Cooking Light Recipe Test: Nor-Cal Veggie Sandwich with Hazelnut Butter

Here's another food I saw on Instagram and instantly wanted.  It's a vegetarian sandwich.  While I'm not vegetarian, I appreciate a meatless meal.  I usually feel less weighed down and in need of a nap without the meat.

How amazingly fresh does this look?  I was suckered in by the pretty picture.

As it turns out, this should be called the $30.00 PITA sandwich.  Whether it was worth it is certainly debatable for me.  The ingredients sent me on a scavenger hunt around Indianapolis.  The sandwich was a considerable amount of work and it was very expensive to make.  I may be a foodie at heart, but by the time I finished all this, I think I just wanted a meatball sandwich from Subway.

Nevertheless, here's the original recipe:
http://www.myrecipes.com/recipe/nor-cal-veggie-sandwich

And here's the journey it took to get to the finished sandwich.

It all started with finding hazelnut butter.  While I was in the grocery section at Target, I checked just in case.  They had almond and peanut butter, but no hazelnut butter.  I wasn't surprised though, so I called Fresh Market (no, and was hung up on in the process) and Whole Foods (also no).  I could order it on Amazon for about $14.00, but then I'd have to pay that much and wait for it to be shipped.  I decided to follow the instructions in the recipe to make my own.

The next time I was at Marsh, I tried to buy hazelnuts.  They didn't have them.  So off to Fresh Market.  I purchased .7 lbs of pre-packed hazelnuts and artichokes for about $14.00.  But Fresh Market didn't have sprouts.  So off to Whole Foods for the rest of the ingredients--another $15.00.  And a fun adventure through pillaged aisles since there was snow coming that night.

Evidently the first thing they run out of at Whole Foods before a blizzard isn't milk, bread, or eggs...it's bagged salad!

I also ended up swapping sweet pea shoots for the radish sprouts since my husband isn't a big fan of sprouts--he thinks they feel like hair in his food.  The stems are slightly wider than radish sprouts.

Four stores later, I had the ingredients (finally), it was time to begin.  A little online reading turned up a useful nugget of info: if you're not used to natural nut butters, leaving the skins on hazelnuts can make the final butter too bitter for your palate.  And toasting the hazelnuts imparts a nice flavor.  With that info, I started to peel the hazelnuts.  It was impossible.  The skins refused to move.  More online reading turned up this tip: boil the hazelnuts for a few minutes with a few tablespoons of baking soda.  This worked well.  The skins released easily afterwards.

If you use the boiling water with baking soda method to remove your hazelnut skins, don't be concerned when the water, your pot, and your utensils turn black.  It left ashy residue on everything.  Here are some of my hazelnuts taking a bath in boiling baking soda water so I could peel them.

After peeling the hazelnuts, I toasted them for about 15 minutes at 350.  They had a nice golden color.

After they cooled, I added them to my blender and proceeded.  The final product using a blender was not as smooth of a butter as I prefer.  It wasn't a terrible texture, but it wasn't creamy.  It definitely tasted more "natural."  The flavor itself was fine.  If I do this again, I'll use less mayo,  I'll either use a tiny bit, or perhaps just a drizzle of oil.  I noticed the mayo too much for my taste.  Definitely don't forget to salt the butter.  I tasted before and after, and liked it much better after some salt.

The final product using .7 lbs. of hazelnuts was a softball-sized glob of hazelnut butter.

I let the hazelnut butter sit overnight--at that point I'd done enough work!  I also used the artichokes for double duty--made Moroccan chicken with charmoula that night and served the artichoke as the vegetable.  My husband had never eaten artichoke petals before, so it was an adventure for him.  I kept the hearts for the next day.

Double duty artichokes: dinner the night before included the petals.

The next day was sandwich day.  I began by pan frying slices of the artichoke hearts in the olive oil as instructed.  I ate one slice and really liked it--I never realized how yummy artichoke hearts become with some crispy, golden brown edges!  Then I assembled the sandwiches--the hazelnut butter, golden artichoke heart, dressed arugula, avocado, and pea shoots subbed for the sprouts--on Silver Farms Squirrelly sprouted bread.  I served with a side of veggie chips since sandwiches and chips just go together.

My sandwich, served with veggie chips.

Close up of the side of the sandwich.

The final product was alright.  I would've liked this sandwich a lot more open faced.  The delicate veggies got a little lost with that much bread.  I figured this out halfway in.  Beyond this too much bread issue, the sandwich was nutty and fresh but nothing special.  I think I probably enjoy a sandwich or wrap with cucumbers, sprouts, some bell peppers, olives, and some pesto or chipotle mayo more because there's more crunch and moisture.  I'm glad I tried this...and now I have leftover hazelnut butter for breakfast, sprouted bread for toast, arugula for salad, and pea shoots for something yet to be determined.  But overall, it was a lot of work for a sandwich that was just okay.

If I make it again and do some modifications, I'll update this review.  But for now, I think my next sandwich will be something more straightforward.

Insider tip: buy the hazelnut butter.  And call your grocery to make sure it has all the ingredients, or you'll be on a grocery scavenger hunt for awhile.

