11/7/2009 Recipes

11/7/2009 Eggplant Parmesan Dinner Recipes
(cooked for 4 people)

Typical Tuscan Rustic Cake
- 2 apples, 2 pears medium sized (can do all four of one fruit)
- 120g sugar
- 60g butter
- Caramelize all, for 20 min, cool
o Key to the cake is the caramelization of the fruit, get it nice and golden brown
o Get all of the caramel sauce and fruit out of pan if stuck after cooling by putting over heat and add a tad of water
- Parchment paper to bottom of pan, add fruit to thin layer on paper
o This will eventually be the tip of the cake because you flip it up side down to get it out of the pan
- Dough
o OO flour 240g
o Butter (unsalted) 120g (room temp)
o Pinch of salt
o Hot water, just enough to melt butter, so splash it on
o Mix together then let relax for 20 min
• Really work the dough like a throttle of a motorcycle
• Looking for the dough to be ELASTIC and not easily break apart
o Roll out into a circle and then cover the fruit in pan with it (so that it actually turns into the bottom of the cake)
- Bake at 180 C
- Cool out of oven, flip over after cooled
- Add crème to top
o Use real cream, not heavy cream, add powdered sugar and whisk together
o Add crème to the side of the plate as to not drown the cake

Eggplant Parmesan
- 2 eggplants, peel all the way around and then slice very very thin
o Put in water with salt to clean
o Squeeze to get excess water out of eggplants before putting them into fry
- Get the EVOO extra hot and fry the eggplant slices for about 3 min till brown
- Sauce
o Fresh crushed tomatoes (diluted with water), garlic, bit of EVOO, basil, pinch of salt, cook down
• Take out garlic cloves of sauce before using
o Spread over cake pan before 1st layer of eggplant
- Layering
o Sauce, Eggplant, Cheese, Sauce, Eggplant, Cheese, etc…
o Place the pieces of mozzarella all throughout the eggplant, not just in the cheese layer
o Use more parmesan (grated) than mozzarella, because it is eggplant parmesan after all
o You know you are when finished when you press down on the eggplant and the sauce covers eggplant

Homemade Pasta and Sauce
- Sauce
o 3 Carrot (for sweetness), 2 stalks of celery, and 1 onions diced and sautéed in EVOO until cooked down
• Eyeball the amount of EVOO
• Only use very good EVOO
o After cooked down, add small can of tomato paste with 2-3 cans of water (add gradually)
• Will probably add 2 cans of water at first and then after 5-8 minutes add the 3rd can of water so that it is the consistency of a sauce
- Pasta
o 400g flour with 4 eggs (100g and 1 egg per person)
o Need OO flour
o Combine eggs and flour with fork,
• Combine gently at first and then when you have a good mixed solid dough, you can go full throttle to become elastic!
o Roll out mixture with rolling pin till thin, from the center out, roll up, and then cut into pieces
• Flour is the key to rolling out and then when rolling up and cutting the pieces
o Bring to a boil salted water
*If you want to have flavored pasta
• Take out one of the eggs that you would use and replace it with a puree of whatever flavor you want
• Will probably want to add a little bit of butter to the puree to make it smooth
• You can also get different colors of pasta with different colored flour
- Add 3tbs of butter to sauce, then add pasta

Veal Cutlets Marsala
- Melt a bit of butter in a pan, once melted add EVOO and some garlic cloves
- Turn up heat to fry
- Add veal cutlets to the oil/butter
o Oil should just barely cover the cutlets
o Cook only for the time that you add the veal cutlets and then immediately turn them over (so probably about a minute max) and then take the cutlets out of the oil/butter
- Add marsala wine to the oil/butter and let it combine nicely
- Re-add the cutlets to finish cooking
o Small amount of time until they start to brown up a bit.

*Bolognese (onion)
*Tuscan Sauce (3 vegetables)

Al dente pasta is not quite cooked all of the way
- Pasta that is al dente is easier for the stomach to digest
- Many Italians eat pasta this way because it helps them stay thin