Happy Swiss cows with bells leads to amazing cheese

I’ve been away, and internet-challenged to boot! Now back from Italy and a brief stop in Switzerland — much more on Italy very soon. First I must pay homage to the cows of Lauterbrunnen, with their big, noisy bells that would blend perfectly with a yodel here and there. This was the land of artisanal cheeses, a place you could go to learn cheese-making and cow herding. The grass looked so good I thought I might even eat some.

Switzerland has two well-known national dishes — fondue and rösti. These are based on their two great edibles, cheese and potatoes. I’ve known about fondue since the 70s, when the fondue craze struck American homes like an electric shock, planting thousands of fondue pots in our avocado and goldenrod kitchens. Ours was yellow, of course. We didn’t try the fondue in Switzerland because we smelled it so continually one evening while we waited for a table at a popular restaurant that we felt like we’d actually eaten it.

No, it was rösti that I was unfamiliar with, but I now know that it is a variation on hash browns, or latkes, or other such potato dishes.

Not my picture -- but ours looked just like this!

Rösti is grated potato, and the Swiss potatoes are very good. I know this because potatoes accompany just about every meal, sometimes combined with…cheese! Season the grated potato, shape it into a very buttery pan and fry it up. Very easy, very filling. The Husband ordered his with a curry flavor, which was not a great choice. Mine had bacon and cheese, and I plowed through about half of it. It was comfort food on steroids, and I’ll be making it here very soon.

An aerial view of cows, but no matter how far away you get, you can hear those bells

Back to cows. These Swiss cows are very happy and well cared-for. They spend all summer in the spectacular foothills of the Alps, eating clover and basking in the sun. And all that goodness yields a field of dairy products that has all that flavors of pure joy. Nutty, tangy gruyeres and emmenthalers, mellow yogurt, achingly fresh milk and butter. It’s a well-protected industry there, family-owned and carefully managed.

Lauterbrunnen, in the shadow of the Eiger, the Jungfrau, and the Monch peaks

Our favorite meal in Switzerland was a hunk of bread with several local cheeses which we cut up with — what else? — a Swiss Army knife. But stay tuned for Italy.

Yodel-ay-hee-hoo

©2010 Kitchenelly. All Rights Reserved.

A play on shapes: long & skinny, little ovals, and rectangles

The phrase “company’s coming” used to be popular when dinner guests were expected. Was that just Oklahoma? I don’t hear it said any more, but we do have “people over.” And there is usually a buffer snack, designed to stave off hunger if the thing in the oven is taking forever to cook and to provide a window for latecomers. But I’ve been fretting about this pre-game warm-up for a while now, since I’d found myself in a decided rut. I had slipped into the soft cheese/hard cheese/crackers array, with a possible olive or nut mix tagging along. Don’t get me wrong, I love to nibble exactly those things before dinner, especially washed down with a crisp but not too dry white wine. But something was missing.

I feel like a middle-schooler here, trying to justify why only the Converse® Design Your Own sneaker will do. I can give you soooo many reasons why I need something new:

1. I’m sure I’ve served the exact same cheese 10 straight times
2. My living room sofa is challenging since it’s really a day bed and one can’t lean in to the cheese board like they might want
3. I have only one cheese slicer

4. Even I am getting sick of that Spanish nut mix from Whole Foods
5. I can’t leave well-enough alone
6. I have some cool little wooden plates that are languishing in the cabinet

So out came the plates. I decided to arrange the appetizers on the plates and serve them that way; now everyone could have their own small plate to ponder, replete with goodies to nosh on at will. Sometimes it’s nice not to have to share.

Individual Appetizer Plates | 6 plates

The plates above are composed of breadsticks, roasted Lacinato kale (I like this variety for its mild flavor and non-fibrous rib), goat cheese “olives,” real olives, pan de higo and seared halloumi cheese with sage. Play with shapes and flavors and textures — but do join me out here, up and out of that rut. And on the day bed.

1 bunch Lacinato kale (also called Tuscan kale or dinosaur kale)
Olive oil
Sea salt
Parmesan or Romano cheese
8 ounces chevre
1 tablespoon zahtar
1 tablespoon smoked bittersweet paprika
8 ounce package (approximately) Halloumi cheese (sheep and goat milk cheese from Cyprus)
8 fresh sage leaves
Freshly ground black pepper
Pan de Higo (Spanish fig & almond cake)
Breadsticks
Assorted olives

Preheat the oven to 275°F. Rinse the kale, trim off part of the stem, and dry well.

This variety is beautiful -- a deep blue-green

Use a paper towel to dab the kale as dry as possible before coating it with oil -- this keeps it from steaming rather than roasting

Rub oil on your hands and then coat the kale lightly with the oil

If you have a oil sprayer, use that to lightly coat the leaves

Sprinkle the kale with salt and roast in the oven until very crisp and dry and slightly browning, about 30 minutes. Sprinkle with freshly grated Parmesan or Romano cheese and set aside until needed.

The kale browns slightly but maintains its great color

Press a spoonfuls of chevre into oval shapes, making 12 “olives.”

