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.

Spring Green (and Red)

There’s this bread that I learned to make from smitten kitchen. It’s a version of Russian black bread, the ingredient list is 17 lines long, and it’s amazing. And believe it or not, I usually have nearly all 17 ingredients lying around–a shallot, apple cider vinegar, molasses, baking chocolate… And this Patricia Wells recipe gave me the perfect excuse to make it. 

Truthfully, it’s just a salad and a sandwich. But it’s with butter lettuce and radishes (two things we were getting in large quantities for a couple of weeks) and calls specifically for a dark rye bread. I am quite fond of sliced radishes on buttered bread with a little sea salt, and this is kind of an elaboration on that theme. Plus a salad.

You’ll need radishes that have good, fresh, green leaves still attached. Take the best of those (if they all look good, then use maybe 1/3 of the bunch) and chop them up finely. Slice the radishes themselves into rounds, and then chop the bulk of the pile–about 3/4–into little strips. Dry the chopped leaves & little chunks of radish as best you can, with a paper towel.

Then get some really good quality butter, and smash in some lemon zest. Once it’s mixed, add the radish/leaves mixture, and a bit of salt, and smoosh it all together. Spread it thickly on slices of bread, and sprinkle with a little more salt. There’s your sandwich portion of the meal.

For the salad, it’s just a mix of butter lettuce, the sliced rounds of radish, and a creamy lemon-chive dressing (1/2 & 1/2, lemon juice, salt, and chives) which I suspect would also be very good made with buttermilk instead of cream & lemon juice. 

As a whole, it’s a wonderful early summer meal for a hot night when you don’t feel like turning on the stove. It helps if you have homemade bread and European butter and fleur de sel and all that jazz, but no worries if you don’t. In any case, go heavy on the butter and light on the salad dressing, and enjoy.

(And, if you have extra dressing, it goes wonderfully with zucchini that’s been run through the julienne slicer, tossed with a little salt, and left to drain a bit in a colander.)

Rainbow Salad

This is one of those recipes where I started looking up ideas for various things I had in the fridge, and magically found something that used ALL of them. “Broccoli, comma, and roasted pepper salad with tomato vinaigrette.” Further proof that things that grow together go together.  Also, considering I had olives on hand as a take-home gift from a recent Cook Club (thanks, L!) and had feta in the fridge from some other random recipe, I didn’t have to buy a thing to make this. So it’s also proof that a well-stocked kitchen is the most essential ingredient for quick and easy cooking. And it’s so very pretty.

First, preheat the oven to 400F and spatchcock the peppers. This is not a term used with vegetables usually, but it’s applicable. Cut in half, remove the core and the seeds, and smoosh them onto the cutting board, so they sort of almost lie flat.

Put them on a baking sheet, cut side down, and brush the skins with olive oil. Bake for 10-20 minutes, until the skins are wrinkled, then transfer them to a bowl and cover it with a plate.

Then, make the vinaigrette. Mash up a clove of garlic with a little salt, and combine it in a bowl with some diced onion (or shallot), red wine vinegar, a little balsamic, and some fresh ground pepper. Let it stand while you dice some tomato and halve and pit some Niçoise or Kalamata olives. Whisk in some olive oil, then add the tomatoes and olives.

Cut up the broccoli into little florets, and cut the stems into chunks about the same size. Blanche in salted water, then strain.

By this time, the roasted peppers should be cool enough to handle. Uncover the bowl and remove the skins. Then cut them into bite-sized pieces.

Then it’s just a matter of combining everything: the peppers, the broccoli, the tomato dressing, and some crumbled feta. Finish it up with some chopped parsley, oregano, and/or marjoram, and taste for salt and pepper.

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.

Adventures in Salad

Yes, I understand that the reason people eat salad so frequently in the summer is that it is traditionally a meal that does not involve turning on the stove.

And yes, I do generally object to food bloggers who post “recipes” for salads.

But I like breaking rules occasionally. Even (especially) my own rules. Plus I keep reading about grilled romaine, and I happen to have 2 big heads of the stuff in my fridge. And I might not be fortunate enough to have an actual grill, but I have an awesome grill pan (thanks, Mary & Gay!), and I always like trying new techniques.

