For the Love of Food

A good soak

2012-01-30T21:54:00.013-05:00

I may have become the shopper I've always wanted to be by making my purchases at the Co-op, but that doesn't necessarily make the me the cook I want to be. Let me explain: my increased access to ingredients like whole grains, healthy oils, organic produce and unprocessed foods--and the low prices for all of this bounty--has certainly led to my cupboards being filled to the bursting, but sometimes those things just find their way in there and stay, never getting the chance to show their stuff in my pots, or in my stomach.

Case in point: dried legumes. Having spent a fair amount of time working on organic farms, where the proprietors grow what they eat and store-bought foods don't often come into the picture, I've eaten some lovely dishes made with dried and soaked beans. And I've noticed that their flavor and texture is exponentially better than the canned stuff. And so when I joined the Co-op, I determined to never again pick up a can of Goya. From now on, I brazenly declared to myself, I will cook exclusively with dried beans! And I lined my shelves with chickpeas, kidney beans, and black eyed peas.

I'm sure you know where this is going. Those bags of beans sat in my cupboards, taunting me, ever since June. Turns out, canned beans are pretty darn convenient: no thinking ahead required. Right? A working farm, though an intensely active place, also has, in its own way, a slower pace than city life, and there's time built into the day to do things like soak some dried beans in water.

The thing is, I don't really even believe the above--that my life is just way too busy to think about my dinner more than an hour before I sit down to eat it. In fact, I do little but think about food and cooking all day long, so I believe I should be able to commit to preparing some beans a day ahead of time.

I had already been stewing over those chickpeas sitting in my kitchen cabinet when I spied a tasty-looking recipe for coconut-braised chickpeas over at the site of my new employer, Serious Eats. The dish sounded like it had some nice flavors going on--lemon, ginger and coconut--and I was keen to try it. The recipe actually called for canned chickpeas, but I would use dried--finally. I knew I would have all the time in the world to cook on Sunday, so on Saturday night, I filled a pot with those clattering little peas, and covered them in twice the amount of water. They'd be (nearly) ready for me when I needed them.

The next day, about an hour before I was ready to cook, I put the pot of chickpeas on the stove, added some salt, and simmered them, covered. Then, as I set to work on the recipe, I simply allowed the garbanzos to steam to toothy perfection before they got to cook for a second time in the dish's flavorful broth.

I used the recipe only as a starting point: though it sounded like a good base, I could tell it would need some punching up. The only spice it called for was ginger and an optional shaking of red pepper flakes, and for me, coconut milk cries out for a complex, heady mixture of aromatics. I also wanted to add some chopped carrot for added sweetness, and some cubed potatoes for some starch to help thicken the broth. The end result was sweet and fragrant, with the tender, creamy chickpeas providing a welcome contrast to the softness of the spinach and the potatoes. Eating it reaffirmed my conviction that cooking with dried legumes is just better. I won't be able to do it all the time--some nights, those ready-to-go Goya beans will still be attractive--but I definitely plan to try this more often. I may not normally possess the virtue of patience, but when it comes to good food, I'm happy to make an exception.

Coconut-Braised Chickpeas with Spinach and Lemon
Adapted (heavily) from seriouseats.com
Serves 4 - 6

Ingredients:

- About 8 ounces dried chickpeas, soaked overnight in 16 oz. water, or one 15-oz. can, drained
- 2 tbsp. vegetable oil
- 2 small (or 1 large) onions, peeled and finely chopped
- 1 carrot, peeled and thinly sliced
- 3 cloves garlic, minced
- 1 tbsp. grated ginger
- 1 large lemon, zested and juiced
- 1/2 tsp. red pepper flakes
- 1/2 tsp. curry powder
- 1/2 tsp. turmeric
- 1/2 tsp. ground coriander
- 3 medium waxy potatoes, scrubbed and cut into a medium dice
- One 14-oz. can coconut milk (I used light--I don't notice the difference)
- About 1 c. water
- 5 oz. baby spinach, rinsed
- Fish sauce (nam pla), to taste
- Salt
- About 1/2 c. unsweetened coconut flakes, toasted, for serving
- Chopped cilantro, for serving
- Cooked white rice, for serving

Preparation:

1. If using dried, soaked chickpeas: about one hour before starting to cook, transfer the chickpeas in soaking liquid to the stove. Add a pinch of salt, cover, and simmer for one hour. As you proceed, leave chickpeas covered.
2. Heat the oil in a large, heavy-bottomed pot (Dutch oven) over medium heat. Add the onions and carrot, stir, and when they begin to soften, add the garlic and ginger. Add the lemon zest and all the spices and cook, stirring, until onions are translucent and spices are toasted and fragrant.
3. Drain the chickpeas and add to the pot along with the potatoes. Add the coconut milk and water, cover, and bring to a simmer. Cook for 15 - 20 minutes, until potatoes are tender.
4. Uncover pot and taste broth. Add a few dashes of fish sauce, to taste, and salt. Add the spinach, cover again, and let wilt. Cook for about 5 more minutes.
5. Turn off heat and stir in lemon juice. Check again for seasoning. Serve over hot white rice, garnished with cilantro and coconut.

26 years + 1 complicated recipe

2012-01-22T13:58:00.026-05:00

Earlier this month I turned 26 years old and over the weekend I celebrated with friends by throwing a somewhat belated birthday party. Over the past few years I've developed a tradition for my birthday: I invite over a ton of people and then stress myself out by committing to cooking them a huge dinner feast. It's an interesting way to fête my own birthday, I admit, but I'm mostly kidding about the stressful part: in fact, I enjoy making large, complicated meals. Years of producing food on a huge scale as a freelance caterer have made the feat of preparing a meal for 20 people seem like a piece of cake.

In the years that I've been writing on this blog, I've made pork, pork, and legumes for my birthday parties. This year, I wanted to try something different, something a little out of my comfort zone. I'm not as impoverished this year as I was last, so I could afford to buy and serve flesh, and I decided on something that most meat eaters deem commonplace, even mundane: chicken. You see, I've been eating mostly vegetarian for the past few months, and I found that the first thing to disappear from my diet with me hardly even noticing was chicken. It's always been my least favorite meat: I prefer proteins that pack a wallop of flavor, like pork, lamb, and game such as rabbit and venison. I simply find chicken dull, and before my party I honestly can't remember the last time I cooked or ate it. So, of course, that meant that I was sort of craving chicken, after all this time. But since it takes a lot to make chicken exciting, I wanted to impart as much flavor as possible to the meat. Here are some of the ingredients I used in the dish; can you guess what I made?

Not sure yet? Maybe this will clue you in:

Chocolate...? In a savory dish...? Why, it must be mole! Yes, for my birthday I prepared chicken mole poblano, meaning that the recipe comes from Puebla, in Mexico. You see, most people are familiar with mole poblano because of its inclusion of sweet chocolate, which most people wouldn't ordinarily associate with a spicy, savory dish. But in actuality the chocolate forms only a very small proportion of the ingredients, which also include (from top) three types of dried chiles; a spice blend made of whole toasted spices (sesame seeds, chile seeds, cloves, anise seeds, peppercorns, cloves, thyme, oregano, bay leaves, and cinnamon) which are then ground; fried almonds, peanuts, pumpkin seeds, and raisins; and fried bread and corn tortillas. Only at the very end of the hours-long cooking process is a small amount of chocolate and sugar stirred into the nearly-completed sauce.

Another misconception about mole is that poblano--the best-known type--is the only type. In fact, there are many many types of moles--really just a base sauce that meat is then cooked in--prepared all over Mexico, depending on the region and which ingredients are available there. Some other types include negro (black, includes similar ingredients to the poblano but adding dried prunes and ripe plantain); rojo (red, heavier on the tomatillos and also including not a small amount of rendered pork lard); amarillo (yellow, with ground cumin and corn flour); colorado ("colored," with fresh herbs); and verde (green, with fresh green chiles, cilantro, and green pumpkin seeds), among many other varieties. So...now you know. Tell your friends about mole.

I did, however, want to stick with the classic and widely recognized poblano version of this dish. Always served over chicken or turkey, this sauce is incredibly complex-tasting, thanks to its many ingredients. It's not an easy thing to make--it's very time consuming and demands a measure of organization and thoughtful planning--but neither is it as complicated as it might first appear when you read through the recipe. Very basically, you first create a spicy chile sauce made from the fried, then rehydrated and puréed dried chiles, and then you make a sweet sauce from the nuts, dried fruit, and floral spices. Only at the very end do you combine these two sauces and then reduce the result into a silky mixture that is both hot and sweet at the same time.

I talk a lot of game on this site about how I don't follow recipes, preferring instead to follow my muse wherever she might lead me and charting my own way as I go. It's a talent I'm proud of, because it's pretty much my only creative outlet: I don't play music, make art or write anything that's nonfiction. As important as that skill is to me, though, it's also immensely satisfying, once in a while, to cook from a recipe, particularly one that's foreign to me and that I probably wouldn't be able to riff on my own. The mole was a perfect example of such a dish. In the initial stages of the cooking process, I was kind of groping along blindly; I had an idea of where I needed to go, but I wasn't altogether sure how to get there. As I progressed, though, I began to see how everything would come together in the end. A recipe like this is really like a puzzle: you can taste the separate components (basically, the two "mother" sauces) as you go along, but even so, it will be incredibly difficult to imagine how they'll taste when they're finally wedded together. But when they are, they fit perfectly. A recipe that keeps even an experienced cook guessing until the very end? That's certainly my idea of birthday fun.

Chicken Mole Poblano
Adapted from Rick Bayless via Saveur
Serves 15 - 20

A few notes about this recipe. You'll need to visit a Mexican grocery store to get a number of the ingredients (the dried chiles, the Mexican chocolate, and possibly the tortillas). You'll need access to a few appliances: a spice/coffee grinder and, if you want to cut your labor load (as I did), a food processor. I condensed a few of the steps in Bayless's recipe to make things go a little faster. The amount of oil called for seems like a lot, but you'll need it all, because many of the ingredients get fried. You can pour off whatever seems like excess later on.

Ingredients:

- 12 dried ancho chiles
- 12 dried guajillo chiles
- 6 dried pasilla chiles
- 6 tbsp. sesame seeds
- 1 tsp. whole aniseed
- 1 tsp. black peppercorns
- 1⁄2 tsp. whole cloves
- 1 tsp. dried thyme
- 1⁄2 tsp. dried marjoram or oregano
- 3 dried bay leaves, crumbled
- 1 1⁄2" stick cinnamon, broken into pieces
- 2 cups canola oil
- 7 1⁄4 cups chicken or turkey stock
- 1⁄2 cup skin-on almonds
- 1⁄2 cup raw shelled peanuts
- 1⁄3 cup hulled pumpkin seeds
- 1⁄3 cup raisins
- 2 slices white bread
- 2 stale corn tortillas
- 10 cloves garlic, peeled and smashed
- 2 medium onions, peeled and chopped
- 5 tomatillos, husked, rinsed, and halved
- 2 large tomato, quartered
- 12 whole chicken legs, skin removed and separated into thighs and drumsticks
- Kosher salt, to taste
- 1 cup ﬁnely chopped Mexican chocolate
- 4 tbsp. sugar, plus more to taste
- Tortillas, plain white rice and cilantro sprigs, for serving

Preparation:

1. Stem chiles and shake seeds into a bowl. Set chiles aside. Measure 4 tbsp. chile seeds (discard the rest) and 4 tbsp. sesame seeds into a small skillet set over medium heat. Toast seeds, swirling pan, for 2 minutes. Transfer to a spice grinder. Toast aniseed, peppercorns, and cloves; transfer to grinder along with thyme, marjoram, bay leaves, and cinnamon. Grind into a powder and transfer to a large bowl; set spice mixture aside.

