FUN IN THE KITCHEN: FINDING A NEW INGREDIENT

Crispy cheese-filled rolls, perfect with a glass of wine.

I was surprised to find, In my small village grocery store, a package containing hojas de brick, leaves of a ready-made pastry known as brik or brick or bric. Brik is not part of traditional Spanish cooking, but I had watched Spanish chefs use it in cooking demos to create all sorts of fancy pastries with both sweet and savory fillings. I could not resist buying the packet. A little fun in the kitchen, experimenting with a new ingredient.

Brik is a very, very thin pastry, also known as malsouqa in Tunisia, where it comes from. Over the years, it has become naturalized in France and, from there, has made it’s way into Spanish cooking. It is somewhat like phyllo or Turkish yufka, but considerably easier to work with, as it is not so apt to dry out and become brittle. It’s most like Moroccan warqa.

I put out a query about brik on Facebook’s Moroccan Cooking page and Paula Wolfert, author of THE FOOD OF MOROCCO (ECCO, 2012), replied: “Brik pastry is a wee bit thicker than Moroccan warqa. The making of warqa, the paper-thin pastry leaves used in the famous Moroccan briks, pastillas, and other recipes, is always performed by specialists. It’s wonderful to watch these women as they knead a ball of dough then tap it multiple times on a metal pan heated over a charcoal brazier, creating a paper-thin leaf, dab by dab. It’s a time consuming process, difficult to master” (although Paula suggests an easier method).

Brik--as thin as tissue paper.

But, back to my kitchen in Spain, where I have ready-made brik. I opened the package of brik and found 10 circular sheets of pastry, about 12 inches in diameter, each separated by a sheet of waxed paper. Paper thin, they look somewhat like crêpes, with slightly lacy-looking edges. The label says they are made with wheat flour, water, salt, sunflower oil, preservatives, acidulant and emulsifying agent.

I removed five sheets and returned the rest to the plastic package, taping it closed and storing in the fridge. The remaining sheets kept very well until I used them a few days later.

Brik pastry can be fried or baked. The classic Tunisian brik, with a whole (raw) egg sealed inside a triangular packet, is fried. I tried both frying and baking and actually prefer the baked ones. They come out of the oven shatteringly crisp. Cones of brik pastry also can be baked without a filling.

Brik pastry is best served soon after baking, before it loses its snap. But, a day later, I experimented with reheating some of them (90 seconds in a 400ºF-oven). They crisped up quite nicely.

Cut in half, roll reveals filling of cheese and walnuts.

Crispy Cheese Rolls

Crispy Cheese Rolls were the most successful of my experiments. They were easy to assemble. I used toothpicks to secure the rolls, but I don’t think this is necessary. The picks are hard to remove after frying or baking without breaking the pastry. Half of the rolls I fried in olive oil, the remainder I baked. I discovered it was best to place them on the baking sheet with the seam-side up, so that the smooth side browned on the bottom. Some I brushed with oil, some I didn’t. The ones brushed with oil browned a little better, but it’s hardly necessary.

I used cured goat cheese to fill these rolls. Cured Manchego could be used instead. Directions are given for both frying and baking the rolls. They are best served immediately, while still hot. A sweet-tart quince sauce would be a good accompaniment (recipe ). Serve any sauce separately so it doesn't turn the pastry soggy.
(This recipe is adapted from one found in HOLA Cocina, an annual publication by Hola magazine http://www.hola.com/.)

Makes 10 rolls.

¼ cup chopped walnuts
6 ounces chopped or coarsely grated cheese
1 tablespoon chopped chives
Freshly ground black pepper
5 sheets of brik
Olive oil if frying the rolls

In a bowl combine the nuts, cheese, chives and pepper.

Cut pastry sheet in half, add filling.

Fold in the sides and roll up.

Use kitchen scissors to cut one sheet of the brik pastry in half. Place a spoonful of the nut-cheese mixture at the end of one half. Fold in the sides, then roll up the strip of pastry to form a roll. Place on a baking sheet. Repeat, using half a sheet of pastry for each roll.

To bake the rolls, preheat oven to 400ºF. If desired, brush the rolls with oil. Bake the rolls until lightly browned, about 5 minutes.

To fry the rolls, heat ½ inch of oil in a skillet. Fry the rolls, a few at a time, turning them to brown both sides, about 30 seconds per side. Remove and allow to drain on paper towels.

