#cured ham

These Blue Cheese and Ham Baked Endives make a warming and comforting gratin on a chill and windy Autumn night. And they only require a few ingredients and very little time, too!

Ingredients (serves 3):

1/2 tablespoon unsalted butter

6 medium endive heads

6 slices cured ham, like Serranó or Parma ham

3/4 cup double cream

45 grams/1 1/2 ounce good quality blue cheese, like Roquefort

salt and freshly cracked black pepper, to taste

1/2 tablespoon hazelnut oil, for drizzling

Preheat oven to 200°C/395°F. Generously butter a large baking dish. Set aside.

Halve endive heads and Serranó ham slices. Wrap the bottom of each endive halve with cured ham, and arrange all twelve halves in the baking dish.

Pour double cream all over, and season, to taste, with salt and black pepper.

Crumble blue cheese all over.

Place in the middle of the hot oven, and bake at 200°C/395°F, for 30 minutes.

Remove from the oven and drizzle with hazelnut oil.

I already posted a recipe of the regular aubergine Parmigiana. But I prefer this Sicilian version. It is richer both in calories and in taste, which makes it perfect as a main!

Sicilian aubergine parmigiana

Recipe from Un déjeuner de soleil

Takes

1h prep (all but 15 min can be done in advance)

20 min baking

Ingredients from 2 portions (main)

1 and 2/3 aubergines

400g (1 tin) chopped tomatoes

1 clove garlic

1 small onion

60g mozzarella

100g tuma (fresh ewe cheese from Sicily): replace it with a soft ewe cheese or use more mozzarella

5g fresh basil

20g parmesan or pecorino

2 slices cured ham

1 egg, hard boiled

salt, pepper

olive oil

Recipe

The eggplant are traditionally fried but since this is already a rich dish, I simple roast them in the oven. Preheat the oven to 200°C. Cut the aubergine into slices (about 1 cm thick), brush them with olive oil, season with salt and pepper. Place them on a baking sheet and bake for about 20 min (until tender).

Prepare the tomato sauce: chop the garlic and onion. Sauté them until golden and tender. Add most of the basil (shredded), a pinch of salt and pepper. Add the tomato sauce and let simmer for about 20 min. Adjust the seasoning and add remaining basil leaves (whole).

You can prepare the eggplant and sauce, as well as the hard boiled egg, the day before.

Preheat the oven to 200°C.

Chop the mozzarella and tuma. Grate the parmesan. Chop the egg and ham.

In a large oven dish, put about a third of the tomato sauce, cover with half the egg and ham. Add a layer of aubergine (about half the slices). Cover with half the cheese. Repeat with a third of the tomato sauce, remaining ham and egg and remaining aubergine. Finally, have a last layer of tomato sauce with the leftover cheese on top.

Bake until the mozzarella/tuma on top is molten and the parmesan golden and crispy.

I know I insist a tad with how our oven gradually died in the late Summer/early Autumn as if it were a tragic event. That would be exaggerating probably; but I did feel the loss nonetheless. The night it finally gave up, I had made a pizza, which never baked. Not in the oven at least. You can’t eat raw dough though, so I put it on a frying pan. It didn’t heat evenly so the bottom burnt in the middle and the edges were desperately white... It was quite disastrous. So, when the Bread Week Signature Challenge on the Great Kiwi Bake Off happened to be pizza; I knew what I’d be baking! Also, I took it pretty bad when Dean criticised Naomi’s pizza as being “a bit anemic” and tasting like “cardboard”, because Naomi is my favourite and because, he clearly has never had to eat that pizza I made! Our new oven delivered though, and baked this Italian Cured Ham and Mushroom Pizza to perfection; nothing anemic or bland about it, and no sogginess either!

Ingredients (serves 4):

1 1/2tablespoon olive oil

4 large leaves fresh sage

4 large leaves fresh basil

1 large garlic clove, minced

4 small ripe tomatoes, rinsed

1/4 teaspoon Red Chili Flakes

1 heaped teaspoon tomato paste

1 1/2 tablespoon Modena Balsamic Vinegar

1 tablespoon caster sugar

330 grams/11.5 ounces Pizza Dough

2 large cremini mushrooms

2 slices Prosciutto

2 slices Coppa

42 grams/1.5 ounce Pancetta

125 grams/4.4 ounces fresh Mozzarella di buffala

Parmesan

a pinch of freshly cracked black pepper

olive oil, to drizzle

4 large leaves fresh basil

Heat olive oil in a medium saucepan over medium heat. Finely chop sage and basil leaves, and add to the oil. Fry, about 30 seconds. Add garlic, and fry, 30 seconds more. Dice three of the tomatoes, and stir into the saucepan, along with their juice. Add Red Chili Flakes; cook, 1 minute. Stir in tomato paste, and cook out, a minute. Stir in Modena Balsamic Vinegar, and cook out, 1 minute more. Add sugar, and cook until dissolved. Remove from the heat. Dice remaining tomato, and stir into the sauce. Set aside. Let cool.

Preheat oven to 250°C/485°F. Lightly oil a large pizza pan.

On a lightly floured surface, roughly roll out Pizza Dough (you can also hand-stretch it, if you prefer. Place Pizza Dough onto prepared pizza pan. 

Cut cremini mushrooms into thick slices.

Generously spread herb tomato sauce onto Pizza Dough, just leaving out the edges. Tear Prosciutto, Coppa and Pancetta into pieces, and arrange liberally on top of the pizza. Top with mushroom slices.

Drain Mozzarella, and tear into chunks. Scatter Mozzarella chunks all over the pizza. Using the coarse side of a box grater, grate Parmesan all over. Sprinkle with cracked balck pepper, and drizzle with a little olive oil.

Place pizza in the hot oven, and bake, at 250°C/485°F, for about 14 to 17 minutes, until crust is beautifully golden and cheese is bubbly. 

(Repost with picture.)

Kind of a random combination here, I was surprised on how good it turned out to be.

Portobello mushroom stuffed with cured ham and Saint-Félicien

Recipe by me

Takes

30 min

Ingredients for 1 (starter)

1 giant portobello mushroom

45g Saint-Félicien cheese

1/2 very thin slice of cured ham

salt, pepper

olive oil

Recipe

Preheat the oven to 200°C.

Cut the stem of the mushroom. Season with salt and pepper and rub with olive oil.

Spread the cheese on the mushroom. Cover with ham.