Prime Cuts

A good friend of Caminito and of the blog, Stephanie Gurtman (one of the super forces behind InternshipRatings.com), asked if we could put together a simple guide to making eggplant parmigiana.  Of course, we’re always happy to oblige!   Eggplant parmigiana can be one of those simple but tricky dishes to make because of how moist eggplant is.  If not done correctly the eggplant will be mushy and not fry properly.  For anyone that has had this happen to them before, we hope this guide/recipe will help the next time you decide to make eggplant parmigiana.

Eggplant Parmigiana

Ingredients

2 large purple eggplants
1/2 cup all-purpose flour
1/2 cup fine dry breadcrumbs (plain or flavored)
4 medium-large eggs, beaten
1-1.5lbs fresh mozzarella, sliced into thin rounds
1 cup grated Parmesan cheese (fresh, preferred)
1 package fresh basil leaves, rough chopped
Favorite tomato-based sauce (homemade = extra points!)
Kosher salt
Black pepper
Olive oil or vegetable oil

Preparation

1. Cut eggplant in 1/4″ round cross-section slices.  Arrange slices on a cooling rack along with a baking sheet underneath cooling rack.
2. Sprinkle eggplant with kosher salt.  Allow to rest on cooling rack for approximately 15 minutes to pull the moisture out of the eggplant.
3. Brush off excess salt, flip over, brush with kosher salt again and allow to rest for another 15 minutes on the cooling rack.  After 15 minutes, brush off the excess salt again.
4. Set up a simple standard breading station consisting of beaten eggs in one dish and combination of all-purpose flour and dry breadcrumbs in another.
5. Put tomato sauce on low-medium heat to begin cooking. Cover.
6. Begin heating oil in either a deep skillet or a deep-fryer (if available).
7. Dredge the individual slices of eggplant in the beaten egg then into the breadcrumb/flour mixture.  Once you dredge a slice, go back through again by dipping into egg then breadcrumb/flour mixture again.  This will create a double breading on the eggplant.
8. Once oil is hot enough, pan fry or deep-fry the slices of eggplant until crispy and golden brown.  Be careful when working with hot oil and don’t add too many slices at a time.  Adding to many slices at once can cause the oil to pop and become unstable (depending on the amount of moisture in the eggplant) and/or lower the overall heat of the oil thus making the eggplant not cook properly and become soggy.
9. Once crispy and golden brown, remove from oil and place on paper towels to soak some of the oil.  Sprinkle kosher salt and black pepper immediately after coming out of oil.
10. Pre-heat oven to 350 degrees.
11. In a glass baking dish  put some of the tomato sauce in the bottom of the dish, enough to cover.  Then place a layer of eggplant across the sauce.  Place some of the slices of mozzarella cheese on top.  Sprinkle with Parmesan cheese and rough chopped basil leaves.  Add another layer of eggplant, some tomato sauce and repeat steps.  If there is enough eggplant left, make a third layer.
12. Once oven is pre-heated place glass baking dish into oven for approximately 15 minutes or until the cheese is melted, lightly brown and bubbly.
13. Serve either by itself or with your favorite pasta.

Enjoy!

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Photo by: mhaithaca

We’ve had a lot of questions over the past week regarding where Prime Cuts TV has been for the few weeks.  We wanted to let you know that we haven’t stopped producing Prime Cuts TV and will have a new episode later this week or, at the latest, next Monday for all of you.

What happened? Well, a few weeks ago Justin moved to Boston.  In the craziness of relocating to another state both of the camera chargers have gone MIA which has made it a little hard to film any new episodes.  However, even if we can’t find the chargers by mid-week, Justin is either going to order a new charger or pick up another camera as a temporary solution.

Don’t worry though, we have a bunch of content already lined up both for the regular blog and also for Prime Cuts TV.  Also, we will have a very special announcement coming later this week which we think everyone will like

We both hope that you’re all doing well.  Actually, let’s chat about that in the comments below.  How are you doing?  Tried any cool recipes lately?  Learn anything new in the kitchen which is awesome and you want to share?

