Parcels of goodness - Short Crust Pastries With Romanescu Cabbage, Sun-dried Tomatoes and Almond Filling

Cauliflower is nice but Romanescu cabbage is even nicer, it has a sweeter taste and it looks even better: it is famous example of fractals in food and with its strange forms and beautiful green colour, I never get tired of it. I photograph it every year but I am never satisfied, I never feel that I manage to show its splendors. Maybe that is because  it needs to be seen tridimensionally and not bidimensionally, I have realized that some things just don't work on the page but need to be seen with our eyes and I just should give up my rather feeble attempts.

This is a dish that I think even a cauliflower/Romanescu cabbage fiend could eat and like, the crispiness of the short crust pastry dough and the mix of flavours in the filling work so well together and I wish I had made many more of them. Maybe I should be happy because I really must stop stuffing myself with good things for a while. On the other hand, I still have some of that filling that needs to be eaten...

SHORT CRUST PASTRIES WITH ROMANESCU CABBAGE, SUN-DRIED TOMATOES AND ALMOND FILLING.



400 g/14 ounce unsweetened short crust pastry dough
1 head Romanescu cabbage
2 whole sun-dried tomatoes, soaked and chopped finely
4-5 abundant tbsp not too finely chopped almonds (preferably blanched)
a sprig or two of thyme
salt
extra-virgin olive oil

   Break or cut the cabbage into small florets and then cook gently in a skillet with thyme and some olive oil.

   When the cabbage has softened, add tomatoes and almonds and then try to season.

   Roll out the short crust pastry dough, spoon small amounts of filling at even distances, cover with more short crust pastry. Pat the dough around the filling and then cut out circles with a cookie cutter.

   Bake on parchment paper in a pre-heated oven (200°C/390°F) for 15 minutes or until golden. Serve warm or cold.

A dish to remember - Spicy Rice Cake With Tomatoes and Pancetta

   First of all I want to thank you for all your warm comments on my ramble on food blogging, it just proves what I always say: I have the best readers there are! Some of you are even too nice, I might get carried away by the nice compliments and turn into a spoilt old brat. Or a grump although the nice spring weather here is doing its best to de-grump me by filling my mind with sunshine. It feels as if the winter has been interminable and when I now see blooms and blossoms and mouse eared leaves, the surprise and sense of relief is immense. It is as if my being have forgotten what spring is really like but I don't mind because that just makes it feel even better.

    Not only had I forgotten the wonders of Spring, I also had forgotten about rice cakes; years ago I used to make different kinds of rice cakes, sometimes for dinner, sometimes as finger food but when I was leafing through an old, quite bad, cookbook I bought when I was a student a life time ago something triggered a cog in my brain and I suddenly remembered rice cakes. Lovely dish with never ending possibilities of variation so prepare yourself for future rice cakes popping up here. They are easy, simple and quite wonderful to eat so why don't you too start experimenting? To begin with you can make this one. (And if you wonder, yes I am on a pancetta/bacon trip right, just be patient and it will wear off)

SPICY RICE CAKE WITH TOMATOES AND PANCETTA
4-6 servings

350 g/ 12,5 ounce rice
1 can of tomatoes
125 g/ 4,4 ounce sliced smoked pancetta or bacon
1-1,5 tsp Ras el Hanout spices or some other mix you like
100 ml freshly grated parmesan cheese plus some more for the topping
finely chopped parsley
salt
extra-virgin olive oil

   Cook the rice in lots of water until almost cooked then rinse in cold water to stop it cooking.

   Cut the pancetta slices in pieces and fry these until crispy.

   Blend the tomatoes and the juices until smooth. Mix rice, tomato sauce, parmesan and pancetta with spices and salt. Taste to adjust flavours.

   Either grease an oven proof form or line it with parchment paper. Distribute the rice evenly and then sprinkle the surface with more grated parmesan cheese.

   Bake in a pre-heated oven (200°C/390°F) for 15-20 minutes or until golden. Before serving, sprinkle with chopped parsley.

Links on Sunday

I'm back home after two days of shooting cakes from a renowned pasticceria. A pleasant job. But now it is time for the links:

I have linked to beards before but I just love them, some men are so creative with their facial hair!

this is so beautiful. so beautiful.

this is as worldly as it can get but hey, this is life and sometimes we need to do just like this.

some things should never be forgotten and war is one of them, these photos link past and present and anchor what happened to what is around us now.

and to end on the light side, I am childishly amused by random facts