Tuesday, August 3rd, 2010
Maili’s Tempura-Fried Squash Blossoms and Tempura-Fried Basil Leaves
Serendipity is often your friend in the kitchen. During her class, Chef Maili planned to teach us how to prepare her delectable tempura-fried squash blossoms. But when we went out to my garden to harvest the blossoms, we realized we weren’t going to find enough for the recipe. Maili spotted my abundant basil leaves, though, and immediately suggested that we give them a try. And, of course, her fried basil creation became the hit of the class. We all agreed (with mouthfuls of basil bliss) that the stuffed and fried basil leaves were even tastier than the squash blossoms. The basil leaves are also smaller, making them a great option for a passed appetizer plate — they’re just the right size to pop in your mouth in one bite (and then catch the tray to grab one more).
Suffice to say, Maili knows how to stuff her squash blossoms: perhaps with crab and blood oranges … or a white bean puree … or goat cheese with hazelnuts … whatever is fresh and available. For our class she stuffed the blossoms and basil leaves with a mixture of goat cheese, minced jalapenos, minced dried apricots, and garlic. It may sound like a lot of ingredients, but believe me, it certainly tasted great and was very well balanced. It was a great complement to the Abarino from Spain we were drinking … did I mention how hard we were working to learn all these new recipes? After mixing the filling, Maili herself stuffed each blossom, and for the basil leaves, wrapped them up like tiny tacos, pinching the edges closed. She then dunked them in a tempura batter and fried them until golden brown.
To garnish the plate we used a combination of green bean and arugula flowers from my garden and added a drizzle of Maili’s reduced balsamic.*
  
Below is Maili’s basic tempura batter recipe. Let me know what divine combinations you come up with!
Tempura Batter
1 cup flour
½ cup corn starch
1 ¼ cups ice cold water (with ice in it)
2 eggs
1 teaspoon salt
Canola oil for frying
Reduced balsamic for drizzling
Stuff squash blossoms or basil leaves with the filling of your choice. Heat the oil in a deep-sided pan to 350 degrees F. Mix tempura batter ingredients together. Ice cubes in the batter are okay. Dip blossoms quickly into batter and then gently place in hot oil. Fry until lightly brown.
Remove with a spider to a sheet pan lined with towels. Sprinkle with salt. Drizzle with reduced balsamic just before serving. Can be reheated in a 375-degree oven just before service, but are best served freshly fried.
*A great tip from Maili: She always keeps reduced balsamic vinegar in her fridge. By reducing it she creates a flavor similar to aged balsamicos. She simply buys a large bottle of balsamic vinegar at Costco (Kirkland brand) and cooks it down slowly on the stove until it reduces by half. Then she stores it in the fridge in a squirt bottle.
Tags: appetizer, balsamic vinegar, cooking class, fried basil leaves, fried squash blossoms, goat cheese stuffed squash blossoms, Maili Halme Brocke, reducing balsamic vinegar, squash blossoms, tempura, tips
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Tuesday, August 3rd, 2010
Val: Who are your favorite farmers in the Santa Barbara area?
Maili: David Pommer is one. He grows heirlooms and other specialty items I request. Also, Colleen Darling of Hidden Springs Ranch and Molly Robertson of Ballard Canyon Farm. I buy lemons and citrus from Monica Roberts and her citrus ranch. Can I name Mike Gerawan as one of my all time favorite farmers even though he lives in Reedley, California? Mike is a genius with stone fruit and grapes!
Val: How many cookbooks do you own?
Maili: I used to have close to 4,000. But now I have just under 2,000, plus another 1,500+ cooking magazines. I also have a lot of books on food writing and food memoirs. Now and then I weed out a bunch of cookbooks and donate between 50 and 100 a year to the library. My mother has a complete set of cookbooks as well, close to 1,000, mainly about baking. Of course, I’m constantly buying and reading new cookbooks or finding treasures in old classics.
Val: Breakfast, lunch or dinner — what’s your favorite meal to cook and your favorite meal to eat?
Maili: Dinner is my favorite because of the endless possibilities, but I love making breakfast!
Val: Who has been the most influential mentor in your cooking career?
Maili: Without question, my grandmothers and my mother. This answer could go on for pages about all I have learned from them professionally and about making delicious food for those you love, and how important food is to bring people together for the celebrations of life.
Val: Where do you get your inspiration for cooking?
Maili: Everywhere: from something I eat in a restaurant, from the farmers market, from a garden, from a book, a cookbook, a cooking magazine. But the greatest inspiration has been my clients. They will tell me about a food they love or that they want something different and I’ll have to invent a new hors d’oeuvre or main course based on that. My best food has come from trying to create something new around a specific client’s personal taste or learning something about their family heritage and re-creating those recipes.
