The Gilded Fork News!

I haven't had a chance to tell you all that I've recently joined a fabulous group of chefs and food writers at The Gilded Fork. The Gilded Fork™, formerly Gastronomic Meditations, is a leading web site celebrating the sensual pleasures of food, featuring food and wine writing, recipes, cooking techniques, and culinary ruminations. As Gastronomic Meditations, the site was nominated for a 2005 World Food Media Award as Best Food/Drink Site, and was featured in a national television campaign for GoDaddy.com. For more information please visit http://www.gildedfork.com/.

I will be working actively with the Test Kitchen creating and testing interesting and delicious recipes. As well as doing research on various ingredients (and maybe even some writing!). You really should check out this side as it's a great culinary learning experience. I am honored to be a part of such an interesting group of foodies and look forward to contributing some great food info.

Also, tomorrow, The Gilded Fork will be featured on other site called "Food Site of the Day" which is a great archive of sites that feature food and related topics. This isn't the first time The Gilded Fork has been featured. It was originally featured as the former site Gastronomic Meditations.

Happy Reading!

Pizzaiola Sauce Dresses Up Any Meats

Using a pizzaiola sauce to enhance the flavor of meats is a long time Italian tradition. As a personal chef, I tend to use this sauce frequently as it truly creates a tasty and delightful meal (who doesn't love the flavor of pizza?). A good steak, veal or chicken scallop (even fish) loves to bath in the delicious flavors of tomatoes, vegetables, basil and garlic.

When you ask different people about what pizzaiola sauce contains you will come up with many different variations. My definition of pizzaiola is "pizza-like". But many will tell you that this sauce is plainly tomatoes, garlic and olive oil. Others tell me they've eaten a pizzaiola that was more of a green sauce or "pesto-like". (Here we go with the, "What part of Italy did you have that in?").

Sauces, in general, will vary depending upon what region of Italy you eat in. Since I haven't been back to Italy since I was nine years old, I can't truly say which I had when I was there. I do recall lots of tomatoes, garlic and basil, though. In my obession with reinventing recipes, I chose to include the basic trio of ingredients along with lots of vegetables. Why not create a pizzaiola that is like having an "everything" pizza (without the cheese)!

Here is one of my favorite pizzaiola recipes. I hope you will find it the best one you've had!

Lia's Pizzaiola Sauce
(Serve over any favorite pan-seared thin meat scallops/cutlets)

1 Pound Beef, Veal, Chicken Cutlets, pounded thin
2 Tablespoons Olive Oil
1 Teaspoon Cayenne Pepper
1 Teaspoon Seasoned Salt, such as Lawry's
1 Teaspoon Black Pepper, freshly ground
1/2 Cup Flour
1 Can Artichoke Hearts, chopped
1/2 Each Zucchini, diced
1/2 Each Red Bell Pepper, diced
1/2 Each Green Bell Pepper, diced
1 Can Diced Tomato, fire-roasted preferred
1 Can Black Olives, sliced
2 Cloves Garlic, sliced thin on diagonal
1 Teaspoon Chopped Basil
1 Teaspoon Arrowroot Powder or Cornstarch, to thicken
1/2 Teaspoon Water
Salt and Pepper, to taste

1. Heat heavy skillet. Pound meat scallops between two pieces of plastic wrap until thin. Mix cayenne pepper, seasoned salt, black pepper with flour. Dredge scallops in flour and brown in 1 tablespoon olive oil for 2 minutes on each side. Remove from pan and drain on paper towels.

2. Add remaining tablespoon of olive oil to pan and add artichoke hearts through garlic. Saute until soft. Mix arrowroot with water and add to pan to create a thicker sauce. Put scallops back in pan and heat through. Add chopped parsley and salt and pepper to taste. Serve hot.

3. This recipe can be prepared ahead of time. Place scallops and sauce in separate containers. Place in hot skillet to reheat.

Chocolate Cravings

For many years I was a big fan of anything vanilla. It's interesting, but as I have gotten older, my cravings are turning to chocolate. Chocolate truffles have always been something that I wanted to learn how to make. So the other day I decided to find a simple, but elegant recipe. I did, of course, make my own modifications (as I usually do), and to my delight, they came out delicious!

You can find the basic recipe courtesy of Ghiradelli's website (picture is theirs too!)

http://www.ghirardelli.com/recipe_truffle.html

My modifications were to add a teaspoon of my homemade vanilla as I couldn't leave out my longtime favorite flavor, could I? I make this using a vanilla bean that has been cut in half, scraped and put into a small bottle of dark rum. Let it sit a few months, shaking every so often. It's that easy. And since the chocolate is really bittersweet and I tend to like my chocolate a bit sweeter, I added a few teaspoons of superfine sugar. Superfine sugar has much smaller granules then regular table sugar, but not as fine as confectionary sugar. This assures the chocolate doesn't get grainy but gives it a hint of sweetness.

This is truly something you can surprise your Valentine with if you like to play in the kitchen.

chocolate
truffles
vanilla