feta Archives - Original Food Dude

Think of the best savory meal you’ve ever had, do you remember it? I do, it’s this one for me. I love love love love….(you get the point) this dish. Seriously I love it. Ok I’ll move on now.

A little back story on this, about 10 years ago my family was gathering for a family reunion, there are a lot of us so that is a big proposition (9 kids, I know someone should have explained the birds and the bees sooner, but I guess I should be grateful because I’m the baby). At this particular reunion my dad proposed a cooking contest, with a cash prize.

A young and naive Dude at his family reunion that never saw his money… hint hint dad, jk

The entry had to be a vegetable dish, I know tomatoes are technically a fruit, but who cares they are used like veggies in cooking, right? There were two categories, a kids dish and a best tasting dish. Mine was voted the best tasting, but somehow magically the cash prize disappeared, funny huh? To this day I still haven’t seen that prize money.

So I kept this little treasure in my back pocket and made it for friends and family, I had one roommate in college that would buy the ingredients every time he went grocery shopping just so I would make them again. Worked out good for me, I love to eat them too.

Where our tongue recognizing flavors

So why are they so good? Well the secret lies on your tongue, you see your tongue recognizes 5 distinct flavors. They are: sweet, salty, sour (acidic, think lemon juice), bitter (think kale), and finally umami (savory).

Umami is a Japanese word that literally means savoriness, it is how our tongues perceive the presence of the amino acid glutamate in foods. The presence is strong in meats, mushrooms, seaweed, cheeses, and tomatoes.

The very coolest thing about umami is the layering effects you can create with it. By stacking two (or more) umami rich foods together you create a dish that is greater than the sum of it’s parts. This is a super dish. I like to think of the pizza I had a few years ago in a small shop in Venice, oh man was that umamified (I just made that word up, eat your heart out Dr. Seuss).

Check out that K2

This dish is definitely delicious, but what about healthy? You know it. Tomatoes provide a great dose of Vitamins A, B3, B6, B7, B9, C, E, and K1, geesh they are a regular alphabet soup of vitamins. Feta cheese provides a great dose of vitamin K2, which is hypothesized to help in improve bone health and reduce heart disease by directing calcium deposits out of the arteries and in to the bones where they belong. Come on calcium fall in line.

All wrapped up like little presents.

Well if you aren’t convince by now I guess I’ve failed, this little miraculous and simple recipe hits it home in the two most important categories, taste and health. If you add its simplicity you have a perfect trifecta, so get some tomatoes and get cooking.

Recipe

Servings: 1 (just kidding it will serve 4-6 people)

Prep time: 10 min ; Cook time: 20 min

Ingredients

6 large Roma tomatoes
8 oz feta cheese
1 tbsp olive oil
2 tbsp Cavender’s Greek Seasoning
1/4 lb Small cooked shrimp (optional)

Preheat oven to 400 degrees.

Hollow out the tomatoes by slicing the top off and scooping with a tea spoon.

Blend the other ingredients together in a bowl. If the feta is really dry add a little extra olive oil to make the mixture stick together. Fill each tomato with the mixture. Replace the cap and wrap in foil. Cook for 20 minutes or until soft.

This little guys are also fantastic on the grill. To grill, use toothpicks to secure the cap on and grill directly over hot coals until softened, best to grill standing upright if possible. Even my friends that hate tomatoes love these. We all have that one friend right?

This gadget works well to keep them upright on a grill

My foodie doodie turned 3 recently so for his birthday dinner I made him this meal. He ate it pretty well but then saw the cake and it was all down hill from there. Oh to be 3 again and get to have your cake and eat it too, but us adults that cannot live by cake alone must have some sustenance. This meal provides just that.

For this recipe I used beef skirt steak. The skirt comes in two forms, maxi and midi. Just kidding there are inside and outside skirt steaks. The inside skirt is the tranversus abdominus muscle. The outside is part of the diaphragm (the other part is called a hanging tender or hanger steak). Maxi and midi would be better I guess but we are stuck with the names for now, maybe we should start a petition.

Beautiful Skirt

These muscles are long, thin and often tough but very flavorful. To deal with the tenderness issues these cuts are tenderized using a mechanical device. I like the Jaccard. They can also be tenderized using marination with acid, like fajitas (these are the traditional fajita muscle).

Click to order

If you’ve never used brown butter before I highly recommend it. It is a great little trick to change the flavor of a recipe and give it a little nuttiness. Brown butter doesn’t come from brown cows, how now brown cow, but is made by cooking the butter in a sauce pan until the milk solids in the butter brown.

Hmm maillard browning, drool

There are two reactions going on here Maillard browning of the proteins and carmelization of the sugars, both reactions create the unique nutty flavor that you get from brown butter. Brown butter is da bomb, do people even say that anymore?

Also I know I’ve already done a hollandaise sauce, but really can you go wrong with it? I mean it’s sooooo good.

Recipe

Serves: 4-6

Prep Time: 15 min ; Cook Time: 25 min

Ingredients

Pinwheels
- 1 1/2 lbs of skirt steak
- Feta cheese
- Fresh spinach
- Kosher salt
- Pepper
- Cavender’s Greek Seasoning (optional)
Brown Butter Hollandaise
- 1/2 cup butter
- 4 egg yolks
- 1/4 cup lemon juice

Preheat oven to 475

Pinwheels

Start by trimming your skirt steak of excess fat, then tenderize it using your Jaccard, they really are essential tools. Be sure you hit every part of the skirt steak with the tenderizer. The beef will flatten out.

Season your steak on both sides with a little kosher salt and pepper. Mix your feta with some Cavender’s if you’d like (I likes a lot).

Press the feta on to the flattened steak, then cover with a double layer of fresh spinach.

Start from one of the short ends and roll the steak up like a cinnamon roll, yum…. cinnamon….. Sorry, the meat fibers should run parallel to the direction you are rolling. Toothpick the end of the steak back into the rest.

Season the outside with salt and pepper and cook for 25 min.

Slice in 1 inch think “rolls”.

Brown Butter Hollandaise

Melt the butter in a sauce pan on medium heat, shake the pan occasionally.

Once melted it will become foamy, keep cooking and shaking, or stirring, occasionally until it clarifies and brown flecks appear, about 5 min. Cook a little longer, until the butter smells a little nutty. Turn the heat down to low.

Egg yolk and lemon

While the butter is cooking, whisk the egg yolks and lemon juice. Then add it slowly, while whisking, to the melted butter. Don’t stop whisking ever, if you add the egg and lemon too quickly the egg will cook and coagulate and you’ll end up with lumpy hollandaise rather than smooth and creamy hollandaise. Smooth and creamy is always better.