Playing with Fire, part 1

A couple of weekends ago, a friend visiting my apartment noticed a postcard on my fridge, with a picture of a fire dancer. “Is this from Hawaii?” she asked. “Yes, my sister sent it to me.” “Funny,” she said, “my sister sent me the same one. It must be the designated postcard to send your sister from your Hawaiian vacation.” “Or maybe,” I suggested, “both our sisters know we’re obsessed with fire.” “True.”

It follows, then, that a recipe in Yotam Ottolenghi’s Plenty that specifically instructs you to burn an eggplant over the open flame on your stovetop (or, as he says, your “gas hob”), is going to have some appeal. The recipe in question is called burnt aubergine with tahini. I made it the first time just as a dip, but for dinner with C., the second time around we added the optional cucumber and tomato, which makes it into a really lovely summer salad. 

NB: if you don’t have a gas stove, this method of cooking the eggplant is not really an option to you. He suggests an alternative for electric “cookers,” putting them “directly under a hot grill for 1 hour, turning them a few times.” I’m not really sure that’s such a good idea–an hour under the broiler is going to turn anything to charcoal, but maybe “cooker” doesn’t mean what I think it does in British english. So either use your best judgment, or hunt down the US edition of Plenty and see how this recipe was translated for us Americans.

Start with an eggplant, or two if they’re small. Mine were the oriental variety, which are long and narrow and usually kind of curved. Set them over a flame. The official advice is to line the surrounding area with foil, but I decided not to bother because, as my mom says, I know who cleans the kitchen.

For this size eggplant, it takes maybe 8-10 minutes to get them to the appropriate level of charred, but if you’ve got a big Italian one, go a little longer. Either way, you’ll have to keep turning and moving them, so they are more or less evenly burned all over. 

You want the skin to be pretty well blackened, and the eggplants should be very squishy. If you’ve done it right, the skin will either flake off, or peel off in strips. Try not to think of the last terrible sunburn you got while you’re doing that.

Then you set the naked eggplants in a colander for about a half an hour. You can cut them into big chunks if you want, to help with the draining process (the idea being that you want some of the liquid that’s cooked out to go away). Then you chop it up into smallish bites and dump it in a bowl with some tahini, pomegranate molasses, lemon juice, minced garlic, parsley, and salt and pepper. And some water. And yes, I know you’re asking, “Why would I want to water this mixture down again after I just spent half an hour watching Frazier while we got RID of the water?” but Ottolenghi knows what he’s doing, so just let him make the rules, ok?

You can stop here if you like. You’ll have a really delicious, rich eggplant dip, a little sweet and a little sour, and even a little spicy if you minced the garlic very finely. Or if you’ve got a cucumber and some cherry tomatoes, keep going. You’ll be glad you did.

Halve the tomatoes and chop up the cucumber and mix them in. Drizzle the whole thing with some good olive oil, and if you are super prepared or have the best stocked kitchen in the world, sprinkle some pomegranate seeds on top. 

We had this with some ciabatta from Orwasher’s, and a glass each of sauvignon blanc and cucumber water–excellent complements both. 

And then there was dessert, of course, but that is to be saved for another post.

Fish Tacos

I didn’t know what I wanted to make for dinner the other night when I went to the Italian market, which is often how my grocery shopping begins. I had a vague idea that I would buy some fish to complement whichever of my veggies I decided to pull out of the fridge, but no real plan as to how they would be combined. One of the wonderful guys behind the fish counter at Agata & Valentina cut a couple of Spanish mackerel filets right off the fish for me, and I thought maybe I’d just broil them, drizzle with harissa, and serve with fresh bread and barely cooked sugar snaps. But then when I made my second grocery stop, I forgot about that menu because I saw soft corn tortillas, and I could practically hear them screaming “fish tacos” at me. Luckily, the mackerel was amenable to this change in plans, and so was C.

I sliced up some cucumbers, radishes, and red onion on the mandoline, as close to paper thin as I could get them. Then I tossed them together with a little salt, a little agave nectar, some rice wine vinegar, and let them sit.

Meanwhile I chopped lettuce, heated up the tortillas (a minute per side in a hot, dry cast iron skillet), and dealt with the fish. The filets still got broiled, with just a little vegetable oil, salt, & pepper, and then pulled apart into bite-sized chunks. 

Then it was just a matter of assembly. 

