Savory Ham and Cheese French Cake

Don't let the mundane name of this bread mislead you. It is a gem, so tasty, so easy, and every chef should have it in their repertoire. The New York Times wrote about this French Cake the day before Bastille Day, and I've been thinking about it ever since I made it for the first time that week. I have baked this French cake, along with zucchini cake, to send along with my boyfriend who is going to Baltimore to visit a mutual friend who is teaching there through Teach for America. I also plan to make it while I am in Texas and my parents are around to buy more exotic fillings than ham and cheese; for my family I was thinking of adding shrimp, emmentaler/gruyere and scallions. The wonders of this bread are its ease and versatility. You can put any (tasty) flavor combination into the base of flour, eggs, a bit of dairy, and oil, mix briefly and this cake will turn out well.

This cake is packed with fillings to the extent that the fillings create very pretty mosaic when you cut in. Because of its heartiness, it can be used to create a light meal when served with salad or fresh vegetables. I ate my first cake for an entire week with whole fresh tomato and a green salad.

Here is the recipe from the original recipe from the article and below is my improvisation.

Ham and Cheese Cake:

1 3/4 cups flour
1 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon fresh ground pepper
2 teaspoons baking powder
3 eggs, beaten
1/2 cup yogurt (you can use milk, buttermilk, any type of dairy for acidity)
1/2 cup olive oil
1/3 pound of cured ham, diced into 1/4 squares (this is about 10-15 slices)
2 cups (or a bit more) cheddar cheese, half diced into 1/4 cubes, half grated

1. Preheat oven to 350 °F.
2. Whisk together flour, salt, baking powder and pepper in a large bowl
3. In a small bowl beat eggs, add yogurt, olive oil, and combine well.
4. Fold the wet ingredients into the dry ingredients until they are barely combined.
5. Add the ham and cheese and fold all the ingredients together until the ham and cheese is lightly covered with the batter.
6. Coat the bottom of a loaf pan with olive oil and pour the bread batter into the loaf pan. (I say pour, but the batter is quite dry so it's more like mold the batter into the loaf pan)
   
7. Place the pan in the center of the rack in the oven and bake for 40-50 minutes, until the top of the loaf is a light gold color.
8. Serve the bread at room temperature with wine and a salad (like the French would do).
   

A few notes: Don't be worried if the batter looks dry once you add in the cheese and ham. The dough base of the batter is only meant to coat the ham and cheese and act as a glue for the fillings. This cake is so tasty because the bread is 60% cheese. Also, I increased the olive oil because even with all the cheese this cake the propensity to dry out.
I wanted to post my own picture of the "pretty mosaic" pattern I mentioned earlier, but I left the cake in the oven too long while I was watching Top Chef DC and the top turned the color of bronze instead of gold and the top ham bits were black...not so pretty. Trust me when I say that my cake is even prettier than the cake in the NYT picture. However, I tried a piece and the cake was still delicious--hopefully the benefactor of the cake will post a comment about how tasty my cake turned out. I'll post a picture of the cake I make while I visit my family in Texas.

Cooking paprika

I am a sucker for bold flavors. I'm guilty of using too
much garlic; where two cloves suffice, I will use four. I usually coarsely chop garlic instead of mincing it because I eat my meals looking for the next lightly roasted clove. My heavy hand also pertains to spices. Though, I'm happy to say I was vindicated when watching Made in Spain with Jose Andres, because that man also uses heaping amounts of paprika, garlic, olive oil and peppers.

Last night's dinner was an ode to Jose Andres and paprika as well as fresh sweet corn. I made a variation of one of my favorite dishes, garlicked shrimp, in which shrimp is cooked in olive oil and about 10 cloves of garlic, and topped off with a squeeze of lemon and fresh parsley. For once in my life I skipped the garlic but compensated with paprika.

Shrimp with paprika

1 bag of frozen shrimp
1 HEAPING tablespoon of paprika (this probably comes out to 1.5 tablespoon of paprika)
1/2 onion chopped
1 cup parsley, coarsely chopped
1/2 bottle of beer
1/4 cup olive oil
salt, pepper

1. Defrost the shrimp in a bowl of water. Lightly dry before using.
2. In a large frying pan (I used a wok...it's what was on hand), heat olive oil and add the onions, half of the parsley, paprika, salt and pepper. Heat until the onions start to soften and the paprika is aromatic.
3. Add the beer and let the liquid mixture come to a simmer. Then add the shrimp and salt and pepper.
4. Cook the shrimp on medium heat until the stripes are pink. Before serving, top the dish with the rest of the chopped parsley.
5. Serve the dish with bread. Eat the shrimp straight out of the pan using bread to soak up the liquid.

Zucchini cake with lemon glaze from David Lebovitz

Tonight was supposed to be productively filled with secondary medical school applications. Instead it was a night filled with cooking and three hours of True Blood Season two. The procrastination started with my intention to bake a zucchini cake for my boss who (hopefully) wrote me a glowing recommendation to get into medical school. I've recently been turned onto David Lebovitz's blog about living in Paris. He posts about delicious food in general and some recipes. I have tried zucchini cake many times and always enjoyed the subtle flavor and moistness of the final product, so I decided to try David Lebovitz's zucchini cake with lemon glaze.