2. Heat oil in an 8-quart Dutch oven set over medium heat. Working in small batches, add chiles and cook, turning, until toasted, about 20 seconds. Using a slotted spoon and reserving oil in skillet, transfer chiles to paper towels to drain. Transfer fried chiles to a large bowl; add boiling water to cover (about 4 cups). Let chiles steep for 30 minutes. Strain chiles, reserving soaking liquid.

3. Place the chiles, 3⁄4 cup soaking liquid, and 3⁄4 cup stock into the bowl of a food processor; blend until smooth. Set a sieve over a bowl and strain chile mixture, pushing it through sieve with a rubber spatula; discard solids. Rinse food processor; set chile purée aside.

4. Return pan with oil to medium heat. In quick succession, fry the almonds, then peanuts, then pumpkin seeds, then raisins until toasted, about 1 minute from the time you add the almonds. Transfer all ingredients to paper towels to drain. Return pan to medium heat and fry the bread, turning once, until golden brown, about 3 minutes; transfer to paper towels. Repeat with tortillas. Break bread and tortillas into small pieces and transfer to bowl, along with the almonds, peanuts, pumpkin seeds, raisins, and ground spice mixture; set aside.

5. Set a fine strainer over a large bowl. Strain oil and return it to Dutch oven. Remove 2 tbsp. of the oil and heat it in an 8” skillet set to medium-high. Place onions, garlic, tomatillos and tomatoes into the bowl of the food processor; pulse until finely chopped. Rinse food processor. Add mixture to skillet and cook, stirring, until mixture has softened and the liquid has evaporated, about 12 minutes. Transfer to bowl with spice mixture along with 2 1⁄2 cups stock. Blend onion/nut/spice mixture in food processor until smooth. Press through the strainer into a bowl; set purée aside.

6. Heat reserved Dutch oven over medium-high heat. Season chicken pieces with salt. Working in batches, brown each piece, turning once. Transfer chicken to a plate. Pour off all but 3 tbsp. of oil in Dutch oven and return to medium-high heat. Add chile purée; cook, stirring, until thick, 10–12 minutes. Add spice purée, reduce heat, and cook, stirring, for 30 minutes. Stir in 4 cups stock and chocolate; simmer, partially covered and stirring often, for 1 hour. Season mole sauce with salt and sugar to taste; remove from heat.

7. Heat oven to 350°. Nestle chicken in mole sauce, dividing among oven-safe dishes if necessary. Bake, covered, for 2 hours. Remove from oven and sprinkle with remaining sesame seeds; serve with tortillas, white rice, and cilantro sprigs.

The kitchen sink of stuffed veggie recipes

2012-01-12T17:45:00.011-05:00

Recently, while shopping at the Co-op, I noticed some beautiful-looking Delicata squashes, and decided to grab a couple. Though I had never cooked with them, I knew they were among my mom's favorite vegetables, and that she'd be able to recommend a good recipe. And I was right: when I queried her via email, she responded that she bakes them, stuffed with a mixture of cottage cheese, apples, and raisins, then tops them with Swiss cheese, which creates a browned, gooey crust. I liked her idea, but it sounded a little too sweet for me, so using that recipe as a base, I riffed my own version of a stuffing.

First, I sautéed chopped onions and apples in some olive oil, adding some minced garlic and dried thyme once the first ingredients began to break down. Once everything was well cooked, I took some nice clean kale, shredded it up and added it to the pan, covering it to allow the kale to steam. Once that mixture had cooled slightly, I added the rest of the stuffing ingredients: cottage cheese, eggs, breadcrumbs, and grated Parmesan cheese. I portioned this generously between my two halved, par-baked squashes, then topped with more Parmesan cheese, as, well, I didn't have any Swiss. If you wanted to get more decadent, you could add more breadcrumbs to the top along with the cheese, and dot everything with butter before sending it off to the oven. Even if you go that route, you'll still have a pretty virtuous, complete, vegetarian meal:

Baked Stuffed Delicata Squash
Serves 4

Ingredients:

- 2 medium to large Delicata squashes, halved and seeds removed
- Olive oil
- 2 medium onions, peeled and finely chopped
- 2 medium apples, peeled and finely chopped
- 2 cloves garlic, minced
- 1 tsp. dried thyme
- 1 bunch of kale, rinsed, thick stems removed, and shredded
- About 1 c. cottage cheese, any style
- 2 eggs
- About 1/2 c. breadcrumbs
- About 1/4 c. grated Parmesan cheese
- Salt
- Pepper

Preparation:

1. Preheat the oven to 350°. Lightly season the squash with salt and pepper, then bake for about 25 minutes or until flesh is slightly tender. (Make sure the squash halves sit flat on the baking pan. If they don't, use a vegetable peeler to trim a strip or two away from the bottom.)
2. Prepare the stuffing: in a large, heavy-bottomed pan, heat about 3 tbsp. olive oil over medium heat. Add the apples and onions; a few minutes later, stir in the garlic and thyme. Cook, stirring occasionally, for about 5 minutes.
3. Add the shredded kale and cook, stirring occasionally, until kale is mostly wilted, about 5 - 7 minutes. Turn off the heat, cover the pan, and allow mixture to cool slightly.
4. Add cottage cheese, eggs, breadcrumbs, Parmesan, and salt and pepper to taste. Mix well. Remove squash from oven and divide filling evenly among 4 halves. (If you have any leftover stuffing, bake it in a greased dish alongside.) Top squash with more Parmesan, or, if you prefer, Parmesan + breadcrumbs and some dots of butter.
5. Return to oven and bake until squash is tender and stuffing is nicely browned, about 25 more minutes. I served the squash with a brown rice pilaf and a beet salad.

When life gives you...carrots?

2012-01-08T18:49:00.012-05:00

I'm a proud member of the wonderful Crown Heights Farm Share, and I split a winter share with two friends. As such, I'm pretty well covered on root vegetables right now. Just to give you an idea of what farms produce through the cold winter months (or can store through the season), here's an example of what my friends and I received at the last pickup: 5 pounds sweet potatoes, 8 pounds Kueka Gold potatoes, 10 pounds storage carrots, 2 stalks of Brussels sprouts, 2 heads of broccoli, 1 piece of daikon radish, 1 head of Arrow cabbage, 1 bulb kohlrabi, 1 bunch of fresh field carrots, 5 pounds storage beets, 1 head of Napa cabbage, 1 bunch kale, 1 bunch green Romaine lettuce, 1 bunch red Romaine lettuce, 1 bunch green Oak lettuce, and 1 head green Boston lettuce.

As you can see, what we got was a mix of fresh produce (probably grown in a greenhouse or under plastic tarps) as well as storage produce, that's likely being kept in a cool, dark cellar. Getting a winter farm share is interesting, because it gives you some insight into what people were dealing with back in the days of eating truly locally. Although I supplement my share with imported produce like bananas and avocados, I also try to put myself in the mindset of, oh, say, a 19th century self-sufficient farmer, and try to envision what I would do to keep all those dark greens and starchy roots interesting for my family through the cold, dark months.

Altogether, my friends and I got more than ten pounds of carrots, in an array of beautiful colors. Here's my share of the loot:

Figuring out what to do with them wasn't hard. I instantly thought of soup, as most cooks do when faced with a surplus of perishable product. I knew I would cook the carrots down and purée them into something smooth and silky, but I wanted to keep the flavors zingy, as sometimes carrots (especially cooked carrots) can tend towards the blandly sweet. First, I decided that I would roast the carrots in the oven before cooking them in the broth, in order to bring out some of the complexities that high heat imparts to vegetables. Then I decided that I would throw a lot of strong, warming spices in with the usual salt and pepper on my carrots. So after a lot of peeling and chopping, I ended up with this:

That's the carrots, some oil and seasoning, plus generous amounts of whole cumin, coriander and mustard seeds. I tossed them and into the oven they went, emerging burnished and fragrant after about forty minutes. Then I sweated some onions, garlic and grated ginger in some olive oil, added the carrots and enough chicken stock to cover, and simmered for about forty minutes, until the carrots rehydrated and melded with the other flavors in the pot. Then, I busted out my handy immersion blender and puréed it all up, adding dollops of plain yogurt as I went. The end result is a surprisingly complex-tasting soup, warm and spicy from the whole seeds, but also cool and tangy from the addition of the yogurt. I actually think this would be excellent cold, but as it's (sort of) chilly outside, I've been eating it hot:

But wait, I'm not done with my carrot transformations yet! I kept the slender, fresh carrots to the side, cut them into little sticks, and pickled them in a brine made with apple cider vinegar, garlic, mustard seeds and fresh cilantro (I wanted to use dill, but I forgot to buy some). They'll be ready in ten days; I can hardly wait!

Spice-Roasted Carrot Soup with Yogurt
Serves 10 - 12

Ingredients:

- 3 lbs. carrots, peeled and cut into large, uniform chunks
- Grapeseed, canola or other neutral oil
- 2 tsp. cumin seeds
- 2 tsp. coriander seeds
- 1 tbsp. mustard seeds
- Salt
- Pepper
- 2 large onions, peeled and cut into a medium dice
- 2 cloves of garlic, chopped
- 1 tbsp. grated ginger
- About 1 quart chicken or vegetable broth
- About 1 1/2 c. plain yogurt
- 1 lime

Preparation:

1. Preheat the oven to 425°. Toss the carrots with a small amount of oil, the cumin, coriander and mustard seeds, and a generous amount of salt and pepper. Turn out onto a sheet tray and place in the oven, stirring occasionally, for about 40 minutes, or until the carrots are nicely browned. Set aside.
2. When the carrots come out of the oven, heat about 3 tbsp. of olive oil in a large, heavy-bottomed soup pot. Add the onions and stir; a minute or two later, add the garlic and ginger. Cook over medium heat, stirring often, until the onions sweat and break down, about ten minutes. Add the roasted carrots and enough broth to cover. Bring to a boil, then drop to a simmer and cook for about 40 minutes, until carrots plump up again.
3. Use an immersion or standard blender to blend the soup until smooth, adding more chicken stock as needed to maintain a fluid consistency. Work in the yogurt as you go. Squeeze in the juice of the lime and check for seasoning, adding more salt or pepper as needed. Serve hot or cold.

Pickled Carrots
Adapted from Epicurious.com
Makes one jar

Ingredients:

- 1 lb. carrots, peeled and cut into sticks
- 1 1/4 c. water
- 1 c. apple cider vinegar
- 1/4 c. sugar
- 1 1/2 tbsp. salt
- 1 garlic clove, peeled and crushed
- 1 tsp. mustard seeds
- Sprig of fresh herbs, such as dill or cilantro

Preparation:

1. Fill a medium pot with water and bring to a boil. Blanch the carrots in the water for one minute, then remove with a slotted spoon and place in an ice bath, or run under cold water, to stop the cooking.
2. Choose an appropriate-sized glass jar for the carrots and place it and its lid in the boiling water. Boil for about 7 minutes to sanitize, then remove with tongs.
3. Combine the water, vinegar, sugar and salt in a small saucepan and bring to a boil. Turn off heat.
4. Place carrot sticks in jar. They should fit closely together. Add mustard seeds, garlic and fresh herbs to the jar. Using a funnel, pour in the pickling liquid to top of jar, then seal tightly with the lid. The carrots should be left to pickle for about 10 days. Unopened, they will last for several months.