Crispy pastry cups are filled with spinach, cheese.

Spinach in Pastry Cups

These were problematic. They looked good and tasted great. But, in actuality, the filling soaked through the bottom of the pastry cups, making them difficult to remove from the muffin tin without breaking. Perhaps a double layer of pastry leaves to reinforce the bottoms? (The pastry cups, as pictured, were made with a single quarter-sheet of brik.)

Makes 6.

1 tablespoon olive oil plus more for greasing the muffin pan
1 tablespoon pine nuts
2 cloves garlic, chopped
10 ounces spinach, chopped
Salt and pepper
Grating of fresh nutmeg
1 teaspoon vinegar
1 egg yolk
3 sheets of brik pastry
¼ cup grated cheese

Preheat oven to 400ºF.

Heat the oil in a skillet and fry the pine nuts until golden. Skim them out and reserve. Add the garlic. When it begins to brown, add the spinach. Season with salt, pepper, nutmeg and vinegar. Cook until spinach is wilted and all the moisture is cooked off. Remove to a small bowl. Stir in the pine nuts and egg yolk.

Brush a 6-muffin tin with olive oil. Cut 1 brik pastry leaf in quarters. Fit one quarter into a muffin cup. Place a second quarter-leaf into the cup. Use remaining pastry, cut in quarters, to line 5 more muffin cups.

Divide the spinach filling between the 6 cups. Sprinkle grated cheese on tops. Bake until the edges of the pastry are golden-brown, about 4 minutes. Carefully remove the pastry cups from the muffin tin. Serve hot.

Aperitif or starter, spinach-filled pastry cups are so good.

MEAT LOAF--IT'S A WRAP

Not your mom's meatloaf.

When I was a kid, meatloaf was a favorite family dinner. Baked in the oven with potatoes and carrots alongside, my mom’s meatloaf was nothing fancy—no garlic, maybe a pinch of thyme—but it was juicy and satisfying. An economical meal of ground beef to feed four kids, meatloaf was definitely not something you served to company!

I’ve come a long way since then (I was a kid in the 1950s, in the Midwest)!
I recently served meatloaf at a dinner party and it was a great success. It wasn’t exactly “mom’s meatloaf.” Or, a Castillian mom’s version—spiced  ground lamb braised in a wrap of chard leaves with a surprise in the middle—nuggets of hard-boiled egg. Pine nuts and raisins complement the lamb and make it a very special meat loaf.

The original recipe (it came from Castilla-La Mancha, but I’m not sure of the source) called for the wrapped meat roll to be coated in beaten eggs, dredged in flour and fried, then simmered with wine in a covered pan. (That recipe appears in my cookbook, COOKING FROM THE HEART OF SPAIN—FOOD OF LA MANCHA.) 

Ready for oven-braising--ground lamb wrapped in chard leaves.

Here, I’ve simplified the recipe by eliminating the frying step and oven-braising the meatloaf. The meatloaf can also be made with a mixture of lamb and ground beef or chicken. And, instead of the “sweet” spices—cinnamon, cloves, and nutmeg—it can be flavored with thyme and rosemary. A layer of roasted red peppers can be spread in the center, either instead of or in addition to the egg.

I cooked whole carrots with the meatloaf to serve as a side, along with Potatoes Mashed with Green Garlic (that recipe is here ).

Sliced meat roll shows nuggets of egg.

Lamb Roll Wrapped in Chard Leaves, La Mancha Style
Rollo de Cordero con Acelga a la Manchega


Serves 6 to 8.

¼ cup pine nuts
3 tablespoons olive oil
1 bunch of chard (8-10 leaves)
1 cup fresh bread crumbs
2 pounds ground lamb
2 cloves crushed garlic
¼ cup chopped parsley
1/3 cup diced pancetta or bacon (optional)
¼ cup minced onion
¼ cup seedless raisins
Pinch of ground cloves
1/8 teaspoon cinnamon
Grating of fresh nutmeg
1/8 teaspoon ground coriander seed
Salt
Freshly ground black pepper
2 eggs, beaten
2 hard-cooked eggs, halved lengthwise
1 cup coarsely chopped onion
½ cup diced carrot (or whole carrots)
1 cup canned diced tomatoes
¼ cup water
1 teaspoon sugar
¾ cup white wine
1 tablespoon flour

Heat 1 teaspoon of the olive oil in a small skillet and fry the pine nuts until they are golden. Remove and reserve them.

