Cucina Testa Rossa

You say tomahto, I say tomayto, roasted heirloom tomato soup that is!

You say tomahto, I say tomayto, roasted heirloom tomato soup that is! Yes, more tomato stories! Sorry, please indulge me here... I am going heirloom tomato crazy these days. The tomatoes are so gorgeous right now, I can't pass a tomato without wanting to squeeze it. They are my siren calling from the depths of the ocean, taunting me to make with them everything imaginable from savory to sweet and back again. The past few weeks I've been living on one of the many tomato tart attempts in my fridge from my last culinary adventure and last night I just had to make that soup again. If nothing else then to see those gorgeous colors and color combinations and designs only found from the tap of Mother Nature's wand.

A friend from the hi-tech trenches who I hadn't seen in years came over for dinner so out came the tomatoes. I went with three tried and true recipes and two new ones from a fellow cook on the Cannes Film Festival trip a few years back. Brian is the cutest guy on the planet, not to mention a total rock star chef, and a week or so ago he sent me a salmon recipe that looked so good, I had to make it as soon as possible. So with Connee coming over, I knew she’d be game to be my culinary guinea pig for a night. We hadn't seen each other in six years and a lot of life had happened in those six years so a time to celebrate the fact that we keep on keepin' on in spite of life's speed bumps (that more often feel like 2x4s) and rekindling a friendship after many years. Starting with bubbles was a given. Cheers!

Domaine Carneros by Taittinger 2005 Brut Sparkling Wine

Spanish Marcona Almonds
Torta de Aceite Olive Oil Crisp Bread, sugared with almonds

Domaine Charles Audoin 2008 Marsannay Rosé

Roasted Heirloom Tomato Soup

Apricot Chili Smoked Salmon
Herbed Quinoa

Brie Stuffed with Dried Cherries, Blueberries, Apricots
Mixed Greens with Lemon-Orange Vinaigrette

Vanilla-Banana Grand Marnier Flambée

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Roasted Heirloom Tomato Soup
For 8 people (this gives 2 large ladles per person)

5 pounds heirloom tomatoes, all different colors
20 sprigs thyme, leave removed, stems discarded
1 handful basil leaves
1/2 head garlic, individual cloves, peeled
1/4 cup *good* olive oil
1 tbsp sea salt
1 tbsp fresh ground pepper

1. Cut the heirlooms into wedges, put into a roasting pan with high sides. Tomatoes shouldn't come up higher than 2/3 up the side of the pan because lots of juice will come out and you don't want all that goodness spilling over the sides.

2. Add thyme leaves, basil, garlic cloves, olive oil, salt, pepper. Stir to combine.
3. Roast in 400F oven for 60 minutes
4. Blend with an immersion blender, or ladle in batches into a blender.
5. Taste for seasoning. Add salt & pepper if needed.
6. Serve with a drizzle of good olive oil, thyme sprig

Note: Other garnishes: rustic croutons, dried tomato slice...
Basil is optional. The first time I made it, I didn't use basil and it was delicious.
This can be made ahead and reheated gently to serve.

Brian's Apricot Chili Smoked Salmon & Herbed Quinoa
Serves 4

1 cedar plank
1-1/2 to 2 lb filet salmon (get a piece from the thick side)
2-3 tbsp apricot preserves (I use Bonne Maman)
1/2-1" fresh ginger root, grated (use an amount that fits your taste. fresh ginger is very strong.)
a few shakes of red chili flakes
... and because I can’t leave a good thing well enough alone ...
1 tiny pinch of cayenne (this made it a bit too strong for me but if you like hot, go for it)

Now this recipe is meant for a grill but not having one, I thought "if you can cook it on a grill, you should be able to cook it in an oven" so away I blindly went…

1. Soak cedar plank for at least an hour submerged in water
2. Preheat oven to 350F
3. Mix apricot preserves, ginger, chili flakes
4. Place cedar plank in oven for 3 minutes
5. Take out the plank, place salmon on plank and slather with apricot mix
6. Cook for 15 minutes
7. Place plank on a serving platter and serve.

