Party Cut...My Preferred Chicago Style

One mention of pizza from Chicago and the average American immediately assumes you are talking about Chicago Style Deep Dish Pizza ala Lou Malnati’s, Giordano’s or Gino’s East. But no, my true passion for Chicago pizza involves a much lighter version than the deep dish. It’s the pizza makers that produce that incredibly addictive thin crust pizza in the Windy City that have won my heart over.  Sometimes called Chicago Style Thin Crust, this pizza is not cut into triangles, but instead cut into squares and the presentation is known as the Party Cut. Who wouldn’t love pizza served in a Party Cut!  This pizza has a thin crust that is a bit sturdier and chewier, sometimes a bit crispy, compared to a traditional NY style pizza.  Typically the pizza is made with a zesty pizza sauce.  There is no folding a Chicago Style Thin Crust slice!  You can find this incredible pizza at a number of Chicago classic pizza joints including Aurelio's, D ’Agostino’s, and my personal favorite…Pat’s Pizza. Oh, how I crave for that delicious thin crust pizza from Pat’s! Pictured here is their awesome Sausage and Green Pepper pie (Pepperoni and Onion is equally as fantastic) which I enjoyed during my last visit to Chicago in October 2016 when I had the once in a generation opportunity to catch the Cubs in the World Series! Go Cubs Go!

RECIPE: A Big Salad (with a lot of stuff in it!)

Ok, so I need to credit Larry David and Jerry Seinfeld for that most amusing phrase uttered by Elaine on an episode of Seinfeld when ordering her favorite salad at a diner. “It’s a big salad, with a lot of stuff in it!”   Gosh, that kills me.

What’s the point?  I made a fantastic Greek salad last night for dinner (and yes, it had a lot of stuff in it).  During the summer, I love to enjoy refreshing homemade salads made with fresh herbs and veggies from the local farmers market.  I caught this recipe being prepared by one of the most prominent Greek chefs in the country, Michael Psilakis, one afternoon on an episode of Martha Stewart. Yes, I enjoy food so much I will even sit through a segment of Martha Stewart to learn something new!

A couple things make this salad a standout.  Lots of flavorful ingredients, including fennel, dill, kalamatta olives, feta, roasted red peppers, and grilled sweet onions.   The Red Wine and Feta Vinaigrette is ridiculously good and very easy to put together.  Grilled sweet onions make an appearance in the blender for this vinaigrette and add a sweetness that really sets this dressing off.  This is optional, but for a bit of additional protein, I like to add some sliced grilled chicken breasts that I have marinated in lemon juice and olive oil with oregano, thyme, rosemary and red pepper flakes.  This is one killer big salad that would stand up to even Elaine's demanding standards! 

Big (Greek) Salad

Ingredients

2 Large Organic Chicken Breasts

Juice of 1 lemon

8 – 10 sprigs of fresh thyme

1 tablespoon of fresh rosemary

1 tablespoon of dried greek oregano

Juice of one lemon

1 large sweet onion, thickly sliced

Extra-virgin olive oil

Coarse salt and cracked black pepper

1 large head iceberg lettuce, very thinly sliced

1 pound whole trimmed bulbs of fennel, sliced crosswise paper-thin

Roasted Bell Peppers, or 4 small store-bought fire-roasted red bell peppers, cut into strips

24 cherry or grape tomatoes, halved

3/4 pound English cucumber, peeled, halved, seeded, and thickly sliced

8 scallions, thinly sliced

1 red onion, very thinly sliced

1/2 cup small fresh dill leaves, coarsely chopped

1/2 cup small fresh flat-leaf parsley leaves, coarsely chopped

1 tablespoon dried Greek oregano

25 – 35 Kalamata olives, pitted and halved

3/4 cup Red Wine and Feta Vinaigrette (recipe to follow)

2/3 cup crumbled feta cheese

4 pepperoncini, sliced

Directions

Preheat a gas grill to medium heat.Pound chicken breasts to uniform thickness of ½ inch thick or so. Sprinkle chicken with thyme leaves, rosemary, salt, pepper, red pepper flakes, and marinate in juice of one lemon and 2 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil for at least thirty minutes.  When the grill is hot, grill for 6-8 minutes per side, until the chicken is completely cooked and reaches an internal temperature of 165°F.  Set aside to cool for at least 5 minutes.

Preheat a griddle or cast-iron skillet to medium heat. Brush sweet onion slices with olive oil and season with salt and pepper. Place on griddle and cook, turning once, until tender, 4 to 5 minutes. Remove onions from griddle and separate into rings.  Place grilled onions in a large bowl along with, lettuce, fennel, roasted peppers, tomatoes, cucumber, scallions, red onion, dill, parsley, oregano, and olives; toss to combine.

Drizzle salad with vinaigrette and toss until vegetables are well coated. Top with feta, sliced chicken breast and add pepperoncini; MANGIA ADESSO!