Cut off chard stems and discard (or save for another use). Bring a large pot of water to a boil and blanch the leaves just until wilted, about 30 seconds. Drain the leaves.

Soak the breadcrumbs in water to cover until softened. Squeeze out the water and put the softened bread in a mixing bowl. Add the ground lamb, garlic, parsley, bacon, minced onion, raisins, toasted pine nuts, cloves, cinnamon, nutmeg, coriander, ½ teaspoon salt, pepper and beaten eggs.

With a large wooden spoon (or hands) mix the meat thoroughly with the other ingredients.

Spread half the meat on a layer of leaves.

Spread a dampened kitchen towel on a work surface. Lay half of the chard leaves, shiny-side down, in an overlapping layer on the cloth. Divide the meat in half. Pat one-half of the meat into an oblong (about 9 inches). Place the cooked eggs, cut-side down, in a row down the middle. Pat the remaining meat on top of the eggs. With the hands, shape the meat into a loaf, sealing in the eggs.

Fold the chard leaves up over the meat roll. Cover with remaining chard leaves and tuck them under the roll, completely enclosing the meat roll. Pat the roll to firm it. It is not necessary to tie the roll.

If cooking the meat loaf in the oven, preheat to 350ºF.

Heat the remaining oil in a deep skillet or casserole big enough to hold the roll. Put in the roll, the coarsely chopped onions and carrots. Add the tomatoes, water, sugar and wine. Bring the liquid to a simmer, cover the casserole and either simmer on top of the stove or place in the oven.

If braising the meatloaf on top of the stove, after 35 minutes, carefully turn it over (not necessary if the meat is oven-braised). Cook the meatloaf, in total, 70 minutes, whether on top of the stove or in the oven.

Remove the meatloaf to a cutting board and allow to set for 10 minutes. Use a serrated knife to slice it. Place whole carrots, if using, in a serving bowl and keep warm. Place all of the liquid and vegetables remaining in the casserole in a blender with the flour. Blend until smooth. Return to the pan and simmer until gravy is thickened.

Slice the meatloaf and serve with the gravy.

Use pan juices to make gravy.

GOT MY GOAT (CHEESE)

It’s Goat Day in Málaga! Closing a two-month celebration of the Cabra Malagueña, the Málaga breed of goat, are events for school kids (chance to feed a baby goat with a bottle), a sculpture show and gastronomy tastings.

“Oh My Goat” is the sculpture show, sponsored by the Málaga newspaper, Diario Sur, consisting of 40 life-size goats of molded fibre glass, each one painted or “decorated” by a different Málaga artist. (To see all of them, go to this web page  http://ohmygoat.diariosur.es/oh-my-goat.html .)

Málaga-breed goat (photo by Assoc. de Criadores de la Cabra Malagueña).

The breed, Cabra Malagueña (http://www.cabrama.com/index ), is a short-haired, cinnamon-colored goat, autochthonous to Málaga province. It is noted for being especially fertile and a good milk producer, adaptable to arid terrain where it makes good use of natural pasturage. There are around 200,000 Málaga-breed goats in the province, producing 70 million liters of milk per year. About 90 percent of the milk goes to big industrial cheese makers in La Mancha, Barcelona and France.

Call lost and found--abandoned goat.

 I got my own goat. Getting rid of her was the hard part. It happened on Christmas Day, when the goatherd brought his herd across the hillside—as he has done many, many times before. Maybe he had had too much holiday brandy, because he lost control of his flock, which destroyed my vegetable garden. He finally drove them off my property and headed back over the hill. But he left one goat behind. Oddly, she had no bell. She moseyed about, cropping grass, shrubs and weeds. At night, when it rained a bit, she bumped at the front door, begging to be let in. I did not let her in!

Yes, there were jokes about goat stew. And, “milking it for all it’s worth”. (I wondered if she needed milking—apparently not, but I wouldn’t have known). She had an ID tag on her ear—but there was no one to call during a holiday week. It was nine days before we finally located the owner, who came to retrieve her. The goat was fine.


Years ago, there were several herds of goats in the village. They went out every morning to graze. As they passed through the streets, housewives would come out with their pails and the goatherd would milk the goats at their doorstep. The warm milk was carried to the kitchen and brought three times to a boil in a special milk-boiler. It was then ready to be poured into coffee, whisked into thick drinking chocolate, or cooked in a sweet pudding.

