DDD Ep. #3 – Vegan Chicken Piccata

 

All Photos © Christine Elise McCarthy 2014

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To see images of my past posts & get links to the recipes – look on my Pinterest board – HERE.

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All my posts now have a VERY customizable PRINT & PDF option.  Create a PDF & save the recipe to your computer or print it out.  It offers a “remove images” option & you can delete any part of the post you do not need before printing.  The button is below by the Twitter & Facebook links.

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I am sharing this recipe from May 2014 because I have a new episode of my new Youtube show – Delightful Delicious Delovely & Video Vegan to go with it.  Check out the on-camera recipe here (and lease subscribe to my channel):

I always adored chicken piccata.  I love capers, I love lemon and, defiantly, I love parsley!  But, about 25 years ago, I gave up meat from mammals & poultry.  “Meat from mammals” sounds like something they found at Jeffrey Dahmer’s because – well – that IS what they found there.  But I mean I gave up red meat which, sorry folks, includes pork, and I gave up chicken & the like.  I only gave up seafood this year (because of lots of things but Fukushima was the last straw).

I miss the oddest things from the meat & chicken world.  Costco hotdogs.  Big Macs (which I would no longer eat because of pink slime etc – even if I ate meat).  Really, really rare steak.  Any real selection of any ethnic food beyond Indian.  Tacos (fish tacos).  Street cart kinda food.  And chicken piccata.

So – with all this fake meat suddenly deluging the market – I have begun to get quite busy experimenting with it.  In the past, fake meat was seitan or tempeh – which I find have flavors too specific to mask easily and tofu which has always underwhelmed me- and now soy is all GMO & shit & so I try to avoid that, too.  Then there are veggie burgers & veggie dogs – which are reasonable replacements for the real thing but they can’t be turned into chicken piccata.  And the fake breakfast sausage patties they make are great!  A decent fake bacon is still an apparition on the horizon – except for the chemical-burn inducing Bacos – which I have been known to eat, by the jar, with a bottle of red.

Sometimes, I am really gross & pathetic.

Anyway, it seems that overnight – there is a selection of fake meats in even the most mainstream supermarkets and I have been having great success with them!  Look at how delicious a vegan chicken (firecracker chicken) can be!

Prefer beef?  Behold!

HERE are some other vegan chicken selections from my recipe book.  And HERE are some vegan beef ones.

 

OK – so – chicken piccata!  OK – the first time I attempted it this week – I used these cutlet things because they seemed to replicate real chicken piccata visually better.

So – I whipped them up into a piccata & made myself that garlic baby broccoli, and some lemon-basil baby squash & some jalapeno mashed cauliflower – plated it up & commenced photographing it.  Here are the results:

While this was all very delicious (though these cutlet-style pieces retain some of the stronger and not altogether awesome flavors of earlier faux meat products) – I did not like the darkness of the “chicken” piccata in these photos.  So – I endeavored to make it again using some chicken strip-style faux meat I had.

I picked around in this bag & pulled out all the larger strips I could find.  I used about half this bag in the recipe here.  (UPDATE – I would suggest using Beyond Meat – if you can find it near you.)

And look at how convincingly it looks like chicken once it is cooked!  Isn’t that amazing?  I am very excited about this & VERY glad I attempted this recipe a second time.  This brand of fake chicken tastes way better than any of the Gardein products I have tried but Simple Truth products are really Kroger products & this Simple Truth folks were recently exposed as being lying motherfuckers.  Or MISLEADING motherfuckers, at the very least.   Read about the lawsuit HERE.  And PS – I once bought a few cans of Kroger pitted black olives & they tasted SO MUCH like chemicals – I actually returned the unopen cans for a refund.  That marks my ONLY return of a grocery item in my life!  I avoid Kroger now whenever I can (no pun intended!).  🙂  So – I still highly recommend the Trader Joe’s faux beef & chicken products & the Beyond Meat stuff that the coupon above is for.

Chicken piccata is a dish that allows a bit of wiggle room.  I REALLY like capers & I love lemon – so I go heavy on these.  I will admit, I actually used real butter here but a vegan option is perfectly fine.  There is a shallot in my pictures but I forgot to use it.  Oops!

Say – have you heard?  I wrote a comedy NOVEL!!!!!  Go to http://www.BathingBook.com & find out more – and maybe BUY it!  The reviews on Amazon are pretty awesome!

