Category Archives: Appetizers (Antipasti)

2 Brie are a Breeze

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With Thanksgiving approaching fast, I thought that I’d share a few of the recipes that I’ve prepared over the years on Turkey Day. Let’s start with 2 baked brie recipes, one sweet and the other savory.

As a child, our holiday dinners always included a platter of pasta, usually ravioli. It’s a tradition that I’ve continued as an adult, always beginning special dinners for family & friends with a primo piatto of pasta. Well, with all that food to be prepared and consumed, something has to give — and it won’t be dessert, that’s for sure. So, I tend to go light with the appetizers. Besides, Max thinks that every bit of food that crosses the threshold into my his home is a potential snack. This means, in practical terms, the more appetizer dishes served, the more likely he is to “sample” one. As the graph to the right clearly shows, if 2 or fewer appetizers are served, Max will “score” a nibble less than only 30% of the time. Serve a 3rd, however, his chances more than double and he’ll snag something over 75% of the time! If 4 or more are served, you might as well put one of the appetizer trays on the floor in a corner. At least he’ll be out of the way as he noshes.

With the above in mind, I’ve found brie to be a good appetizer to serve but, rather than bake one large “wheel,” I make 2 smaller ones, a sweet and a savory. They’re easy enough to prepare, my guests can choose whichever they prefer, and, when combined, they are actually smaller than one large baked brie. That latter point will help to insure that my guests’ appetites will be saved for the actual dinner.  And, best of all, the odds are still in my favor that Max will not be joining us for appetizers. Of course, having been denied an appetizer, he will be even more hungry, as well as determined, when we move to the dining table. The question then becomes whether he will be able to scarf something from a kitchen counter or the stove top — yes, the stove top! — while I’m serving dinner. (Smart money will bet on the dog.)

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Baked Brie with Caramelized Onions and Rosemary Recipe

Ingredients

  • an 8 oz wheel of brie
  • 2 onions, chopped
  • 2 tbsp butter
  • 1 tbsp fresh rosemary, chopped
  • olive oil
  • 1 garlic clove, minced
  • 3 oz dry white wine, divided
  • salt & pepper, to taste
  • 1 tsp fresh rosemary, chopped, for garnish (optional)

Directions

  1. Place chopped onion and butter into a saucepan over medium heat. Season with salt and pepper and sauté until translucent, about 8 minutes.
  2. Add 1 tbsp chopped rosemary and continue cooking. The onions will become golden in color by the 30 minute mark. Keep cooking, stirring frequently. Onions need to brown but not burn. Do not rush. Lower the heat if necessary.  Add a little olive oil if pan becomes too dry.
  3. Pre-heat oven to 350˚.
  4. Once deep brown in color, add garlic and sauté for no more than 2 minutes.
  5. Add about 2 ounces of white wine and sauté until completely reduced.
  6. Use remaining wine to deglaze the pan and sauté until reduced completely.
  7. Check to see if salt & pepper are needed. (At this point, caramelized onions can be refrigerated for several days, in an airtight container, until needed.)
  8. With a large knife, carefully remove the rind from the brie’s top and discard.
  9. Place cheese in an oven-proof serving dish, cut-side up. Cover the brie with an even layer of caramelized onions.
  10. Bake in a 350˚ oven until cheese is melted, about 25 to 30 minutes.
  11. Let stand for 5 minutes. Garnish with remaining rosemary and serve.

Serving Suggestions

I prefer to serve this brie with assorted crackers and freshly made crostini — thin slices of baguette that have been lightly brushed with olive oil and toasted before being “wiped” with a cut garlic clove.

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Brie en Croute with Raspberry and Almond Recipe

Ingredients

  • an 8 oz wheel of brie
  • 3 – 4 tbsp seedless raspberry jam
  • 1/4 cup sliced almonds, toasted — separated
  • 1 puff pastry sheet
  • 1 egg + 1 tbsp water, combined

Directions

  1. Pre-heat oven to 400˚.
  2. Open & spread 1 sheet of puff pastry dough atop a lightly floured work surface. Use a rolling pin to lightly smooth out any creases that may have been created by the folds.
  3. Carefully slice the brie into 2 half-layers.