As I was saying...

2011-11-10T15:08:00.004-05:00

In my last post I talked about some pernil tacos and the condiments I made to eat with them. And just by coincidence, I recently whipped up another taco-worthy topping, so I thought I'd piggyback on my most recent entry and share this complementary recipe with you.

My summer CSA share ended this week, and it was bittersweet: sweet, because that means the winter CSA share starts up soon; and bitter, because I had to finally say goodbye to all that wonderful warm-weather produce. But bitter, also, for another reason: all those dang radishes.

For the last four pickups in a row, I'd gotten bunches of different kinds of radishes, such as slender magenta French breakfast radishes, and brightly-hued, multicolored Easter egg radishes, to name two types. I was running out of ideas for radishes, people. I sliced them thinly and scattered the pale discs over my salad. I smeared them with good butter and sprinkled them with coarse salt for an appropriately French snack. And then I...shoved the rest of the radishes in my crisper drawer, waiting for inspiration to strike. Now don't get me wrong: I'm a fan of this vegetable, with its crisp, watery, sharp bite. (I also have a more sentimental fondness for it: in a memorable scene in my very favorite children's book, A Special Trade, the aging main character pulls a radish out of the ground and gives it to his friend and caretaker, a little girl, to bite into, fresh from the earth.) But it just doesn't seem like the most versatile foodstuff. Luckily, I found the perfect occasion to use up a lot of my radishes when I had friends over for a Mexican-inspired meal of corn tortillas, rice, beans, guacamole, and pickled red onions. What better addition to this spread but a refreshing radish salsa, fiery with jalapeño and bright with fresh cilantro?

I'd eaten radish salsa a handful of times before, at some of my favorite Mexican joints (one of the best of this lot being Girasol Bakery in south Park Slope), but I'd never made it at home. Turns out, it couldn't be simpler: you dice up the radishes very finely; add some jalapeño, similarly finely chopped; cilantro, salt, and a very generous squeezing of lime juice. As the salsa sits, the flavors meld and the colors bleed, resulting in a bowl of rosy goodness that's equally at home spooned over roast pork as it is over rice and beans:

Radish Salsa
Makes about 1 1/2 cups

Ingredients:

- 1 bunch radishes of any type, rinsed and very finely diced
- 1/2 jalapeño pepper, seeds and ribs removed, minced
- A good handful fresh cilantro, finely chopped
- The juice of 2 limes
- Salt, to taste

Preparation:

1. Combine the radishes, jalapeño, cilantro and lime juice in a bowl and stir to combine. Salt to taste. (You'll need a fair amount of salt to cut through the acidity of the lime.) For best results, cover and refrigerate for one hour before serving, to allow flavors to meld.

Dark and spicy, rosy and puckery

2011-10-26T21:55:00.015-04:00

Well, it's not yet my birthday (although we're not too far off), but already this year I've had the occasion to make one of my favorite festive dishes, the crowd-nourishing slow-cooked pork shoulder. This time, the occasion was a fête to celebrate the arrival of fall (and the last chance to have a big gathering on our huge deck 'afore the weather turns too crisp). Though my roommates and I declared our shindig a potluck, experience has taught us that cooking the bulk of the meal is probably a safe bet if one actually wants to eat something approximating a dinner (fact: most people like to bring beer as their potluck dish). And that was a o.k. by me; I love cooking for a group. While my roommate Dave slaved over a labor-intensive (and delicious) veggie lasagna, I stuck my pork roast in the oven and called it a day.

Well, not quite; it's hard for me to let myself off too easy when I cook (I'm working on it). Having decided to prepare the meat in the Puerto Rican style pernil, as opposed to going for the Southern comfort of the BBQ pulled pork I also sometimes make, I opted to serve the finished product in corn tortillas, as tacos. Clearly, I needed some condiments to go with. And it just so happened that days earlier I had noticed some mighty fine-lookin' tomatillos at the Co-op, and thought about how I had never cooked with them before. Immediately, salsa verde, that vibrant, often incendiary Mexican preparation came to mind. One down, one to go; in addition to heat, my tacos would need some crunch. Given my recent obsession with canning, I decided that a quick pickle of red onions was the way to go.

For the onions, I used a simple recipe from Epicurious; in addition to the onions, it calls for exactly three ingredients: apple cider vinegar, water, and salt. It takes about five minutes to throw together; I bet you could make it right now. Go ahead, then! Need a further push? Just look at how pretty the finished pickle looks, all glowing and rosy pink:

For the salsa, I adapted a recipe from Bon Appétit; similarly approachable, it called for the tomatillos to be boiled together with a few jalapeños, then whirled in a blender with fresh parsley, cilantro and mint, and not a small amount of garlic. Looking for a clean flavor, I left out the dried cumin the recipe called for; I also found the finished salsa to be lacking in acidity, and corrected that with both apple cider vinegar and a squeeze of fresh lime juice. I see that Bon Appétit didn't post a photo of the salsa, and neither will I; its hue wasn't exactly appetizing. But piled together with the pork and pickled onions, I doesn't look half bad; nay, the colors are almost complementary:

Pickled Red Onions
Adapted from epicurious.com
Makes about 2 cups

Ingredients:

- 2 red onions, sliced into half-moons
- 1 c. apple cider vinegar
- 1 tsp. salt
- Water

Preparation:

1. Bring a small pot of water to a boil. Blanch the onions for one minute, then drain and shock in an ice bath. Drain again.
2. Return onions to the pot and add the vinegar, salt, and enough cold water to just cover the onions. Bring mixture to a boil and simmer one minute; transfer onions and brine to glass jars and let cool. Note: if planning to can (preserve) the onions, you will need to sterilize the jars. Canned onions keep indefinitely; if not preserving, transfer the jars to the refrigerator, where they will keep for about a month.

Salsa Verde
Adapted from bonappetit.com
Makes about 4 cups

Ingredients:

- 3 lbs. tomatillos, husked, rinsed
- 2 large jalapeños, stems (but not seeds) removed
- 5 garlic cloves, peeled
- 1 bunch fresh cilantro, thick bottom stems trimmed
- 1/2 bunch fresh parsley, thick bottoms stems trimmed
- Handful fresh mint leaves
- 1 1/2 tbsp. vegetable oil
- About 1 tbsp. apple cider vinegar
- Juice of 1 lime
- About 1 1/2 tsp. salt

Preparation:

1. Place tomatillos and jalapeños in a large pot, cover with water, and bring to a boil. Drop to a simmer and let cook until tomatillos are soft, about 15 minutes. Drain.
2. Place tomatillos and jalapeños in the bowl of a blender or food processor. Add garlic and herbs, and pulse to combine, then let run until smooth.
3. Return mixture to the pot, add oil and let simmer for 5 - 10 more minutes, until salsa thickens. Remove from heat. Add cider vinegar, lime juice and salt; taste and correct seasoning. Let cool and serve.

Yet another pesto recipe

2011-10-13T10:38:00.008-04:00

Browsing my recipe index here on this site, it's easy to see some themes in what I cook: Asian food. Vegetarian food. And not a small amount of pesto.

OK, you got me--I only have two recipes for pesto published here. But even so, I think two types of pesto is more than many people conceive of. For most of us, the word pesto makes us think of that classic combination of fresh basil, pine nuts, and parmesan cheese. But as I've talked about before, the ways in which you could deviate from that norm (different herb or even bitter green; other nuts besides pine nuts) are basically endless.

Besides its versatility, the other thing that I love about pesto is how it basically acts as a means of preservation. Having joined a CSA this summer, I've learned what it feels like to be drowning in untreated, quickly perishable produce, and as a result I've increasingly turned to jarring and canning, making mostly things like jams and fruit butters. But pesto is another great way to keep your produce around a little longer: tightly sealed, it keeps in the freezer for a very long time. Plus, since it's made up mostly of oil, it never freezes totally solid, making it super easy to just scoop out a portion or two when you're boiling up some pasta--no need to freeze it in individual portion sizes.

So now that I've sold you on the idea of all pesto, all the time, let's get to the recipe, shall we? This particular one utilizes the bitter greens of two tasty root vegetables--beets and radishes. After a very quick blanch in some boiling water just to negate any too-bitter compounds in the greens, they get blitzed with some toasted walnuts, mild oil, and parmesan cheese. This pesto is excellent, of course, served with any kind of pasta, but also makes a nice sauce when thinned down a bit and drizzled over a rich fish filet, such as salmon.

Bitter Greens Pesto
Makes about two cups

Ingredients:

- 2 bunches of bitter greens, such as beet or radish tops, dandelion, or watercress, rinsed and spun dry
- 2/3 c. walnut halves or pieces, lightly toasted and cooled
- 3 garlic cloves, peeled and chopped
- Up to 3/4 c. mild oil--I use a combination of grapeseed oil and olive oil
- 1/2 c. grated parmesan cheese
- Salt
- Pepper

Preparation:

1. Fill a medium saucepan with water and bring it to a boil. In the meantime, prepare an ice bath: fill a large mixing bowl with cold water, and add a handful or two of ice. Also have a colander ready.
2. When water is boiling, drop in greens and allow them to cook for about 30 seconds. Immediately drain them in the colander, then transfer them to the ice bath. When cooled, use your hands or a towel to squeeze out as much extra water as possible, then roughly chop.
3. In the bowl of a food processor, pulse the walnuts with the garlic until both are mostly chopped. Add the greens and pulse again. Season with salt and pepper. Then, while machine is running, drizzle in the oil, stopping when pesto reaches desired consistency--it should not be too thin. Finally, add the parmesan cheese and pulse to combine. Check for seasoning.

Note: if freezing the pesto, choose a sturdy container that is just big enough, and press a layer of plastic wrap right onto the surface of the pesto before sealing with the lid.

A starring role for a supporting cast member

2011-08-09T11:35:00.011-04:00

Bread: it's the staff of life. Delicious and nutritious (despite what those Atkins people say), we all love it, we all crave it. But usually, we relegate it to some minor position in our meal; not even as important as a side dish, it's consumed to stave off hunger pangs at the beginning of a meal, or nibbled as a sort of afterthought alongside. It's time to bring bread into the fold, folks, and I aim to do that today by sharing two recent recipes that starred bread as the main character, or at least the equally-billed costar.

