Muffuletta

[js]
When we were discussing potential entries for Regional Recipes, I don't know why we didn't think of this sandwich before last week. It just totally escaped our minds. And to think that the muffuletta would be a more appropriate entry, given that was really an American invention, invented by a Sicilian immigrant in New Orleans.

Sheesh.

If we hadn't looked through the America's Test Kitchen Family Cookbook that was not put back in its proper place on the shelf (it was instead left on the table), we would have missed an opportunity to make this muffuletta sandwich.

Messiness has its rewards. (I'm all about silver linings.)

[ts]
I first heard of muffuletta in 2002, while I was doing some research for a trip to New Orleans. Of course, being the tourist that I was, when the guidebook said that Central Grocery created the original muffuletta, then by golly, I went there to have one.

A muffuletta is a huge sandwich made with round muffuletta bread, stuffed with salami, mortadella, capicola, provolone and emmenthal cheeses, and an "olive salad" that ties the whole thing together.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Muffuletta
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Central_Grocery



[ts]
I remember CSC and I, all wide-eyed and not into sandwiches nor olives, taking a bite out of the muffuletta and loving it instantly.

That food memory had been filed away for a while, as there seemed to be no way to find a muffuletta in Vancouver. (There was a time when White Spot featured what they called a "muffuletta sandwich", but just by looking at the imposter in the TV ads, we knew that it wasn't even close to a real muffuletta.)

About a year ago, while flipping though our then newly-acquired America's Test Kitchen Family Cookbook, I saw a muffuletta recipe! CSC and I were so excited and knew we had to try it. That first time I made muffuletta, JS, for some reason, insisted that HALF the amount of olive salad was enough for the sandwich. Why she would insist on such a thing is beyond me. Of course, half the amount was not enough! I had to quickly make more.

Now, we know better. No skimping on the olive salad allowed.

Olive Salad


[ts]
This olive salad tries my patience. Not because it's difficult to make, though all that pitting is certainly tedious gruntwork, but because one has to wait until the next day before it's ready.



[ts]
First, there's all that pitting. The recipe called for both green and black olives. We used kalamata, queens and Calabrese (according to the package) olives.

Then it's a matter of mixing together the pitted green and black olives with roasted bell peppers, sun-dried tomatoes, garlic, parsley, dried oregano, lemon juice and olive oil.



[ts]
One has to wait until the next day, and finally, the olive salad is ready to use. I could bathe in this olive salad goodness!

The Rest of it


[ts]
The recipe only called for mortadella and salami, as far as the meats were concerned. I completely forgot about the capicola until reading the Wikipedia description of muffuletta. We will have to include that in the future.


The bread, meats and cheeses.

[ts]
First, I drained the olive salad and reserved its liquid. Each half of the bread -- we used a round Italian loaf -- had its interior crumb removed. The reserved liquid was brushed onto each half of the bread.




[ts]
Some olive salad was spread on the bottom. Then, next came the layers of provolone, genoa salami, and mortadella. The whole thing was finished with another layer of the olive salad.



Each muffuletta was wrapped in plastic wrap and weighed down. They had to hang out like that for at least 30 minutes.



[ts]
You'd better believe I made two of these bad boys!

[js]
The first time we made muffuletta, I felt there was just too much meat and cheese involved. TS simply followed the recipe amount indicated for the meat and cheeses, forgetting that we are not big deli meat and cheese eaters. The amount of meat and cheese was too much for the olive salad and the bread.

This time, I felt the amount of meat and cheese was just right, striking a good balance between protein, vegetable, and bread. The muffuletta was delicious: I love, love the tangy, briny olive salad and I kept wishing there was more of the olive salad.

Not having tried the muffuletta in New Orleans, I have no idea what bread it was made with. TS keeps saying that the bread was "not the same, not the same". Maybe the bread we had was a tad dry, but that could be a function of when the bread was made and not the kind of bread.

[ts]
The muffuletta was fantastic, of course. But, the bread! [sigh] I don't know if we can find the same bread here. Perhaps next time we'll use the wonderful gigantormous 15" foccacia from the same bakery (Calabria Bakery), or the more modest 7" size.

Ooh, I'm imagining all the drool-inducing deliciousness of the filling, especially the olive salad, with the fragrant herby aroma of their foccacia. Yes, I will use their foccacia.

Would this go well with our Canadian Onion Soup?


Muffuletta with spooky background, as only a Vancouver setting can give you. (Just look at the X-Files... of course, before they moved to shoot the series in Los Angeles.)

