Monthly Archives: May 2011

Meatless Monday: Creamy Leek Cavatelli with Crostini

Looking for a date night dinner? This creamy pasta dish is simple, sophisticated, and sure to impress any guest.

This dish is made with Béchamel, a classic French sauce made by whisking hot milk into a roux made with equal parts flour and butter. The technique results in a thick, creamy coating, making pasta dishes both heartier and more elegant.

Creamy Leek Cavatelli with Crostini
Yields 4 servings

Ingredients:

1 lb. dried or frozen cavatelli pasta, cooked al dente
1/4 cup extra virgin olive oil
3 leeks, white parts only, finely chopped
1 shallot, finely chopped
2 cloves garlic, crushed
2 cups milk, heated
2 tablespoons butter
2 tablespoons flour
2 tablespoons chopped parsley
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon fresh ground pepper
1/2 cup Parmesan cheese

For the crostini:
1 French baguette, sliced into 1/2-inch pieces on the bias
2 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil
Salt and pepper to taste

Directions:

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

2. In a medium skillet, heat 1 tablespoon of olive oil over medium heat. Add leeks, shallots and garlic, reduce heat to low and cook, stirring occasionally, until vegetables are translucent, about 3-5 minutes.

3. In a sauce pan, melt butter over medium-low heat and add flour. Stir or whisky, making sure to break up any lumps, until frothy, about 1-2 minutes. Add heated milk a little bit at a time and cook over medium-low heat, whisking or stirring, until liquid is thick enough to coat the back of a spoon, about 6-8 minutes.

4. Stir in leek mixture, cavatelli pasta and grated cheese. Season with salt and pepper and garnish with fresh chopped parsley.

5. Brush olive oil onto bread slices and sprinkle with salt and pepper. Bake in a preheated oven for about 5 minutes.

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Filed under Food2, May 2011, Meatless Mondays, Rina's Food2 recipes

Meatless Monday: French Onion Soup

Think you need beef broth to get a tasty French onion soup? Think again! This vegetarian version packs the same flavor punch with none of the meat. As an added bonus, it’s super easy to make.

French Onion Soup with Gruyere and Sourdough Croutons

Ingredients:

Soup:
10 large white or yellow onions, thinly sliced
1/4 cup extra virgin olive oil
2 sprigs thyme
1 bay leaf
4 garlic cloves, crushed
4 cups low-sodium vegetable stock (homemade or store-bought)
Salt, to taste
1/2 teaspoon pepper
1 cup freshly grated gruyere cheese

Croutons:
1 loaf sourdough bread cut into 1” cubes
2 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil
Pinch salt

Directions:

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

2. In a large saucepan, heat oil on a medium-low flame. Add garlic, onions and a pinch of salt, and cook, stirring frequently, until browned and caramelized, about 30-40 minutes. Add vegetable stock and herbs, scraping up any brown bits on the bottom of the pan with the liquid. Bring to a boil, then reduce to a simmer and cook for an additional 30 minutes. Season with salt and pepper to taste.

3. Coat croutons with olive oil and sprinkle with a pinch of salt. Spread out on a sheet pan and bake in oven for about 7 minutes.

4. In serving bowls, add soup, and then cover with croutons and gruyere cheese. Bake for 3-4 minutes, or until cheese is melted.

Rina Oh is an artist, writer and chef and a Meatless Monday advocate. For the last year these Meatless Mondays recipes have appeared on Food2.com, a website that is owned and operated by Scripps Networks. These posts are copyrighted material and any photographs, illustrations or written material are forbidden to be used or reposted anywhere without permission. For more information on Meatless Monday, please visit meatlessmonday.com

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Filed under Food2, May 2011, Meatless Mondays, Rina's Food2 recipes

Meatless Monday: Herbed Couscous Stuffed Peppers and Yellow Squash

Having a spring dinner party? Serve up these stuffed vegetables to your guests. This easy dish takes about 40 minutes to cook, and it’s a great addition to any potluck menu!