Note: the apricot mixture can be made ahead and chilled until ready to use.

Quinoa is another one I've never made, had it numerous times in restaurants but never made it. But I have on occasion been able to follow directions so off I went sending prayers to the quinoa gods that it didn't turn into a pile of glue.

1 cup dry quinoa, rinsed twice
1 tbsp butter
1 can vegetable broth
1 shallot, finely chopped
1 garlic clove, finely chopped
10 sprigs of thyme leaves
1 small handful of parley leaves, finely chopped
1/2 lemon, juiced

1. toast quinoa in butter
2. add vegetable broth and bring to a boil
3. lower to a simmer and cook until done
4. stir in shallot, garlic, and herbs
5. add lemon juice
6. add salt & pepper to taste

Plate a large serving spoon of quinoa on a plate, then top with a piece of the salmon and serve. Bon appetit!

Note: The quinoa can be made ahead but wait until you serve it to add the herbs as they should be fresh and just chopped to maximize freshness and look. Also the garlic gets much stronger the next day and can take over the dish.

Stuffed Brie with Mixed Greens
Serves 4

I first saw this dish at a small local bistro in Paris, La Beurre Noisette. There were no tourists, only local Parisians and the stray American expat (moi). The wedge of brie was so beautiful and it was plated with a small mixed green salad. Five years later, I can still picture it and remember how beautiful I thought I was.

1 small 8 oz wheel of brie (this is much easier to do with a round of brie as opposed to a wedge).
1/2 cup dried fruits (cherries, cranberries, blueberries, apricots. If using apricots, cut in half or quarters depending on size)
hot water and a little wine or liquour

Note: try to keep the container in tact that the brie came in. often they come in a thin wooden packaging. Keep this as it makes it much easier to work with.

1. place brie in freezer just until firm, about 15 minutes
2. placed dried fruits in a bowl and fill to just cover fruit with 1/2 hot water and 1/2 wine (or rum or other liquour), let soak for 15 minutes
3. take brie out of freezer, unwrap, keep container and cut brie in half across the equator
4. place the bottom half back in the container
5. drain the fruit, squeezing out excess water and spread across the brie to cover completely
6. plate top half of brie back over the fruit and press down gently
7. place in fridge to firm.

To serve:
When you serve the first coarse, take the brie out of the fridge and set aside, letting it come to room temp.
When you clear the dinner plates, place the brie (in the container, on an oven proof plate) in a very low oven, 150F, for 5 minutes to make it a bit oozy.
Cut into 4 wedges and serve with a small mixed green salad tossed in a light vinaigrette

Lemon-Orange Vinaigrette

1/2 garlic clove, finely chopped
1/2 small shallot, finely chopped
juice of 1/2 lemon
juice of 1/2 orange
pinch of sea salt
generous pinch fresh ground pepper
1/2 cup good olive oil

1. in a deep bowl, place all ingredients, except olive oil, and combine with a whish
2. slowly whisk in olive oil
3. place a tablespoon of dressing in the bottom of a clean bowl and add greens.
4. toss to coat adding dressing a little at a time until it's dressed to your liking but keep it light so you can enjoy the cheese, not overpower it.

Vanilla-Banana Grand Marnier Flambée
Serves 4

1 pint haagen dazs vanilla frozen yogurt
2 bananas, cut into 1/4" slices
1-2 tbsp butter
2 tbsp brown sugar
splash Grand Marnier
Optional: raspberries, chocolate shavings

1. melt butter in deep pan with sloped edges on medium high heat
2. add bananas and toss immediately
3. add brown sugar and toss immediately
4. let it begin to caramelize, 2-3 minutes
5. add splash of Grand Marnier and flambée. Flambéing is optional of course, if you aren't comfortable with flames shooting from your pan :) You can opt for the less flammable approach and let the alcohol cook off swirling the pan until it does.
6. Optional: when done caramelizing the bananas, take off the heat and stir in some raspberries and chocolate. It will melt right away so have the fro-yo already in the glass ready to go and serve immediately.
7. Scoop 2 small or one large scoop of fro-yo into a martini glass (or other dish) and spoon the bananas flambée over the top.

