Eggs are one of nature’s amazing food.  In terms of cooking them, eggs are both on of the most simple things to handle and cook and also can be one of the most scientifically complex.  Maybe that’s why I like them so much.  Sure, they’re high in cholesterol, but they’re also packed with protein and B vitamins – not to mention taste delicious.

When thinking about cooking eggs, most people can scramble, fry and hard boil, but cooking eggs with some finesse and seasoning them with things like fresh herbs and cream can really take your eggs to the next level.  This dish is straight out of Julia Child’s masterpiece Mastering the Art of French Cooking, and I like serving it for Christmas Brunch and on other special occasions, but it’s also great for dinner alongside a simple salad.

One thing I will say about eggs is that we really do like to advocate that you buy ORGANIC eggs.  It may cost you a little bit extra, but it’s something that is really good for the entire food community. Non-organic eggs are kept in tiny cages and fed a diet of mostly corn, treatment that produces a much worse product that hens that are allowed to roam free and eat mostly grass and organic feed.  For more information on this please check out these differences between organic and non-organic eggs.

It’s best alongside a crusty toasted piece of sourdough toast for you to dip into the soft yolk.  You can also season the eggs with other things such as prosciutto, caramelized onions or anything you might like.  My advice with this dish though is to keep it simple and you’ll be rewarded.  It’s a simple dish to begin with and keeping it that way is one of the most appealing things about it.  Here’s how to execute it:

Serves 4

• You’ll need to have 4 small ramekins that are oven-safe
• 8 organic eggs
• 8 Tbsp. cream (heavy recommended, though light cream might work too)
• 1 Tbsp. sage
• 1 Tbsp. rosemary
• 1 Tbsp. thyme
• Around 2 Tbsp. butter
• Salt and pepper

Preheat the oven to 375 F.  The preparation for this dish is pretty simple.  Start by making sure that the eggs are a room temperature, this will help them cook evenly how you want them.  Take a little bit of butter and simply butter the ramekins lightly on all sides and on the bottom.  Get a large baking sheet or pan that can go into the oven and add enough water to cover the pan by about an inch of water.  Place the pan over medium/low heat and bring the water to just a simmer.  Place the buttered ramekins into the pan and water.

Next add 1 Tbsp of cream to each ramekin, followed by a small amount of each herb (dividing each pile of herbs evenly amongst each ramekin).  Next, crack 2 eggs into each ramekin, being very careful not to break any of the yolks.  Once your eggs are in the ramekins, season them all with a bit of salt and pepper and then add the remaining 1 Tbsp. each fo cream to each ramekin.  Finally, top each with a tiny pat of butter and place the whole pan with the ramekins into the pre-heated oven.

Bake the eggs for 8-10 minutes and then pull them.  it may seem like they’re still runny, but trust me, you don’t want to overcook them.  Serve immediately with some toast and you’ve got an awesome gourmet breakfast.

What’s not to like about Chicken rolled up with good ingredients inside and then baked or fried?  I’ve always liked the idea, so I decided to do my own spin on it and see how it went.

The results were pretty good (good enough to post here at least), and incorporated some very traditional cordon bleu ingredients, as well as a very non-traditional one in some fresh basil pesto.  Now that I think about it, the way I made this chicken cordon bleu makes me think that this recipe should belong to the Italians rather than the French, who are credited for the dish.

Try it and incorporate your own ingredients and let me know what you think.  Here’s my Italian Chicken roulade (or ‘cordon bleu’ if you like)  Here’s what I did:

Ingredients:

Serves 4

• 4 boneless, skinless chicken breasts
• Around 1 cup Gruyere cheese – grated
• 6-8 thinly sliced pieces of Prosciutto
• 1/2 cup or so of basil pesto (see recipe below)

• 3 Tbsp. butter
• 2 organic eggs
• 6-8 sprigs of thyme
• 1 cup panko bread crumbs (more as needed)
• 1/2 cup flour (more as needed)
• Salt and pepper

Here’s the pesto ingredients:

