Paper Chef 38 - Fig Pizza - 2 ways

With this month's Paper Chef ingredients there was a lot of scope for different combinations and recipes.

The ingredients were: figs, polenta, mint & anchovy.
At first glance you wonder what & how these ingredients will combine, but, surprising, they actually combined quite well.
After a glass or 2 of wine, I started thinking of what to do. My first idea was a modified Caesar salad with figs and polenta croutons. Next idea was a pizza with a polenta base, bocconcini figs & anchovy. Then Paul suggested a modified pissaladiere with figs melted in with the caramelised onion, again on a polenta base. Decisions!
In the end it ended up being a double pizza, but I'm still tempted to make the salad some time.

Polenta base:
1 cup prepared polenta
1 1/2 cup plain flour
7g (1 sachet) dried yeast
Salt
1/4 tsp sugar
Water

Sift flour, yeast, sugar & salt into a bowl. Add polenta & just enough water to make a dough. Knead until smooth & elastic. Leave to rise in a covered bowl till doubled. Roll out and use as needed.

Pissaladiere:
3 large onions finely sliced
3 fresh figs skins removed
Olive oil
1 tsp Dried mint
1 tsp balsamic vinegar
Fresh mint
In some olive oil, cook the onions, figs, dried mint & balsamic over a low heat until the onions have caramilised and most of the moisture has evaporated. Let cool.

Topping:

2 fresh figs cut into 1cm slices

anchovy fillets

2 bocconcini, sliced

fresh mint

tomato sauce

Roll out the dough to fit one large rectangular tray. One half was for the pissaladiere, the other was for the fresh fig.
I made a little dam out of some dough so the two different pizzas wouldn't run into each other.
Brush some olive oil on the base of the entire pizza. Spread the onion & fig mix evenly over half the base. Arrange the anchovy fillets in a diagonal crisscross pattern. Stud with the olives in the centre of each diamond.
On the other side spread the tomato sauce. Lay out the sliced bocconcini. Lay some sliced fig on top. I lightly pan fried the fig slices to remove some excess moisture. Lay some anchovy fillet across each fig slice.
Bake in a hot oven until the base is done.

Remove and sprinkle fresh mint over the whole pizza.

And enjoy.

Paper Chef - Swptember

And this month, I do have to say, it was a tricky one.
If you haven't heard of The Paper Chef, check it out: The Paper Chef.

We have to create a dish using all four of the nominated ingredients.
This month we had to use:
Quinoa
Tomato
Yogurt
Rice-paper wrappers (or some other wrapper)

At first glance these ingredients did not complement each other at all!

And to complicate matters, I'd never use quinoa before.
After a bit of thinking I came u p with the idea of quinoa wrapped in rice paper with some dipping sauces. Boring & didn't quite have the "I want to eat it now" factor. I bounced the idea off the other half and, after he stopped laughing at my pronunciation of quinoa (pronounce it keen-wa NOT kwin-o-a), a more palatable dish appeared: spicy lamb & quinoa, wrapped in crispy fried rice paper, with 2 dipping sauces: chilli & tomato, and a minted yogurt.

Some research on the net on how to prepare quinoa was my next step, and surprisingly it is easy to prepare: thoroughly rinse the grain & then into a rice cooker in a ratio of 1 part grain to 2 parts water (no salt was added). Very easy!

The filling was based on a samosa recipe making it slightly spicy, but this was tempered by the quinoa. The mixture was then wrapped in rice-paper, fried & and served hot. In hindsight I would now have used wonton wrappers as they would crisp up better than the rice paper, but I was sticking to the ingredients.

Contents:
Filling:
2cm piece grated ginger
1 large onion chopped
2 Tbls chopped mint
2 tsp curry powder
1 tsp salt
250g lamb mince
1 tomato peeled & chopped
Juice of half a lemon
2/3 cup quinoa
Rice-paper rolls
Oil for frying

Dipping sauces
100ml yoghurt
1 Tbls chopped mint
100 ml tomato coolie
1 tsp sambal (chilli paste)

Process:
Gently fry the ginger, onion, & mint until the onion is soft and golden.
add the curry powdder & salt and stir through. add the lamb and lightly brown.
add the tomato and cook over a low heat until the moisure has evaporated.
Remove from the heat and add the lemon juice. allow to cool.
add the cooked quinoa, the amount of quinoa that you ad depends on taste, you may want more or less, and combined thoroughly.

To assemble the rolls
Soak each rice paper roll in hot water until just soft. Do not let the rice paper soak too long as it will become too soft & will disintegrate.
Lay it out on a clean tea towel
Place a heaped table spoon of mixture on the lower third of the rice paper roll
Fold in the bottom, then both sides and tightly, but gently, roll the rice paper into a roll
Repeat with the next roll.

To prepare the dipping sauces:
Combine yoghurt & mint (too easy).
Combine tomato coolie & chilli (too easy again).A tomato coolie is a reduction of tomato, onion, celery, carrot & herbs that has been passed through a moulie.
Cook the rolls in some hot oil to crisp up the skin & drain on paper towels.
Serve with the dipping sauces.

Paper Chef

When Ilva announced that she was resurrecting The Paper Chef, both Paul & myself wanted to participate. So, rather than combining our talents and creating one entry, we decided to do one each.
You’ve seen Paul’s entry, and here is my attempt.
Given what the four Paper Chef ingredients were – bacon, potato, plum tomato, and swede, I decided to use primarily those four ingredients.
I steamed some of the swede & mashed it with some salt, pepper & cream.
I created some chips by slicing & frying the potato and some of the swede.
The plum tomato was roasted with some a touch of garlic, bay leaf & olive oil. These were then mashed & the skins removed.
And simply fried the bacon.
The end results were some petite little morsels.

To the right we have a potato chip, smeared with mashed swede, drizzled with roasted plum tomato and sprinkled with finely diced bacon.
To the left we have a tasty little sandwich of potato chip, bacon, roasted tomato & topped with a swede chip (Swedish chip??).
I enjoyed letting my imagination run riot & creating these promising little mouthfuls. Some fine-tuning and they will be superb.