And there you have it! :) A delicious meal, easy to prepare, much that can be done ahead of time so you can spend time relaxing with your guests and not stressed out in the kitchen.

The musical notes of two of my favorite bands swirled around us all evening: PawnShop kings & Rocco DeLuca & the Burden. Both a combination of "stomping rock, swampy blues" and angelic gospel with vocals, music and lyrics that grab you by the lapels and reach down to the depths of your soul. From the PawnShop kings' loves songs inspired by their wives to Rocco's sliding Dobro guitar riffs, every song, every riff, leaves me in awe.

So gather your friends, share your life, your stories (cuz everyone has one!), your selves with those around you allowing good food and wine to draw you around a table and celebrate, if nothing else, that we all just keep on keepin' on.

Cheers and a resounding Julia Child rendition of Bon Appetit!

Friends Cook at Canelé & Tomato Tart Angst

Last week, I had the honor of guest chefing at Canelé, a jewel of a restaurant that shines on a nondescript street in Atwater Village next to Silverlake and Los Feliz in LA. Corina Weibel, a former commodities trader in Zurich and New York, leads the kitchen with a serious calmness, a laser focus, and a sense of humor that keeps everyone on track, relaxed yet firing out food, and remarkably smiling even at the busiest, craziest of moments. There was no yelling, no swearing, no angst (except from me and my tomato tart but more about that later...), and no attitude. Forgot to prep the Niçoise? No worries, 86 it.

Years cooking at our very own Cypress Club and LA's renowned Campanile and Lucques have made Corina a formidable chef who executes each and every day with a graciousness rarely seen in this industry. I trust we'll be reading more and more about her in the near future. Atwater Village should name a street or something after Corina to keep her there. Everything is made from scratch from the stocks to the brandade, from the salsa verde to the caramelized canelés served at the end of every meal. These cooks crank out the most delicious, gorgeous food, they have fun doing it, and it emanates throughout the restaurant. The front of the house is a well oiled machine led by Jane Choi who honed her management skills at New York’s Balthazar and Pastis, two of my favorite restaurants and stomping grounds during cooking school.

Every few weeks on a Tuesday night they host "Friends Cook" featuring a different chef with a unique prix fixe menu. After a few iterations and thanks to the gorgeous heirloom tomatoes I stumbled upon a few weeks earlier at the Silverlake farmer’s market, we decided to feature an all heirloom tomato menu.

Roasted Heirloom Tomato Soup - tomatoes roasted with thyme, basil, olive oil, sea salt and fresh ground pepper

Poisson en Pappiotte - Halibut poached in white wine and heirloom baby tomatoes over a bed of risotto and wilted spinach

Heirloom Tomato Tart - puff pastry with goat cheese filling, topped with tomato chutney and roasted heirloom tomatoes

The tomato soup was easy. Roast the tomatoes and blend. Done. The fish, even easier, having made it a few hundred times before. But the tart... That tart! I agonized over that tart. Agonized, I tell you! I had never actually made one but it sounded easy enough. A tart crust, some filling and tomatoes. How hard could it be? Well however hard it could be, I made it harder.

I scoured the Internet, put the word out to my chef friends, cooked the recipe at least 6 times in several different variations, and the night before my dinner at Canelé, I had tart nightmares. Nightmares that no one would order my menu and nightmares that people would hate the tart and send it back in a huff of disgust. It is really a "foodie" (as much as I hate that word) dessert – more savory than sweet with cumin and mustard seed – and I worried that only the most adventurous of palates would appreciate it much less enjoy it. Agonized indeed! As unnecessary as all that angst ultimately was, I believe that a healthy dose of fear and excitement can drive the creative juices past the tilt line and result in something truly exceptional and I think this was one such case.

