Anchovy & Veggie Fun

I referenced in my last post that I've become a lover of anchovies and sardines after visiting Sicily last year. It's amazing what totally fresh ingredients will do to change your mind about something. I was talking with my classmate, David, yesterday about that very thing and how you can go years not eating something wonderful because you never had a good version of it to begin with. Being that we'll be working with anchovies a lot going forward, it was fitting that Tuesday would involve a recipe that got us quickly accustomed to filleting them.

Before I go into that, I've been asked by several people for a photo of me in my uniform. I feel like a little kid posting this but what the people want, they get. So, here you have me in what I'll be living in for the next few months:

Yep, there I am. The future Chef Valerie. Oh, and I hate that hat, just so you know. 

Back to the recipe and the anchovies. We made bagna cauda, which means 'hot bath', and it's a very authentic Italian dip for veggies. It's a really different recipe that I wasn't too fond of because the base is butter (a LOT of it) and olive oil. Something about dipping veggies in that didn't appeal to me at all so it wasn't my favorite thing. You add anchovies, garlic, dijon mustard and some lemon in as well so it's definitely an interesting recipe. All of these suckers went into that little cup o' dip:

It was potent, to say the least. Give me some crusty bread and I'd sop that up in a minute but I just didn't care for the veggies with it. 

The next thing we did was pomodori arrostiti or roasted tomatoes. We made these to use as one of the layers in our third recipe, verdure sott'olio or 'vegetables under oil'. Oh my goodness, they were heavenly. My favorite part about Italian cuisine is the simplicity of it. The ingredients themselves are the star, not some crazy sauce or heavy garnish you add to bring it all together. This dish consisted of simple tomatoes, orange and lemon peels, fresh thyme and some olive oil (which, going forward, you can assume is in absolutely every Italian dish on the face of the earth). You roast it on low heat and it produces something amazing. The most important part of making most Italian dishes is the balance in flavor of salt and acid. Now, I will say that finding that balance can be incredibly hard so I'm in no way saying making simple Italian food is easy. Sometimes, it's actually way harder than something else that's technique driven because there's no rule book for it, you simply have to develop the right palate to execute it properly. That said, these came out deliciously sweet, tangy and lively:

You could use these for anything, truly! Throw them in with pasta, make them a topping for fresh bread, toss them in a salad or with spinach as a side dish...I mean, they're so versatile and totally delicious so you can bet I'll be having these as a staple in my home going forward. 

The verdure sott'olio was just as wonderful though not much to explain about them. We grilled off eggplant and zucchini, layered them with the tomatoes in a pan and covered it all with olive oil. That process is actually something that was used as a preservation technique in the old days because covering something with olive oil keeps oxygen out therefore keeping food fresh longer. You refrigerate it all and it'll be good for a week or so! You honestly never knew vegetables could be so delicious...

Tournage? Boooo!

Yesterday was our third and final day of knife skills in the kitchen. We learned 'tournage' which is the technique used to make cuts resulting in faceted, oval shapes with seven sides. There are several cuts that can be done this way with different lengths but we focused on doing cocottes which are 5cm long. During the demo, Chef Jessica's cocottes were perfect and she made it look so easy...it's NOT. Let's hope I really do get better at this as time goes on because it ain't so pretty right now! I can tell you that it gives me a huge appreciation for when I've seen these lovely shapes of vegetables at various dinners I've been to. I understand much more what hard work is behind a lot of what I've had the pleasure of eating, that's for sure. We practiced tournage on patate (potatoes) for a while before getting into our recipe for the day, panzanella or bread salad. It's a lovely red wine vinegar based dish made with day old bread, fresh tomatoes, cucumber, bell pepper, scallion - it's a summer dish typically and great for picnics and so on. I really love it so I had fun learning how to make it!

The cool part of this panzanella is that we added anchovies. I was never an anchovy or sardine person until I went to Sicily last year. I had some of the most amazing dishes made with one or the other. It surprised me to no end that one of my very favorite dishes from the entire trip was fresh anchovies in lemon juice and olive oil, that's it. You wouldn't believe how delicious they were. Of course, they were basically pulled right out of the sea and put onto our plates so that certainly had something to do with it. We'll be working with anchovies a good bit in this program so yesterday was the day we learned to fillet them. I have never filleted anything in my life so, while an anchovy is quite a small fish, it still has a spine you have to pull out, eeeek. There are a ton of small pin bones in anchovies and it's impossible to get them all out. However, it was pretty cool to do something like that for the first time!

Unfortunately, there are no photos from today because I was slow as molasses in plating my final product. I needed to present to Chef Jessica and get my station cleaned up so you don't get to see the pretty panzanella, booo. She said my composition was really good overall and it was just lacking an extra bit of salt to make everything pop. I'll be quite excited to make it again when tomatoes are truly in season.

On an unrelated note, I have to share this awesome gift I got in the mail from Michael and Wynn when I got home. There was a cute little package in my mailbox and I opened it up to find the most beautiful leather luggage tags they'd had engraved for me. It's a congratulatory gift for basically having the balls to do this whole thing and I wasn't expecting it at all! The note said they were to help carry my new luggage (a lovely Christmas gift from Allison!) into my new life. How fitting! :) Aren't they awesome:

Such a thoughtful and special surprise!