Tag: prosciutto

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Hors D'Oeuvres & First Courses The Book

73. Sherried Mushroom Empanaditas p.38

The recipe is a combination of this one for full sized Sherried Mushroom Empanadas, and yesterday’s tuna empanaditas. Of course the full sized empanada makes way too much filling, so you’d need to cut it down.

I made these for the same party as the tuna empanaditas. They use the same puff pastry wrapping, and have the same baking directions. The filling however is quite different, and I thought it worked much better than the tuna. The filling is made of sautéed onion, mushroom, and red bell pepper with sherry, prosciutto, parsley, and bread crumbs. The flavour combination worked really well, I though the sweetness of the sherry might be a bit strange but it melded nicely with the other flavours, particularly the mushrooms and prosciutto.

The main advantage this filling had over the tuna was moisture. You can see in the photo that I drastically overcooked them, and there were a few that got completely dehydrated inside. The larger ones managed to remain creamy, with a crisp exterior making for a very nice contrast.

The recipe calls for Serrano ham, which is very much like prosciutto, but a bit tougher in texture, more flavorful, and a bit less fatty. I couldn’t find any for this dish, or any of the other times I’ve looked. It must be available in Montreal, because it’s on the menu at tapas bars, but I don’t know what their source is. The recipe gives prosciutto as an acceptable substitute though.

I was in Spain a few years ago, and fell in love with Serrano ham. The bocadillo de jamon was my preferred lunch, or tapas treat. I had 40 Euros worth of it taken away from my be American customs officials on my way home. The injustice still rankles me. I was only connecting through Newark, my ham and I never left the airport, but they still took it away from me. I would have had to sneak it past Canadian customs to get it home, but losing it to them was a risk I was willing to take. Now whenever I go through the post 9/11 security theatre lines at an American airport I shake my head at the futility of taking my shoes off, and damn them for taking away my precious jamon.

This recipe suffered from the same baking issues as yesterday’s tuna, but I think a bit more monitoring could solve that problem. The flavour combinations were really good, creamy mushrooms, a bit of crunch from the peppers, salty chewy prosciutto, the smooth sweet flavours of the sherry, and even a little freshness from the parsley. The overcooking was a serious problem, so I can’t give it full marks, but there are a lot of things going for this recipe.

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Hors D'Oeuvres & First Courses The Book

60. Prosciutto- and Parmesan-Stuffed Mushrooms p.27

No recipe, too bad.

These were an excellent appetizer. I brought them to a dinner party and they disappeared just like that. They’re mushroom caps stuffed with the cooked down mushroom stems, garlic, onion, bread crumbs, prosciutto, Parmesan, a useless dash of parsley, and an egg to hold it together. After the caps are filled they’re sprinkled with a bit more cheese, and drizzled with olive oil. Then they go into a 400 degree oven for 20 minutes.

The mushrooms just cook through, and the filling melts into the gills making the whole things creamy and delicious. The prosciutto and Parmesan add wonderful flavours of their own, as well as a good bit of salt which helps release the essence of the mushrooms. In theory the parsley is there to add some colour to the filling, but I didn’t find it very appealing. There is a lot of liquid in mushrooms, and the bread crumbs were there to soak it up. The 1/4 cup crumbs for 24 mushrooms the recipe recommends was a little on the low side. They could have stood to be dried out a bit.

This recipe worked really well, it was easy to do most of the prep at home, and then finish off the final assembly and baking at a friends place. I love appetizers that can be easily transported, either finished, or mostly finished. Almost inevitably you will be asked to bring things to a party more often than you’ll host a party of your own, so ease of transport is a key criterion in looking for a good hors d’oeuvre.

The filling would work equally well in little vol-au-vent, but stuffing the caps really emphasizes the mushroom flavour, and makes them more fun to eat. The balance of flavours was spot on here, the mushrooms were front and centre, with the prosciutto and Parmesan acting as capable supporting players. This recipe is a mycophobe’s worst nightmare, but a good trick to have up your sleeve if you’re asked to bring a little something to the party.

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Beef, Veal, Pork, and Lamb The Book

2. Saltimbocca p. 456

The version in The Book is very similar to this one with a slightly different ingredient list. I’ll give it to you here

8 thin veal cutlets
1/8 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
3 garlic cloves
1/4 teaspoon salt
16-24 fresh sage leaves (each about 2 1/2 to 3 inches long)
8 thin slices prosciutto (about 1/4 pound total)
1/4 cup olive oil
1/3 cup dry white wine
1/3 cup chicken stock or store-bought low sodium broth
2 tablespoons unsalted butter

Essentially The Book adds pepper, deglazes with both stock and wine, and finishes the sauce with butter. I haven’t made both versions, but the pan sauce The Book’s version produced was out of this world. I think the sauce benefited from the stock because the saltimbocca only sauté for a few seconds (about 30), and there really wasn’t a lot of time to produce flavorful meaty browned bits for the pan. As we will soon see, The Book is fearless when it comes to finishing things with butter.

The Book tells us to “secure prosciutto and sage with wooden picks threaded through sage leaves and meat” whereas the linked recipe recommends we use three picks per cutlet. I only used one skewer each, and I found they were prone to spinning around like little meaty pinwheels: use at least two skewers.

At the time I made this I wasn’t too familiar with sage, and this dish was a solid introduction. It is upfront and centre in the meat, and most of the browned bits scraped up into the sauce were sage. The prosciutto takes on a wonderfully crispy texture, and I imagine the thinner your slices are the crispier they’ll end up. The veal is only 1/8 inch thick, so overcooking is easy to do, and easy to miss. Next time I would be more careful about making sure the cutlets were of an even thickness, but even the overdone ones tasted pretty great.

Overall this was quick, easy, pretty, and packed with flavor.