A hearty nibble or two or three of miscellaneous ingredients on toasted bread — how can that NOT be good? This is one way to mop up the various odds and ends in your fridge after a busy holiday season… There was some manchego cheese, lots of tomatoes in all shapes and sizes, basil, sliced salami, roasted red peppers and cured salmon or gravlax and two-day old sourdough bread. Turn your oven or oven toaster up to high… I chopped up the tomatoes, added a bit of salt and pepper, drizzled with olive oil and a hit of red wine vinegar and let that stand for a few minutes.
Slice your bread thinly or thickly, whichever you prefer, brush with a touch of olive oil and toast until crisp. Rub surface of the toast with a bit of raw garlic. Top with tomatoes, salami, salmon, cheese, etc. You can melt the cheese onto the bread as well. Serve with any leftover wine you might have. Yum. I have done a post on bruschetta before, here.
42 Responses
Hi MM,
This is mouthwatering! Did you use local tomatoes? By the way, I think it should be “lots of tomatoes in all shapes and sizes” rather than “lots of tomatoes or all shapes and sizes”.
anne, thanks, edited. And yes, local tomatoes.
This is my kind of food anytime of the day being either merienda or a meal! Easy and delicious!
I love my salmon with rocket on top! Yum!!!
Hi MM! Reading your posts is one of my law school study break routine :) I am flying to Cebu on the 21st to fulfill my dream of tasting Zubuchon lechon. I am just an ecstatic fangirl :)
ooooh. so creative with this! i usually end up making fried rice …
I am happy with even just the toasted baguette slices drizzled with olive oil and smeared with those ooey, soft roasted garlic topped with cheese!….there goes the diet!
MM, Gejo….if you guys have a lot of leftover basil, besides making pesto….make this: maybe 2 to 3 cups of olive oil in a caldero…heat it up but not too hot more like warm it up, then add lots of basil, lots of garlic and a few pepper flakes then simmer till garlic gets soft…ALL PURPOSE flavoured oil that you can use to paint on your baguette slices. Our favourite merienda….barbecued eggplant slices marinated in vinaigrette and then over the melted cheese slices in previous comment up above.
The flavoured olive oil…I portion them and FREEZE!
This is really nice MM. They all look great together too. Where did you get your sourdough? L’Artizan/French Baker? Poilane? – He he. Or did you bake it yourself?
Betty Q – I’ll do that! Thanks! Did you receive my e-mail?
Hi MM,
Was about to leave a note in your Contact Us page but all I saw were 3 small boxes with * on top of each one plus a big box for comments. Wasn’t sure where the Name/Email/etc goes so I’m writing my comments here. You can remove the post or don’t publish it if you prefer.
I had a few pork-y meals that I enjoyed and thought of suggesting it to you for your Zubuchon restaurant or personal experimentation.
1. Toronto’s Porchetta – if you end up in Toronto one of these days, it’s a must-try for a pork lover like you. They sprinkle the ‘palaman’ with chicharon. The pork belly and the sandwich itself was soooo good.
https://porchettaco.com/
2. Pork belly pie from Ferg Bakery, Queenstown, NZ.
i can’t find their website but it’s the ‘sister’ company to Ferg Burger. meat pies are popular in NZ and on a recent trip, we got to try their lamb and pork belly versions. the pork belly reminds me of paksiw – slightly vinegar-y. maybe you can do a lechon paksiw pie. email me if you want to see a picture i took as i can’t find any online.
Yup, got it, Gejo! What you doing up this late?…starting your seeds? Hey, do you believe in planting when it is full moon? I know Italians do!
MM…if you want to try Sunflowii’s suggestion…how about using Chinese short-cut puff pastry …no kaliskis but more like a flaky turnover sold at Chinese bakeries here. I will search for the recipe in my Tupperware and send it to your R&D dept. It is fool-proof! I use it to make curried chicken turnovers.
It is morning here in CA and I am looking at these bruschetta. I can totally forget all about breakfast and dive into these. Bettyq, I was looking in the archives for empanada crust and came across yours. Were they the same recipe for the kuchay-ah. I found a recipe from the internet and tried to do it a couple weeks ago but did not fry them. I baked them. Came out so so. I need a better palaman. Also the recipe I got were in grams so I have to recalculate into cups and spoons. MM,I would love to get a callos recipe if you have one. Thank you.
Same question, MM. Where did you get your bread?
I had to re read the ingredients to figure out the roasted red peppers. I thought they were a very RED ham.
bakerwannabe: Are you referring to the dim sum chive pancake? What I have and make more often than the kutchay ones are the turnovers…like the ones you eat at dim sum …turnovers that looks like sausage rolls but filled sometimes with curried beef or bbq pork. Is that the one you are looking for?
