The Engine Room

The Engine Room in Mystic, CT should definitely be on your to do list for fine breweries and gourmet dry aged beef burgers. My friends and I went there over the weekend and when we arrived we opted to wait at the bar for the circular booth to have  our dinner which was by far the best seat in the house. How fun was it to sit at their very fun bar sampling the specialty beers on tap. Our favorite was the Corendonk Abbey Blonde ale that was amazing with hints of citrus so delicious and smooth bringing beer to a new standard.

The restaurant itself has that very cool industrial look which I adore having a vast, yet warm, inviting feeling as though you are at some chalet. Our dinners were delicious from the turkey burgers to the homemade in house pastrami that was juicy and tender and their fries are to die for…may have been my favorite, The Caesar salad made with spinach was a refreshing change from the usual romaine and a citrusy dressing that was addictive and of course their gourmet dry aged beef burger goes with out saying …tender and melted in your mouth . I would highly recommend a visit here and you may want to make a reservation because they do attract a crowd.

If you like Caesar salads you may want to try my Caesar salad and Italian garlic croutons:

Italian Garlic Croutons

Italian garlic croutons are super easy and such a hardy and tasty addition to any salad! I keep the crust with these garlic croutons because it gives them more texture. My favorite salad with these Italian garlic croutons is a Caesar salad which I’ll be posting tomorrow so keep an eye out. These don’t last very long in our kitchen but if you do have a few left over after several days just put them in a Ziploc baggie and pop them into the freezer.

Above you can watch the Cooking Show on how to make my gourmet garlic croutons!

INGREDIENTS: Makes 12 -13 cups of Croutons – 1 Ex-Lg Ziploc Freezer Baggie of Croutons:

• 1- 1 1/2  large loafs of good Italian bead (14-15 cups croutons-use 1/2 stick butter and 3 tbsp olive oil if you have 10 cup of bread cubes)
• 4 large garlic cloves put thru garlic press
• 1/4 cup olive oil
• 3/4 stick butter (salted) melted
• 4 tsp garlic granules (not powder) – Sprinkle 2 tsp per cookie tray
• 1 tsp salt
• A couple dashes of your favorite hot sauce Siracha -you can find this with the other hot sauces at the super market
• 2 cookie trays

DIRECTIONS:

1. Pre-heat oven to 400º
2. Slice bread into 3/4″ slices length wise
3. Then slice into 3/4″ squares, you don’t want them to be perfect – that’s what’s lovely about hand made croutons they don’t look like they came from a box
4. Melt 3/4 stick of butter
5. In a large mixing bowl add 1/4 cup olive oil, 3/4 stick melted butter, 4 garlic cloves thru garlic press, 1 Tsp salt, and whisk  to mix
6. Divide this mixture into two and pour onto the 2 cookie trays spreading them evenly all over the tray
7. Divide up Italian bread cubes into 2 and put onto the 2 cookie trays right on the olive oil mixture
8. Stir the cut up bread cubes all around the cookie tray to evenly coat and soak up all of the olive oil mixture. I use a pastry scraper (see photo) to do this…a tool which I use a lot!
9. NOW sprinkle 2 Tsp of garlic granules on each of the cookie trays filled with Italian garlic croutons
10. Put into the oven for 12 minutes
11. IMPORTANT – they go quickly at the end so you really need to watch them so they don’t burn
12. Let the Italian garlic croutons cool before putting them into a Freezer Ziploc baggie
13. I usually keep them on the counter for a few days then throw them into the freezer to store and keep fresh

You may also like to try these recipes with your croutons:

Lavender Honey & Fresh Ricotta on Crostinis

This lavender honey and fresh homemade ricotta is a different and really delicious appetizer to make or even bring to a party. If you were to bring this to a friends house you’ll want to keep everything separate and let the guests put the dollop of ricotta onto the crostini and drizzle on the lavender honey because it is to hard to travel with plus it presents well when you have them all separate. There are some lovely flavors going on here between the taste of the sweet lavender flowers in the honey, the creaminess of the ricotta and the crunch of the crostini…what an amazing trio! It’s such an easy appetizer to make your friends will think you slaved over making the ricotta. This dish would be really nice paired with a citrusy or fruity white wine like a Alain Paret 2011 Cotes Du Rhone Blanc at around $15.99 has big ripe peaches on the palate that’s great with apps or poultry.

