{"id":9679,"date":"2016-09-18T01:31:38","date_gmt":"2016-09-18T01:31:38","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/food.hoggardwagner.org\/?p=9679"},"modified":"2016-09-18T01:31:38","modified_gmt":"2016-09-18T01:31:38","slug":"caprese-balestra-eggplant-pepper-cheese-fruit-sorbetto","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/food.hoggardwagner.org\/?p=9679","title":{"rendered":"caprese; balestra, eggplant, pepper; cheese; fruit; sorbetto"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone size-full wp-image-9684\" src=\"http:\/\/food.hoggardwagner.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/09\/Caprese.jpg\" alt=\"caprese\" width=\"600\" height=\"450\" \/><\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone size-full wp-image-9685\" src=\"http:\/\/food.hoggardwagner.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/09\/trigger_fish_eggplant_peppers.jpg\" alt=\"trigger_fish_eggplant_peppers\" width=\"593\" height=\"445\" \/><\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone size-full wp-image-9686\" src=\"http:\/\/food.hoggardwagner.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/09\/cheese_plates.jpg\" alt=\"cheese_plates\" width=\"600\" height=\"450\" \/><\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone size-full wp-image-9687\" src=\"http:\/\/food.hoggardwagner.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/09\/blackberries_fig.jpg\" alt=\"blackberries_fig\" width=\"600\" height=\"450\" \/><\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone size-full wp-image-9688\" src=\"http:\/\/food.hoggardwagner.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/09\/sorbetto_limon.jpg\" alt=\"sorbetto_limon\" width=\"600\" height=\"450\" \/><\/p>\n<p>Yeah, it was a something of a feast, although perhaps lighter than what would normally be associated with the word. We had invited two friends to dinner, to celebrate their return to New York, and we knew they really enjoyed food, and\u00a0conversation.<\/p>\n<p>I\u00a0think we were all pretty lucky nothing was bungled, especially since the meal and the talk continued for almost 5\u00a0hours, counting a certain amount of lingering.<\/p>\n<p>As the menu was coming\u00a0together during the day I gradually realized that it would be almost entirely Italian, in fact <em>southern<\/em> Italian, and Sicilian, although with a few obvious, and some perhaps not so obvious, exceptions.<\/p>\n<p>We began the evening with breadsticks, toasting ourselves with a excellent sparkling wine.<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>the wine was a California (Sonoma) sparkling white, <a href=\"https:\/\/us.nakedwines.com\/wines\/w-donaldson-blanc-de-blancs-cuvee-sonoma-county-nv.htm\">W. Donaldson Blanc de Blancs<\/a><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>The first course was a classic Italian appetizer.<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>an insalata Caprese, with one large red plum tomato and one &#8216;green zebra&#8217; heirloom tomato from Lower Hayfields, a friend\u2019s garden in Garrison, sliced, arranged on\u00a04 plates, slices\u00a0of Italian mozzarella di Bufala Campania from Buon Italia tucked in between the slices, sprinkled with Maldon salt and coarsely-ground pepper, some torn leaves of basil from Lucky Dog Organic Farm sprinkled on top, and all\u00a0drizzled with a Campania olive oil, Syrenum D.O.P. Peninsula Sorrentina<\/li>\n<li>the bread was a sturdy ciabatta, made with unbleached whole-grain wheat flour, from Bobolink Dairy<\/li>\n<li>the wine was a California (Lodi) ros\u00e9,\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/us.nakedwines.com\/wines\/karen-birmingham-rose-lodi-2015.htm\">Karen Birmingham Ros\u00e9 Lodi 2015<\/a><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>The star of the main course was <a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Triggerfish\">triggerfish<\/a>, variously known in Italy as <em>pesce balestra, pisci castaregia, pescepuorco, pescio porcu, pesce porco, pesce puorco, or mola<\/em>, and in Sicily as <em>pisci porcu, or pisci poccu<\/em>, so it&#8217;s definitely Mediterranean as well as western Atlantic.<em>\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n<p>[Note: From the front, the triggerfish looks curiously like a Boeing 747; go ahead, &#8216;Google it&#8217;.]