Sara's Weeknight Meals

I'll take this guy. There is nothing better than hot bread fresh from the oven. I'm a big fan. And because bread is the foundation of the easiest meal to make, I'm devoting the whole show to sandwiches. They're portable, delicious, and not just for lunch. One of my favorite meals on a bun starts with picadillo, the wildly popular ground meat dish from Latin America. It's filled with good stuff. Olives, dried fruit, and spices. What's not to love? I serve mine in a hot dog bun from New York's Hot Bread Kitchen, a collective that trains unemployed women to work in bakeries. They make some of the tastiest bread around. We'll visit their incredible kitchens and meet some of the women who've gotten a leg up through this worthy organization. On Ask Sara, I'll answer a viewer's question about vanilla beans and show you some cool things to do with them. And then, another great sandwich. Roasted vegetables and fresh ricotta. How fresh? So fresh, you'll make it yourself. And I'll show you how. What's between the bread? Between you and me, we'll find out next on Sara's Weeknight Meals. Thank you. - You're welcome. (upbeat music) -

Sara

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The 2016 Subaru Legacy. With symmetrical all-wheel drive plus 36 mpg, it pairs well with every kind of road. Subaru, proud sponsor of Sara's Weeknight Meals.

And thanks to the generous support of

Today's show is all about the bread. And as we know, you can't have bread without bakers. In New York City, we found an extraordinary bakery that trains unemployed women to work in bakeries. It's called Hot Bread Kitchen. My name is Larisse Sango from West Africa. My name is Shadea Jackson and I'm from Harlem, East Harlem. My name is Jessamyn Waldman Rodriguez and I'm the CEO and founder of Hot Bread Kitchen. I started Hot Bread Kitchen because I recognized that there was really an opportunity to help women get better jobs in the culinary industry while at the same time, meeting a demand in the market for really delicious breads. Early on, there was a lot of figuring it out, there was a lot of big successes, and there was a lot of big challenges. We run a commercial operating bakery and we have a training program for women. And the women in that training program staff the bakery. So many of the breads that we sell are made by women that are really just learning how to bake. The Bakers in Training program is a nine month paid, on-the-job training program. And in nine months, you will learn everything like baking, mixing, baking any kind of bread. When you finish those nine months and when they see you're ready, they will graduate you and they will find you another job somewhere else. -