Vegan Chicken Piccata

Serves 2

INGREDIENTS

About 1/2 lb of vegan chicken (like Beyond Meat)

Flour

2 lemons – one sliced into thin rounds.  One quartered for garnish.

1/2 cup Parsley – chopped

2-3 TBS Vegan (or real – if you ain’t vegan) butter

Olive Oil

3 garlic cloves – minced

1 cup dry white wine (or cooking wine) OR 1 TBS Dijon mixed into a cup of water

Capers (I used 1/2 of a 4 oz jar – but I LOVE capers!)

Vegetable bouillon (I used 1/2 of one of the large ones seen below – enough for 1 cup stock – and I am not certain they are vegan)

S&P

DIRECTIONS

Toss the faux chicken in enough flour to lightly coat the pieces.  Add some S&P & toss.

In a large saute pan, heat about 1 TBS olive oil & 1 TBS of whatever kind of butter you are using over med-high heat.  Add the fake chicken.  I pressed the chicken flat in the pan.

My chicken cooked up nicely but I did have to add another TBS or so of olive oil to keep the pan from becoming too dry.  When the chicken (and this would even apply to real chicken) is heated through & browned, take it from the pan & set aside.

At this point, I added about another TBS of butter & a dollop of olive oil & the bouillon.   Be very careful NOT to burn your butter.  Once the bouillon dissolved, I added the garlic.  After 30 seconds – THIRTY SECONDS because garlic burns fast – I added the wine.  I increased the heat to high & added HALF the lemon rounds and the capers.  I saved the other half of the rounds to put under the piccata when I served it.

This came to a boil pretty fast & I let it do its thing there for a minute or two until it thickened just a bit.  If yours doesn’t thicken quickly, a few PINCHES of flour whisked in should help.  Add the chicken & a few pinches of chopped parsley & heat it all through.

Once it seems hot – serve that shit up!   Plate it over a few fresh lemon rounds & garnish it with LOTS of parsley & maybe more capers & a lemon wedge.  This goes really will over pasta noodles or mashed potatoes.  I used mashed cauliflower & I was VERY pleased with myself!   I nice white wine & a veggie side & you are good to go!  Go & buy my BOOK, that is!  🙂

www.BathingBook.com

10-Minute Vegan Avocado, Lemon & Caper Pasta

All Photos © Christine Elise McCarthy 2015

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To see images of my past posts & get links to the recipes – look on my Pinterest board – HERE.

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Another quick & easy one.  I used salted capers soaked in water for a few minutes but I think, when I make this again, I will use the more sharply-flavored traditional capers in brine.   This dish takes only as long as it takes to cook your pasta.

10-Minute Vegan Avocado, Lemon & Caper Pasta

Serves 2

INGREDIENTS

1/2 lb dry pasta of your choice

2 avocados – cubed

Zest & juice of 1 lemon

2 garlic cloves – minced

2 or more TBS capers (depending on your taste for them)

olive oil

Basil – chopped

Parsley – chopped

S&P

Crushed red pepper – optional

Lemon wedges as garnish

DIRECTIONS

Cook the pasta.

While it cooks – heat a TBS or 2 of olive oil in a small pan.  Add the garlic, capers & 1 of the cubed avocados.  Stir & heat for 1 minute & add the lemon zest & maybe a squeeze of lemon juice.  Set aside.

Drain the pasta and toss with the warm avocado, caper & olive oil mixture & some S&P.  Add crushed red pepper for a little kick.  Garnish with the second cubed avocado & the parsley & basil and lemon wedges.

Vegan Lemon, Salted Caper and White Bean Pasta

 

All Photos © Christine Elise McCarthy 2015

Follow @celisemccarthy

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To see images of my past posts & get links to the recipes – look on my Pinterest board – HERE.

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All my posts now have a VERY customizable PRINT & PDF option.  Create a PDF & save the recipe to your computer or print it out.  It offers a “remove images” option & you can delete any part of the post you do not need before printing.  The button is below by the Twitter & Facebook links.

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My friends Jackie O & Dennis gave me a little package of food delicacies for my birthday.  Among them was this jar (above & apologies for the focus) of salted capers (packed in salt rather than vinegar).  I had never seen these before & had to research them a bit.  As it turns out, the capers at the supermarket are packed in vinegar – making vinegar the overpowering flavor.  These guys in salt are reported to taste fresher & almost floral.  You need to soak them for at least 15 minutes to get that extra salt out but the longer you soak them – the less flavor they will ultimately have – so, I would not recommend soaking them more than an hour.  If you are using capers in vinegar – I’d recommend soaking those a bit, too, just to wash away some of the intensity of the vinegar.

