Deconstructed Caprese Salad

I love the taste of a good Caprese salad, but I always hated the way it is presented. I have done it in layers, in form of a tower, etc, etc... I think the way I did it this time is the one I like best.

Deconstructed Caprese Salad

Ingredients:
A bunch of tomatoes, mixed, any size, color, and kind.
1 small bunch basil.
1 small bunch purple basil.
Sea salt.
Freshly ground black pepper.
Dried cracked chili pepper.
2 to 4 buffalo mozzarella balls.
Olive oil.
Sherry vinegar.

Method:

1. Chop the tomatoes in different sizes and ways. Put them into a bowl, add the salt and let them rest for 5 to 10 minutes.

2. Add basil, olive oil, vinegar, and pepper to the tomatoes and toss to mix.

3. On a plate, place the mozzarella on one side, sprinkle some cracked chili pepper on top and garnish with a couple of basil leafs. Drizzle with some olive oil. Place the tomatoes by the mozzarella and serve right away.

Enjoy! The Fat Guy.

Malbec Short Ribs

This is a dish that requires 20 minutes of work and 2 hours of patience. Very tasty, especially for a cold winter day. Serve it with potato purée.

Malbec Short Ribs
(or Cabernet if you can't get Malbec wine)

Ingredients:
2 kg. short ribs cut 8 cm. thick.
1/2 tablespoon chopped parsley.
1/2 tablespoon chopped thyme.
1/2 tablespoon chopped rosemary.
1 tablespoon neutral vegetable oil.
250 gr. smoked pancetta or bacon, chopped.
1 big yellow onion, chopped.
1 carrot, chopped.
1 celery stick, chopped.
1-1/2 cups red wine (malbec or cabernet).
2 cups beef broth.
Salt and freshly ground black pepper.
Potato purée for serving.

Method:

1. Preheat the oven to 180°C.

2. Heat the oil in a large sauté pan. Add the pancetta and fry at medium heat until golden and crunchy, 5 to 7 minutes. Remove from pan and add to a large dutch oven (preferably with lid). Add the ribs to the pan, turn the heat to mediumhigh and sear the beef on all sides until golden, 5 minutes. Add to the dutch oven.

3. Add the onion, carrot and celery to the pan and cook at medium-high until tender and slightly browned, 5 minutes. Add the wine and the broth and using a spatula, scrape the bottom of the pan to release the burnt and stuck beautiful tasty bits. Add the liquid to the dutch oven and the chopped herbs. Cover (if you don't have a lid, use foil), and cook in the oven for 4 hours turning the ribs once.

4. Place the ribs on a serving dish and let them rest for 10 minutes.

5. Meanwhile, pass the liquids throw a fine sieve and into a small pan, and cook at high heat until reduced and thickened, 5 minutes. Adjust seasoning.

Place the ribs on serving plates, add a spoonful of purée and some gravy on top.

Enjoy! The Fat Guy

Sweet Potato Gnocchi

You can match this gnocchi with anything you want. I have tried them with arugula and hazelnuts, borwn butter and white truffle, and this one, which for me goes excellent. I'm sorry I don't have a photo of the completed dish, but truthfully speaking, they are so good that we never have time for the photo once they are finished.

Sweet Potato Gnocchi with Brown Butter and Sage

Ingredients:
800 gr. sweet potatoes, peeled and cubed.
350 gr. ricotta cheese.
1 cup Parmesan cheese, grated.
2 tablespoons brown sugar.
2 teaspoons salt.
1/2 teaspoon nutmeg.
2-3/4 cups all purpose flour.
200 gr. unsalted butter.
6 tablespoons sage, chopped.
Sage leafs to serve.

Method:

1. Boil the sweet potatoes in salted water until tender. Using a purée masher, mash the sweet potatoes. Transfer 3 cups of the purée to a bowl with the ricotta and mix well. Add the Parmesan, brown sugar, salt, nutmeg and mix well. Start adding the flour 1/2 cup at a time until you get a nice dough.

2. Drop the dough onto a floured surface and divide it in 6. Using your hands, roll each piece of dough into a sausage of 2 cm in diameter and around 50 cm long. Cut each sausage into 20 to 25 pieces. Transfer to a floured tray.

3. In a pot of boiling salted water, working in batches, drop the gnocchi until “al dente”, around 5 minutes. Let them cool.

4. In a large sauté pan at medium-high heat, melt the butter and cook until the solids turn brown, about 5 minutes. Add the sage and take off the heat.

5. Transfer half of the brown butter to another large sauté pan and add half of the gnocchi to each pan, and cook at medium-high heat until the gnocchi are heated through, around 5 minutes.

Serve right away with a couple of fresh sage leafs per plate.

Cheers! The Fat Guy.

Ceviche

This is my version of a Peruvian Ceviche, a little different, it's made with hot potato. You can make it with any kind of white fish. Try it, it is really good.

Ceviche Peruano with Hot Potato

Ingredients:
450 gr. firm white fish fillets.
1 bell pepper, cut into thin strips.
1/4 teaspoon hot chili powder.
1/2 cup olive oil.
8 small potatoes, whole.
2 spring onions, white parts and some light green, julienne.
1 small red onion, in half and cut into rings.
The juice of 2 lemons.
1 haas avocado, filleted.
Salt and freshly ground pepper.

Method:

1. Boil the potatoes whole and keep them warm.

2. Cut the fish into bite size and not thicker than a slice of smoked salmon. Place the fish on a plate and using the bottom part of a glass, squeeze it to remove its milk and to break its structure.

