One of this weekend’s clients is lactose intolerant, so the meal had to be dairy free, other than fully ripened cheeses. That’s not as simple as you might think. Italian desserts, for example, largely do have milk, cream, butter, mascarpone or ricotta in them.
I juggled some recipes to pull off this easy dessert that they all liked very much. It’s very toasted walnut in essence when it’s done.
The crust:
Preheat the oven to 180°C or 350°F
.5 cup lard (butter is the usual fat here, so feel free)
1/3 cup brown sugar, packed
1.25 cups of plain flour
1/4 teaspoon of salt
1/4 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 cup chopped walnuts– the last of the old crop and the new ones will be ready any day now.
Using a mixer, whip the lard and brown sugar together until well-blended. Add the flour, salt and baking soda and mix well. Stir in the nut meats.
In hindsight I will tell you to grease a pie or tart pan, because this crunchy crust fell apart when I cut and served it. Anyway, press the mixture with your hands into the greased pan, and put it into the oven for 15 to 20 minutes. It will look like a nut cookie.
Just before you want to serve it, make the honey glaze using:
.5 cup honey
the grated rind of one lemon
the juice of 1/2 lemon
1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon
Put them all in a pan and bring to a simmer and allow to simmer for a few minutes. Keep an eye on it so it doesn’t catch on and burn. You may be able to cut the plums while it cooks, or you may need to take it off the heat before the plums are ready. I guess it depends how fast you are with a knife.
You need a little less than a pound of plums. Cut in half about eight Stanley prune plums, remove the stones and cut the plums into nice crescents, about 3 per half plum. Arrange the plum crescents in overlapping circles to completely cover the crust. Pour the hot honey glaze over everything. Serve with a little pitcher of heavy cream for the dairy tolerant.
Sorry, no photos, because once again, I get way too busy when I’m working. Photos happen at home when it’s only me to worry about, or willing victims.
September 3rd, 2007
This can be made of thin, lean slices of veal, (the original) pork, chicken or turkey. We used turkey. We cut the slices from a boneless turkey breast of just under 1 kilo to serve 8 people. As I explained to the class, every dish in an Italian meal is as important as the others, so we don’t say something is a main course, signifying that the others are less important. The antipasto was an exceptional cheese served with a very nice fig jam, then the cozze with pasta was important, and now we have a meat course. So we’re not planning on everyone eating a huge amount of meat and just a little of this and that on the side. This was served with a dish of sautéed bietola, or Swiss chard.
For 8 people:
1 kilo mild, lean meat, not beef, cut in thin slices– usually you can buy them sliced here. Graeme cut ours because he said the pre-cut ones looked like they’d been cut with a dull ax. Using a sharp knife, he pressed down with his hand and sliced horizontally, which is a good way to get the meat to behave and not quiver with fear when it sees the knife. Partially freezing it helps, too.
Some good olive oil
1 glass (here meant to be about 4 ounces liquid measure) of white wine
grated peel of two lemons
125 g or 4 oz. of butter
1 glass of heavy cream
juice of two lemons
salt to taste
100 g or 3 ounces of Parmigiano Reggiano, grated fine
If you bought a batticarne when I told you to, here’s a chance to use it. If you didn’t, you’ll have to use the bottom of a bottle or the side of a meat mallet, but don’t use the spiky sides!
One by one, put the cutlets on a board and flatten them with the batticarne, then put them aside. We used layers of baking paper to separate the layers, but in the US I would have used waxed paper. You can do this way ahead, even the day before, then refrigerate them.
A few minutes before you want to serve, heat some oil in a wide frying pan over medium-high heat and start frying the cutlets a few at a time. It takes less than a minute per side if you’ve gotten them thin and well-beaten. Turn, salt a bit, cook the second side and put on a plate. Continue until they are all done. You don’t want to brown the meat, just make it opaque from its translucent beginnings. You may have to add a bit of oil once in a while.
When the cutlets are all cooked, turn the heat up and add the wine, stirring a bit. Then add the cream and the lemon rind and let boil furiously for a few minutes. It gets quite bubbly. Add the lemon juice, stirring constantly, then taste. Stir in salt and taste again. You have to balance the lemon and the salt– it should be very spritely and citrusy, but not too acid, which is what the salt does; it dampers the lemon juice. Reduce the heat to low.
When it is perfect, put the cutlets back into the sauce and turn them to coat them. Using tongs, arrange the cutlets on a platter being very artistic, and dump the rest of the sauce over them. Scatter the Parmigiano over the dish and serve.
The sauce is very good with bread, and leftovers are welcome even here in leftover-haters house. Because it is a very pronounced flavor, I like to serve gentle vegetables with it.
September 1st, 2007