Fish Tacos
serves 3-4

1 lb fish filets (mackerel, tilapia, catfish–anything flaky and not very expensive)
vegetable oil
salt & pepper
1 medium or 2 small cucumbers
1/2 red onion
4-5 radishes
1/4 c rice vinegar
1/2 tsp salt
1 tsp sugar (or a bit less of agave nectar)
4-5 lettuce leaves
8-10 small soft tacos (corn or flour)

Slice the cucumbers, radishes, and onion very thin (a mandoline makes this very easy). Toss them together with the vinegar, salt, and sugar, and taste to see if you need to adjust the flavor. Let this sit while you prepare everything else.

Turn on the broiler. While it’s heating up, place the fish filets on a baking sheet, skinside down. Line it with foil if you want to make your clean-up easier. Drizzle the fish with a little vegetable oil, and sprinkle with a bit of salt & pepper. When the broiler is hot, put the fish in. Start checking it after 5 minutes, though it might take several minutes more, depending on how thick it is and how close to the heat source it gets in your oven. If you poke the fish at the thickest part with a sharp knife, you should meet no resistance, and it should be totally opaque.

Shred the lettuce. 

Heat a cast iron skillet (or other heavy pan) over medium-low heat. Warm the tortillas one at a time, a minute per side. 

Let your guests assemble their own tacos. Serve with the hot sauce of your choice.

Hot Weather Cuisine

This ginger cucumber salad with scallops is one of my favorite recipes. A. and I first made it years ago, when it was first published in the New York Times, and I’ve made it many times since, usually served over basmati rice. Then suddenly it showed up again on the paper’s website, in video form, and just in time for a heat wave.

One of the reasons this has become a favorite dinner–especially in the summer–is there is very little standing in front of a hot stove involved. Also because the expression “cool as a cucumber” actually has a root in reality (cucumbers have cooling properties, just like cinnamon has warming properties). So when J. and I had made plans the other week for her to come over for dinner with C. and me, and it was suddenly 90+ degrees, it seemed like an obvious choice.

Start with cucumbers. Peel them or not, as you like, and slice them pretty thin. A mandolin helps greatly in this task. Toss them with rice vinegar, grated ginger, salt, & sugar. Let them stand for a while, producing what some chefs call a “quick pickle.”

If you’re planning on eating in a half an hour, that’s perfect. If dinner will be a little later, just stick them in the fridge (especially if it’s 90+ degrees out and you are too stubborn to turn on the A/C in your kitchen because it isn’t technically summer yet).

Don’t put away the mandolin yet, though. Use it to slice up a yellow onion into thin half moons.

Then comes the heat. Put a skillet (cast iron is wonderful) over very high heat, drizzle in a little vegetable oil, and sear a bunch of sea scallops. About a minute on each side is all you’ll need. Remove them to a plate, drizzle in a little more oil, and add those onions you sliced, along with a bit of turmeric. Lower the heat a tad, and cook about 5 minutes, until the onion is soft.

Then you just want to toss everything together.

This time, I served the dish over rice noodles, which I think was even better than the rice, and as a bonus takes much less time to cook (especially if you’re a hippie and only cook brown rice).

Let’s Blow This Popsicle Stand

A month or two ago, I bought myself a popsicle mold. I could probably have stolen the one that is sitting in my mom’s kitchen drawer and nobody would’ve been the wiser, but it seemed like an urgent need at the time, and I didn’t have a trip home planned for a while. In the end, though, it took me until now to use the damn thing. The ultimate, long-awaited inspiration came from an article in the San Francisco Chronicle about paletas, aka Mexican ice pops. The peach honey one sounds great, but I hate putting gelatin in anything (which, I realize, might make my goal of recreating a Jell-o pudding pop unatainable). It was the lime-cucumber one that caught my eye. My little kit only holds 4 popsicles, so I figured it wouldn’t be a problem that I only had 1 cuke on hand.

So here we have a cucumber, a lime, agave nectar (seemed like the appropriate sweetener, seeing as how the recipe is Mexican in origin), and some cayenne, in place of the haba ñero powder in the official recipe. (I thought about using the chile powder mix in my pantry, but that’s got some oregano and garlic and other things in it, and I wanted to keep this simple.)

Cucumber, peeled, seeded, and pulsed in the Cuisinart. (Oh, how I love that machine. It is in near constant use in my kitchen.)

