Quiche a la Tomate, Nicoise

After I saw the movie Julie and Julia about Julie Powell cooking her way through Julia Child’s Mastering the Art of French Cooking, I really wanted to read MAFC!  I borrowed a copy from my neighbor Barb after she finally located it after losing it for a month.   It’s the “new” 1970 edition that was reprinted in conjunction with the movie.  In this “new” version Julia often gives instructions for using the new kitchen appliances such as food processors. 

As I was skipping from chapter to chapter I decided to try a few of the recipes before I had to give it back to Barb.  There were two recipes I tried, actually one recipe but it has two components.  

First let me say that I learned about Nicoise salad way back when I was a hostess at a very nice hotel dining room.  I had taken the job because I needed more money to live on than I was making as a receptionist at the Park Central Mall in downtown Phoenix, Az.  

In those days if you worked at any kind of a restaurant they had to feed you if you worked more than 4 hours in a shift.  Since I was so very, very broke, that one meal when I worked there really helped!  Even back then I loved good food, and one of the bonuses I gained was learning about some very tasty dishes.  

At that time I had never had anchovies, nor any type of olive other than green olives stuffed with pimento.  Because all of us at the restaurant had to be able to answer questions about the various dishes, we always had to taste them.  At first blush I was not enamored of anchovies.  They were too salty and too fishy for my taste back then. 

Fast forward 40 some years and now I live with a gourmand who loves anchovies in his spaghetti sauce, his pizza sauce, etc.  Most of us find that our taste buds change over the long years and mine are no exception.  I’ve developed a taste for those salty little fish, and as a result pounced on the Quiche a la Tomate, Nicoise recipe on page 148-149 in MAFC. 

I’ve made quiches in the past but nothing like this one.  My first attempt at making it back in November of 2009 resulted in a dish that drew rave reviews, I just wish I could have tasted it!  I had developed a bad case of GERD and couldn’t handle the tomato in the recipe.  Darn!  But my husband, Ken, plus my neighbor Waneta’s son Don, and neighbor Barb all loved it!  

So, today using my very own new copy of MAFC, I decided to make it again and intended to taste it!  But this time I did one thing different with it that Ken had mentioned the when I first made it.  The recipe calls for 1 egg and 3 egg yolks.  Needless to say that wastes 3 egg whites!  I simply used them for washing my breads that I was making at the time as well.   But this time, at Ken’s suggestion, I beat the 3 eggwhites and folded them into the tomato mixture before pouring it all into the pie shell. 

Speaking of pie shell…I have to say I love Julia’s recipe for piecrust.  It’s the best I’ve made.  After reading her chapter on it (starting on page 139 which is Chapter four, Entres and Luncheon Dishes), I decided to make it in the food processor my mother-in-law handed down to me a few years ago.  Wow!  Was it ever easier and tastier than using my pastry blender and the recipe I had used before!   I will admit that I have to clean up all the food processor pieces, but I am learning that is not too big a task! 

Bea's Cuinisart, an oldie but a goodie!

Once the pie dough has been in the frig over night, or in the freezer for an hour, you roll it out and then move it to a quiche pan or a springform pan which is what I use.  I’m still having trouble with the crust slumping during the partial baking phase, but it tastes so good we don’t care how it looks.  I’ll keep practicing it with this and other recipes and finally get the hang of making it look pretty.  Or, I’ll go ahead and get a quiche pan, now there’s an idea! 

Anyhow, I am not going to put the recipe in here simply because I don’t have time to type the entire thing in and it does have multiple steps.  But I will include the pictures I took during the process and brief explanations about them.

Quiche A La Tomate, Nicoise page 148-149

Start by making your pie dough, and after chilling it prebake it in the oven for 8 minutes.  Remember to dock the bottom!  I put a buttered side down piece of foil in mine and put in a package of beans to help keep it from developing air pocket bubbles.

Make a quick fresh tomato sauce mixture by cooking down some good ripe tomatos with onions.

In the tomato mixture you also add garlic, oregano, salt and pepper.  Cook it down until almost all the juice has evaporated.   The picture below shows how much it had cooked down.   Although Julia says to use a heavy stainless steel pan I used my good old cast iron skillet.

I beat the 1 egg and 3 egg yolks, then added the chopped anchovies (the ones I had were wrapped around capers), oil (including the oil from the anchovy can), tomato paste, oregano, parsley, paprika and cayenne pepper.  I need to add here that I didn't have any fresh parsley which I believe is what she meant.  However, I did have some parsley that I had dehydrated, and I just crushed that with my garden grown and dehydrated oregano.