    "Do you remember Becky, the little girl who lives next door? Well, she and her Mother dropped in just as I was unwrapping the puff pastry and ... "

  4. Coat the top of the lower half with the raspberry jam. Do not spread jam to the very edge; leave about a quarter-inch border.
  5. Evenly cover the jam with the sliced almonds, reserving 1 tbsp for garnish.
  6. Return top half of brie to the lower half.
  7. Place brie, upside down, onto the center of the pastry sheet. Bring up the edges of the pastry sheet to cover and enclose the brie. Trim away and save the excess.
  8. Place the brie, seam-side down on a parchment lined baking sheet. Use your hands to smooth out the pastry and make it form-fitting.
  9. Brush the exposed surface with egg wash.
  10. If artistic, use excess pastry to decorate the top.
  11. If, like me, you are anything but artistic, do the best you can and tell your guests that you let the neighbors’ 5 year-old help you with the decorating.
  12. Once decorated, brush the decorations’ surface with egg wash.
  13. Place in  400˚ oven and bake until golden brown, about 20 to 25 minutes.
  14. Allow to stand for 20 minutes before moving to a serving tray/platter. Garnish with remaining almond slivers and serve.

Serving Suggestions

I prefer to serve this brie with slices of apple and pear, as well as an assortment of crackers.

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Variations

For the savory:

  • Instead of caramelized onion atop your brie, try Mandy’s delicious Onion Marmalade, from her blog The Complete Cookbook.
  • Replace the rosemary with the herb(s) of your choice. Herbs des Provence or thyme come to mind.

For the sweet:

  • The raspberry jam can easily be replaced with cherry or apricot jam. Sautéed apples with walnuts or prepared cranberries with pecans could also be used. The possibilities are endless.

Notes

Hot, melted cheese, long slivers of caramelized onion, and crispy crostini or crackers are a stain waiting to happen. By chopping rather than slicing the onions prior to caramelizing, I hope to lessen the odds of a mishap. Speaking of the onions, they can be caramelized days before being needed in the recipe. Just don’t make them too far in advance as they have a tendency to “disappear” the longer they sit in the fridge.

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Mom’s Caponata

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The origins of caponata may be found in Sicily but today it is served throughout Italy, in one form or another. Yet, as varied as the final dishes might be, 5 ingredients form the basis of virtually all renditions: eggplant, tomato, onion, garlic, and olive oil, with eggplant being the star of the dish. Beyond these 5, the additional components depend as much upon the individual cook as it does the region of Italy. There’s no better example of this than Mom’s recipe and the one that Zia, her sister, follows. Both included some bell pepper and mushrooms but Mom, also, added zucchini; Zia rarely, if ever, does. The difference here is minimal but, then again, their kitchens were only separated by less than 20 vertical feet. Imagine the differences when there’s hundreds of miles separating the kitchens. In fact, I’ve seen caponata recipes that include, among other things, olives, pine nuts (pignoli), fennel, capers, currants, celery, and even seafood. Seafood seems a bit much to me and I pretty much follow Mom’s recipe. Still, more important than which recipe to follow is finding the right ingredients. Like Mom & Zia, I’ll choose only those vegetables that are fresh and “in season,” for best results. And if you end up with caponata that looks suspiciously like ratatouille, well, I won’t tell anyone.

Whatever vegetables you choose to include, try to chop them evenly, creating pieces that are roughly the same size by type. I cut the “firm” vegetables — onions, peppers, etc. — into strips. The “soft” vegetables — tomatoes, zucchini, eggplant, etc. — are chopped into 3/4 to 1 inch cubes. By cutting the ingredients into strips and cubes, you’ll be adding visual interest to the final dish. When sautéing, begin with the most firm vegetables and proceed until you’ve added the softest. The end-result should be a dish of vegetables that are fully cooked and not at all al dente. Caponata may be served hot, warm or at room temperature. It can be served as a side dish or as an appetizer, where it can be used as a spread or to make bruschetta. Like Mom before me, very often I’ll use it to dress pasta, resulting in a delicious vegetarian dish. Best of all, to my tastes, left-over caponata can be used to make a delicious frittata the next morning. In fact, when I was a boy, Mom always reserved a portion for my breakfast the following day. Today, if I go to a farmers’ market in the morning, it’s almost guaranteed that I’ll be having some form of caponata that evening. You can guess what I’ll be having for breakfast the next morning.

