WTF Was for Jaimie's Wedding: Italian Appetizers

I got the honor of both officiating Jaimie's ceremony and making a few cicheti, or Venetian small plates for her wedding.

And I enlisted a bunch of my favorite to help me.

Thanks everyone. I love you Jaimie!

Matt in an apron...for the first time ever?

Caprese Skewers:

Sista is building a platter of beautiful caprese skewers using fresh basil leaves, cherry tomatoes and fresh mozzarella balls stuck on skewers and drizzled with olive oil, and sprinkled with salt and pepper.

Meanwhile I had roasted the diced eggplant and diced red pepper for the crespelle (stuffed Italian crepes) the recipe is below.

And I had to make polenta for the grilled polenta squares... (recipe below)

Thanks for your house, kitchen and hospitality, Brian!

Stuffing crespelle...

I LOVE YOU,  SPENCER!

For the Crespelle: (to serve 8)

1/2 heaping) cup of flour

3/4 cup of milk

1 whole egg plus 1 yolk

For filling and topping:

one medium (3/4 lb eggplant)

2 medium red bell peppers

3/4 cup of grated Parmigiano-Reggiano

1/2 cup of grated Fontina (or Fontinal)

For topping:

2 tablespoons butter

3 tablespoons Parmigiano

Put flour in a bowl, add milk in a very thin stream beating steadily with a whisk, taking care that lumps do not form. When all the milk has been incorporated add the whole egg, egg yolk and a pinch of salt. Mix steadily for about 2 minutes. Heat crepe pan, and with each crepe swipe the pan with butter. Add just under a 1/4 c. batter to pan and cook like you would any crepe! Cook and stack crespelle (they can be made ahead of time and once they have cooled completely covered with plastic wrap and refrigerated). 

Cut eggplants into 1/2 cubes. Salt in calendar to sweat out bitterness for at least half an hour and up to an hour. Rinse under cold water dry with paper towels. You can either than either fry them in batches in olive oil or roast them in the oven after tossing them with olive oil. Your choice, just going for a bit of that nice rich brownness / a tiny bit of caramelization...

Roast the eggplants, peal and dice to the same size as eggplant. (these both could be done ahead of time, of course). 

In large bowl mix the peppers and eggplants with the parmigiano and Fontina. Taste for salt. Roll / stuff the crespelle with some of the filling transfer to baking sheet. When all are prepared top with Parmigiano and drizzle with melted butter.

Bake at 450 for 15 minutes until cheese has melted and started to turn golden...

Zucchine Ripiene (Stuffed and Fried Zucchini cups, recipe adapted from Saveur)

INGREDIENTS

1/3 cup milk
1 slice white sandwich bread
4 medium zucchini, trimmed, cut into 1 1/2″ lengths
Kosher salt and freshly ground black pepper, to taste
1 cup canned whole, peeled tomatoes in juice, crushed
1/4 cup olive oil
1/2 tsp. crushed red chile flakes
1 clove garlic, minced
4 oz. prosciutto, minced
1 oz. pancetta, minced
1/3 cup freshly grated Parmesan
2 tbsp. finely chopped parsley
1 egg, lightly beaten
2 tbsp. unsalted butter
2 tbsp. thinly sliced basil

INSTRUCTIONS

1. Heat oven to 400°. In a bowl, pour milk over bread; soak for 10 minutes. Squeeze bread to drain milk; discard milk. Return bread to bowl.

2. Using a melon baller, hollow out zucchini pieces, leaving 1/4″ walls, to form "cups"; season insides with salt and pepper. Stir together tomatoes, 2 tbsp. oil, chile flakes, garlic, and salt and pepper in a bowl; set sauce aside.

3. Mix bread with prosciutto, pancetta, Parmesan, parsley, egg, and salt and pepper. Stuff mixture evenly among zucchini cups. Heat remaining oil and butter in a 12″ skillet over medium-high heat. Working in batches, add cups; cook, turning once, until browned on both sides, 2–4 minutes. Transfer cups, stuffing side up, to a 9″ x 9″ baking dish; pour sauce over and around cups. Bake until zucchini is tender, about 30 minutes. Sprinkle with basil.

AJ also used his amazing cocktail skills to lend himself to the wedding--- prepping lemon twists, wedges and fresh squeezed grapefruit juice for drinks after the ceremony.

Clark Kent...I mean Ian, diligently filling the ripiene! Thanks Ian!! You're amazing.

Sista!

A very handsome woo-boy.

