Quick crowd-pleasing snacks

I had a bad day last week and when I’m not feeling my best, I often find that taking refuge in the kitchen helps. This particular day just happened to be the day before a neighborhood gathering so I had a potentially receptive audience as opposed to making something that I’d have to eat by myself (my true love is traveling in her professional life).  The gathering called for post- (or maybe pre-) dinner finger food and I wanted to do something different than chips and guac/salsa.  I decided on one thing I’ve never tried before and one old standby.

Let’s talk about the stand-by first, sweet picked daikon radish.  Unfortunately I forgot to take a picture so I don’t have any documentation but if you stay with this blog long enough, you’ll see a picture.  I make this with some regularly. The full recipe is below but this is really a no-brainer but absolutely delightful.  It takes a total of about 15 minutes of real work (and a few hours of refrigeration) but the results are a perfectly bright yellow disk that is sweet, tangy, and has the bite of a radish.

My other snack was a cheese crisp.  I don’t know why I’ve never tried this before although it could be that if I have cheese available, I’d rather just eat the cheese than do something with it.  But looking for inspiration, I was browsing through one of my favorite cookbooks, Sally Schneider’s A New Way to Cook and saw her take on cheese crisps.  Since I had a nearly full container of grated parmesan reggiano I wasn’t going to use in the next few days, I had nothing do lose.

I mixed the cheese with a little flour and then ground a bunch of fresh pepper into the mix.  I have to confess that freshly ground black pepper is one of my favorite flavors and I’m likely to go a little overboard whenever pepper is involved. 

Scoop about 1/3 of a cup in a hot skillet as evenly as you can.  The cheese will start melting almost immediately so you have to exert a little care in trying to spread the cheese as evenly and thinly as you can.  When the little bits of the cheese start turning brown, you can take it off the heat. If the skillet is hot enough, we’re talking about a minute to a minute and a half.  I’d place it on a cutting board next to some paper towels or parchment paper.

Let the bubbling cheese settle down for about 30-60 seconds.  Then slip a spatula under one edge of the cheese, and surprise (!!), it comes right off the bottom of the skillet. Gently lift it out of the skillet and lay it down on the paper towel/parchment paper so the cheese will calm down and crisp up.  

There might be some crumbs left in the skillet which you can scoop out to the crisp and then wipe out the skillet and start over.  By the time you finish, you’ll have a series of roughly cylindrical cheese crisps that are absolutely delicious.  These can then be served as is or broken up into pieces.

My first batch was parmesan reggiano with black pepper.  I’ve since made it with pecorino and black pepper and gruyere with cayenne pepper.  The possibilities are endless.

Recipe – Daikon pickles

Ingredients

1 lb daikon radishes, peeled and cut into 1/4″ disks

1/4 cup kosher salt

1 cup rice vinegar

1 cup water

1 cup sugar

1/4 tsp turmeric

Directions

Mix the radishes in the salt in a colander and set aside for at least an hour over a towel.  When ready, thoroughly rinse the radishes to get rid of the excess salt.  This technique draws some of the water out of the radishes, improving the texture, bringing out more of the radish flavor, and adding a little saltiness. Transfer to a non-reactive bowl.

Mix the vinegar, water, sugar, and turmeric in a saucepan.  Bring to a boil to dissolve the sugar and then let cool.

Pour the liquid through a strainer over the radish slices.  Cover and refrigerate for at least 4 hours.

Recipe – Cheese crisps

Ingredients

4 oz grated cheese (parmesan reggiano, pecorino romano, gruyere, swiss, etc.)

1 tbl flour (if you use commercially grated cheese, you may need to add an additional tsp of flour)

seasoning (start with 1 tbl but increase/decrease to taste) (black pepper, cayenne, was el-hannout, Old Bay, etc.)

Directions

Mix the cheese, flour, and seasoning.

Scoop out between 1/3 and 1/2 cup and spread evenly and thinly on a hot skillet. When the cheese starts melting and parts of the cheese start turning brown (about 60-90 seconds) remove from heat and let sit for 30-60 seconds. Lift one edge of the melted cheese and scoop out the cheese to a waiting paper towel or parchment paper.  Let sit for at least 2-3 minutes.