Cooking The Books

Pizzette Fritte Ripiene

I lay in bed recently, having woken up about 6am due to the sunlight, thinking about the fact I'd not deep-fried anything for a while - as you do.  Straight away my thoughts went to buffalo wings, the planned next installment of my fried chicken series that was long overdue.  This thought stayed with me through the first couple of hours of the morning.  I'd got so far as planning a quick 5.30pm supermarket trip for the wings, squeezing it in after work and before I hopped in the car and went to meet the missus for a climbing session, ready for some late night frying.  I was pondering how to treat the wings, did I go with nothing but salt or would a light dusting of flour give the perfect texture, when a random tweet about pizzette fritte ripiene knocked any thoughts of buffalo wings for 6.

If you've not heard of them, and I hadn't, pizzette fritte ripiene are like little mini calzone, tiny folded parcels of pizza dough, sealed to hold their filling but then, and this is the fritte part, dumped in 190C oil until golden.  Pizza already holds a very high place in my food-rankings and I've always said that deep frying improves everything so here was a chance to put it to the test.

Whilst these appear to be the exception that proves the rule (they equal pizza, but could you really improve it?) they are ridiculously tasty.  I'd never fried a bread dough before (and the coating here is just plain white bread) and it takes on the most fantastic texture, a light crunch giving way to dense chew. It seems to soak up very little oil either, remaining remarkably grease-free once drained on kitchen roll.  On the inside the mozzarealla melted as only mozzaralla does, the billowing folds striped with spicy oil rendered from the salami, the edge taken off the richness by the piquant artichokes.  Add the sweet sauce and some salty parmesan and - and I know I'm repeating myself, but - ridiculously tasty.

Pizzette Fritte Ripiene

Makes 10, a snack for 2-3.

Dough

120gr strong flour

70gr water

Big pinch salt

1/2 ts dried yeast

Filling (but you can use what you want)

125gr mozzarella

50gr fiery salami

3 bits of marinated artichoke (this was basically a quarter)

Sauce

The tomatoes from a tin

2 cloves of garlic

Pinch of fennel seeds

Salt

Parmesan to serve

Method

Make the dough, knead till smooth. Leave in a bowl under clingfilm for an hour or two.

For the sauce soften the chopped garlic in a little oil, along with the fennel seeds. Add the tomatoes then simmer for about 30 mins, mashing them up as you go.

Roll the dough out to about 5mm thick and cut into ten pieces, you can go rough and ready but I used a chef's ring.  You could cut into less and make bigger pizzettes too, obviously.

Place a tenth of each of the fillings in the middle of a piece and fold over, sealing well.

Deep fry at 190C till golden, drain well then place a teaspoon of sauce and a sprinkle of parmesan on each before eating.

Buttermilk Biscuit, Fried Chicken, Cheese and Fried Onions

Sometimes a dish is so ridiculous you have to give it a go.  This is one of those times.

For anyone reading in the US, or Asia for that matter, the idea of fried chicken for breakfast won't sound so ridiculous, but over here in the UK it's simply unheard of.  Sticking it in a scone (a biscuit for our transatlantic cousins) adding some cheese and some fried onions just takes it to whole new levels of crazy.  My kind of crazy.

I found this whilst browsing the 19 best breakfast sandwiches on Serious Eats.  All the way through I kept thinking how great the sandwiches looked compared to our boring (albeit tasty) offerings over here.  This one particularly caught my eye though, mainly due to my fried chicken fetish.

 
I've made buttermilk biscuits and fried chicken before.  I used the prior biscuit recipe but decided to spice the chicken up a bit and as I sit here with slightly tingling lips from the chili (I've not hung around before blogging) I think it was a wise move.

So how does it taste?  Pretty much as you'd expect it to really.  Like a KFC that's been given the fairground burger van treatment, cheese slice and browned onions style.  Damn tasty, but I did feel a bit dirty whacking all that down having only been up 45 minutes.  I guess you can eat it whatever time of the day you please though.

Buttermilk Biscuit, Fried Chicken, Cheese and Fried Onions

Makes 2

2 Chicken Breasts

1 1/2 medium onions

200ml of buttermilk

Pinch of thyme

1 cup flour

1 ts garlic powder

1 ts chili powder

1 ts white pepper

1 ts salt

1 portion of biscuit recipe, here

2 cheese slices

Method

The night before eating finely slice half an onion, place in the buttermilk with the pinch of thyme and stick the chicken in to marinade.  It tenderises the chicken (not that a chicken breast isn't tender) and adds a lovely faint onion and thyme taste to it.

In the morning the first thing to do is make biscuits, instead of cutting into 4 though shape into a pair the right size for chicken breasts.

