Battle Strategy: Cucumber-Mascarpone, Lemongrass Chicken and Potato-Capsicum Tower with Black Pepper-Lime Dressing

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As soon as I found out last week that I was to compete in the next Foodie Fights battle, I went searching for my dusty Battle Cap, already long ago discarded to a distant corner of my memory. Preparing to go into battle, I was reminded of the heart of the message contained in Sun Tzu’s Art of War – “To thine own self be true”. Hell, I even own a ring bought from The Barber’s Daughter that depicts this phrase, so convinced was I that Shakespeare had penned this line just for me! Whatever. I shall be true to myself and push the envelope for this battle.

After having a rather restless night, I started strategizing about what dish I was going to push forward to the frontline. The two ingredients that are a must: Cucumber and Black Pepper. Cool and hot. The two extremes, so far so good.

Whipped out my notebook and began brainstorming up something I’ve never made before (and hopefully, have never been made by anybody else, although I would never really know. Even Google has its limitations!). This process is called “Learning how to make a meal without looking at a cookbook". LOL. 

After working the chemistry out in my head, I’d decided on a Smörgåsbord of flavors packaged into a deliciously comforting appetizer called (brace yourself!) : Cucumber-Mascarpone, Lemongrass Chicken and Potato-Capsicum Tower with Black Pepper-Lime Dressing. A mouthful certainly, but I really wanted to showcase the main ingredients in it!

  The star players.

Cucumber-Mascarpone, Lemongrass Chicken and Potato-Capsicum Tower with Black Pepper-Lime Dressing
Makes: 16 “Towers”

Ingredients:
Cucumber-Mascarpone Layer
1 cucumber
1 teaspoon salt
125g Mascarpone cheese
1 egg-white

Lemongrass-Chicken Layer
3 pieces boneless chicken breasts, sliced
2 sticks lemongrass, sliced
1 carrot, peeled and grated
3 cloves garlic, sliced
2 shallots, sliced
1 egg
1 tablespoon olive oil
salt and pepper

Potato-Capsicum Layer
1 red pepper
4 medium potatoes
100g butter

Black Pepper-Lime Dressing
4 limes
2 tablespoons peppercorns, cracked
5 tablespoons olive oil
½ teaspoon salt

Method:

This is a relatively easy and tasty appetizer to make and truthfully, it really helps if you’re organized and seasoned at the biz of multitasking. I say this not to put you off but the preparation process for the three layers are staggered and everything only comes together at the end for the baking part. This is the order of the baking process: Lemongrass chicken first, Potato layer second, then all three layers together. Hope you’re still with me! *grins*

First things first - preheat the oven to 200°C, then prepare the layers as follows:

Lemongrass-Chicken Layer

1. Place the chicken meat, carrots, lemongrass, garlic, shallots, egg and olive oil in a food processor and mix until it becomes a paste. Season with salt and pepper and process further. (Note: For the lemongrass, slice thinly towards the root end and discard the green leafy end).

2. Press a tablespoonful of the mixture into the bottom of a muffin cup and push down lightly to flatten. Cook the chicken patties in the preheated oven for 15 minutes.

3. Turn the patties out of the muffin tray, set aside and go cook the potato layer.

Lemongrass-Chicken patties, good enough to eat on their own. That lemongrass flavor is so seductive, the chicken has no choice but to feel (and taste) sexy around it!

Capsicum-Potato Layer

1. Roast the capsicum under a hot grill/broiler until the skin chars and splits. Let it cool slightly, then peel off skin and dice the capsicum.

2. Peel the potatoes, cut into chunks and boil until cooked. Drain the water and place the potatoes in a bowl.

3. Add the butter and diced capsicum to the potatoes and blend everything together with a potato-masher. There will still be chunky bits of capsicum in there, and that’s ok, it’s part of the masterplan.*winks*
4. Press a tablespoonful of the potato-capsicum layer into the bottom of a muffin cup and bake for 10 minutes.

5. Remove from the oven, place a chicken patty on top of the potato layer and set aside while you prepare the last stage which is the cucumber layer.

The act of mashing was good, cheap therapy. I thought of all the people who'd ever been rude to me and oh, how wonderful it would be to just squish them like so!

Cucumber-Mascarpone Layer
1. Peel the cucumber and slice into thin strips along its length, discard seedy core. My favourite way to produce these thin strips is to use a potato peeler. Add salt to the cucumber and leave in a bowl for 15 minutes to draw the moisture out. Squeeze cucumber, drain the water and set aside. (Do this part while the potatoes are boiling and the chicken patties are in the oven – Multitasking, see?).
2. Just before baking, beat the Mascarpone lightly to soften it. In another bowl, whisk the egg-white into stiff peaks and fold gently into the Mascarpone.
3. Take the muffin tray with the potato and chicken patty layer already in it and place a few strips of cucumber on top of the patty. Spoon the Mascarpone mixture on top of the cucumber julienne and bake for 20 minutes until golden brown and puffy. Leave in the tray to cool for 10 minutes before turning out carefully. Serve with black pepper-lime dressing to bring out the different flavours.