After all my procrastination this evening, I'm feeling lazy; I followed the recipe very closely so instead of writing out my own directions I recommend following the recipe posted by David Lebovitz. My only addition to the recipe was to add the zest of one lemon to the batter and the zest of another lemon to the lemon glaze. I own neither a grating blade for my food processor or an electric egg beater so I grated and mixed the cake by hand and the batter came out as smooth as I could hope. The wonder of zucchini bread is not its flavor but its moistness, so the lemon glaze adds a popping flavor and really makes this recipe wonderful. Make this cake now.

The spread of farmers markets

I spend a lot of time on this blog proclaiming my love for farmers markets, so I found this graph posted by the USDA is very encouraging. The number of farmers markets has more than doubled in the last ten years; equally as impressive the number of markets has increased 16% from 2009 to 2010. This graph from the USDA says it all.

Trattoria Cooking: Squash Frittata

I greatly enjoy frittatas. I grew up eating Spanish tortilla filled with potatoes. While tortilla is one of the classic tapas dishes, it is one of those dishes that is not as easy to make as it appears. The abundance of egg and the weight of the potatoes make a tortilla difficult to flip. I have personally dropped a half made tortilla into a sink. It's safer to finish a Spanish tortilla in the oven...

Frittatas require half the eggs and thus are not nearly as liquidy as a Spanish tortilla. Also the traditional use of pasta which allows a frittata to keep its shape better. This frittata is easily the best I have had. The squash is crisp and the egg acts only as a glue and does not take away from the cheese or squash flavor.

Summer Squash Frittata (adapted from Trattoria Cooking)

2 summer squash, cut into thin half moons
2 cloves garlic, minced
3 tablespoons grated Parmesan cheese
a small handful of grated mozzarella cheese (0ptional)
3 eggs, beaten
olive oil, salt, pepper

1. Saute the squash slices and minced garlic for 5-6 minutes until barely soft.
2. Beat the eggs in a medium bowl with salt, pepper, and Parmesan cheese. Add the squash to the eggs and combine until the squash is coated.
3. Pour the mixture into a small pan with a tablespoon of warm olive oil. Cook the frittata over medium heat for 5 minutes maximum. Use a spatula to check for browning on the sides.
4. Loosen the frittata with the spatula and slide onto a plate. Use the plate to flip the frittata into the pan to cook the opposite side. Cook for 3 minutes, less time than the first side.
5. Loosen from the pan again and slide back onto the plate.

Disclaimer: While this dish came together in less than 20 minutes, I had to use two pans for the whole operation. I used a medium sized skillet to cook the squash evenly, and I used a small skillet to cook the actual frittata. That way the frittata came out thicker and the size was perfect for a two person dinner and lunch leftovers.

Eggplant Extravaganza: Parmigiana Style

I'm not meant to live alone. I cook too much and as a result I buy too much food, or I buy too much food and as a result I cook too much. Certainly too much for one person. On Sunday I couldn't resist going to the farmer's market and buying more vegetables even though I had much of last week's purchase in the crisper. On Sunday I made three different vegetarian dishes, including this potato raita I made as one of my first posts 6 months ago. This time, I added sauteed cucumber (wilted cucumber that needed a face-lift) and less yogurt. I rarely meet a potato salad I don't like, and this one is no exception

Two Sundays ago I succumbed to a buy "three, get the fourth eggplant free" sale thus my first project of the week had to use eggplant. I was inspired by this Diner's Journal set of commentary on Eggplant Parmigiana and used an eggplant parmigiana recipe from a book I'm trying out this month, Trattoria Cooking as a loose guide. I grilled my eggplant and added egg to make the sauce creamier as suggested by Diner's Journal.

Eggplant Parmigiana

4 small eggplants, sliced
1 28oz can of diced stewed tomatoes
1 small onion, diced
2 big cloves garlic, minced
a few leaves of basil and parsley (I used a cube of frozen pesto)
2 eggs
mozzarella cheese, grated or sliced
salt, pepper
olive oil

1.Preheat the oven to 375 °F. Wash and slice the eggplants into medallions. Lay the pieces on a cutting board and lightly sprinkle the slices with salt. Let stand for at least 20 minutes to remove water and bitterness from the eggplant.
2. Dab slices of eggplant with a paper towel to remove the water from the surface. Coat a baking sheet(s) with olive oil, and roast the eggplant slices for 30-40 minutes, turning them halfway through.
3. In a large saute pan over medium heat, saute the onion and garlic in olive oil until translucent. Add the herbs and saute until aromatic. Add the canned tomato with the liquid and add another half can of water. Add salt and pepper and simmer the sauce gently while the eggplant cooks.
4. When the sauce is ready to be used, beat two eggs, slowly pour them into the sauce while stirring quickly. Add more salt and pepper if necessary.
5. Once the eggplant is tender, assemble the layers. Coat the bottom of the pyrex dish with a few tablespoons of the sauce to prevent sticking. Cover the pan with one layer of eggplant, sauce, and mozzarella cheese. Repeat the process until you run out of all ingredients.
6. Bake at 350°F for 45 minutes to an hour. Let the dish rest for at least 20 minutes.