Val: You are so busy, homeschooling the kids, running your catering and event company, creating recipes, your non-profit involvement and blogging. How do you manage it? Do you have a tip for us that helps you keep organized?
My car is a mess, I rarely wear makeup and sometimes fitting in a shower is a challenge. My husband is super organized and he is a huge support. I couldn’t do it without him. I also get a lot of support from the other homeschooling moms. We are all there for each other. But life is VERY busy. If I had one wish it would be for 12 more hours in everyday. I have so much I want to accomplish each day and sometimes feel that I’m only scratching the surface compared with all that is swirling in my head.
Ironically, I thought homeschooling would be a dead-end for my career but it has been the reverse. All the field trips to museums and other countries and states have only expanded my cooking knowledge. It also let me be more selective about the events I accepted and also gave me some extra time to write that I never had when I was catering full-time. And most of our socialization tends to be with friends who have children that my kids love to be with. So I almost never get to go out to lunch with just adults. That’s extremely rare.
But I do a lot with the homeschool moms and most of them are my soulmates because we all love to read, cook, garden and sew. I do get sidetracked with certain causes, like exposing the corruption behind the closing of the local library. But it’s hard for me to be silent when there is an injustice I feel so strongly about. I will say that my one secret is a 20-minute nap when I’m really exhausted. It’s amazing how I can be on the go so much but just that 20 minutes is so restorative that it gives me the mental and physical energy to accomplish even more.
Val: Do you have a favorite cocktail? If so can you share the recipe with us?
Maili: Recently, I made a refreshing and delicious Champagne cocktail for a dear friend’s baby shower. We called it “The Harper” after their precious new baby girl. It’s made with Champagne, guava juice, lime juice and fresh mint. For those who prefer a non-alcoholic version, you can make it with sparkling water. It’s perfect for summer.
For more information and recipes from Maili go to http://www.themailifiles.blogspot.com
Tags: Maili Halme Brocke
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Thursday, July 29th, 2010
I first met Maili Halme Brocke (http://www.themailifiles.blogspot.com) five years back when we took a cooking class together in Montecito. You know when you meet someone and you feel connected to them instantly? That’s how it is with Maili. Watching her snap photos and contribute her two cents about the recipes demonstrated, my petite food groupie heart was aflutter. I quickly progressed from thinking, “This girl knows what she is talking about,” to inviting Maili to lunch at my house so we could talk non-stop about all things “food.”
Maili is owner and executive chef of Maili Productions, a catering and event planning company here in Santa Barbara. Her celebrity clientele sing her praises, as do most people who are lucky enough to know her and eat her food. When I started my blog last year I knew I wanted to feature Maili as one of the Chefs in My Kitchen. Our focus for her class: create recipes fresh from the garden that would be perfect for entertaining.
On the day of the class she arrived armed with bound recipe books filled with summer garden recipes and information for all in attendance. All eight of us picked produce from my garden (full disclosure — with wine glasses in hand), then we watched and learned as Maili created a simply spectacular orzo salad, arugula salad with truffle oil and Marcona almonds, cold peach soup, stuffed squash and basil blossoms and a savory plum sauce. What better way to spend a summer afternoon … perched around the kitchen island with friends, hearing great tips, fun stories, lapping up her tasty concoctions, and, of course, a little mid-day wine tasting.
Here is the first of the many recipes we enjoyed in my kitchen. It’s so good I almost ate the whole plate before I remembered to take a picture.
Maili says that this recipe is very forgiving. You can toss in whatever you want, in whatever amounts, but the most important ingredient is the sautéed onions. They’re chunky and cooked for 15 to 20 minutes until translucent. The original recipe was developed by Maili’s friend Narisha, who prepared it to accompany roast chicken. Narisha used just five ingredients: orzo, Meyer lemons, arugula, capers and Parmesan cheese. Maili adds a few more.
Maili’s Orzo Arugula Salad
1 one-pound box of orzo
1 large yellow onion
1/3 cup olive oil
Pinch of salt for the onion
1 7-ounce bag of baby arugula (spinach can be substituted)
2 cups sugar plum tomatoes (or grape tomatoes or cherry tomatoes), cut in half
1 cup (about five ounces) feta cheese, crumbled (Parmesan is an excellent substitution)
1 cup pine nuts, toasted (can substitute Marcona almonds), nuts are optional
2-3 tablespoons capers, rinsed (optional)
1 13.75 ounce can artichoke hearts packed in water
Juice from two lemons (Meyer lemons if possible)
Minced fresh parsley, basil, and/ or mint
Salt and pepper to taste
1. While you’re getting all of your other ingredients together, cook the orzo in boiling salted water for 9 minutes. Rinse orzo until completely cool before adding other ingredients.