Then add in a little agave nectar, some lime juice, a little cayenne, and a pinch of salt. Puree. Add some more sweetener or lime juice as needed.

After that, it’s just a matter of pouring into the molds:

popping on the “sticks” (these have a convenient straw at the bottom, so you don’t lose out on the inevitable melted bits):

and wait for them to freeze solid.

It should be noted (or re-emphasized, as the recipe’s author does point this out in the accompanying article) that these are not super sweet. While not boozy, I’d still consider it to be an “adult” popsicle. Also, at the recommended ratio of cucumber to chile powder, it is VERY spicy. Just so you know.

Incidentally, I have realized that the smart course of action, next time I make a non-boozy sorbet, or frozen yogurt that’s on the low-fat end of the spectrum, is to pour the stuff into the popsicle molds. That way I won’t have to worry about not being able to scoop the damn stuff. Mmm, honey-lavender yogurt pops…

Noodles and Dumplings

I have somehow become the webmaster of sorts for my CSA’s location, meaning I created a WordPress site where I post the week’s delivery and the (always lovely) note from the farmer. The site also serves as a place for members to share recipes, which, since nobody has suggested a better way to organize them, are categorized by main ingredient, with a page for each vegetable we receive. We’ve gotten scallions three out of the last four weeks, and at first, I didn’t think a page for scallions was necessary, because aside from scallion pancakes, what are you really going to make that features that ingredient? Scallions are a garnish, an accent, or even a substitute for another member of the lily family when you’re out of onion or chives. They are nothing to get excited about.

Or that’s what I thought until I wound up with three large-ish bunches of the things in my fridge, and was planning dinner for I., K., M., and myself. The question “How can I use these things up?” led to a quick Google search, which led to David Chang’s patented ginger-scallion noodles. I have eaten at several of the Momofuku restaurants, and I confess that I find nearly everything Chang does fascinating, brilliant, and (most importantly) delicious. And since I also had a couple of cucumbers begging to be eaten, this was a no-brainer.

To start: scallions. Lots of them.

Slice them up, very thin, using the entire length of the scallion. (I frankly don’t understand recipes that call for the whites only, or even only half the greens. It seems wasteful.) You will need 2 1/2 cups.

Mix in 1/2 cup of minced ginger, 1/4 cup of some neutral oil (grapeseed or whatever), 1 1/2 tsp soy sauce, 3/4 tsp sherry vinegar, and 3/4 tsp salt. Toss it all together and let it marinate for at least 20 minutes.

When I waved the bowl under M.’s nose so she could get a hint of what we’d be eating, she responded, “It smells like dreams,” which is now the standard I aim for with every recipe I make.

Toss the sauce with the noodles (soba in this case, though I’m still not sure I know how to cook them properly–the texture never seems to come out right) and there you go.

Meanwhile have your friend I. slice up the cucumbers on your mandoline and toss them with a tablespoon of sugar and a teaspoon of salt (more or less, as you see fit; the suggestion is a 3:1 sugar: salt ratio, but the actual amount is to taste). These also need to sit for 20 minutes before you serve them.

And the last step is to find a vegetable you like and pan sear it in a little oil. I believe the official cookbook calls for cauliflower, but it is high summer squash season, so that is what we used. And M. did a yeoman’s job of manning the skillet.

She was also instrumental in cooking the dumplings (stuffed with ground pork and sliced leeks mixed with a little soy sauce and sesame oil), which we all helped assemble. This process was not photo-documented, largely because I’m not a very good journalist but also because I wasn’t entirely sure how they would turn out. I had returned from the shore the previous Sunday with a pile of wonton wrappers (isn’t that what your mom sends you home with after you visit for a weekend?), and this seemed like as good a use as any I was likely to find. It turns out that (a) fried dumplings are preferable to steamed and (b) dumplings are more exciting than noodles. I suppose I should not be surprised at either of those findings.

In any case, we sat down to a beautifully set table (I. and K. are expert napkin folders, even working with paper instead of cloth) and enjoyed our Asian feast immensely.

There was also some silliness in addition to dinner. But I think that’s inevitable with this crowd.

