Parmesan finger food

Wear your heart on a stick

Since we came back from Bologna in June – writes Liz Cousins -  I have been trying to keep up the Italian I learnt at the wonderful Bolognese language school – www.culturaitaliana.eu/Bologna. -  where I did a week’s intensive course.  So I have found a local Italian teacher Laura who is trying to cram some more grammar into my brain.

 This Saturday Laura invited all of her students to a spaghettata. We were all asked to bring a contribution and the idea was that we would try out our best Italian phrases on each other.  I decided to make a few nibbles to add to the antipasti plate. Both of these recipes  make ideal  finger food or canapés.  The hearts on a stick could be what Franski is looking for for her wedding next May.

Biscotti di parmigiano

These are simplicity itself, although one or two seconds too long in the oven can ruin a whole batch. All you need is a pile of finely grated Parmesan, a flat baking tray covered with Bake-o-Glide or equivalent, a 2” (50ml) round biscuit cutter and a palette knife.

Place the cutter on the tray and sprinkle in ¼ inch (12ml) of parmesan - make sure it covers the whole area before you  remove the cutter.  The parmesan should retain its shape but you don’t need to be too tidy about it.  Repeat, leaving a good space between each as they spread as they melt.

Taking care not to jog the tray place it into an oven heated to 220 degrees C or Gas 7.  This is the tricky part- the cheese will quickly melt and bubble and you want it to very slightly change colour but not too much as this will make the biscuits bitter.   Remove the tray from the oven and leave the biscuits to cool and set hard. Carefully remove with a palette knife.

You can store the biscotti  for a few days in a tin but I find that they never last that long.

 You can make them into lollipops  for a party or heart shaped for a wedding by placing a wooden lollipop stick into the centre of the parmesan shapes before you cook  them, adding  a little more parmesan to cover up  the stick. Cook as above.

Crostatine di parmigiano con olive

Another simple starter-  Mix one large egg with 40g of finely grated parmesan and 2 tablespoons of cream, plus salt and pepper. Take a sheet of bought puff pastry and cut small squares just big enough to fit shallow bun tins (I find muffin tins too deep).  Add 2 pitted green olives and a good spoonful of the mixture.  Place in a hot oven (about 220 degrees C) until the pastry is golden brown and the filling has puffed up.

Aubergine, egg plant, melanzane - what’s it good for?



Melanzane Parmigiana

  Yesterday was the first really warm day of spring so we had lunch in the conservatory with our visitor, Mo, who popped in on the way back to Liverpool (where we lived until 1984 and where our children were born). It was a day for a light but tasty lunch and salads. So we had a trio of aubergine antipasti with a tomato salad and a green salad. The tomatoes were simply dressed with olive oil – Castillo de Canena, my current favourite from Spain via Waitrose – and I mixed some sweet romaine leaves with fresh garden herbs.

Liz is an aubergine sceptic so I’ve been thinking about some dishes to win her over. The flavour of this beautiful but diffident vegetable can be elusive, especially when it is served soggy with oil or overwhelmed with rich sauces.

We began with melanzane parmigiana which she pronounced ‘the best ever’. Can you grill some slices of aubergine? Can you make`a simple tomato sauce? Can you oil a mould? Then you can make melanzane parmigiana. Why make it in a mould? First because it looks better when it’s served. Second, because it controls the size of the portion, a vital consideration if you’ve ever been presented with a vast and over rich portion of melanzane oozing with cream and mozzarella. (Yuck.)

The second and third members of the trio are caponata and simply grilled aubergine dressed with balsamic glaze and lovage. The caponata also came in a mould, held together with a light savoury jelly. If you are a vegetarian you could dispense with the jelly by lightly freezing the caponata and unmoulding it while it is still very cold.

The test

When it came to awarding points, the lunch party was divided: Mo preferred the caponata whilst Liz’ favourite was the parmigiana. As for me, I loved them both. Would you serve them all at one sitting? Why not? Three aubergine antipasti - best made together because they use different parts of the vegetable.

Serves 4.

You will need 8 metal or foil moulds, ideally 8cm x 5cm and 6 cm tall.

