The annual BLT Birthday Bash always takes place on the closest weekend to August 6. Two notable events collide on this auspicious day — it is my friend Bill’s birthday and heirloom tomatoes are in their full glory.
The sandwiches with which we celebrate are not your typical corner luncheonette variety, but rather, they must include these nonnegotiable ingredients:
· Homemade mayonnaise (Bill's proper Southern upbringing demands this)
· Hickory-smoked bacon from Oscar’s Smoke House
· Sliced local heirloom tomatoes, generously seasoned with a good quality sea salt and freshly ground black pepper
· Farm stand leaf lettuce
· Farmers’ market bread, sliced and "toasted" on the grill
Last year, my friend Catherine who hates tomatoes, was stunned at the taste of the heirloom and firmly stated "This does not taste like a tomato". "Au contraire", we assured her — this is exactly what a tomato should taste like. And my friend Jackie, more vegetarian than flexitarian, heartily partook of the irresistible Oscar's bacon.
My sandwich, before closing it
We wash these sandwiches down with iced tea, and this year, cold-brewed iced coffee, followed by yellow cupcakes with chocolate icing.
On a slightly related note, we’re promoting a Grown-Up Birthday Parties article right now on our home page and last week there was much debate over which image to use. We ended up deciding on picture of birthday candles, but if I had my way, it would have been BLTs and cupcakes.
What are some of your less traditional celebrations?
Check out Bill’s blog, In The Garden, and wish him a happy birthday while you’re there.
My husband and I used to live in an apartment with a big, beautiful backyard. Entertaining couldn't have been easier and we threw Brazilian barbecues -- he's from Rio -- every year.
We moved a few months ago and sadly, our new apartment doesn't have any outdoor space. Prospect Park is nearby, but we still miss hosting barbecues at home. Desperate for that fresh from the grill flavor, we recently invited some friends for dinner and put Le Creuset's grill pan to the test. We made Bobby Flay's fish tacos, and they were a hit.
The recipe is simple. You marinade some fish filets (we used tilapia) in a mixture of lime juice, olive oil, chiles and cilantro, then slap them on the grill for a few minutes each.
While my husband handled the "grill", I followed Bobby's instructions and made salsa from scratch. Sounds fancy, but it was seriously a cinch! You cook tomatoes, onion and garlic in a pot with peanut oil, then blend everything till nice and smooth. Add hot sauce, cilantro and some spices, and ta da! One bite of this stuff -- you can actually taste the tomatoes and the heat really comes through -- and you'll steer clear of the jarred stuff.
Everything was was so light and refreshing. It was just the kind of food for a hot summer night.
We topped our table (a clever little contraption that is just 12" when closed, but can open up to seat six!) with all sorts of condiments -- white cabbage, chopped cilantro, red onions, sour cream, and of course the homemade salsa -- and let everyone dig in.
The grill pan left our apartment smoky, so we opened all the windows and turned on a bunch of fans. It wasn't alfresco dining exactly, but with that warm breeze blowing and so much summery food, it came pretty close!
I make a cherry clafouti almost every week during the July and August cherry season until my husband finally begs me to stop. If I don't have cherries in my house, I'll throw whatever fruit or berries I have hanging around. My friend David always made fun of my clafouti habit (I think he just likes saying the name) until I finally got him to taste one. And his review? “Better than fabulous — like a flan except creamier”.
Fig, Blackberry and Raspberry Clafouti
Cherry Clafouti is a rustic French country dessert that takes about 10 minutes to prepare and 35 to 45 to bake. It's simply a custard (I make mine in a blender) that is poured over fresh fruit. Although cherries are traditional, you can also use apples, berries, figs or a host of other fruit. Last week I even made a corn, basil and cheddar clafouti (but told my husband it was a corn pudding). The traditional Cherry Clafouti leaves the pits in the cherries for extra flavor, but I, in my bourgeois way, pit the cherries first so it’s easier to eat. The French are definitely on to something with the no-pitting idea. Not only is it much faster to prepare, but I always know when I’ve missed a pit because right before I bite it, I get hit with the flavor of almonds.
I’ve been searching for the perfect recipe the last couple of summers, and this year, I believe I've finally found it.