First up is a quick lunch I whipped up after returning home from my CSA pickup one week. I had gotten a bunch of beets, and wanted to figure out a way to use the greens, whose flavor I adore. I didn't have much else in the house besides a loaf of whole wheat sourdough and some eggs. So I thought to sauté up the greens and pile them on top of the toasted bread, crowning everything with a runny-yolked poached egg. Here's what it looked like:

And yesterday evening, as I was biking home from a day of new apartment-related errands, I was struck suddenly with August Tomato Fever. It's something we all get around this time of year, I think: the unstoppable urge to eat fresh, sweet and acidic summer tomatoes, all the time, for the rest of the season and, if possible, early into the next one. I realized I hadn't had any local tomatoes yet this year, and was able to find some beautiful mini heirloom ones when I stopped into the Co-op. I didn't want to do much to them--just cut them up, maybe add some basil--and that's when it occurred to me to make a panzanella salad for dinner. One of those classic Italian dishes that comes from poverty (like the bread soup ribollita or pasta with breadcrumbs), this recipe doesn't call for much besides bread (stale, if you have it!), tomatoes, basil, olive oil and balsamic vinegar--plus, more luxuriously if you've got it, fresh mozzarella cheese. I added a little bit of red onion and lemon zest to mine, to brighten the flavors, and what I got was a big bowl of summer, bursting with the brightness of tomatoes and the richness of good olive oil--all without lighting a single burner:

Garlic Toast with Sautéed Beet Greens and a Poached Egg
Serves 1, for lunch or a light meal

Ingredients:

- 1 small bunch of beet greens, rinsed and drained, with any large stems removed, chopped
- 1 thick slice of good bread such as sourdough or whole wheat
- 1 egg
- 1 clove garlic, peeled, plus 1 clove chopped
- Any light vinegar, such as white vinegar, white wine vinegar, or rice wine vinegar, 1/2 tsp.
- Olive oil
- Salt
- Pepper
- Red pepper flakes, optional

Preparation:

1. Prepare the beet greens: heat a small amount of olive oil in pan set over a medium flame. Add chopped garlic plus a sprinkling of red pepper flakes, if desired. After about 20 seconds, add the beet greens and cook, stirring occasionally, until greens are tender, about 6 - 8 minutes. Season greens to taste and set aside.
2. In the meantime, work on the egg and the toast. Set a small pot of water to the boil, then drop to a simmer. While waiting, toast your bread, then rub it on one side with the garlic clove.
3. When water is at a gentle simmer, add the 1/2 teaspoon of vinegar. Crack egg into a small dish and carefully lower the egg into the water. You can use a spoon to gently encourage the white of the egg to encircle the yolk. Cook at a simmer for about 2 to 3 minutes depending on how runny you like your yolk, then remove with a slotted spoon and drain on paper towels.
4. Assemble the dish: heap the beet greens on top of the garlic-rubbed side of the toast, then add the poached egg. Season egg with salt and pepper, and eat immediately.

Panzanella (Italian Bread Salad with Tomatoes and Mozzarella)
Serves 1 as a main dish, 2 as a side

Ingredients:

- 1/2 loaf of good bread, such as sourdough or Italian-style, stale is fine, cut into large cubes
- 1/2 pint of cherry or grape tomatoes, halved, or any good ripe tomatoes, cut into chunks, about 2 tomatoes
- 1/2 bunch of fresh basil, thinly sliced
- 1/4 red onion, cut into a very small dice
- Zest of half a lemon
- 1 ball of fresh mozzarella, cut into chunks the same size as the tomatoes
- Salt
- Pepper
- Olive oil
- Balsamic vinegar

1. Toast your bread: place bread on a small tray and toast in a toaster oven or the regular oven until just crisp, about 4 minutes. Set aside.
2. Toss tomatoes with a small amount of salt and pepper, and set aside for a few minutes to allow the tomatoes to "marinate" and give off some juice.
3. Combine bread, tomatoes, basil, red onion, and lemon zest in a bowl. Toss with olive oil, balsamic vinegar, salt and pepper to taste: you want the salad to be nice and juicy, and will probably need around 4 tablespoons olive oil and 1 tablespoon vinegar.
4. Just before serving, arrange the mozzarella over the top of the salad.

Whole grain goodness, in shades of pink

2011-07-30T10:12:00.005-04:00

In my last post I talked about the wonderful CSA--that's the Crown Heights CSA, to be exact--that I joined at the beginning of the summer. The produce I've been picking up weekly has been unfailingly fresh, great looking and even better tasting, and this Tuesday's haul was no exception. Among other items, I received a thick, verdant bunch of scallions, a large handful of palely golden wax beans, and three fat beets--one of my favorite vegetables of all time. With temperatures holding steady in the 90s the whole week, I knew that these veggies were destined to be eaten cold. The question was how to bring them together into harmony.

I thought about the different kinds of cold salads that we eat during the summer--beets with goat cheese, a pasta salad to chuck the beans into--and immediately dismissed them as been there, done that. I wanted to try something new. That's when I remembered the cold rice salads that my mom often made when I was growing up, usually with brown rice, vegetables, toasted nuts, etc. (my mother was really ahead of the curve when it came to eating and enjoying whole grains). I decided to take a cue from her, but also to go a step further into unknown territory by using a less common grain. My first thought was spelt, but the only version the Co-op carried was imported from Italy and a small bag cost a whopping six dollars. Right nearby, though, was a bag of equal size of wheatberries, priced to move at an incredible 55 cents. That's my kind of deal, people! I grabbed it up.

At home, I simmered the wheatberries in salted water for about 40 minutes (contrary to popular belief, wheat berries do not need to be soaked before cooking) until they were tender, then drained them and allowed them to cool. In the meantime, I boiled up my beets, peeled them, and diced them up, and cut up and blanched my wax beans. I combined everything in a big bowl, adding liberal amounts of sliced scallions and chopped parsley, as well as a lemon-olive oil dressing. And then I took a picture:

But the story didn't end there, folks: oh no, it had just begun. You see, I wanted to take the photo a) while there was still natural light; and b) before the beets totally took over and dyed everything magenta (as opposed to the early, and still quite beautiful, subtle stage of blush that you see here). But there were more things to come for this salad: right before serving it, I dotted the top with fresh Spanish goat cheese--you could also use something like feta or ricotta salata--and sprinkled on some chopped toasted walnuts. With the snap of the beans, the sweetness of the beets, the nuttiness of the wheat berries and the creaminess of the cheese, I'd say this summer salad definitely achieved the harmony--nay, the symphony--that I was looking for.

Wheatberry Salad with Beets, Wax Beans and Fresh Cheese
Serves 6 - 8 as a side dish, 4 as a main

Ingredients:

- 1 cup wheatberries, picked through to remove any debris or hard grains
- 1/2 lb. wax beans, trimmed and cut into halves or thirds depending on length (or substitute green beans)
- 3 large beets, trimmed and cut into quarters, but not peeled
- 3 scallions, white and green parts, thinly sliced
- 1/2 bunch parsley, finely chopped
- Juice of 2 lemons
- Olive oil
- Salt
- Pepper
- 4 oz. fresh cheese, such as goat or sheep's milk, or use a mild feta or ricotta salata, cut into cubes or broken up into pieces
-1/2 cup walnut pieces, toasted and chopped

Preparation:

1. Fill a medium pot with water and set it to boil. Add a generous amount of salt, then add the wheatberries. Drop to a simmer and cook, stirring occasionally, for about 40 - 50 minutes, or until wheatberries are tender. Drain and allow to cool.
2. In the meantime, fill a second medium pot with water. Set it to boil and salt generously. Drop in the beans and cook for exactly two minutes. Remove with a slotted spoon--do not drain, you'll need the water for the beets--and immediately rinse beans with very cold water to stop the cooking process.
3. Bring the bean water back to a boil and add the beets. Cook for about 20 minutes or until the beets are tender. Drain beets, then place them in a bowl while they are still hot. Cover bowl with a large plate (or with plastic wrap) and let the beets steam up as they cool down. This will make it a cinch to peel them. When cool enough to handle, peel beets and cut them into small pieces.
4. When wheat berries, beans and beets are cooked and cooled, combine in a large bowl. Add the scallions and parsley.
5. In a small bowl, combine the lemon juice with olive oil to taste, probably about the same quantity, or slightly more, as of the lemon juice. Season generously with salt and pepper. Pour over salad, and stir to combine. Chill in fridge until ready to eat.
6. Before serving, garnish the salad with the cheese and the walnuts.

Back, with a bushel of zucchini

2011-07-21T10:29:00.015-04:00

I've been back in the States almost two months now and this is the first free moment I've found to write on the blog. Life has been a flurry, of moving around, job hunting, catching up with friends and visiting all the New York spots that I missed while I was away. But things are finally taking on a sense of normalcy, allowing me some time to tell you about something important: summer zucchini.

When I got back from France, I did two things almost immediately: one, became a member of the Park Slope Food Co-op, that alternately venerated and misunderstood Brooklyn temple of local and organic food; and two, signed up for a CSA share of local fruit and vegetables. Having spent a long time in Europe, where, it seems to me, people are both more passionate and more discriminating than the majority of us Americans when it comes to the quality of their food, I would say that my growing interest in healthy, sustainable produce pretty much reached its peak. I didn't want to go back, upon returning home, to eating ordinary supermarket items flown in from California or Argentina or wherever. And I haven't looked back.

Anyone even marginally familiar with vegetable gardening knows about summer squash and, well, what a beast it is, basically. This vegetable (I suppose it is biologically a fruit) just erupts out of the ground come late June, fruiting and fruiting and producing tons of zucchinis. Gardeners sometimes don't know what to do with all their bounty, giving them away to neighbors, turning them into breads and cakes. There are even numerous gardeners' sayings about zucchini (here's a sample one "Zucchinis, terrific/Like bunnies, prolific!"). I've grown zucchini myself so I know this to be true, and just in case I'd forgotten, my weekly CSA share has certainly reminded me. For weeks now we've been getting bunches of small squash in all varieties: yellow and green; pattypan, crookneck, and everything in between. Fortunately for me, I love zucchini. Not so fortunately, I've been super busy at work lately, leaving little time to cook. So quite inadvertently, a small stockpile of squash began building up in my refrigerator's crisper drawer, until I finally found the time, yesterday, to deploy my arsenal.

Like any true NYC summer, this one, so far, has been humid and blazing hot. So what I wanted from my zucchini was something to cool me down. I improvised a simple chilled soup, first sautéing chopped green onions and garlic (also from my CSA) in olive oil, then adding a whole mess of chunked zucchini. I let that sweat down just a little bit, then added water almost to cover (the zucchini will let out a lot of liquid as it cooks, so you want to be careful not to add too much water). Once the squash was tender, I puréed the soup in batches in the blender, adding a couple of dollops of plain yogurt, plus a few fresh mint leaves and some additional seasoning, as I went. When everything was smooth and light green, I let the soup chill in the fridge before enjoying it with some homemade croutons. Say hello to my new favorite summer lunch:

Chilled Summer Squash Soup with Yogurt and Mint
Serves 8

Ingredients:

- 4 tbsp. olive oil
- 1 bunch scallions, trimmed of any brown or stringy parts, roughly chopped
- 3 cloves garlic, chopped
- 3 lbs. summer squash of any variety, chopped into rough pieces
- Water
- Salt
- Pepper
- About 1 cup plain yogurt
- A handful of fresh mint leaves, washed

Preparation:

1. In a large, deep, heavy-bottomed pot, heat the olive oil over a medium flame. Add the scallions and stir; add the garlic a few minutes later. Season with some salt and sauté for a few minutes, until the scallions start to break down.
2. Add the squash along with a few pinches of salt and a few grinds of pepper and stir to combine. Let the squash sweat for 4 or 5 minutes, then add just enough water to almost cover the squash, about 4 cups. Cover and bring to a boil, then drop to a steady simmer and leave partially covered.
3. Cook soup until squash is just tender, about 15 minutes. Turn off the heat and, working in batches, ladle the soup into a blender (you can also leave the soup in the pot and use an immersion blender). Purée, adding a dollop of yogurt, plus a few mint leaves and additional seasoning, with each batch. If the soup is looking too thin, try to leave behind some of your cooking liquid, and if too thick, add more.
4. Check soup for seasoning and allow to chill in the fridge for several hours. Serve, garnishing with additional chopped mint and, preferably, some homemade croutons (see recipe below).