Jessamyn

And thanks to the generous support of

We have women working all over the city. And in doing so, we're really changing the face of the gender of an industry. To be honest with you, I wanna do a backflip in the store. Because my hands made that. You know, so it's like, "Wow, is this really being sold? "Wow!" You know, it's just a shock, surprised, ecstatic. It's just a lot of emotions in one. It feels like we're creating a launch pad to real careers of the future and it's really exciting for the women that we serve. I'm learning to become a baker, a real baker. Yeah. Today, I'm gonna be making picadillo sloppy joes using Hot Bread Kitchen bread. But you know, if you wanted to make your own bread, this is a wonderful cook book. And if you bought it, it gives money to the organization and helps create jobs. So picadillo is a Latin American dish. It's very traditional. It consists of ground meat and sort of a tomato-y sauce with olives and raisins. Although, today I'm gonna use prunes. We'll talk about that in a minute. And it's traditionally served over rice. But today, I'm gonna put it on a bun. We're gonna make it into a sandwich. Okay, I'm gonna start by chopping my onion and getting it in a pan. Onion gives a great depth of flavor. Little bit of oil. I'm gonna use olive oil. Now, this is a good dish because it just takes no time at all. But also, because this is a sort of thing you could make a triple batch and freeze it. Freezes beautifully. Just get this in there. Here, lay it out nicely. We don't wanna get too much color in them, we just wanna soften them. Just stir. I'm gonna give it a pinch of salt. You should season as you go. Don't wait until the end. Pinch of salt. Kosher salt. Okay, so three cloves of garlic. We're gonna mince. And then, let me talk about ground meat. I'm gonna grind my own today, because I like to know what went into my ground meat. If you buy something at the supermarket that's just called hamburger or ground beef or 30% lean, or whatever they say, you don't know what went into it. I mean, I'm not saying they threw in random stuff, but it's all parts of the animal, and I don't want all parts of the animal. I wanna know that it came from one part. But you know, even better, just do it yourself and then you can see what goes in there. So you wanna keep it cool. I've frozen my meat cubes for 30 minutes just to make sure that when they're ground up, it's still pretty cool. I didn't let the meat overheat. And you don't wanna handle it too much. Okay, while these cook, let me get my meat out and we're gonna grind it. So, 30 minutes. It's been cut into one inch chunks. It's chuck, which is one of my favorites when I want flavor, because chuck has the right percentage of fat to lean. I mean, a pretty high percentage of fat. So if you wanna make this leaner, you could certainly use a leaner cut of meat with a lower amount of fat. That would be fine. Like ground round. That would be a good choice. It won't be as flavorful because fat provides flavor. So here we go. So we wanna pulse this, 'cause we don't wanna end up with mush. Let me see what I've got. Yeah, I'm gonna give it a few more. No, actually, I think that's quite good. See, it looks nicely ground. Even if you have a few big pieces, with picadillo, that's not a problem. Okay, I'm gonna do the second ground. The double blades in this machine really help to grind it up evenly. Alright, that was about four pulses. Isn't that incredible? I bet you didn't realize you can "grind your own meat." But you can, it's so simple. Alright, into here. And let me add my garlic to the onions and rinse my hands. Give this a quick stir. Let me just rinse my hands 'cause I just had them in all that ground meat. Alright. So I'm gonna turn up the heat under the pan 'cause we wanna get this cooked pretty quickly. We don't want it to steam, we want it to saute. There I got my hands all hamburgery again, so I'll just rinse it off. And we're gonna stir that up and let it cook. So this will just take a few minutes to get some color on it. Okay, time for the pimento olives. We need a half a cup chopped. You could certainly use other olives if you want, but these are pretty traditional. Just a rough chop. Okay. And then we're gonna add a cup of water, which I'm just gonna get from the sink. There we go. And the can of chilies. And these are just mild chilies, these canned chilies. You could certainly roast your own. I'm just draining them a little bit and I'm gonna press down a little bit. You could roast your own chilies. You know, serranos, jalapenos, poblanos, if you wanted a little more heat. And then we're gonna add one cup of chili sauce. I know this is just about a cup, right there. And that's it. For a few minutes, we just wanna let this simmer for about 15 minutes. We want all those flavors to come together. This is delicious right off the bat, but it would be even better if you could let it sit over night. Alright. Now I'm gonna chop some prunes. Now, we all know that prunes are good for our digestive health. You know, people joke about it. But hey, that is no joke, it's important. And that's because they're very high in fiber. But I've recently learned some other things about prunes that I didn't know. And this one is for us. Ladies, you and me. It's very good for bone health because they are high in potassium. So this is something you might wanna start adding to your diet. Plus, prunes are low on the glycemic index. And what that means is that when you eat prunes, yeah, they're sweet, so you say, "Oh my god, quick energy." It's not quick energy, it's