During the milking season, the goatherds made cheese with the excess milk, which I used to buy at a neighborhood shop. It was a small round  of very white curds, marked by the woven esparto grass molds in which it was pressed. The cheese was soft and fresh, very mild in flavor, lightly salted. I never suffered any ill effects from eating raw-milk cheese, but I knew people who did. Nowadays it is prohibited by health regulations to sell fresh cheese made from unpasteurized milk.

So, along with a culinary colleague who was visiting (Lars Kronmark, who is a chef-instructor of culinary arts at the Culinary Institute of America (CIA http://www.ciachef.edu/california/) Greystone in Napa Valley, California), I went to see how goat’s milk cheese is made at an artisanal cheesemaker, El Pastor del Valle, http://www.elpastordelvalle.com/entrada.html  in the nearby town of Alhaurín el Grande (Málaga).

Antonio Vera de la Rosa tends 750 Málaga-breed goats and his wife, Josefa (Pepi) Burgos Carabantes, makes cheese.

The dairy produces fresh cheese, semi-cured, cured, viejo (aged), raw-milk cured cheese, goat’s milk yogurt, requesón (ricotta) and processed cheese spread.

The milk comes by truck from the farm, where the goats are milked twice a day. The fresh cheese (queso fresco) starts with pasteurization of the milk. That destroys both good and bad bacteria and also changes the calcium balance of the milk. The curdling agent—rennet, a substance taken from baby goats—along with calcium chloride, which restores the calcium balance and firms up the curds, are added to the warm milk, which is allowed to set until it begins to curdle, or form curds.

The curds are cut with a lira, or lyre, a mechanical arm with steel threads that cuts the curds into bits about the size of lentils. The whey is allowed to drain off. The whey is collected—some is heated to make requesón—the same as ricotta, which just means “re-cooked”—the rest goes to feed pigs or, Pepi tells us, as fertilizer in avocado groves!

Pepi and her helper pack the curds into cheese-cloth-lined two-part plastic molds. The molds show a crosshatch pattern that mimics the woven esparto grass strips that were used in traditional cheese making. The molds are mounted on a horizontal press and squeezed to release further liquid.

Pepi, left, is the master cheese maker. Lars, center, learns how Spanish goat cheese is made.

Removed from the molds, fresh cheeses are ready for brining.

Splash! Cheeses go into the salmuera, a 15-percent salt solution, where they stay for 2 hours. Once drained, the fresh cheese is ready to eat. It keeps, refrigerated, for about 20 days.

 Fresh goat’s cheese is my favorite snack food—toasted bread, olive oil, slices of cheese and raw onion. It also works as a dessert—serve it with a dribble of honey and some walnuts.

Semi-cured and cured cheese made from pasteurized milk start out much the same, but they require the addition of lactic fermentation agents, which are destroyed by pasteurization, that convert milk sugar into lactic acid, producing the characteristic cheese flavor. Semi-cured cheese needs a minimum of 20 days of aging; cured, more than 2 months, and viejo, aged, more than 6 months.

The rinds are rubbed with olive oil. Some are dusted with rosemary or pimentón (paprika), which add flavor.

Semi-cured cheese--good for melting.

 Pepi says she makes raw milk cheese maybe only once a month, because it requires a very stringent hygienic protocol. Raw-milk cheese requires nothing further than rennet, as the milk’s natural bacteria provide the lactic ferments that give it character. It does require aging a minimum of two months, after which it is safe to eat.

The raw milk cheese from El Pastor del Valle is rubbed with Ibérico pork fat, adding another layer of umami flavor to the cheese, which is slightly splintery, slightly piquant.

Today’s cheese making produces about 300 half-kilo (1-pound) cheeses from about 750 liters (quarts) of milk.  Expand? No, says Pepi. “We don’t want to be big industry. We want to make only what we can store and sell.” El Pastor del Valle distributes to shops in Málaga province and, by order, to restaurants.

Raw milk cured goat's milk cheese.

 Uvas y queso saben de beso. Grapes and cheese taste like a kiss. A little breathy, very sweet.  I love raw milk cured goat's cheese with amontillado Sherry or with a verdejo white wine. Tannins in red wine seem to get in the way of the flavors of aged goat’s cheese.

Woven strips of esparto once used to mold the fresh cheese.

Málaga-breed dairy goats (photo from Associacion de Criadores).