Experiments with dough

I have long wondered about what happens when you make really high hydration doughs. Two events inspired me. One was the excellent cold "pizza" sold here in the Dallas area by Popolo Reds - a focaccia style bread with an intense red sauce topping. The other was an episode of Milk Street, where Christopher Kimball mae a "pizza" with a high hydration dough. Because I like to tinker, I though I would mess with some ideas and see what happens.

The key to all of this was using a very wet dough (anything up to 100% hydration) and working the dough hard. Because it almost a batter, rather than a normal bread dough, I decided to use the paddle beater in my stand mixer and not the dough hook.

I found that following the Milk Street version, the tomatoes really didn't cook enough, so I modified that recipe by roasting the cut tomatoes for 15 minutes before topping the dough and baking.

I ended up making 2 different kinds - both of which still need some tweaking for the toppings. But I am very happy with the technique. So thank you to Bob Shema and Christopher Kimball for the inspirations.

Ingredients - Dough

600 gm Bread flour

600 gm Water at room temperature

8 gm Active dry yeast

13 gm salt ( i make this a little saltier than the usual 2%)

30 gm Extra virgin olive oil (divided use) - rough measure

Method - Dough Preparation

Put the flout into the bowl of the stand mixed, with the paddle beater attachment. Activate the yeast by adding to the water. If you use instant or bread yeast, this step is unnecessary - the yeast can be added directly to the flour. Add the salt to the flour and mix thoroughly. Gradually add the water and oil while mixing slowly. Once the water is all added, increase the speed of the mixing to medium. The dough will look awful for a long while (10 + minutes). Then it will start to come together and leave the sides of the bowl. Once it has left the sides, continue mixing for 10 more minutes. It should be smooth by now, and fully kneaded.

Leave the dough in the bowl, and cover to rise. Anything up to 2 hours depending on kitchen temperature. 

Once it has risen, gently degas it by oiling your fingers and running your fingers around the bowl releasing the dough. It will sink.

Once you have degassed the dough, cover again and place the bowl in the refrigerator. Leave the dough in the refrigerator overnight

When you are ready to bake, remove the bowl from the refrigerator. Tip the dough into two oiled 1/4 sheet pans and spread it as best you can into the corners. The dough will shrink back, but that is OK. It will sit in the pan for a while and gradually spread. When working the dough, always oil your fingers. The dough is incredibly sticky. The oil will help prevent sticking.

Ingredients - Topping 1

I of the 1/4 sheet pans of dough (above)

16 oz  (450 gm) Cherry tomatoes (Note the switch to imperial measurements - that's how things are sold in the USA for the most part)

16 oz (450 gm) Sweet seedless black grapes

2 tsp Dried oregano

1 tsp Kosher salt

1 tsp Black pepper (coarse grind, fresh)

2 tsp Aleppo pepper

Oil to drizzle

Method - Topping1

When the dough has warmed to room temperature (an hour or so after coming out of the refrigerator), stud it in rows with the cherry tomatoes and grapes. Push the tomatoes ad grapes into the dough. Preheat the ovent to 450F (with fan assist).

Sprinkle the tomatoes/grapes evenly with the organo, salt, pepper, Apeppo pepper, and some olive oil. Allow the dough to puff up around the tomatoes/grapes. Once the dough has puffed up, put the pan into the preheatedoven. Turn the heat down to 400F and bake for around 30 minutes.

Slide the focaccia out of the ban onto a cutting board and allow to cool for a few minutes before cutting. Eat hot or at room temperature.

Ingredients - Topping 2

1 of the 1/4 sheet pans of dough (above)

16 oz (450 gm) Cherry tomatoes

16 oz (450 gm) mushrooms

12 sprigs Thyme

2Tbs Unsalted butter

2tsp Kosher salt (divided)

1 tsp Black pepper (coarse grind, fresh)

Oil to drizzle

Method - Topping 2

Slice the mushrooms. Microwave for a few minutes to drive off the moisture. Mix the thyme leaves into the mushrooms, add the butter, half the salt. Microwave again until the butter is incorprated.

Decorate the dough with rows of cherrytomatoes and mushrooms (as above).

Proceed withthe baking and serving as above.

Avocado ginger coconut soup

 This is a recipe based on this month's Fine Cooking magazine. The result was very good, but I used too much lime juice, so it got the "We can serve this to people if you reduce the lime juice" accolade from Madame. The texture is very thick and creamy. It is best served cold - after being in the fridge overnight. 