Homemade Croutons
Makes two cups

Ingredients:

- Day-old bread, preferably crusty (ie, a baguette), cut into small cubes and yielding 2 cups
- 3 tbsp. olive oil
- Salt
- Pepper
- Dried herbs, such as thyme, oregano, sage, etc.

Preparation:

1. In a bowl, toss the bread cubes with the olive oil, a generous amount of salt and pepper, and a sprinkling of the herbs. Make sure each cube is coated in oil.
2. Place bread cubes in a large wide skillet set over medium-low heat and cook, tossing occasionally, for about 6 - 10 minutes, or until bread is fragrant, golden, and crunchy. Let cool completely before serving.
3. Alternatively, you can bake the croutons in a 325° oven. Set bread cubes on a sheet tray and bake, stirring occasionally, for about 6 - 10 minutes, or until bread is fragrant, golden, and crunchy. Let cool completely before serving.

A French dinner, by way of Mexico

2011-04-11T11:19:00.012-04:00

Got a whole bunch of tomatoes lying around? Like, 2 pounds of tomatoes? Well grab 'em, because you're going to need them (seeded, chopped) for this recipe:

Oh, and that's right--I almost forgot to mention your huge bunch of fresh parsley. You'll be needing that, too.

The dish I'm talking about today is pescado a la Veracruzana, or fish, Verucruz style. The name Veracruz refers both to the state and the port city located on the eastern coast of Mexico. I was there, for two days, in early 2006, when my friend Malcolm and I stayed on after a community service trip to Oaxaca to explore the country a bit. We were pressed for time during our travels, but we still wanted to make it to the beach to swim and to beat the heat. Overwhelmingly, we were told that the western coast of the country was where to go for beautiful sand and pristine waters, but our research turned up the fact that the nearest western beach from where we were at the time could be reached only after a bus ride of eight to nine hours. We decided to see about going to the eastern coast instead. Bam! Veracruz, in a measly four hours. Bus tickets were purchased. We were excited.

During our stay, locals that we met often inquired about me and Malcolm's itinerary. Well, we told them, we're going to Mexico City--also known as the D.F., or Distrito Federal--for about 5 days. The locals nodded in appreciation. Also, we confessed, we'll be going to Veracruz for a day or two. The locals paused. Tactfully, they inquired, "Oh, I see. Why?" We explained ourselves: lack of time, desire to swim. "Why?" we asked. "Is it not so nice?" The locals, ever polite, assured us that it was fine, but often added, in a smaller, affectedly unconcerned voice, that there were lots of sharks in the water. "Be careful," they said. Malcolm and I encountered this same scenario at least 5 or 6 times, until it became a joke. We were going to Veracruz. We were determined not to be eaten by sharks.

When we got there, what we found was a small, slightly seedy, slightly dirty, but on the whole more or less charming port city. We walked around the central plaza, or zocalo. We ate the fruit ices that everyone in town was eating. We had an adventurous dinner of some kind of offal-ish pork cut. We made our plans for the beach the next day. Unfortunately, when we got up the next morning, we discovered that Malcolm had been struck down by the dreaded traveler's illness Montezuma's Revenge. After some negotiation with the hotel management to let Malcolm rest in the comfort of our room for the remainder of the day, instead of checking out as we had planned to, he settled in for the long haul, while I packed my bag to head out to the beach. After a long bus ride for which I didn't have exact change and therefore couldn't pay, earning me dirty looks from the driver for the entire ride, I arrived at a flat, not so pretty, beach. But it was a beach nonetheless. Setting my fears aside, I swam a little. I read my book. I tanned, or rather, burned to a crisp, since Malcolm wasn't there to sunscreen my back. After a while, as I tend to do, I got hungry.

It probably won't surprise you to discover that my main interest while traveling is the local cuisine, and therefore to know that when I decided to head to Veracruz, I tried to read up on what to eat there. As it turned out, the city is quite famous for the fish dish mentioned above. So, that day at beach, I was determined to find me some pescado a la Veracruzana, if only so that the trip there wasn't a total bust. I happened upon it at a casual seaside restaurant not fifty paces from the shore, and, despite my pretty much lifelong ambivalence about eating fish, when the dish arrived to my table I knew I was in for something good. It was a pristine white fillet of fish--most likely red snapper--bathed in a beautiful, and beautiful-smelling, fresh tomato sauce, its red flecked with the varying shades of green of parsley, olives and capers. I dug in. It was delicious, rich with flavor while still being light and not too filling. I was sold. When I got back to the U.S., I recreated the dish several times, and it remains my favorite way to prepare fish, period.

It doesn't hurt that it's so easy to make. Basically, you sauté chopped onions and garlic, sprinkling in a healthy dose of oregano (preferably of Mexican origin) towards the end of this process. Then you add a copious amount of chopped tomatoes, plus chopped green olives and some whole capers, as well as some water to create a broth. After letting these flavors simmer and meld for a few minutes, you slip in your fish fillets that you've briefly marinated in a mixture of lime juice and salt, and you let them poach just a few minutes until they're flaky and cooked through. Before serving over rice, you add a generous showering of chopped fresh parsley, and you cut up some limes to squeeze over at the table. Take it from me: this dish is a winner, and it tastes just as good in the U.S., or France, or wherever you might be, as it does in its hometown.

Pescado a la Veracruzana
Serves 4 - 6

Ingredients:

- 6 white fish fillets, such as snapper, cod, flounder, tilapia, etc.
- Juice of 4 or 5 limes, plus more limes for slicing
- 3 tbsp. olive oil
- 1 white or yellow onion, sliced into thin half-moons
- 3 cloves of garlic, minced
- 1 tsp. red pepper flakes, or to taste
- 2 tsp. dried oregano, preferably Mexican, or to taste
- 3 c. (about 2 lbs.) seeded and chopped tomatoes
- 1/2 c. green olives, pitted and chopped
- 3 tbsp. capers, rinsed
- 1 c. water
- Salt, to taste
- 1/2 c. chopped fresh parsley
- Limes, for slicing

Preparation:

1. Place fish fillets in a shallow dish and pour lime juice over. Sprinkle with a small amount of salt, and place in the refrigerator to marinate.
2. In a deep, wide, and heavy saucepan, heat the olive oil over a medium flame. Add the onions and garlic and a pinch of salt and sauté, stirring frequently, for about 6 minutes, or until onions are soft and translucent.
3. Add the red pepper flakes and oregano. Stir to coat and heat through.
4. Add the tomatoes, olives, capers and water and stir to combine. Add more salt, to taste (be careful here. The olives and capers add quite a bit of salt to the sauce). Bring sauce to a simmer and cook for about 15 minutes.
5. Gently slip the fish fillets into the sauce; cover the pan partially. Cook until fish is cooked through but still flaky, about 8 - 10 minutes.
6. Sprinkle the parsley over the dish and serve over rice, with lime wedges.

A Pesto for Printemps

2011-04-01T07:55:00.024-04:00

That's spring, for you non-Francophones out there. As I discussed in my last post, spring, glorious spring has sprung in Toulouse--as I write this, my bedroom windows, which open on our huge, overgrown garden, are flung wide, allowing soft, cool breezes and lazy sunlight to gently filter in.

I really lucked out with this garden. You see, I set up my housing here in Toulouse before I left New York, taking a gamble on my room, housemates, etc. I'm happy to say that the place I live is truly better than anything I could have imagined: situated at the end of a quiet block, it's a big, two-story house with a large, well-stocked kitchen, and of course, the garden that I just mentioned. As I talked about in some of my container garden posts from 2009, I've been growing more and more interested in gardening and agriculture--as someone who's obsessed with food, it's natural to want to understand more about where it comes from, and especially gratifying to be able to grow it yourself. Serendipitously, my housemate Ben is an experienced jardinier, having lived on a farm for a while last year, and he's been maintaining our fruit and vegetable plants this year. When I first arrived, in September, I benefited from the last of the season's ripe, juicy tomatoes, and harvested some small cauliflowers and cabbages this winter. Right now, though, it's all about the early-spring crops of lettuces and tender green spinach:

The spinach we've got just grows and grows, so I've been trying to take advantage of it by mixing it into nearly everything I cook: tossing some into a bowl of warm pasta; sautéeing it with mushrooms; folding it into rice. Because there's so much of it, the thought occurred to me to try to make something that would call for a lot. And then it came to me: pesto! I love pesto, and I love that you can make it out of nearly anything green (arugula, as well as fresh herbs like parsley and cilantro come to mind)--not just the basil that most people associate it with--and that you can incorporate nearly any type of nut, and not just pine nuts. What I happened to have on hand were some flaked almonds, so I decided to use those. To tie it all together, I added just a little bit of something that goes wonderfully with both spinach and almonds--lemon. If you've ever eaten the classic Italian side dish of some quickly sautéed spinach finished with a refreshing spritz of lemon juice, you know what a natural pairing the two ingredients make. Same goes for almonds and lemon: many dessert recipes--like this one for pound cake, this one for madeleines, and this one for cookies--call for both. So for my pesto, I added a touch of freshly grated zest. The fresh spinach, the subtle almonds and the tart lemon combine to produce a pesto that's a lot lighter and brighter than the ones you might be used to. Spring in a bowl!

Spinach and Almond Pesto with Lemon
Makes about 1 1/2 cups

Ingredients:

- 1/2 c. flaked or slivered almonds, or use slightly less whole peeled almonds (if your nuts are fresh, there is no need to toast them. If they're not, toast in a pan or low oven until fragrant and allow them to cool.)
- 3 cloves garlic, peeled and roughly chopped
- 1 tsp. grated lemon zest
- 1 tsp. salt or more to taste
- About 6 oz. or 4 c. packed spinach leaves, washed and roughly torn
- 1/2 c. olive oil or more as needed
- 1/4 c. grated parmesan cheese
- Freshly ground black pepper, to taste

Preparation:

1. Place almonds, garlic, lemon zest and salt in the bowl of a food processor. Pulse until nuts are ground, but not too finely.
2. Add spinach, in batches if necessary, and pulse to combine. Once all spinach is added, leave the food processor running as you drizzle in the 1/2 c. olive oil. If mixture remains too thick, add more oil.
3. Scrape pesto into a bowl. Add parmesan and some grinds of black pepper and stir to combine. Taste for seasoning, adding more salt or pepper as needed. Store in the refrigerator for one week or in the freezer for one month.

It was supposed to be so simple

2011-03-27T08:36:00.019-04:00

I had it all planned out: I would write a short, sweet little post about spring coming to Toulouse, the bounty of beautiful produce it's brought with it, and the delicate, yet unfussy, dish I would prepare with pristine white asparagus, a true harbinger of spring if ever there was one. Here, have a look at it, I invite you. Pretty stunning, no?

There I was at the Marché Cristal, a lively, sprawling open-air market near my house, on a recent sunny morning, agape with wonder at all the new arrivals on display, and rendered nearly paralyzed with indecision at what to buy first: the slender green artichokes, leaves still attached, displayed like so many bouquets of flowers? The huge, curling pods of fava beans, or fèves, overflowing and nearly tumbling down from their slatted cases? How about a small container of perfect, sweet yet tart strawberries, real strawberries, the likes of which you hardly ever find in the United States these days?

Somehow, I pulled myself together and made my purchases, starting, yes, with those lovely fraises, which I devoured in about three minutes upon reaching home, and finishing up with the bunch of asparagus pictured above. It was nearly lunchtime by the time I got home, and I was hungry, those berries not really having tided me over. I quickly trimmed up the asparagus, snapping the tough ends off, and threw them in a steamer to cook for, I wagered, about 12 minutes, until they were just tender. In the meantime, thought I, I'll put a little pot of water on the boil for a soft-cooked egg, which I envisioned as the perfect accompaniment to my asparagus, slumping gently over them, lubricating them with its rich yellow yolk. Sounds like a plan, no?

