Tomatoes with Burrata--In Tomato Season

There is nothing special in this post beyond my provocative saying "If you like mozzarella and never tried burrata, try it, and I am sure you will fall for it as well."

For many years one of my favorite summer dishes, when truly good sweet tomatoes are available, was mozzarella with tomatoes and basil. I could have eaten it every single day. Until the day I discovered burrata--an even more guilty pleasure.

Burrata means buttered. And it is. On the outside it looks like mozzarella but inside is soft, creamy, buttery. Ever since I tried burrata ,I became addicted to its taste but even more the texture. Now I buy mozzarella only if burrata is not available. Although fresh mozzarella is nowadays quite popular in the US, burrata not so much yet. Whenever I see its much smaller supply at Whole Foods or TJ I buy a couple of boxes.

Like in many so simple dishes the secret lies in the quality of the ingredients--fresh cheese, extra virgin olive oil, and most of all in the tasty, sweet tomatoes, topped with fresh aromatic basil leaves.

Last Friday, I made a trip to my local farmers market in search of perfect tomatoes for my burrata. I looked for tomatoes like those we have in Poland and Italy--fleshy and sweet, grown under the local sun. I bought two types: red and orange. Red, heirloom tomatoes were sweet and fleshy. But the orange ones, advertised as low on acid, tasted as perfect as if they grew in Poland, during a particularly hot summer, or if they ripened under the Tuscan sun. I used both of them, layering with burrata and drizzling with oil. It was a truly summery feast...

Tomatoes with Burrata

Ingredients:
2 tasty tomatoes,

1 ball of burrata,

See burrata on the left and mozzarella on the right:

extra virgin olive oil,
fresh basil leaves,
freshly ground pepper,
coarse sea salt.

Just arrange the slices of burrata and tomatoes, drizzle with oil, and sprinkle with spices and basil and enjoy

Phyllo Tart with Salmon--It's All About Dill

I love all the herbs, but I have a particular sentiment for dill. When I was a child one of my favorite summer snacks was a sandwich made from rye bread, spread with butter and generously topped with chopped dill and coarse salt on it.

Dill is so popular in Poland that, next to marjoram, I would call it our national herb. Any Polish who owns even a tiny garden may not have much there but I bet will grow some dill. Many traditional Polish recipes call for dill. Our beet dishes need dill. It is added to cabbage salads, soups and sauces. And it is a must have ingredient in pickled and salted cucumbers. If you have ever eaten in Poland, especially in the summer, and you happen to be not a great fan of dill, you surely found yourself in trouble.

Because of our national love for dill, whenever I find a recipe calling for it, I always cannot wait to try it.

Today's tart was inspired by a recipe from a very old British magazine, which turned out to be worth trying. Of course, I added twice as much dill as the recipe indicated. I also bought a piece of wild salmon fillet for this dish, which made enormous difference in taste. Importantly, there was no fishy aroma whatsoever during its preparation. This tart has been recently one of my favorite dishes, and with all the dill in it, it brought back the memories of Polish summers.

Phyllo Salmon Tart
(Serves 6 as a starter and 4 as a main dish)

Ingredients:
9 sheets phyllo pastry,
2 tbsp butter, plus extra 2 tbsp melted,
1/2 lb wild salmon fillet,
3 eggs,
1 and 1/2 cup milk,
1/4 cup all purpose flour,
1 bay leaf,
2 tbsp chopped dill (or three if you really love it),
2 tbsp chopped chives,
1/2 cup Gruyère or Cheddar cheese, grated.

Preparation:
1. Pour milk in a medium pot with bay leaf and one tsp of salt and bring it to boil. Add salmon fillet and let it simmer for about 8 minutes. Drain the salmon, discard the bay leaf, and reserve the milk.
2. In a medium pot, melt 2 tbsp butter, add flour, and mix it over a medium heat. Add slowly milk reserved from cooking salmon, whisking constantly. Let the sauce boil for a moment and take off the heat. Beat in egg yolks, herbs, pepper, and cheese.
3. Whisk whites until stiff. Fold them into the sauce. At the end, add salmon crumbled into small pieces.

Now that your filling is ready, put it aside while preparing the bottom of the tart.

4. Preheat oven to 400F.
5. Spread a bottom of a 10-inch form with butter. Put first three sheets of Phyllo pastry so it hangs over the walls of the pan. Spread it gently with butter. Put another three sheets the same way on top, and repeat until all are used. Brush the last layer with butter and pour over the salmon filling. Cover edges with overhanging phyllo sheets.

6. Bake for about 30-35 minutes until the pastry and the top of the tart are gold.

Serve with green salads.

Frozen Meringues and Berries Dessert

It is hard to let go this recipe as it belongs among my top three desserts--easy, impossibly indulging, and elegant. Probably, it is a dessert that I make most often, particularly as a finale to summer dinner parties. Also, it is a recipe for which my guests most often ask. I love it myself not only because I like meringues and can it them just dry, but also because it is a beautifully looking dessert and, even more importantly, because it can be made a long time ahead and stored for a month or so.

Although it is so simple, it is not easy to guess what is made from, and no one has ever got it one hundred percent right.

The idea for a meringue dessert came to me accidentally one summer, when after a dinner party I was left with some Pavlova reminds. Everyone knows that is not so good on the second day when meringues become soft, and even less attractive in presentation. So I decided to freeze it. The result was not bad but it gave me an idea how to improve it.

I started to experiment with it until one day I decided "that is it". It was perfect. To describe it, I would say that it is a fusion of Pavlova and Vacherin, but frozen. And if you like either, you will be loving this one too. This dessert is sweet but also refreshing because of the fresh fruits and the fruit sauce. Meringues are not overwhelmingly sweet as I add yogurt to cream, and I add no sugar at all, to the cream, just honey which when frozen turns into a delicate caramel-like brittle.

Sometimes to make it even more fancy I add a spoon of liqueur, like Grand Marnier, to it. If I am too lazy to make home-made meringues I buy them at a store; those from Trader Joe's are my favorite. As I mentioned, this dessert can be stored frozen for several weeks, but it needs to be placed in a tightly closed container, as it may catch some freezer aromas. I am having friends over for a grill dinner this weekend and guess what dessert I am going to serve? Of course, frozen meringues, which have been waiting in my freezer since last week.

Frozen Meringues and Berries Dessert
(Serves six)

Ingredients:
2 cups vanilla meringues,
1 cup Greek yogurt,
1 cup heavy whipping cream,
1/2 cup running honey,
1 tbsp Grand Marnier,
1 cup raspberries,
1/2 cup fresh blackberries,
1 tbsp sugar.

Preparation:
1. Crush meringues into smaller pieces.

2. Whip the heavy whipping cream until stiff.
3. Put yogurt into a large bowl, add the whipped cream and liqueur, if used, and mix gently.
4. Fold gently the meringues into the yogurt-cream mixture.
5. Drizzle everything with honey and fold it gently in--honey should be mixed cream but still visible, so do not mix it too hard.

6. Transfer everything to a medium-sized plastic container, preferably a big round one or six small ones and freeze for a minimum of 4 hours.
7. To make raspberry coulis, mix half a cup of raspberries with a tbsp of sugar and purée them with a hand blender.

Take the dessert from a freezer 15 minutes before serving. Take it out of the container on a serving plate (if it does not come out easily, dunk the bottom of the container in a hot water for a few seconds), pour the coulis all over it, and decorate with blackberries and raspberries. Cut like a cake and serve.