This patchwork of a tart was genuinely a collaborative effort. The filling hailed from Paula Lambert's Goat Cheese Tart recipe, the chutney from Jerry DiVecchio's Sunset Magazine that she spent a few hours searching for and to my amazement found in the hundreds if not thousands of Sunset magazines and books in her office, puff pastry from Canelé chef Corina Weibel, the tomatoes from my Silverlake farmer's market heirloom tomato epiphany a few weeks before, and some delicious inspiration from Chef Diane Anthonissen in Paris. Collaborative, to say the least. So much so that I named it the 5-Chef Canelé Tomato Tart!

When I sat down to type out the entire recipe for my friend Jenn who trekked up from Newport Beach to attend the Canelé dinner, I realized that I’d left the photocopy of the chutney recipe that Jerry handed me at Canelé in Los Angeles... and I was in San Francisco. Damn! And I knew Jerry was out of town so on the internet I surfed. The first few searches for Tomato Lemon Chutney were fruitless, pun intended. When I put quotes around “Tomato Lemon Chutney”, two lonely little links appeared, one taking me to a blog post of Jerry’s exact recipe from her 1987 Sunset Christmas Treasury book. Thank you Hammster, whoever you are, for just by chance opening *that* book to *that* recipe and then blogging about it! You saved me!

Now there are 4 separate and moving parts to this tart, each one critical in and of itself – puff pastry crust, goat cheese filling, tomato-lemon chutney, and roasted tomatoes. I recommend cooking in the order below to optimize your time and keep it moving. It might seem daunting at first but if you cook in this order, it should go pretty quickly and if you have someone helping you, then 3 snaps up, before you know it you’ve got yourself a tart :) If you don’t have much time, if you work late and the kids are screaming, then make the chutney and filling ahead of time (up to 3 days) at your leisure – I know...what’s that?! – and refrigerate until you are ready to bake.

I cooked this tart the following evening for my friends Victor and Alain who I stayed with and who – thank God because I was exhausted! - live just a few minutes from Canelé. We had neither the time nor the inclination to make the chutney but it was still delicious without it. I simply lifted the tart out from the pie plate with the corners of the parchment paper lining, plopped it down in the center of the table, and everyone helped themselves. Bon appetit!

Timing

1. blind bake puff pastry
2. make chutney
3. make filling
4. roast tomatoes
5. when pastry is cool, add filling and bake
6. when tart is cool, spread a thin layer of chutney on top
7. when tomatoes have cooled a bit, top the chutney with roasted tomatoes
8. pour glass of champagne and toast to the heirloom tomato gods

Tart Crust - Puff Pastry

Preheat the oven to 350F. For this recipe at home I used pre-made puff pastry I purchased at Safeway. It was fine, especially since there was no way on God’s green global-warming earth that I was going to spend two days making it from scratch like we did in cooking school, but I digress... If it comes folded, let it warm up enough to unfold and mold into the pie plate without breaking. Or if it comes in a rectangle or square you can simply bake them on a flat baking sheet as we did at Canelé, making long thin tarts that were sliced crosswise. Do what ever you prefer and what ever is easier for you. It's all about ease!

Now Paula Lambert's tart recipe calls for the traditional flour-butter-sugar crust (or pâte brisée) which I’m sure would be delicious but since the filling, chutney and roasted tomatoes are all so rich, Corina suggested a lighter, flakier crust and I was more than happy to oblige. Your call...

Back to the recipe... Blind bake the puff pastry for 15 to 20 minutes, or until light golden brown. Blind baking is baking a crust with nothing in it so that when you add the filling and bake the crust isn’t soggy. For puff pastry, poke it all over with a fork so it doesn’t poof up and hit the top of the oven. It will still poof up a bit, just gently tap it down with your hand in a towel or oven mitt. Set aside the crust and let cool. Keep the oven on, you’ll need it for the tart and tomatoes coming up...