Well, sometimes even the most carefully thought out plans don't turn out the way we intend. You see, I had never actually cooked white asparagus before, and rather brashly assumed that its method of preparation was identical to that of its verdant cousin. And so when I tested a blond spear after about 10 minutes--lifting it from the steamer to see if it would bend ever-so-slightly--I could see that something was wrong. The tips of the asparagus seemed nice and tender, but the bottom part of the stem was still rather the same texture as it was when raw: woody and unyielding. "Well, OK," I thought to myself, "I'll just let them steam a little longer." Checked them again after ten minutes. No real discernible change. Abandoned my steaming mission and chucked the little devils right into the boiling water at the bottom. Ten more minutes, and it became clear that there was no salvaging this situation. I drained the little buggers, laid them out nicely on a plate as intended, draped them with lemony vinaigrette, and garnished them with some sliced tomatoes. I should add, at this point, that my frustration with the asparagus caused me to totally forgot about my lovingly cooked soft egg, and what I now had was a hard-cooked one. I saved it for later. I made another soft egg. And what I got, finally, was this:

It doesn't look bad, does it? And see, it didn't taste bad, either. But the only edible part of the asparagus was the top half. The bottom half I had to sort of pull through my teeth, much as one eats a steamed artichoke leaf, to scrape out the interior softness and leave behind the tough, fibrous exterior. A lot of work for a lot of waste. It was a shame. And so as soon as I finished eating, I looked up the correct method of preparing white asparagus. Turns out that even the slenderest stems possess a hard outer peel that must be removed--with a knife--before cooking. It would have been nice to know that before, but I know it now. And so I've provided the emended recipe below. Here's hoping your maiden white asparagus voyage encounters smooth seas.

Steamed White Asparagus with a Soft-Cooked Egg
Serves 1

Ingredients:

- 1 small bunch fresh white asparagus (10 - 12 spears)
- 1 egg
- Vinaigrette made with mustard, lemon juice, salt and olive oil
- Sliced fresh tomatoes, for serving (optional)

Preparation:

1. Trim and peel the asparagus: as mentioned above, this step is indispensable and it's important to do it correctly. First, trim the bottom 1 inch from the asparagus spears. Then, using a small, sharp paring knife, peel the outer layer off, stripping the stem from the bottom up. Continue peeling nearly to the top of the spear.
2. Steam the asparagus: in a large, wide pot or pan, heat about 2 inches of water over high heat. When it boils, salt it, drop in the asparagus, cover and drop to a lively simmer. Steam, covered, until spears are tender, about 15 to 20 minutes.
3. Meanwhile, soft-boil the egg: place egg in a small saucepan and fill with cold water to cover. Place over medium-high heat; cover. When water boils, drop to a simmer and cook egg for exactly 8 minutes. Drain and immediately run egg under cold water to stop the cooking. When egg is cool, peel.
4. Drain asparagus and arrange warm spears on a plate, drizzling with about 3 teaspoons vinaigrette. Season with salt and pepper. Slice egg into halves or quarters and arrange over the asparagus. Serve with sliced tomato, if desired.

Not your ordinary fish cake

2011-02-15T04:45:00.013-05:00

OK, you've got me--I don't even really know what an ordinary fish cake would be. Fact is, you don't see too many people routinely whipping up fish cakes at home. I don't think. But they happen to be a delicious, inexpensive and easy dish that are all too easily overlooked by the home cook. Growing up, my mom routinely prepared salmon cakes using canned fish--unappetizing sounding, perhaps, but in fact they were delicious, quick to throw together, and because they relied on pantry staples, they could be made at almost any time.

I was thinking about those salmon cakes about a week ago when, as I usually do during my half hour bus ride home from work, I was pondering what to make for dinner. It was getting late, I was hungry, and I wanted to make something fast and easy. On the other hand, I was in the mood for something a bit out of the ordinary. And finally, I was feeling like I should eat some fish. At this point in my life, I like most kinds of fish ok, but as a child I found them all to be disgusting, nauseating specimens and I couldn't believe that they passed as food. I remember that when I was young and my parents worked a lot, they designated certain nights of the week for certain foods, for example Pizza Friday, presumably to make the job of the babysitters feeding my brother and me a bit easier. Pizza Friday (always accompanied by a red Hawaiian Punch, in my case, except for that one week in 1992 when clear Pepsi was all the rage), in all its glory, shone even more brightly each week in comparison to the dreaded Fish Thursday. Much as the name implies, Thursday nights were reserved for fish, most often some bland tasteless fillet coated in breadcrumbs and fried in oil, but my delicate palate couldn't handle even that, and nearly every week I would feign illness or even lock myself in the bathroom pretending to throw up, attempting to weasel my way out of having to consume the fetid flesh. To no avail, I might add.

These days, I'll happily eat nearly anything put in front of me, and fish is no exception. And yet it's certainly never found itself on my list of favored foods. In fact, I often simply forget about fish and have to remind myself to eat it since it's light and healthy, and a good swap for meat when I'm not feeling like going totally vegetarian. It doesn't help that fish is often one of the worst purchases you can make these days, what with rampant overfishing and all, and that it can also be pretty pricey.

I'll readily admit that, like most people, price is what I think about before I consider the provenance of the fish and whether it's endangered or not. So that very night when I entered the grocery store and found cleaned, filleted lieu noir for something like 6 euro a kilo, making the one large piece I bought about $1.75, I scooped it up. Later, I did look up the fish--called Atlantic pollock in English (at least before a 2001 marketing campaign attempted to rebrand it colin)--and according to the Monteray Bay Aquarium's Seafood Watch List, wild, net-caught pollock is a sustainable choice. So let's hope my lieu noir was, in fact, fished in that manner.

But on to its preparation. As I mentioned, I wanted something a little out of the ordinary, and decided that an Asian flavor profile was the way to go. Actually, since I cook Asian food at least twice a week, it's no longer that out of the ordinary for me personally, but those flavors--soy, sesame, cilantro, lime--never fail to taste beguiling and, yes, exotic. After choosing the pollock for its low price and neutral flavor, I picked up some baby spinach leaves and a carrot to cook with the rice I planned to serve alongside the fish cakes and headed home--all the rest of the necessary ingredients were already there.

After making sure my fish fillet was free of any lingering bones or skin, I cut it into large pieces and dropped it into the bowl of a food processor, then pulsed carefully to achieve a ground, but not puréed, texture. I transferred the fish to a mixing bowl and added salt, pepper, toasted sesame oil, fish sauce, minced shallots, a drop of rice vinegar and a small mountain of chopped fresh cilantro. I stirred this mixture with my hands until it just came together, then formed it into small cakes, rolled them in breadcrumbs, and let them firm up in the refrigerator before frying them in a hot pan. The result? Just as satisfying, and nearly as easy, as my mother's salmon cakes, and somewhat lighter and brighter. Call them fish cakes 2.0.

Asian-Style Fish Cakes
Makes about 6 medium cakes, or 2 servings

Ingredients:

- 1 lb. neutral white fish, such as pollock, cod, scrod or tilapia, cleaned and filleted
- 1 shallot, minced
- 1/2 c. fresh cilantro, chopped
- 2 tsp. sesame oil
- 1 tsp. rice wine vinegar
- Dash of fish sauce
- Salt and pepper, to taste
- About 1/2 c. plain dry breadcrumbs
- Vegetable oil

Preparation:

1. Check fish for any remaining bones or skin and remove. Cut the fish into several large pieces and place them in the bowl of a food processor. Pulse carefully to achieve a ground, but not puréed, texture. Transfer to a mixing bowl and add the shallot, cilantro, sesame oil, rice vinegar, fish sauce, salt, and pepper. Mix gently just until everything comes together. Shape into 6 medium cakes, roll in breadcrumbs, and let rest in refrigerator for 30 minutes to an hour.
2. Heat a large, heavy-bottomed skillet over medium heat and add about 1/4 inch of oil. When oil is hot, add fish cakes and fry, turning as necessary to avoid burning, until completely cooked through, about 12 - 15 minutes. Drain briefly on paper towels and serve.

Not your ordinary meatball

2011-02-07T09:48:00.009-05:00

Because meatballs--whether made of beef, pork, veal, the classic combination of all three, or some other type of flesh--are among my favorite foods of all time, I was somewhat shocked to realize that I've never shared a recipe for them on the blog. In fact, they're not something I prepare all too often, which is a shame. I guess the reason for this is that meatball-making is a somewhat lengthy process, but since there's nothing complicated about it, it's really something I should tackle more often.

I recently invented a meatball recipe that, I have to say, has become my favorite way to prepare them. I've been lucky enough to have been hired to cater two events while here in France, both birthday parties, and it was for the occasion of the first one that I made this recipe up, subsequently preparing (and perfecting) it for the second one. I thought meatballs would make the perfect party food, since they're easy to spear with a toothpick, and I also wanted to make something unusual, that would stand out more than the average meatball. That's when I thought to take a cue from Greece, using a meat less commonly seen in meatballs--ground lamb--and to load it up with fresh herbs and chunks of feta. The resulting meatballs, served in a simple tomato sauce, are meaty but not heavy, their richness cut through with the brightness of the herbs and the sharpness of the feta. For the parties I served them on their own, but for a complete meal I think they'd be lovely over some rice, cracked wheat or bulgur.

Lamb Meatballs with Fresh Herbs and Feta
Serves 8 - 10

Ingredients:

- 2 lbs. ground lamb (or substitute ground beef)
- 3 eggs, lightly beaten
- 1/2 c. breadcrumbs
- 1/2 c. finely chopped parsley plus extra for garnish
- 1/2 c. finely chopped cilantro
- 1/2 c. finely chopped mint
- 6 oz. feta cheese, cut into a small dice
- Salt
- Pepper
- 4 tbsp. + 1 tbsp. olive oil, divided
- 1 large can peeled plum tomatoes in juice

Preparation:

1. In a large mixing bowl, combine the lamb, eggs, breadcrumbs, herbs, feta, and a generous amount of salt and pepper. Mix gently to combine. Roll mixture into small- to medium-sized balls. You should end up with about 30 meatballs.
2. Heat 4 tbsp. of olive oil in a large, wide, heavy-bottomed skillet set over a medium-high flame. When oil is hot, add meatballs in batches, turning and shaking them occasionally to ensure even browning. Remove meatballs with a slotted spoon.
3. Empty canned tomatoes into a deep bowl or pot, then use your hands to crush them, leaving some chunks for texture.
3. When all meatballs are browned, wipe out pan and heat remaining 1 tbsp. oil over a medium flame. Add the tomatoes and a generous sprinkling of salt. Cook, stirring, for about 3 minutes. Add meatballs, lower flame and cover partially, allowing meatballs to simmer until completely cooked through, about 30 minutes. Serve garnished with a sprinkling of fresh parsley.

I'm back

2011-02-04T09:53:00.026-05:00

Ahem. I apologize for the long delay between posts, but I was making some wonton soup and it took a long time.