Pork Dumplings
This “recipe” is obviously very adaptable. You can spice it up with chile oil or add in some minced ginger or fish sauce or garlic or really anything. Also I have no idea how many it makes…

1 stack of wonton wrappers
1/2 lb. ground pork
1 large or 2 small leeks, cleaned and sliced into thin half-rounds
2-3 tsp soy sauce
1 tsp sesame oil
peanut or vegetable oil (something with a high smoke point)

Mix the pork with the leeks, soy sauce, and sesame oil. Put small spoonfuls in the center of each wonton wrapper and close them up, brushing a little water around the edge to seal them properly. Try to get as much air as possible out of the dumplings.
To steam, place in a single layer in a steamer (the metal kind works though bamboo is probably easier) over boiling water. Cook for 5-10 minutes, until they are firm to the touch.
To fry, heat a little oil in a large skillet over medium-high heat. Cook a few minutes on each side, again until they are firm to the touch.
Serve with the dipping sauce of your choice (the ginger-scallion dressing is a good one, thinned out with a little more grapeseed oil).

Challenge: cucumber sherbet

A few weeks ago, I was at dinner with some friends, talking about food as usual (also talking about YA sci-fi/fantasy, also as usual). One of my dining companions mentioned that she was craving cucumber ice cream or sorbet or something along those lines, but had not been able to find it available anywhere, or even a recipe to make herself. And naturally I took this casual statement as my next culinary challenge. To my eye, it had to be a sherbet–something a little bit milky but not overly so. It wasn’t until a few days ago, though, that I had my inspiration for how to make it. The answer is coconut milk. Coconut is sort of the answer to everything, though, if you ask me.

I based my recipe very loosely on this one for Tip Top Melon Sherbet from 101 Cookbooks, which seemed like a good place to start given that cucumbers and melons are closely related.

As with so many recipes I love, this is really just an ingredient list. The Cuisinart and the ice cream maker do the heavy lifting. But that means you need to make sure you’ve got very high quality ingredients to start with. I chose a mild alfalfa honey from Tea & Honey at Grand Central, and “burpless” cucumbers from Bodhitree’s stand at the greenmarket. They are not quite as watery as regular cucumbers, and the seeds are practically unnoticeable. Then also a full-fat organic coconut milk, which I was hoping would bring enough fat to the mix to keep the sherbet from freezing solid. And I had a bit of lime juice frozen into ice cubes stashed in my freezer, and some wonderful African Blue basil growing at my window, which was a gift from one of my wonderful dinner guests at Cook Club #1.

Peel the cucumbers and cut into pieces, which go into the Cuisinart.

Puree thoroughly. You don’t want any chunks of cucumber remaining. 

I decided to take the additional step of running it through my double-mesh strainer, which was probably not necessary, but I really wanted to ensure the smoothest, creamiest texture possible. Truth be told, there wasn’t very much pulp remaining at all, so you can almost definitely skip this step. Then mix in the coconut milk.

Add 3 tablespoons of honey (start with 2, and add a third–and even a fourth if you want–if you think it’s necessary), and the lime juice, and the chopped basil. In retrospect, I probably should have pureed the basil with the cucumbers, but live and learn, right?

Then run the whole mess through your ice cream maker. If you’d like, you could add a tablespoon of light rum, which would contribute a little bit of flavor and go a long way towards keeping the texture nice and scoopable. I did not include any in this batch, though, because for uninteresting reasons this was destined to be a booze-free sherbet.

Once again I did not follow the “don’t test out new recipes on guests” rule. (Although for dinner itself, I revised my eggplant schnitzel with swiss chard and white beans recipe, with summer squash and veal cutlets, making it actual wienerschnitzel, I guess.) After dinner, I pulled the tub of sherbet out of the freezer with a sense of cautious optimism, and a vocal caveat that this was an experiment. My dining companion’s opinion was that it tasted like something you’d get in a high-end Japanese restaurant, which, ok, maybe. He also made the very astute comment that mint would have been good in place of the basil. And that’s exactly what I would have done except that presently, my basil plant is bigger than my mint. Either way, we both declared it a success. It is light and a little creamy and very refreshing, which is just what I was aiming for. It freezes a little bit harder than I’d like, but not so much that it’s a problem (and as I said, a little rum would take care of that).

Cucumber Coconut Sherbet
Makes 1 quart

1 1/2 lbs cucumber, peeled and chopped roughly
2 tsp fresh basil or mint
3/4 c. coconut milk (original, not low fat)
3 Tbsp mild honey (alfalfa or acacia would be good)
2 Tbsp lime juice
1 Tbsp light rum (optional)

Puree the cucumber and basil in a cuisinart. If you’re neurotic, run it through a fine mesh strainer into a bowl. If you are not, skip that step.
Mix in the rest of the ingredients, adjusting amounts as suits your own taste. (And remembering that things are not as sweet when they are cold, so don’t go TOO light on the honey.)
Run the liquid through your ice cream maker. Voila!