Cherry Clafouti
From The San Franciso Ferry Plaza Farmers’ Market Cookbook
1 tablespoon unsalted butter
1/2 cup granulated sugar
3 large eggs
Finely grated zest of 1 lemon
1 cup heavy cream
1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract or splash of Kirsch
1/2 cup unbleached flour, sifted
Pinch of salt
3/4 to 1 pound red or yellow cherries, stemmed
Confectioners’ sugar for dusting
Preheat oven to 400 degrees F. Butter a shallow 10-inch round baking dish with the butter and set the dish on a rimmed baking sheet.
In a bowl, whisk together the granulated sugar, eggs and lemon zest until blended. Add the cream and vanilla or kirsch and whisk again until blended. Then add the flour and salt and whisk until the batter is frothy.
Pour about one-third of the batter into the prepared dish. Scatter the cherries on top in an even layer. Pour the rest of the batter over the cherries, being careful not to dislodge them.
Bake the clafouti until golden and puffed and a knife inserted in the center comes out clean, 35 to 45 minutes. Serve at once, dusted with a little confectioners’ sugar, or, if serving later at room temperature, transfer to a wire rack and allow it to cool. Dust with confectioners’ sugar just before serving. Remind your guests about the cherry pits before serving.
Variation: You can substitute 1 pound figs, stems trimmed and fruit cut into eighths lengthwise, for the cherries
In mid-August, I start to get overwhelmed by tomatoes. No mere Caprese salad or tomato sandwich is going to help me use up the 12 pounds taking over my dining room table. This time of year calls for drastic measures for reining in tomato sprawl.
One thoroughly satisfying technique is roasting tomatoes, a process that not only concentrates the sweetness and flavor, increases the shelf-life, but also looks fabulous doing it. I think a large pot of tomatoes simmering in olive oil and herbs is a true thing of beauty. Michael Chiarello has excellent recipes for roasted tomatoes which get chopped up for a salsa and also a great Roasted Tomato Soup.
I also love oven-dried tomatoes, where you dehydrate the tomatoes in a 200 degree oven for about five hours until about 80% of the moisture has evaporated. The finished product is sweet, salty, slightly chewy and has a tomato-on-steroids flavor. Oven-dried tomatoes will last, layered in a jar with olive oil and herbs, for a couple of weeks in the fridge, unless you eat them all straight out of the jar first (which is a distinct possibility). Use them in any dish where you want a hit of tomato flavor or color.
This weekend, I roasted up a bunch of vegetables and made Chilled Red Pepper and Tomato Soup. This soup was so gorgeous at every stage that I felt compelled to keep photographing it. The other cool thing about this soup is that it can really only be made in August — any other month, the cost would be prohibitive (especially after I doubled the recipe) and the flavor would be drastically diminished. There's no liquid added to this soup — everything comes from the tomatoes.
What are some of the ways you deal with tomato overload?
Before going into the oven
After roasting
Finished bowl of soup
Chilled Red Pepper and Tomato Soup with Cucumber Herb Salad
1/3 cup extra virgin olive oil
4 cloves garlic, crushed
1 hot chile pepper, such as Thai or jalepeno, halved and seeded
Handful cilantro
1 large onion, coarsely chopped
1/2 bulb fennel, coarsely chopped
3 red bell peppers, seeded and coarsely chopped
2 1/2 pounds ripe tomatoes, coarsely chopped
2 teaspoons sea salt
Garnish with chopped cucumber, halved cherry tomatoes, red and yellow pepper strips, fresh basil, mint and cilantro leaves, and extra-virgin olive oil
Preheat oven to 375 degrees F.
Combine the olive oil, garlic, chile pepper and cilantro in an ovenproof pot and cook over medium heat until the garlic is golden brown, about 5 minutes. Add the onion and fennel and cook until softened, about 10 minutes. Then add the bell peppers, tomatoes and salt. Stir well and transfer the pot to the oven.
Bake, uncovered, stirring every 10 minutes or so, for 30 to 40 minutes until the contents have collapsed into their own liquid and appear scorched on top.
Remove the soup from the oven and allow it to cool for 20 minutes.
