Roasted Pears with Prosciutto and Burrrata: a Rustic App That Packs a Punch

I've tried to meditate many times, but I can't seem to quiet my mind. Still, if I were to take up meditation, my mantra would be "Aaahhh Burrata."

Whenever I walk into Whole Foods, or any specialty food store for that matter, I head straight for the cheese aisle. While I love cheese in any form, especially the smelly, oozy kind, there's one cheese in particular that I'm on the hunt for: burrata. I only find it on occasion, and when it's there, I pounce, reshaping my weekly menu around its creamy curds.

If you've never tried this gift from the gods, let me describe it for you. Burrata is an incredibly delicious fresh cheese consisting of an outer pouch of mozzarella and an inner filling of a combination of mozzarella curds and cream. It can be made from either buffalo or cow's milk, but is richer with buffalo milk. The result is rich and decadent, like popping a little cloud of dairy heaven in your mouth. Burrata actually means butter in Italian. It was created in Puglia in Italy in the 1920s but is now becoming more widely available in the US.

In the summer, when the tomatoes are sweet and fragrant, I don't get fancy. There's nothing better than rough slices of burrata on fresh farmers' market tomatoes. But even in winter, when the tomatoes taste worse than cardboard, I still pounce if I find burrata in the store. And that's when things get interesting.

Last week, I cobbled together a homely looking appetizer that was so good I licked the plate. I roasted some pear slices with honey and balsamic then topped them with a sliver of prosciutto and a dab of burrata. Each messy bite was creamy, sweet, and salty at the same time, heaven in my mouth. Now I just need to refine it so it's not too messy to serve to guests.

Roasted Pears with Prosciutto and Burrata
Prep Time: 10 minutes
Cook Time: 30 minutes (to roast the pears)
Ingredients:
2 Pears (the harder kind such as D'Anjou)
1/4 cup of balsamic vinegar
1/4 cup of honey
3 slice of prosciutto
1 lump of burrata

1. Preheat the oven to 450 degrees Fahrenheit.
2. Peel and slice the pears into 1 inch slices. Toss with the balsamic vinegar and honey.
3. Roast for 20 minutes in the oven until lightly crisp. 
4. Once the pears have cooled slightly, top with a sliver of prosciutto and burrata. Serve with napkins!

Meyer Lemon Gastrique Brightens Up Roast Chicken

A Meyer Lemon Gastrique Sauce Jazzes Up Weekday Roast Chicken.

I've been doing a little experimentation lately, with exotic fruits and with gastrique sauces. When the world is cold and gray, there's nothing like playing around with unexpected tastes in the kitchen, waking up your mouth with some unusual flavors, while getting your heart racing that dinner might be a disaster or something new and thrilling.

Melting brown sugar into caramel is the start of this gastrique sauce.

Until the latest issue of Bon Appetit featured a blood orange gastrique, I'd only seen gastrique sauces on very fancy restaurant menus and I had no idea that it was actually a fairly easy sauce to make. Gastriques are sweet and sour sauces made from caramel (from various sugars or honeys) and vinegar and fruit juice. I was worried that it would make a sticky and hard to clean mess of my saucepan, but the sauce comes together easily and neatly. Now that I'm armed with the technique, I've been having a field day with gastriques.

Meyer Lemons Brightening Up my Kitchen.

Because I'm tired of being disappointed by tasteless melons and mealy blueberries, I've also been trying out unfamiliar exotic fruits like Ugli fruit, Meyer lemons, and star fruit. Why settle for a bland strawberry when you can stimulate your tastebuds with something completely new? These exotic fruits are fun to combine with a gastrique sauce to put something really exciting on the table.

The other night, I used Meyer Lemons  in a gastrique for roast chicken. I had never cooked with Meyer Lemons before, and I wanted an excuse to taste and handle these sweet lemons without committing to a full dessert with an unfamiliar ingredient. My roast chicken was really something special.