Ingredients:

• Fresh homemade ricotta recipe
• 1 jar really good lavender honey from your local specialty cheese shop or market
• 1 crostini recipe

Directions:

1. Make the homemade ricotta and the crostinis
2. Put the ricotta in a bowl and place onto a wood cutting board stacking the crostinis in a pile and serve with a drizzle stick or small spoon in the honey jar

You might also like to serve up some other appetizers like:

Eggplant Rollatini

Eggplant rollatini’s are one of my favorite things to make or should I say any fried eggplant dish is for that matter! I watched my mother fry eggplant when I was little and have been frying up eggplant now for over 30 years…since I was a teenager. Eggplant rollatini is one of those delicious Italian comfort foods and it’s always better the next day when re-heated. It is a little bit of a process but if you just organize yourself like I’ve shown you in the photo’s you’ll get it down to a science.

You should fry up at least 2 large eggplants…I usually try for 3. I like to fry up 3 eggplants because I freeze them when they are completely cooled in between layers of thick durable Bounty paper towels in a freezer Ziploc baggie. This way all your base work is done for you and you are able to pull them out of the freezer and whip up eggplant rollatini, eggplant Parmesan, or even eggplant lasagna. When you take them out of the freezer they pop apart easily too. My mother taught me the old Italian way of removing the bitter purple juice from the eggplants by slicing, salting the layers, placing a weight on top and letting the eggplant sit in the frig for 2 hours up to overnight.

I recommend making my slow cooked pasta sauce to go with the eggplant which can totally be make days, even weeks ahead and put into the freezer and ready to thaw when you need it for a dish like this. The homemade ricotta you can also make the day before or just treat yourself and buy Liuzzi Cheese ricotta or your favorite store brand. Planning, planning, planning is sometimes the name of the game for taking the labor out of scrumptious food like this where if you get it done in steps it make everything go smoothly.

If you love eggplant as much as I do you really need to check out Eggplant Balls, Paleo Eggplant Lasagna, and Pickled Eggplant. Then you might be moving on to your satisfy a sweet tooth with “Death by Chocolate Meringue Pie” and another that should go unnoticed is Chocolate Pecan Pie! Enjoy! 🙂

Ingredients:

• Slow cooked pasta 101 recipe
• Homemade ricotta recipe or store bought ricotta (Liuzzi Cheeses, North Haven,CT if you are in the neighborhood)
• 2-3 large eggplants
• 6 extra large eggs whisked
• 3 cups seasoned Italian bread crumbs
• salt
• Mozzarella block cut into 1/4″ slices
• 3 1/2 cups canola oil for frying
• Cookie racks
• 1 whole roll of Bounty Paper Towels (it’s important to get quality paper towel so they will absorb the oil properly and won’t fall apart)

Directions:

1. Slice the ends off the eggplants
2. Using a potato peeler peel off all the skin of the eggplants
3. Slice up eggplants length wise into 1/4″ slices
4. Layer the eggplant slices in a large glass bowl
5. In between each layer sprinkle 1/4 Tsp of salt, and keep layering eggplant, salt, eggplant, salt…
6. Cover with Saran wrap and place a small plate on top and then some heavy fry pans or large tomato can to weight down the eggplant and into the frig for 2 hours up to 1 day
7. Drain the purple juice from the bowl
8. Take the eggplant and pat them dry in layers between Bounty paper towels
9. Whisk eggs
10. Get your line-up of bowls in order: eggplant slices – whisked eggs – bread crumbs
11. Add 3 1/2 cups canola oil to a large sauce pan and begin to heat up on medium/high heat
12. The oil needs to get to about 300º -The temperature will go down a little when you start filling the pan with breaded eggplant slices
13. Lay out 2-3 cookie racks covered with layers of paper towels to absorb oil for frying
14. Add slices of eggplant to the egg bowl in batches
15. Then dip into the bread crumbs and into the heated oil
16. Put 4 slices of breaded eggplant into the oil at a time…
17. They will fry for about 2-3 minutes per side til golden then flip the slice over
18. While the 1st batch is frying get the 2nd batch ready to fry dipping into the egg and then into the bread crumbs and let them sit there on the bread crumbs til they are ready to go into the oil
19. Once the eggplant are golden place onto cookie racks with paper towels and dab them with fresh paper towels, flip and do the same to the other side to remove all excess oil
20. Throw away oily paper towels and re-place with a new set of paper towels for the next batch and replace with each batch there after
21. Then place the eggplant onto the wire cookie racks with out paper towels to cool
22. Finish frying the rest of the eggplant going thru the same procedures
23. Get out your favorite baking dish and cover the bottom with sauce
24. Scoop a dollop of fresh ricotta onto the fried eggplant slice as shown above
25. Place a 1/4″ slice of mozzarella onto ricotta and roll up
26. Place the rollatini into baking dish and repeat with the remaining eggplant slices
27. You should allow for about 3″ room for each rollatini (they expand when they are baked)
28. When you baking dish is full top with more past sauce, sprinkle with Parmesan cheese and cover with foil
29. At this point you can either put into the frig until you are ready to bake them or put them into a pre-heated oven at 350º for 55 minutes and then remove foil and 5 minutes more in the oven
30. Remove the foil add a sprinkle of grated mozzarella and pop the baking dish back into the oven for an additional 8 minutes
31. Take out let sit for 5 minutes and serve!

Pickled Raw Beet Salad

If you love beets as much as I do then you will want to try this quick and easy pickled raw beet salad. You don’t even boil the brine mixture. You slice the beautiful chioggia beets and red onion on a mandolin so they are very thin, add the liquids and the salad is ready in a matter of hours. The sweet naturally striped beets are called chioggia and they come in an assortment of vibrant colors like pink and golden hues with darker pink or white swirls going around.  The best place to find this kind of assortment is at a Whole Foods Market.

This marinated raw beet salad is a very refreshing dish. The addition of the red onion is amazing…sometimes I think the pickled red onions might be my favorite part. I also add sheep’s milk feta to this dish because that creaminess balances out the crunchiness of the beets and red onion. Now with my quick and easy version of pickling I have found that there isn’t any difference if you marinated them for 3 hours or 24 hours. The only drawback of the 24 hours is that the vibrancy of the stripes get somewhat muted on the beets. The crunchiness and flavor of the beets and red onion is the same so it’s advantageous to only allow the 3 hours so you keep them looking beautiful. You can serve this pickled combo on a bed of arugula with sheep’s milk feta, crumbled garlic croutons and mint leaves and you’ll have yourself a lovely appetizer. Some other appetizers you could serve with this baked coconut shrimp, smoked salmon on crostinis with a cream cheese-caper spread, guacamole, or fresh mozzarella, pesto and roasted tomato on crostinis.

Ingredients:

• 3 or 4 chioggia striped beets
• 1 medium red onion
• 1/4 cup olive oil
• 2 Tbsp red wine vinegar
• 2 Tbsp rice wine vinegar “seasoned” (it comes seasoned or unseasoned)
• 1/4 Tsp salt
• 1/2 Tsp coarse Italian seasonings

Directions:

1. Slice the beets and red onion on a mandolin
2. Put them into a medium bowl
3. Add the olive oil, vinegar’s, salt and Italian seasoning to the sliced beets and red onion
4. Cover with Saran wrap and put into the frig for 3 hours
5. Serve on a bed of arugula with crumbled sheep milks feta, crumbled garlic croutons and mint leaves