What Is This Interesting Vegetable

My wife brought this odd looking vegetable home from the farmers market they have at her workplace. I had never seen one before but it certainly looked interesting so I steamed it up and served it as a side dish with our meal that night. It was delicious. Tasted more like cauliflower but only more tender.

I don’t think you will find it in many supermarkets but if you can find it, try it. This relative of the cauliflower family is lime green and has cone-shaped florets.  You want to select heads that are very dense and bright in color and stay away from any with bruised florets. This can stay in the refrigerator for about a week, but I promise, it won’t last that long once you taste it.

Only Martha Stewart

My wife happened to be looking at her Martha Stewart November 2007 Living Magazine and what did she find? A recipe featuring Broccoli Romanesco and Parmesan Puree.  Only Martha would have a recipe for an esoteric vegetable only found in local farmers’ markets. And, it looks like a great one I can’t wait to try this Thanksgiving.

If you can’t find Broccoli Romanesco, you can substitute a head of broccoli and a head of cauliflower instead.

Broccoli Romanesco and Parmesan Puree
Adapted from Martha Stewart Living Magazine

Ingredients

• 3 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil
• 2½ pounds broccoli Romanesco (about two heads), cut into ¾ inch pieces
• 4 garlic cloves, thinly sliced
• ½ cup water
• Coarse salt (Kosher or sea)
• ½ cup whole milk
• ½ cup heavy cream
• ½ cup freshly grated Parmigiano-Reggiano cheese plus more for adding at the end
• Freshly ground pepper, to taste

How to Make at Home

Heat the oil in a large skillet over medium heat. Add the broccoli Romanesco and sliced garlic cook until brightly colored and starting to turn golden brown. This should take about 8 – 10 minutes.  Remove and reserve a few pieces for garnishing but leave the rest.

Add water and 1 teaspoon of salt to the skillet. Cover and cook until the broccoli Romanesco until tender, about 10 minutes. Drain any remaining liquid from the skillet.

In your food processor or blender, puree half the broccoli Romanesco and transfer to a large bowl. Puree the remaining broccoli Romanesco.

In a separate saucepan, bring the milk and cream to a gentle simmer. Add the milk and cream mixture to the food processor with the second batch and pulse to combine. Add this mixture to the first batch in the bowl and mix gently together.

Add the Parmigiano-Reggiano, season with salt and pepper and mix together. Taste and adjust seasonings.

Garnish with the reserved broccoli Romanesco and a little more of the Parmigiano cheese.

Serve as a side dish.

How to Roast Pumpkin Seeds?

It’s pumpkin carving time and we all know what we get when we carve pumpkins with the kids? No, not a big mess. Pumpkin Seeds! Don’t throw them out. Here’s how to make a delicious and nutritious snack with those slippery little seeds.

Ingredients

• Freshly plucked pumpkin seeds
• Butter – about 2 ounces of butter per cup of seeds
• Salt, to taste

Start by preheating the oven to 400º F

Separate the seeds from the pumpkin flesh. We use a colander under running water to make the job a little easier. It takes a little effort but once you get the hang of it, it’s easy. Be sure to remove all the flesh and the strings so they don’t burn in the oven.

Dry them with layers of paper towels or dishtowels.

Some people will tell you to soak the seeds in salted water for a day and that may make them taste better, but we don’t have time for that. We want immediate gratification.

Put the butter onto a baking sheet and place it in the oven. As soon as the butter melts, add the pumpkins seeds to the pan, season with salt, mix everything together and put the pan back into the oven.

Roast for 15 to 30 minutes until the pumpkin seeds are golden brown. Be sure to shake the pan every once in a while so the seeds don’t burn.

Remove the pan from the oven and let the seeds cool. Have some control and don’t start snacking on them right away or you may burn your mouth.

Alternatives:

Some people get very creative with their pumpkin seeds and season with various herbs and spices. You may want to try mixing in some garlic powder, celery powder, Cajun seasoning, Old Bay seasoning, hot sauce, red pepper flakes (be careful) or even some Worcestershire sauce.

