Tag Archives: ricotta toast recipe

Revamping the Croissant

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Costco croissants get jazzed up in a big way.
Costco croissants get jazzed up in a big way.

When you’re lucky enough to hold in your hands a perfect specimen of a croissant, made with the finest butter into shatteringly crisp, ethereal layers, say from San Francisco’s Arsicault, do NOT do anything to it. Just enjoy as is. Slowly. Deliberately. Dreamily.

Other times, when the croissant happens to be more mundane, say from Costco, where a package of a dozen can be had for a bargain-basement price of 50 cents per pastry, then by all means, play with your food.

Specifically, by making “Croissant Toasts.”

This fun, summery recipe calls for flattening those croissants, searing them in a pan, then blanketing them with whipped ricotta and juicy, burst cherry tomatoes.

It’s like everyday ricotta toast — but pimped out.

This fanciful recipe is from “Ohana Style” (Clarkson Potter), of which I received a review copy.

It’s the newest cookbook from everyone’s “Top Chef Fan Favorite,” Sheldon Simeon. The Hawaii chef is the owner, along with his wife Janice Simeon, of Tiffany’s and Tin Roof, both in Maui.

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The Joy of Summer Tomatoes and Bread

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Add ricotta to your equation of bread plus tomatoes for a summer treat.

Add ricotta to your equation of bread plus tomatoes for a summer treat.

 

Few things are as simple and sublime in the summer as tomatoes on bread.

Be it as a grilled cheese or Catalan-style with the ridges of grilled bread rubbed with garlic, then smeared with the juices of a cut tomato, it doesn’t get better than that.

“Quick Pickled Grape Tomatoes on Ricotta Toast” offers up another way to enjoy that delightful duo.

The recipe is from the new cookbook, “Just Cook It!” (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt) by Justin Chapple, of which I received a review copy.

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Chapple is the deputy test kitchen editor at Food & Wine magazine and the host of “Mad Genius Tips,” the magazine’s video series. He’s all about time-saving tricks and clever hacks to get recipes perfect, such as browning beef for “New-School Beef Bourguignon” in a rimmed baking sheet all at once rather than in batches in a Dutch oven on the stovetop. It’s faster — and less messy.

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