So the first thing to do is take the romaine and strip off some of the outer leaves until you’re left with something that you can look at and say, “Yes, I would no longer call that a head of lettuce, that is now a heart of romaine.” Please, please, please, do not go buy a sealed plastic bag of romaine hearts. God only knows how those things have been treated. I wish I didn’t know as much as I do about food safety–I wish I didn’t have to know–but I follow Bittman’s blog on my google reader and he has a guy named Barry Estabrook write posts that frequently scare the hell out of me and remind me exactly why I spend all my money at the greenmarket even though I also belong to a CSA. Seriously, kids, check out this post from just today:

Earlier this month, federal marshals seized 3,500 gallons of honey from a Philadelphia warehouse. The honey, which had been imported by Sweet Works, Inc. from China, contained chloramphenicol, an antibiotic that is not approved for use in food, animal food, or food-producing animals in the United States.

Antibiotics?? In HONEY?? Honey has antibacterial properties. You can put honey on a cut if you are out of neosporin and it will protect you from infection. Plus it never goes bad–archaeologists have found honey in Egyptian tombs that is still just fine. Honey is magical, which is just one of the many reasons I don’t understand vegans. But that is enough of a rant for right now. I will leave the vegans alone for another day.

Back to dinner. You buy a full head, strip off the leaves to be used for a normal salad at a later date, and that’s that. Cut the lettuce in half lengthwise, drizzle each half with some olive oil and sprinkle with salt & pepper.

Then you want to get started on the caramelized onions. I should probably point out that I don’t have the patience to actually caramelize onions, and because of that I have learned that I quite like crispy, charred onions on my salad. It gives sort of a smoky bacon-y flavor without actually adding any meat (and uncooked onions keep a hell of a lot longer and more easily than uncooked bacon). Also it is the key to my newest favorite salad dressing. Heat up a heavy skillet over medium/medium-low, and then add a tablespoon or so of olive oil. Dump in some thinly sliced onions (I used cipollinis tonight, but shallots are excellent, too, or whatever you have lying around) and let them cook, stirring occasionally. When they get to a level of brown that pleases you, turn off the heat.

If you are the cautious type, wait a few minutes for the pan to cool before this next step. If you are like me, just pour in some red wine vinegar and watch it sizzle and spatter. (You might want to jump back.) Stir it all up, sprinkle in some salt, and add a little more olive oil. There’s your dressing.

On another burner, you’ve got your grill pan going, right? Right. Relatively high heat. Once it’s hot, put the romaine hearts on, cut-side down, and let them cook a few minutes, just until you get grillmarks. Take ’em off, put ’em on a plate, and pour the dressing on top. Scatter some gorgonzola over it (shaved parmesan would be nice, also, if you’re not into blue), and voila.

If, at this point in the game, you find yourself thinking, as I did, “You know, I really want to make a mess of this thing called a salad. What else can I do to it to offend everyone’s sensibilities?” The answer: a fried egg. Or two. Wheee!

So heat back up the skillet you used for the dressing, coat it with a little more olive oil, just to be safe, and crack in a couple of eggs. Ideally you want them sunny-side up, so the yolks are still running and they mix in with the dressing and yes, I know you don’t like runny yolks, but I promise, it’s just better this way. Slide the eggs right on top of the lettuce and Bob’s your uncle.

Also, a side note today: I’m trying out a new blog hosting site, which a friend of A.’s started a while back. So if you’re reading this on blogspot, come on over and check out the alternate format: The CSA Files on Posterous. For now, my posts will be going both to blogspot and posterous, but presumably I’ll decide soon enough if I like one host better than the other. If you have an opinion, please weigh in.

 

Iconoclastic Grilled Romaine Unsalad

serves 1 for dinner (I had a very light lunch, so this might not be strictly accurate)

 

1 heart of romaine lettuce, split in half lengthwise

1 small onion, or 1 shallot, sliced thin

2 eggs

olive oil

salt & pepper

red wine vinegar

gorgonzola cheese, crumbled

 

Heat a skillet over medium-low heat. Drizzle in a tablespoon of olive oil and add the onion slices. Cook, stirring occasionally, until it’s more or less caramelized. Turn off the heat and let the pan cool a little before adding in a couple tablespoons of red wine vinegar. Stir together and pour in a little more olive oil. Season with salt to taste.

Meanwhile, heat a grill(pan) over high heat and drizzle a bit of olive oil on the cut sides of the pieces of romaine hearts. When the grill is hot, put the lettuce on, cut-side down. Cook for a couple of minutes, until you can see grill marks, then remove from the heat.

Add a little more olive oil to the skillet. Put the heat at low, and when it’s hot, crack in a couple of eggs. Cook sunnyside up, just until the whites are cooked, leaving the yolks very runny.