Grilled with a balsamic glaze and lovage

Ingredients

3 aubergines – classic purple-black variety

50ml olive oil

for the melanzane parmigiana

1 large onion

2 cloves of garlic

4 bay leaves

1 400g tin chopped tomatoes

1tbl sugar

50g finely grated parmesan

50g fine breadcrumbs

for the caponata

1 large onion, finely chopped

1 red pepper, cut into dice

3 sticks of celery, finely chopped

2 cloves of garlic, finely chopped


2tbl pine kernels





2tbl sultanas

2tbl sugar

20ml red wine vinegar

½ vegetable stock cube

2 small sheets gelatine



2tbl balsamic glaze (if you can’t find this in the shops you can make it by reducing 3 tablespoons of balsamic vinegar with a tablespoon of soft brown sugar and half a teaspoon of cornflour to create a smooth sauce)

1 bunch of lovage or parsley finely chopped.

Method

1. Begin by making the tomato sauce: soften finely chopped onion and garlic, then add the tomatoes, bay leaves and sugar and simmer until you have a thick sauce.

2. Oil the moulds.



3. Slice the narrow end of the aubergine to create for each mould four slices of increasing diameter so that they fit snugly into the mould. The slices should be about half a centimetre thick.

4. Fill the moulds with alternating layers of aubergine, parmesan, breadcrumbs and tomato sauce, beginning and ending with a slice of aubergine, and ensuring that the moulds are full to the top. Refrigerate.

5. Slice half the remainder of the aubergine thinly lengthwise. Oil and heat a griddle. Grill the aubergine slices until cooked through.



Caponata with grilled aubergine


 

6. Cut the rest of the aubergine into centimetre cubes. Fry quickly in hot oil until beginning to brown. Set aside.

7. In the same pan fry the red pepper, onion, garlic and the celery until it all softens. Clear a space in the centre of the pan, add pine kernels and cook for a couple of minutes until they start to brown. Add the sultanas. Add sugar and wine vinegar and bring to a simmer for two minutes to create the sweet sour effect essential to caponata. Now add back the aubergine.

8. Soak the gelatine in cold water to soften it. Dissolve the half stock cube in hot water in a small pan. Drain the gelatine and add to the stock, gently dissolving the gelatine on a low flame.

9. Oil four small moulds and fill each with the vegetable mixture. Then pour the gelatine fluid slowly into each one until it reaches the top. Refrigerate until the jelly sets, preferably over night..

10. To cook the melanzane parmigiana, prepare a bain marie and place the moulds in it up to their arm pits with a piece of aluminium foil on top. Place in an oven at about 170 degrees C. for 25 minutes. Take them out and let them cool for a few minutes.

11. To serve the caponata, run a knife around the inside of each mould and unmould on the plate they will be served on. Alongside them carefully place three or four griddled slices of aubergine, daintily decorated with balsamic glaze and the lovage or parsley.

12. Run a knife around the inside of the melanzane parmigiana moulds and unmould them on their serving plate.

13. You should serve the melanzane parmigiana while it is still hot, perhaps with a tomato salad.

14. The caponata and grilled aubergine you can serve alongside so that the three distinctive aubergine tastes are on display together - or keep for another meal.



Sformati di patate con salsa di aglio selvatico – Potato flans with wild garlic sauce

Sformato di patate with asparagus sauce is a winning starter from Teresina on via Oberdan. Ruth and the girls were up for the weekend and we decided that we would try it with a wild garlic sauce – in the new spirit of foraging - as the opener of a three course dinner. On a walk up the stream and through the woods earlier in the day we’d noticed the green carpet of new wild garlic which is still tender enough to eat in a salad but which makes a subtlety garlic inflected sauce to accompany the sformato.

The main course – which will appear here later in the week – was rabbit ragù with pappardelle – followed by zuppa inglese. More of both later.

If you have the Silver Spoon cookbook you’ll see a long list of vegetable sformati, including leek and spinach. You may have tried my recipe for leek sformati with a red pepper sauce. Do try the potato version. If you don’t have a conveniently sited bed of wild garlic you could make a sauce with leek or spring onion.

Makes enough for six.

Ingredients

50g butter

35g plain flour

350g milk

6 bay leaves

½ tsp nutmeg

salt and pepper

500g waxy potato eg Charlotte

3 large eggs

75g parmesan grated

3tbl olive oil

150g wild garlic, well washed

1 onion

100ml double cream

Method

1. Peel the potatoes, cut into chunks and steam

2. Make a béchamel sauce by melting 35g of the butter, adding the flout to make a roux and adding the milk to form a smooth sauce to which you add the cheese, nutmeg and seasoning to taste. When cooler, stir in the three lightly beaten eggs.

