Tyler Florence's Peach, Mozzarella and Crispy Prosciutto Salad

Here's another salad for you courtesy of the farmers' market.  Work is busy enough that I only have the opportunity to cook/eat 1-2 meals per week at home so I really want to take advantage of the produce at the farmers' market and make great meals when I can.  This salad started with the peaches.  I love the smell of fresh peaches, but I just can't get into eating them solo.  It's the fuzz on the skin that really throws me.  But when you combine fresh peaches with other ingredients in a salad or crostini I really enjoy it.  Go figure.  I was going to make this Grilled Peach Panzanella Salad but I thought it would be fun to try something new.  Since I really liked the combination of prosciutto, peaches and dairy in the crostini I wanted to make a salad that used those ingredients.  This Tyler Florence recipe fit the bill perfectly.  It wasn't the most amazing salad we have made but it was fun and different.  I liked the crispy prosciutto and the fennel.  We don't use fennel a lot, but it is really growing on me.  The anise flavor and the crunch of the fennel works beautifully in a salad.  While the salad was nice, it didn't really come together for me.  If you had a bite with equivalent amounts of every single ingredient in it, it wasn't bad, but if you had a bite without the prosciutto it lacked seasoning/salt.  It was still yummy, but it wasn't quite as delicious as I had hoped for. 

I'm hoping that work will slow down enough for us to make a few more farmers' market-inspired meals.  At the very least I have a few more to post about, including the Corn Som Tam with Rock Shrimp we made this afternoon.

Recipe after the jump.

Grilled Zucchini with Burrata

This post includes a few things I never thought I would say.  First, I thought the recipe might have been better without the burrata.  That never happens because I love burrata.  Maybe fresh mozzarella would have worked better?  I don't know but the burrata just didn't seem to really work here.  It was lovely and creamy, but the flavor didn't really seem to work with the acidity of the white wine flavor and the flavors of the marinated zucchini.  And as much as I liked the flavor of the zucchini, it got a little old after awhile.  Maybe in the future I should mix it up and serve several different types of grilled vegetables in the same marinade (but perhaps cut down on the amount of vinegar just a touch) and leave out the cheese as a grilled vegetable platter.  That might work.  Second, the garlic and vinegar here were good in the first bite and then it got to be a bit much.  So I might cut back on those as well.  Otherwise...  Well that might be all I had to say because I can't think of anything else.  If I were to give the dish a grade it would be a B-.  We didn't hate it, but it certainly wouldn't make my list of dishes that we need to make again in the future.  I thought about not bothering to post it at all, but I figured I should own up to my recipe failures (and this wasn't exactly a failure) as well as my successes.  This one fell somewhere in the middle of that spectrum.

Recipe after the jump!

Winter Caprese Salad (Take #2)

I know that I have already posted a few different Mario Batali recipes for caprese salad, including another one called Winter Caprese Salad.  Apparently his names for recipes aren't very creative.  Then again, how many different names can you come up with for caprese salad?  He already has a Summer Caprese Salad as well.  I have been thinking about caprese salad ever since it started getting warmer out and greens started re-appearing at the farmers' market.  But local heirloom tomatoes won't be around for awhile yet, so I figured we had to go with one of the caprese recipes using roasted tomatoes.  Luckily we had a bunch of Roma tomatoes leftover from the other evening that I had bought to make salsa.  And with Zabar's and Salumeria Rosi nearby I always have a ready source of fresh mozzarella and/or burrata.

This recipe actually calls for mozzarella but I was in a burrata mood so we did that instead.  As you can see in the picture above, burrata is a lot creamier and oozes a lot more than regular mozzarella.  I thought it was a really lovely take on caprese salad.  I might slightly prefer Mario Batali's other Winter Caprese Salad recipe (and I think my all-time favorite might be his Summer Caprese Salad but that might just be because I love heirloom tomatoes fresh from the farmers' market and no matter how delicious a roasted Roma tomato is, it just can't compare with a fresh in-season tomato) because this one was a little sweet for me.  Roasting the tomatoes already intensifies their natural sweetness and then adding the agrodolce might have pushed them over the edge of too sweet for me.  But I am being really picky with that criticism.  It was still a wonderful dish.  The man really is a genius.

Recipe after the jump!

Broccoli Rabe with Mozzarella Crema

I used to hate broccoli rabe.  Actually, I used to hate all bitter greens.  Hate is pretty strong - let's just say I disliked them.  I disliked all bitter greens.  I just couldn't understand why anyone would want to eat them when there are so many other more palatable options.  But I kept trying them and trying them and trying them because I have this thing about wanting to like good food.  If someone says it's good, I want to like it too.  And then one day I tried a pizza with sausage and broccoli rabe at Keste and surprisingly, I really liked it.  I'm still somewhat particular about broccoli rabe - simple sauteed broccoli rabe with garlic and evoo just doesn't do it for me.  I need some crushed red pepper flakes or some red wine vinegar, or something else to amp up the flavor and counteract some of the bitterness.  But anytime you combine it with Italian sausage I find that I really enjoy it (granted, a lot of vegetables are probably better with a little sausage).  But most of the broccoli rabe I buy comes straight from the grocery store so I acknowledge that I haven't been eating broccoli rabe at its best.  This past Saturday I saw some broccoli rabe at the farmers' market that just looked so beautiful.  I had to buy it.  The stalks were smaller and the leaves were more tender.  I knew it was going to be delicious.  So I decided to try to find a simpler way to prepare it where the flavor of the broccoli rabe wouldn't be masked too much by sausage.  After a little hunting through various cookbooks, I narrowed it down to two different Mario Batali recipes, this recipe and another recipe for Braised Broccoli Rabe in the Style of Puglia.  Once we realized that we didn't have black olives, this recipe was the only one left standing.