2. Sauté onion over medium heat in 1/3 cup olive oil. This may seem like more olive oil than you would generally use to sauté, but the extra oil will be flavored with the onion and used as the dressing for the salad. Put a pinch of salt on the onion while cooking.
3. Cook onion for 15-20 minutes, stirring occasionally, until the onion is translucent and sweet. (The longer you cook onions the better they are, so don’t skip this part.)
4. In the largest bowl you have, toss the warm onions with the cooled pasta. Be sure to use all the oil from the sauté pan.
5. Add the arugula, tomatoes, feta (or Parmesan), pine nuts, capers, artichoke hearts, herbs of your choice, lemon juice and sprinkle of salt and pepper. Toss to combine.
6. Serve at room temperature. Can be kept at room temperature for 6 hours. If you’re planning to wait before serving, then add the arugula as close to serving time as possible. Try not to refrigerate this salad, as it changes the texture and flavor of the pasta.
Tags: arugula, chefs in my kitchen, Maili Halme Brocke, orzo salad, salads, sides
Posted in Chefs in My Kitchen, Eat, Garden, Recipes | 2 Comments, Click here to Read/Reply »
Monday, July 26th, 2010
In March, when Peggy Markel (http://www.peggymarkel.com) was cooking in my kitchen, she provided a bundle of Moroccan recipes that we never had time to try. This salad of zucchini and mint is a version I adapted from one of those recipes. It’s fresh and bright and a terrific side dish to a summer meal.
Moroccan Zucchini Salad with Mint
About 2 cups of chopped zucchini
1 teaspoon of cumin, toasted
1 small clove of garlic*, thinly sliced
4 tablespoons olive oil
2 tablespoons lemon
Pinch of red pepper flakes
2 tablespoons of mint, chopped fine
Salt to taste
Cook the zucchini for 5 minutes in simmering salted water. While the zucchini cooks, toast the cumin in a small dry pan until it releases fragrance.
When the zucchini is done, plunge it into a bowl of ice water to stop the cooking process and keep the zucchini firm. Once it has cooled completely, remove the zucchini from the ice bath and dry on a clean kitchen towel. Mix the rest of the ingredients in a bowl, stir in the zucchini, and serve cold.
*Slicing garlic: I use my mandolin to slice the garlic. It creates thin, even slices, but watch your digits.
Tags: Moroccan recipe, Moroccan zucchini salad, salad, summer salad, zucchini, zucchini and mint salad
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Friday, July 23rd, 2010
Italian eggplants are big and meaty but not very interesting — sounds like a few of my past love interests! But it really doesn’t have to be that way because there is quite a selection of eggplants, in a variety of colors, sizes and flavors.
Last year I discovered some beautiful Udumalapet eggplants at the farmers market. They were absolutely stunning-looking: fuchsia with beautiful zebra stripes. So this year when I set off to the nursery to pick summer seedlings I scoured my sources until I discovered one that was similar called Bianca Rosa. This beautiful eggplant is roundish, white and pink, and is quite tasty, and I’ve enjoyed concocting dishes revolving around its exquisite flavor. It rivals the taste of the Japanese eggplant that has always been my favorite and a constant in my summer garden.
My favorite way to prepare eggplant is to roast it in the oven with a few other summer compatriots. It’s an easy and delicious side dish that will have your family eating their veggies and asking for more. Any bell pepper will do but I prefer colorful dishes, so if you use Italian zucchini, choose an orange or red bell pepper. I love the white balsamic in this recipe, as it adds a bit of sweetness and a bright kick.
Roasted Summer Veggies
(Serves 4)
I large Japanese eggplant or eggplant of your choice
1 small onion
1 zucchini or yellow squash
1 orange or red bell pepper
1 tablespoon olive oil
1 tablespoon white balsamic vinegar
½ teaspoon kosher salt
pinch of red pepper flakes
5 basil leaves
Warm oven to 425 degrees. Cut veggies into 1” pieces. Toss the veggies in a bowl with the olive oil, vinegar, salt and pepper flakes and then bake on a sheet pan for 20-25 minutes. Occasionally, check on your veggies and give them a good shake to move them around. When the veggies are cooked through, season to taste with additional salt and pepper if need be. Then tear the basil leaves over the veggies and serve.
Freelancing … and a new dip is born
I made a batch this morning because I had a notion that it might make a good dip. I put the warmed veggies in the blender with 1 small clove of garlic and a pinch of salt, gave it a whirl, and it was absolutely delicious. I will serve it with warmed pitas to guests tonight. This is a great way to repurpose leftovers!
Tags: dip, roasted vegetables, side dish, summer side dish
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