Whilst the biscuits are cooking slice the remaining onion and fry on a low heat for about 15 minutes, till brown and sticky.

Heat 1.5cm of oil in a frying pan to about 160 C.

In a big bowl or bag mix the flour with the garlic, chili, pepper and salt. Remove the chicken from the marinade, scraping off the excess, and dump it into the flour mixture, coating well.  Fry for 5 minutes on the first side followed by 4-5 minutes on the second side until golden. Drain well on kitchen paper.

Split your biscuit, place one chicken breasts on the bottom piece followed by a cheese slice, half the browned onions and then the top.

Eat.

Exercise.  Exercise lots.  Then exercise a bit more.

Italian Sausage, Savoy Cabbage and Gorgonzola Lasagna

As a child I was fed pretty well.  I got to eat quite a few of the treats I wanted and we had frequent Chinese and Indian takeaways (which I'm sure had a huge effect on my tastes now) but of a normal every day meal everything was cooked from scratch and there was always plenty of vegetables to be eaten.  My mum did have a bit of a mince obsession though and so whilst I had plenty of home cooked food, the leaning towards - and by leaning I mean weekly occurrence of - chili, spag bol and lasagna has left me with a bit of dislike of the three of them.  Whilst chili con carne and spag bol are never craved I do have the occasional desire for a lasagna still, although it is never the usual bolognaise and bechamel version, and one such occasion was last week. 

The Italian sausage (or what Americans call Italian sausage anyway) is a wonderful thing, loaded with fennel seed and garlic, sweet with sugar and hot from chili, it transforms tomatoes into an instant meat-filled sauce, or crumbles into a near-perfect pizza topping, where I like to pair the sausages' fennel seeds with thin slices of the bulb, briefly sauteed in butter and garlic.  Whilst you can buy them from Italian delis not everyone has them nearby but luckily the sausage's lack of filler, and propensity to be used removed of their skins, lend themselves to making at home.  If you're using them for pasta sauces and pizza too a little goes a long way, so I like to make a batch and freeze in small portions, wrapped in clingfilm and bagged together. 

Whilst I didn't have any of the sausage made I did have pork mince and the required herbs and spices, savoy cabbage and some gorgonzola and the idea for this sprang to mind.  I'm glad it did as it was gorgeous.  The meat sauce was sweet and heavily seasoned - the pork loving the savoury balance of its green bedfellow -and the gorgonzola added richness in spades.

Italian Sausage

Simply mix it all together

500gr minced pork

1 ts fennel seeds

1/3 ts black peppercorns

1/2 ts chili flakes

1 - 2 cloves garlic

1 ts salt

1 ts sugar

Italian Sausage, Savoy Cabbage and Gorgonzola Lasagna

500 gr of Italian sausage

1 tin tomatoes, liquidised

1/2 a savoy cabbage

1 small onion

125ml red wine

12 sheets of lasagna

500 ml of milk

25 gr butter

25 gr flour

100gr gorgonzola

Nutmeg

2 bay leaves

Handful or two of pecorino or parmesan

Method

Finely chop the onion then fry in a little oil till soft.  Add the sausage meat and brown, breaking up with a spoon as you go.

Add the wine, the tomatoes and half a tin of water, bring to the boil then turn down the heat and simmer for 40 minutes. topping up with water if it dries out.

Add the savoy cabbage and cook for a few more minutes until wilted.  You may want to add some water here too, remember the pasta will soak up quite a bit when baking.

For the white sauce melt the butter, add the flour then cook for a couple of minutes to get rid of the raw flour taste.  Add the milk, whisking constantly to get rid of lumps.  Chuck in the bay leaves and give it a good grating of nutmeg then simmer for a few minutes till thick.  Add the gorgonzola and whisk till smooth.

Now to construct.  You're going to do three layers of each so make sure you split accordingly.  First off layer one third of the meat mixture then top with four sheets of lasagna then a third of the white sauce.  Repeat another two times.

Finish with a handful or two of whatever cheese you chose then bake at 180 for 35 minutes.

Remove and allow to rest for ten minutes before serving.  I like to serve with a salad, which is good for cleansing the palate afterwards.

Cheese Curds and Two Things To Do With Them - Poutine and Wisconsin Fried Cheese Curds

Poutine - the Canadian national dish of fresh cut fries, cheese curds and gravy - gained a soft spot in my heart when I lived in British Columbia for a few months back in my mid-20s. The combination of textures and flavours bathed in a meaty, salty gravy is comfort food at its finest, perfect after a day out snowboarding in -47 deg C when your body is yearning for calories.  With this recent cold spell I have been hankering after this heart attack on a plate but have been held back by the availability of cheese curds.  Whilst some people use mozzarella it just doesn't have the right texture, it's too soft and stringy and lacks the squeak of fresh cheddar curds which stand up to the gravy and chip heat far better.  Unlike in Canada though the option of buying them doesn't exist in the UK and so I looked around on the web to see if I could make them.  Whilst a little trickier than paneer making - the only cheese making I'd ever done - it looked bearable and I'm always happy to be in the kitchen learning something new.  When ebay showed rennet was both easy and cheap to get hold of the last obstacle was gone. 