Here's another spin on the muffuletta:
Stuffed "Muffuletta" Flank Steak

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Recipe
Muffuletta
from America's Test Kitchen Family Cookbook
6 to 8 servings

Olive Salad
1 cup green olives, pitted and chopped
1 cup black olives, pitted and chopped
3/4 cup extra-virgin olive oil
4 ounces jarred roasted red peppers, drained and chopped (1/2 cup)
4 ounces oil-packed sun-dried tomatoes, drained and chopped (1/2 cup)
1/4 cup minced parsley
2 tablespoons fresh lemon juice
1 teaspoon dried oregano
1 garlic clove, minced

Sandwich
1 large (9-inch) round Italian or French bread
8 ounces sliced mortadella
8 ounces sliced provolone
8 ounces sliced hard salami
(We didn't use the full amount of each meat and cheese.)

Olive salad:
Mix, cover and refrigerate (8 to 24 hours).

To assemble:
Drain olive salad. Reserve the drained oil.

Cut bread horizontally and remove interior crumb (until bread walls measure 1/2 inch). Brush top and bottom of bread with reserved oil from olive salad.

Spread half of olive salad on the bottom. Layer the sliced meats and cheese. Top with remaining olive salad. Cover with bread top. Wrap in plastic wrap. Place wrapped muffuletta between two plates and weigh down with a couple of heavy cans. Refrigerate for at least 30 minutes.

Unwrap, cut into wedges and serve.

We're submitting this to Regional Recipes, a blogging event created by Blazing Hot Wok that celebrates food from all over the world.

The region for this edition is North America. The round-up will be hosted by us! Entries are due on April 15. Please submit them to email [at] eatingclubvancouver [dot] com.

Regional Recipes information

Our Regional Recipes posts:
Greek Meatball Soup (Giouvarlakia)
Simmered Saba Mackerel with Daikon Radish (Saba Oroshi-ni)
Thai Fried Chicken
Roast Pork Belly with Puy Lentils
Beef "Ribbon" Kebab (Pasanda Kabab) with Cilantro Chutney
Canadian Onion Soup with Oka Cheese
Muffuletta
Börek with Beef Filling
Korean Pork Bulgogi (with Muu Namul, Kong Namul)
Lobster Congee from a Lobster Feast
Pork Jowl (Pork Cheeks) with Brown Sugar Rub
Beef Salpicao
Cuban Arroz con Salchichas (Yellow Rice with Vienna Sausages)
Cuban Pastelitos de Guayaba y Queso (Guava and Cheese Pastries)
Vietnamese Spring Roll (Cha Gio)
Grilled Fish Fillet on Oregano
Pastéli (Greek Sesame Snaps)

Pig Trotter and Suan Cai (Pickled Mustard Greens) Soup

Enchanté! It's a pleasure to meet you.

[ts]
For Boss #3's first birthday, we decided to have the celebration at home. Besides cooking our usual buffet, we also decided to order a Chinese Roast Suckling Pig.

Unlike our previous gaffe, we actually managed to procure an excellent one, with help from KN and her dad, Mr. N, who is a master Cantonese chef! Mr. N even offered to come to our house and properly carve up the pig. He had KN's husband, JK, act as an apprentice and they both carved up the roast pig.

Thanks, KN, JK and Mr. N!

After the carving was done, we decided to set the head and the trotters aside.



[js]
Roast pig heads and leftovers are usually made into paksiw na lechon. This is a stew of pig parts with a sweet-ish, sour-ish sauce thickened with chicken livers. Nowadays, most people just stew it with Mang Tomas sauce. I'm not too fond of paksiw na lechon so we decided to make something different with the pig parts.

This post of ours is a double shout-out to Jessica and Lon of FoodMayhem, as we were inspired and guided by not one, but two, of their posts! Thanks, guys!


Pig Trotter and Suan Cai (Pickled Mustard Greens) Soup


[ts]
I saw the Quick Duck and Rice Cake Soup post on FoodMayhem about 3 months ago. For reasons unknown, the "essence" of their soup really spoke to me. Rich duck, tangy pickled greens and chewy rice cakes all floating around in broth. [dreamy look] I filed it away in my head and waited for the opportunity to make something like it.

Around the same time, on the first day of December 2008, Jessica and Lon also blogged about Pickled Mustard Greens. Now, this elusive item has... well, eluded JS and I for quite a long time. We would always wish for an extra amount of this when we ate Taiwan Beef Noodle Soup, or when we ate "kwa pao".

Suan Cai (Pickled Mustard Greens )

before and after

[ts]
So, we wasted no time in making a batch. Well, OK, we wasted 16 days before making a batch, starting the pickling process on December 17. But, this sat around in the refrigerator for 3 more months before the right dish called for it.

This is very simple to do. Following the instructions on FoodMayhem, we simply washed the mustard greens, then started layering the leaves with salt. We added water to cover, then a splash of vinegar. That's it!

Match made in heaven


[ts]
Trotter, meet Suan Cai.

We just knew that the suan cai would complement the smoky unctuousness of the roasted pig trotters so perfectly that we were practically skipping as we started this soup!

Dump everything into the pot

pig trotters, suan cai and cucumber

[ts]
This soup once again utilizes our favorite dump-everything-into-the-pot method.