• 2 cups basil – rinsed and dried (like lettuce)
• 4 Tbsp. pine nuts – toasted until medium brown
• 1/3 cup fresh grated Parmesan cheese
• 2 cloves fresh garlic – raw
• Extra virgin olive oil to bring together (about 1/3-1/2 cup)
• 1 tsp fresh squeezed lemon juice
• 1/2 tsp lemon zest – grated on a microplane
• Salt to taste
• Dash of black pepper

Start by making the basil pesto, in advance if you can.  For the recipe, check out the basil pesto method in this post.  Basically, it’s pretty easy – do it in advance if you can, you’ll benefit form making it in advance, as the ingredients will come together overnight.

Next you can start with the chicken roulade.  The key with any roulade is to get the meat into a ‘roll-able’ shape.  The way I do this is to take the chicken breast and place it between two separate pieces of saran wrap and pond it with a meat mallet or rolling pin (what I use).  Make sure you pound it out very evenly, to around 1/4 inch thickness.  You want to make sure that the chicken breast is pounded very thin, but not ripped or torn at all.

Preheat the oven to 400 F.  You can now add the fillings to the chicken.  Remove the top saran wrap from the pounded chicken, but leave the bottom half below.  Start with the pesto – smear a thin layer of pesto onto the chicken over only 1/2 of the breast.  Make sure you use a decent amount of pesto (at least I do, because I really like the flavor of the basil).  Next, add the prosciutto, one layer at a time, try to use around 2 thin slices of prosciutto topped evenly over the pesto.  Next, add the Gruyere cheese on the top of the prosciutto.  It should all pile up on the lower half of the chicken breast.

You then want to roll the breast up into formation.  Start at the bottom of the breast where the fillings are.  Pick up the saran wrap and fold the bottom part of the chicken breast up to wrap up the fillings.  Pull back the saran wrap and roll the rest of the chicken up in full, leaving the saran wrap around the rolled breast.  You then want to wrap the breasts up tight inside the wrap and twist the ends up to seal the chicken up tightly.  Place the wrapped chicken in the fridge while you prepare the rest of the dish.

You should now set up the breading station.  Add the flour to a plate or bowl and season with salt and pepper.  Whisk the eggs with a splash of water and set them next to the flour.  You then want to add the thyme to the bread crumbs and place in a pan with the butter over medium heat and gently melt the butter into the bread crumbs.  Letting the bread crumbs cook a bit will help them brown in the oven.  Once you cook the crumbs a bit, move them to another plate.

Take the chicken out of the fridge and dredge in the flour, then move to the egg and lightly coat with egg mixture.  You then want to coat the chicken with the bread crumb mixture and place in an oven proof dish.  Bake the chicken in the heated oven for around 25-30 minutes, then remove and let rest for 5 minutes before serving.  I like to slice the chicken up and serve it over a vegetable dish like shredded Brussels sprouts or roasted sweet potatoes with rosemary.  Enjoy!

This is one of those recipes that I’ve been making for years.  In fact, chicken salad was something that I learned to do as a kid, when I preferred it over tuna salad, so I’d convince my Mom to get me canned chicken instead of canned tuna.  The recipe has evolved quite a lot over time, and eventually settles with these basic ingredients.  I’ll sometimes make this with some other things in it – artichoke hearts (not the pre-marinated sort) or some sort of nuts come to mind.  But my favorite types of chicken salad are heavily seasoned with herbs (basil, tarragon, sage, whatever) and include some sort of fruit – apples, cranberries or grapes perhaps, which I really think is key for sweetness.  Chicken salad in my mind should be that classic combination of salty (from the chicken, sauce, and nuts) and sweet (from the fruit).

That being said, the real secret to chicken salad is the way you cook the chicken.  Don’t let other people fool you, take some time and care cooking your chicken when you make chicken salad.  Don’t just boil pre-cut breasts that you buy at the supermarket.  Buy a whole chicken and roast it in your oven – like my friend Tyson just did in this post.  When you roast your own chicken and leave come of the skin on (the breast skin that is nicely browned), it gives the chicken salad an awesome caramelized flavor that I love.  Tyson’s method of cooking chicken inspired me to make this chicken salad, and trust me, roasting chicken for it will make a big difference.

