Grilled Apricots, Burrata and Arugula Salad

Recently, I had the honor and privilege of cooking a multiple course dinner for my parents.  I wanted to prepare a three course meal focused upon the grill.  The three courses were a salad, an appetizer and a main course.  Moreover, I decided that I would strive to obtain all of the ingredients from the West Side Market in Cleveland, Ohio.  The combination of really fresh ingredients, the grill, and the opportunity to cook for my parents motivated me to create a great dining experience.

For the salad, I decided to go with a fruit that is in season ... apricots.  I found a recipe that combined grilled apricots with some of my favorite ingredients, such as burrata cheese and arugula.  The recipe also called for the use of radicchio, which, unlike the apricots, was not in season.  (Radicchio is a late winter, early spring vegetable, while apricots are an early summer fruit.) Given it was out of season, I had to get the radicchio from a local grocery store.  Finally, the recipe calls for the use of "country ham."  I omitted that ingredient from the salad because my beautiful Angel does not like to eat ham.  However, if you want to include it, use about 1/3 to 1/2 of a pound of prosciutto or iberico ham, rather than "country ham."  Personally, I would use prosciutto, because the use of arugula, burrata and radicchio (along with the balsamic vinegar) clearly suggests an Italian influence to this dish.

Overall, this dish is very delicious.  The grilling of the apricots softened them just a little, contributing a sweetness that, with the balsamic vinegar, offsets the tartness of the radicchio and the pepper of the arugula.  The burrata cheese added a luxuriousness to the dish that helped to elevate the dish.

Finally, I want to thank my beautiful Angel, Clare, who helped with the preparation of this dish while I frantically worked on the other course.  Together, we make a great cooking team!

GRILLED APRICOTS, BURRATA AND ARUGULA SALAD

Recipe adapted from Food & Wine

Serves 8

Ingredients:

1 1/4 pounds apricots, halved and pitted
1/4 cup extra virgin olive oil, plus more for brushing
1 1/2 tablespoons of fresh lemon juice
1 small head radicchio, cored and thinly sliced
5 ounces baby arugula
1/2 pound of burrata cheese, shredded or cubed
1 tablespoon, aged balsamic vinegar
Sea salt
Freshly ground black pepper
4 ounces shaved country ham or proscuitto

Directions:
1.  Grill the apricots.  Light a grill or preheat a grill pan. Brush the apricots with oil and season with salt and pepper. Grill over high heat, cut sides down, just until lightly charred, 5 minutes. Let cool.

2.  Make the salad.  In a bowl, whisk the lemon juice with the 1/4 cup of oil and season with salt and pepper. Gently toss in the apricots, radicchio and arugula. Transfer to a platter and top with the burrata, ham and vinegar. Serve immediately. 

ENJOY!

Pan Seared Tilapia and Cortez Bay Shrimp with Roasted Raddichio Salad

It has been a while since I tried to create a recipe or make a Chef Bolek Original.  The reason rests with the fact that I have been extremely busy at work.  By the time I get home, I either don't feel like cooking or I just want to make something quick. There were a couple of nights where I tried to make something original and "blog-worthy," except what I ended up with was something straight out of Hell's Kitchen.  As I looked at and ate the dish, I could just picture Gordon Ramsey in the room, screaming and swearing at me or the dish.  "What is that," Ramsey would yell in his Scottish/English accent, "that $#*+ is f*<k!^g disgusting.  I expect more from you."  So, with those thoughts in my head, the dishes never made it to the blog.  That is one reason why I have not been posting as much as I usually do. 

Still, the whole point of this blog is to chronicle the adventures of someone who, unlike Chef Ramsey, has no professional training, no Michelin stars, and no (recent) restaurant experience. Clare tells me that I should post the good, the bad and the ugly, but, quite frankly, while the good looks good, the bad is bad and the ugly can be ... at times ... downright ugly.

My greatest inspiration is my beautiful wife, because much of what I cook, I cook for her.  Recently, I wanted to make a nice dinner for her.  I purchased some Tilapia and some shrimp.  While that satisfied the protein for the dinner, I needed some vegetable or other side dish.  I saw a head of radicchio -- it is hard to miss the pinkish-purplish mass in the midst of greens -- and remembered my effort at grilling radicchio.  Radicchio is a very bitter vegetable, but grilling or roasting it helps to blunt the bitterness.  Add in some roasted sweet onions, along with some shallots and shiitake mushrooms sauteed in butter, and I had the makings of a warm salad. Some toasted pine nuts and walnuts, with whole parsley leaves, would finish the dish. 

As for the shrimp and fish, both are prepared with a simple saute. I wanted the protein to be relatively simple and experiment a little with the roasted radicchio salad.  The salad was good, but still a little too bitter for me.  An alternative that might help to reduce bitterness even further is to baste the radicchio quarters with a mixture of olive oil and butter or just use butter. 

This dish will not win any awards or, perhaps, Chef Ramsey's approval, but Clare liked it.  That is good enough for me.  

PAN-SEARED TILAPIA AND CORTEZ BAY SHRIMP

WITH ROASTED RADICCHIO SALAD

A Chef Bolek Original
Serves 2

Ingredients (for the fish):

2 fillets of tilapia

Salt, to taste

Ground pepper, to taste

1 lemon, juiced

Ingredients (for the shrimp):

6 large shrimp (16/20 count)

1 tablespoon olive oil

1 pinch of aleppo pepper or crushed red pepper

2 tablespoons of white wine

Salt, to taste

Ground pepper, to taste

Ingredients (for the radicchio):

1 head of radicchio, sliced into wedges and cored

1 sweet onion, sliced into wedges

1 shallot, sliced thinly

1/2 teaspoon crushed red pepper

1/8 cup of olive oil
2 tablespoons of butter

1 tablespoon of pine nuts, toasted
2 tablespoons of walnuts, toasted

Directions:

1.  Roast the radicchio.  Preheat the oven to 500 degrees Fahrenheit. Lay the radicchio wedges and onions on a large rimmed baking sheet and brush with the olive oil. Season with salt and pepper. Roast for 10 minutes to fifteen minutes, or until crisp around the edges and just tender. Serve at once.

