Warm Fennel and Parmesan Dip

This is a great time of year to add another dip to your repertoire, especially a warm dip with cheese scattered on top that turns golden as it bakes. And, this is one of the simplest out there. Rather than mixing the primary ingredients with mayonnaise or sour cream as is customary, this dip is made up of pureed, roasted fennel and garlic. There are only four ingredients in this dip if you don’t count the salt and pepper, but those are four very flavorful ingredients that make the end result seem a lot more complicated. I saved this recipe from the Thanksgiving dinner story in the November 2010 issue of Living magazine. The dip was served as a starter along with kale chips with sea salt and lemon which were made in the usual way by chopping kale leaves, tossing with olive oil and salt, and then roasting until crisp. The twist was that when the kale chips came out of the oven, they were topped with lemon zest. I liked the idea of having crispy, lemony chips with the warm, rich dip. So, I served the dip already spread onto little toasted pieces of bread with a kale chip nestled on top and more chips piled in the middle of the platter of toasts.

You start by trimming and removing the core from three fennel bulbs and then chopping them into thick wedges. The fennel wedges are then browned in a skillet with extra-virgin olive oil. Four or five peeled, whole, and slightly smashed garlic cloves are added as the fennel browns. Then, the fennel is turned, seasoned, the skillet was covered with foil, and it’s placed in a 400 degree F oven for about 30 minutes. The fennel and garlic should become completely tender and sweet. Next, the roasted fennel and garlic was transferred to a food processor and pureed until smooth. Grated parmigiano reggiano was added and mixed in, and then you should taste for seasoning. The puree was scooped into a small baking dish and topped with more grated parmesan before it went back into the oven that had been turned up to 450. After about 20 minutes, the dip was warmed through, and the cheese on top was invitingly browned. I toasted some sliced, homemade, sourdough baguette as the dip baked, and popped the kale chips into the oven as the dip cooled a bit.

Mellow roasted garlic and fennel with the big flavor of parmesan makes for a delicious mix. With that much flavor, you'd never guess how short the ingredient list actually is. And, the hit of lemon on the kale chips was a nice, perky contrast to the savory dip. Since it’s easy to make the dip in advance, chill it, and bake it just before serving, this will definitely be a go-to recipe for holiday parties.

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Italian Ring Bread with Hatch Chiles and Roasted Garlic

Every year at this time, we enjoy the arrival of hatch chiles from New Mexico. They appear in our grocery stores, and we look forward to using as many of them as we can before they’re gone for another year. Our nearby Central Market sets up big, rotating roasters, and the smell of chiles fills the parking lot. You can buy the chiles fresh or roasted and bagged, and they’re available in hot and mild. They’re also used in all kinds of products throughout the store such as hatch chile hamburger buns, hatch chile cheese, hatch chile sausages, etc. So, in honor of these chiles, and just because it had been too long, an Austin food blogger potluck was held on Sunday, and the dishes were to be hatch chile-themed. Now, the last time I attended a food blogger potluck, I decided I should only use tried and true recipes. This time I went another way, got a little experimental, and worried even more about what I made. My sourdough starter hadn’t been used for weeks, and I had never before shared any of my sourdough bread with anyone other than Kurt. So I chose to experiment with a hatch chile and garlic bread and let other people sample it for a change. I took inspiration from a roasted garlic bread by Dan Lepard and once again worked from the Breads from the La Brea Bakery book.

I followed the recipe for the Italian ring bread, but instead of folding chopped marjoram into the dough, I used chopped, roasted hot and mild hatch chiles and whole cloves of roasted garlic. This dough made use of both sourdough starter and fresh yeast, so I hoped it would have enough strength to rise with the vegetables I added. The recipe is written as a two-day bread, but there is a 12 hour waiting time on the second day. I timed it out to make it a three-day bread instead. Day one only required making a sponge from starter, bread flour, and water. On day two, the dough was made from the sponge, fresh yeast, bread flour, salt, olive oil, chiles, and roasted garlic. It started as what I thought was a slightly too dry dough, but after adding the vegetables, it seemed slightly too wet and sticky. I kneaded in a little more flour and crossed my fingers.

It went through the usual rituals of resting, kneading, fermenting, being divided, resting again, and then being formed into boules which were refrigerated overnight. On day three, the dough was brought up to room temperature and then turned out onto a board. A peel was floured so a boule could be loaded on it, and then a hole was cut in the center of the boule with a biscuit cutter. The hole was to be stretched to three times its original size, and the piece of dough removed was baked as a roll. Luckily, I baked one loaf at a time because the first one suffered from the hole not being made large enough. It closed in on itself like a giant bialy, but I got it right the second time. Of course, the oven was spritzed a couple of times during the first five minutes of baking, and that produced a crispy, crackly outer crust.

The interior was chewy and similar in texture to ciabatta although less open in structure. With the chiles and garlic, each piece of bread was almost a meal in itself, and I liked that about it. I think this bread with some cheese on the side would be great for a picnic. One loaf was taken to the potluck, and the other will be re-warmed and served with salad for dinner tonight. I survived presenting my homemade bread to a group of food bloggers, and they were even kind enough to say they liked it.