I kid, of course. Well, not entirely. I did make wonton soup--that's what I'm here to tell you about on this sunny, mild Toulouse afternoon--and it did take a long time. But additionally, my less-than-a-year-old laptop decided to bite the dust several weeks ago, and after I sent it in to a repair center, I was left in the lurch, internet-less and unable to share my culinary creations. The cooking didn't stop--actually, I've been cooking more than ever lately--but I'll have to play some catch-up on the blog over the next few weeks.

So let's get right into that wonton soup, shall we? About 2 months ago, I posted about Paris Store, an Asian supermarket where I stocked up pantry essentials like fish sauce, sesame oil, sambal oelek and preserved vegetables. I also indulged in a few impulse purchases, such as Vietnamese nems, chewy sesame candies and a packet of wonton skins. When I got home that day, I threw the wontons into the freezer, not sure what I'd do with them, or when.

Inspiration struck about a week ago, when I was browsing the meat aisle at my local supermarket. As I've mentioned on the blog many a time, ~~poverty~~ frugality often guides me in my cooking. Though eating well is one of the most important pursuits in my life, I do not have a lot of money to spend on fancy ingredients, and so I seek out things that taste good but don't come at a high price. Rather than seeing this as some kind of hindrance, I actually enjoy the sport of bargain-hunting, and feel that it's a fun challenge. Spotting some random food item that has had its price slashed will often completely determine what I'll be making for dinner that night, as I scoop it into my shopping cart.

Such was the case when I decided to make these wontons. As I said, I was eying the meat offerings at the store when I noticed two items: first, a two-pound assortment of pork bones, labeled "Bones for animals," and priced at 55 cents; and second, a package of ground pork, on sale for 50% off, making its final price a whopping 2 euros. First a big pot of rich pork stock flashed into my mind (I love making stock, and do so often during the winter), followed by a vision of plump little pork dumplings floating in it. Later that afternoon, at the open-air market, I picked up the rest of the ingredients I would need--a knob of fresh ginger, a bunch of scallions and a small head of Napa cabbage--and I got to work.

First, I trimmed the pork bones of excess fat, then chucked them into a deep soup pot that I filled with cold water, brought to a boil, and dropped to a simmer. Then, I mixed up my wonton filling, seasoning the ground pork with salt, grated ginger, and sesame oil, and mixing in finely chopped scallions and cabbage. Then, I laid out my (defrosted) wonton skins on a clean, cornstarch-dusted work surface, 9 at a time, keeping the rest soft and supple under a damp paper towel. I filled each dumpling with one teaspoon of pork filling, no more, no less. You want a plump, juicy end result, but it's essential not to over-stuff your wontons, or you'll risk them bursting apart in your soup:

Next, I dipped my forefinger in a little bowl of water, ran it over two sides of the wonton squares, then pinched the dumplings into a triangle shape, making sure to press out any air and to verify that the edges were well bound together. I attempted to make a pretty pleated dumpling but failed, so I sort of folded the dumplings into little envelopes, sealing with a bit more water once they were folded. You can make any shape you like, as long as everything is well sealed:

With my dumplings done, it was time to finish my pork stock. I skimmed off any foam and fat that had risen to the top, then dropped in a knob of ginger, a halved onion, a chopped carrot and some peppercorns, and continued to simmer for another hour. I skimmed again, then strained the stock and returned it to the heat, adding dashes of soy sauce, fish sauce and rice vinegar. When it came to a gentle boil, I slipped the wontons in in batches, stirring gently and flipping them to ensure even cooking. When they were cooked through, about 8 minutes later, I scooped them out with a slotted spoon and tossed them with a little vegetable oil to prevent any sticking. I like to keep the wontons separate from the broth until I heat myself up a bowl of soup, so that they don't get soggy.

To serve, I heat the broth and dumplings up with a bit more shredded cabbage just until it's wilted, then stir in additional sesame oil and sambal oelek. Yes, it's a long process, but it results in a filling, delicious soup best tackled with a deep spoon and a pair of chopsticks:

Pork and Cabbage Wonton Soup
Serves 8 - 10

Ingredients:

- 8 - 10 cups Asian pork broth (see recipe below)
- 1 package wonton skins
- 1 1/2 lbs. ground pork
- 1 scallion, thinly sliced, white and green parts
- 1 small head Napa cabbage, finely shredded and chopped
- 1 tsp. grated ginger
- 1 tsp. toasted sesame oil
- 1/2 tsp. salt
- Water
- Vegetable oil
- Additional sesame oil, for serving
- Sambal oelek, for serving

Preparation:

1. Prepare the wonton filling: in a medium bowl, combine the pork, scallion, 1 cup shredded cabbage, ginger, sesame oil and salt. Knead to combine. Set aside.
2. Make the dumplings: dust a clean work surface (counter, table or kitchen towel) with cornstarch. Lay out the wonton skins 9 at a time, keeping the remainder under a damp paper towel. Place one teaspoon of pork filling in the center of each wonton. Dip your forefinger in a bowl of water and run water over 2 edges of dumpling wrapper. Pinch the dumplings together into a triangle shape. Press out any air pockets and ensure edges are well sealed, then pinch or fold into desired dumpling shape. Place finished dumplings on a dish and sprinkle cornstarch over to prevent sticking.
3. Bring the pork broth to a simmer and drop in the dumplings, working in batches to prevent crowding. Stir the soup gently and flip the dumplings around so they cook evenly. When cooked through, about 8 minutes, remove to a dish with a slotted spoon. Toss dumplings with a small amount of vegetable oil, to prevent sticking.
4. To serve soup, heat desired amount of broth with dumplings and a handful of shredded cabbage per person. Divide soup among bowls and serve with additional sesame oil and sambal oelek.

Asian Pork Broth
Makes 8 - 10 cups

Ingredients:

- 2 lbs. assorted pork bones, trimmed of excess fat
- 12 cups cold water
- 1 onion, peeled and cut in half
- 1 carrot, scrubbed and cut into pieces
- 1 small knob of ginger
- 1 tbsp. whole peppercorns
- 1 bay leaf
- Light soy sauce
- Fish sauce
- Rice wine vinegar
- Salt

Preparation:

1. Combine bones and water in a large, deep stock pot. Bring to a boil, then drop to a simmer. Cook, uncovered, for about 3 hours, skimming foam and fat as it rises to the top.
2. After 3 hours, add the onion, carrot, ginger, peppercorns and bay leaf. Continue to simmer for one hour.
3. Skim any remaining foam and fat and strain stock to remove bones and aromatics. Return broth to pot and season to taste with dashes of soy sauce, fish sauce, rice wine and salt.

The humble cabbage

2011-01-16T09:01:00.013-05:00

One of the best things about travel, for me personally, is the culinary inspiration it brings. Over the past few months, I've been documenting my French-influenced cooking; and recently, on a trip through central Europe, I became quite enamored of the hearty, soulful, simple but tasty cuisine I encountered there. In my last post, I described how my wanderings left me with a hankerin' for lentils, but there was one other traditional ingredient I found myself craving consistently even after I returned to France, and that was cabbage.

I ate a lot of cabbage during my recent trip: stuffed, pickled, fermented, shredded raw into salad or baked inside a savory strudel, I couldn't get enough. You see, I really love cabbage. I know it has a reputation for being bland, mushy, and otherwise dull, but I've simply never found that to be the case. You might be wondering how I typically prepare cabbage. That's easy: in the summertime, I slip it into all manner of coleslaws. When cooking Asian soups and stirfrys, I often shred in some delicate, rippled Napa cabbage. And one of my favorite winter side dishes is a simple braise of red cabbage, apples and onions, seasoned with mustard, caraway or fennel seeds, and pretty darn irresistible alongside a mustardy sausage or tender pork chop. When I got back to Toulouse it felt like all I wanted to cook was cabbage, so you can imagine my delight at discovering this New York Times article, published shortly after my return. And the recipe that really caught my eye was this cabbage soup: full of hardy, widely-available green cabbage, tangy tomatoes and a sweet-and-sour flavor profile accented by lemon juice, brown sugar and golden raisins, it was almost as if the Times had me in mind when publishing the recipe. These were the exact flavors that I found in central Europe and that I so wanted to be able to recreate at home.

And the soup definitely didn't disappoint. I could tell just from its aroma while cooking that it was going to be good. In fact, the smells brought me right back to my childhood: my paternal grandmother, Laura, an excellent cook, made a rice-and-beef-stuffed cabbage, and my maternal grandmother, Georgia, still makes sweet-and-sour beef meatballs stewed in a zippy tomato sauce that are the highlight of every Thanksgiving. Standing over the stove and stirring this soup was like being in some magical, corners-of-my-memory kitchen that somehow channeled the formidable cooking prowess of both of these women into one steaming pot. And if that doesn't make you want to pick up a head of cabbage the next time you go to the store, I don't know what would.

Sweet-and-Sour Cabbage Soup
Adapted from the New York Times
Serves 8 - 10

Ingredients:

- 2 tbsp. olive oil
- 2 cloves garlic, minced
- 1 large onion, diced
- 2 carrots, peeled and sliced thinly
- 1 28-oz. can whole peeled plum tomatoes
- 1 c. tomato paste
- 1/2 c. ketchup
- 1/2 c. dark brown sugar
- 1 bay leaf
- 1/2 c. lemon juice
- 3 lbs. green cabbage, tough outer leaves, ribs and core removed, sliced into ribbons
- 1/2 c. golden or black raisins
- Salt
- Pepper
- Sour cream, for serving
- Chopped fresh dill or parsley, for serving

Preparation:

1. In a large, heavy-bottomed soup pot set over medium heat, sauté olive oil, garlic and onions along with a pinch of salt. When onions are soft and translucent, add 3 cups water, carrots, canned tomatoes, tomato paste, ketchup, brown sugar, bay leaf and another pinch of salt. Bring to a simmer and crush tomatoes lightly with a spoon. Simmer until carrots are tender, about 20 minutes. Discard bay leaf.
2. Using an immersion blender, or working in batches with a stand blender, purée soup lightly, leaving it a bit chunky. Add lemon juice, cabbage and 3 cups water. Simmer until cabbage is cooked to taste, about 1 hour for al dente cabbage or up to 2 hours for soft cabbage.
3. 10 minutes before serving, add 3 - 5 cups water to thin soup to desired consistency. Add raisins. Check soup for seasoning, adjusting if necessary. Serve with a dollop of sour cream and sprinkle with chopped herbs.

Lentils for my new year

2011-01-10T12:33:00.006-05:00

Over the Christmas holiday, I was lucky enough to be able to travel to Austria, Czech Republic and Hungary, pretty much eating my way through my wanderings. As an Ashkenazi Jew, and therefore someone with roots in this region of the world, I immediately felt a connection to the cuisine I found in these countries: warming, long-cooking dishes like goulash, stuffed cabbage and a wide variety of soups, as well as a mind-boggling array of delicious pastries, many stuffed with sweetened poppyseeds, a popular (and my favorite) filling for hamentaschen cookies, traditionally made during the Jewish holiday of Purim.

It being the end of the year, though, the one dish that you could find anywhere and that was advertised everywhere (especially on New Year's Day) was lentil soup. All over the world, it's traditional to eat legumes on the first of January: they symbolize money, and so are eaten in the hopes of assuring a financially propitious year. We Americans might be most familiar with Hoppin' John, a dish of blackeyed peas stewed with pork that's commonly consumed in the south, but all over Europe, including Italy, Germany, and the central European countries I visited, lentils are the number one New Year's Day meal.