That there are four pig trotters, our whole container of pickled mustard greens that I sliced up (totalling one head of mustard greens) and one big cucumber, just because it had been lying around in the kitchen for a while.



[ts]
Add water to cover. Bring to a boil then lower the heat to simmer. Now walk away! We waited for about three hours or so.

Rice Cake


[ts]
It seems like such a weird craving to have, but I was really super-excited to finally eat rice cakes! I've only ever had them once before at a Shanghainese restaurant. When JS suggested that we should leave rice cakes out, I wouldn't hear of it!

The rice cakes in their uncooked form were really hard. I was a little skeptical when the instructions called for only a couple miunutes of cooking. But of course, that was the correct amount of time. I threw in the whole bag to the soup at the last moment.



[js]
The soup was delicious. The broth was rich and thick, from the gelatin in the pig's feet, which makes the acidity from the pickled greens much, much welcome. The rice cakes are bland (as they should be) and have a wonderfully springy chew. The underlying hint of smoke adds another flavour dimension.

The pig head and feet still had quite a lot of meat in them so this is a soup that is definitely filling. I am not too crazy about pig skin that has been made wet, but sometimes, the chewy texture is also surprisingly enjoyable.

[ts]
I didn't actually need the pork meat in this case. It already gave its all to the broth as far as I was concerned. That broth! The suan cai cut the richness of the pork while at the same time, the richness of the pork mellowed the tang of the pickled greens. And, those chewy rice cakes are just fun to eat.

Was this soup all that I dreamt it would be?


A dreamy spoonful.

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FoodMayhem Pickled Mustard Greens
FoodMayhem Quick Duck and Rice Cake Soup

Burnt Lumpia Paksiw na Lechon
Market Manila Paksiw na Lechon


We're submitting this post to Weekend Herb Blogging, a world-wide food blogging event (created by Kalyn's Kitchen, now maintained by Haalo of Cook (almost) Anything at Least Once) with the goal of helping each other learn about cooking with herbs and plant ingredients.

If you'd like to participate, see who's hosting next week. WHB is hosted this week by Chriesi of Almond Corner.

Philippine Pork "BBQ"

[js]
The last four months have just been unseasonably cold in Vancouver.

It started snowing the last weekend of November and it seems like this cold weather system has never left us. The whole month of December felt like a wash: all I remember was trucking in and out of snow in very wet clothes.

January and February: very, very cold, sometimes going into negative temperatures overnight. We even had a couple of snow flurries in March!

And now April. On April Fool's Day, we had icy rain or rainy snow -- whatever it's called it just seems like an unfunny prank. I had hoped that the weather would have improved by the time we returned from Taiwan and the lion (a.k.a. winter) would have been long gone.

To console ourselves, we look back and we look forward. Summer is where it's at. I can't wait to start grilling again.

[ts]
Although we have made "pork barbeque skewers" indoors, using the broiler, nothing beats grilling them outside over charcoals.

What is this "pork barbeque", you ask?

Well, we have waxed poetical about this most favorite of a Philippine dish before.

Read about how we think our Yaya's recipe is the BEST IN THE WORLD.

Or, about how we find skewering the meat onto the sticks to be ultra-difficult, given we usually do this 15 pounds at a time.

Or, about how we complain if there are only 2 or 3 skewers per person.

Or, take a look at the recipe and see how Yaya addresses me personally in her recipe.

It's all here: Philippine-style Chicken "BBQ"

[js]
I find myself looking at these pictures of warmer times to tide me over this long stretch of cold weather.

I am also trying desperately to catch up on my blog reading (I'm about a couple of months behind). I have so many of fellow bloggers' posts marked as "keep new," for me to re-read and comment on one of these days. I'll get to them.

(I remember in the early days of blogging when I would desperately try to remember which blogs I've visited and visiting blogs to check if they have updated that day. There was simply no way I could keep up, doing my blog-reading in that old, haphazard way.)

(A feed reader is a heavensend. Google provides a feed reader and I use Bloglines myself. I've no special reason why I use Bloglines: it was just what I picked up during those confusing times and I am too lazy to switch.)

These pictures were from our last pork barbecue session outside. We present Summer 2008: Philippine Pork "BBQ"!

Skewering

Boy, were we ever glad when the gongs (our cousins) offered to help us skewer the meat! Thanks, gongs!


The pork pieces were first marinated for at least 24 hours before being skewered.

The Sauce: Grilling and Basting

The sauce is based on the marinade, with a few additional ingredients.


Must baste! Must baste!

The Reward

drooooooooooool

And here's how one should eat Philippine Pork BBQ to show you enjoy them (on the skewer!).

Boss #2


Aw, this brings back childhood memories...

Oh my, I want some now!

Find the recipe here: Philippine Chicken "BBQ"

Yaya's Greatest Hits
Philippine-style Hamburger
Philippine Pork "BBQ"
Philippine Chicken "BBQ"
Golden Egg Torta

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