Blackened Carrots with Other Stuff

I've posted about blackened or charred carrots here before. And because I like them so much, I'll do it again.

We first encountered the concept of charring carrots over direct flame at Bobby Flay's NY restaurant, Gato. There he serves the black beauties with Middle Eastern flavors like harissa + mint + yogurt. Almost any flavor profile can work with charred carrots - they are simply sweet with a nice caramelization. (No, they don't taste burnt.) While I've done the harissa thing myself, I thought I'd take the flavors up further into the Mediterranean by adding a pesto. We had a bunch of arugula hanging around, so that became the sauce's base. We were also on a weird self-imposed no-dairy, no-wheat, no-sugar diet for the month of August. While yogurt seems completely natural for this dish (at least to us and Bobby Flay), it was a no-no for us. A nice creamy alternative that was allowable is an aioli made with white beans. And garlic, of course (because it's not aioli without garlic). But not just any garlic - black garlic. Black garlic is fermented, which creates the black color and brings out the bulb's inherent sweetness. It's less pungent than fresh or cured garlic (most supermarket garlic and onions have been cured or dried for longterm storage) but is extremely flavorful. The only drawback is that black garlic's soft texture makes it a bit hard to peel and chop. But we're using a food pro here, so no worries.

There are a lot of steps to this recipe, but none are difficult. The aioli and pesto can be made in minutes in the same food processor (rinse it out between sauces). Prepare them while the granola is in the oven. While everything is chilling, make the carrots.

There will be lots of leftover granola, which can be used as a topping for any savory vegetable preparation, or sprinkled on plain yogurt for breakfast. Toss leftover pesto with pasta on another night, and use the aioli as a sandwich spread or dip. It's all good.

The finished dish is vegetarian; it's completely vegan if you leave the Parm out of the pesto and skip the granola. And it tastes amazing.

Blackened Carrots
If you don't have a gas oven, you can blacken your carrots on a grill.

1 bunch slender young carrots with tops, scrubbed but not peeled
Extra virgin olive oil
Salt and pepper

Preheat oven to 400°F. Cut off the tops of the carrots and discard (or save some for the pesto!). Place the carrots directly on your stove's gas burner, as if you were roasting bell peppers. Cook until charred on all sides, turning frequently. As each carrot becomes charred enough, place it on a foil-lined baking sheet. Once all the carrots are on the foil, drizzle them with some olive oil and season with salt and pepper.

Roast in the oven for 15-20 minutes, until tender.

White Bean Black Garlic Aioli

1 (15 ounce) can cannellini beans, drained and rinsed
2 tablespoons lemon juice
1⁄4 teaspoon salt
3-4 cloves black garlic
1⁄4 cup extra virgin olive oil
Freshly ground black pepper

Place the beans, lemon juice, and salt, and black garlic in a food processor with the olive oil. Whiz to a puree. If it seems too thick, add more oil. Season with the pepper, adding additional salt and lemon juice to allow for personal tastes. Store in the fridge and eat within a week.

Arugula Pesto

Pesto isn't rocket science. If you don't have 2 cups of arugula, use whatever you have and add smaller quantities of everything else. If you have lots of mixed soft herbs like parsley, cilantro, mint, use them too. As long as it has cheese, nuts, garlic, and olive oil, it will taste good. Oh - allergic to nuts? Leave them out!

2 cups arugula leaves
½ cup grated Parmesan Cheese
¼ cup toasted nuts (I used cashews)
1 clove garlic, peeled
Extra virgin olive oil
Lemon juice
Kosher salt

Put arugula, cheese, nuts, and garlic in the bowl of a food processor. Drizzle in the EVOO and process to a paste of whatever consistency you prefer. Like thinner pesto? add more oil. Like it thick, add less. Season to taste with lemon juice and salt. Store in a tightly covered container in the fridge and eat within a week.