To all  of this I folded in the tomato mixture.

I beat the 3 egg whites to stiff peaks and then folded them into the tomato, et all, mixture and poured it into the partially baked pie shell.

You can see in this picture how my pie shell slumped in several areas.

 I used oil cured olives that have bits of garlic.  They are delicious in this dish!  You don't need many of these.  The pits are a bit difficult to pry out.  I've found the easiest way is to roll the olive under my chef's knife and "crack" them.  Then  call pull out the pit and use the olive.  Final step is to sprinkle some parmesan cheese over the quiche and drizzle some olive oil on top.

Bake it in a preheated 375 degree oven for 25-30 minutes.  I found I needed to let it cook for an additional 10 minutes.  I am not sure if that was because of the inclusion of the folded in egg whites or not.

About 5 minutes after taken out of the oven, the quiche will slump a bit.  That's to be expected especially with the addition of the egg whites.

Twenty minutes after it came out of the oven, this one last piece is all that was left!   The quiche, a salad and a glass of our homemade Merlot was all that was needed for a great meal!  Ken really likes it with the beaten egg whites folded in.  He said that it had a lighter texture.  Sadly, Don and Barb were not around to second or negate that comment!  LOL.

I won't downplay the work that goes into this dish.  But I will say it is really worth it if you like anchovies, very flavorful olives, and the taste of fresh tomatos!  Bon appetit!  

Osso Bucco as a symbol for a great New Year!

May you have an Osso Bucco year! 

In other words, may it be a richly flavored, easy type of year for you!

I love the symbolism of starting a new year. Ken and I are very lucky because we enjoy two New Year’s! We celebrate Rosh Hashanah, the beginning of the Jewish New Year usually sometime in September or October. THAT New Year tradition is filled with honey and challah. The common New Year has always posed a dilemma however. What to eat to symbolize the New Year?

Here in Central PA, my friends and neighbors celebrate with pork and sauerkraut. While we love sauerkraut, especially the homemade version that I get from Dorothy ( a wonderful Mennonite woman) at the Eastern York Farmers Market, we don’t eat pork at all.

I had to think about what kind of year I want 2010 to be. I decided I want it to be a year filled with the living and enjoying of life, rich and flavorful with new wonderful adventures, and tender moments, that started with a sizzling heat! Yeah, that’s it! And the days after are to be even better, more rich and full bodied. Hmmm. Sounds like Osso Bucco to me, so that’s what I made. We had Osso Bucco at a friend’s house down in Florida a few years ago (not for New Year’s) and I’ve never forgotten what a wonderful meal that was. Great conversation, lots of laughter, and a fabulous dining experience put on by our hosts Brad and his wife, Suzy.

Julia Child’s "Mastering the Art of French Cooking" probably has the perfect recipe for it. Alas, I don’t have my own copy yet. I’m trying to find one at a used book store. If no luck there I’ll order on sometime the first part of 2010. In the meantime I perused James Beard’s Theory and Practice of Good Cooking. No luck there. Joy of Cooking has a braised lamb shanks recipe but she doesn’t call it Osso Bucco. I finally got online and looked at several recipes, and decided that Giada De Laurentiis' was the recipe that best epitomized what I want in 2010.

Although Giada makes hers with veal shanks, I found some very nice looking lamb shanks at BJs. Lamb is a favorite for Ken and I, and we make it numerous ways throughout the year. The shanks were really meaty and plump and the price was within my budget so I snatched them up!

Giada’s recipe ingredients were perfect for me. I had everything except the fresh parsley. But that I could leave out this time I figured. I wasn’t going out to the store again.

I started by cutting fresh rosemary and thyme out of my little herb garden in the back. That in itself was a minor miracle since we again have snow on the ground! At least this time it only snowed three inches!

Scupper surveying the snow

Here are the ingredients list for Giada’s Osso Bucco

1 sprig fresh rosemary
1 sprig fresh thyme
1 dry bay leaf
2 whole cloves
Cheesecloth
Kitchen twine, for bouquet garni and tying the veal shanks
3 whole veal shanks (about 1 pound per shank), trimmed
Sea salt and freshly ground black pepper
All purpose flour, for dredging
1/2 cup vegetable oil
1 small onion, diced into 1/2-inch cubes
1 small carrot, diced into 1/2-inch cubes
1 stalk celery, diced into 1/2 inch cubes
1 tablespoon tomato paste
1 cup dry white wine
3 cups chicken stock
3 tablespoons fresh flat-leaf Italian parsley, chopped
1 tablespoon lemon zest

I cut the sage leaves so I can dry them, but the rosemary and thyme went into the bouquet garni, along with the cloves and bay leaf. I filled the cheesecloth with the herbs and then tied it all up with butchers twine.