How to Make Incredible Cheese Biscuits

I am excited to tell you about my latest NoviceToPro Interview with Chef Jenni Field, a graduate from the prestigious Orlando Culinary Academy’s Le Cordon Bleu program. It is a great interview and a must read if you are thinking of going to culinary school especially if you are over the age of 30.

Jenni started culinary arts school after a 16-year career as a teacher and avid amateur baker. The interview gets into why she changed careers, how she decided what culinary school to attend, what it was like plus Jenni talks about what qualities someone needs to enter the restaurant industry. Do check it out here.

I asked Chef Jenni for a signature recipe and she offer this one for Cheese Biscuits. Here is what she said:

“I make these for bread service at the restaurant every day.  People clamor for them in a most undignified manner!  This recipe doubles and quadruples with no problem (I make a batch with 32 cups of flour), so it’s a good recipe for a crowd”

Cheese Biscuits

• 2 cups all purpose flour
• 2 teaspoons baking powder
• 1/4 teaspoon baking soda
• 1/4 teaspoon salt
• 3/4 teaspoon mustard powder
• pinch of cayenne pepper (to taste)
• 4 oz. cold butter, cubed
• 1/2 cup heavy cream
• 1/2 cup buttermilk
• 6 oz. grated cheese (we use gruyere and parmesan. Cheddar works very well, also)
• Several grinds of black pepper

Heavily flour a smooth work surface.  (Seriously. You shouldn’t even be able to see the table under the flour).  Have your rolling pin, a bench scraper and grated cheese ready to go.

Whisk dry ingredients together in a large bowl.  Rub in butter with your fingers until the butter pieces are about the size of large peas.

Pour in the cream and buttermilk and toss lightly with your hand, using your hand to fold the ingredients together like you’d use a spatula.  The dough will be a shaggy mess. Some will still just be plain flour and some will be kind of wet.  Doesn’t matter.  Overcome your trepidation and dump it all out on the floured surface.

Sprinkle a little flour on top of the shaggy mess of dough and pat it into a rectangle that’s about 1/2 inch thick.

Take 1 oz. of the grated cheese and sprinkle it on half of the rectangle.  Use your bench scraper to help you fold the non-sprinkled half over onto the sprinkled half.  Try and get the edges fairly even.

Turn the dough a quarter-turn.  You might need your bench scraper for this, too.

Lightly roll this folded, still messy mass of dough and cheese until it is again about 1/2 inch thick.  Keep it as rectangular as you can.

Sprinkle another ounce of cheese on half, fold, turn and roll again.  Repeat this process with the remaining 4 ounces of cheese.  It will look like all the cheese won’t fit, but carry on.  I promise it will.  If some falls out, just put it back in.

With each fold, you are creating tons of layers of dough and cheese.  In that sense, it’s kind of like a puff pastry.  Also, the dough will become much easier to manage.  It might, in fact, become kind of hard to roll, making you have to push down pretty hard and grit your teeth. That’s okay. Just keep going.

Once all your cheese is in (it will sort of magically disappear into the dough), square up the sides of your rectangle again, then cut in squares of whatever size you prefer. With this size batch, you’ll probably get about 7-8 larger biscuits or about 15 mini guys.

Use your bench scraper for this part, too–it is a useful tool. (For the most beautiful baked biscuits, make sure all four sides of your biscuits are cut sides.

Don’t bake one with a fold on one side.  It will still taste good, it just will rise all funny because the layers on one side are all still attached).

You can bake the biscuits immediately, but they seem to like to be frozen for awhile first–they rise up nice and straight when the fat has had a chance to firm up again.

At any rate, when you’re ready to bake, brush the tops with buttermilk, grind on a bit of black pepper, and bake off at 375 degrees, F for 7 minutes.  Turn the pan and bake for about 6-8 more minutes.  (This baking time is for a commercial convection oven.  Your baking time might be different).

When they are done, they will be tall and golden brown and lovely.  Resist eating for as long as possible (we can only go for about 14 seconds at the restaurant) and then eat.

They are great with butter, bacon, or for a truly decadent treat, smear on some really good raspberry jam.  Hooray for the cheese biscuits!