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Today, my friend Amber Rae Lambke, takes over Prime Cuts with an insanely delicious recipe for Greek hummus garnished with kalamata olives and toasted pine nuts.  Hummus is a fantastic snack and very healthy!  The funny thing is that a lot of people think it’s really hard.  It’s actually simple to make and if you follow Amber’s recipe below, you’ll be sure to impress everyone the next time you have guests over!

Greek Hummus with Kalamata Olives and Toasted Pine Nuts

Ingredients

1 (15-ounce) can chick peas, drained
1 lemon
1 sprig fresh oregano, leaves chopped
1 clove garlic, finely chopped
2 rounded tablespoons tahini paste
1/4 cup kalamata olives, well drained, coarsely chopped
2 whole wheat pitas
1/2 zucchini, cut into sticks for dipping
1/4 cup pinenuts
Salt

Preparation

Combine chick peas, juice of 1 lemon and oregano in food processor. Mash garlic into paste with some salt pressing under the flat part of your knife then add garlic to processor along with tahini paste. Process hummus until smooth (add a splash of water if too thick) then transfer to a bowl and stir in olives and toasted pinenuts (bake at 375 for 3 – 5 minutes), reserving a few for garnish. Serve dip with pita crisps (bake pita bread at 375 for 5 – 8 min) and vegetable sticks.

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Photo by: Amber Rae Lambke

Veteran readers of this blog know that in my old position, before joining New Marketing Labs, I traveled to the Philippines 3-4 times per year.  Though the flight sucked (about 20hrs long) and the time difference was rough (12-13hrs ahead of ET), one of the great things was that I got to travel to a completely different culture and try tons of new food.  Being a true foodie and a restaurateur, this is a dream come true.  By indulging in other cultures, especially if you can go to the actual country, you have the chance to expand your palette, come up with new ideas for recipes, and gain new appreciations.

Now that I’ve moved on in my career, I’m not sure if/when I’ll ever have the opportunity to travel back to the Philippines.  One of the mistakes I made was never filming any video.  When I was there, I was running around so crazy and so sleep deprived, I never thought of shooting any content that I could share here.  Then a couple days ago I received an email on behalf of the Travel Channel promoting the upcoming episode of “No Reservations” with Anthony Bourdain.  The episode, airing Monday, February 16th at 10p ET, takes Anthony to the Philippines in many of the same communities that I traveled to.  If you ever wanted to learn more about the Filipino culture and food, check out the episode.

Here is a sneak preview of the upcoming episode.  If you can’t view the video, you can check it out on Viddler.

[viddler id=e7205289&w=437&h=370]

What did you think?  Let’s chat about different cultures’ food, especially Filipino in the comments below.

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First Joe shared with you his love for steak on the bone and now he describes the first pork chop he ever fell in love with…

In my blog posting I have a few different styles I follow.  I write many recipes or informative/instructional pieces.  Sometimes I simply provide the steps to a photo series “how to”.  Sometimes it is a response to a question and sometimes I just flow randomly about a subject of random nature.   The latter is my favorite type of writing.  I often feel myself doing this in the preface of an informative piece as well… it is my natural style.

Justin and I are very proud of all the content posted on our blog but I do have a few favorites: the piece written about ice fishing is right up there, but my absolute favorite was the blog about steak on the bone.  It was just my passion on a subject flowing out freely.  When we started Prime Cuts I was nervous and unsure that I would have the motivation and the skill to write a significant amount of content.  But pieces like my two before mentioned favorites have rekindled a love of writing that I left back in high school.  I guess between high school and now I just didn’t have subject matter that was sufficiently interesting to me, but with food and all its tangent topics I can ramble on forever…which is a good thing for all Prime Cuts fans.

Today’s subject is a just the tip of the iceberg but I want to talk about a very special food, PORK!  There are a few sayings in the culinary world that sum it up nicely: “bacon makes everything better”, “when in doubt just add pork”, and recently on a random Facebook quiz I was told that my last words will be “pass the pork chops please”.  Honestly, that’s ok with me.