I quickly diced the carrots, celery and onions and set them aside in a bowl. I measured out a tablespoon of tomato paste from the squeeze tube. By the way if you haven’t tried the tomato paste in a tube, do so at your earliest convenience. I love the stuff! I seldom need more than a tablespoon or two at a time and have wasted too many cans of it in the past. Now I buy it in the tubes and keep it in the frig once I’ve opened it.

I went ahead and measured out the Martini & Rossi Vermouth and chicken stock while I was at it. I wanted to be able to move from step to step without stopping.

After taking the lamb shanks out of the package I rinsed them quickly, patted them dry, and trimmed some of the fat. Harking back to my days in Alaska and rendering bear fat, I put the trimmings in the pot and let the fat ooze out as the little pieces of meat became nice and crispy. Yes, I have actually eaten bear, matter of fact we were very happy to have it one winter as that was just about our only red meat that year. That was years ago when I hunted with my former husband. I haven’t hunted in years but still conjure up my cooking techniques from those days every once in awhile.

While the fat was rendering I wrapped each shank with twine to keep the meat on the bones when it became oh-so-tender. I seasoned with salt and pepper, and then dredged in flour. Once I had garnered as much fat as possible out of the gribbins (that is what I call it) I removed them then added olive oil instead of vegetable oil and heated it up. I dropped in the shanks and browned them all over.

Once the shanks were browned I put them on a plate to the side, I dropped the vegetables in and sautéed those until the onions were translucent. In went the tomato paste next and I stirred it until it was blended in. Then it was time to drop in the shanks. I poured in the vermouth and cooked it down to reduce the liquid to half. It doesn’t take long, so I had to monitor it closely. Finally I dropped in the bouquet garni, and added the chicken stock. I felt the College Inn Bold Stock Rotisserie Chicken Broth would be best for this since it is rich, and full bodied.

I brought the liquid up to a full boil and put it into an oven at 325 degrees. Giada says to simmer it on the stove, but Joy of Cooking said to put it in the oven, so I chose J of C for the final part. I checked it about every 20 minutes and did add a bit more broth about half way through. The idea is to keep the liquid about ¾ ways up the shank according to Giada. After about 1 ½ hrs I took it out of the oven and put it on a low burner to keep it warm.

Since I had a batch of “light” semolina” Artisan Bread in 5 Minutes a Day dough (1 cup of semolina pasta flour in place of one cup of All Purpose flour) in the frig I decided to bake a few loaves of ciabatta and serve some with the Osso Bucco.  About ½ hr before taking out the Osso Bucco I cut off a grapefruit and orange size of dough. I quickly flattened the two sections of dough out on the floured counter, and then covered them with plastic wrap that I had sprayed with Pam. I only let them rise for about 20 minutes.

Once the Osso Bucco was out of the oven I turned the heat to 450 degrees, and put my baking stone back in to warm up. Just before baking, I wetted my fingers and quickly and deeply jabbed the risen dough with my fingertips, making sure to go to the ends. Then I spread on olive oil, sprinkled some freshly ground sea salt, and some chopped fresh rosemary on the dough. At last, I slid the parchment paper with the two loaves of ciabatta on it into the hot oven. I poured a cup of water into a pie pan in the bottom of the oven and closed the door. Ciabatta doesn’t take as long to bake as a big loaf of bread, so it was ready after only 23 minutes.

Because I had a variety of some small potatoes in the frig I decided to boil them up while the bread baked. I also took this time to zest a lemon for the final plating.

Once a simple salad and a glass of my homemade Chilean Carmenere/Acabernet Sauvignon 2007 were on the table, I was ready to plate the Osso Bucco.

I had to be careful with the lamb though as once I cut the twine I knew it would want to fall off the bone. So first I scooped out the vegetables with slotted spoon, and put them on the plate, then carefully lifted out the lamb shanks and placed them on top. Using a ladle I poured some of the sauce over the shanks. I cut the twine with a few quick snips, added the drained boiled potatoes, dropped the lemon zest onto the lamb shanks and added two pieces of bread to each plate.

Our dinner was everything I hope 2010 to be; richly flavored, tender and juicy. The fresh bread sopped up the sauce with the added flavor of the rosemary. AHHHHHH.

Dessert was just a dish of vanilla ice cream which Ken drizzled with our chocolate raspberry port.

What a delicious feast and a wonderful way to toast in 2010!  May we all have an Osso Bucco Year!