Friday, August 05, 2011

THE ITALIANISED QUESADILLA



I have that great food writer Elisabeth Luard to thank for this inspiration:  in her book The Latin American Kitchen she gives a quesadilla recipe which uses red peppers and in the UK I used to make a variation using pickled cactus supplied by an American friend, the recipe having been given by Luard in a BBC interview. 

Having wanted to Italianise this recipe for a long time, I decided, for no particular reason, that tonight was to be the night: I had planned to use Sicilian red pesto in the filling but at the last minute discovered that, in my haste in the supermarket, I had picked up the wrong jar and purchased the variety that contains sardines.  As I am allergic to all fish, I couldn't use it. There I was with the oven pre-heated and my tortillas cut so I desperately searched the store cupboard for a substitute. The only item that I thought might do was a jar of sun-dried tomatoes in oil - here we are lucky enough to be able to buy big sun-dried tomatoes cheaply by the kilo and put them in oil ourselves - so, thinking that the result would be OK-ish but not spectacular, I went ahead. And, though I say it myself, the finished sort-of-quesadillas were delicious! Here's what I did:

First, cut each of eight flour tortillas into eight.  [For "real" quesadillas you leave them whole and fold them over but I like my snacky food smaller.]  On half of them, sprinkle some grated grana or parmesan cheese and add a sliver of Emmental or Gruyère.  Dollop a slice of drained sun-dried tomato on top, add a bit of chopped parsley, then place all these slices on a baking tray covered with baking parchment.  Now dampen the edges of the remaining slices and press them on.  [It won't matter if they don't quite stick.]  Brush the tops with olive oil, bake at 180 C for about 7 minutes and Roberto's your uncle! Sprinkle some more grana over the tops while still warm and serve warm or cold.  Ummm - I think I'll go and have another.

5 comments:

jams o donnell said...

It looks very tasty indeed Welshcakes

Patricia said...

Sounds delicious!

Welshcakes Limoncello said...

Thanks, jams.

Gledwood said...

Is the pickled cactus prickly pear?

I don'tknow if you read the post ( you know I post every bit of fucking rubbish that happens to me) I bought an unidentified cactus with BEAUTIFUL red flowers that turned out to be uterly FALSE ~ I pulled 'em out and they were on the ends of particularly vicious cactus-wounding toothpicks.

Anyway since then it's grown a hell of a lot. Probably due to ambient moisture as I've only watered it once in 3 months...

I don't know if this is relevant. I went back on my meds (naughty boy I had stopped taking them thinking they made me depressed then I foud out they CUREdepresion even though they're antimanics anyway I'm now hyped up quite nicely and in a lovely "elevated mood" as my dr called it. And I still feel really guilty for calling Simi a swine. I did used to call my roborovskis "itchy swines" too. May I say in mitigation.

I've practically given up the you know what now. Total waste of time. Don't miss it at all.

Welshcakes Limoncello said...

Thank you, Patricia.

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