Recipe: Grilled Tenderloin Sandwich with Fontina

Grilled Tenderloin Sandwich With Fontina

If you haven't been able to stop by and pick up the little grilling booklets from our friends at the Wisconsin Dairy Board, here is a recipe from the booklet that will help your summer be a nice Italian one...

Servings: 6

Ingredients:

2 to 2-1/2 pounds beef tenderloin
Extra virgin olive oil
1 cup sour cream
3/4 cup (3 ounces) Asiago Cheese, shredded
2 tablespoons bottled roasted garlic, chopped
1 large red bell pepper, sliced into rings
Salt and pepper to taste
1/2 cup butter, melted
1 loaf (16 ounces) French bread, sliced in half lengthwise
2 cups (8 ounces) Fontina or Gouda Cheese, sliced

Cooking Directions:

Preheat gas or charcoal grill to medium heat. Brush tenderloin with oil, season with salt and pepper; let stand at room temperature for 20 minutes.

In small bowl, combine sour cream, Asiago Cheese, roasted garlic, salt and pepper to taste; mix well.
Sear beef over direct heat for 10 to 12 minutes. Move to indirect heat until the internal temperature reaches 140°F. Remove and let stand.
Brush pepper rings with butter; grill 5 minutes.
Brush cut sides of bread with butter; grill until toasted. Spread bottom halves with sour cream sauce; top with pepper rings.
Cut tenderloin into 1/2-inch thick slices, placing over pepper rings. Cover with  Fontina Cheese. Top with bread. Wrap in foil; grill for 5 min. Unwrap and cut each into 3 sandwiches.

La Linea: Episode 210

Recipe: Ferrara Orzata Soda

Summer is upon us and heat is on!  Our friends at Cento Fine Foods have shared this refreshing and simple recipe to fight the relentless heat.  You can find these ingredients at all of our locations.  Enjoy!

Ingredients

6 oz. Ferrara Sparkling Mineral Water
1 oz. Ferrara Orzata Almond Syrup
5 oz. Ice, cubed

Instructions:

Fill a 12 oz. glass halfway with ice cubes.

Add mineral water then almond syrup.
Stir well, and enjoy.
Serves 1.








For more great recipes and information about their great products, visit www.cento.com or simply come to any of our five Doris Italian Market locations.

Chocolate: Delicious Sunscreen?

With the sweltering hot summer approaching, many people get ready to protect themselves from the harmful rays of the sun by getting their sunscreen lotions stocked up.  Well would you believe that chocolate can help as well?

From Specialty Food Magazine:

In addition to its taste and antioxidant properties, there may be a new unexpected benefit for chocolate to tout. Scientists at Laval University’s Institute of Nutraceuticals and Functional Foods in Quebec are studying whether eating dark chocolate helps protect against sunburn. Currently, they’re recruiting fair-skinned female volunteers to eat three squares of chocolate every day for 12 weeks. (By only including females, they can control the variability between men’s and women’s hormones.) Participants will then be exposed to ultraviolet light in a lab, and their skin will be checked for sun damage. A control group will be given a placebo, allowing the scientists to compare the degree of UV damage. Scientists were spurred on by research including a study published in the Journal of Cosmetic Dermatology in 2010 that showed that chocolate high in the antioxidant flavanol (i.e., those with high percentages of cacao), reached the upper layers of skin and counteracted the free radicals generated from exposure to UV radiation, making it a good secondary form of sunscreen. Green and white tea also contain epicatechin and catechin, the flavanols responsible for added sun protection.

Well all I can say is that before I go to the beach, I'm going to have a nice Baci Chocolate.  Stay Cool!

source: specialtyfood.com

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Onion versus Garlic

Used often in the cooking world, especially in Italian cooking, yet seldomly eaten as a single item, onions and garlic are as simple as it gets for cooking ingredients, yet provide the difference between a good dish and an amazing one.  There are obviously large amounts of fand for both, but which is the superior?  Please share your opinion by commenting below and let's see whose taste is supreme around this corner of the internet....

Simple Italian Food (and a recipe)

I feel very guilty when it comes to this blog.  There is so much I wish to share about myself, my family, and my business.  However, running a business such as mine takes a great deal of time and so does being a family man (which I love!) and there is not much left after.  So when my creative juices are depleted, which is often, I surf the net and look for interesting sites and articles to share. 

Well tonight is one of those nights.  I stumbled across this blog talking about simple Italian food, and it's role in Italian culture as well as its misconception by Americans.  I found it well thought and written and I wanted to share.  Oh yeah! And they also provide a risotto recipe.  So enjoy the article from addisonindependent.com and if you wish, check out their site.