Savory Granola (adapted from Bon Appetit)

1 cup old-fashioned oats
½ cup walnuts
½ cup raw pumpkin seeds
¼ cup raw black and white sesame seeds
3 tablespoons hemp seeds
2 teaspoons fennel seeds
1 teaspoon caraway or dill seeds
1/2 teaspoon nigella/charnushka seeds
1 teaspoon kosher salt
½ teaspoon cayenne pepper
1 large egg white, beaten to blend
¼ cup olive oil
1 tablespoon agave syrup

Preheat oven to 350°.  In a large bowl, combine oats, walnuts, seeds, salt, and cayenne pepper with egg white, oil, and agave syrup until everything is coated. Transfer mixture to a rimmed baking sheet and bake, stirring once, until golden, 25–30 minutes. Let cool. Store in a zip top plastic bag.



Posted on Minxeats.com.

Bagby Pizza Company

Sometime last spring, Mr Minx and I visited Bagby's for the first time. We had started out eating dinner at another Harbor East restaurant and quickly determined that if we ordered enough food to sate our appetites, we'd be broke before the entrees came out. So we nibbled on a couple of items and beat a hasty retreat to the much more-affordable Bagby Pizza Company in the old furniture company building on Fleet between Exeter Street and Central Avenue.

On that trip, we tried a "Sweet & Spicy," featuring spicy tomato puree, spinach, roasted red peppers, red onion, applewood bacon, asiago, goat cheese, and balsamic glaze. It was indeed both sweet and spicy, with a bit of tangy and meaty in there for good measure. It was a perfect balance of flavors. The ultra thin crust was cracker-crispy without being dry, and its lightness made it very easy to eat several pieces without feeling like a pig.

We had intended to go back, but we got busy writing and then promoting Food Lovers' Guide to Baltimore and sort of forgot about it. But then a book signing at the Power Plant outpost of Barnes & Noble, within walking distance of Bagby's, gave us an excuse to go back and try a few more things for a late lunch/early dinner.

Bagby's chop salad was named "best chopped salad" by Baltimore's City Paper in 2011, so we thought we should try that, along with a couple of small pizzas.

A mixture of romaine lettuce, squash, asparagus, carrots, celery, onions, and tomato was topped with a sherry-shallot vinaigrette and a dusting of Parmesan cheese. We would have liked a bit more of the dressing and at first wondered if they had forgotten to put it on at all.

We tried two pizzas this time. I chose the duck confit and pear pizza, with herb oil, duck confit, bosc pear, caramelized onions, blue cheese, dried cherry drizzle, parmesan, and a generous topping of arugula. Mr Minx thought the duck pizza could possibly be too sweet, so he ordered something on the saltier side of the aisle, the prosciutto and goat cheese pizza, with tomato puree, prosciutto, arugula, sundried tomatoes, goat cheese, mozzarella, and provolone.

I thought they were both pretty perfect. The duck pizza was not too sweet, and the onions, pears, and bleu cheese were smashing together. The other pizza was a salty, cheesy delight. And both of them were just as tasty (maybe more so) when we reheated the leftovers the next day.

Bagby Pizza Company
1006 Fleet St
Baltimore, MD 21202
bagbypizza.com
(410) 605-0444



Posted by theminx on Minxeats.com.

Chef for a Day Dinner at Sotto Sopra

Fellow local food blogger, Liz Stambaugh, of What's to Eat, Baltimore? was "chef for a day" at Sotto Sopra last week. The menu, coupled with the fact that we've sampled Liz's cooking before, enticed Mr Minx and I to make reservations for the event. Oh, and we love Sotto Sopra, so that was also an advantage.

We started off with a trio of meatballs: lamb with tomato braise over a risotto cake; calamari over ceci cake; pork with BBQ glaze over red cabbage slaw. The lamb was delicious, with a really subtle Moroccan vibe. In fact, "subtle" is a good word for the whole meal. We puzzled over the concept of a calamari meatball - wouldn't it be tough? But it was more like a croquette, with bits of calamari insulated by batter. (Actually, it reminded me quite a lot of takoyaki.)  The BBQ pork was my least favorite - the sauce tasted too...expected. A skotch too sweet. The accompanying slaw, however, had an unexpected element which I think was orange marmalade. Verrrry interesting. Must get recipe.

