrette)

1 1/2 cups white sauce, Mornay or Béchamel

2 garlic cloves, minced

3 Tbs. cider vinegar

2 Tbs. paprika

1 Tbs. lemon juice

olive oil

seas salt & cracked pepper

(1) Boil the pasta in salted water until cooked al dente; drain and rinse thoroughly with cold water. Put the pasta in a large bowl and mix with a tsp. of olive oil and a little bit of cracked pepper. (2) In a frying pan, warm some olive oil over medium-high heat and cook the chicken sausages until browned on all sides. Remove from pan and let cool a couple of minutes before cutting the sausages into smaller pieces. (3) Add the tomatoes, pickled onions, capers, and cooked sausage to the pasta, mixing well. (4) To make the vinaigrette, whisk together all ingredients from the white sauce through the lemon juice in a small bowl, adding 1 Tbs. of olive oil and leftover caper juice, stirring until well blended. (5) Stir the vinaigrette into the pasta salad, season with salt & pepper; cover and refrigerate until chilled, 20-30 minutes. Serve cold with thin slices of bread (or even colder beer:-)

Serves 4

I’ve got to deviate away from pasta at some point, lovely carbohydrate as it is, so I’m thinking of making a salad recipe of a greener nature…there’s still a month left of Summer so it would probably be advisable to stick to colder food anyway. Ah, the choices!

My question: What is the best chilled side dish you’ve ever tasted? It doesn‘t have to be pasta…

8.04.11