Cuzzetiello, Grilled Grapefruit

Cuzzetiello  

Neapolitan comfort food!!  This is what an Italian-American Meatball Sub wants to be when it grows up!   A week or so back, my old office-mate-turned-internationally-recognized-food-photographer --Luciano Furia -- who was born, raised and lives in Naples, Italy -- posted a picture of this dish sliced open so the inside could be seen.  

photo courtesy of Luciano Furia

As you can see from his picture, Cuzzetiello is basically a loaf of long Italian bread cut into lengths and stuffed.  Usually with polpette -- meatballs -- but other things can be used as well.  A fork is used to remove some of the bread from the center of one end, and the cavity is stuffed with one or meat meatballs.  The "sandwich" is then dipped into a steaming bowl of ragu/marinara sauce and devoured.

I made my version of Cuzetiello with polpette di melanzane -- that is "meatballs of eggplant".

See my (Meat)ball recipe here:  https://foodingaround-kiltedcook.blogspot.com/search?q=%28meat%29ball

Now thatsa meata ball sanda wich!!!

Grilled Grapefruit
Needed a fast dessert and had a grapefruit handy.  A different way to enjoy this tart-sweet citrus!  This is a Technique, not a fixed recipe -- some spice... some sweet... to taste.

1 Grapefruit, halved, sectioned
2 pats of butter
Brown Sugar or Honey
Cinnamon

Put a pat of butter in the center of each fruit half.  Add sweet and spice to taste.

Place doctored fruit halves on a tray or baking dish and broil for 3-5 minutes until everything is nice and hot and the butter is melted.

Cucumber Curry, Craved Flavors, French Meringue Fail, Citrus Orange Roughy

A little different posting this week.  Just to keep you guessing!

Cucumber Curry?

Yes, you read that right -- Cucumber Curry.  A really interestingly different and very tasty Indian dish.  It all started when we were gifted with an English cucumber, not the garden variety 'pickle cuke'.

1 Medium English Cucumber cut into 1/2" cubes
1-2 Heirloom Beefsteak Tomatoes or other firm and flavorful tomato cut into 1/2 pieces
Red Chile Powder -- I used a teaspoon of Hot Smoked Paprika
Turmeric Powder or Saffron Threads -- 1 tsp of Turmeric or half a dozen saffron threads
1/2 tsp Sugar
1/2 tsp Coriander powder
2 tsp whole grain Honey Mustard -- real mustard seeds with real honey
1/2 cup raw Cashews

1/8 cup raw Sunflower seeds

Combine the spices in a ramekin.  

Have the other ingredients handy in a bowl.
In a splash of oil in a medium hot skillet, heat the spices, crushing the mustard seeds a bit to release more flavor.  Add a couple tablespoons of water to the spices, then add the rest of the ingredients.  Carefully stir and cook things partially covered for 10-15 minutes.  Plate and serve with rice, or as I did, with spiced lentils.

This curry was amazing good -- flavor filled, not hot-spicy -- really tasty.  I will be making this more often.

Craved Flavors
Todd Mathews, the mid-day DJ on my favorite radio station -- Seaview 104.9 (WCVU) -- had a discussion and a blog post the other day talking about how Americans are food-crazy.  According to this Blue Diamond Almonds survey, among other things, we think about food on average about 40 minutes per day!  The survey also listed the Top Ten Most Craved Flavors:

10.  Lemon

9.    Blueberry

8.   Honey Mustard
7.   Coconut
6.   Honey 

5.   BBQ

4.   Bacon

3.   Strawberry
2.   Cheese

1.   Chocolate

I agree with most of those.  But how the heck did coconut get that high in anybody's ratings?  Top Ten???   Since Blue Diamond Almonds didn't make the list, I suppose the data is legit; but still!

I would have guessed Maple to be one of the top ten, since maple syrup is such a common flavor.  But coconut?

Baked French Meringues...  Fail
Just so you can see -- not everything I do turns out good or right.  At least not the first time!
I've seen these on episodes of the Great British Bake Off, used in several ways -- light and airy cookies, or as a base for a Pavlova, an elegant French desert of fruit topped with whipped cream.  A meringue is basically egg whites (yolks need not apply) whipped into stiff peaks with sugar and flavoring(s) added.  Think of the topping for lemon meringue pie as a baked-stiff stand-alone item.

Then, a couple days ago, Sally sent me an article about something called Aquafaba, which could be made into egg-free meringues and such.  What??   Ok.  Aquafaba is obviously a made-up name.  It's what vegans call the thick 'juice' in a can of garbanzo beans.  Drain that juice, don't throw it away, and put the garbanzos into some other container.

In addition to the Aquafaba, you need 2/3 cup of granulated sugar that you've taken for spin in your spice/coffee grinder.  And you'll need some sort of flavor -- I used Orange Extract.  You could use peppermint, lemon, or some other kind of extract.  Other things can be used as flavors too -- powdered coffee grounds, cocoa powder, etc.  But start with a liquid extract until you master the process.

Pre-heat the oven to 250F.  Yes 250, not 350.  These bake low and slow.  Line two large baking sheets with parchment paper.

With the whisk attachment on your mixer, and a clean, dry stainless mixing bowl, start whisking the Aquafaba, working the speed up to max.  A stand mixer is ideal, but I did it with a hand-held electric mixer.  Once the foam stage goes away -- about 10 minutes of whisking -- add the sugar a heaping teaspoon at a time.  Whisk away until you get stiff peaks.  Then add the flavor agent, and whisk again until the meringue is VERY stiff and glossy (this is where I messed up, I think).  The whole process should take around 15-20 minutes (that's why a stand mixer is ideal).

Using a tablespoon or  piping bag, dollop mounds of the meringue about 1.5-2" in diameter, onto the parchment paper until you use up the batch.  Mine looked pretty nice I thought.  Bake for 1.5-2 hours (yep, that long) until the meringues are firm and lightly browned.

This is where it all fell apart!  I can only guess that I did not get sufficiently stiff peaks and a glossy finish to the meringue.  As you can see, my nice pretty mounds of meringue fell really flat!

The flavor was good, but we had meringue "chips" not mounds of baked fluff!!!   I swear, you can never tell, from taste alone, that these meringues when done right,  were made from the aquafaba at the bottom of a can of garbanzos.  I WILL MASTER THIS TECHNIQUE!

Next time maybe I'll try to make a Pavlova.  To Be Continued...

Citrus Orange Roughy
We eat a pretty good amount of fish.  We both love Cod as panko-crusted shallow-fried filets, in Seafood Pie, in Icelandic Plokkfiskur, and many other ways.  Sally really likes Salmon, too, but I've gotten a bit tired of salmon-this and salmon-that.  I like smoked salmon; Sally isn't fond of anything smoked or smoky. 

So we decided to try some recipes with Orange Roughy, a sort of mild deep-water ocean perch which is readily available and remains popular on restaurant menues

.  This is my first recipe, made for Mum Lunch.

3 4-5 oz Orange Roughy filets
1/2 cup Fresh Orange Juice
1 Lemon, juiced and zested
3 cloves Garlic, sliced
Fresh cracked Black Pepper, to taste
1/4 cup julienned fresh Basil
Preheat the oven to 450F.

Lay the filets in a 9x13 baking dish.  In a small skillet, saute the onion and garlic in butter until the onion is soft and translucent.  Top the fish with the onion mix, 2 Tbsp lemon zest, black pepper and half the julienned basil.  Pour the citrus juices over all, and bake for 15-20 minutes until flaky.  Top with additional basil as you plate the fish.  

I served it with baked potatoes and green beans with sliced almonds.