Lasagna with vegetables and beef with Soubise sauce

One of the restaurants where I had the "opportunity" to work recently, in his letter had several pasta dishes accompanied by sauce Soubise. I was pleasantly surprised to find in the letter because it is a classic little used, and made the next day at work was excited, thinking I would find the truth in the kitchen I think. But to get there I realized that this restaurant was not just another "VIP" or other "Ginosa" more: almost everything was pre-cooked and the sauce Soubise was just a cheese sauce. So I decided to put the recipe here with one of my favorite dishes.

Sauce Soubise

Two onions
2 tablespoons butter
2 tablespoons flour
500 ml of milk
Nutmeg
1 / 2 teaspoon sugar
Salt
Freshly ground pepper
6 tablespoons crème fraîche

Soubise sauce created in the eighteenth century, Bertrand, the cook of Charles de Rohan, prince de Soubise. It consists of melting the butter in a small pot on the fire, then add flour and cook one minute. Then add the milk stirring constantly to avoid lumps are created and enter the onions cut in half or quarters. After ten minutes remove the onions and saute in butter. When tender, shred and add to the sauce with a little sugar, salt, nutmeg and pepper. Then we let it boil another 10 minutes to thicken and then add the crème fraîche.

Tomato reduction

1 kg of crushed tomatoes
1 tablespoon sugar
Oregano or basil (preferably fresh)
1 clove garlic
1 / 4 olive oil
Salt

Pour oil in large skillet with the garlic. When you throw a little gold crushed tomatoes with remaining ingredients. Cook over low heat, stirring for about an hour. Add a little more oil if necessary.

Lasagna

1 eggplant
1 zucchini
1 package pasta plates
Sauce Soubise
Ketchup
300 g minced beef
Olive oil
Salt

Peel eggplant and cut into slices. Do the same with the zucchini without peeling. Normally I prefer to leave the vegetables with skin, unless they have been in direct contact with the earth, but for cutting lasagna is then more comfortable, I prefer removing the skin of the eggplant for this development. Make the vegetables to Grilled with a little oil and a pinch of salt. Reserve the vegetables for later use.

In a skillet with a little oil, cook ground beef with a little salt and, when well done, add 4 tablespoons of tomato we've already developed.

Then, in a baking pan approximately 30cm x 20cm with about 6 cm deep, into the bottom base of tomato sauce on top, covering the bottom, a layer of pasta plates. Place a layer over the vegetables to the plate and behind it, a layer of meat. Repeat the operation several times, layer pasta, vegetables, layer, layer of meat and final layer of pasta and cover with sauce Soubise.
The get in the oven to 150 º C for 20-30 minutes.

The sun's energy

When he was just a few months I gave my nephew half a cherry tomato. At first, when tested, closed her eyes tightly and thought I had not liked too much, but the latter, as I was still holding the fruit, took my hand and began to eat. Then I said: "Of course you like, in tomatoes is all the sun's energy."
For if the Church forbade its consumption by a fruit considered satanic, that it must be good. The apple of love, as he was known, became popular for their supposed aphrodisiac properties, but until the seventeenth century did not become common in European tables.
Tomato sauce, tomato sauce, crushed, ketchup, gazpacho, tomato jam ... I think I can not imagine what our kitchen before the Spanish conquistadors brought us American. So today I dedicate this space, but I will talk about a way to use tomatoes still apparently has not spread too much: the dried tomatoes or dried.

The dried tomatoes, concentrating on it all its properties, is extremely tasty. Regrettably in our country are very difficult (if you travel to Italy do not forget to buy!). It is easier to find and hydrated and oil ... but you know: if we can make ourselves better.
Dry them is not too complicated, in summer we can harness the sun to dry (sun-dried are much good) but in winter we have to resort to the oven.

How to oven dry tomatoes?

Use a medium-sized tomato. I like pear tomatoes, but there are so many that the issue is just to test. In a baking tray open put all the tomatoes in half and we add a little salt and sugar. We put in an oven at 60 º C and leave them until they are dry. This process is very long (about 4 or 5 hours, it all depends on the size of tomato), so I advise to do too much at once, so take advantage of energy. Where are dry and cold can be used for anything. I like to take 3 or 4 in my tomato sauces before shred or cut into four fish stews.
But a great option is to keep putting them in oil and vacuum. The first thing to do is rehydrate the tomatoes about 15 minutes in warm water to 1 hour in cold water. After the secaremos well, will be entered into a canning pot and we add fresh basil leaves, some oregano, some peppercorns, salt and if you will, a few grains of cumin and a crushed whole garlic (a matter of taste , I love garlic) or the boats we'll enter the water bath for 1 hour after the water begins to boil.

