Tuscan Bread Salad or Panzanella

Tuscan Tomato, Cucumber & Bread Salad

Right now I am into everything Tuscan, Italy because I just finished reading The Reluctant Tuscan (I will talk much more about this wonderful book in another post) and am now reading Frances Mayes Under The Tuscan Sun, another delightful book about an American buying a home in Tuscany and the effect it has on them.

My wife and I honeymooned in Tuscany years ago and I forgot just how beautiful the hill towns are and how different the life style is compared to the United States. These two books describe in wonderful detail the everyday life of Tuscan families.

After reading The Reluctant Tuscan and halfway through Under The Tuscan Sun I have a new understanding of my childhood experiences with my best friends from Italian decent. I spent a lot of teenage summer weekends at  Pasqual Benvenuto’s home and never understood why they had these huge Sunday meals in the basement set up as a second kitchen with his family and their extended family.

We would spend hours eating and talking and watching his family yell at each other, then hug and kiss. It looked bizarre to me then but now I understand it is just part of their culture. Food and the act of dining together is a huge aspect of the Italian lifestyle and now I want to learn everything I can about Tuscan cooking.

Tuscan Tomato, Cucumber & Bread Salad

Last night I had the opportunity to prepare this simple salad with fresh local ingredients that we always have on hand while vacationing in Avalon at the Jersey shore. I brought down some wonderful extra virgin olive oil given to us by a friend and some six year old Pedroni’s Aceto Balsamico di Modena (Balsamic Vinegar of Modena) but you can use a less expensive balsamic vinegar and have great results.

Let me quote Frances Mayes as she describes how to simply put this salad together,

“Panzanella, little swamp, is another tomato favorite, a salad of oil, vinegar, tomatoes, basil, cucumber, minced onion, and stale bread soaked in water and squeezed dry - a true invention from necessity. Since bread must be bought every day, Tuscan cooking makes good use of leftovers.”

Nothing could be easier. I used 3 small tomatoes cut up in small bites, half a cucumber also cut up into small bites, minced onion, fresh local basil, 8 slices of leftover hard baguette seasoned with salt and pepper. Like many Tuscan cooks, I added the olive oil and vinegar by eye but you should know the typical ratio is 3 parts oil to 1 part vinegar.

The bread was soaked in water and squeezed as dry as possible. At first I didn’t think it would taste very good but after dressing the salad and letting it sit for a while, the bread gave the salad a wonderful texture and absorbed some of the seasoning with the juices from the vegetables. It was amazing.  And it went great with a chilled bottle of Prosecco!

A Romanatic Valentine’s Day Salad

I am convinced that making a great salad is within everyone’s grasp. The secret is in knowing how to make a great, basic vinaigrette and then in dressing it up in any number of ways so it complements your salad ingredients. A salad should be a refreshing and healthful combination of flavors and textures: a mixture of tender and crisp greens, the interplay of sweet against salty against bitter. Start thinking of salad composition in terms of these contrasts, and you will be able to put together a great version for your Valentine.

A Romantic Valentine’s Day Meal For Her

Be sure to check out my previous post on putting together a romantic home cooked meal for your sweetheart and look for upcoming blog posts for more ideas and recipes. So far I have talked about:

Romantic Valentine’s Day Meal Suggestions

Romantic Cheese Course

Lobster Bisque Recipe

and I put it all together with music and flower suggestions, along with cooking videos and polls on my new Squidoo Lens, A Romantic Valentine’s Day Dinner. Please check it out, give it a rating and send me your comments at the end.

How to Make a Vinaigrette

First things first: the vinaigrette. The general rule of thumb for making a vinaigrette is one part vinegar or other acidic ingredient, such as citrus juice to three to four parts of oil. For example, a basic vinaigrette need contain nothing more than ¼ cup vinegar and ¾ to 1 cup of oil.

Generally speaking, the oil and vinegar are forced into an emulsion by vigorous whisking. A spoonful of mustard contains emulsifiers that make that easier. So now, the basic formula for 1 cup of vinaigrette becomes:

¼ cup vinegar
1 tablespoon mustard
¾ - 1 cup oil

The salad I have in mind for our Valentine’s Day dinner includes the now-classic combination of roasted pears, toasted walnuts and creamy goat cheese, so I want to make sure that I make some additions to the vinaigrette that will complement these ingredients.

Vinaigrette for Pear, Walnut and Goat Cheese Salad

Optional ingredients are in italics

2 tablespoons red wine vinegar
2 tablespoons apple cider vinegar (you may use ¼ cup of either, or a mixture of both vinegars, depending on what you have in your pantry)
1 tablespoon Dijon mustard (smooth or whole grain—the texture is up to you)
2 tsp honey
Pinch of kosher salt
Freshly ground black pepper
1 tablespoon minced shallot
¼ teaspoon Herbs de Provence
½ roasted pear, pureed in a food processor or just mashed very well with a fork
3/4 - 1 cup extra virgin olive oil (if you do not like the flavor of olive oil, you can use a more neutral vegetable oil, such as canola)

(more…)

Sesame Seed Dressing

One of the most requested recipes I’m asked for is a good Sesame Dressing for salad, chicken or seafood. If you do a quick search on the Internet for “sesame dressing”, you will find hundreds of variations for this simple asian staple. Which one you decide on using may depend on your own personal tastes.

You can increase the amounts of individual ingredients to give this dressing more sweetness or some extra tanginess. This is basic recipe for sesame dressing that can be adapted to your own personal tastes.

Create Your Own Favorite Sesame Dressing Recipe

Start with this and then play around with it by making it a little hotter or try adding some other ingredients to see how what they do to improve or take away from the overall flavor.

As I say in many of the recipes on my web site at www.reluctantgourmet.com, use these recipes as starting points and develop your own recipes by adjusting the flavors. This is what is meant by “to taste”.

Basic Sesame Dressing Recipe

Ingredients

3 tablespoons of good quality soy sauce
3 teaspoons sesame paste (available in Asian markets and most supermarkets these days)
1/2 tablespoon hoisin sauce
1/2 tablespoon sugar
a dash or two of hot chili sauce, to taste
1 teaspoon rice wine (I like mirin, a Japanese sweet rice wine)
1/2 tablespoon of boiling water (good chance you’ll be cooking noodles with this dressing, so here’s your source)
1 tablespoon toasted sesame seeds (optional)

How to Make A Basic Sesame Dressing

In a small bowl, whisk the soy sauce, sesame paste, hoisin sauce, sugar, chili hot sauce and rice wine together. Add the hot water and continue whisking until the sugar is completely dissolved. If you are opting for toasted sesame seeds, stir them in now.

Taste and adjust seasonings to your personal likings.

This dressing tastes better when chilled. Cover the bowl or transfer the dressing into a glass jar and refrigerate until you are ready to use it

Alternative Ingredient Suggestions

As I mentioned above, there are lots of variations you can make to this recipe or create your own from scratch. Here are some of the ingredients I found on the Internet that can be added to or substituted with that will change the final flavor of your sesame dressing:

honey soy sauce
dark soy sauce
fresh ginger
scallions
wasabi paste
hot or sweet mustard
Asian sesame oil
honey
Mayonnaise to make it creamy

Post Your Favorite Recipe for Sesame Dressing

I’m sure you have your own list of ingredients you like to use when preparing sesame dressing and I invite you to share your favorites in the REPLY section below.