We had it for dinner one evening, and then I had it for lunch the next day - where I tweaked it to tne down the lime juice. The tweaks will be in the description at the end, not in the main recipe

Ingredients

2 Cans full fat coconut milk (equivalent amount of home made - i.e. 3 1/2 cups #1)

1 stalk of lemon grass, roughly chopped

1 Makrut leaf (Thai Lime) roughly chopped

3" knob of ginger, washed and sliced very finely. No need to peel as it will be discarde

Handful of basil leaves

1 Thai hot pepper

Juice of 4 small limes

4 Avocados - dual use

1 Peach, diced

Salt to taste

Croutons or other crispy things to garnish

Method

Place the coconut milk, lemon grass, makrut leaf, and ginger into a saucepan and bring to a simmer. Simmer for a couple of minutes, and turn the heat off. Add the basil and allow the mixture to cool (ideally at least an hour).

Strain out all of the solids and discard them. Slice the hot pepper and add to the liquid. Peel and deseed the avocados. Mash 3 1/2 of the avocados and add to the coconut liquid, along with the lime juice. Blend until smooth. Add salt to taste at this stage. Chill the soup in the fridge for at least an hour, preferably 2 or ovrnight.

Serve the soup garnished with the remaining avocad, diced and the diced peach and coroutons.

The Promised Tweaks

If, as ours was, your soup is too acidic tasting (i.e. too much lime in our case), then that can be mitigated with some mirin and (surprisingly) balsamic vinegar. Even though balsamic vinegar does add some extra acidity, it also adds sufficient sweetness to counterbalance the lime. Weird, I know. 

Arnabeet (Lebanese "Fried" Cauliflower)

 We had this at a Lebanese themed dinner last week. It was so good that we just had to recreate it. Instead of frying it, we did it in the oven - a rocking hot oven at that.

The home version was (almost) as good as the version we had out. In this posting, I am going to describe what we did, and where we might make an adjustment.

Ingredients

3T Tahini

2T Olive oil

2T Tomato paste (we used a home made smoked pepper/tomato mixture)

1 T smoked paprika

1 t corn starch

1 medium head of cauliflower cut into florets. The larger florets shold be halved, 

Juice of 1 lemon

Small bunch of cilantro

Arils from 1/4 pomegranate

A little more tahini for drizzling

Salt and pepper to taste

Method

Preheat the oven to 500F. I used the fan setting in mine, but realized that I needed to turn it off while the cauliflower was in the oven. 

In a large bowl combine the tahini, olive oil, tomato paste, paprika. Then mix in the corn starch.  

Toss in the cauliflower and work by hand to make sure it is thoroughly coated. This mixture was actually too much for our 1 3/4lb Caulflower. We could have coated 2. That meant that the cauliflower didn't crisp up quite as nicely as w weould have liked, so I suggest that you play a bit with the proportions.

Wrap a sheet pan with aluminum foil - to make for easier clean up. Spread the coated cauliflower onto the pan, grind some pepper over it, and place in the preheated oven. Check for domeness after 15 minutes. If not to your liking (in our case with a little char), put back in the oven for a few more minutes

To serve, pile onto a plate, toss with lemon juice and garnish with minced cilantro and the pomegranate arils. Sprinkle some finishing salt (e.g. Maldon), and serve piping hot. In our case with a Gewurtztraminer.

Ginger Glazed Carrots

 This is a kind of hybrid dish. Glazed carrots can be pretty good (as long as they aren't overly sweet). Ginger goes well with carrots too. So why not use crystallized ginger as the sweetening base for glazed carrots? So we did.

Ingredients

2T Olive oil

1 large (3 oz) or 2 small shallots sliced

2 lbs carrots sliced into rounds about 1/2 inch thick

4T Finely chopped crystallized ginger

Salt and pepper to taste

Method

Into a 4 quart (that's what I had handy, it doesn't need to be quite that big) saucepan, heat the olive oil until shimmering. Add the shallots and carrots. Saute for a few minutes (about 5, time isn't terribly critical here). Make sure thaough all of the shallots and carrots are coated in oil.

Add enough water to the pan just to cover the carrots. You will be evaporating all the water, so you don't need a lot. Simmer for about 5 minutes with the lid off. The carrots will have started to soften. Turn the heat up, and add the crystallized ginger. Keet the heat high and stir while the water is being driven off. You want the contents to be glossy and almost dry.

Serve to accompany lamb chops, beef or even dark meat chicken.