I feel like a broken record but this dish really is easy & the flavors are light & delicate.  I used these fresh (non-vegan) noodles that I got at the Asian market but any pasta will do.

Vegan Lemon, Salted Caper and White Bean Pasta

Serves 2

INGREDIENTS

1/2 lb pasta – cooked & drained & tossed in a bit of olive oil

1 (15 oz) can of white beans – drained & rinsed

1 large lemon – juiced & zested (for about 1/4 cup juice & several TBS zest)

3+ garlic cloves – minced

Salted (or other capers) – quantity is up to you & your taste for these guys – I used about 1/4 cup – soaked in water for 15-60 minutes

2 TBS olive oil

S&P

Parsley – chopped

Lemon wedges as garnish (optional)

Grated cheese (or vegan alternative) as garnish – (optional)

DIRECTIONS

Cook the pasta & toss with olive oil.  Drain & rinse the beans.

Heat 2 TBS olive oil in a large saute pan over medium heat.  Add the garlic & stir for one minute.  Add the beans & lemon juice & zest and capers.

Add the pasta & toss to incorporate everything.   Season with S&P & warm through.

Serve it up & drizzle with a good quality olive oil & garnish with parsley and maybe lemon wedges or grated cheese.  Lots of fresh cracked pepper is good, too!

Vegan Chicken Piccata

 

All Photos © Christine Elise McCarthy 2014

Follow @celisemccarthy

Tweet

To see images of my past posts & get links to the recipes – look on my Pinterest board – HERE.

~

All my posts now have a VERY customizable PRINT & PDF option.  Create a PDF & save the recipe to your computer or print it out.  It offers a “remove images” option & you can delete any part of the post you do not need before printing.  The button is below by the Twitter & Facebook links.

~

I always adored chicken piccata.  I love capers, I love lemon and, defiantly, I love parsley!  But, about 25 years ago, I gave up meat from mammals & poultry.  “Meat from mammals” sounds like something they found at Jeffrey Dahmer’s because – well – that IS what they found there.  But I mean I gave up red meat which, sorry folks, includes pork, and I gave up chicken & the like.  I only gave up seafood this year (because of lots of things but Fukushima was the last straw).

I miss the oddest things from the meat & chicken world.  Costco hotdogs.  Big Macs (which I would no longer eat because of pink slime etc – even if I ate meat).  Really, really rare steak.  Any real selection of any ethnic food beyond Indian.  Tacos (fish tacos).  Street cart kinda food.  And chicken piccata.

So – with all this fake meat suddenly deluging the market – I have begun to get quite busy experimenting with it.  In the past, fake meat was seitan or tempeh – which I find have flavors too specific to mask easily and tofu which has always underwhelmed me- and now soy is all GMO & shit & so I try to avoid that, too.  Then there are veggie burgers & veggie dogs – which are reasonable replacements for the real thing but they can’t be turned into chicken piccata.  And the fake breakfast sausage patties they make are great!  A decent fake bacon is still an apparition on the horizon – except for the chemical-burn inducing Bacos – which I have been known to eat, by the jar, with a bottle of red.

Sometimes, I am really gross & pathetic.

Anyway, it seems that overnight – there is a selection of fake meats in even the most mainstream supermarkets and I have been having great success with them!  Look at how delicious a vegan chicken (firecracker chicken) can be!

Prefer beef?  Behold!

HERE are some other vegan chicken selections from my recipe book.  And HERE are some vegan beef ones.

Better yet – here is a coupon for some FREE fake meat – good until the end of May 2014!

 

OK – so – chicken piccata!  OK – the first time I attempted it this week – I used these cutlet things because they seemed to replicate real chicken piccata visually better.

So – I whipped them up into a piccata & made myself that garlic baby broccoli, and some lemon-basil baby squash & some jalapeno mashed cauliflower – plated it up & commenced photographing it.  Here are the results:

 

While this was all very delicious (though these cutlet-style pieces retain some of the stronger and not altogether awesome flavors of earlier faux meat products) – I did not like the darkness of the “chicken” piccata in these photos.  So – I endeavored to make it again using some chicken strip-style faux meat I had.