I’m submitting this to Yeastspotting where you’ll find some seriously well-made bread.




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White Bean and Roasted Zucchini Puree with Truffle Oil

I’ve read several great posts lately about the organic products from da Rosario, and I will join in the chorus of praise. I received a bottle of their black truffle oil, couldn’t wait to try it, and wouldn’t be mentioning it if it weren’t fantastic. The truffle fragrance from the bottle is enough to make me swoon, and I’ve been known to simply stop reading a restaurant menu as soon as I see a dish served with truffle oil or truffles or any variant of truffleness. I thought back to my last restaurant experience with truffle oil to come up with a plan for using this. We went to Asti for Kurt’s birthday and started with the antipasti platter. Among several delicious things, there was a white bean puree with a pool of truffle oil on top of it and some crunchy grissini along-side it. That became my corner of the platter, and nothing else mattered for a few minutes.

Yes, I thought, white bean puree. Then memory number two flashed by which involved an impossibly light and airy zucchini puree I recalled as an amuse bouche once enjoyed at Aquarelle. I began to imagine a hybrid of the two with some garlic pungency and a little freshness of lemon, and then I turned on the oven. I roasted three bulbs of garlic because having extra roasted garlic always ends up being a good thing. For the last 15 minutes of their roasting time, I put some peeled zucchini in the oven too. Once cool, I chopped the zucchini, squeezed the softened cloves from the garlic heads, and put both in a food processor with two cans of white beans that had been rinsed and drained. That combination was joined by some olive oil, a little lemon zest and juice, salt and pepper, and it was pureed. It seemed just a little flat, so I added some minced fresh garlic and a little more salt.

The zucchini lightens the mixture leaving it fluffier than it is otherwise. The roasted garlic and fresh garlic worked together to intensify the flavor, and the lemon brightened it up as it does. It’s delicious on crostini or carrots or spread into a sandwich with lots of lettuce, but none of that matters because its purpose was to be a pillow on which the truffle oil would rest en route to my mouth. And, that, was just delicious.

1 bulb garlic
1 lb. zucchini (I used three small ones, but sizes vary quite a bit, so I’m giving the weight here.)
2 15 oz. cans white beans, rinsed and drained
1/2 c extra virgin olive oil
1 garlic clove, minced
1 t lemon zest
Juice of 1 lemon
salt and pepper to taste
Truffle oil

-roast garlic in a 400 degree oven until softened, about 40 minutes depending on the size of the garlic (I prefer to cut off the very top of the bulb, drizzle with olive oil, and sprinkle with salt and pepper before wrapping in parchment and foil and placing in the oven.)
-peel zucchini, place on a baking sheet, drizzle with olive oil and season with salt and pepper place zucchini in oven for the last 15 minutes of roasting time
-remove garlic and zucchini from oven and allow to cool enough to handle; squeeze garlic cloves from bulb into the bowl of a food processor, cut stem ends from zucchini and chop remaining into large chunks; add chunks to food processor bowl along with remaining ingredients; puree until smooth; taste for salt and adjust as needed
-serve on crostini topped liberally with truffle oil

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Farro with Roasted Cauliflower and Garlic, Goat Cheese, Pine Nuts, and Parsley

Between a birthday cake, cookies, and scones, I have actually eaten a few healthy things here and there. For instance, I finally got around to making a farro salad after seeing similar ones like this, that, and this. Farro is a chewy whole grain that’s similar in taste and texture to barley. I started with a pound of farro which I placed in a large bowl, covered with water, and let soak for 25 minutes. Once drained, it was placed in a large pot with a bay leaf, was covered with water again, and was brought to a boil and left to cook for another 25 minutes. The first 25 minutes was just enough time to chop the other ingredients, and the cooking time for the farro was about the same as the time needed to roast the vegetables.

I cut a head of cauliflower into florets, tossed the florets with several cloves of garlic, chopped fresh sage, olive oil, and salt and pepper, and roasted all for 30 minutes. For the last few minutes of roasting, I pushed the cauliflower and garlic to the side of the baking sheet and added some pine nuts. In a very large mixing bowl, the cooked and drained farro joined rinsed and drained, canned white beans, zest from one lemon, a big handful of chopped parsley, a little bit of chopped sage, the roasted cauliflower, garlic, and most of the pine nuts, and a quick vinaigrette of lemon juice and olive oil. This was seasoned with salt and pepper and just a shake or two of crushed red pepper flakes. Once on the plate, it was topped with crumbled goat cheese, a few more pine nuts, and chopped parsley as garnish.

This hearty, healthy dish can be adapted to include whatever vegetable, herb, and cheese combination sounds good to you. It makes a generous amount and stores very well as a leftover. It was also delicious with a sliced hard-boiled egg on top. Follow one of the examples above, or make your own version, but definitely try a farro salad.

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