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Caponata Recipe

Ingredients

  • 3 tbsp olive oil
  • 1 medium onion, halved and sliced
  • 2 bell pepper, sliced into strips – gypsy, cubanelle, or Italian peppers may be substituted
  • 2 cloves garlic, minced
  • 3 tbsp freshly chopped parsley
  • 1 doz. button or crimini mushrooms, quartered
  • 2 medium eggplants, cubed (peeling optional)
  • 1 – 2 zucchini, cubed
  • 2 plum tomatoes, cubed
  • salt & pepper, to taste

A Good Day at the Market

Directions

  1. Add oil to a large fry pan and heat over a medium-high heat. Add onion and bell pepper, season with salt & pepper, and sauté until barely soft, about 5 minutes.
  2. Add garlic & parsley and sauté for 1 minute.
  3. Add mushrooms and continue sautéing for about 5 minutes.
  4. Add eggplant, zucchini, and tomatoes, stir to combine, season with salt & pepper, and sauté until done to your liking, at least 8 minutes more.
  5. The dish is now done and may be served hot, warm, or at room temperature.

Variations

As mentioned above, this basic recipe can be modified in any number of ways. Thinly sliced fennel, cubed summer squash, currants, pine nuts, celery, you name it, all may be added. Once you’ve assembled and prepared the ingredients, it’s just a matter of adding them to the pan in an order that assures each will be done to your liking. If the order that I’ve listed above doesn’t do that for you, change it to suit your palate.

Notes

Left-over caponata can be served with pasta or used to make a tasty frittata. I’ll devote a later posting to our frittata recipe but, for now, I’ll share the “easy” method. For this, pre-heat your oven to 375*. In a fry pan over med-high heat, re-heat the caponata. Meanwhile, lightly scramble enough eggs to insure ample coverage of the re-heated caponata. Pour the eggs into the fry pan and, like you would with scrambled eggs, use a slotted turner or spatula to gently pull back the edge to let the eggs run behind it. After a few minutes, place the pan in the pre-heated oven and bake for about 10 minutes or until the top of the frittata is set.  Top with grated cheese, if desired, and serve immediately.

Coincidentally, while this recipe was waiting to be published, our local PBS station aired a re-broadcast of an episode of Jacques Pepin’s “More Fast Food My Way” during which he prepared ratatouille. Not only did he mention how similar ratatouille was to caponata, he used it to dress some penne pasta. How about that? You can add “French chef” to the list of Mom & Zia’s many titles and accomplishments!

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Fried Calamari

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One of the most ubiquitous of appetizers, fried calamari can be found on most of America’s restaurant menus and, as one would expect, recipes abound for creating the dish. Some of these recipes marinate the squid first, while others only flour them before frying. Still others rely on a batter to coat the squid, and those batters may use any one of a number of liquids, from water to milk to beer. Absent a family recipe, what’s a blogger to do?

Well, this blogger ran some tests. Armed with frozen squid, vegetable oil, and a dream, I set out to learn which recipe resulted in the best fried calamari. I took 2 calamari and did nothing but flour them before frying. Six other calamari were given a buttermilk soak for over an hour. Of those, 2 were floured and fried, 2 were dipped in a beer batter before frying, and the last 2 were coated with a water-based batter before frying. My objective was to determine which frying method was the best, so, I only used salt & pepper for seasoning. I didn’t want the results clouded by too many variables.

So, then, how did they do? Well, all 4 preparations fried easily and the results were crisp, although some more so than others. Perhaps my least favorite was the beer batter-fried (lower – left). Although I’d like to try that batter again with chicken, shrimp, or onion rings, it was just too thick for the calamari. These tentacles were the worst of the bunch, a sorry mass of fried batter. Next would have to be the calamari that were fried after only being dipped in flour (l – r). Although they were crispy and the tentacles were the best of all four, they were the least flavorful. As is the case with chicken, soaking the squid in buttermilk made a difference. Next were the calamari that were dipped in a water-based batter (top – left). They were good but not good enough to overtake my favorite, the calamari that were soaked in buttermilk before being floured and fried (t-r). They benefited from the buttermilk and got extra points for ease of preparation and of frying — there was no messy batter to deal with. This, then, is the recipe I’ll be sharing today.

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The Winner!

