{"id":13899,"date":"2017-08-24T20:50:03","date_gmt":"2017-08-24T20:50:03","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/food.hoggardwagner.org\/?p=13899"},"modified":"2017-08-24T20:50:03","modified_gmt":"2017-08-24T20:50:03","slug":"insalata-caprese-fennel-grilled-tuna-grilled-eggplant-mint","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/food.hoggardwagner.org\/?p=13899","title":{"rendered":"insalata caprese; fennel-grilled tuna; grilled eggplant, mint"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone size-full wp-image-13934\" src=\"http:\/\/food.hoggardwagner.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/08\/tuna_eggplant.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"600\" height=\"450\" \/><\/p>\n<p>There were to be guests, and there would be\u00a03 courses. The only other instructions I gave myself were to serve local seafood, and to see that everything could be prepared easily enough\u00a0for me to be a part of the conversation, and their first visit to\/tour of our apartment.<\/p>\n<p>We began the evening nibbling on some breadsticks, walking around\u00a0with glasses of a sparkling wine part of the time.<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>rustic Italian breadsticks,\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/www.mariofongo.com\/eng\/grissini-stirati\/integrali-senza-strutto\">Mario Fongo\u00a0<em>grissini integrali<\/em><\/a>, from Buon Italia<\/li>\n<li>the wine was a California sparkling white,\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/us.nakedwines.com\/wines\/keith-hock-california-exit-43-bollicine-in-bianco-2015.htm\">Keith Hock Exit 43 California Bollicine in Bianco 2015<\/a>, from\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/us.nakedwines.com\/\">Naked Wines<\/a><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>The antipasto was an insalata Caprese<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone size-full wp-image-13933\" src=\"http:\/\/food.hoggardwagner.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/08\/Capres.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"600\" height=\"450\" \/><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>the\u00a0salad was assembled with sliced heirloom tomatoes from\u00a0Norwich Meadows Farm, arranged on\u00a04 plates, alternating on each with slices\u00a0of some very fresh \u2018mozzarella classica\u2019 from Eataly and leaves of fresh basil plants 100 feet away from the kitchen, inside the garden of our own Chelsea Gardens (can&#8217;t get much more &#8216;local&#8217;, but I should have picked a little more this time), sprinkled with Maldon salt and coarsely-ground Tellicherry pepper, drizzled with a great Puglian olive oil,\u00a0Alce Nero DOP &#8216;Terra di Bari Bitonto&#8217; from Eataly<\/li>\n<li>slices of Rustica Classica from Eataly<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>The main course was dominated (barely, because of the great vegetable with which I\u00a0was able to accompany it) by some of the freshest and most beautiful tuna steak I had ever put onto the table.<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone size-full wp-image-13932\" src=\"http:\/\/food.hoggardwagner.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/08\/tuna_on_counter.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"600\" height=\"450\" \/><\/p>\n<p>In preparing the\u00a0tuna I did the same thing I normally do: It&#8217;s a recipe would intrude little on the taste of the steaks themselves, and it meant\u00a0the entire course could be assembled and cooked in about 10 minutes (the vegetables could be done ahead).<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>four 6-ounce\u00a0tuna steaks from\u00a0Pura Vida Seafood\u00a0in the Union Square Greenmarket, rubbed, tops and bottoms, with a mixture of a wonderful dry Sicilian fennel seed from Buon Italia that had been crushed in a mortar and pestle along with a little dried\u00a0<em>peperoncino Calabresi secchi<\/em>\u00a0from Buon Italia, the tuna also seasoned with sea salt and freshly-ground Tellicherry pepper before the steaks were pan-grilled above a medium-high flame (for only a little more than a minute or so on each side), finished on the plates with a good squeeze of the juice of an organic lemon from Whole Foods Market,\u00a0and seved with a bit of\u00a0micro\u00a0fennel from Windfall Farms, some olive oil drizzled on top of both the fish and the fennel<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>The vegetables could be, and were, prepared ahead of time &#8211; including the grilling\u00a0 (they taste at least as good at room temperature as they do warm).<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone size-full wp-image-13935\" src=\"http:\/\/food.hoggardwagner.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/08\/grilled_eggplants.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"600\" height=\"450\" \/><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>eight\u00a0small eggplants (5 different kinds, including an orange \u2018Turkish\u2019 variety from Norwich Meadows Farm, the others from Alewife Farm),\u00a0each cut horizontally into 2 or 3 slices, mixed with a little olive oil, a 2\u00a0finely-chopped garlic cloves from Norwich Meadows Farm, sea salt, and freshly-ground Tellicherry pepper, pan-grilled on an enameled cast iron ribbed pan over a brisk flame, turning once or twice, sprinkled with chopped peppermint\u00a0leaves, again from Norwich Meadows Farm, drizzled with a bit of olive oil<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>the wine through\u00a0the first and second courses was an Italian (Sicily) white,\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.vivino.com\/wineries\/corvo\/wines\/bianco-2015\">Corvo Bianco 2015<\/a>, from\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/www.philippeliquorsnyc.com\/\">Philippe Liquors and Wine<\/a><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>The dessert course was the simplest\u00a0of all, especially because the\u00a0really good local (Brooklyn) ice cream was store-bought, and I had made the sauce some days before.<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone size-full wp-image-13939\" src=\"http:\/\/food.hoggardwagner.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/08\/ice_cream_gooseberries.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"600\" height=\"450\" \/><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><a href=\"http:\/\/www.bluemarbleicecream.com\/\">Bluemarble Brooklyn Ice Cream<\/a> organic vanilla from Whole Foods Market, topped with a gooseberry sauce with included a bit of\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/www.capriflavors.com\/index.php?main_page=product_info&amp;cPath=1&amp;products_id=1593&amp;zenid=0fa0a1fdceefabc7f9e173668e79b855\">Toschi Orzata Orgeat <\/a>syrup, making the gooseberries even more Italian than they might have otherwise been regarded<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>There were to be guests, and there would be\u00a03 courses. The only other instructions I gave myself were to serve local seafood, and to see that everything could be prepared easily enough\u00a0for me to be a part of the conversation, and their first visit to\/tour of our apartment. We began the evening nibbling on some &hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-13899","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-meals-at-home"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/food.hoggardwagner.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13899","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/food.hoggardwagner.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/food.hoggardwagner.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/food.hoggardwagner.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/food.hoggardwagner.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=13899"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/food.hoggardwagner.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13899\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/food.hoggardwagner.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=13899"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/food.hoggardwagner.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=13899"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/food.hoggardwagner.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=13899"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}