Tomato Lemon Chutney

- 2 lemons
- 1 can (about 1lb) whole or diced tomatoes (not puréed!)
- 1 tbsp olive oil
- 1 small dried hot red chile
- 1 tbsp mustard seeds
- 1/2 tsp cumin seeds
- 1/4 tsp ground nutmeg
- 1/2 cup raisins (Corina found golden raisins – they were so much prettier and made for a lighter color chutney than with my version using the dark raisins)
- 1/2 cup sugar

1. Zest lemons, set zest aside.
2. Juice the lemons. Blend lemon juice with tomatoes and their liquid pulsing just until blended, do not puree! You want some tomato chunks in the chutney for texture – we're not making tomato sauce!
3. In a pot, combine oil, chile, lemon zest, mustard seeds, cumin seeds and nutmeg. Cook over medium-high heat, stirring. When seeds begin to pop, add tomato-lemon juice mixture, raisins and sugar.
4. Boil gently, uncovered, until mixture thickens to a jam-like consistency (about 20 minutes), stirring often. When done, transfer to a container or bowl and let cool. Put in the fridge or optimally in an ice bath to cool it quickly. (If not using immediately, cool, cover and refrigerate for up to 3 days.)

Goat Cheese Filling

- 4 ounces (1/2 cup) fresh soft goat cheese
- 1/2 cup crème fraîche
- 1/4 cup sugar
- 1 large egg
- 2-1/2 tablespoons all-purpose flour

1. Mix goat cheese, crème fraîche, sugar, egg, and flour together in a bowl.
2. Pour this mixture into the cooled tart crust or set it aside until the crust is cooled.
3. Place in a 350F oven and bake for approximately 20 minutes, or until just set. Set aside and let cool.

Roasted Tomatoes

- 4 large heirloom tomatoes, preferably different colors
- sugar
- sea salt
- fresh ground pepper

1. Cut the tomatoes into wedges – think of a Roma tomato cut into quarters – that’s the size of wedges you want.
2. Lay out on a sheet pan, skin side down, on parchment paper or a silicon mat
3. Sprinkle with a little bit of salt & pepper
4. Sprinkle a bit more liberally with sugar
5. Roast at 350°F for 20-30 minutes (depends on your oven) until they are starting to caramelize around the edges. Check them often. You don’t want them to disintegrate and not be able to move them to the tart.
6. Set aside and let cool.

So... by now the puff pastry should have blind baked, cooled and been baked again with the goat cheese filling.

When the baked tart and the chutney have both cooled, gently spread a thin layer of the chutney on top of the tart.

If the tomato wedges have cooled a bit, use a pastry or offset or very thin spatula (I used my fish spatula – I use it for everything!) to gently move the tomato wedges from the sheet pan to the tart. If you have different color tomatoes, alternate them when laying them on top of the tart. Smoosh them down very gently so they fill out the tart. You can set them in stripes or in a circle, however you prefer. But remember, we eat with our eyes first so the prettier you can make it, the better it will taste before your guests even take their first bite :)

Now we can't forget the wine! Corina recommended the Piero Costantini, Villa Dei Preti, Frascati Superiore 2006. Works for me!

Cheers! Bon appetit!

ps: and if you're in my 'hood, please stop by, I have 5 tomato tarts in my fridge!

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Resources:

Canelé
3219 Glendale Blvd, LA
323-666-7133
http://www.canele-la.com/

Sunset Magazine Recipes

Jerry DiVecchio's New Children’s Cookbook, You’ve Got Recipes

Diane Anthonissen's Paris Blog

Paula Lambert's Goat Cheese Tart recipe

Silverlake Farmer's Market

And if you haven’t had your fill of tomatoes yet, then here’s a link to
Epicurious' Healthy Recipes for Tomatoes