Tarragon is another herb that is so classic in this dish.  If you’ve never used tarragon, it’s flavor is reminiscent to licorice, stronger than fennel, but really good (and I don’t really care for licorice candy).  I recommend using fresh tarragon instead of dried, and also adding some basil.  You can also use sage or oregano or any herb of your choice.  The dressing here is super simple and heavy on the lemon.  Seven ingredients total and 2 of them are salt and pepper.  Here’s how it goes:

• 1 whole roasted chicken – see this post – or a combination of 2 breasts and 2 thighs – roasted and cooled in the fridge
• 1 granny smith apple – diced
• 1 small onion – small dice
• 2 stalks celery – diced
• 2-3 Tbsp. fresh tarragon – chopped
• 5-6 large basil leaves
• Salt and fresh ground pepper

For the Dressing:

• 1/2 – 3/4 cup good mayonnaise
• 2 Tbsp Dijon mustard (or any mustard you like)
• A few dashes of Tabasco (or other) hot sauce (1 tsp.)
• A few dashes of Worcestershire sauce (1 tsp.)
• 3 Tbsp (around 3/4 to a whole) lemon juice
• Salt and pepper to taste

Start by chopping your vegetables and tossing them into a bowl and mixing them up to combine them.  Then start on picking the chicken.  I like to remove all of the skin that hasn’t been browned, but leaving the skin that has turned that classic, delicious color.  Basically, it you’d be tempted to eat the skin with the chicken you’ve cooked, put it in the salad!  Pick all of the chicken off of the bones, chop it keeping it the size of your liking and add it to a bowl with all the rest of the chopped veggies.

Meanwhile, mix the mustard, Tabasco and Worcestershire together.  Add in the mayo, salt and pepper and lemon juice and mix to combine.  Adjust seasoning as necessary.  I really like a good amount of pepper in this…and add more Tabasco if you like your chicken salad a little spicier.  Add the herbs to the veggies, mix to combine – then add the dressing and mix together.  You can adjust the seasoning as you like, adding more mayo or mustard or herbs or whatever.

I really like to serve this by shredding some romaine lettuce, cutting it super thin and mixing that into the chicken salad.  Almost like having a salad with chicken salad in it…yum!  Of course, the classic sandwich presentation isn’t bad either.  Have fun and enjoy!

Basil pesto, or Pesto alla Genovese as it’s known in Italy is my favorite pasta condiment.  Perhaps it’s the combination of the Parmesan cheese and basil, but there’s something about this stuff that absolutely and totally comforting to me.  Simple and delicious delivered in various vehicles, I still think it’s best kept simple on some spaghetti paired with some chicken or fish, or mixed up with some aioli and spread on a sandwich.  Anyway you cut it though, the people of Genoa’s simple combination of basil, nuts, cheese, garlic and oil is a culinary triumph in my eyes.

The history of this stuff appears to go all the way back to Northern Africa in the pre-Roman days.  According to Wikipedia, there was a sauce called ‘Moretum’ that the ancient Romans ate with bread and resembled pesto a bit (it involved basil at least).  Basil pesto didn’t actually come our way to the US until just recently, which was a surprising fact for me to hear.  A report by the New York Times back in 1944 was supposedly the first mention of basil pesto in the American mainstream media.

The condiment didn’t hit US households and become a fixture until the 1980s.

Variations of pesto include this eggplant stuff that I made a while back that was awesome as well.  Pesto Calabrese from Calabria (the toe of the boot) includes peppers and a creamier variation, but is really delicious.  Perhaps I’ll get into some other variations in the near future, but for now I’m sticking with the savory classic.  I’ve also decided to pair the dish with fennel, onion, broccoli and some awesome wild native shrimp from the Gulf of Mexico.  The beauty of this stuff is that it really works with anything you want.  Try chicken (pan seared and finished in the oven), mushrooms (always awesome) or potatoes (an Italian classic). Here’s what you need:

For the pesto:

• 2 cups basil – rinsed and dried (like lettuce)

• 4 Tbsp. pine nuts – toasted until medium brown
• 1/3 cup fresh grated Parmesan cheese
• 2 cloves fresh garlic – raw
• Extra virgin olive oil to bring together (about 1/3-1/2 cup)
• 1 tsp fresh squeezed lemon juice
• Salt to taste
• Dash of black pepper

This part is simple – either put all of the ingredients besides the oil in the food processor and combine until chopped.  With the machine running, slowly drizzle in the oil until the pesto comes together and the texture is rather like a paste.  If you don’t have a food processor, then you’re going the traditional route, which many say actually tastes better: combine the basil, salt, pine nuts in a morter and pestle and mash together (in batches if necessary).  Add in the cheese, lemon juice and pepper and combine, then drizzle in the oile while stirring in the bowl.

For the rest of the dish:

• 12-14 large shrimp (I really try to only eat the wild ones) – peeled
• 1 large head broccoli florets and some stems – chopped
• 1 medium onion – julienne
• 1 large head of fennel – stems removed but reserve some of the fronds
• Juice from 1/2 a lemon (or 1/3 cup dry white wine)
• 2 Tbsp. butter
• 2 Tbsp. olive oil plus a little more to finish the dish
• salt and pepper to taste
• 1 lb. spaghetti – I really like whole grain pasta for this dish

This is pretty simple too, but you want to reserve a little time to caramelize the onions and fennel.  Start by getting a pot of boiling water going for your pasta.  Start a large pan (with a lid) over medium-low heat and add in enough water to cover the bottom of the pan.  Once it comes to a boil, add in the broccoli, cover and steam for a couple of minutes.  Drain and remove the broccoli and set aside.

Return the pan to the heat and add in the oil and butter.  Next, add in the onions, fennel, salt and pepper to taste and cook while partially covered for around 30-40 minutes, until they develop a nice depth of flavor.  Add in the lemon juice, stir and continue to saute.  You can begin cooking the pasta at this point, but be sure to add in enough salt to make the cooking liquid salty.  Add back the broccoli and shrimp to the pan and cook until the shrimp is cooked through.

When the pasta is finished, remove it with a pair of tongs and add it directly to the vegetable pan.  Add the pesto as well and mix together (you may need to transfer to a larger vessel to do this.  Adjust the seasonings and serve onto plates.  Enjoy!

So when you go to a middle eastern restaurant or your neighborhood falafel joint, what is your go to order?  For me, it’s usually Baba ganoush – the classic Middle Eastern smoked eggplant condiment that is sometimes made with pomegranate, cumin and olive oil.  I really like it better than its more popular companion hummus, as its smoky flavor is very unique and savory.  Mostly though, I think it’s just the eggplant itself that I love.  So when I saw these two gorgeous Italian eggplants at Whole Foods the other day – I thought that making some sort of dip or pesto was the way to go.

This recipe was somewhat inspired from an eggplant dip that Elise, Aimee and I sampled at Stone Hearth Pizza, an excellent pizza place in the Boston area.  They use a bunch of cumin in their dip (or so it tasted like) – so I too that advice and used some cumin seed that I toasted and then ground in a mortar and pestle. 

Taking some more ideas from traditional Genovese basil pesto, I also decided to add some pine nuts, lemon and a bit of Parmesan.

The result paired really well with the Salmon that I picked up at the fish market, but it left me wishing that I had made some more to have with carrots, pita or tortilla chips.  One of the secrets of this recipe has to be the roasted garlic (been a theme for me lately), which makes this dip really creamy, as well as helps that flavor.  In any case, I’ll definitely be making this again and probably buying some eggplant and spinning this up and filling up empty hummus containers.  This stuff would also go awesome with other types of fish or even on a roast beef sandwich.  Give it a shot!