For the polenta squares:

 I prepared the polenta (2 cups of polenta to six cups of water) with butter and salt and pepper, and when I was cooked I spread it out evenly onto a greased cookie sheet, and broiled it on high for 15 minutes, until it was golden brown. Then I placed it in the refrigerator so that it would cool and easily slice. I topped each square with my grandmother's simple homemade marinara (recipe on this blog) basil and freshly grated cheese, at the wedding we also offered friend pancetta as a topping on the side.

The ripiene were topped with a spicy tomato sauce, made with the grease from frying the pancetta and proscuitto, fried garlic, chili and salt and pepper. Yum!

Vegan Hand Roll (Sushi) and/Or Sushi Plate

Helllllllllllllllo!

Seriously, everyone should try drinking kombucha in a wine glass. It makes me feel like such a luxurious person:

I don't know if you remembered, or knew for that matter, but I used to work for Sushi Zanmai, there I learned how to make the perfect sushi rice and the basics of rolling sushi. We were having a gluten free friend over for dinner the other night and I wanted to make sushi (turns out, my nori had gone bad, so I made one hand-roll which I photographed and turned the rest of my ingredients into a sushi-plate instead)

This is vegan and gluten free

You will need:

For sushi-- (this serves 6 people, reduce as needed)

3 cups of sushi rice

1/2 cup rice vinegar

1/4 cup of white sugar

1tablespoon of sesame oil

sesame seeds (I have black and white sesame seeds!!)

Roasted seaweed (nori) cut into half-sheets (for hand rolls)

Suggested fillings/toppings--

3 stalks of green onion, chopped into thin rounds

2 carrots, grated

Coarsely chopped garlic, about 4 cloves

1/2 cucumber, peeled and cut into strips

1 cup of baked tofu, cubed (I baked my tofu, at 350 degrees for about 30 minutes, on a cookie sheet and flipping it once, I marinated my tofu in pineapple juice, tamari, sesame oil and maple syrup for 30 minutes before I baked it)

1 avocado

For Ponzu:

1/4 cup of lime juice

1/4 cup of tamari

dash of chopped green onion

For Spicy Mayo:

1 tablespoon of Sriracha

1 tablespoon of tamari

2 tablespoons of mayo or veganaise

Start your sushi rice-- place 3 cups of sushi rice and 4 cups of water into a pan that has a tight fitting lid. Bring to a boil. Boil for one minute, stirring and then cover and reduce heat to low and allow to cook/steam with the lid on for 20 minutes. Then remove the covered rice from heat and keep it covered for another 10 minutes.

While the rice is cooking, prep your veggies/fillings:

I fried my coarsely chopped garlic in sesame oil as an added filling-- who doesn't love friend garlic? Fry the garlic over medium heat until it is golden brown. Then remove it from heat and drain the sesame oil.

 Mix the sushi rice ingredients: rice vinegar, sesame oil and sugar, with a fork until the sugar is dissolved. It isn't quite a full quarter cup of sugar in this recipe...just an fyi.

When the sushi rice has finished sitting for the additional 10 minutes of covered time after the initial 20 minutes of covered on the stove time (so uh, after 30 minutes of rice steaming) uncover and stir the vinegar-sugar mixture in with a wooden spoon. Stir it gently as you don't want to crush the rice-- think of it as folding the liquid in.

When it is mixed thoroughly the rice will be quite sticky and stand on its own without settling under its own weight. Allow the rice mixture to cool for another few minutes uncovered as you will have to handle it with your hands and don't want to burn yourself.

Mix your sauce ingredients if you want them (ponzu and spicy mayo) at this point as you are waiting for the rice to cool.

Prep your sushi ingredients, get them all in one place so that it is easy to reach as you are manipulating the rolls. Keep a bowl of cool water within hands reach to rinse your fingers off between rolls or else your fingers will get too sticky from the rice.

For a handroll, place your half-sheet nori horizontally oriented on your working surface and take a handful of sticky rice and place it down orienting it like the photo below, making sure you have that top right corner still exposed as naked nori.

Build your desired handroll, we were taught to cut the avocado thinly with a spoon so that we got really delicate, workable slices out of it, as pictured below:

Holding the whole roll in one hand, tuck the top right corner onto the topping and then flip the left side around, it should wrap around about 1 and a half times, the tuck it tightly for a more manageable roll to eat-- and it should stick together from the rice, if it doesn't use a slightly dampened finger to moisten the nori so that it sticks together.

And because my nori was stale, and not very wrapping friendly, I made sushi plates out of my ingredients on this evening for our dinner guest instead...

enjoy! xoxoxoxoxoooo!