Salad with dried tomatoes, caramelized apple and walnut vinaigrette and ham

Finally I advise you to cultivate your own tomatoes ever, see how they are slowly putting red is a wonderful thing.

I'm staying with my favorite tomato recipe, a good tomato of Los Palacios with salt and Arbequina olive oil. There is nothing good.

"Richer than the bread?

The bread, although not the oldest recipe we know, yes that is the most exploited and there are more variations. Of our cuisine is the basis and, although the cheapest, is the king of our table.

The history of bread dates back thousands of years, my studies and my assumptions make me think that the first bread of the story was a mixture of crushed grains with water that was baked in ashes still warm. I hope that within a few years find another tablet that reveal where we are really beginning, but meanwhile we have to settle for short and confusing information we possess.
Fortunately we know the first evidence of production and consumption of bread. And these are Mesopotamian Cuneiform writing on tablets that can be dated around 1600 BC
The world's oldest kitchen already made bread, and it was undoubtedly the main commodity. Unleavened bread, unleavened bread ... how much we have advanced as far as bread is concerned, thanks to centuries ago someone came up with this way of eating cereal.

Bread Mesopotamian now we would like too, even the Middle Ages could have a place in our tables, but now we are not so far from that. The baking industry has advanced so that the bread is nearly ceasing to be bread. Preservatives, dyes, stabilizers, flavorings ... yes, all made with perhaps 3% of olive oil so that we seem healthy.
I now invite reflection ... when we eat a ham sandwich ingredient what we are consuming more, the bread or the ham? So, why invest so much money and effort in finding a good ham and yet the first bread we buy passes before us? I believe that thinking in this way is a bit absurd. Instead of taking the edge to a good bread for our children, buy a loaf of far less quality but that it comes without borders and, apparently, but does not benefit us, convince us it is more comfortable. Make a test, one of the books of Richard Bertinet learned the following: Take several slices of this bread borderless industrial estrújenlo hands, mix well and what will be something like a bread dough but not yet been baked. Do you really prefer that their children are fed with it only because it is easier to take a knife and cut the edges to a loaf of bread without additives? I think not. And here's where I come. Unfortunately every day is less common to find breads, pure. Large companies baking and pastry we are absorbing (in large part because we want to be absorbed) and we are feeding God knows what. Making bread is easy, requires a little time to ferment, but the development of the mass is very quickly that takes away time for other things. No doubt be glad to have tried.

Here is the recipe for the bread of the people. Pan fat and crispy crust and crumb alveoli consistent with almost imperceptible produced by yeast. I start with this bread because it is easy and gives very good results.

500 gr of bread flour
275 gr of water
25g fresh yeast
25 gr olive oil
10 g of salt

The first thing to do is put the flour in a bowl and break the yeast finger on it until we notice hardly hands. The yeast in bread and pastry recipes almost always be mixed with solids rather than liquids.
Then we'll make a flour volcano and one of the corners will not mix salt with the rest of the ingredients, so that no direct contact with yeast. Then add water and oil and using a baker scraper (or a large spoon) start to mix until the dough is smooth, smooth and supple. The next step will be to give a rounded shape to the mass leaving the top of our future bread smooth and without folds.
What I do when preparing this bread is to use a basket that I made myself. I put the basket inside a linen cloth (linen is the best fabric to cover the bread and the dough does not stick), echo enough flour on the inside and then I put the dough down with the nice part is ie, the face that had left smooth and without folds will not now because it will be attached to the basket. It took us more flour on the face "ugly" of the dough and cover with finished peaks without pressing linen cloth and let stand for 1 hour or hour and a half in a warm place. After that time the bread have doubled or nearly tripled in volume and is ready to be baked.
Preheat oven to 220 º C with a tray inside because it has to be hot when you put our bread dough. At the same time on a tray table or other smooth, without ribs we had a bit of hard wheat semolina (for the dough to slide well) and we put up our bread. Now is the time to make the cuts the bread with a sharp knife. When the oven is hot, we introduce the bread and leave 5 minutes at 220 º C and then lowered the temperature to 180 º C and leave 15 minutes or until we see that the bread has become a golden color and appetizing.

Maybe all the explanations make it seem a little tricky, but if you read as you go by what surely not cost you anything. Here I post the photo of the result. You'll discover that there are few better things to feel our freshly baked bread in our hands.