I picked around in this bag & pulled out all the larger strips I could find.  I used about half this bag in the recipe here.  (UPDATE – I would suggest using Beyond Meat – if you can find it near you.)

And look at how convincingly it looks like chicken once it is cooked!  Isn’t that amazing?  I am very excited about this & VERY glad I attempted this recipe a second time.  This brand of fake chicken tastes way better than any of the Gardein products I have tried but Simple Truth products are really Kroger products & this Simple Truth folks were recently exposed as being lying motherfuckers.  Or MISLEADING motherfuckers, at the very least.   Read about the lawsuit HERE.  And PS – I once bought a few cans of Kroger pitted black olives & they tasted SO MUCH like chemicals – I actually returned the unopen cans for a refund.  That marks my ONLY return of a grocery item in my life!  I avoid Kroger now whenever I can (no pun intended!).  🙂  So – I still highly recommend the Trader Joe’s faux beef & chicken products & the Beyond Meat stuff that the coupon above is for.

 

Chicken piccata is a dish that allows a bit of wiggle room.  I REALLY like capers & I love lemon – so I go heavy on these.  I will admit, I actually used real butter here but a vegan option is perfectly fine.  There is a shallot in my pictures but I forgot to use it.  Oops!

Say – have you heard?  I wrote a comedy NOVEL!!!!!  Go to http://www.BathingBook.com & find out more – and maybe BUY it!  The reviews on Amazon are pretty awesome!

 

Vegan Chicken Piccata

Serves 2

INGREDIENTS

About 1/2 lb of vegan chicken (like Beyond Meat)

Flour

2 lemons – one sliced into thin rounds.  One quartered for garnish.

1/2 cup Parsley – chopped

2-3 TBS Vegan (or real – if you ain’t vegan) butter

Olive Oil

3 garlic cloves – minced

1 cup dry white wine (or cooking wine) OR 1 TBS Dijon mixed into a cup of water

Capers (I used 1/2 of a 4 oz jar – but I LOVE capers!)

Vegetable bouillon (I used 1/2 of one of the large ones seen below – enough for 1 cup stock – and I am not certain they are vegan)

S&P

 

 

 

DIRECTIONS

Toss the faux chicken in enough flour to lightly coat the pieces.  Add some S&P & toss.

In a large saute pan, heat about 1 TBS olive oil & 1 TBS of whatever kind of butter you are using over med-high heat.  Add the fake chicken.  I pressed the chicken flat in the pan.

 

My chicken cooked up nicely but I did have to add another TBS or so of olive oil to keep the pan from becoming too dry.  When the chicken (and this would even apply to real chicken) is heated through & browned, take it from the pan & set aside.

 

At this point, I added about another TBS of butter & a dollop of olive oil & the bouillon.   Be very careful NOT to burn your butter.  Once the bouillon dissolved, I added the garlic.  After 30 seconds – THIRTY SECONDS because garlic burns fast – I added the wine.  I increased the heat to high & added HALF the lemon rounds and the capers.  I saved the other half of the rounds to put under the piccata when I served it.

 

This came to a boil pretty fast & I let it do its thing there for a minute or two until it thickened just a bit.  If yours doesn’t thicken quickly, a few PINCHES of flour whisked in should help.  Add the chicken & a few pinches of chopped parsley & heat it all through.

 

Once it seems hot – serve that shit up!   Plate it over a few fresh lemon rounds & garnish it with LOTS of parsley & maybe more capers & a lemon wedge.  This goes really will over pasta noodles or mashed potatoes.  I used mashed cauliflower & I was VERY pleased with myself!   I nice white wine & a veggie side & you are good to go!  Go & buy my BOOK, that is!  🙂

www.BathingBook.com

Vegan Crispy Chickpea, Caper & Lemon Pasta

All Photos © Christine Elise McCarthy 2014

Follow @celisemccarthy

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To see images of my past posts & get links to the recipes – look on my Pinterest board – HERE.

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All my posts now have a VERY customizable PRINT & PDF option.  Create a PDF & save the recipe to your computer or print it out.  It offers a “remove images” option & you can delete any part of the post you do not need before printing.  The button is below by the Twitter & Facebook links.

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Some recipes are hard to photograph.  This one should not have been but I cannot help but feel I haven’t succeeded it translating visually how simple & delicious this is.  A few simple & easy-to-find ingredients & this is the kind of dish movie characters whip up in their kitchen late at night after a romantic dalliance.  The ratio or capers to chickpeas to lemon is kind of a matter of personal preference but I will tell you how much I used.  I LOVE lemon & I LOVE capers so – keep that in mind.