Gazpacho

This is not your standard, boring blended salsa Gazpacho. It has stale bread. It has olive oil. It has a touch of sherry vinegar. Nothing is heated. The trick is to get as much flavor as possible out of raw vegetables, blending them, and then pushing the soup through a fine-meshed strainer.

The idea and techniques come from Serious Eats (where technique rules). However, when you get to the freezing step do make sure that you freeze the vegetables (especially the onion) in a freezer safe bag. Otherwise you end up with a very smelly freezer - the only thing to do then is to defrost and refreeze. Don't ask me how I know this!

Ingredients - these don't need to be terribly precise

2 or 3 slices of stale bread, sliced. We used a homemade sandwich loaf with 80% bread flour 20% whole wheat.

4-5 lbs ripe tomatoes, cored, cut into chunks. We typically use seconds and cut off any ugly/squashed bits.

2 Cucumbers peeled, cored and sliced into chunks

2 Red bell peppers cored and seeded, sliced into chunks

1 Medium red onion, peeled and cut into chunks

1 1/2 tsp kosher salt 

4 garlic cloves, peeled and smashed

1/2 cup high quality extra virgin olive oil (first cold press, preferably Spanish)

8 tablespoons Sherry vinegar

Method

Tear the bread into chunks into a small bowl. place the chopped vegetables into a large bowl, sprinkling with the salt as you go. Leave the vegetables for 30 minutes to allow the juice to drain. Drain the juice over the bread to soften it. Set this aside, at room temperature, covered.

Gather the vegetables into 2 one gallon freezer bags. Lay the bags flat to even out the vegetables and press the air out. Freeze the vegetables until slightly mushy feeling. Not frozen solid, but not as firm as they were when they went in. If you let them go too long, that's fine - you will just need to let them thaw prior to the next step

Remove the vegetables from the freezer. Transfer liquid from the bottom of the bags over the bread.

Working in batches, place some of the vegetables, bread, olive oil and sherry vinegar into the blender. Blend on high power for at least 60 seconds. Transfer to a fine strainer and strain the pureed soup pushing it through with a metal spoon. There should be very little residue in the strainer, but what is left in the strainer will tend to clog it up. So you will want to clean the strainer between batches.

Chill until you are ready to serve.

Serving

When serving the soup, use chilled bowls, and some garnishes including chives, avocado, grated egg. We often freeze some of the gazpacho in ice cube trays (there go the freezer smells again). This helps keep the soup chilled, although the texture of the frozen pieces is a bit coarse. The ice crystals, are not ideal. Pour a little more olive oil and a few drops of Sherry vinegar onto the soup, and sprinkle some coarse crunch salt.

If you happen to have baguettes or other crusty bread handy, now would be a good time to serve them too. As you can imagine, we did and we did!

Pineapple and Ancho marinade and sauce

This marinade/sauce is part of my summer project - using dried chillies in all sorts of interesting ways. It is adapted from Milk Street's episode on Tcos al Pasteur. Adapted because their recipe uses ancho powder - and I was using whole anchos. The proportions are slightly different too - because I was doint it from memory. It came out really well - I would definitely do it again. And as a by product, any left over sauce can be added to other salsas to give some extra sweetness and earthiness.

Ingredients

4 Ancho chilis

3 Chipotle chilis in adobo with the sauce that clings to them

4 garlic cloves, peeled but left whole

3 tsp whole cumin seads, toasted and then ground

2T Dark brown sugar

2 1/2" thick pineapple rings, cored. If using canned then either use sweetened and omit the sugar or use water based

1/4 cup neutral oil.

Salt and pepper to taste

Method

Cut the tops off the anchos and deseed the peppers. Toast them over medium heat in a dry skiller until they become fragrant. Pressing them against tha bottom of the pan so that as much of the surface as possible gets the heat. Make sure you flip them over to get both sides done.

Remove  the peppers from the heat and add the whole cumin seads to toast them lightly too. Grind the anchos and cumin in a spice grinder (or use a pestle and mortar) until you have a fine powder. 

Put all the ingredients into a blender and pulse several times until you have a smooth paste.

Before use as a marinade, add a teaspoon of lime juice.

For use as a sauce, warm it through and add a tablespoon of limejuice and some chopped cilantro.

Testing creativity

Madame is . just back from Europe and decided to have a creative time at the supermarket. Masses of green beans, red peppers, ginger showed up. So what to do?

Looking in the fridge, I found some pepitas, shallots, sesame oil, soy sauce. And then there was sherry in the wine cellar. So it was off the stove.

Madame pronounced it, "We can serve this to people", so I guess it turned out OK.