Roast Chicken with Meyer Lemon Gastrique
Ingredients:
One Whole Chicken
1 Tablespoon of Butter
Penzey's Old World Seasoning
For the gastrique:
4 tablespoons of brown sugar
juice of 2 Meyer lemons
4 tablespoons of balsamic vinegar

1. Roast the chicken according to your favorite recipe 
2. During the last 20 minutes of cooking, pour the brown sugar into a heavy bottom medium saucepan. Heat on medium flame until the sugar melts, about 5 minutes.
3. As soon as the sugar has melted into a caramel, reduce the flame to low, and add the vinegar, stirring vigorously until blended. There will be lots of frothing and hissing, stir until you have a brown, viscous, substance.
4. Now add the Meyer Lemon juice, stirring again until all blended. Heat on low, stirring frequently, for 2-3 minutes to reduce the sauce.
5. Combine the gastrique with the chicken pan juices, or just add a tablespoon of butter to finish it off and serve on top of the chicken.

The Cheater's Cassoulet

Chefdruck's Tasty Tuesday

Before delving into tonight's Tasty Tuesday recipe, I wanted to report back on my pirate birthday cake. Everyone was impressed with the cake and all of Jack's friends were delighted by all the candy decorating it. Cutting into it was painful but the slices actually looked pretty good too. I was enjoying a slice of my own, filling my mouth with the chocolaty frosting, feeling like the ultimate mom, when I noticed that Jack was not at the table with his friends. He was playing ostrich with his head buried deep into the couch cushions. I walked over to see what the matter was and he whispered, "There's something I want to tell you but I'm scared." I knew before the words were out of his mouth that he didn't like the cake. I wasn't upset, I just felt so bad that he was worrying about it on his birthday. Once I assured him that my feelings were not hurt and that I was not mad, I handed him a new plate with plain cake and lots of swedish fish. He ran back into the party with a big smile, all worries erased. Next year I'll be decorating vanilla icing instead of using chocolate.


Now onto tonight's recipe. French cooking is full of delicious hearty winter stews like Beef Bourguignon. The heartiest of the hearties is Cassoulet. A stick to your ribs white bean stew filled with sausage and duck confit. Cassoulet satisfies the deepest parts of your soul. It's comfort food to the ultimate degree, but it definitely isn't diet food or a quick and easy recipe.

I was a little skeptical when I ran across a Real Simple recipe for cassoulet that seemed relatively easy. I'm generally a purist when it comes to French cooking but I was intrigued. Because this recipe doesn't involve dried beans or duck confit, I actually happened to have the ingredients in my fridge and pantry so I decided to give it a try. I ended up having cassoulet for the rest of the week. And I walked around every day in a deeply happy food coma state.

As the only source of fat in this version is from one pound of Italian sausage, it's also considerably healthier than the real thing.

Winter Cassoulet - adapted from Real Simple Magazine
Prep time: 10 minutes
Cook Time: 1 hour and 15 minutes
1 lb of Italian sausage, casings removed
1 1/2 cups of chicken broth
1 small onion, finely chopped
4 carrots, coarsely chopped
3 parsnips, coarsely chopped
1 tomato, chopped
3 cloves of garlic, minced
3 15-oz cans of white beans (Great Northern, cannelini, or navy beans), drained
1 teaspoon of dried thyme leaves
1 cup of breadcrumbs
1/4 cup of fresh parsley
2 tablespoons of melted butter
1 tablespoon of olive oil

1) In a thick cast iron pot, heat the oil over medium heat. Cook the sausage until browned, breaking it up as it cooks. Remove from the heat and set to rest on paper towels. Remove the extra oil from the pot.
2) Add the vegetables to the pot and cook until softened, stirring frequently to prevent scorching, about five minutes.
3) Add the chicken broth, beans, thyme, and sausage and return to heat. Feel free to salt and pepper according to your tastes too. Bring to a boil. Reduce heat to low, cover, and simmer for about one hour. Stir occasionally until the mixture is thickened and the vegetables are tender.
4) Heat oven to 400 degrees Farenheit. Combine the breadcrumbs, parsley and butter in a bowl. Sprinkle the bread crumb mixture evenly over the cassoulet and put in the oven. Bake, uncovered, until the crust is golden, about 15 minutes.
5) Serve immediately or enjoy the next day reheated. I reheated mine in the microwave with no problem.