I enjoyed the broccoli rabe. It was incredibly simple and fresh.  You didn't get a ton of flavor from the mozzarella, but mozzarella isn't exactly a pungent cheese.  I tasted the nice grassy evoo we used more than I tasted the mozzarella, but the mozzarella did lend the dish a certain level of creaminess.  And I think the simplicity of the dish worked really nicely with the young, tender broccoli rabe.  If we had been using older broccoli rabe I think the bitterness of the green would have totally overpowered the mozzarella crema and the dish would have been far less enjoyable.  In Alex's opinion the broccoli rabe was just "fine" (which I knew he was going to say), but I like broccoli rabe a lot more than he does.

Recipe after the jump!

Tomato, Mozzarella & Thai Basil Crostini

I am going to dive right into this post by proclaiming this my favorite dish that we have made in the past few weeks and certainly my favorite dish this month.  The Pasta with Sun Gold Tomatoes was a close second, but I just really loved everything about this crostini.  The combination of ingredients sounds a little weird because who has ever heard of an Asian-inspired caprese salad?  Actually, I have now that I think about it.  David Chang has a recipe for a Cherry Tomato Salad in the Momofuku cookbook (see this post on Momofukufor2).  But it uses tofu instead of mozzarella and shiso instead of basil.  Moving on.  Sesame oil and rice vinegar with mozzarella?  Not to mention Thai basil?  Weird.  But so very delicious.  Be a little judicious about the amount of garlic you rub on your toast because the garlic can taste a little abrasive against the other, more delicate flavors.  I went a little heavy-handed on my first few crostinis before I realized just how much garlic I was using.  Oops.  Even so it was amazing.  I loved it.  I believe I called it "pretty F-ing fabulous."  I admit it.  Sometimes I have a potty mouth.  But sometimes a little profanity is in order.

While I am at it, I'm also going to dive right in and say that this is probably my last post of the week.  Or at least until Saturday.  And for those of you who want to know why the answer is simple.  I don't think I will be eating dinner anywhere but my desk until this weekend at the earliest.  And I haven't eaten dinner away from my desk since last Friday so I havne't been able to stock up on posts.  Posting this weekend might be a tad optimistic, but if I am not at the office I will do my best!  At least I am leaving you all with a delicious post before I disappear again.  And at least I am taking a break from working to do so?


Recipe after the jump!

Grilled Peach Panzanella Salad

I have to thank Tastespotting for providing me with the inspiration for this salad.    A few days ago I was scrolling through the recipes and pictures on Tastespotting and this recipe for Grilled Peach Panzanella Salad caught my eye.  We had some nice fresh peaches from the farmers' market that I had no idea what to do with.  Neither Alex nor I like peach cobbler so that would have been a waste.  Nor do I typically like peaches enough to just eat one.  And Alex dislikes anything peach-flavored (which means that he has never eaten a raw peach before), so I was justifiably nervous about what we made with the pretty peaches I picked up.  This recipe seemed perfect because it showcased the peaches, but toned them down a little by combining them with ingredients like arugula, fresh mozzarella and great bread that we already know and love.  

This salad really blew me away.  When I tasted the dressing by itself I thought the balsamic was overpowering.  And then I tossed it all together and it was marvelous and wonderfully balanced.  It was delicious.  It was so summery and fresh.  After this I think I might be able to convince Alex to try more peach recipes.  I might even get him to eat a peach by itself!  That in and of itself would make the salad an unqualified success.

Recipe after the jump!

Tomato and Bufala Mozzarella Tart

This dish is something that I have been waiting to make for some time now.  I'm not really sure why it took me so long.  A restaurant called Recipe on the UWS serves a Tomato and Buffalo Mozzarella Tart (with basil pistou, brioche and grape tomatoes) that gave me the idea for this tart.  Actually, I have never even tried their version of the tart, but everytime I go I want to order it (and somehow end up ordering other things instead).  Last night I finally decided to go ahead and make a tart, but then I couldn't decide whether I wanted to make an asparagus and gruyere tart, or a tomato mozzarella tart like Recipe's.  After some consideration, I decided that I was feeling more tomato mozzarella than asparagus (which makes sense considering I  pounded my way through an entire bunch of asparagus on Friday).  Aside from defrosting the puff pastry, this entire dish comes together very quickly.  And if you just take the puff pastry out of the freezer and throw it in the fridge the night before or the morning of, the defrosting is a snap.

I liked the tart.  I didn't love it.  Alex and I both thought that it was good, but it was missing something.  I liked how the bufala mozzarella melted and oozed down over the tomatoes.  It was deliciously creamy.  In the future I might add a little finely minced garlic on top of the tomatoes for another layer of flavor.  Or instead of bufala mozzarella I might try some goat cheese for a different flavor and texture.  Or maybe I would smear a thin layer of ricotta or something on the puff pastry before baking.  Alternatively, I could try out a different type of crust and see how that affects the recipe.  I will have to think about it for a little bit.  In the interim, I would consider this recipe as satisfactory, but needs improvement.

Recipe after the jump!