energy that stays with you. So you eat them and you feel energetic for quite a while. So these guys just get chopped. You can also buy them chopped, which I highly recommend for something like this, 'cause they're a bit sticky. But that wasn't so hard. Okay, so in they go. And we're gonna simmer this for about 15 minutes. Okay, I'm gonna cut up these. Aren't these beautiful hot dog buns? Now, there's two ways you can cut 'em. You can cut 'em this way, which is the sort of more traditional way or you can do it the New England way. This is what we do for lobster rolls. Well, I'm gonna do it this way 'cause it's gonna look pretty. Okay. Now let me taste and see where we're at. Actually, I'm gonna add a little hot sauce, 'cause I love my hot sauce. And because we've got some sweet things in here, namely the tomato and also the prunes, we know that this is gonna be a little sweet. So the chilies will work nicely with that sugar and make it not seem quite so sweet and be more balanced. And then, as if that wasn't good enough, we're gonna add a little lemon. I just wanna see if it needs any salt. Oh, I'm so glad I added that hot sauce. No, it doesn't need any salt. I'm gonna add a little regular pepper and a tiny bit of lemon, 'cause the lemon helps to balance that sugar too. So we've got a lot of umami ingredients in there. Namely the meat and the tomatoes are high in umami. Go right in. Okay, that is looking good. I think we're ready to serve this up. So you can find these wonderful buns online. You could order them from hotbreadkitchen.org. Which would be great, 'cause, again, it would support the program. They're just really wonderful. Or you could just use your regular supermarket. Wow! Doesn't that look fantastic? I mean, really, you saw how quick that was. This has got everything going for it. It's sweet, it's salty, it's sour, it's spicy, it's yummy, it's dinner, it's a sandwich. Yay! Perfect weeknight meal. I get all these great questions on my website and I have a particularly good one today. It's from Alex from Ventura, California and it's about vanilla. And there I have you. Hi, Alex. Hey, Sara. - So you're a baker and you wanna do more baking. Tell me your dilemma about vanilla beans. Yeah, thanks for taking my question. I am trying to be a better baker and I've noticed that more advanced recipes call for vanilla bean, instead of vanilla extract. And I don't know the first thing about using vanilla beans, how to store them, or how to use them. And I also want to know, are they interchangeable with extract? Yes. Okay, alright, let's start. I have two suspects right here. Here we have a vanilla bean. And you can see it's nice and pliant, it's nice and fresh. Here's how you use it straight up. And the reason to use it is it has a much floral, more intense aroma and taste than extract. So how you use it, and they'll usually tell you in the recipe, but I'm gonna tell you in a minute how to go from one to the other. From extract to bean. As you cut it down the middle, right down the middle. The length of it, right? You go all the way down. On both sides, you have to separate it. 'Cause what you wanna get out is the insides, the vanilla seed. And then you scrape out the seeds. That's where the flavor is. So when you scrape it with a knife, it all comes out on the knife. You see all that black stuff at the end of it? Yeah. - So that is what you add to the recipe usually. Sometimes you add just the seeds, sometimes you add the split beans. So sometimes you'll put it into, say, a liquid, you're making a creme anglaise and you're infusing it. A creme anglaise is a custard sauce. And then you take it out and these seeds will stay in. But the bean, you're like, "Eh. "Okay, it's done, I should toss it." Don't toss it. We know they're a little bit pricey. So you rinse the pod. This is after you've used it. You dry the pod and then you can put it into sugar, just a canister of sugar. And what will happen is it will infuse the whole jar of sugar with the flavor of vanilla. So when you have your coffee, you have your whatever, you sprinkle it on your strawberries, the sugar. Wow, you got the vanilla. Okay, but here's another idea. You can make your own vanilla extract. So you start the same way. So again, you cut the bean. The length of it, all the way down. You don't have to scrape out the seeds for this. And you need about seven to make a batch, but this batch will last you forever. And then you cut it into lengths. Okay, and you find a little one cup jar, which we've got right here. So you transfer your split cut pods. Then there'll be seven of them, not just one. And then you top it off one cup of either bourbon, rum, brandy, or vodka. It depends on what your favorite thing is. And then, this very complicated recipe, huh? Vodka's the traditional one, but you might want the flavor from those other alcohols, you might prefer it. But this would be a great gift for any occasion. You can make a whole batch. And then you just store it out of the sunlight, shake it every couple of days, and after eight weeks, you have homemade vanilla extract. Yum. Now, one last thing you asked. The difference between vanilla extract and vanilla bean. How do you translate one for the other? Let's say you wanna add bean in place of extract. So the rule is, for every teaspoon of vanilla extract, you use one inch length of a vanilla pod, okay? And scrape out the seeds, put in the bean, put in the seeds. Did I answer your question? Yeah, thank you. I loved it, the whole tutorial on vanilla extract. Now, if you have a question that you'd like to ask me for