Gejo…make sure you have really clean utensils and the basil. washed and dried very well and same with the garlic. Remove the solids. After infusing, pass it through a coffee filter and not a strainer. Discard the solids and freeze the olive oil. Don’t know if the weather there is getting hot but do not leave your infused olive oil at room temp…breeding ground for bacteria!
Bettyq yes exactly. The turnovers I mean not the chive pancake. May I have the recipe if you do. We used to buy these at Quick Snack along Carvajal street. Ah … memories of long ago and youth bygone.
hi bettyq!
the meat pie we had looked more like this than a turnover (no need to read the contents of page but they have a good picture):
https://www.newgrounds.com/bbs/topic/1200992
the cute thing about our lamb pie was that it was topped by a pastry cut-out of a lamb. so it’s like a double-crust-top (?) but in the shape of a lamb. maybe MM can do one with their zubuchon logo.
Nice! Those were really leftovers?!? You may want to open a kiosk next to Zubuchon (or maybe 3 storefronts away), called Leftovers by MM. I’m sure people will go there still.
if our leftovers looked this good, heck, eating leftovers won’t feel like “eating leftovers”
Bruschetta topped with all those yummies are good enough for lite dinner..with good wine and fruits.I do shop for salmon, salami,prosciutto,artisinal bread and cheese,to create those little bites!! now i am starving ,just looking at the posting.
I agree with becky and the rest. The little effort that you put in goes a long way, no matter if it’s simply “salvaging” leftovers. Aaahhh! The art of living and the joy of eating….. :-)
MM, curious also to know where you usually get your bread..specifically the rustic kinds. I think it makes a big difference when making bruschetta. Thanks!
Hahaha! Why didnt I think about it before? Very nice inspiration. Hooray to upcycling food!
L’Artizan for bread — sourdough, whole wheat, etc. :)
As a pregnant lady who just wants to devour anything with carbs, this post makes me happy. Thank you :)
i think i can do this.. ^_^
Thanks for the tip betty q! Is the heating what makes the basil-infused oil more susceptible to bacteria? Kasi, I also marinate my feta cheese in olive oil with fresh oregano and rosemary leaves (plus black pepper, coriander, fresh bay leaf). Although I keep the feta with herbs mix refrigerated, is the mix as susceptible to bacteria as the basil oil? Is there a rule-of-thumb limit to refrigerated feta with fresh herbs before it becomes unsafe?
Thanks MM, Lartizan then. Happy Sinulog1
Gejo, it is the garlic the garlic that poses a problem. Because garlic is buried underground and might carry the undesirables for they are found in most soils…root vegetables! But once they are pulled out and then exposed to air, the bacteria is SKADOOSH as Kung Fu Panda would say! I think that is why they are cured first by hanging them besides prolonging their shelf life.when RAW garlic lalo na is just buried in olive oil, the oil acts as the barrier so air cannot get in and that will just make the bacteria really happy … COOKING kills them…safest way to store garlic in olive oil! It is not the heating that makes the infused oil “iffy” .It is what you put in RAW as in RAW GARLIC and just store it without heating the oil that is unsafe…even if you heat the oil and still put raw garlic after…still unsafe!
Now let’s talk olive oil marinated things even infused oils. I think that if you just leave them at room temp, they wil go rancid really quickly. Herbs you use to infuse any oil…BEST if they are washed, cleaned and DRIED yourself. You don’t know how the dried ones were prepared. MOst people say that you can store marinated feta in the pantry. I WOULDN’T!!!!!!!!!! If I make a small batch to eat all of it within 24 hours, then I will leave it out. OTHERWISE, I will store them in the cooler and consume them within 2 to 3 weeks. That is why there is a BEST BEFORE DATE stamped on the containers at grocery stores.
bakerwannabe…the first comment on the MM’s empanada post is the one you want. Ok…now, to make it easier on you…refrigerate the first dough so it relaxes the gluten making it workable. keeping it cold before you roll it makes it easier to roll out as well…just the same…refrigerate the paste (second dough…patting it into a rectangle between sheets of wax paper and refrigerate it as well till it is easier to handle and you can peel off paper on top of the rolled out first dough.
The yield would be about 24 depending on the size you want. Fill it with whatever you want. I prefer curried chicken….refrigerate the filling first so it sort of solidifies making it easier to portion and not oozing out….best if not too saucy! You can stuff it like sausage rolls or half moons or like purses. Brush with egg wash before baking. Better yet, make ADOBO filling!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Thanks Bettyq. I got the recipe from the post. you mentioned another recipe similar to the Chinese bakery. Is it the same as this one or different. Please have patience with my questions and requests. I am kinda AR when it comes to baking.
