Chilled Melon Soup - Two Styles

So I don't need to tell you that it has been hot this past week. The air conditioning has been on all week and I've been trying to avoid using the oven. One has to love D.C. summers.

As it is so freaking hot I decided to try my hand at a cool recipe this week. Something chilled and that does not use the stove. I decided it was time that I try a melon soup.

When I first moved to DC in 2003, I lived on Capitol Hill. On the hill, a few blocks from where I lived, is a pretty good German restaurant/bar called Cafe Berlin. It was here that I first encountered melon soup. I would walk the two blocks there on Saturdays, and during the summer I would eat outside on the patio. This soup was a great way to cool down a bit and its lightness was very refreshing. And let me tell you, you don't often think of the word "refreshing" with much of what one can get at an American German restaurant.

It was also a fun recipe to do as I tested my chef knives out against each other. Every now and then it still surprises me the difference a good tool can make in the kitchen. So I will just throw a little recommendation out there. When cutting up lots of melons my favorite knife is the 8" Shun Premier chef knife. The knife feels really light in the hand and it goes through an 8 inch thick melon without you needing to use any muscle at all. Lots of people use the phrase "cut through it like it was butter" and that is exactly what this knife did. And not hard just out of the fridge butter either. More like cutting through butter that has been sitting in the sun for an hour and your knife is actually a lightsaber.

Music: John Williams - Star Wars Episode I: The Phantom Menace (OMPS)

Ingredients for Chilled Melon Soup

• 1 ripe Honeydew or Cantaloupe, about 3 pounds, inner flesh cut into 1-inch pieces (about 5 cups)

• 1/4 cup chopped fresh mint

• 3 tablespoons melon liqueur or Grand Marnier (recommended: Midori)

• 2 tablespoons fresh lime juice, or more if desired

• 2 tablespoons super fine sugar

• 2 tablespoons creme fraiche or yogurt, garnish

• Mint, for garnishing

Process for Chilled Melon Soup

In 2 batches in a food processor, puree the melon, mint, 2 1/2 tablespoons of the liquer, lime juice and sugar. Taste for acidity, you may add more lime juice here if desired. Place in a pitcher or bowl and refrigerate until well chilled.

To serve, ladle the soup into 4 shallow bowls. Swirl 1 1/2 teaspoons of the crème fraiche into the center of each serving. Garnish with fresh mint springs.

Yeah, I know, the Star Wars prequels sucked. But they did do one thing, they gave us one great cut off this album, "Dual of Fates". And let me tell you, its exciting to test out knives on melons listening to Dual of Fates. It makes everything more dramatic. And that is just what you need in a kitchen on a hot day...drama.

Four Cheese Barquettes

Ahh...the barquette... A wonderful way to move tasty bits of food from a plate to your mouth. And since it is also a "tiny food", and as my wife can attest I love tiny food; I had to give it a whirl. The cool thing is that if you can make a pie dough, you can make a barquette.

These tasty morsels are great for an appetizer or finger food for a cocktail party. One nice thing is that you can make the shells ahead of time and save them for a few days before your hip get together. Barquettes can be savory or sweet, but as this was my first try at making them I decided to go with the four cheese savoy barquette. I mean who doesn't like cheese? Well aside from my lactose intolerant friends out there.

This project can be thought of as three separate recipes, the first two of which are great to learn as they can be used in many different applications. For instance the shells, called Pate Brisee, use pie making skills as you are basically making small pie shells. For the end result you also get to make a Bechamel sauce, one of the mother sauces which, once you learn how to make it, it will open up the world of sauce making for you. Yey mother sauces!

Music: Carla Bruni's Queleu'un M'a Dit

Ingredients Pate Brisee

2 1/2 Cups AP Flour
3/4 cup butter (diced and chilled in freezer for 20 minutes)
1 egg, lightly beaten
salt

Process Pate Brisee
1. Sift flour and salt together into a food processor or bowl. Add the chilled butter. If using food processor , process till flour/butter combination looks like bread crumbs. If not using a food processor, blend the butter into the flour/salt mixture using a pastry blender.

2. Once the butter is blended into the flour/salt mixture place mixture on your counter and make a well in the center so your mixture looks like a volcano. Add the beaten egg and 2 tsp of cold water into the well. With two fingers, slowly incorporate the wet into the dry turning your ingredients into a wet dough. Knead this dough lightly. Split dough in half and form each half into a flat round about 4 inches in diameter. Cover these rounds with plastic wrap and place int eh refrigerator for around an hour. This resting time allows for the dough to adsorb the moisture in the dough more fully and all for it to relax, making it easier to roll out later.

3. Preheat your oven to 350 degrees. After an hour, roll out the dough to about 1/8th inch and line your tartlette or Barquette molds with the dough. fill the pastry lined molds with beans or pie weights and bake in over for ~15 minutes. When slightly browned take out of the over and remove beans from the shell and the shell from the mold. Let the shells cool before adding filling. Shells will last 2-3 days in the refrigerator or up to a month inf the freezer. if you want to make these ahead of time.

