Feast of Prosciutto

It was time to entertain in the Mad Oilman house. With the Flesh Off being postponed, Mad Oilman's need to make tasty food for friends was denied. This will make up for it. But what to make?

I had just made an excellent broccoli recipe from a magazine. It involved prosciutto. I wanted to serve this as a side. So I decided to create an entire menu with prosciutto as an ingredient in each. Pulling out the various cookbooks in the Mad Oilman arsenal, the menu was settled upon in less than ten minutes.

Appetizer/Salad

Prosciutto San Danielle with Apple Salad
From Mario Batali's 'Simple Italian Cooking', this is a very simple yet amazing combination of flavors. A salad of three types of apples cut into matchsticks, thinly sliced radicchio, olive oil, red wine vinegar and poppy seeds. Served on a bed of San Danielle prosciutto.

Entree

Prosciutto Wrapped Roast Loin of Beef
From Jamie Oliver's 'The Naked Chef Takes Off', this is an interesting recipe. Take a 2 pound or so beef tenderloin, roll it in fresh herbs, then wrap it in prosciutto and porcini mushrooms. My guests willbe guinea pigs on this one as I've never made this recipe.

Vegetable

Broccoli con Prosciutto al Forno
From The March 2005 issue of 'Tastes of Italia' this was made last weekend for the first time. Broccoli blanched, basted with butter and chicken broth, dusted with a bit of nutmeg and a large bit of Parmigianno Reggiano, and blanketed with prosciutto. Baked.

Starch

Risotto Milanese con Prosciutto
Standard issue (f there is such a thing) Risotto Milanese but finished with ribbons of prosciutto.

Menu complete it's off to Central Market. As it it 10 am on Saturday morning, Mrs. Oilman thought it might be fairly quiet. Unlike the usual mayhem that Central Market is on the weekends. Well no such luck. Seems it was tourist season (really). It was a struggle to get through but we clawed and scraped our way through the store, smashing carts, removing obstacles in our path despite the malignant stares of the obstructors. 'This may be your adult Disneyland but this is my weekend grocery store. Dammit! Begone suburbanites! I banish you to Foodtown!'

Back home time to get busy.

Step One. Roll that beautiful piece of beef in a couple handfuls of thyme and rosemary. With some salt and pepper for good measure. (and yes, the beautiful piece of beef in its natural glory should be Step One. Or at least Image One. But Mad Oilman was lost in the prep work and forgot to document until this image. What do you expect from an amateur?)

Next up is laying out the prosciutto wrapper. That's about 18 slices of prosciutto.

Now for the mushrooms. Dried porcini mushrooms reconstituted and sautéed with butter and garlic. For good measure, add some more butter when they are finished to create a smooth rich mixture. This part smells really good

Action Shot! Mad Oilman spreads his mushroom mixture across the prosciutto blanket.

Mushrooms distributed. Yes it looks like there are more on one side than the other. The filet tapers. As the meat gets wider, so do the mushrooms. Mad Oilman may be an amateur but he has a bit of snap.

Meat in position. Now comes the fun part. Rolling.

Action Shot! Rolling in its initial stages. Since this was the first attempt at this process, the learning curve was steep. Cookbooks and recipes can only take you so far. You're on your own for the rest.

Action Shot! Rolling nearing completion. The thinness of the prosciutto really makes this a challenge.

Finished! Now it's time to transfer this beast to the roasting pan.

In the pan. Porcelain. Been a winner for a while. The roast is a bit of a tight fit but this is the biggest pan in the Mad Oilman collection.

Action Shot! Slicing up apples for the salad. Unfortunately there is not a finished product photo of this most delicious salad.

Intermission

By now the guests have arrived. Most of the heavy lifting has concluded, dishes just need to be finished. Good conversation and it's time to serve the salad. Roast in the oven, risotto stopped at the near moment of completion and the broccoli prepped and ready to hit the oven. Mad Oilman plates the salad and joins his friends for this fine first course. Of course the oven timer rings in an instant although 20 minutes have passed. Excusing myself, Mad Oilman goes to the kitchen to add the two cups of wine to the roast. Oven door opened and the smell is incredible. With space to spare, Mad Oilman begins pouring wine into the roasting pan. And now for a physics lesson.

Hot ceramic pan. Room temperature wine. Roast acting as a dam across the pan. Temperature gradient. Big one.

I start to hear pops and watch the cracks fly across the pan. Sensing imminent failure, Mad Oilman poured the remaining wine on the other side of the meat dam to stop the cracking. But it was too late. The end of the pan fell off. Completely.

Of course, when it fell off there were two cups of wine in that pan. Well now there's two cups of wine on the bottom of a 450 degree oven. The initial superheated vapor blast pushed me back. But Mad Oilman was not backing down. He was going to save this dish.

With smoke now pouring out of the oven (and in a kitchen with no vent), the entire room became quite smoky. Wanting to rescue this meal while simultaneously trying to avoid a kitchen fire, Mad Oilman successfully pulled the stricken pan from the oven and transferred the meat to a cookie sheet. And promptly added 2 cups of wine into the sheet. Grace under pressure.

Windows and back door open to create a cross flow, smoke began pouring out of the windows. Good. Fire hazard now gone. Situation under control, Mad Oilman returned to finish his salad. And share his tale of disaster averted.

Dishes completed it's time to plate.

Here's the broccoli. In one of those 'How the hell did that picture happen with a digital camera?' shots. Just weird but also very cool.

Risotto Milanese con Prosciutto, complete and ready to serve.

Finished roast resting, begging to be carved (patience......)

End result. Perfect rare-medium rare (camera flash pushes the image to medium. t'ain't so).

As plated. The wine and drippings from the pan turned into an amazingly light yet flavorful gravy. Needless to say there wasn't a lot of anything left at the end of this meal.

All in all, the Prosciutto Menu was a success. And it's not every day you can create an instant massive smokescreen in your kitchen without your guests really knowing and without burning the kitchen down.