Crispy Chickpea, Caper & Lemon Pasta

Feeds 2 well

INGREDIENTS

1/2 lb pasta

1 cup cooked (or canned) chickpeas

1/2 cup panko

1/4 cup capers

4 garlic cloves – chopped

1 TBS lemon zest

2 TBS fresh lemon juice

olive oil

S&P

Parsley and/or basil – chopped as garnish

Caperberries – as garnish (optional)

Parmesan (or vegan Parmesan) – optional but I did not use any cheese

Crushed Red Pepper – optional if you prefer some heat

DIRECTIONS

Heat the oven to 400 degrees.

I am IN LOVE with parchment paper!  It makes clean up so easy & NOTHING sticks to it.  If you have some – line a cooking sheet with it.  Otherwise – treat the pan with cooking spray.

Toss the chickpeas, garlic, panko & capers in a drizzle of olive oil – maybe 1 TBS or so.  Bake at 400 for twenty minutes.

Cook the pasta as per box & drain.

Toss the hot pasta & the warm chickpea mixture together with the lemon zest & juice.  Add S&P to taste.  Drizzle with a bit more olive oil.  Serve garnished with the chopped basil and/or parsley & some caperberries – if you so desire.

You can add Parmesan (or vegan Parmesan) or crushed red pepper if you are of that mind.

Eat that shit up!

Seared Ahi Tuna Pasta Puttanesca with a Fresh Tomato & Caper Sauce

All Photos © Christine Elise McCarthy 2013

Follow @celisemccarthy

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To see images of my past posts & get links to the recipes – look on my Pinterest board – HERE.