Clearly my allegiance lies with beef, it is what I base our restaurant menu on and I feel it is what I am the best at fabricating/preparing.  Pork however is just, well… special.  Think about it, the different cuts of pork are all so truly unique in flavor and texture, especially.  Bacon, center-cut pork chops, tenderloin, slowly braised pork shoulder, fatback, ham, prosciutto, and even lard. They are all so different and all have their respective places in cuisine.

As a center of the plate item, side dish, cold cut, flavor enhancing ingredient , or even to add structure and strength to a dough, pork is important.  Personally, I could eat some type of pork every day and never get sick of it.  Many people would think that this would get quickly redundant, because it’s all so fatty.  While it is true that a lot of pork can be fatty (which is why they are so highly praised) there are quite a few lean cuts as well.  I ate a center-cut, white meat pork chop for dinner the other day that I slowly stewed in tomato sauce.  This is a dish that my mother used to make, and fatty was the last thing I thought about it.  Also a dish I used to prepare at a previous restaurant was Hunters Style Pork – a small pork tenderloin that was seared then braised slowly until tender and served with caramelized onion and green apples.  The natural richness of the pork, balanced with the sweetness of the onions and the tartness of the green apples is a perfect combination.  Baby pork tenderloin is just what it sounds like when prepared properly…tender.  You don’t need a knife to cut it and simply put…you can eat a lot of it.  You want to eat a lot of it, trust me.

I feel that every culture has its pork recipe or even a simple cooking method that produces one of the signature dishes of its people.  Spanish roasted pork shoulder seasoned liberally with sofrito is one of my favorite meals ever, hands down. German wiener schnitzel with a tender pounded pork loin is like butter.  Hawaian style whole pig roasts, where a giant hog is wrapped in banana leaves and roasted slowly in covered with red hot coals and hot stones…this is simply amazing.  It is the true essence of pork – the only few ingredients are a pig, some form of heat, time, and love.  That’s really all that is needed. All these dishes are favorites of mine, and are world classics for a reason.  They have taken all the flavors of a region and combined them with the most diverse culinary animal, to produce true food of love.  (This doesn’t even touch on the vast amounts of different sausages that would not be possible to prepare without pork, but that’s another post entirely).

To conclude I just want to talk about the first pork chop I ever fell in love with.  It is something that has generated much interest within our restaurant staff lately because to many it seems like an unorthodox way of cooking pork.  Pork chops stewed in tomato sauce…  mmm!  The way my mom makes our Real tomato sauce is a daylong/multiple day process.  Its one of those things that the longer it cooks the better it gets, and I even think of it like a stock where the tomatoes are the equivalent of the water in a stock and all the meats that you put into the sauce are what flavors the water/ tomatoes.

To start you get a huge pot of tomatoes going on the heat, then throw in a pack of pork chops, a pack of veal chops and you then simmer this combination all day.  When the meat is falling off the bone tender and almost flakes apart you are ready to remove them from the sauce.  Yes, that’s right, take em out.  What you are left with is a sauce that is intensely flavored with these meats (the sauce is then finished by adding meatballs and Italian sausage and simmering for another half day).  But it is the dinner before the sauce that I speak of, tomato sauce braised chops, fork tender, served simply with white rice and a bit of sauce to coat the rice.  It is heaven.  For the record, that’s the first pork chop I ever fell in love with.

Hungry yet?

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Photo by: kelving525

Today Joe shares an awesome roasted beet and green apple salad as a healthy addition to our other recipes.

Something that Justin and our readers have been asking me to do for a while now is to post a healthy/lighter fare recipe.   Specifically a recipe that is non-beef or even vegetarian.  While meat is my forte, I do have a few vegetable dishes in my repertoire.  Although I eat a steak or two just about every day, once in a while I have a salad too.

One of my favorite veggies has to be beets.  I hated this vegetable as a child, because until I began working in professional kitchens, I had never had a beet that was fresh or for that matter wasn’t boiled to death.  Beets are especially delicious when roasted, and once they are, the possibilities are virtually limitless.  They say an apple a day keeps the doctor away, well a beet a day keeps 10 doctors away.  They are packed full of vitamins and nutrients, which is why they have earned a place among the super vegetables…those few veggies that contain significantly more nutrition than most others and simply put are super good for you.