<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>four 6-ounce fillets of triggerfish fillets from Pura Vida Fisheries, rinsed, dried, seasoned with salt and freshly-ground black pepper, saut\u00e9ed inside a large, heavy,\u00a0enameled cast iron\u00a0pan in olive oil over medium-high heat for only about 2 minutes\u00a0on each side, removed to 4\u00a0plates, drizzled with a little fresh lemon juice, immediately sprinkled with chopped fresh dill\u00a0from Keith\u2019s Farm, with more dill tossed into the pan along with a few drops of olive oil, pushed around with a narrow wooden spatula, those\u00a0juices then\u00a0drizzled\u00a0over the fish, which was then sprinkled with\u00a0fennel flowers from Ryder Farm, and\u00a0finished with\u00a0micro bronze fennel from Two Guys from Woodbridge<\/li>\n<li>two\u00a0round Italian heirloom eggplants, one a Biellese \u2018<em>Prosperosa<\/em>\u2019\u00a0from Berried Treasures\u00a0Farm, the other an heirloom Sicilian from Phillips Farm, sliced into 1\/2-inch rounds, brushed with a mixture of olive oil, finely-chopped garlic, chopped mint leaves, salt, and pepper, the slices pan-grilled, turning once, arranged on an oval platter, sprinkled with some more chopped mint,\u00a0drizzled with a little olive oil<\/li>\n<li>four small sweet orange peppers\u00a0from Eckerton Hill Farm, 2 pale green\u00a0banana peppers from\u00a0Lower Hayfields, halved or quartered, seeds and membranes removed, saut\u00e9ed inside a heavy copper skillet wiht a little olive oil over a high flame until slightly cararmelized, with one seeded and finely-chopped small red Calabrian pepper from Campo Rosso Farm added near the end, the peppers finished in the pan, with the addition of chopped oregano leaves from Stokes Farm and a dash of balsamic vinegar<\/li>\n<li>the wine was a French (Bordeaux) white,\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/www.chelseawinevault.com\/white-wine\/white-wine-blends\/chateau-ducasse-bordeaux-blanc-2015\">Ch\u00e2teau Ducasse Bordeaux Blanc 2015<\/a>, with an grape blend of 60% S\u00e9millon, 35% Sauvignon Blanc, 5% Muscadelle, the\u00a0large proportion of\u00a0S\u00e9millon,\u00a0being unusual for\u00a0the region<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>There was a cheese course, the portions\u00a0very\u00a0small.<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>there were 3 local cheeses, each\u00a0from Consider Bardwell Farm, \u2018Slybro\u2019\u00a0(goat), Rupert\u00a0(cow),\u00a0\u2018Barden\u2019 (blue cow), and one Swiss cow cheese,\u00a0\u2018Bergflichte\u2019, from Canton Thurgau, via Eataly<\/li>\n<li>the bread was the Bobolink ciabatta again<\/li>\n<li>the wine was a California (Clarksburg) white, <a href=\"https:\/\/us.nakedwines.com\/wines\/david-akiyoshi-chardonnay-lodi-2015.htm\">David Akiyoshi Chardonnay Clarksburg 2015,\u00a0from Naked Wines<\/a><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>The fruit course was even more minimal than the cheese plate had been.<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>striped yellow figs from\u00a0California, via Eataly, and a few blackberries from Phillips Farm<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>The final, sweet, course was pretty Italian, at least until I added the maple sugar topping.<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Sicilian lemon sorbetto from Ciao Bella, via Whole Foods, topped with &#8216;Maple Candied Ginger&#8217; which I&#8217;ve kept in the freezer for just such an opportunity, from a source I no longer can remember<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>The music throughout the evening was our conversation.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Yeah, it was a something of a feast, although perhaps lighter than what would normally be associated with the word. We had invited two friends to dinner, to celebrate their return to New York, and we knew they really enjoyed food, and\u00a0conversation. I\u00a0think we were all pretty lucky nothing was bungled, especially since the meal &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-9679","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\/9679","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=9679"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/food.hoggardwagner.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9679\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/food.hoggardwagner.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=9679"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/food.hoggardwagner.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=9679"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/food.hoggardwagner.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=9679"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}