Cook Club 2

[Guest post from M.]

L. has graciously allowed me to post a story to her blog about our most recent cook club.  As regular readers of this blog know, a few months ago, L. gathered a group of us with the idea of having regular supper parties.  There are four of us, and we take turns hosting.  Whoever hosts is in charge of all the food.  The other three bring guests and drinks.  L. hosted our first dinner party, which you can read about here.

Sunday night, it was my turn.  Those of you in the New York area know that this past weekend was sweltering.  Disgustingly hot.  All I wanted to do was lay in my air-conditioned bedroom and dream of winter snows.  It felt like we were in Alabama, and as luck would have it, I had planned a menu of southern food from The Lee Bros. Southern Cookbook.  Even more lucky, I had done some of the baking the day before, and two of the main dishes were salads.  Regardless, by the end of the evening, my kitchen felt like a sauna.

So, on to the important things.  We started off with cheese straws (recipe from Mark Bittman; I don’t have a large food processor, and the Lee Bros’ recipe was a bit too reliant upon the food processor for me to feel as though I could adapt it reliably to my food-processor-less kitchen) and deviled eggs (recipe from the Lee Bros.).  I also had a big pitcher of sweet tea, and L. brought a pitcher of unsweetened white jasmine iced tea.  Delish!  I even dug out my grandmother’s hand-crocheted table-cloth for an added Southern touch (am I the only one who associates tablecloths with the South?  We never used them growing up — they seem most at home on a table tied to traditional ways).

After everyone had arrived and had had time to cool off with iced tea or wine, I started the grits.  I had planned originally to make grits with blue cheese, but with the weather, I thought the cheese might make them unnecessarily heavy.  I had already made the collards — vegetarian, but cooked in a smoky tomato onion sauce that gave them a nice traditional flavor — so I just heated those up as the grits cooked.  I had also prepared the two salads before my guests arrived — a succotash made of corn, cranberry beans, tomatoes, yellow squash, and basil;

and a “new ambrosia” made with grapefruit, oranges, avocados, celery, and cucumber — so C. tossed them with their dressings while I cooked. 

The recipe for the ambrosia is available online here.

I was most fond of the collards and grits, but I thought all the dishes turned out well.  It was nice, in this heat, to have cool dishes and to avoid the heaviness that comes with meals featuring too much dairy or meat.  Next time, I think I’d use less dressing on each of the salads, and I think I would de-seed the tomatoes before adding them to the succotash. 

But, of course, the most important part of any meal is dessert.

I had cooked a buttermilk pound cake the day before.  It was my first attempt at making a pound cake, and it turned out beautifully.  I’m still slightly traumatized by the amount of butter that went into it, but the results were divine.  I topped the cake with some plain whipped cream, a sauce made from blueberries that I had picked in New Jersey the weekend before, and fresh blueberries (sadly, not fresh picked). 

So, all in all, a lovely dinner with old friends and new.  We survived the heat and proved that a vegetarian southern feast is not an oxymoron.

Contemplating

Remaining to cook this weekend:
1 bulb of fennel
1 head of cabbage
1 cucumber
3 purple peppers and 1 green one

re: fennel

Braised Fennel with Shallots on Hungry Cravings

Onion and Fennel Bisque on One Perfect Bite

Fennel, Roquefort Tart from this German blog called Kleiner Kuriositätenladen (which Google translates as Little Curiosity Shop). I’m really tempted by this, partly because it looks DELICIOUS and partly because I love the daring prospect of making a recipe that’s been translated by Google into English. I suppose I could just have my mom or MJT translate for me, but where’s the fun in that? “Crust” is translated as “crumbly” and the recipe calls for something called “1 protein to the blind baking,” which I’m guessing is a reference to pie weights. One is warned after washing the fennel bulb that “the drink may not be removed.” Also the final step reads simply, “Something cool.” Yes, we might have found ourselves a winner here.

re: cabbage

The Sweet and Sour Cabbage from the New York Times that I’ve already made but didn’t manage to photograph. I will have to make some more chili garlic sauce, though, because it was really much better with some spice.

re: cuke

Who am I kidding? It’s going to become a blender-full of cucumber/mint/lime juice, which I’ve now made enough times to consider an Old Favorite.

re: peppers

no freaking clue. Peppers have always seemed like a lovely addition to many dishes, but I don’t think of them as the star. Maybe I’ll pickle them. Pickled purple peppers (going from Smitten Kitchen‘s recipe) sounds charming.

