Open Sandwiches - Chlebíčky 2

Since we are having two of our friends (neighbors and occasional golf partners) over for a small get-together before they leave for Florida I have decided to prepare few open sandwiches. I already had the potato salad and three different spreads so it was just a question of assembly. When I look at it now it kind of got out of hand. Looks like there will be leftover for a breakfast J. I can’t wait to dig in and pig out. I’m pretty good at it as is every red blooded Czech when you put these sandwiches in front of them.

Incredible Campari

This tomato was hiding for ten weeks and when found it was in perfect condition!

This morning I had a biggest surprise of my gardening life. OK, so I am gardening only since I retired five years ago, but still.

I was moving a storage cabinet in my basement work shop and out rolled a perfect Campari tomato. Two years ago I collected, fermented and then dried seeds from supermarket tomato because I loved their flavor and size and this was my second season that I have successfully grown them. They are huge producers. (I know that they have registered trademark but I am not selling them.)  

At the end of last September we have collected all tomatoes, including green ones, and stored them in basement. This one must have fallen on the floor and stayed there, on a cold floor, in relative darkness, for ten weeks. TEN weeks! Wow! Next season I’ll try to store them under same conditions: directly on the floor and covered. We’ll see what happens.

By the way, I took concrete floor temperature reading with my infrared thermometer gun and it reads 16°C. The location is close to wall that is insulated only at top four feet. Five feet away the reading was 20°C. It will be interesting to see what happens one year from now and you can be sure that I will harvest seeds from this survivor!

Marjo in my tomato jungle.

Piper in Our Garden

Last September when Marjo’s family was here for my 65^th birthday she surprised me by hiring a Scottish piper from Ingersoll. Funny thing, though. None of our neighbors heard him, none! Nobody heard bagpipes being played no more then 40 yards from their windows.
Thanks, Marjo! It was a thrill!

Open Sandwiches - Chlebíčky

( Obložené Chlebíčky, Czech)

No matter how you pronounce Obložené Chlebíčky aloud in front of person that was raised in Czech Republic or Slovakia, you will notice instant reaction: they will start to salivate like Pavlov’s dog, the eyes will start to get glassy and breathing will get faster in anticipation of incredible feast. Just like potato salad, which is used on some sandwiches as a base spread, it is an absolute must for Christmas, New Year’s Eve and Easter and at majority of Name Day celebrations. And, just like the potato salad, it is very tedious to prepare due to all the cutting and slicing. That, of course, is on top of making different base spreads for these jewels. Once you have the spreads prepared and gherkins, eggs and pimentos are sliced in traditional cuts, then it is just a question of assembly. Yeah, right, simple assembly...not! These sandwiches are nothing like what you see here in Canada or US. Here, the bread is covered with same flat ingredients end to end. On Czech version, every slice of meat or cheese is shaped into cones, bow ties, rolls...Because of that, every bite has different taste and texture. For example on my hot salami and cheese version in one bite you might have spicy and soft Hungarian salami and crunchy gherkin and other bite will have harder Swiss cheese and slice of pickled egg with mustard. Every family, restaurant and caterer has their own combinations.

Let’s start with spreads. Of course, you could use just a plain butter but why to take shortcuts when you want to prepare something incredible, ne se pas?

#1) Spread for fish based sandwiches (smoked salmon, gravlax, sprats, crab meat...)

1/3 cup cream cheese, room temperature

1/4 cup sour cream (real sour cream, not light imitation)

1/4 cup salted butter, room temperature

1 Tbs. dried dill weed or 1-1/2 Tbs. chopped fresh dill

Place everything in a bowl and mix with fork till smooth.

#2) Spread for meat based sandwiches:

(Ham, salami, pastrami, Montreal smoked meat, etc.)

Same as above but replace dill with 1 Tbs. Dijon mustard.

#3 Spread for almost any combination of toppings:

1 cup potato salad

2 tsp finally chopped parsley

Chop to spread like consistency

Toppings:

Shaved or thinly sliced ham, thinly sliced Hungarian or any hard salami, thinly sliced pastrami and/or Montreal meat, thinly sliced Swiss and Edam cheese, small chunks of Brie, Camembert, Gorgonzola or any blue cheese, gravlax, smoked salmon, sprats, smoked sardines, crab meat, lobster meat, smoked oysters, etc.

Garnish:

Sliced hard boiled or pickled egg, lengthwise sliced gherkins or baby kosher pickles, julienne pimento or roasted red pepper, lemon zest (for fish), parsley, sliced radish or cocktail tomato, chopped capers (salmon),

Here are some popular combinations:

Spread #3, Ham, Swiss cheese, slice of egg with pimento on top, parsley, sliced gherkin.

Spread #2, Hard salami with pickle slice, egg slice on top of soft cheese.

Spread #1, Egg slice, 1 or 2 Sprats, lemon zest, pimento.

Spread #1, Salmon, capers, small piece of lemon, lemon zest.

Spread #3, Swiss cheese, egg slice, pimento, pickle.

Etc, etc, etc….Just use your imagination and use pictures as a guide.

My spread for two people, Christmas 2009. Second plate is just out of picture on top right.

Professional presentation by caterer.

One bite of any of these sandwiches will have you hooked!

Note: For bread I always use baguette sliced about 3/8" thick on diagonal across for more real estate for toppings, but no bigger then what you can eat in two bites. Again, it is a personal choice.

Winter Solstice

In less then week and half days will be getting longer! Time to get seed catalogs out and start ordering. This is a view from our sunroom. It looks like winter will be long but right now it is raining cats and dogs.