Ingredients

1/2 cup of raw pepitas (pumpkin seeds)

1 1/2 lbs green beans, top, tailed and cut into 1" lengths

1 T bacon fat (or olive oil if a vegan option is desired)

1" knob of ginger finely grated

1 small shallot, finely minced

1 red pepper diced into 1/4" dice

3T soy sauce

1T toasted sesame oil

2T dry sherry

Some hot sauce or hot peppers (to taste)

Method

Bring a large pot of water to a boil. Mix together the soy sauce, sesame oil, and sherry, and hot sauce/peppers).

Meanwhile toast the pepitas in a hot skillet (about 5 minutes, tossing frequently). Salt the pepitas and set aside. Wipe the pan and add the fat (or oil). When the water has come to the boil, steam the beans for a few minutes (until they are cooked, but still crunchy). When the fat/oil is hot, add the  ginger, shallots and red peppers. Soften the shallots/ginger/red pepper gently. 

When the beans are cooked, empty the water from the pot, place the beans into the pot. Add the pepitas and immediately toss the beans with the soy/sesame/sherry/pepper mixture.

Serve immediately in a heated bowl with a little crunchy salt and freshly ground pepper.

Ajvar - red pepper and egg plant spread

An article about the Balkan dish called ajvar appeared in the New York Times recently. It looked insanely good, so of course I had to make it. I didn't exactly follow the NYT recipe, but I knew what I was trying to achieve, so went for it with gusto. And I am glad I did. It is amazingly good. Concentrated, smokey - one of those things that would make shoe leather taste good.

Ingredients

10 large red peppers

1 large Italian eggplant

1 garlic bulb

1/2 cup high quality olive oil (cold pressed extra virgin if possible)

Salt

Method

Over a very hot grill (charcoal in my case because I was cooking dinner at the same time) roast the peppers and eggplant until their skins are completely black. After the peppers and egg plant have been on for about 10 minutes, put the whole garlic bulb on too. Put the peppers into a bowl and cover to allow them to steam - this helps when it is time to peel them.

Peel the peppers, discarding skin and as many of the seeds as possible. Scoop the flesh out of the eggplant. Squeeze the roasted garlic out of the bulb. Place these ingredients into the food processor and pulse until slightly chunky.

Add the oil and salt to taste and process until almost smooth. Transfer to a saucepan and reduce the mixture by driving off some of the water. Do this over low heat to make sure it doesn't burn. When the volume is reduced by about 1/2 (probably 30 minutes), transfer to a heat proof container. Cover, allow to cool and then refrigerate overnight. 

Gazpacho

I wanted to make a locally sourced dish for a "slow food" event here in Dallas. Of course I turned to the clever folks at Serious Eats for some pointers. I was less interested in a recipe from them, much more interested in techniques to create something like I have had in Spain. There were several obvious things and a couple of genius ahas. With a twist of my own at the end.

I didn't want this to be liquid salsa, nor did I want cold canned tomato soup. I wanted something special. That meant the ripest tomatoes that I could find (thank you Coppell Farmers' Market and the Fisher Family Farm), and locally grown peppers and onions.

First the Serious Eats genius:

• Cut up the vegetables and salt them all together. This extracts a lot of juice.
• Pour that juice over the bread and leave to stand
• Freeze the remaining vegetable parts. The recipe said 30 minutes, but I needed a full hour. But I was making a larger quantity.
• Thaw the vegetables and add them to the bread/juice. Keep some juice back

And the personal addition? The reserved juice after thawing is frozen into tomato-y ice cubes to be served with the soup to keep it cold, but not to dilute the flavors..

For serving - because this was a potluck event, I used a wine decanter. And had some olive oil, croutons, sea salt, sherry vinegar to act as final flavorings. It turned out to be a useful way to serve it because it could then be poured into glasses,

Valentine's Day - 2018

When I am home for Valentine's Day, I always try to make something a little extra special for dinner. This year was no exception, but because it is midweek and we are both working I didn't have all day to slave over the stove.
This dish was grilled romaine with roasted beets, diced red pepper, warm Israeli couscous all with a bitter orange dressing. Oh and we had some sous vide chicken thighs left over from a different dish, so added that too.
To make it vegetarian or vegan use oil instead of bacon and omit the chicken.
It did get the "We Can Serve This To People" appellation, so I guess madame liked it!