Catching Up and Falling Behind

I have not been very good about taking pictures of anything lately. I think it’s becoming clear that food photography is not something at which I excel, nor is it something about which I get especially excited. Then there’s the fact that sometimes I just forget to pull out my camera.

But that doesn’t mean I haven’t been cooking this week. Last night, M. and I went over to R.’s apartment, and I brought Mowgli, too, and we made a lovely dinner with some greenmarket and Whole Foods supplements.

First there was this salad, though we subbed in escarole for arugula. Important to note is that, prior to making this salad, I had never prepared fennel before. And it turns out that I do not really know how to cut it properly. But I’ll be prepared for next time.

Then we did a pasta dish with summer squash, chicken, goat cheese, and fresh herbs that was partly inspired by a Tyler Florence recipe. Yeah, no pictures of that, either. I promise, though, it was delicious.

At the end of the evening, I lucked out and M. sent me home not only with some leftover pasta, but also a huge bunch of extra basil. So tonight I made some pesto (the official Cuisinart recipe), and tossed it together with some quinoa, lettuce, ricotta salata, and sauteed escarole and radicchio, and was pleasantly surprised at how cohesive that mix was.

Also, on Tastespotting today I saw a recipe for Ice Cold Cucumber Juice. I made a few tweaks, and drank the whole batch myself.

It doesn’t really look like anything special, but I promise, when it’s 85F and 85% humidity, this is what you want to drink.

Penne with Chicken, Summer Squash, and Goat Cheese
(note: amounts are completely from memory and therefore probably wrong)

1 lb. summer squash, cut into large bites
1 1/2 lbs. chicken breasts
3/4 lb. penne
1 oz. goat cheese
juice of half a lemon
handful of basil leaves, roughly chopped
half a handful of mint leaves, roughly chopped
butter
olive oil
salt and pepper

Cook pasta according to package instructions.

Pound out the chicken a bit and season with salt and pepper. Cook in olive oil in a large skillet, then remove to a plate and set aside. Add a tablespoon or so of butter and the squash, and some salt and pepper, and cook over medium-low heat until cooked to your liking, 5-10 minutes probably. Turn off the heat and add the goat cheese to the pan to soften into a thick sauce, almost.

Cut up the chicken into bite-sized pieces, then toss that with the pasta, the squash & goat cheese, the lemon juice, and the fresh herbs. Season with salt & pepper and serve.

Cuisinart Pesto

2 c. basil leaves, pretty tightly packed
3 oz. parmesan (chunks, not shredded)
2 cloves garlic
1/4 c. pine nuts
1/2 tsp. salt (this is my only variation, honestly–their recipe is shockingly salty even to my palate)
1/2 c. olive oil

Put all the ingredients except the oil in the cuisinart. Pulse several times, and then drizzle in the oil with the machine running. Try not to just eat it all with a spoon.

Cucumber Smoothie

1 large cucumber, or alternately 1 medium slicing cucumber and 1 small heirloom, peeled and chopped roughly
juice of 1 lemon
2 Tbsp mint leaves, roughly chopped
1 Tbsp honey
1 c. ice water (meaning put ice cubes in the measuring cup and then fill to the 1-cup line with water)

Put all ingredients in the blender. Serve over ice.

Things I Never Ate as a Child

Growing up, we did not eat eggplant. I think my dad didn’t like it, and much like my mom’s distaste for beans, that preference was one of the deciding factors of our dinner menu. Then there were the foods that just didn’t cross anyone’s minds to cook, like Swiss chard. As an adult, I’ve explored the produce panorama pretty extensively, and discovered that I really love a lot of these things. In searching for a vegetarian lasagne recipe earlier this year, for example, I found one from Deborah Madison that is made with Swiss chard and eggplant, and it is absolutely delicious. Her note in the margin of the cookbook talks about how that particular combination brings out a synergistic depth of flavor in the dish, and I couldn’t agree more.