Bakerwannabe…the first one is the baked kind…similar to dimsum stuffed pastries..curried beef mostly. The second one which is a lot more labour intensive is the deep fried one. If you want the deep fried version, make sure your oil is not too hot..you do know the Chinese way of testing if the oil is ready…the chop stick method!
Somewhere buried also in MM’s archives is my MIL’s recipe of the deep-fried savoury pilipit (don’t know what it is called in Chinese) which she used to make near Chinese New Year. It is really excellent and highly addictive!
Nope, I don’t mind…ask away! If I can help, let me know! You don’t mind, do you, MM?
mouthwatering indeed. i like the one with cured salmon on top and no tomatoes for me due to acid reflux.
thanks MM for the inspiration.
betty q: interesting notes on garlic (comment #25 above). All along I understood that garlic contained natural anti-bacterial properties, and that bacteria couldn’t thrive in any oil due to the absence of water. Hmmm…. seems I need a bit of reeducation. Thanks! :-)
Thanks betty q for the valuable information. So basic it seems, but I did not know. That’s why I have always been hesitant to consider selling salad dressings, marinated cheese, infused oils, etc. Like you Papa Ethan, I did not think raw garlic posed any bacteria risk.
I buy a fairly large block of feta cheese , which I don’t think the family can finish in 2 – 3 weeks. Is there any other way of prolonging the life of the feta I don’t include in the first batch I marinate? Can feta be stored in the freezer (like I do with mozarella)?
Gejo…something to keep in mind is that the bacteria DOES NOT thrive in an acid environment! Salad dressings generally has acid added in various forms….vinegars, lemon juice and such! Also for it to thrive, it has to have the right conditions. When you make salad dressings, you put it in a blender or whisk it thereby incorporating air into the mixture. I do not claim to be a microbiologist …but I still remember certain aspects of microbiology I took in school! As with anything that is not processed, then it should be refrigerated and but has a shorter shelf life. You can still sell your salad dressings provided you put them in a sterile jar, and keep it refrigerated and stamp a BEST BEFORE DATE! But once you receive your toy, you can process anything in it…it is the same brand as what MM has!…bacon-green tomato chutney, spicy smoked tinapa chutney, etc. This is what is on my to-do list this winter!
Garlic …the ones you generally buy has been cured for a few months and has been exposed to air. Which makes me wonder now…I have seen people in the garden just rinse, clean with their hands freshly dug carrots and eat them?!? But then again, maybe the carrots meet their fate when combined with the gastric juices and the bacteria is skadoosh!
I have never frozen feta before for it gets consumed within 8 hours! Howver, it can be frozen. Maybe wrap in cacha so the moisture will be caught by the cacha and will not get freezer burn? Then put tin zip plock or air tight container. It might turn more crumbly but you will crumble it anyway when you add them to salads and other goodies!
my children always love bruschetta…just tomatoes,basil leaves,olive oil,salt and a hint of onions…yummm…so easy to make…quick too…
Thank you betty q! Now to buy cacha…
I just recently threw away a little mozarella from the ref that already developed the blue grey veins that can be seen in blue cheese. MM must have been amused (or appalled) when I asked whether they were still edible – ha ha! MM of course said no.
As for the freshly dug carrots – maybe they have beneficial micro-organisms as well – ha! I routinely pick leaves from the farm and eat without even washing them, and have eaten freshly dug and rinsed carrots as well (maybe I was taking chances).
My, you are a brave soul, Gejo!
Thanks for the tip MM, will try L’Artizan indeed!
Looks yummy MM. Good thing I found L’Artizan again in their stall near Rustan’s Supermarket in Makati, I used to stop by Mickey’s Deli just to get their sourdough but then it closed. Do you get your tomatoes from any particular place? I find a lot of our local tomatoes aren’t as tasty as I would like.
Just an update seems they have L’Artizan in Rockwell too beside the supermarket. :) Hooray for sourdough and baguettes anytime. Hehe.
I will DEFINITELY suggest these ideas here at home. The surplus of food after the holidays is just mind boggling! There is a surplus of wine and booze, too, but those never really last here anyway :P
i love making bruschetta. it’s a good way of using left-over bread, meat and other food you may have. a good excuse of not cooking dinner, as well. simply add some cheese, fruits and other antipasti to go with it… open up a bottle of barolo or amarone… you’re good to go! dinner is served ;)