[Music Playing]
Today I'm going to show you how to make a simple dish using homemade crackers,
fresh California grapes, mascarpone, and honey.
So, let's take a look at our ingredients.
So, what we're gonna do is make a simple grape salad using sliced grapes,
some scallions, some charred serrano peppers,
some fennel, lime juice, and salt.
And then we're gonna go ahead and top them onto this cracker, a little bit of mascarpone and warm honey.
So, the cracker itself is a very simple dough.
It's a whole wheat flour, a little all-purpose flour,
toasted sunflower seeds, flax seeds, sesame seed, a little bit olive oil, a little bit of water to tie it together...
And it needs some time to rest.
And I like to let it rest for an hour or so.
If you want to make it ahead of time and freeze it, you can.
But when we go ahead and roll it out, it's very simple.
It's very forgiving because we've kneaded it for three or four minutes to kind of develop the gluten.
I've used about 50 percent whole wheat.
And the flax seed and the sunflower seed....
...I think are both great flavor components that are gonna go with the grapes.
All right. So, we can cut it any shape you want depending on your presentation,
but I'm liking little tiny triangles so that I can make a little grape salad on one end.
So, kind of cut them into long rectangles.
And this dough is forgiving, in that we can go ahead and use it again. It doesn't go to waste.
I'll probably use it two to three times.
All right. So, these will bake at a high heat oven — about 450 degrees for 4 to 5 minutes.
Turn them over. Another 4 to 5 minutes.
Okay, so let's work with these fresh sliced grapes, and make a little grape topping to go on top of the cracker.
So, fresh sliced red grapes, a little bit of minced scallion....
some cayenne for heat, some serrano pepper,
fennel,
a little bit of lime juice....
I want to talk about the serranos for a second. Very simple.
I've charred these "asado" on a dry pan, over a period of time until they've gotten pretty dark.
And I just want to go in and chop this seed and all.
So, depending on the size of your serrano, it's your call as to how spicy you want it to be.
But we're gonna build this salad with the components of the sliced red grapes....
And I want to be able to tell what this looks like. So, this is the highlight of the topping.
And then we're gonna go in with the Serrano.
And I'm charring it because I want this nice smoky flavor. It'll play off the sweet grapes.
So, approximately two tablespoons of this charred spicy Serrano.
So.... scallion.
So, our fennel that could be either "brunoise" or fine diced....
A little bit of lime juice....
And I'm going to do a small pinch of cayenne....
Salt....
Olive Oil.
So, this is it. Our "Mise en Place," ready to go, and build our little cracker dish.
All right. Very simple bar menu we could do here.
Just a grab-and-go, tasty bite.
Keeping the grape topping cold, so we have a contrast of a temperature here.
We're just looking at a little bit of mascarpone.
And they're going to go ahead and garnish with some halved grapes.
So, that... uh.... will help balance out the heat of this topping.
Give it a little bit of drizzle of our warm honey.
All right so a little bit of honey sweetness to top it off.
And now we have a balance of a house-made seed cracker.
Very crunchy toasty flavor.
The fresh mascarpone cheese which is going to give you the richness....
...The spicy grape topping and fresh grapes to round this out.
Enjoy.