The weather in Calgary has been miserable. I've lived here all my life and was completely unaware that we had a Monsoon season here on the prairies. The one upside to the yucky weather was the lack of guilt I felt barricading myself in the kitchen for the entire weekend.
I had a dinner party on Saturday night, a brunch on Sunday and a dessert on a Sunday night. I turned my kitchen upside down making oven roasted tomatoes, stuffed manicotti, apricot tarts, Manhattan clam chowder, roasted tomato soup, grilled ham and arugula sandwiches and a trifle. My kitchen was a mess and I enjoyed it immensely.
For dinner on Saturday I wanted to try recreating an appetizer we'd eaten at Ideale while we were in San Francisco. It was an appetizer of paper thin Braseola sprinkled with arugula, capers and shaved parmigiano with a light drizzling olive oil. The combination was simple in design, yet wonderfully complex in flavor and it seemed easy enough to attempt a recreation in my kitchen.
But first I had to go shopping. I had to track down arugula, which is ridiculously hard to find here, and pick up Braseola. So I was off to the Italian Supermarket on 20th Ave NE. It isn't a huge store, but it's got most of what you'd expect, it's less expensive than the other Italian stores in the area and it's got the best people. It has such a sense of community that I feel like I've stepped into Italy when I cross the threshold. While I was at the deli counter ordering my Braseola, prosciutto, capiccola and Genoa salami the butcher kept feeding me samples. This turned out to be an effective marketing tool because I ended up buying much more than I had planned.
Next was the arugula, so I made a
stop at Sunterra Market. I'd had trouble finding it at the big grocery
stores, but Sunterra came through and now all that was left was the assembly. When I got down to the prep I realized that the butcher had
sliced the Braseola rather thick for my purpose. Braseola, being a
dried air-cured beef, has a chewy and almost jerky like texture and for
the ease of cutting in this dish it should have been about half the
thickness. It was then that I remembered the butchers' suggestion to
soak it in red wine, so having nothing to lose, I took about 6 slices
and put them in a wine bath for about an hour. Not knowing how this would turn out I used part prosciutto ham this time around.
To plate, take the slices out of the wine and place like petals of a flower on the plate, then arrange a small bunch of arugula in the center, sprinkle with capers, parmigiano cheese shavings and lightly drizzle with olive oil. The rich meatiness of the Braseola combined with the fresh sharpness of arugula and the salt of the cheese and capers was wonderful. I can't wait to make this again, but next time I'll remember to get the meat sliced properly.
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