3. When the potato is cooked, mash, and amalgamate with the sauce.

4. Butter six metal moulds or ramekins and spoon in the potato sauce.

5. Place the moulds in a bain-marie filled with water two-thirds of the way up the containers. Cover with foil and place in a medium oven – about 170 degrees C. for 30 minutes. Use a skewer to check that the sformati are cooked – it should come out clean - remove them from the bain-marie and allow to cool. Then, run a knife around each sformato and tip onto a plate.

6. Make the sauce by softening in olive oil a finely chopped onion. and then adding the wild garlic.

7. Add the cream, cook for three minutes on a medium heat, then liquidise to create a smooth sauce.

8. Spoon some sauce around each sformato and serve.

Papparocci – Bean and polenta slice

This bean and polenta dish harks back to the days when cucina povera – poor man’s food - wasn’t a fashionable foodie trend but a necessity for families who couldn’t afford meat and bread. Marcello dall’Aglio has put it on the menu at La Locanda as part of a campaign to revisit the traditional roots of cucina bolognese. He has it as an antipasto or even as a finger food for banquets. As the photo suggest, it can also be served as a more substantial dish, in this case accompanied by a simple tomato sauce. Other names: calzagatti, ciribusla.

There are three parts to the dish: the bean stew, the polenta and the tomato sauce.

Ingredients (enough for 4 as a substantial dish)

6 tablespoons olive oil

2 medium onions

4 sticks celery

2 medium carrots

3 cloves garlic

2 tins chopped tomatoes

4 bay leaves

4 finely chopped sage leaves

1 tin borlotti beans

salt and pepper to taste

400ml water

100g polenta

30g butter

60g grated parmesan

Method

1. chop the onion, garlic, celery and carrot into fine dice.

2. to make the tomato sauce, gently fry half the onion and garlic until they soften, then add a tin of tomatoes and the bay leaves.

3. to make the sauce for the beans, gently fry the remaining vegetables until then soften, then add the beans, a tin of tomatoes and the sage. Cook together on a very low light for an hour or in a cool oven for two hours.

4. to make the polenta, heat 400ml of water to simmering point, then gradually stir in the polenta. Cook for two minutes, being careful to avoid being spattered by the polenta (I wear kitchen gloves for protection), until it thickens, stirring constantly to prevent it catching on the bottom of the pan.

5. Add the butter and the parmesan and salt and pepper to taste, cooking and stirring for another couple of minutes.

6. Grease a large flat roasting pan with oil or butter and tip in the bean stew then the polenta, mixing them together. Allow to cool.

7. To serve hot, cut the bean and polenta mix into slices, fry in a couple of spoonfuls of olive oil, meanwhile reheating the tomato sauce.

Courgette (US zucchini) and ricotta fritters

This quick and easy recipe is delicious and helps you – if you’re a gardener – to confront the annual courgette glut. The fritters make a good starter or snack, accompanied by a bowl of freshly made mayonnaise, or could form a main course, perhaps with a salad. Mind you don’t chop or process the courgette otherwise you’ll get a squidgy mess. You want 0.5cm. dice for a good texture and flavour. Other vegetables work well instead of or alongside the courgettes: potato, beetroot and spinach or chard (but make sure it is dry after you have briefly cooked it).

These quantities will make about 12-16 fritters, depending on how generous you are with your spoonfuls of batter; plenty for 4 people.

1 large Onion

1 large Clove of garlic

200g Courgette

3 large Eggs

3 tablespoons Plain flour

200g Ricotta

4 tablespoons Oil – sunflower

handful Basil

To taste Salt and pepper



1. Finely chop the onion and garlic and fry until it softens.

2. Meanwhile dice the courgette and add to the onion, frying it until it begins to brown. That caramelisation adds a subtle sweetness to the fritters.

3. Make a batter by mixing the flour into the beaten eggs, then adding the ricotta. Then add the vegetables, the basic and salt and pepper to taste.

4. Heat the oil in a large non-stick frying pan and begin to add tablespoons of the mixture, flattening them slightly as you do so. Fry for three or four minutes on each side, until the fritters begin to brown

Courgette and Ricotta Fritters