Next up: foie gras potato gnocchi with Parmesan cream and a Parmesan crisp. Wow. These little pillows of potato were perfect - light, yet decadent. Wee bits of foie tantalized the palate. And I loved the inclusion of the crisp, which acted as a much-needed textural contrast to all the soft richness in the dish.

The third course involved Gunpowder Bison rib eye, grilled veg with smoked mozzarella, and arugula almond pesto. The bison was perfectly cooked, medium-rare, and was uber-tender. The very lightly roasted veg included asparagus, zucchini, onion, fennel, and tiny tomatoes, with bits of soft-textured cheese. The cheese must have been house-smoked because it was so very subtle, without the bowl-you-over smoke of a commercial product. And the pesto was a simple smooth purée that tasted purely of both arugula and toasted almonds. Because the meat was pre-sliced and the vegetables were light, the dish was room temperature when it got to our table. However, this really did not detract from the dish and made it seem even more like the perfect entrée for a hot summer day.

Finally, we were brought grilled peaches with Mascarpone and peach stuffing, peach sorbet, lemoncello zabaglione, and a lavender crisp. I'm allergic to raw peaches but thought that a grilled one would be ok. Unfortunately, it wasn't grilled enough so I had to pop a Benadryl (slept like a baby that night) to ward off any potential reactions. The peach was hard but somehow managed to be sweet, and I loved the accompaniments, particularly the lavender crisp. A piece of caramelized sugar candy with aromatic bits of lavender in it, it lent a nice crispness to the dish. I think it would be marvelous melted into a hot cup of tea.

Overall, a really terrific meal, particular the killer gnocchi, the lamb meatball, the pesto, the crispy bits. The elements of each course were really well-thought-out. This meal was a real labor of love for Liz and it showed.

I Crack Myself Up

I was just going through an old blog of mine that hasn't been updated since January 2003 and some of the entries just made me laugh. Here's a good one from September 19, 2002:

"Cuisine." Right.

I hate those commercials that have a gaggle of fashion-victim-type women in yoga suits and perky hairdos, jogging or visiting the museum, declaring their pathetic excuse for dinner the night before:

"Last night I ate two pints of Ben & Jerry's Cherry Garcia, a package of Oreo Double Stufs and a Twinkie."
"I had a whole bag of Fritos, which I dipped in Nutella."
"I had three cherry tomatoes and a piece of radicchio, and a box of Fruit Loops."
"I had a tablespoonful of peanut butter and a package of dry Jell-O."

Then comes the kicker:

"Last night I had slices of tender grilled chicken bathed in garlic Alfredo sauce over penne pasta."

When the rest of the gals look at her with highly annoyed expressions, she confesses it was a Lean Cuisine.

Have you ever tasted a Lean Cuisine? Well, let me tell you that the word "Cuisine" applies more to dog food than to that crap. By comparison, the other gals' meals seem much more appetizing. Somehow the manufacturers of this product not only have figured out how to produce a meal with fewer calories but also with less flavor. The "grilled" chicken is as grilled as a Burger King Whopper - the flavoring is pure duPont. No self-respecting grill, not even a George Foreman, would cause something so nasty to merge from the tender embrace of its flames (or its non-stick grill-like ridges). Somehow, all frozen dinner meats taste like pre-masticated gym socks (with or without the "grill" flavor) and tomato sauce becomes an abomination when in the control of Stouffer's. Consider that many frozen "diet" meals consist of pasta with a red sauce - gummy overcooked noodles with a thin, acidy, off-tasting (like bad ice cubes) sauce. Now how hard is it exactly to open a box of pasta and toss some in boiling water, drain when al dente, and combine with a jar of Barilla? Of course, I would prefer homemade red sauce, but I understand that might be a bit time consuming for the average Jo(e). Chopped raw plum tomatoes, or tiny sweet cherry tomatoes, halved, and tossed on hot pasta with a bit of extra virgin olive oil and S&P'd to taste, would be a great fresh alternative to jarred sauce. But I digress.

