Posts Tagged With: Barber of Seville

Monegasque (Monaco) Entree

BARBAJUAN

INGREDIENTS – DOUGH

2¼ cups flour (3 more tablespoons later)
1 tablespoon olive oil (1 tablespoon and 3 more cups later)
½ cup water

INGREDIENTS – FILLING

1 bunch chard leaves (maybe ¾ pound)
enough water to cover chard leaves
1 small white onion
1 tablespoon olive oil (3 more cups later)
⅔ cup grated Parmesan cheese
2 eggs (1 more egg later)

INGREDIENTS – ASSEMBLY

1 egg
3 tablespoons flour
3 cups olive oil

Serves 4. Takes 1 hour 30 minutes.

PREPARATION – DOUGH

Add 2¼ cups flour to large mixing bowl. Gradually add oil and water. Knead by hand with each addition. Stop adding water when you form a dough ball that isn’t sticky. Put in refrigerator for 30 minutes.

PREPARATION – FILLING

Remove chard leaves from stems. Slice chard leaves into ½” squares. Add enough water to cover chard to large pot. Bring to boil using high heat. Add chard to pot. Blanch chard for 5 minutes. Drain. Mince onion. Add onion and 1 tablespoon olive oil to pan. Sauté at medium-high heat for 5 minute or until onion softens. Add chard leaves, onion, Parmesan, and 2 eggs to 2nd large mixing bowl. Mix with fork, or by hand until thoroughly mixed.

PREPARATION – ASSEMBLY

Add 1 egg to cup. Beat egg with whisk. Dust flat surface with 3 tablespoons flour. Roll dough out on flat surface to 0.1″ thickness. Make 3″-wide circles from dough. (A glass cup works well for this.) Add 1 teaspoon filling to the middle of each circle. Fold dough circles in half to make half moons. Brush edges with egg. Press down on edges to seal half moons. Add 3 cups olive oil to deep, large pot. Heat oil using medium-high heat. Oil is hot enough when a bit of dough dances in the oil. Carefully add half moons to pot. Fry half moons until they turn brown and blister. Flip half moons enough to prevent burning. Drain on paper towels.

TIDBITS

1) The little known opera, The Barber Juan, also known as Barbajuan, opened and closed on May 5, 1795,

2) The great opera, The Barber of Seville, by Rossini, premiered in 1815.

3) Europe’s decades long, Napoleonic Wars ended in 1815.

4) Coincidence?

5) Perhaps.

6) Look! Look! Two one-word tidbits in a row.

7) Alas, the single-word tidbit streak was broken by the tidbit immediately above.

8) Let this be a lesson to us all. Think before you type.

9) Think before you drink and drive.

10) If you really must do something after getting pickled to the gills, may I suggest drinking and typing?

11) The great American novelist, Ernest Hemingway was supposed to have said, “Write drunk. Edit Sober.”

12) But, in fact, he never said that. Indeed, he always wrote while he was sober.

13) Why?

14) He probably knew that if he wrote while drunk, the quality of his writing would plummet.

15) How far would his prose fall?

16) Probably to the point where he’d be writing such memorable lines as, “Iggy piggy poo. Q1c3 4fvt, 7jmk, UIo97*.”

17) It is worth nothing that any human could type the bon mots, “Iggy piggy poo, and the illustrious Hemingway certainly thought he could write better than any human.”

18) But even more damning to Hemingway’s literary soul was the undeniable fact that all the words after “Iggy piggy poo” could have been made by one of his cats walking from left to right across his typewriter. And Papa Hemingway was certainly vain enough to want to out write his cats. So, he always wrote sober. Now you know.