Ladle the soup in batches, into a blender or food processor and puree until smooth. Pass the puree through a food mill or sieve. Discard the solids and refrigerate the soup for at least 3 hours.
Ladle soup into chilled bowls, top with the fresh garnishes and drizzle olive oil over it all.
Ever since I was a little kid, I've loved Four Corners, my hometown's local pizzeria. I started going when I was 3 or 4 with my grandfather. It was ritual to have one slice, followed by a rainbow Italian ice -- except on the days when my grandmother came. She forbid me to eat things with artificial dyes, something I hated about her at the time. Funny that these days, I won't go near the stuff either.
As a teenager, my friends and I would cram into one of the 60's style bright orange booths and spend hours drinking Dr. Pepper and eating slices. Most of them would order a regular slice, but I was always addicted to the sicillian: fat, puffy squares of dough topped with a slightly sweet sauce and gobs of mozzarella. Particular about the temperature of my food even back then, I used to make the pizza men crazy with all my questions: How long ago did it come out of the oven? Is a fresher pie coming out anytime soon? Can I see a slice before deciding if I want it? On the days when I arrived right as a just-cooked pie was being cut into squares, I felt like I'd won the lottery.
When I moved to the city about 7 years ago, it took me awhile to find my favorite pizzeria. The regular slices were usually pretty good wherever I went, but the sicillian always seemed like an after thought. They looked depressing sitting in those glass cases, the dough deflated and lifeless, the cheese yellowy and congealed.
I pretty much gave up on sicilian in the city altogether until I discovered Spumoni Gardens in Bensonhurst, Brooklyn. It's definitely different than the slices I grew up eating -- each piece is first topped with whole milk mozzarella (Four Corners always used part-skim) and then smothered with a really tangy sauce.
And unlike the fat, hearty slices I'm used to, Spumoni's are springier, the dough a bit lighter. At Four Corners I was always full after one slice. I'm tempted to eat three or four at Spumoni.
The place itself has the same bare-bones, old school feel as Four Corners (slices are ordered at windows, then eaten on wooden picnic tables), but there's a sit-down restaurant for those who want table service. The fun part about the restaurant is that it feels like a place you'd see on The Sopranos. I'm not sure if Spumoni ever made it into an episode, but a wall of autographed photos proves the cast has stopped by.
Tony Sirico (AKA, my favorite character, Paulie Walnuts) called Spumoni "the best pie in town" on his photo and I just might have to agree (another new favorite is Di Fara in Midwood, though that's an entirely different experience).
What's your favorite place to eat pizza in New York? I'm particularly interested in where else I can find good sicilian since Spumoni is a bit of a trek!
Spumoni Gardens
2725 86th Street
Bensonhurst, Brooklyn
718-449-1230
The other night, I found six ears of corn from sitting in my fridge. Almost two weeks old (I got them in my last CSA pick-up on August 11th), they looked limp and lifeless. I couldn't bear to throw them out.
I thought of all the different things to do with them. Corn on the cob for a week? Boring. Corn chowder? Nah. Finally, I settled on Pastel de Choclo, a Chilean dish I discovered five years ago at a dinner party (thrown by a few friends from Santiago).
It's basically a chicken and corn pie, with hardboiled eggs and an alarming amount of raisins thrown in for good measure. I've made it using this recipe a handful of times and the whole process is relatively quick and easy.
First, you poach and shred some chicken breasts and season them with parprika, cumin and oregano. Then, you cook the corn in milk and butter until it gets nice and thick. When you're ready to assemble, you spread the chicken in a 2-quart pyrex, top with sliced hardboiled eggs and all those raisins, and cover with the corn mixture. After sprinkling with two tablespoons of powdered sugar, you bake for 40 minutes until golden brown.
In the past, I've always used frozen corn which the recipe says to puree. Since I was using fresh corn for the first time, I skipped that step. Big mistake. The best part about Pastel de Choclo is its silky smooth topping. It acts as a nice velvety foil to all the other textures and gives a lovely sweetness to the whole dish. The crunchy kernels were an interesting twist, but I prefer the pudding-like consistency.
So, if you have a bunch of corn sitting in your fridge, try something different and make Pastel de Choclo. Just remember to puree your corn, and tell me what you think!