• 2 large Italian or other type of Eggplant
• 5 large garlic cloves
• small handful parsley – stems removed
• 1 Tbsp. lemon juice – fresh squeezed
• 1/3 c. pine nuts – toasted in a small skillet
• 2 Tbsp. Parmesan cheese – fresh grated
• 1 tsp. cumin – toasted and crushed cumin seeds are best!!
• 2 Tbsp. olive oil
• salt and pepper to taste
• 6-8 pomegranate seeds (optional) – I’ll try using them when I make this again!

Preheat oven to 375 F.

Prepare the eggplant by poking a few holes in each with a knife and placing them whole in a small roasting plan to just fit them.  In the same roasting pan, take the garlic cloves and place them in a small square of aluminum foil and drizzle a touch of olive oil on them.  Wrap the cloves up in the foil and place in the roasting pan alongside the eggplant.  Place in the oven and roast for around 45 minutes to an hour, or until the eggplant’s skin is wrinkled and the insides are soft.

Once the eggplant is done, remove it from the oven and unwrap the garlic from the foil.  Peel the garlic from its skins and place the soft cloves in your food processor.  Once the eggplant has cooled enough to touch, peel the skin off (if should peel off easily), chop it roughly and place in the food processor too.

Add the parsley, toasted pine nuts, lemon juice, olive oil, Parmesan and salt and pepper and blend the ingredients together until almost smooth. 

Stop the food pro and add in the cumin and more salt and pepper as needed.  Serve on top or under a good protein like salmon or halibut or alongside home made pita chips.

I decided to serve it with pan roasted salmon and parsley oil, which really enhanced the flavor of the eggplant.  Here’s that little bonus recipe – totally great with so many things:

• large bunch of parsley – leaves only, stems removed and washed
• 3/4 – 1 c. extra virgin olive oil
• 1 tsp. fresh lemon juice (not traditional, but I love its addition!)

Put parsley and lemon juice in a blender and slowly drizzle olive oil in while the blender is running.  Should turn into smooth oil with an awesome bright green color.

The frittata – what an underestimated food.  It is classier than a scramble, less formal than an omelet, and sturdy enough to serve alongside just about anything else you have on the menu.  I recently gained a new appreciation for the frittata at a brunch my good friends Amanda and Luke hosted a couple months ago, and I have been eagerly experimenting ever since.  What I particularly like about frittata is that it is really just a medium.  You can alter the masterpiece any way you wish, which makes it convenient for entertaining and for keeping your taste buds engaged.  Not to mention – it’s cheap!

When I made this frittata, it was midweek, and I was after a taste that would satisfy and fill me up, but I also wanted to make something light enough that I would feel good about eating it.  For that reason, I used more egg whites than yolks and Canadian bacon, but Sunday morning probably would have inspired me to use all of the yolks and real bacon.  You make the call on that one!  I served it along with a fresh green salad.  Delicious!

Ingredients:

• 6 egg whites and 2 egg yolks
• 1/4 cup milk
• 1/4 cup diced white onion
• 1-2 cloves garlic, minced
• 1/4 cup shredded provolone cheese
• 1 tablespoon each of parsley, thyme, basil, and rosemary
• Three medium cut slices of Canadian bacon, cut into 1/2 inch dice.
• 1 tablespoon olive oil
• 1 tablespoon butter
• Salt
• Black Pepper
• Crushed red pepper (if you like spice)

Heat a large, oven-safe skillet over medium high heat.  Add the olive oil and butter.  Add the Canadian bacon and cook until it is golden brown.  Add the onions, salt and pepper, and saute until the onions are begin to become translucent.  Add the garlic and continue cooking until the onions and garlic are soft.  Beat the eggs and milk and salt and pepper to taste.  Add the egg mixture to the pan and stir in the onions, garlic, and bacon to incorporate.

Let cook for about five minutes on stove top, rotating the pan occasionally to increase the surface area reaching the heat.  Add all of the herbs and cheese and put into a preheated 425 degree oven and bake for about ten minutes.  Serve immediately.

Here are some other Frittata Recipes for your enjoyment:

• Simply Recipes: Asparagus Frittata
• Food Blogga: Nana’s Potato, Onion and Pepper Frittata
• Divine Caroline: Spinach Frittata
• 101 Cookbooks: Tasty Frittata