ANTIPASTO SALAD

While assembling a creamy Italian pasta salad the other day, I get to thinking of antipastos, those colourful platters of assorted foods you often see at Italian family dinner get-togethers; big oval serving dishes of marinated vegetables and cheeses and olives and beans.  I’m actually pro antipasto, so I think about how to adapt this to a casual setting.   After mentally debating the pros and cons of an antipasto salad, I think; why not toss some well-liked items in a salad bowl and stir in the dressing to sort of pre-marinate the groceries.  Let it chill, dish it out and enjoy the flavours of the sunny Mediterranean in a bowl, even if it’s hot and muggy in my part of the world.

So I came up with this.  I like to use cannelloni beans but only had great northern beans in the pantry, so chose them.  If you don’t care to bother with dried beans, feel free to use canned but please drain and rinse them thoroughly first.  You could use your favourite beans here, like limas or ceci.  Antipasto salad makes a nice supper, especially if you are sitting in the shade outdoors.  So up the ante and give it a try.

Antipasto Salad                               serves 8

Ingredients

1cup (250ml) cooked cannelloni or other beans

½ pound (250g) Italian-style cured meats.   Prosciutto, sopressata, capicola, genoa and pepperoni would be good.  A little of each would be perfecto.

½ pound (250g) assorted diced cheeses:  swiss, asiago, provolone, fontinella and havarti, your personal choice.

½ cup (125ml) assorted pitted olives:  nicoise, calamata etc.  Include some dry- cured olives for a nice mix.

1 tablespoon chopped flat leaf parsley

½ cup EACH, coarsely diced red and yellow bell peppers

4 green onions (scallions) trimmed, sliced thinly including the green part

3 tablespoons quality olive oil

1 tablespoon red wine vinegar

½ tablespoon balsamic vinegar

½ teaspoon coarsely ground black pepper

½ teaspoon  anise seeds

Red- leaf and Romaine lettuce leaves are good and so is Arugula.

Method:

• Slice the sausages thinly, removing any casing. Cut the slices into strips.
• Combine the sausages and all ingredients up to and including the green onions in a handsome, suitable bowl.  Stir thoroughly.
• Combine the next 5 ingredients well, making an emulsion, then pour into the salad bowl and stir thoroughly.
• Chill the salad for at least 2 hours, at which time it will be ready to serve.
• Serve on the greens.

Almost everybody can be proactive and enjoy antipasto salad.  Won’t you join them?  

       

CASSOULET: A CELESTIAL CASSEROLE

In 1981, I am with a group of automobile people in Baton Rouge, Louisiana to preview the newly designed Chevrolet Camaro. It hasn’t come out yet and we are seeing it for the first time, on film in a big screen. Because of industrial spies, everything is tightly supervised. When the film starts and the Camaro is viewed, the whole audience applauds.

It was a beautiful automobile, so I suppose the reaction was ok; but the meal we enjoyed, now that was laudable. Nobody applauded, but we could have. Among the items served, a Cassoulet was astounding. A gent seated next to me said “these beans are wonderful, eh?” He was right. The sausage, the pork, the beans, all cooked with confit made a delicious dish. I forgot what else we had that day, but not that dish of beans and meat. Sometimes when you order it, it is too salty; one time mine had a greasy taste. Cassoulet is not popularly made at home because it is complicated, and you can’t always get the traditional groceries. I went to the library and looked it up, and then proceeded to refine it. I ended up with a Cassoulet that’s simple yet tasty. This is a delightful classic and serves about 8 diners. If you want to, you can make it on a weekend and freeze portions for later in the week. You could substitute other meats as well.

Prepare the beans

1 lb (500g) dried Great Northern Beans
20 fluid ounces (600ml) chicken broth
20 fluid ounces (600ml) water
1 tablespoon bacon fat
1 tablespoon minced garlic,
2 onions, peeled and cut into quarters, and stuck with 2 cloves
1 teaspoon dried thyme
½ teaspoon dried rosemary
2 bay leaves.

Rinse and sort the beans. Soak overnight or quick- soak by covering with water, bringing to a boil and let sit for one hour.
Then drain and throw out soak water. Put all the above ingredients in a big pot or a pressure cooker. Either cook for one hour in regular pot, or 5 minutes in pressure cooker. When done, set aside or quick -release the pressure cooker. Remove one cup of beans. If not soft enough, boil until soft and mash them. Return to pot.(The beans can still be a little firm as they are going into the oven. The mashed beans are to give body to the casserole).

Finish the cassoulet

5 slices bacon
1 lb (500g) kielbasa or other cured, smoked sausage, sliced
4 smoked pork chops
1 lb (500g) bratwurst sliced
½ cup white wine
2 carrots, cleaned and sliced

Preheat oven to 350F (180C).
Fry bacon crisply, remove and crumple it and save the drippings. Don’t crowd the skillet, fry up the meats, some at a time, until all are browned. Deglaze the skillet with the wine, place half the beans in a Dutch oven and place meats over, including crumpled bacon, and then cover that with remaining beans. Cover the Dutch oven, put into the oven and bake for 1 hour, check midway to make sure there is enough liquid, if not add a little water.
When serving, you may want to cut the chops up so there is some for all.

Try cooking these beans and meats, they’re absolutely scrumptious.