Cold soup, pork chop for hot day.

Byline: The $10 Gourmet by Jim Boyd The Register-Guard

RYAN FOTI, the banquet chef at the Valley River Inn, took his cue from the hot spell of weather in early July when preparing the menu for today's edition of The $10 Gourmet. For the first course, he chose a chilled cucumber soup.

"That soup's perfect just because we've had such hot weather," he said last week as he prepared the meal. "I kind of geared the menu toward a cooler meal, a very summery menu. So I think the chilled soup will be perfect. It's got a little bit of citrus to it - a little bit of lemon."

For the main course, Foti chose a pork loin chop with roasted potatoes and a tomato-corn salsa that can be served either chilled or at room temperature.

Dessert is a combination of fresh fruits (banana, white nectarine and kiwi fruit) layered with whipped cream. He calls the dessert a "gateau," a French cooking term that means "cake," because the fruit and whipped cream is layered like a cake.

Foti's efforts produced a tasty and extremely economical meal. He spent only $7.20 on ingredients at the Barger Drive WinCo, a store he chose because of its reputation for low prices.

He noted that you may want to add 48 cents to the bill for cilantro (see Settling the Bill). He had a bunch of cilantro in his refrigerator and used it to provide the 1 tablespoon of chopped cilantro he needed for the salsa.

The $10 Gourmet is a biweekly feature that allows professional chefs to give menu ideas to home cooks. The chef is asked to cook a meal for two that costs $10 or less. Small amounts of kitchen staples don't have to be included in the cost.

In addition to the cilantro, Foti used small amounts of olive oil, garlic, red wine vinegar, salt and pepper from his pantry.

Foti joined the cooking staff at the Valley River Inn in December. He started his cooking career with an associate degree in culinary arts from Spokane Community College.

He then worked at the Coeur d'Alene Resort in Coeur d'Alene, Idaho, where he was the kitchen supervisor for two of the resort's restaurants: Beverly's, recognized as one of America's top restaurants by the DiRoNA Restaurant Guide, and Tito Macaroni's, an Italian eatery.

Foti subsequently served as head chef for All Seasons Bistro, a French fine dining restaurant in East Lansing, Mich.

Here are his recipes:

Chilled Cucumber Soup

2 medium cucumbers

2 teaspoons minced garlic

1/4 cup minced onion

Juice of 1 large lemon

1 tablespoon salt

1/4 cup heavy cream

1 tablespoon plain yogurt

3 cucumber slices cut into 6 halves for garnish

Prepare the cucumbers: Cut a 1- to 1 1/4-inch section from the center of a cucumber, wrap in plastic film and refrigerate until use. When it comes time to garnish, cut V-shaped decorative grooves lengthwise in the piece, then slice the piece into 3 rounds and cut each round in half. Arrange on top of the cold soup.

Peel the remaining cucumbers. Cut in half lengthwise and scoop out the seeds with a spoon. Chop the cucumber into fine pieces (about 1/16th inch square).

Place the chopped cucumber in a nonreactive container. Mix in minced garlic, minced onion, lemon juice and salt. Refrigerate the cucumber mixture for as long as possible, at least an hour, and overnight would be better.

To complete the soup, puree 1/2 of the cucumber mixture in a blender. Add cream to the cucumber mixture while blender is running. (Adding the cream when the blender isn't running could curdle the cream.) In a bowl, combine the blended and unblended mixtures. Taste to check the seasoning.

To serve, ladle chilled soup into serving bowls and garnish each with a dollop of plain yogurt and 3 half-rounds of cucumber.

Pan-Seared Pork Loin Chop With Corn and Tomato Salsa and Herb Roasted Potatoes

For the salsa:

1 large ripe tomato

1 medium ear corn

2 tablespoons red wine vinegar

1 tablespoon minced garlic

1/4 cup olive oil

1 tablespoon chopped cilantro

Core but don't peel the tomato. Remove seeds by cutting it in half horizontally and squeezing out the seeds and pulp. Cut tomato into a small dice, about 1/4-inch square. (The pieces should be about the same size as the corn kernels.)

Using a knife, slice the kernels from an uncooked ear of corn.

Mix the diced tomato, corn kernels, vinegar, garlic and olive oil together in a bowl. Refrigerate for 2 hours, or up to overnight. Add cilantro before serving.

For the roasted potatoes:

1 large white potato

1/4 cup olive oil

1 teaspoon dried thyme or rosemary

Salt and pepper, to taste

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

Wash and pat dry but do not peel potato. Cut into 1/2 - to 3/4 -inch dice. Mix olive oil, dried thyme or rosemary, salt and pepper together in a bowl. Add the diced potatoes and toss to coat the diced potatoes with oil and seasonings. Arrange in a single layer on a sheet pan. Place in oven and roast until browned, about 20 minutes.

For the pork chops:

2 pork chops (bone in), each 6 to 8 ounces

Salt and pepper

1 tablespoon olive oil

Note: Although food safety experts may disagree, Foti believes in bringing chops and similar protein items to room temperature before cooking them. Taking the chill off chops allows them to cook evenly and produces a tenderer piece of meat, he says.

Rub chops with salt and pepper and allow to stand, covered but unrefrigerated, for 1/2 hour.

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. (If you are roasting potatoes, the oven already will be heated.)

To brown the chops, get a saute pan smoking hot and add just enough olive oil to cover the bottom of the pan, about 1 tablespoon. Place the chops in the pan and sear them on both sides.

After the chops are browned, place the pan in the oven to finish cooking: 8 to 10 minutes for 1/2 -inch-thick chops, 12 to 14 minutes for 1-inch-thick chops.

Note: The United States Department of Agriculture recommends that pork be cooked to an internal temperature of 160 degrees (medium) or 170 degrees (well done).

Fresh Fruit Gateau With Vanilla Cream

3/4 cup heavy whipping cream 

1/2 teaspoon vanilla

1 tablespoon sugar

1 banana

1 nectarine

1 medium kiwi

Place the whipping cream in a bowl and, with a hand mixer, whip until the cream begins to thicken. Add vanilla and sugar. Continue whipping until soft peaks form.

Cut the banana in half and slice each half lengthwise so the slices can be arranged like a fan on each plate. Thinly slice the nectarine. Cut the kiwi into a fine dice.

To assemble, place a banana fan on each plate followed by a dollop of whipped cream. Arrange slices of nectarine on the whipped cream and top the nectarine slices with a another spoonful of whipped cream. Sprinkle the diced kiwi over all.

SETTLING THE BILL

Whipping cream: 97 cents

Yogurt: 33 cents

Potato: 66 cents

Pork loin rib chops: $2.59

Sweet corn: 33 cents

Kiwi fruit: 38 cents

Lemon: 38 cents

Tomato: 34 cents

Banana: 10 cents

Sweet onion: 18 cents

White nectarine: 46 cents

English cucumbers: 48 cents

Total: $7.20

NICOLE DeVITO / The Register-Guard

CAPTION(S):

A pork chop with potatoes and salsa is the entree in a summer meal by chef Ryan Foti. NICOLE DeVITO / The Register-Guard Ryan Foti, banquet chef at the Valley River Inn, tops off his less-than-$10 meal with a ``gateau'' of layered fruit and cream.