“In Italy, if you have bad food, it is not a good day,” said Carla Guglielmino.
Guglielmino is the Italian culture consultant and director of the Italian childrens’ school at the Middlebury College summer language schools, which wrapped up last week. To her, there are just a few rules of good Italian cooking.
“The oil must be a very good oil,” she explained, “and the tomatoes must be fresh. And you have to understand that pasta must be cooked al dente.”
The most important part of Italian cooking, though, is simplicity. In the United States, she said, people often ruin Italian food by adding too many ingredients — the worst offender being heavy cream.
Simplicity of ingredients, however, does not limit culinary possibilities. In fact, Italian cuisine varies greatly from region to region. Though many dishes have become standard throughout the country over the years, each region has a very specific cuisine.
Guglielmino’s fingers moved across a map of Italy, and at each stop she described the specialties of that region. As she described each dish in detail, a smile crossed her face and her eyes crinkled at the edges.
She began with Turin, her hometown. There, typical dishes are agnolotti and brasato al Barolo — agnolotti is a type of ravioli stuffed with meat, while brasato al barolo is beef marinated in wine for between 18 and 24 hours, then roasted in those juices.
Alpa is truffle country, so they make risotto with truffles. Romagna is grazing country, so they make cheese to fill tortellini. In the coastal regions there is fish, and in Umbria there is boar. During the summers in Genoa, there is pesto with pasta. The food depends on the region’s agriculture, but also on its trading patterns — areas close to France have adaptations of French dishes, while coastal trading areas use exotic spices. A common dish in Milan is risotto alla milanese, prepared with saffron.

Risotto with peas

But go to most Italian restaurants around here and that cuisine is not what you will find. What we think of as Italian food — from pizza to pasta to tomato sauce — originates further south. In Rome you will find pasta carbonara, a pasta dish with pancetta and eggs, and in Naples and Sicily there is pizza and tomato sauce.
But even the pizza isn’t quite what we think of when we order a pizza here.
“The pizza must have tomatoes, peeled tomatoes and cheese. Not sauce,” said Guglielmino.
Today you can find pizza in the north of Italy and risotto in the south. Still, said Guglielmino, each region has very different food, which makes for delicious and varied traveling.
“Lots of people say, ‘In Italy they enjoy food too much,’” she said with a laugh. “But for us, it’s very symbolic.”
Family life centers around food; every night, families — often including grandparents and other relatives — gather to eat a home-cooked meals. Sunday meals are larger and longer. The days are also structured around food; many shops close between noon and three so that the proprietors can go home for lunch.
Even business often revolves around food.
“In America, they talk business, then maybe they have some sandwiches. In Italy that is absolutely shameful,” Guglielmino said. “You need to have a good lunch. In the meantime, you discuss.”
Food, in Italy, is as much about the social interactions that surround it as it is about the actual act of eating; about sitting down and taking the time to enjoy food and conversation. It is no wonder, then, that the origin of the Slow Food movement — an effort to celebrate local food traditions and counteract a “fast food” culture — is Italy.
“If you eat good food, you are at peace with yourself and you are happy,” said Guglielmino
Good food doesn’t have to mean Italian food. It can mean any kind of food prepared with care and eaten with enjoyment.
But one of the wonderful things about Italian cooking is that most of the basic ingredients are available here — eggplant, artichoke, garlic, basil, onions and tomatoes are all easily accessible, especially during the summers. Good olive oil and pasta will, of course, run you more than generic brands. Important as the ingredients are, compromises are sometimes necessary (I, for one, sometimes buy Hannaford extra virgin olive oil, much to the dismay of my family).
But try draining your pasta when it is still somewhat chewy, and tossing it with chopped fresh tomatoes in the summer, canned crushed tomatoes in the winter. Toss in some grated cheese, extra-virgin olive oil and some basil, and you’ve got yourself a simple Italian summer dish. Or try this risotto recipe, perfectly suited to experimentation:
Risotto
Recipe courtesy Nicole Conti
1 1/2 cups Arborio rice
3 cups broth (make your own, or use a boullion cube)
1 small onion
2 Tablespoons butter
White wine
1/4 Parmesan cheese
Sautee onions in butter until softened. Add rice and stir until coated with butter. Add a dash of white wine and broth, 1/2 cup at a time, stirring until the liquid is mostly absorbed and then adding more. You won’t necessarily use up all of the broth—just continue to stir and add broth until the rice is still slightly hard in the middle, but creamy and soft otherwise.
Here’s where it gets interesting: add in the parmesan and whatever else you want. To make risotto alla Milanese, add in 1/4 teaspoon saffron. Or add tomatoes, shrimp, chicken — feel free to experiment.