I must confess that there was one Lean Cuisine that tasted good - meat and spinach cannelloni with white sauce. The meat was a mix of ground beef and pork, I believe, and the white sauce was remarkably like a bechamel that was even allowed to brown a bit on the top. This was one of the first dinners that Lean Cuisine produced, back before they realized that diet-conscious consumers were more motivated by the "less than 300 calories" claim than by a need for any flavor of any kind. So of course they stopped making this particular cannelloni but have continued to produce the red-sauced, "cheese"-filled kind.

So what did I have for dinner last night? How about fusilli pasta in home-made Thai basil pesto with fresh backfin crabmeat and grated Parmesan cheese (and not from a green cylinder, silly!) with a mixed field greens salad dressed with raspberry vinegar and extra virgin olive oil? Cooking the pasta took about 10 minutes longer than heating up a Lean Cuisine, but the taste rewards far surpassed the work involved.

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And here's a post from a few days earlier, with criticism of my favorite cook (that's sarcasm, folks!), Rachael Ray....

Busy Busy

Kate came to pick me up at noon and we headed out to Han Ah Rheum, a Korean grocery store in western Baltimore county. I was amazed by the produce section which stocked both Asian and Western veggies and fruits. I bought a bunch of Thai basil and a cherimoya, but didn't want to go too crazy, as I was spending the night at Kate's. She picked some veggies for dinner, and we continued our tour. The market was much like Uwajimaya, in that there were Western staples alongside the more exotic items like shrimp paste and rice stick noodles. The frozen food aisle was chock-full of dumplings and other yummies that I wouldn't be able to fit in my already-full freezer at home, and the snack aisle served up several different kinds of Pocky, as well as other interesting candies and cookies. Neal and I will definitely have to make a trip here in the future.

After Han Ah Rheum, Kate and I ordered some take-away ribs from Bill Bateman's. After lunch, we grabbed some Japanese candy and good old-fashioned American M&Ms and went to the movies. "My Big Fat Greek Wedding" was a big fat hit with us - it's so nice to see a movie that has no tragedy, no violence, no evil villains out to conquer the world. It was funny and tender and highly enjoyable.

Back at Kate's, we rustled up some dinner - pasta with roasted eggplant and tomato sauce, arugula salad, and crostini. The recipe for the sauce came from Rachel Ray's 30-minute Meals. Now that chick annoys me; she has a grating speaking voice and she thinks she is just too cute for words. Anyway, the sauce was a nice idea, but the recipe wasn't well executed. She called for roasting an eggplant in the oven for 15 minutes. Uh, well, that's hardly roasting. It was still raw in 15. Forty-five is more like it. Pureed in the food processor with garlic and parsley and salt, part of it became a spread for the crostini (as recommended in the recipe). I thought it was a bit bland, so doctored it up with sugar, fresh basil, pine nuts, and balsamic vinegar. The rest of the eggplant was mixed with a can of tomatoes and heated. Again, it was a bit bland, so it received more of the basil, a healthier dose of salt and pepper, the balsamic vinegar, and sugar. The spread went on toasted French bread slices and the sauce on bellflower pasta. The arugula salad was nothing more than fresh greens dressed with lemon juice and olive oil - fantastic. When it was all said and done, the dinner was pretty tasty, especially when chased with glasses of Moscato.

We watched FoodTV and ate helpings of Ghirardelli chocolate walnut brownies topped with Ben & Jerry's pistachio ice cream. It really should have been Wavy Gravy, but those idiots at B&Js retired the flavor. Big mistake, as it was one of the best flavors of ice cream ever invented - at least in my (and Kate's) not-so-humble opinion!