Copycat version of Chef Gerald Chin's apple salad

Early this fall, I saw the most beautiful salad on the Food and Wine magazine Instagram. Per the photo, it was an apple salad with endive, radicchio,toasted pecans, white cheddar, and a maple emulsion made by Chef Gerald Chin.  Chin is Executive Chef at Chef Michael Mina's Stripsteak at Mandalay Bay in Las Vegas.

Bliss in my Instagram feed.

I immediately knew that I wanted to try this with the apples in the overflowing bowl of produce on my kitchen counter.  My husband and I had just driven from Indianapolis to where he grew up in Evansville for the town's annual fall festival.  On the way, we stopped at Slater Farms Market, a cute farm stand alongside U.S. 41 outside of Terre Haute, Indiana.  Outside, there were rows of mums and bins of pumpkins for sale.  Inside, there were all kinds of fruits, vegetables, preserves, and cider.  I didn't even know there were so many types of Indiana apples!

Rows of mums and pumpkins greeted us at Slater Farms Market.  Stop by for a visit!  They're located at 15102 U.S. Hwy 41, Terre Haute, Indiana 47802.  Call for hours since they're open seasonally--(812) 696-5122.

Almost ten kinds of Indiana apples for sale at Slater Farms Market.

More Slater Farms Market scenery--mums and huge pumpkins.

Loads of pie pumpkins, just $.79 each at Slater Farms--last time I bought one, I paid about $3.00 at Kroger.

Huge pumpkins at Slater Farms Market.

We ended up buying a butternut squash, cooking pumpkin, a zucchini, big bag of Granny Smith apples, a tutti frutti candy stick (for me), and a root beer candy stick (for my horse) for less than $10.00.  In hindsight, I wonder if something was rung up incorrectly because that much produce would be more like $30.00 at Fresh Market.  The apples were begging to be transformed into the gorgeous apple salad, so I got to work on my imitation.  With more methodical cutting of the produce, I could have better mimicked Chef Chin's dish.  Regardless, mine tasted amazing.

I started by washing all produce, preheating the oven, and whisking together a tablespoon of olive oil, a teaspoon of maple syrup, and a tablespoon of white balsamic vinegar.  I adjusted the proportions to taste slightly, then repeated to double the amount of dressing.  Last, I added a dash of salt and white pepper.  While my version of maple emulsion sat on the counter for the flavors to meld, I started on the salad.  I put a pan of crushed pecans in the oven to toast for about five minutes at 300 degrees.  After trimming away the bottom of the apple and stem, I sliced horizontally in thin slices.  The seeds and core were visible in the center of the slices.  With more patience, I should've tried for thinner slices.  I was hungry though!  Then I cut away the center of each slice to remove the core and seeds.  It looked like a donut of apple when I was done.

Next, I tore the endive and radicchio leaves into small pieces.  To the novice cook, here is an important note--don't substitute red cabbage for raddichio.  When I went to Marsh for ingredients, they didn't have radichio and endive, so I ended up making a stop at Fresh Market.  The difference matters.  Radichio has a clean but bitter-ish flavor and delicate texture.  Red cabbage is thick and waxy.  I added these to a bowl and chopped a few chives into the mix.  Then I grated some white cheddar--just a little bit--about one ounce.  Last, I added the pecans and two spoonfuls of the dressing and combined the ingredients to make sure the dressing was incorporated.  I diced up the little remnants of apple and a slice that went awry so they wouldn't go to waste and added them to the mix.

To assemble the salad, I drizzled a spoonful of the maple emulsion on the plate.  You can't see it because our plates are red, but it was a very pale yellow.  Then I added some salad mix, topped with an apple slice, and built the salad using a smaller slice of apple each time.  Last, I added an extra sprinkling of chives over the top of the salad.  The presentation was pretty, architectural, but invitingly fresh.  Be sure to include a knife in your place setting so this is easier to deconstruct.

My husband was impressed.  We both enjoyed the light sweetness, punctuated with the flavor of chive or the white cheddar.  We enjoyed this so much that I made it again a few nights later, but with some butternut squash soup.  This is definitely a first course or snack, not an entree salad.

The finished product--my layered apple salad with maple emulsion.  Chef Chin's was definitely prettier.  How it could taste better is beyond my comprehension though since this was amazing, even with my non-chef touch.

Beautifully bright and fresh.  This would be beautiful on a white plate so you can appreciate the pale color of the maple emulsion.

The next time I made this, I served it with a big bowl of butternut squash soup.  It isn't enough for a meal.

Also of note, I tagged Chef Gerald Chin and Chef Michael Mina in my photograph of the imitation version of the salad.  I was a little worried they wouldn't take me trying to copy them at home so kindly, but it was quite the opposite.  They both responded with follows and kind words, which made me a little starstruck.  Yes, you can be chef starstruck!  It also made me happy that they took my imitation as flattery.  I bet they're really nice guys in person.  One of my new travel goals is to get back to Vegas so I can go eat at Stripsteak now.  

Insider tip: use your sharpest knife and cut the apple slowly, or you'll end up with slices that are too thick to be aesthetically appealing.  If you're having vegan guests, omit the white cheddar.