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All my posts now have a VERY customizable PRINT & PDF option.  Create a PDF & save the recipe to your computer or print it out.  It offers a “remove images” option & you can delete any part of the post you do not need before printing.  The button is below by the Twitter & Facebook links.

~~~~~~

I am not a super giant fan of traditional puttanesca.  I find the Kalamata olives overpowering & the sauce rather heavy.  I prefer lighter pasta toppers.  But this version I threw together is clean & light.  I used canned black olives – for color more than anything – and because they are less powerfully flavored.  I also used a bit from a tube of anchovy paste – mainly because that is traditional – but I didn’t use much, couldn’t taste it in the final dish & you can certainly eliminate it if “mustaches of the sea” do not appeal to you – or if you are vegetarian.

Puttanesca has lots of legends around its origin.  Here is something I found online:

Puttanesca translates as “in the style of the whore.” The name derives from the Italian word puttana which means whore.  Puttana in turn arises from the Latin word putida which means stinking.

Now I’ll bet your wondering how this tasty dish became associated with such sordid content.  As is often the case when sifting through culinary history, there are multiple explanations.  The first interpretation is that the intense aroma, (harking back to the “stinking” Latin definition), would lure men from the street into the local house of ill repute.  Thus, the Napolese harlots were characterized as the sirens of the culinary world.  Three additional accounts all hinge on the fact that Puttanesca sauce is easy and quick to make.  The first is that the prostitutes made it for themselves to keep the interruption of their business to a minimum.  The second is that they made it for the men awaiting their turn at the brothel.  And the final version is that it was a favorite of married women who wished to limit their time in the kitchen so that they may visit their paramour.  

First of all – uhm – yuck.  The word for whore derives from the word for stinking???  Think about that.  Oof!  That makes my entire olfactory system recoil.  And then to name a pasta after it?   This sauce has two ingredients derived from the sea – the anchovies & the tuna.  I don’t want to be eating those things & thinking about dirty whores.   No, mam!  So let’s move on, shall we?

As I said – this isn’t a traditional sauce using crushed tomatoes.  It isn’t a sauce you can ladle.  It is one you toss with the pasta in the pan you prepared it in.  If you like heavier sauces (as my boyfriend, Miles, does) – add a 28 ounce can of crushed tomatoes – with or without the cherry tomatoes.  This can easily be made vegan by omitting the anchovies & tuna. They are not critical to this already flavorful dish.

Also – I seared fresh ahi – but a can or two of white tuna is actually more authentic.  This is a very simple dish to prepare – so – give it a try!

Seared Ahi Tuna Pasta Puttanesca with a Fresh Tomato & Caper Sauce

INGREDIENTS

(to feed two well)

1 lb ahi tuna steak (or 1-2 cans of chunk white tuna)

1/2 lb of your favorite pasta (I almost always use whole wheat – and this time it was whole wheat spaghetti)

3 garlic cloves – chopped

20 cherry tomatoes – quartered (or a 28 ounce can of crushed tomatoes)

1 tsp crushed red pepper

2 TBS capers

5-8 Kalamata olives (or other black olives) – chopped

1 tsp anchovy paste

Chopped parsley

Olive oil

S&P

(I garnished with caper berries & parsley)

DIRECTIONS

Heat a grill or grill pan on high heat.  Press the tuna into some ground pepper.

Depending on the thickness of the fish – grill it between 1-3 minutes per side or until the outside is grilled but the center is still raw.

The tuna will keep cooking once you have it off the heat & you do not want that.  Cut it into the size pieces you want to serve immediately – so the heat dissipates.

In a large saute pan, add a glug or two of olive oil (1-2 TBS) & add the anchovy paste (if using).  Sizzle that a bit & then add the crushed red pepper, tomatoes, capers, olives & garlic.  Add some chopped parsley.  If you are using canned tuna and/or canned tomatoes – add that here, too.  When it is just heated through & the tomatoes are soft – set it aside on low heat.

Cook your pasta.  Drain & add to the pan with the tomato caper sauce.  Increase the heat to medium & mix it all up.

Arrange tuna chunks on top & garnish with parsley & maybe more capers or olives.  Or basil.  Eat it up like the puttana you are!

Smoked Salmon & Horseradish Cream Verrine with Cucumber & Tomato

All Photos © Christine Elise McCarthy 2013

Follow @celisemccarthy

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To see images of my past posts & get links to the recipes – look on my Pinterest board – HERE.

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I recently discovered the VERRINE.  Here is the web definition:

verrine

A verrine is a confection, originally from France, made by layering ingredients in a small glass. It can be either sweet or savoury.

If you Google image search “verrine” you get an amazing array of gorgeous appetizers & desserts.  See HERE.

Last night, I decided to try my hand at one.  As per usual, I was restricted to what I already had on hand.  Fortunately, I had smoked salmon, cucumbers, dill & heirloom cherry tomatoes.  I also had a fresh horseradish root.That fucker cost $8 but it is like a Fred Flintstone club.  I grated a bunch up with a microplane but in the end, couldn’t really taste it.  You might just want to use a little prepared horseradish sauce,instead, if you attempt this recipe.  Also – I left my cream sauce very thick – like a whipped cream cheese.  You might like yours a bit runnier.  In that case, just use more heavy cream.The only part of this dish that is a proper recipe is the horseradish cream.  The rest is just a layering of ingredients that you can alter to your own tastes.  I made these in three sizes: a shot glass, a stemmed apperitif glass & a tumbler.  You can choose the serving size appropriate for the occasion.  Know that I ate all three of these myself last night.  These would make a wonderful brunch starter – sort of like a bagel with the works – without the bagel.