Chicken Thighs with Orzo and Peas

Another quick and painless comfort food. Just one pot for boiling orzo and frying pan for chicken thighs. The meat seasoning could be anything that you feel for, like Herbes de Provence, Italian seasoning or just plain ground black pepper, salt and paprika. As usual with poultry and pork I brine the meat for about 4 hours (1/4 cup salt to 2 cups water) and then pat dry on paper towel..

As usual, to serve 2 with leftovers (maybe J)

4 chicken thighs, bone and skin on

1-1/2 cup orzo

1/2 cup frozen peas, heated in boiling water

Seasoning to your taste

Olive oil, 2 T.

Preheat oven or toaster oven to 350 °F.

Heat stainless steel frying pan, add oil and fry chicken thighs skin side down till golden (don’t move them), about 3-5 minutes. Turn over and cook for 3 more minutes. Remove them to pie pan if using toaster oven (my option) or place frying pan in preheated oven on middle rack. (The reason I use stainless steel instead of non-stick is that you will need those brown bits at bottom of pan to flavor the orzo.) It will take about 40 minutes for the chicken thighs to be fall-off-the-bone tender and skin nicely crisp and golden brown with very little fat, if any, left.

While the thighs are in the oven start cooking the orzo. Just boil salted water and when at rolling boil drop orzo in, lower the heat and cook for about 10 minutes or so. It should be just al dente, not mushy. Move chicken thighs to another hot pan and keep hot. Drain chicken fat from frying pan and/or pie pan from toaster oven. Add steaming orzo to pan and scrape all the fond (brown bits) with spatula and mix with orzo. Of course, the frying pan has to stay hot at all times. Add green peas and mix till well coated. Serve the orzo on plate with thighs on top and garnish with julienned pimentos, sectioned or sliced tomato and lengthwise sliced pickle.

Potato Salad (Czech)

I just can’t imagine Czech Christmas, New Year’s Eve, Easter or Name Day without potato salad. Absolutely unimaginable. (Yes, Europeans celebrate Name Day and my "svátek" is on April 27th.) The salad is eaten as is, on open sandwiches (Chlebicky) as a spread, with schnitzel or with breaded and fried carp (traditional Christmas Eve dinner). Finely chopped potato salad is also stuffed into halves of tomatoes and eggs. Czech potato salad is truly symphony of textures and tastes. You have soft potatoes and peas, crunchy celery, pickles and onions and carrots and celeriac somewhere in between. Then you have sweet (carrots, peas, celeriac), sour (pickles) and acidic (mustard, onions). What a treat, it’s just too bad that it is so labor intensive. There is a lot of chopping involved and food processor would just make royal mess of all the food.

Ingredients
Potatoes, 5 baking
Carrots 2 – 3 carrots, finely chopped

Celeriac (celery root) half, finely chopped
Celery stalks – peeled and finely chopped
Onions (according to taste) – finely cut (see Tips)
Pickles (baby garlic kosher), 7-8 or more to your liking – finely chopped
Hard Boiled Eggs, finely chopped
Canned or frozen peas (1 cup)
Salt
Pepper
Mayonnaise

Dijon Mustard

Preparation
Cook unpeeled potatoes in unsalted water. Cook the carrots, celery root and parsley root until al dente, do not over cook. When done, peel the potatoes and chop. When rest of root vegetables are cool dice them and put them in large mixing bowl. Add chopped celery stalks, onions, peas and pickles. Finally, add boiled eggs finely cut or pressed through the slicer. Add salt, pepper, mustard and mayonnaise, taste and adjust seasoning if needed.
 Tips:

·        I cook my potatoes in microwave oven, it has a program for potatoes, but I remove them before program ends, otherwise they would be too soft.

·        I also cook my root veggies in microwave with just a tablespoon of water.

·        To remove acidity and harshness from raw onions I chop them, put them in colander and blanch them by pouring boiling water over them and then plunge them in cold water, let them sit in water for about 15 minutes, then drain and dry them before mixing them with rest of vegetables. It works great!

·        Don’t even think of using frozen carrots and other frozen vegetables except peas. Since you can’t buy fresh peas the frozen ones have better texture then can ones. Frozen veggies have no texture and are totally void of taste. It is an awful mush.

Try to chop all veggies into same size.

Potato salad chopped to spread like consistency and used on open sandwiches (Chlebicky) and halved tomato.

Pickled Eggs

Pickled eggs are almost a necessity for preparing snacks, sandwiches, potato salads, or any salad for that matter. I t is hard to imagine any celebration table without a food that doesn't include at least one dish that has hard boiled or pickled egg in it . Use older eggs, they will be much easier to peel; very fresh eggs do not have a membrane between shell and whites. Easy and foolproof test for freshness is to drop egg in a tall glass full of water. Fresh egg will lay down on its side on the bottom, older egg’s pointed end will rise.

12 large eggs

1-1/2 cups cider vinegar

1-1/2 cups water

1 tablespoon pickling spice

1 clove garlic, thinly sliced

1/2 sweet onion, thinly sliced

1/2 cup sugar

2 t. salt

Place eggs in a pot and cover with about 3” of cold water above the eggs. Bring to boil, cover, turn off the heat and let stand for 8 minutes. Drain and cool immediately under cold running water, peel and set aside.

Boil rest of ingredients for 5 minutes, add sliced onions and let cool before pouring over eggs. Keep refrigerated.