Ask Sara, that we can do on the show, please reach out to my website, saramoulton.com. Star of the next sandwich I'm making, which is a grilled vegetable sandwich with cheese, is the cheese 'cause it's homemade ricotta cheese. The first time I ever made it was at Gourmet Magazine. It's a recipe from the magazine from the creative director named Richard Ferretti. He made it all the time with his family. And it's a complete magic trick and it's so ridiculously simple. But let's start with the vegetables first, I'm grilling them. You can roast them. Just get the oven at 400 degrees and throw them in brushed with a little olive oil, salt and pepper, like I'm doing here for the grill. What you wanna do is just cook them, so that all the natural sugars come out, so they caramelize. And that will happen either on the grill or in the oven. I've meanwhile have also put into the oven, a little package of garlic cloves. I'm gonna roast them, so they get nice and sweet and we're gonna mash that and add that to the ricotta. So here go my tomatoes. And I'm gonna just take off these other vegetables. I've got zucchini and eggplants and tomatoes. You can use whatever vegetables you can find that are in season that day. There we go. Okay. So, here's what goes into the cheese. Four ingredients. I've already got a quart of milk in there. I'm now gonna add half a cup of heavy cream. A little bit of salt, like a quarter teaspoon would be good. And that's kosher salt. Now, we're gonna bring this up somewhat slowly, to a full rolling boil. Stir it, so it doesn't scorch on the bottom, 'cause that can happen with dairy products. Now, you may be wondering, why is she using such a deep pan for so little liquid? It's because when the milk boils, I don't know if this has ever happened for you, it comes up and goes over the top. We don't want that to happen. I've got my lemons down here that I nuked. It's my favorite way to get the juice out. And we want about a tablespoon and a half or two tablespoons of lemon juice. Out of this whole recipe with all that milk and all that cream, you only end up with about a cup of ricotta. But oh, boy, it is the best ricotta you will ever taste. And you made it. Okay, so let that come up to a boil. Just have to be patient. Let's see how my tomatoes are doing. Alright, as soon as you start to see it come up, stir in the lemon juice and turn it down. Okay. You see what happens? Look at that. Doesn't it look awful? But that's what you want it to look like. You're seeing the curds. Now we just let it simmer for a minute and then we're gonna strain it. If you get no curds, add more lemon juice. I've set up a very deep bowl here. It's lined with a strainer that's lined with some cheesecloth. You could certainly use just a dampened paper towel if you wanted to. That would be fine too. And we're gonna let this drain for about 10 or 15 minutes. The longer you drain it, the tighter it gets. The more structure it has. If you eat it right away, it's very, very creamy and soft. Right now, you can see what it's like. See, it's very, very soft. I think I'm only gonna give this like five more minutes, 'cause it's draining so quickly. Let me go get my garlic. I'm gonna mash it up, because I'm gonna flavor it with a little mashed garlic. You could leave the garlic out, but I just think it's a nice addition. And when you roast garlic like this, in foil in an oven, it just gets so wonderfully-- Whoops! It is hot. So wonderfully creamy and sort of sweet. It's not that intense garlic, which some people, it's just too much. It's just really nice. I'm just gonna cut it in half, so I can squeeze it out. I could've roasted it ahead of time and cooled it off, which would've actually made my life much easier than using my asbestos fingers here. So I'm gonna add that to here. But before I do, I just wanna pause and show you. Look at all that liquid. There's some more still coming out of it. You can use that liquid in baking sort of where you would've used milk. You don't have to throw it out. Okay, here it comes. We're gonna plop this right into the bowl with our garlic. Wow! This ricotta, we'll keep in the fridge for a couple of days. It's fresh, so eat it while it's fresh. And we're ready to assemble our sandwich. Like for each sandwich, we're gonna want about a quarter of a cup of this because this is about a cup. That's some beautiful rustic wholegrain bread. And our vegetables, I'm gonna put a little bit of everything. This is a vegetable Dagwood. Why not? Oh boy. Whoa! And to go with this, I've toasted off some kale leaves. There we go. So they become like chips. You see this? Some kale leaves and some parsnips. These are parsnips that you just slice on a mandoline and you can even slice them with a peeler, then toss them with olive oil, salt and pepper, and pop them in the oven. I'm gonna take this outside. It's a beautiful day. A well constructed sandwich is a satisfying solution for a wonderful weeknight meal. Put any number of healthy ingredients between two slices of bread and dinner is served. I'm Sara Moulton. See you next time for more of Sara's Weeknight Meals. Sara's Weeknight Meals continues online. For recipes, helpful tips, messages, and lots more, visit us on the web at saramoulton.com/weeknightMeals. And go to our YouTube channel, Sara's Weeknight Meals TV.

Funding provided by

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Advertiser

Funding provided by

The 2016 Subaru Legacy. With symmetrical all-wheel drive plus 36 mpg, it pairs well with every kind of road. Subaru, proud sponsor of Sara's Weeknight Meals. -

Sara