Pour the onion dressing on top, scatter on the cheese, and slide the eggs on top of everything.

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.

Revelations

I have a thing about simple recipes. That kind of food is often the best, especially when you’re starting with the highest quality ingredients, but it bothers me when someone publishes a “recipe” for, say, grilled cheese. If you need to resort to a cookbook to learn how to melt cheese between bread, you have bigger problems than being hungry. But at the same time, it’s always nice to expand one’s repertoire of such meals. And for that, we turn to Mark Bittman. This week’s revelation was croutons made from grilled cheese. Yes, that’s right. Make a grilled cheese sandwich, extra crispy, let it cool a bit, and then chop it into cubes. Add to EVERYTHING.

For example, another Bittman suggestion, grilled zucchini with chopped tomatoes, dill, lemon juice and olive oil.

I did not intend to eat the entire salad in one sitting…

…but what I discovered was that the deliciousness that is the grilled cheese crouton gets a little soggy when you toss it with lemon juice and olive oil, and, oh well, guess it’s not going to be very good tomorrow.

Everybody Loves Bittman

A few possibilities for this week, stolen wholesale from Mark Bittman and the New York Times:

24 Cut zucchini into big chunks and roast or grill with olive oil (and, if you like, whole garlic cloves). Combine with chopped seeded tomatoes, lemon juice, dill, salt and pepper.

35 Steam frozen edamame and chill. Toss with olive oil, lemon juice, a pinch of sugar, lots of chopped mint, salt, pepper, and as much shaved pecorino or Parmesan as you like.

44. Make a crisp grilled cheese sandwich, with good bread and not too much good cheese. Let it cool, then cut into croutons. Put them on anything, but especially tomato and basil salad. This you will do forever.

20 Cut eggplant into half-inch slices. Broil with lots of olive oil, turning once, until tender and browned. Top with crumbled goat or feta cheese and broil another 20 seconds.

25 Upscale tuna salad: good canned tuna (packed in olive oil), capers, dill or parsley, lemon juice but no mayo. Use to stuff a tomato or two.

I think we’re going to need a bigger fridge

Or else I’m going to have to start sharing, which is not something I do as well as the dog does. It is now Saturday of week #3, and I still have a full head of red leaf lettuce in the fridge, a bunch of oregano, half a bunch of chives, half a head of escarole, and (oops) some butter lettuce from week #2. And what space isn’t full of plastic-bagged greenery is full of leftovers in tupperware.

As much as I’d like to blame my fridge runneth-ing over on several recent birthdays that resulted in eating out more than I usually do, it ought to be clear (to me) already that 1 share is more than 1 person can eat. Even someone who is very happy eating mostly vegetables all the time.

In any case, here’s where the rest of this week’s bounty went:

2 summer squashes (that doesn’t sound right. is squash both singular and plural?)

became Chilled Zucchini-Yogurt Soup with Fresh Mint
adapted from the New York Times and with mint from my window box!

half of the head of escarole became Escarole Salad with Avocado and Parmesan
courtesy of Orangette (who should really come back from hiatus one of these days)

Mowgs and I packed up some of the soup and the salad and headed to Carl Schurz Park for a picnic in the shade

Then home again, and I decided to wing it with pickling the 1/2 head napa cabbage (first half became a salad with quinoa and a yogurt dressing that was just ok, so I won’t go into detail.) The inspiration for this was the little dish of pickled veggies you get before your meal at certain Chinese restaurants.

Pickled Cabbage and Carrots a la Chinoise

1 lb. napa cabbage, sliced into 1″ strips
2 carrots, peeled into ribbons
3 Tbsp. rice vinegar
1/2 Tbsp. salt
1 tsp. sugar
1 tsp. minced ginger

toss all ingredients together. cover and refrigerate. see how it turns out. (jury is still deliberating)

Then tomorrow, I think I’m going to make a pain de campagne with oregano. The sage (week #1) muffins I made (2 varieties) turned out so well that I really want to try baking with other kinds of herbs.

Meanwhile, here’s what is scheduled to arrive on Monday evening:
Sugar Snap Peas (we’ve been warned that the weather might preclude this)
Garlic Scapes-4
Red Leaf Lettuce-1 head (ack! haven’t eaten this week’s yet!)
Green Leaf Lettuce-1 head
Escarole-1 head
Silverado Swiss Chard-1 bunch
Summer Squash-2 pounds
Parsley-1 bunch

Who wants to come over for dinner?