Black Pepper-Lime Dressing

1. Squeeze lime juice into a small bowl. Add olive oil and salt.

2. Crack black peppercorns in a grinder or using a pestle and mortar. Add this to the lime dressing and drizzle over the cooked "tower" just before serving.

Cracked black peppercorns in a tangy lime-olive oil dressing. Sizzle, Crackle and Zinggggg!

Oh, you're still here? Thought I'd lost you at the first layer! Anyway, you can serve and enjoy the dish like this but if you're a masochist like me, then you'll go on and make the phyllo "wings" to embrace this dish. It's easy, just take a sheet of phyllo pastry and rub olive oil on both sides. Cut into 1-inch wide strips and drape into the muffin cups (below). Bake at 200°C for about a minute, keep an eye as it burns fast!

Carefully insert a tower in between the wing, garnish with some more cucumber strips and finally drizzle some dressing on top.

PS. Hope you enjoyed the post, and apologies if it was starting to read like an epic. I wanted you to feel the pain. LOL! Don't forget to go to Foodie Fights and vote for me... Heart ya!

Spanakopita Wannabes

While I was running with my friend, LAZsie the other day, she mentioned this Greek savoury pastry called Spanakopita and how ultra-delicious it was, and that yeah, I should try to make it. Jogging along steadily, she went on to describe the ingredients which consists mainly of spinach and feta cheese, all lovingly wrapped up in layered phyllo pastry. I swear, just listening to her made me gain a few calories… even while we were trying to lose some at the time.

So today, I was lying in bed and contemplating if I should try to make Spanakopita. Went downstairs, searched around and alas, there were no spinach and no feta in sight. But wait.. there was still some phyllo in the freezer! In the end, you could say that I made something inspired by Spanakopita, and it was equally as delicious. For the purposes of this post, let’s just call it the “Spanakopita Wannabes”.

The great thing about this healthy dish is that I made them using a standard muffin tray so that they didn’t fall apart and retained some sort of pyramidal shape. The phyllo-wrapped Wannabes contained these: egg-plant, baby corn, chives and shredded parmesan cheese. A winning combination, even my veggie-picky home-dwellers liked it!

Spanakopita Wannabes

Ingredients:

Makes: 8 muffin-sized portions

2 eggplants, peeled and sliced

3 baby corn, sliced

Bunch of chives, cut into 2-inch lengths

3 cloves garlic, chopped

½ onion, sliced thinly

2 tablespoons shredded Parmesan cheese

8 Phyllo pastry sheets

Olive oil

Method:

1. Cook the filling first by heating 2 tablespoons of olive oil and frying the garlic, onion and chives until fragrant. Add the eggplant and baby corn and stirfry until the vegetables are slightly cooked, about 5 minutes. Season with salt and pepper, set aside to cool. Once cooled, add the shredded Parmesan and mix well.

2. Thaw the phyllo sheets and make sure you place a damp cloth over the sheets while you are working with them as they tend to dry out very quickly. Rub some olive oil on both sides of a sheet, fold it into a wide cone and place the pointed end of the cone inside a muffin cup.

Fold over phyllo to seal the cone, then flip over and tuck into the muffin cup.

3. Spoon in the vegetable and cheese filling, fold the phyllo over the open side of the cone, turn it over and tuck the folded part into the base of the muffin cup.

4. Bake in a preheated oven at 180°C for 10 minutes until brown and crispy. Serve while still warm.

The advantage of using these vegetables as fillings is that I didn’t have to worry about them being “wet” after they are cooked. I think with spinach, you still have to squeeze some amount of liquid out to ensure that the phyllo won’t get soggy once they are filled. Using Parmesan over Feta gives good flavour too, it’s just not as moist as the real Spanakopita. I'm confident the Greeks won’t mind me copying being inspired by their dish – graciousness must after all be one of the hallmarks of a great civilization.

Phyllo Treats for Breakfast!

I ran for a good hour plus around the stadium area this morning and when I came home, my stomach, mind and heart knew I deserved something special to eat to reward the morning's efforts! You know the saying, "love yourself first"? Well, precisely because I DO, I decided to make something light yet can satisfy my forever-sweet tooth.

Looked in the freezer and found some forlorn, forgotten phyllo (or filo) sheets tucked neatly in a corner. Checked the expiry date on the wrapping and yeaaayyy... it was still edible - such joy! So what I did was cut the phyllo sheets neatly into squares with a pair of scissors, melted some butter and slathered the sheets with it. Well I poured the melted butter into a flat dish, dipped the sheets quickly and and rubbed two against each other for better butter coverage.

After about 4 sheets, I realised that perhaps using olive oil would be better healthwise and easier to handle so I switched to the healthy alternative. Lined the well-oiled square sheets on a baking pan and baked them till they turned golden brown.

Phyllo sheets prepped and ready to be grilled

Golden brown and ultra-crispy

There were some pears in the fridge, and I took one and let it warm up a bit to room temperature before slicing it thinly and grilling it separately from the phyllo sheets.

Sprinkle with a little brown sugar on top to caramelise the pears. Naughty!

Once everything were cooked, they were assemble in this order: phyllo, phyllo, phyllo, pears, almond slivers.

I also did a mango phyllo treat just because (and just because there are still TONS of mangoes in my house!). Don't hate me just becauseI had these for brekkie.....