Ingredients - CousCous 

3 strips bacon cut into small pieces (for vegetarians, use olive oil instead of bacon)

1 small shallot diced finely

1/4 cup Israeli couscous

1/2t smoked paprika

1/2t sumac

1 medium carrot diced into 1/4" cubes. Size matters here for the speed of cooking

1/2 cup boiling water

Ingredients - The Dressing

4T bitter orange orange marmalade - jelly only, no peel strips

Juice of 1 lemon

1/3 cup high quality olive oil (a finishing oil)

salt to taste - remember that in this dish there is bacon that is itself salty

Ingredients - The Rest

1/2 red pepper diced into 1/4" pieces

2 medium roasted beets diced into 1/4" pieces

1 cooked chicken thigh diced (optional - we happened to have one left over)

1 romaine lettuce heart halved lengthwise

Coarse salt

Pepper

Method - CousCous

Do the couscous first as it takes the longest. 

Gently render the bacon in a large saucier. When the bacon is rendered, add the shallot, couscous and spices. Cook over medium heat, stirring or shaking frequently for about a minute - until the couscous is lightly toasted. Add the carrots and boiling water. Cover and simmer until the water is absorbed. This is about 10 minutes. When the couscous is cooked,  turn off the heat and allow to stand until ready to serve (at room temperature)

Method - Dressing

In a large bowl whisk together the ingredients, ad let stand. Whisk again immediately before use.

Method - The Rest (And Final Assembly)

Grill the romaine on a medium/hot griddle - or over a gas/charcoal grill if you prefer. When it is slightly charred, transfer to an individual plate. Place the room temperature couscous on one corener of the plate. Some of the chicken on another corner. Dress the romaine with a teaspoon of dressing. Pile the diced red pepper and beets onto the romaine. Add 2 more teaspoons of dressing. Sprinkle with coarse salt and freshly ground black pepper. Serve with a nice, crisp white wine.  In our case a South African Sauvignon Blanc.

Rotkohl - Allow lots of time

This sweet/sour red cabbage dish was part of a formal dinner party that we had last Saturday. It made enough for about 16 people as a side. The proportions are not exact (sadly) because there was some improvisation needed. But here it is approximately. You can tell by the color if you have enough vinegar.  The dish needs to stay bright red looking. If it goes too dark or faintly purple, there isn't enough acid.

Ingredients

1 head red cabbage (about 4lbs, shredded)

1 1/2 yellow onions (about 1lb) sliced thinly

2 Granny Smith Apples, peeled, cored and sliced

8 cloves inside a spice bag to make them easy to find in the finished dish

3/4 cup rice wine vinegar (Ideally you would use apple cider vinegar and a bit less, but we were out!)

10 T sherry vinegar (optional n- unnecessary if using apple cider vinegar)

1/4 cup of sugar (to taste)

3 t kosher salt

Freshly ground black pepper to taste

Method

Combine all the ingredients in a large pot (these fit into a 7 quart dutch oven). Bring to a simmer gently. Cover and simmer for at least 90 minutes. By all means crack the lid and taste to make sure the balance is how you want it.

After 90 minutes, uncover and allow some of the liquid to evaporate (another 30 minutes). By this time the cabbage should have softened but should still be slightly firm.

Remove the spice bag and serve hot as a side dish with your main course.

Eggplant with orange juice and oil

A group of us were staying in an AirBnB in Buenos Aires. We were working together on a very cool project and staying in a very nice house. 5 bedrooms, plenty of bathrooms, pool, outdoor parilla (grill) and a well stocked kitchen. The challenge was always, "What shall we do about dinner?" Of course being in Argentina that was often answered by, "Let's go to..." (one of several nearby great restaurants serving hunks o' beast). This evening, though we decided to eat in.
My contribution was this dish - there is a plentiful supply of oranges here, so why not see what happens?
Note: The egg plant are not the usual globe (Italian) eggplants. These are thinner skinned and light purple in color.

Ingredients

Juice of 3 oranges

1/4 cup neutral oil

3 cloves garlic

1 t soy sauce

1/2t hot sauce

3 Chinese egg plant peeled and cut into 3/4" thick medallions

Salt to taste

Method

Combine the wet ingredients. Soak the egg plant slices in the wet mixture.  Pat them dry and grill over the coals until nicely marked and soft.

Place the slices on a warm platter and drizzle the marinade over the still warm egg plant. Toss lightly to incorporate the dressing.

Sprinkle coarse salt on top and serve hot or at room temperature. It's good either way.

Asian Slaw

We were asked to bring a dish to a party last evening. We knew that there would be bbq at the party, so figured that some kind of a slaw would be a good dish to bring. Enter an Asian version inspired by my go to team at Serious Eats.