PRINT THIS RECIPE

Horseradish Cream

INGREDIENTS

4 oz cream cheese

4 TBS fresh grated horseradish root OR prepared horseradish sauce to taste

2 sprigs fresh dill

7 (or more) TBS heavy cream

1/8 tsp salt

DIRECTIONS

Blend everything in a food processor.  Add more heavy cream if you like a thinner sauce.  Add more horseradish sauce if you enjoy kick.

Smoked Salmon Verrine with Cucumber & Tomato & Horseradish Cream

INGREDIENTS

Smoked salmon

Cucumber

Tomato (I used multicolored heirloom cherry tomatoes)

Dill

Capers

Fresh lemon

Fresh bread or bagel

Horseradish cream

Fresh pepper

DIRECTIONS

Dice the salmon, tomato, cucumber & bread.  Put some bread in the bottom of each serving glass (I only used bread in the tumbler – not in the smaller verrines) & layer with cucumber, tomato & horseradish cream.  Top with dill & capers & squeeze a little lemon on top.  Finish with cracked pepper & serve!

PRINT THIS RECIPE

Spaghetti with Smoked Salmon, Capers, Cream Cheese & Dill

All Photos © Christine Elise McCarthy 2012

This is another recipe born out of a desire to use up stuff I already had in my fridge.  Primarily, I had a huge chunk of smoked salmon & I didn’t want it to go bad.  So – I made up this recipe.  The measurements are approximates.  Feel free to adjust them to your own tastes.  I will say – this produced an EASY and rich & creamy entree that tasted so much better than I hoped – I will definitely make it again – for guests.  I don’t need a full pound of creamy pasta leftovers in my fridge.  Nobody with thighs does.

PRINT THIS RECIPE

Smoked Salmon, Capers & Cream Cheese Pasta with Dill

INGREDIENTS

1 lb pasta – your choice – or 4 servings homemade (https://delightfuldeliciousdelovelyblog.wordpress.com/2012/07/08/pizza-dough-5/)

2 TBS olive oil

2 cloves garlic – sliced

2/3 cup dry white wine

8 oz package cream cheese – cut into cubes

1 cup half & half

1 cup (or more – for color) of tomato sauce.  I used my favorite (http://www.raos.com/AR24-case.aspx) and a few tablespoons of a homemade version I had leftover from my stromboli

10 oz (more or less – to your taste or budget) smoked salmon – chopped into bite-sized squares

3 TBS Fresh dill

1 tsp (or more if you like heat) crushed red pepper

4 TBS capers

salt & pepper to taste

extra dill for garnish

DIRECTIONS

Heat the oil in a skillet & add the garlic.  After about a minute – add the white wine.  Beware – adding wine to hot oil will create a sputtering hot mess – so stand back.  Once this is boiling, add the cream cheese & stir constantly until it melts.  Add the half & half & tomato sauce & the crushed red pepper.  Blend well & then add the smoked salmon. Once this is well blended – stir in some fresh dill.  Once it seems creamy & blended – taste & add salt/pepper or more crushed red pepper – to your taste.  Reduced heat to low & simmer – stirring frequently – while you cook your pasta.

Cook your pasta according to directions.  Drain & put in a large bowl.  Add your sauce & stir well.  Serve on individual plates, adding capers & fresh dill as garnish on each plate.

This stuff is dangerously delicious.  Enjoy!!!

Pizza with Smoked Salmon, Asparagus, Capers & Cream Cheese

All Photos © Christine Elise McCarthy 2012

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INGREDIENTS

Preheat over to 450.  Always do this first.  I put my oven on midday – if I know I will be making pizza.  You want your oven at full temp before putting the pizza in.

1/3 Pizza Dough recipe (https://delightfuldeliciousdelovelyblog.wordpress.com/2012/07/08/pizza-dough-5/) or other dough of your choice.

3-4 TBS Tomato Sauce

1 1/2 cup shredded cheese of your choice

Several ounces (to your own taste) of Smoked Salmon.  It has a strong flavor – so you do not need to be heavy handed.

2 TBS Capers

6-8 Spears steamed asparagus (I steam them – wrapped in a wet paper towel – by zapping them in the microwave for a minute & a half.

6 Spears Asparagus chopped into 1/2 inch bits

3 TBS Chopped Chives

2 TBS Chopped Dill

1/4 Red Onion sliced thinly

1 Heirloom or other tomato diced

Lemon (just a squeeze over the finished product)

2 TBS Cream Cheese

DIRECTIONS

Preheat over to 450.  Always do this first.  I put my oven on midday – if I know I will be making pizza.  You want your oven at full temp before putting the pizza in.

Roll out your dough on a floured surface until it is just larger than the pan you are using.  Roll the extra edges over.

Spread the tomato sauce over the dough in a thin layer.  Add ONE CUP of the shredded cheese – reserving 1/2 cup.

Distribute the salmon & capers & red onion & tomatoes.  Create a little fan in the center of the pizza with the asparagus spears & then sprinkle the chopped asparagus evenly.  Put tiny dollops of cream cheese sparingly in a pattern you choose atop the pizza.

Bake the pizza for about ten minutes – more or less depending on how thickly you topped the pizza & also on your oven’s calibration.  Eyeball it every five minutes until it looks ALMOST done to you.  The crust should be just browned & the toppings should not look burned at all.  Take it out & add the last 1/2 cup shredded cheese.  Return it to the over until it is done.

Take it from the oven & add a TBS or more of cream cheese in a large dollop in the center of the pizza.  Squeeze a small amount of lemon juice over the pizza, maybe targeting your smoked salmon bits especially.  Sprinkle the chopped chives & dill evenly over the entire pizza and – if you are feeling fancy – garnish the center cream cheese with some dill sprigs.  Voila!  Enjoy!

All Photos © Christine Elise McCarthy 2012