3. Right before serving, mix the fish with the lemon, then the olive oil, salt, pepper, and the rest of the ingredients.

4. Break the potatoes into pieces using your hands, place them on the plates, add the olive oil and fish mixture and serve right away.

Enjoy! The Fat Guy.

Fior Di Zucca

My pumpkin plants have given me too many flowers this fall. I got tired of frying them, baking them, making risottos, etc, so, I used them to make something really easy and actually quite tasty.

I was starting the Sunday barbeque one morning, and realized I had many flowers in my plant (which is right behind my barbeque), and had just bought some bocconcino mozzarella in the store. I made an appetizer, a pre-barbeque bite…

Pumpkin Flower Wrapped Bocconcino

Ingredients:
2 Butternut squash flowers or 3 Zucchini flowers.
1 dozen bocconcino mozzarella.
Olive oil.
Salt and freshly ground black pepper.
Toothpicks.
Some basil to add color to the plate.

Method:

Divide the flowers in petals. Wrap each bocconcino with one petal and secure it with a toothpick. Drizzle some olive oil on top and season with salt and pepper. Eat up!

Cheers! The Fat Guy.

My Flowers

The Cochinillos (Suckling Pigs)

I have no words to describe how good they turned out. A friend of mine said "It looks so wrong, but it tastes so good". Here are the photos.

Cochinillo with Barbequed Asparagus

Ingredients:
1 suckling pig of not more than 3kg in weight.
1 handful fresh thyme.
1 handful fresh oregano.
1 garlic head, cloves pulled apart, skin on.
200 gr. pig's fat or unsalted butter.
1/2 liter olive oil.
1 teaspoon black pepper corns.
1/2 teaspoon Sichuan pepper corns, toasted.
1/2 teaspoon salt.
30 big green asparagus, whole and unpeeled.
Lemon and olive oil for the asparagus.

Method:

1. Pat dry the pig with paper towels and season with salt.

2. In a medium saucepan at medium heat, melt the fat in the olive oil. Lower the heat to low and add the thyme, oregano, peppers, and garlic, and simmer for 10 minutes. Turn the heat off and let cool slightly.

3. Add the oil mix to the pig. Cover with plastic wrap and refrigerate for at least 24 hours.

4. Pre-heat the over to 75°C. Remove from the fridge and let it naturally reach room temperature (It'll take around an hour). Remove from the marinade and stick it in the oven for 5 hours.

5. Light a barbeque using wood or charcoal (not gas), and set at 20 cm over the fire.

6. Remove the pig from the oven and barbeque it, skin side down, until the skin is golden and crunchy, about an hour. 20 minutes before removing the pig from the barbeque, arrange the asparagus by it. When the asparagus are done, remove from the barbeque and immediately squeeze a lemon on top and add a splash of olive oil.

To serve: Set the cochinillo on a big tray with the asparagus by it. If the cochinillo is perfectly done and the skin is crunchy and golden, you'll be able to cut it using a small plate, try it, it'll amaze your guests.

The Photos of the Event:

The marinade

Marinating

In the Oven

On the Barbeque

Presented

Cutting it with a Plate

Served

Greets, The Fat Guy.

The Argentinean Asado

We, the Argentinos, get together nearly every Sunday with friends and family to have our asados. And what are our Asados? The Asado is a lot more than a Barbeque, it’s a ritual, and it’s our history, our culture. Argentina is famous for its beef and the amount of beef per capita that’s ingested year after year. They say a true Argentinean has beef for breakfast, lunch and dinner, and leaving breakfast aside, I would say that is true.

Our asados start with a “Choripan”, a sausage sandwich with “Chimichurri”, a typical Argentinean spicy salsa. After that we sit down and different things start coming, first the Provoleta (a provolone cheese round that’s barbecued inside a cast iron mold until melted and golden), cow kidney, sweetbreads, intestines and blood sausage (Morcilla). We love everything that comes from the cow, and in different regions of Argentina, from other animals such as Lamb and its intestines, or goat and its kidneys.

Time for the meat! Our most famous cut, the “Bife de Chorizo”. Same as the prime rib but usually from Aberdeen Angus cows not older than 2 years, and we do not age the beef. Center cut ribs is another that we must have, and then all the other cuts of beef, that only depends on the person barbequing or what people bring along. We serve the meat with a variety of salads and another salsa called “Salsa Criolla”, and always a good Argentinean Malbec red wine.

Okay, no more talking, here are the photos.

Choripan

 
 

Chorizo & Morcilla

(Sausage & Blood Sausage)

El Asado (Starting it)

 

 

El Asado (Finished)

Salads

Chimichurri

Ingredients:
1/2 cup sunflower or corn oil.
4 cloves garlic, finely chopped.
1/2 cup parsley, finely chopped.
1 tablespoon Kosher salt.
1 tablespoon cracked dried chili peppers.
1 teaspoon black pepper, ground.

Method:
Add all the ingredients into a jar and stir vigorously.
Let it stand for at least 2 hours before serving (12 hours recommended).


Salsa Criolla:

Ingredients:
1 onion, chopped.
1 red bell pepper, chopped.
1 green bell pepper, chopped.
2 green onions, green parts only, julienned.
1 big round tomato, seeded and chopped.
1 cup olive oil.
1/2 cup apple cider vinegar.
1 tablespoon salt.

1/2 teaspoon ground cumin.
1/2 teaspoon ground black pepper.
Cracked dry chili pepper to taste.

Method:
1. Dissolve the salt in the vinegar in a medium bowl. Add the onion and let soak for 10 minutes.
2. Add the rest of the vegetables, the olive oil, the spices, and mix well.
Let it stand for at least 2 hours before serving.

I hope this tells you a little more about me.
Greet! The Fat Guy.