Goat cheese is crumbly but it will hold its shape if you press it together

Put the zahtar on a flat surface and roll 6 of the goat cheese olives in it until coated. Use more zahtar if needed.

These make delightful little bites, and no crackers are needed

Coat the other 6 goat cheese olives with the paprika.

Smoked paprika has a wonderful depth of flavor and a slight sweetness

Prepare the halloumi last, since it is best served warm. The other elements can be made in advance.

Halloumi comes packaged in a block of approximately 8 ounces -- it has a salty, feta-like flavor and a texture something like mozzarella

Slice the halloumi into 1/3-inch slices. You will have 6 to 8 slices

Trim the end pieces so they will lie flat in the pan

Heat a large pan, either cast-iron or non-stick, over medium heat. Have a sage leave ready for each slice of halloumi.

Place the sage top side facing out -- it will attach to halloumi as it cooks

Place the cheese, sage leaf side down, in the hot pan.

No need for oil, since the halloumi cooks in its own brine

Brown the halloumi, sage side down, for about 4 minutes, checking to make sure it doesn’t get too brown. Turn and cook another 4 minutes.

Halloumi has a high melting temperature, which is why is can be pan-seared or grilled

Sprinkle with freshly ground pepper and serve warm. Slice 6 pieces of pan de higo. Arrange each plate with a breadstick, a piece of roasted kale, 2 chevre “olives,” a couple of actual olives, a slice of browned halloumi and a slice of pan de higo.

Pass the vino, per favore.

Kelly McCune © 2010

©2010 Kitchenelly. All Rights Reserved.

The heat of the tomatoes softens the fresh mozzarella

Last Monday night was an all-round great evening. The subject, from 5:30 until 10:30, was food. Very, very good food. We started the evening at Nancy Silverton/Mario Batali’s Pizzeria Mozza, and since there were 7 of us we tasted 7 different pizzas. And yes, the fuss is accurate and deserved — the pizza is deeply good. Then we saw Julie & Julia at the Arclight Cinema in Hollywood, and both the movie and the theater itself were also deeply good (especially all things Meryl Streep). You reserve in advance at the Arclight, are seated by an usher, and very kindly admonished by the same usher to silence cell phones and mouths during the movie. Ahhhh. I may be spoiled forever for pizza and movie theaters.

But back to Pizzeria Mozza. We started the meal with a different take on a standby, caprese, which I resisted because I make it at home with some regularity. And now that my home-grown tomatoes are ripe and I’ve found some amazing mozzarella at the creaky (I mean really creaky) little Italian store down the hill, I was trying to hold it off. But caprese fans will out, and the thing was ordered.

I got a tiny bite of it but it was delicious. The hot roasted tomatoes plopped right onto the mozzarella begin to soften the cheese but leave behind its slight tang. The basil, instead of chopped and sprinkled on top, was pureed with olive oil and drizzled over the mozzarella, making it even easier to mop up the goods with some bread. And that is one of the great pleasures of the last bites of caprese: the mozzarella gives off a little briny “milk,” which mixes with the oil which mixes with the tomato which you try to dab up with a hint of basil. Here it’s making its own soup for you.

This is my take on Mozza’s caprese — and a new way to visit an old friend. Look for the freshest mozzarella you can find, and some really good bread to go with it. After all, Nancy Silverton is the woman behind all that bread at La Brea Bakery. And some of us need something good to go with our bread.

Little cherries and pears were what looked freshest that day -- my own pears had been finished off

Roasted Tomato Caprese Served Warm | 6 hearty servings

1 pound little tomatoes, such as cherry, pear, little heirloom, mixed varieties
Olive oil
Sea salt
25 to 30 basil leaves, about 5 large sprigs
3 tablespoons olive oil
Small pinch salt
Small pinch sugar
Small squeeze of lemon
1 pound fresh mozzarella
Freshly ground black pepper

Preheat the oven to 275°F. Wash the tomatoes and dry thoroughly. Place them on a large baking sheet and drizzle lightly with olive oil. Rub the oil over the tomatoes and sprinkle with sea salt.

I like to use a foil sheet so there's no clean-up, but I throw it in the recycling bin -- parchment would work, too

While the tomatoes are roasting, lightly rinse the basil and shake it dry. Chop coarsely.

There is some argument that rinsing the basil washes away some of the oils that flavor it, but mine is from my garden and has to be washed

You'll end up with a heaping half cup of chopped basil

If you have an immersion blender or a mini food processor, put the chopped basil along with the oil, salt, sugar, and lemon in the cylinder or bowl and puree until fine.

Here's my immersion blender, but it's not essential

The little squeeze of lemon will help keep the basil leaves bright

A cross between basil "sauce" and pesto

A regular-sized blender or food processor is too big for this job, so if you don’t have a little machine, simply chop the basil until its very fine and mix it with the salt, sugar and lemon.

Slice the mozzarella into rounds and arrange on a plate.

My creaky Italian market was closed (see how creaky?), so this mozzarella came from Whole Foods

Drizzle with the pureed basil, top with hot tomatoes, and sprinkle with freshly ground black pepper.

And pass the bread, please.

Kelly McCune © 2009

©2010 Kitchenelly. All Rights Reserved.