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Fried Calamari Recipe

yield: 2 servings

Ingredients

  • 1 lb. squid (about 16 medium-sized), cleaned & cut into 1/2 inch rings (Frozen, raw rings may be substituted. Thaw before using.)
  • 2 cups buttermilk
  • 1 cup all-purpose flour
  • 1 tbsp garlic powder
  • 1/2 tsp coarse kosher or sea salt
  • 1 tsp cayenne pepper – more or less to taste
  • 1/4 tsp pepper
  • Oil for frying — NOT olive oil

Directions

  1. Place buttermilk, calamari rings, and tentacles into a bowl and set aside for one hour. If longer, refrigerate until you’re ready.
  2. Heat oil in a large sauce pan or dutch oven over med-high heat.
  3. Place dry ingredients into a bowl and whisk to combine.
  4. Line a sheet pan with paper towels and pre-heat oven to 200*.
  5. When oil reaches 360*, remove some pieces of calamari from the buttermilk and allow excess liquid to run off before dredging them in the flour mixture. Place pieces, one at a time, into the hot oil. Work in batches. Do not overcrowd.
  6. Remove calamari when golden brown, about 90 seconds to 2 minutes, and place on paper-lined sheet pan. Sprinkle with salt and place in warmed oven.
  7. Repeat steps 5 and 6 until all calamari are fried.
  8. Serve immediately with lemon wedges and your favorite dipping sauce.

Variations

The ingredient amounts listed-above are not set in stone. They are what I use and, as you can see, they bring a little heat to the dish. You can just as easily use more of one spice and less of another or, for that matter, skip one altogether in favor of some other. The point is no matter what spices you use, be sure to soak the calamari in buttermilk for optimum flavor. Do that and you won’t be disappointed.

What if, after all of this, you decide you’d rather not fry your calamari? You can always try my Mom’s Calamari Salad recipe. Follow her directions and  you’ll be rewarded with calamari rings that are tender but never rubbery and a salad that looks as fresh as it tastes.

Note

When I ran these tests, I put some thought into the testing but completely forgot about serving the calamari. I was mid-way through the frying when I realized I didn’t have any sauce for an accompaniment. I made a quick dipping sauce using 2 parts mayo, 1 part sour cream, the juice of a half-lemon, 1 grated garlic clove, and a little salt & pepper. It worked just fine although, if you have a low tolerance for garlic, you may wish to use 1/2 clove or none at all.

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Mom’s Tomato Antipasti

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Even more simple than its predecessor, this is my second recipe post and it, too, comes from my childhood. I was raised in Detroit, in what we Chicagoans refer to as a “2-flat.” My family of five lived on the first floor and Zia’s family of five lived on the second. My Grandpa, Mom & Zia’s father, also lived “upstairs,” as did Zia’s mother-in-law, Nonna, on occasion whenever she visited from Canada. Every Summer, Grandpa’s world revolved around his garden, more specifically: his tomatoes. Early each Spring, he planted seeds that he had harvested from the largest beefsteak tomato of his previous year’s crop. A few weeks later, he would select at least 2 dozen of the best seedlings for planting within “his half” of the back yard. Sometime around mid-July, the first of the tomatoes would ripen and from that point until the first frost, we had fresh tomatoes whenever we wanted. Not so coincidentally, it was around mid-July that Mom’s tomato antipasti would make their first appearance of the season on our dinner table.

I’m sure that most are familiar with insalata caprese, where slices of tomato are adorned with slices of mozzarella and basil leaves. A drizzle of olive oil and, sometimes, a splash of vinegar complete this summertime favorite. Although similar, Mom’s dish has 1 ingredient too many for some palates, but that just means there’s more for me.

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Grandpa, His Tomatoes & Guard Dog, “Cookie”

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Mom’s Tomato Antipasti

yield: 1 platter

prep time: approx.  10 minutes

Ingredients

  • 2 or 3 large ripe tomatoes, evenly sliced (more may be required, depending upon the platter size)
  • 1 small can of anchovies in oil, drained and separated into fillets
  • 2 tbsp chopped fresh basil (more may be required, depending upon the platter size)
  • 2 tbsp chopped fresh parsley (more may be required, depending upon the platter size)
  • extra virgin olive oil
  • red wine vinegar
  • salt & pepper, to taste
  • parmesan cheese

Directions

  1. Arrange the tomato slices in one layer across a serving platter. Season with salt & pepper.
  2. Separate the platter into halves and place 1 anchovy on each tomato slice within one of the halves.
  3. Sprinkle the entire platter with the chopped basil and parsley.
  4. Drizzle the entire platter lightly with extra virgin olive oil before adding a splash of red wine vinegar.
  5. Give a light sprinkling of parmesan cheese to the side of the platter that does NOT contain anchovies.
  6. Serve.

Variations

Taken as-is, this recipe comes with its own variation. If you like, you can separate the tray into 3 equal sections, prepare 2 sections as indicated above, and fill the 3rd with insalata caprese, as pictured above..

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