As with anything cheese related the first stage was to coagulate the milk with my newly acquired rennet.  When making paneer, as you're probably aware, you add something acidic to milk and it curdles.  When I've done this you end up with lots of small particles in the milk which then come together when you strain them out and hang in muslin.  The first thing I noticed with rennet though was how the milk set into one huge lump, like a bowlful of soft tofu. To get this to something usable you have to first cut the curds then heat them up very gradually - 8 degrees over 30-40 minutes, a thermometer is a must.  This heating process seems to squeeze whey from the curds, moving them from the softest tofu to slightly rubbery lumps floating in a saucepanful of whey.  Once strained if you were making cheese this is where you'd start to salt it and press it into rounds, but for me - and you if you give it a go - this is when they were ready.

For a first attempt I was more than happy. It's a fairly involved process, obviously, but if you like being in the kitchen then it's not too much of a chore.  The poutine was a delight, the curds rich and with the tell-tale squeak on the teeth and the chips, using the thermometer again to get the saucepan of oil to the right temperature, crisp without and fluffy within.  Even the packet gravy (half chicken and half beef to mimic the traditional veal) didn't let it down. 

After making it I still had some curds left so turned to Google to see what other uses I could find for them.  There wasn't much out there but one thing that did pop up was fried cheese curds, specifically Wisconsin fried cheese curds.  I like niche recipes and you can't get much more niche than that.  I'm a big believer in battering and deep frying improving almost anything and here the bland curds and spicy coating are proof of that theory.  The curds stand up to the heat well leaving crisp nuggets with a delectable chew.  Another win.

Cheese Curds

Makes about 350gr (I think)

1.5 litres unhomogenized full fat milk (Sainsbury sell it)

NB unhomogneized milk is important as normal milk does not coagulate properly

2TB live yoghurt

Scant 1/4 ts rennet in 2 TB of water

1/2 ts salt.

Method

Warm the milk to 20C then add the yoghurt and leave for an hour.  This reduces the acidity (which I believe helps with the setting) and adds some flavour.

Warm the milk to 30C then add the rennet and leave to set, it should be fairly solid within 15 - 30 minutes.

Now you need to cut the curds, I used a palette knife and went for about 1.5cm squares.  You can see this in the first curd photo of the post, up there on the left.

The next stage is the trickiest, you need to gradually heat the milk to 40C over the course of 30-40 minutes, stirring occasionally with your hand (I found it pretty hard not to break the large lumps of curd when doing this).  Even using the lowest flame on the smallest gas ring the temperature still rises quicker than required so I put the saucepan in a larger saucepan of water to slow the heating down.  I still couldn't leave it on a small flame though and turned it on and off every couple of minutes to get a suitably slow rise.  The second curd photo up there on the right is halfway through the process and you can see the yellowish whey coming out.

Once you're at 40C the curds and whey will be properly separated so ladle out as much of the whey as you can (rumour has it it makes a fine buttermilk subsituture when baking but I just poured it down the sink) then drain the curds through muslin and leave over the sink for half an hour.

Sprinkle the salt on and mix through and your curds are ready to use.

Poutine

Per person

1 baking potato

75gr cheese curds

100-150ml gravy (I use 2 parts chicken Bisto Best and 1 parts beef Bisto Best)

Method

Cuts the chips to 1cm thick, I left the skins on but do as you please, then wash well and dry. 

Heat the oil to 120C then fry the chips for 7-8 minutes until tender and cooked through.

Remove from the oil then heat it to 190C before adding the par-cooked chips again, cooking till golden brown and crispy - about 3-4 minutes.

Wisconsin Fried Cheese Curds

200gr cheese curds

Batter

1 egg

50gr plain flour

1/4ts chili powder

Pinch dried thyme

1/4 ts garlic powder

1/4 ts white pepper

Scant 1/2 ts salt

3 TB milk

Coating

Flour

Method

Make the batter then dip the curds (break larger lumps down to 2cm odd) in it to coat.  Take the battered curds and cover well in flour then spread on a plate and put in freezer for 20 minutes.

Heat some oil to 190C and then deep-fry for 1-2 minutes until golden.

Enjoy, with your fingers and something cold to wash them down.