End of Season Yumminess

Yesterday Shanti and I took the pups for a walk to Downtown Market Co. for a bit o' pastry and a cup of coffee for a civilized breakfast. They're still selling figs, and my mind saw that and started working on what to make for dinner. Yes, I plan dinner while eating breakfast.

Figs and chevre? Sounds good, but I want to use up vegetables we've been harvesting.

Polenta with cherry tomatoes? We just had that recently.

Fried green tomatoes with arrabiata sauce? But I want figs.

Fried green tomato sandwich with fresh mozzarella and figs. Bingo!

So I bought some figs and a package of ciabatta rolls. Ciabatta takes more than a day to make, so I didn't have enough time to make some before dinner. Luckily, the rolls had been baked that morning.

First I whipped up the aioli, which is a garliky mayonnaise. It's great over steamed asparagus or poached fish, but it's genius as a fancy mayo on a sandwich.

If you've never tried fresh-made mayonnaise, I strongly recommend it. Like fresh-made butter, it tastes nothing like its supermarket-bought cousin. The basic components are 2 egg yolks, 1/2 cup vegetable oil, 1 Tablespoon lemon juice, 1/4 tsp salt. You can add more salt, garlic, mustard, etc. to dress it up, but a basic mayonnaise is nothing more than the suspension of egg yolks in vegetable oil -- an emulsion.

You put the yolks, 4 garlic cloves, the salt and the lemon juice in the Cuisinart. Then, if you're really lucky, your Cuisinart top finally breaks after 20 years. Now you're stuck hand-whipping the yolks as you pour the oil into the mixture drop by drop. I'm surprised it turned out so well. Still, I would have preferred to have the food processor do the job. Then pop it in the fridge.

Next on the list was the mozzarella. Again, the fresh-made stuff is ah-MAY-zing. 1/2 gallon of milk gets warmed to 90 degrees with 3/4 teaspoons citric acid. Take it off the stove and add in the right amount of rennet according to the bottle/package. Let it sit for 5 minutes, then gently heat back up to 110. Stir for 2 minutes, let it sit for another 5. Drain off the whey, and then comes the fun. The whole trick to mozzarella is getting it too hot to touch while you knead it with a spatula. So you micro for 30 seconds and knead, micro, knead. Over and over (usually 3 times) until it gets glossy and streeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeetches. Then it's mozzarella. And then you bribe your husband with a piece of fresh, warm, gooey cheese, because you need him to fry up the tomatoes.

And here he is, dutifully taking care of the part I hate to do. I dredge the tomato slices in flour, dip them in the egg whites left over from the mayonnaise, then coat them in a mixture of polenta, fine cornmeal, salt and pepper. Fry up, drain on paper towels, and they're ready.

They went on the ciabatta roll with the mozzarella, aioli, and some end-of-season bianca di maggio onions I caramelized. We ate the figs on the side, along with any extra fried tomato slices. Yum!

The tomatoes, onions, garlic & egg yolks for the mayo all came from the backyard. And I have about 1/2 cup aioli left over to dress up grilled grean beans tonight.

What's in your kitchen?