This week’s delivery included a couple of eggplants and a big bunch of chard. But it’s July. And it might well be unseasonably cool in New York City, but I’m not making lasagne. (I already baked zucchini bread today, this time with cashews and cocoa nibs, and that was quite enough use of the oven, thank you very much.) So I decided to adapt a recipe I found on Not Eating Out in New York.

First, though, a cucumber salad. This is something I ate a LOT of as a kid, because I didn’t care for lettuce, and it was an easy way for my mom to get some raw vegetables into my stomach. Our family recipe was impossibly simple–peeled cukes sliced thin on a mandoline, tossed with olive oil, red wine vinegar, a little salt and sugar, and sometimes some chopped tomato. Tonight I got fancy.

I had 2 slicing cucumbers, and 2 heirlooms of a variety called Boothby blonde. I took one of each.

Many recipes advise that you remove the seeds from your cucumbers (a spoon works well), but personally, I like the flavor with the seeds. So they stayed.

The recipe was another from David Tanis’s A Platter of Figs, and it might not have been a culinary match for the eggplant dish I was planning, but it sounded good. Mix the cuke slices with some julienned ginger, a little salt and pepper, some fish sauce, and some brown sugar. Let it sit while you dice up a hot pepper of your choosing (this is a Holland chile).

Toss in the pepper and squeeze over some lime juice.

Then cover and stick in the fridge until dinner is ready. In my experience, cucumber salad tastes better the longer you let it marinate. When you’re ready to serve it, toss in some chopped mint and basil and scallions.

And now, moving on to the real thing. And let me tell you, this is a recipe that’s going in the permanent repertoire. It’s one of those meals where I had to force myself to put the leftovers away before I served myself a third plate.

Start off with some eggplant. Any variety will do, though not the little baby ones.

Slice them about 1/2″ thick, sprinkle some salt over them, and let them sit a bit while you mix up the breadcrumbs.

I suppose you could use pre-seasoned breadcrumbs, but where’s the fun in that? So mix together some plain breadcrumbs with salt, pepper, and some chopped fresh herbs–thyme and savory worked beautifully, but rosemary would be great, and probably oregano, too. Or parsley. Hard to go wrong, really.

Cook the slices in olive oil, not much more than a minute each side. (I won’t admit how much olive oil I went through tonight, although I will say that I’m glad I hunted for regular as opposed to extra virgin. The smoke point is much higher.)

Set the eggplant aside and turn to the chard. You could do this step first, but that involves thinking ahead. Separate the stems from the leaves, and dice the stems as finely as you have patience to do.

Chop the leaves very roughly.

Cook the stem bits for a few minutes, and then add some sliced garlic cloves and white beans.

Once they chard is mostly tender and the beans are warmed through, add the leaves, stir, and cover. Stir a couple more times over the course of a few minutes, and you’re ready to go. The original recipe called for chopping up some capers and some sundried tomatoes as a garnish, which is perfectly nice but almost unnecessary.

In retrospect, a spicy Asian cucumber salad with a breaded Italian dish pairing is not the most, um, cohesive pairing. But both were delicious.

Eggplant Schnitzel with Swiss Chard and White Beans

2 eggplants (about 1 lb), sliced lengthwise, 1/2″ thick
3/4 cup breadcrumbs
1 tsp chopped fresh herbs (e.g. thyme, rosemary, oregano, savory, parsley)
1/2 tsp salt
pepper to taste
1 bunch Swiss chard, about 3/4 lb, leaves chopped coarsely, stems diced
2 c white beans
2 cloves garlic, sliced
1-2 teaspoons finely chopped sundried tomatoes
1 teaspoon capers, coarsely chopped
lots of olive oil

Sprinkle eggplant slices with salt and let sit. Mix breadcrumbs with salt, pepper, and herbs. Pat eggplant slices dry, and then dredge in breadcrumbs to coat each side. Cook in olive oil over medium heat, 1-2 minutes per side, until just cooked through and lightly golden. Remove to a plate and set aside.

Wipe any remaining breadcrumbs out of the pan and add some more olive oil. Raise the heat to medium-high and toss in the diced chard stems. Cook 4-5 minutes, until just tender, then add beans and garlic slivers. Cook 2-3 minutes, until beans are warmed through and chard is mostly cooked, then add chard leaves and stir. Cover, checking and stirring every few minutes until the leaves are cooked to your liking.

Serve eggplant slices over the bean/chard mixture, and garnish with the capers and sundried tomatoes.