The following recipe is for a simple salad that is my spin on a salad course that was prepared for me by Caminito predecessor chef, and my personal mentor, Maryann Salcedo.  I have done several variations of this salad in my day, and although this recipe is quite simple, the contrasting flavors and textures are truly complex.

Roasted beet and green apple salad a la Maryann

Ingredients

4 medium beets (racquetball sized) stems, and roots trimmed
2 granny smith apples
4 large mint leaves Chiffonade
Zest and juice of 1 orange and 1 lemon
1 tbsp light olive oil
1 tsp sugar
Salt
Pepper
(Vegetable oil and coarse salt for roasting beets)

Preparation

1.    Wash beets thoroughly, (do not peel) then rub with vegetable oil.  Place in a single layer in a baking dish and sprinkle with coarse salt.  Cover dish with aluminum foil and bake at 350 for approx. 2 hours, or until a small paring knife slides in without resistance, be careful not to overcook.  Cool beets to room temp and then chill.  This step can be done a day or two in advance.

2.    Combine zest, juice, olive oil, sugar, salt, and pepper in a large bowl, whisk vigorously to combine.

3.    Prep beets by peeling outer skin with a sharp paring knife.  Cut beets into matchstick size, next cut unpeeled apples into the same matchstick size, quickly transfer beets and apples into large bowl with citrus dressing, toss lightly to coat.  The citrus juice will prevent the apples from turning brown.

4.    Transfer salad to serving plates, you will not need to apply any of the excess dressing left in the mixing bowl, whatever clings to the beets and apples will be sufficient for flavoring.

5.    Garnish with chiffonade mint, and possibly a small scoop of plain yogurt if you like.  In the summertime I like to add a few fresh blueberries at the last minute for color and added sweetness.

This is a very refreshing salad that is good for just about any time of year.  All the ingredients are readily available, and inexpensive.  While this combination may seem less than exotic, the proper roasting of the beets, and knife work that goes into producing a uniform matchstick cut, will make this salad stand out.  The matchstick cut creates more surface area on the beets and apples for the dressing to cling to, but you can of course cut yours however you like.

Eat one of these salads a day and your doctor will soon be but a memory.

Enjoy!

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Photo by: Kitty Sonnenschein

Since Justin spent the past few days moving up to Boston, there won’t be an new episode of Prime Cuts TV this week. So, we brought you something even better. Today we have a guest post from Ari Herzog. Ari has been nice enough to share a peanut butter oatmeal raisin cookie recipe. Yes, you read that right, tons of yummy goodness in one perfect cookie. Oh yeah, and it’s healthy too. Without further ado….

Healthy Peanut Butter Oatmeal Raisin Cookies

The original came from allrecipes.com, but I’ve amended it over the past year.  For instance, the original called for butter which I replaced with apple sauce; and white sugar and brown sugar, which I replaced with just brown sugar.  Making it healthy and low-fat.

The “toppings” (banana, oats, raisins) can be substituted with chocolate chips, nuts, etc. for a different result.

Ingredients

1 cup apple sauce
1 cup brown sugar
2 eggs
1/3 cup peanut butter (chunky is best)
1 tsp vanilla extract (or Kalhua, if preferred)
1 tsp cinnamon
2 cups whole wheat flour
1 tsp baking soda
3 mashed ripe bananas
2 cups instant oats
1/2 cup raisins

Preparation

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F.

2. In a medium bowl, mix the apple sauce and brown sugar. Beat in the eggs one at a time, then stir in the peanut butter and vanilla. Combine the flour and baking soda, and stir into the mixture. Finally, stir in the oats and raisins.

3. Drop by teaspoonfuls onto an unprepared cookie sheet.

4. Bake for 8 to 10 minutes in the preheated oven, until the cookies are lightly toasted on the edges. Remove and cool.

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