2.  Saute the remaining ingredients for the salad. Heat a saute pan over medium to medium high heat.  Add the mushrooms.  Saute the mushrooms, stirring occasionally so they don't burn, until you begin to draw out the moisture (it will sound a little like hissing).  Add two tablespoons of butter and stir into the mushrooms.  Add the shallot and crushed red pepper.  Continue to saute until the shallot is translucent, about three to five minutes.  Remove from the heat and set aside. 

3.  Saute the shrimp.  Season the shrimp with salt and pepper.  Heat 1 tablespoon of olive oil in a skillet over medium high heat.  Add the shrimp and the aleppo pepper.  Cook the shrimp on each side for a minute or two, and flip, continuing to cook for another minute remove the shrimp and set aside.  Add the white wine and cook for a minute or two. 

4.  Cook the fish.  Add the fish to the pan and begin to saute the fish.  Add a tablespoon of olive oil if necessary.  Saute the fish for about four minutes and flip the fish.  Continue to cook for another four minutes or until done.  When the fish is nearly done, add the shrimp to the pan to heat the shrimp.

5.  Plate the dish.  Plate the fish and place the shrimp on top of the fish.  Plate the radicchio salad on the side.  Drizzle some lemon juice over all of the dish.

PAIRING THIS DISH

This dish calls for a white wine.  While selecting the ingredients for the grilled radicchio salad, I came across a white blend made with Colombard, Gros Manseng and Ugni Blanc.  This wine worked very well.  It had a slight tartness, from the citrusy flavors, that actually worked to reduce the bitterness of the radicchio. I was pleasantly surprised that the wine paired so well with the dish.  So here it is:

Alain LaLaine -- Domaine San de Guilhem (2010)

40% Colombard, 30% Gros Manseng, 30% Ugni Blanc 

Gascony, France

Flavors of lemon and melons

ENJOY!

Radicchio Grigliata (Grilled Radicchio)

While reading a past issue of  La Cucina Italiana, I came across a recipe for grilled radicchio.  With white spines and red leaves, radicchio is a leaf chicory with a bitter taste.  There are a few types of radicchio.  One type is Radicchio di Chiogga, which is a round, grapefruit size of head of leafy radicchio.  Another type is Radicchio di Treviso, which resembles Belgian endive.  The former (di Chiogga) is the most common type of radicchio in the United States, while the latter (di Treviso) has its own protected status, commonly referred to as "IGP" or Indicazione Geografica Protetta.  (The "IGP" is the protected status provided by the European Union to an agricultural product or food stuff that is of a certain quality or reputation within a particular geographic region.)

After having read the recipe, I decided to make grilled radicchio as a side.  So, I picked up a couple of tuna kabobs and a couple of heads of radicchio from a local supermarket.  I went home and planned how I would prepare the radicchio.  The recipe called for the use of Radicchio di Treviso; however, I had Radicchio di Chiogga.  This required some alterations in terms of how I was going to grill this vegetable.

Traditionally, grilled radicchio is prepared by brushing the leaves with olive oil and then placed onto the grill for about twenty-five to thirty minutes, which would result in brown leaves and tender spines.  I wanted to retain some of the red color in the leaves, along with some of the crunch of the spines.  So, I decided to modify the recipe a little by shortening the grilling time and by placing the radicchio onto the grill without bathing the leaves in oil.  (This helps to prevent flareups from the dripping oil that would simply scorch the leaves.)  I saved the oil for another use, namely as an impromptu dressing by whisking lemon juice with the olive oil and adding a very little pinch of crushed red pepper.  I then drizzled the lemon and olive oil over the leaves just before serving.

In the end, the radicchio retained much of its redness, with browning along the edges.  The dressing provided a nice citrus note, which contrasted with the radicchio's bitterness.  If you do not like bitter vegetables, consider doubling the amount of the lemon-olive oil dressing.

RADICCHIO GRIGLIATA (GRILLED RADICCHIO)

Adapted from La Cucina Italiana, May 2010, page 47
Serves 2

Ingredients:

2 heads of radicchio, halved

2 lemons, juiced

Salt, to taste

Ground pepper, to taste

1/4 cup of extra virgin olive oil 

1 very small pinch of red pepper flakes

Directions:
1. Clean the radicchio.  Wash the heads of radicchio.  Use one lemon half and rub down the edges of the radicchio that were cut.

2.  Prepare the dressing.  Whisk the olive oil into the lemon juice.  Add salt and ground pepper to taste.  The add the red pepper, continuing to whisk the ingredients.

3.  Grill the radicchio.  Oil the grate well with extra virgin olive oil.  Place the halved heads of radicchio on the grill.  Cook for about eight to ten minutes.  Flip the radicchio and continue to grill for about eight to ten more minutes.  Remove from the heat and peel the leaves from the core.

4.  Plate the dish.  Place the leaves on a dish and drizzle the dressing over them.  Plate whatever meat or fish you will be serving in the center of the radicchio.

ENJOY!

For more information about radicchio, check out Wikipedia.