 

Herbed Couscous Stuffed Peppers and Yellow Squash

Ingredients:

2 cups cooked couscous
2 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil and extra for greasing pan
1 medium yellow onion, chopped
3 celery stalks, finely diced
2 garlic cloves, minced
1 pound yellow squash, seeded and cut into 2” pieces
3 red peppers, halved and seeded, stem still attached
3 green peppers, halved and seeded, stem still attached
1 teaspoon fennel seeds
1 teaspoon dried oregano
1 tomato, chopped
1/2 teaspoon kosher salt
1/2 teaspoon ground pepper
2 tablespoons butter
1 cup grated mozzarella cheese
1/4 cup grated parmesan cheese

Directions:

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

2. Grease baking sheets with extra virgin olive oil. Place peppers hollow-side down and bake for about 15 minutes.

3. In a medium saucepan, heat the two tablespoons of olive oil over medium-low heat and cook onions until translucent, about 4-5 minutes. Add garlic, celery and herbs, and cook until tender, about 3-4 minutes. Add tomato and butter. When butter is melted, stir in the couscous and add salt and pepper.

4. Remove peppers from oven, let cool for a few minutes.

5. Stuff peppers and squash with couscous and vegetable mixture. Top with mozzarella cheese and parmesan cheese.

6. Bake for about 15-20 minutes until peppers and squash are tender.

 

 

 

 

 

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Filed under Food2, May 2011, Meatless Mondays, Rina's Food2 recipes

Food2 and beyond…

This week for Meatless Monday I made an eggplant parmesan, a classic dish presented in a contemporary fashion. Kumato tomatoes are the hottest tomato in the restaurant market right now. It is considered to be of the club variety and you won’t be growing these babies in your backyard anytime soon. The seeds are virtually unavailable for individual sale and only special licensed tomato farmers may acquire Kumato seeds after passing several rigorous tests. They are commonly found throughout Europea in Spain, France, Holland, Switzerland, and in Canada and Mexico in the Americas.

They are indeed the perfect club sandwich tomato, versatile, sweet and savory. I’ve been buying them weekly replacing roma and cherry tomatoes in my salads. Don’t get fooled by their greenish brown color either, it’s part of their nature and in fact they hold their shelf life much longer than conventional tomatoes.

Meatless Mondays and the Food Network have recently started tweeting my recipes to a nationwide audience ranging in the 400,000+ number of followers. This is great news! Stay tuned for upcoming Spring and Summer recipes. Barbeque season is back and I’m ready to hit the grill with my secret sauces. I just received notice from Granny Choe’s Kimchi company who’s sending samples of their bottled kimchi from California and I can’t wait to try it. A few months ago I interviewed a kimchi blogger for Lovethatkimchi.com and went on a mission looking for Granny Choe’s Kimchi at Whole Foods stores in the Northeast. Unfortunately theirs have not yet hit our shelves and I didn’t get a chance to try it. Long and behold, they contacted me several days ago and the kimchi is on its way!

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Eggplant Parmesan with Kumato-Cucumber Salad

Eggplant parmesan is a hearty, satisfying vegetarian dish. This version is prepared in elegant stacks, rather than the traditional casserole method, making it equally appropriate for a weeknight meal or entertaining. It’s served with a salad made with kumato tomatoes, which are darker and sweeter than the traditional types. If you can’t find them, Roma or cherry tomatoes (or even a mix of the two) are great stand-ins.

Recipe: Rina Oh

Eggplant Parmesan with Kumato-Cucumber Salad
Yields 4 servings

Ingredients:

Eggplant:
1 large eggplant, sliced 1/4 inch thick
1/4 cup all purpose flour
1/2 cup seasoned breadcrumbs
1 egg, beaten
Frying oil
2 cups homemade or store-bought marinara sauce
1 cup grated mozzarella cheese
1/4 cup grated parmesan cheese

Salad:
1 plum tomato, chopped
4 kumato tomatoes, quartered
1 seedless cucumber, thinly sliced
1/4 cup lemon segments, sliced in half

Vinaigrette:
Juice of 1/2 lemon
Zest of 1 lemon
1/4 cup extra virgin olive oil
Salt and pepper to taste

Directions:

1. In a large straight-sided skillet, pour oil to a 1/2 inch depth. Heat over medium heat until temperature reaches 350 degrees.

2. Dredge eggplant in four, dip in egg, and then dredge in breadcrumbs.

3. Working in small batches, fry breaded eggplant until golden, and set on paper towels to drain. In a saucepan, heat marinara sauce.

4. Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Cover the bottom of a small baking dish with marinara sauce. Place four slices of eggplant on the bottom, and top each with marinara sauce and mozzarella cheese. Repeat with remaining eggplant, sauce and mozzarella, making four stacks. Top the final piece with sauce, mozzarella and parmesan cheese. Cook until warmed through and cheese is melted, about 10 minutes.

5. Mix all vinaigrette ingredients together in a small mixing bowl. Dress cucumbers, tomatoes and lemon segments. Finish salad with a sprinkling of lemon zest.

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Filed under Food2, May 2011, May 2011, Meatless Mondays, Rina's Food2 recipes

The Food Chain Goes Beyond Professional Kitchens

Food styling work is similar to working in a professional kitchen. If you’re an aspiring stylist you better be prepared to deal with the same process of ordering, cleaning, organizing the refrigerator, mise en place, working quickly and efficiently. If you can’t do this or think it may be too much to work 10-12 hour days, than this is not for you. Turn away now and find something else to do.

Food Network Stars Aarti and Sunny with visiting fans

On the set, you’ll be expected to do all this and wash the dishes at the same time. There’s no such thing as a dishwasher budget. Loading and unloading equipment on and off site is part of the job description. And when you’re starting out, you are not going to be the chef. You will most likely trail the first assistant stylist, or as restaurants may refer as sous chefs.

Behind the scenes for a Kitchendaily production

My first styling gig was working on Kitchendaily’s Pantry Project starring Gail Simmons. The crew ranged from culinary, to lighting, cameras, producers, makeup artists, wardrobe, PA’s. I worked as the second assistant stylist and my tasks included picking herbs, organizing the fridge, washing dishes, until I proved my competence in the kitchen and the stylist allowed me to cook off a few recipes for the stills while prepping out a duplicate copy of the mise en place for the on camera demo. From there I worked on a Smuckers advertisement where the food we made was product driven showcasing less of the culinary expertise but rather set styling with props and products. I left that set with cases of penut butter that should suffice a year’s supply of P&J sandwiches.

Chris Bradley on the set of Tasting Table Sous Chef Series

A few other styling jobs welcomed me as the assistant stylist for the Tasting Table sous chef series. I got a chance to work with James Tracey, the chef de cuisine at Craft as we taped one recipe for an entire day. Not that much work in the back end but swapping out five versions of roasted chicken in various stages including every ingredient was a juggling act since none of the cooking steps you see in a television or video production is filmed in order. A few weeks later I got called back for another Sous Chef video featuring Chris Bradley.

The magic of food styling made for television

I recently worked on two jobs back to back, one for a product driven website featuring store brands and the second for an educational series featuring Jamika Pessoa who appeared in Season 5 of the Next Food Network Star.

We had to recreate this shot 2 days later, thank goodness for the iphone camera!

It was on the first job that I truly proved myself and went from being one of four assistants to the first assistant stylist by the end of our three-day production. The natural progression of a food stylist starts off at the bottom, you will be the first, second, third, etc stylist depending on the size of your team. After becoming a first assistant stylist for a while, the next step will be to work as the lead stylist and then culinary producer.

Michelle Bernstein for the Macys Red Campaign. The call time was 5:30am

I woke up at 5:00am every day we were in production and arrived on the set at 8:00am. A very good call time as other jobs required arriving on the set at 3:30am. I didn’t sleep the night before the Smuckers production as the evening courses at FCI had me leaving the campus past 11:00pm. Considering I live about an hour away- that left no time to sleep, not even for a minute. I contemplated sleeping in the car and going to work four hours later. It’s not as glamorous as many believe it to be. When you’re working behind the scenes for any television or print media production it requires diligence, organization, and fast execution skills. You’re not just answering to the lead stylist but rather an entire team of producers, directors, clients.

Inside the production kitchen @ Food Network studios with Miriam Garron

A few months ago I got a chance to visit the Food Network production studios inside the Chelsea Market. I have to admit that it was their channel that drew me into enrolling at FCI. I watched food shows for the past five years and never missed a season of Iron Chef. I wanted to learn how to sous vide and play with liquid nitrogen too. And then I saw the advertisement featuring Mario Batali who graduated from the French Culinary Institute. I called the 800 number the next day to go on a tour and at first sight of the FCI kitchens, I was hooked. I knew that’s what I wanted to do.

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Filed under Hot on the Blog, May 2011