Source: Adapted from How to Roast a Lamb: New Greek Classic Cooking by Michael Psilakis

Red Wine and Feta Vinaigrette

Ingredients

1 small onion, sliced 1/4 inch thick

3/4 cup extra-virgin olive oil, plus more for onion

Coarse salt and freshly cracked black pepper

1 teaspoon freshly squeezed lemon juice

1/2 cup red-wine vinegar

6 fresh basil leaves

1 teaspoon fresh thyme, leaves

1/4 cup crumbled feta cheese

2 tablespoons Dijon mustard

6 cloves garlic, smashed

2 shallots, thinly sliced

2 tablespoons dried Greek oregano

Directions

Preheat a grill pan. Brush onion slices with olive oil and season with salt and pepper. Place onions on grill pan and cook, turning, until tender, 4 to 5 minutes. Transfer to a small bowl; drizzle with olive oil and lemon juice. Toss to combine.

Transfer onion to the bowl of a food processor along with vinegar, basil, thyme, feta, mustard, garlic, shallots, oregano, 1 tablespoon salt, and 1 tablespoon pepper; pulse to combine.

With the processor running, slowly drizzle in 3/4 cup olive oil until dressing is smooth; season with salt and pepper.

The Beginning...

Benvenuti!  I’m not quite sure why I have decided to start a blog. I am not a particularly good writer, and rarely do I have a profound perspective that I feel compelled to share.   I guess I have decided to blog because…a) I need to get more comfortable and savvy with the social media wave that is taking over the world and b) I am looking for one more outlet to express my sincere passion for something that is very close to my heart.  Food!

Mangia Adesso means "Eat Now" in Italian. It should come of no surprise that I am of Italian-American decent, hence my use of a couple of the Italian words I actually know.  (We Italian-Americans are a proud people, potentially a bit over confident thanks to the enormous popularity of the cuisine of our mother country).  The title conveys my intense desire to eat great food, at every opportunity. I do not want to waste even one meal by eating something that is not satisfying.  Now…my definition of great does not necessarily mean four-star gourmet. It can simply be a meal prepared with high quality ingredients, with some degree of skill, by someone that actually cares if the person who eats it will enjoy it!

I am a good cook, with aspirations to become a better cook. My intent here is not to share recipes with each blog post, because honestly, there are much better resources to use than me to track down good recipes. (I may from time to time share some winners, however).  I guess my true intent of this site will be to share any number of gastronomic tales that I wish to memorialize in a blog.  This may include a restaurant review, an enjoyable market or festival experience, my opinions on culinary entertainment and personalities, personal views on nutrition and wellness, family traditions, and the occasional recipe hit or miss.

I think it will be fun to have an archive of my culinary experiences throughout the year. Hopefully, others may find bits of value, inspiration, humor, or at least the minimal amount of entertainment needed to justify the ten minutes they dedicate to reading it! 

Everything I know about cooking I learned from… The FOOD NETWORK! Ha! You probably thought I was going to say my mother, my father, my Nona, or someone like that! Well, believe it. Don’t get me wrong, both my father and mother are great cooks, however, I never really paid that much attention when I was young to what they were actually doing when preparing my meal.   Nope, it was the Food Network. I was just out of college and had a finance gig in Chicago with fantastic hours. I was usually home to my apartment in the early evening, just in time to catch some great cooking shows before dinner.  (Come to think of it… my first true exposure to learning to cook was probably watching the Frugal Gourmet cooking show on PBS when I was a kid. That show however probably leads to a discussion beyond the scope of this blog, therefore I prefer not to expand on my enjoyment of that show and/or views of its host (google it).

So what did I learn from food network?  My first true culinary teachers where Emeril Lagasse, Tyler Florence, Rachel Ray, Bobby Flay, and last but not least, Mario Batali. Ah yes, Mario, my fellow Italian-American  paisan. Dang, if he didn't have a few nuggets of knowledge to pass along during every show of his phenomenal Molto Mario series. (If you have not seen the show, I highly suggest scouring the web or searching you TV schedule for it. I think re-runs now air on Cooking Channel).  Just the sound of the silly Italian theme song makes me crave for his Mozzarella en Carozza!

What did I learn from Mario? There are a few critical items needed to produce a great dish…high quality ingredients, simple, straight forward techniques, prepared with love. This is the Italian way, and this is what produces that incredible family dining experience.  Kosher salt, fresh herbs, high quality extra virgin olive oil (he used Frantoia on the show, it’s awesome), red pepper flakes, sharp knives and zest, zest, zest.  Do NOT put oil in your pasta water, it will make the pasta slippery and the sauce will not adhere to the pasta. In Italy, it is all about the pasta, the sauce is the condimento. And whatever you do, for gosh sakes please DO NOT OVERCOOK THE PASTA!!   Probably the best lesson from Mario is to make sure all of your diners are seated at the table when you drop the pasta in the boiling water, because when it is Al Dente, I am going to yell MANGIA ADESSO and you better be ready!