Paper Chef #8 Cigar Holiday Edition

"Honey, turn on your instant messager!" Yes, I admit it, I'm always yelling this same request in the general direction of Jack and his computer. You might think I'd just get up and walk into the other room and tell him whatever it is I want to share, but that would be inefficient, as it's usually a link to something I want him to see. In this case it was the link to the latest Paper Chef.  I've been meaning to try this challenge for a while now because it reminds me so much of an old favorite, the BBC cooking show Ready Steady Cook.

Naturally once he had the link I got up and walked into the next room, "So what do you think?"
"Interesting."
"Yeah, but do you want to try it?"
"Could be interesting."

I took that as a yes. Cheddar cheese, olives, spinach and either potatos or cream. It's a fiendish list. The rest of our evening sounded like this:

"Hmmm... perhaps a type of Spanakopita... we could cream down the cheddar, and... I have NO idea how olives would work. I don't suppose we could use olive oil?"

"Well, maybe a nice savory, herby scone...?" Jack looked doubtful, "Too easy."

"We could do some sort of variant on the goat cheese, olive and chorizo pasta... wait. Damn that cheddar!"

"What about building up from some sort of base consisting of shredded potatos with spinach and cheddar-- you know, a kind of rosti hybrid or a tartiflette variation-- and then we could... um... stupid olives!"

I should add that we were on our second bottle of wine and sharing a cigar (hey, it was a holiday weekend!). So it's no surprise that I suddenly fixated on Le Tableau's amazing WIld Mushroom Cigar with Manchego Cheese Fondue. Eureka! We'll make a savory spinach cigar with a fondue of some really wonderful cheddar! Yes, okay, we stole the idea, and we are not ashamed. By the way, the Wild Mushroom Cigar is an amazing dish and if you're anywhere near NYC and you haven't been to Le Tableau, you should rectify that deficiency immediately.

For the cigar filling we sauteed two chopped shallots with two slices of bacon (cut into 1/4 inch strips) and about a tablespoon of olive oil. We added about 2 cups of baby spinach to the skillet, removing it from the heat to cool as soon as it wilted. We then added about 1/4 cup of ricotta, a pinch of parmesan and four chopped green olives to the spinach/bacon/shallot mixture and seasoned it to taste with salt and pepper.

That amount of filling made four cigars. We used frozen filo dough and how you deal with the pastry will depend on what size and shape you've purchased. Ours was about 16 x 24 inches and made two cigars per sheet. We laid out a sheet of thawed) pastry, cut it half to make two rectangles about 8 x 12 inches, and spooned the filling along the short edge, about and inch from all sides. We folded in the long sides, and then rolled it up like... well, like a cigar. We brushed the outside with an egg wash and then baked them on a nonstick sheet at 350 F for about 10 - 12 minutes.

Our fondue consisted of white wine, two types of white cheddar (one sharp and one mild), a couple whole peeled garlic cloves, and cream.

I have to say it was not up to the standards of Le Tableau's Wild Mushroom Cigar. But it was, as Jack put it, "a qualified success."

Comments

[2-minute Noodle Cook]

Hey this is really interesting dish which doesn't seem to have travelled to the dining scene downunder. Would really like to try cooking (eating) myself. The chocolate fondue thingy kind of made a comeback, but haven't seen the cheese fondue yet.

[Ann]

Noodle Cook: if you do try it, cut back on the bacon a little-- we found it to be slightly too overwhelming in taste. In fact, you'd probably do better to try to make a mushroom cigar. :-)

[sarah]

LOL! cute dialogue :) and the cheddar fondue sounds fabulous, though i'da had a mind to just eat with a spoon ;)