A few weeks ago Iron Chef America put me seriously in the mood for some goat cheese. Bobby Flay took on Laurent Tourondel in a pretty amazing throw down of fromage manipulation. The Frenchman ultimately prevailed over local boy Bobby, but both guys churned out some exciting food.
I’m a total sucker for goat cheese. The tangy, piquant, savoriness of it really gets my salivary glands going. From the super fresh, bright-white young stuff to the oozy, grey-blue, aged specimens, they all have a certain barnyard quality that really does it for me.
The one dish that really stood out on Flay’s side was an haute panzanella. I think it appealed to me so much because it had a perfect little trifecta of nifty ingredients: ripe tomatoes, cute little microgreens, and toasted cross sections of a lightly aged goat cheese crottin. What!?
I know. Why would anyone want to eat that? Self loathing I suppose.
Being a masochist, I decided that it had to be made. Señor Flay’s version was all fancy pants and he went a little wild with three types of cheese and multiple kinds of roasted peppers. While I certainly respect his vision, I decided to tone mine down a bit and clean up the frills. Simple is good, right? And certainly cheaper.
I started by toasting a few olive oil drizzled slices of bread; I’d say one good sized piece for each salad. Then I cut up three small heirloom tomatoes into tiny little wedges. After the bread cooled a bit, I cubed it into ¼ inch sections. I tossed the bread and tomatoes with a few snipped chives I had laying around and dressed the lot of it with a touch more olive oil and sea salt.
I dismembered the crottin into six slices (two for each person for the mathletes among you) and went at them with my handy-dandy kitchen torch. A broiler would work too, but it lacks that certain psychotic flair.
Next, I spooned some of the bread and tomato mixture on top of the melty, bubbly cheese. The microgreens got shown the business end of some good aged balsamic vinegar and then they too joined the pile. A final trickle of oil and balsamic around the edges finished off this sublime little salad.
Now normally, salads are considered a side dish, but in this case it was pretty hard to top. We came close though with a dish called Crespelle di Scampi or as the hilarious English translation goes – shrimp in a pancake. Basically, it’s a real simple crepe and shrimp casserole.
First you make some crepes and some béchamel sauce. Then sauté off some shrimp in olive oil and garlic for a minute and add some tomato puree and prosecco. Let that simmer away for a couple more minutes. Finish it off with a pat of butter off the heat,to give it that lip smackin' sheen.
Layer it all up. You can grate some ricotta salata inside and on top if you want an extra fun dose of the tasty. Bake it for about 20 minutes at 375˚F.
Let it sit for about five or ten minutes and then stuff it in your face. See, easy. Or if you’d like, Mario has a more involved and slightly bossier recipe here.
Since this all worked out so well, keep your eyes open for some more goat cheese treats in the near future. I have a feeling I haven’t worked the hankering out of my system.
-L. Pants