Ingredients for Bechamel

1/4 cup butter
1/4 cup AP flour
2 1/2 cups milk
Pinch of freshly grated nutmeg (optional)
Salt and pepper

Process for Bechamel
1. Melt the butter in a pan over medium heat. Whisk in the flour and let it cook for a minute or so. Pour in all the milk, whisking constantly until mixture starts to boil. Season with salt and lower the heat to a simmer and cover. Cook for 20 minutes stiring occasionally. Remove from heat and season with more salt if needed. Add pepper and nutmeg if using. The bachamel should not taste floury at this point. If it is too think, add more milk and butter and return to heat till it reaches the thickness you like.

Ingrediants for Four Cheese Barquetes
1 1/2 cups ditalini pasta
1/4 cup butter
1/2 cup Fontina cheese, grated
1/2 cup Emmenthal cheese, grated
1/2 cup Caciotta cheese, grated (or MonterreyJack)
1/2 cup Mozzarella cheese, grated
35-50 Pate Brisee Barquettes (pretty much what is made from the above recipe)
1 Quantity Bechamel Sauce
Grape tomatoes, thinly sliced
Salt

Process for Four Cheese Barquetes

Cook the pasts in salted boiling water for 8-12 minutes, unitil al dente. Drain and stir in all the cheeses and the butter. Place cheese pasta mixture into pastry shells and add 1-2 tablespoons bechamel sauce to each. Top with one or two thin slices of grape tomato. Place on a cookie sheet an bake in a 400degree preheated over till golden and bubbling.



With this weeks appetizer I listened to Carla Bruni's album entitled Quelqu'un M'a Dit. You may know her as the first lady of France but I really dig her first album. Most tracks simply her vocals with an acoustic guitar accompaniment. When I listen to this album I am transported to a 1960's era Paris France cafe. I sip some coffee, wear my black turtleneck, and take on a partially pretentious but very romantic air. As such, I think it goes well with the Barquettes. Sure these are basically mac and cheese on a cracker, but hell doesn't Four Cheese Barquettes with a Bachemel sauce sound so much cooler? Anyway, a couple of great cuts from the album are the title track, Raphael, and L'Amour. Just don't forget your turtleneck while you are listening to them.

Pinto Bean and Chorizo Chili

So here we are with the first entry of the new blog. As it is the first entry I thought that I would start off with something a little Spicy in order to get the blood flowing. This weekend's project was a Pinto Bean and Chorizo Chili topped with Lime and Queso Fresco.

I made a big ol dutch oven of this for friends to eat while we played a game and the five of us were well filled with leftovers to spare. Of course the meal was rounded out by some great watermelon and discussion about the merits of salting your watermelon slices. As we live just outside DC it only felt right that Petey Greene's opinion on the topic had to be expressed.

I did find that it was best to have everyone place whatever toppings they prefer on their own chili as chili seems to be a dish that is highly personal. Due to the strong mix of flavors already in this chili, a greater range of toppings without taking away from the dish itself. I made one bowl where I added more raw jalapeno without the seeds, ribs and clear capsaicin layer to bring out the more berry like flavors of the pepper and drastically reduce the heat. That and some freshly squeezed lime juice brightened the dish up considerably.


Ingredients
2 tablespoons olive oil
1 pound fresh Chorizo
2 medium sweet white onions
4 cloves of garlic, minced
3 tablespoons ground ancho chili powder
4 teaspoons ground cumin seeds
2 Turkish bay leaves
2 teaspoons aniseed
2 teaspoons ground coriander seeds
2 16-ounce cans whole tomatoes in puree
2 cups cooked pinto beans
2 yellow bell peppers, trimmed and diced
3 jalapeno peppers(two seeded and minced, one minced with seeds)
Salt and ground red pepper to taste
2 tablespoons parsley(or cilantro)

toppings:
queso fresco
lime wedges
sliced green onion
tortilla slice

Music:
Manu Chao-Proxima Estacion: Esperanza

Process
1. Heat the oil in a pan (I used a 5 quart dutch oven) over medium heat till hot. Add the chorizo to the pan and cook, turning every few minutes, till well browned and fully cooked. This should take around 15 minutes. When fully cooked, take the sausages out and lay them on a paper towel to soak up oil. When cool enough to handle, thinly slice.

2. Add onions to the pot and sweat them till they are softened, about five minutes. When onions are nice and soft, but have not yet browned, add the garlic, ancho chili powder, cumin, bay leaves, aniseed and coriander. Stir for 30 seconds to a minute. This will open up the flavors of the spices, but be careful not to burn them. Then add the tomatoes, beans, yellow peppers, jalapenos, parsley, salt and pepper. Stir to combine and cook over medium heat for 30 minutes. Break up the whole tomatoes with a wooden spoon if you wish to have smaller bits.

3. When done you can set up a serving line where people can spoon up their own bowls and add the accompaniments that they prefer.


While cooking this meal I can think of no other music that ties into the liveliness of this dish than Manu Chao's album Proxima Estacion: Esperanza. Though Manu Chao is french and the food is more Mexican in origin, Chao's rhythms sampling interplays are a great way to keep your energy up while you are doing all the prepwork. On this album the language sang often shifts between French, Spanish, English, Galician, Arabic and Portuguese, many times within the same track. My favorite cuts from the album are: La Primavera, Me Gustas Tu, and Mi Vida