Note this takes well over an hour to make, but it is pretty low involvement

Ingredients - Dressing

1/4 cup vegetable oil

1/4 cup honey

1/4 cup rice wine vinegar

2T Soy sauce

1t toasted sesame oil (or chili sesame oil if you have it. If so reduce the amount of the following)

Some form of hot sauce - preferably one without vinegar. we used "Srirarcha" and habanero vodka.

2 cloves garlic (squished into a paste with a little salt)

2T freshly grated ginger

3T smooth, plain peanut butter (unsweetened)

Method - Dressing

If you measure the oil first and then use the same measuring cup for the honey, the honey flows out more easily. 

Whisk the oil, honey, vinegar, soy sauce, sesame oil, and spicy ingredients together. Stir in the garlic and ginger. Finally combine the peanut butter and stir/whisk until incorporated. Leave to stand for up to an hour to incorporate the flavors. Note that there is little salt in the dressing. The soy sauce provides some salt. The cabbage is salted in the next step. There is enough residual salt so it is not necessary to salt the dressing. The small amount of salt added to the garlic is to help with the making of the paste. So when you taste the dressing by itself,  it may seem under seasoned.

Ingredients - Slaw

1 head of green cabbage (about 2lbs) shredded

2T kosher salt

3 large, older carrots peeled and grated on the large holes of a box grater

3 scallions white and light green parts sliced on the bias

1 red pepper cut into small dice

2 or 3 hot chiles (we used cayenne peppers) chopped very finely) (if desired)

8 oz packet of edamame cooked and chilled

4 oz roasted salted peanuts chopped roughly

Method - Slaw

Lay the cabbage in a strainer or colander and sprinkle with the kosher salt. This will draw out some of the water and keep the cabbage crisp. Leave this for about an hour to drain. Roll the drained cabbage in a kitchen towel and squeeze the water out. This may end up with 1/2 to 1 cup of water.

Combine the slaw ingredients (except the peanuts) in a large bowl. Add the dressing in 3 additions, mixing the slaw after each addition. This ensures that the coating will be even - no pockets of undressed cabbage.

Add the peanuts and mix the slaw for the last time.

Chill and serve within a couple of hours after mixing.

Roasted Vegetable Salad

We had visited a local farmers' market last weekend. One of the farmers had these really cute fairy tale eggplants. These are small, variegated eggplants - about 2 -3 inches in length. Very tender and delicious, with none of the bitterness associated with the more conventional Italian eggplants. They are best cooked roasted in a hot oven with some good oil and shallots. We also roasted cherry tomatoes and shishito peppers from the garden. At the same farmers' market, there was a stall selling interesting salad greens. So we bought some Mizuna for the salad. A lemon juice/rice wine vinegar based vinaigrette, grilled bread (home made that day, of course) and there was dinner. Yup it did get the "we can serve this to people" accolade, so I was pretty happy with the result.

Ingredients

2 1/2 lbs fairy tale eggplant, sliced in half lengthwise

1 lb cherry tomatoes, halved pole to pole

1 large shallot, finely minced (divided use)

1 1/2 cups olive oil (divided use)

30 shishito peppers

1t dry mustard (e.g. Coleman's)

1/2t freshly ground black pepper

salt to taste

1 head mizuna

2 slices country bread, brushed with olive oil and grilled

Juice of 2 lemons

1/2 cup rice wine vinegar

Method

Pre-heat the oven to 350 (fan assisted) or 375(conventional). Add 1/2 the chopped shallots to 1/4 cup of olive oil. Swirl to coat. Add the eggplants and shishitos. Place the tomatoes, eggplant (cut side up) and shishitos on a wire rack over a sheet pan. Make sure that all of the oil/shallot mixture is spread over the eggplants. Roast in the oven for 15-20  minutes until the eggplants are softened and slightly brown. The shishitos will cook slightly before the eggplants, so watch them carefully. Remove from the oven and allow to cool.

Meanwhile make a vinaigrette, combining the mustard, lemon juice, salt, pepper, remaining shallots, and remaining oil.

Spread the mizuna in a serving bowl and pile on the roasted vegetables. Drizzle the vinaigrette over the warmed vegetables  (you will use maybe 1/4 of the made up vinaigrette - save the rest for other salads). Hand the grilled bread separately.  Serve with a crisp white wine (in my case the "On the White Keys" from Arietta. Madame had a South African Sauvignon Blanc from Spier.