I didn't actually eat any lentil soup in Budapest, the city where I rang in 2011, but the little green legume lodged itself in my mind, because I found myself craving it ever since I returned to Toulouse. I found the perfect occasion to prepare a lentil dish when my birthday, the 9th of January, rolled around. As anyone who follows this blog knows, on my birthday my preferred means of celebration is to fix a big, inexpensive meal and invite all my friends over. Usually the celebration is a pork fest (and, incidentally, pork is another auspicious food oft prepared for the New Year's meal). But although pork butt is cheap, my funds this year were even more limited than usual, having just returned from a vacation and all, and I set my sights on a meal that though still tasty, would cost me almost nothing. And what fits the bill for that? Why, legumes, of course. So I whipped up some hummus, an old standard of mine, and I improvised a lentil salad made with roasted red peppers and shallots. I felt it was appropriately French--they eat a lot of lentils over here, especially the little green ones which I suppose best symbolize money--and what's more, my buddies seemed to enjoy it, too:

Lentil Salad with Potatoes, Red Peppers and Shallots
Serves 8 - 10 as a side dish

Ingredients:

- 2 cups green lentils, rinsed
- 4 medium new potatoes, scrubbed and cut into a medium dice
- 1 red bell pepper
- 3 shallots, peeled and sliced into paper-thin half-moons
- 1 lemon
- Red wine vinegar
- Olive oil
- Salt
- Pepper

Preparation:

1. Preheat the oven to 400°. Rub the red pepper with a small amount of oil, place it in a small baking dish, and roast in the oven, turning occasionally, until the skin is blackened and the flesh is soft, about 20 minutes. Remove dish from oven and tent with foil.
2. Meanwhile, cook the lentils. Bring a large pot of salted water to the boil, then add the lentils. Drop to a simmer and cook lentils, stirring occasionally, until they are tender but still al dente, about 20 minutes. Drain and rinse with cold water.
3. Place the diced potatoes in a medium pot and cover with cold water. Add 1/2 tsp. salt. Bring to a boil, drop to a simmer, and cook until potatoes are cooked through but still firm, about 12 - 15 minutes. Drain.
4. When pepper is cool enough to handle, peel off the skin, open it up and discard the seeds and ribs. Slice into thin strips.
5. Combine the lentils, potatoes, red pepper and sliced shallots in a large salad bowl. Add the juice of 1 lemon. Add about 2 tbsp. red wine vinegar and about 4 tbsp. olive oil, and salt and pepper to taste. Taste the salad and adjust flavorings as necessary: it might need more vinegar, oil, salt or pepper. The salad is best if it sits for a few hours and absorbs the dressing. Before serving, taste again and adjust seasonings as necessary.

Paris Store

2010-12-13T04:06:00.019-05:00

Upon arriving in Toulouse I was lucky enough to move into a house with an extremely well-stocked kitchen: pots, pans, dishes of all sizes, as well as a good selection of oils, herbs and spices. But there was one category that was sorely lacking, and that was the "International Foods" section. As I've chronicled on this blog, I've gotten very interested in cooking Asian food, particularly Chinese, over the past two years, and to suddenly find myself without my sesame oil, my sambal oelek, without even a bottle of soy sauce, was, to put it mildly, jarring. My number one fast, delicious go-to meal--fried rice--was suddenly out of reach. I was not pleased.

Happily, I found an ally in my roommate Ben, who's an accomplished cook and fellow admirer of spicy food (a true rarity in France). When I voiced my concerns to him he recommended we take a trip to Paris Store, a huge Asian food megamart in Mirail, the university district of Toulouse. And one cold Saturday about a week ago, that's exactly what we did.

Paris Store is similar to the many Asian supermarkets I'm familiar with from Brooklyn and Manhattan Chinatowns. It's got a great selection of meat, produce, sauces, spices, preserved and frozen items, as well as an interesting array of serving dishes and cookware. With one difference: whereas in New York these stores' prices are bargain-basement, making it a challenge for even your most indulgent shopping trips to cost you over $20, the prices at Paris Store are the same as you'd find at any normal supermarket. Not expensive, but enough to slightly reduce the omigodthisisSOcheap thrill of its U.S. counterparts.

Trust me when I tell you that I was thrilled nonetheless. This store really has everything. Need some MSG? They've got it. How about fresh durian? Or some jarred toddy palm paste, whatever that is? They've got that, too.

The expression "like a kid in a candy store" comes to mind here. As you can see, my roommates and I made out pretty well in the end:

We picked up tons of stuff, but most importantly the five condiments that I consider the most necessary to basic Asian cooking: light soy sauce, fish sauce, toasted sesame oil, rice wine, the aforementioned sambal oelek (or any other chili paste). Finally, I was reunited with my beloved ingredients, and a whole new world of flavor was opened up to me! By the time we got back from our shopping trip I was famished, and set to work on a simple stir-fry as soon as we walked in the door. I started with the basics: fresh ginger, garlic, scallions and chilis, which I always find so beautiful all lined up and waiting to be deployed to a hot pan:

These staples got fried up along with some gai lan, or Chinese broccoli, some cubed firm tofu, and the requisite lashings of several different kinds of sauces. Scooped over some freshly steamed white rice, it was the perfect bowlful. Absence makes the heart (and stomach) grow fonder, indeed.

Stir-Fried Chinese Broccoli with Tofu
Serves 2 as a main dish, 4 as a side

Ingredients:

- 1 tbsp. fresh ginger, minced
- 2 cloves garlic, minced
- 3 scallions, finely chopped (white and green parts)
- 1 fresh red chile, chopped finely (seeds and ribs removed if chile is very hot)
- 3 tbsp. vegetable oil
- 1 head of gai lan (Chinese broccoli), chopped and leaves separated from stalks
- 1/2 package of firm tofu, excess water squeezed out and chopped into cubes
- 3 tbsp. light soy sauce
- 2 tbsp. rice wine
- 2 tsp. sambal oelek or other Asian chile paste
- 2 tbsp. Chinese pickled vegetables (optional)
- 2 tsp. toasted sesame oil

Preparation:

1. Heat the vegetable oil in a wok or large deep pan set over medium-high heat.
2. Add the chopped broccoli stems, ginger, garlic, chilis and scallions and cook, stirring or tossing frequently, until broccoli stems are slightly softened, about 6 minutes.
3. Add the chile paste and pickled vegetables, if using. Fry for 2 minutes.
4. Add the chopped broccoli leaves, tofu, soy sauce, and rice wine. Cook, stirring gently, until liquid has evaporated slightly and broccoli is cooked through, about 4 more minutes. Drizzle sesame oil over. Check for seasoning. Serve over hot rice.

Latkes for ten

2010-12-06T10:10:00.027-05:00

Well, folks, it's that time of year again: the holiday season is upon us. It's been chilly here in Toulouse, not one but two holiday markets have sprung up, and many of the streets in the center of town have been illuminated with strands of twinkling lights. Oh, yeah: and it snowed the other day. Only for about fifteen minutes, but still, snow is snow.

Hannukah came early this year--it started on the first of December--and as a cultural (read: food-obsessed) Jew, I felt it my duty this season not only to make latkes for myself, but to share them with my friends and roommates, many of whom had never attended a Hannukah celebration before. I'm sure anyone reading this blog knows what latkes are, so I won't take the time to explain them; I will, however, state unequivocally that they are one of my favorite foods. I find latkes incredibly festive: being a somewhat health-conscious cook and eater, it's not often I indulge myself by making fried foods, so when Hannukah rolls around and I fry up some potato pancakes, it really feels to me like a unique occasion, and a special time of year. Even setting aside for a moment the comfort that adhering to tradition brings, these things are just delicious: who doesn't like fried potatoes?

At home in New York, I usually celebrate Hannukah with my family, and that more or less means that on one of the nights my mom will fry up a large batch of latkes, usually several different varieties, in fact. Classic potato is always on the roster (and despite how good all types of latkes are, plain potato is by far my favorite), and she'll usually whip up some sweet potato latkes, too, as well as zucchini or mixed vegetables. Because I was inviting 10 people over for my Hannukah, as well as making a beef brisket, homemade applesauce and a side salad, I decided to only tackle 2 kinds of latkes this year: the classic potato, as well as a potato/beet mix, in order to pay homage to my current home country. The French love beets and you can find them everywhere (most supermarkets actually sell them precooked in vacuum-sealed packaging, which I don't really find appealing, since beets are so easy to cook anyway). And what's not to love? Beets are earthy and sweet, quite beautiful to look at, and, most importantly for me anyway, ridiculously cheap.

For me, latkes fit neatly into one of the categories of things I most like to cook, that being things that are fairly simple but also somewhat time consuming. I like cooking projects: give me a free Sunday afternoon and some good music to listen to, and there's few things I'd rather be doing. There's nothing complicated about latke-making, but it does require some elbow grease, both to grate the potatoes as well as to wring them out, in batches, in a kitchen towel (if you're lucky enough to possess a food processor with a grating attachment, as I am, the process is made infinitely easier). The number one most important thing about making latkes, no matter what type of potato you use or which recipe you follow, is that you really squeeze the living daylights out of those potatoes. The more water you get rid of (and the more starch, which will get wrung out along with the water), the crispier the latkes will fry up. And if there's anything you want your latkes to be, it's crispy.

I also tried a new technique this year that I think may have resulted in my crispiest latkes ever. Trying to get ahead a little on my prep workload yesterday, which was considerable, I grated all the potatoes early in the day and submerged them in ice cold water, then stored them in the fridge until I was ready to wring them out and add the rest of the ingredients. Soaking the potatoes gets rid of even more of the starch. It's a technique I use when making oven french fries, and it worked particularly well in this application, too.

And what did I serve the latkes with? Homemade applesauce, of course, as well as sour cream (or, in this instance, crème fraiche). As I mentioned, I also made a brisket, which I don't even want to get into here because I couldn't find the right cut of beef and the texture left something to be desired, and I also made a cooling salad of grated carrots and fennel. Alongside such a rich food like latkes, it's important to have something light to cut through the oiliness, and this salad did the trick nicely. There's three nights of Hannukah left; go ahead and try it!

Classic Potato Latkes
Serves 6

Ingredients:

- 6 medium russet (baking) potatoes, peeled
- 1 medium white or yellow onion
- 2 tbsp. all-purpose flour
- 1/2 tsp. baking powder
- 2 eggs, lightly beaten
- Salt
- Pepper
- Vegetable or canola oil, for frying

Preparation:

1. Using the medium holes of a box grater, or the grater attachment of a food processor, grate the potatoes. If making ahead, place grated potatoes in a large bowl or pot and cover with cold water; store in the fridge until ready to proceed.
2. Grate the onion on the smaller holes of a box grater, or on the grater attachment of a food processor. Using your hands, squeeze out some but not all of the excess onion juice.
3. Drain the potatoes and squeeze out some of the water using your hands. Then transfer half the potatoes to a clean kitchen towel, roll it up tightly, and squeeze out as much liquid as possible. Repeat with other half of potatoes. Transfer potatoes to a large mixing bowl and add the grated onion.
4. Add the eggs, the flour, the baking powder and a lot of salt and pepper. Mix well (hands work best for this).
5. Heat a large, heavy-bottomed skillet (ideally cast iron) over a medium flame. Add 1/2 inch of oil.
6. When oil is hot, drop about 2 tablespoons of mixture for each latke to the pan and fry, turning once. Keep oil hot but not hot enough to burn, and add more oil as needed with each subsequent batch.
7. When latkes are well-browned on both sides (about 6 minutes total), drain on layers of paper towel. If not eating immediately, transfer to a cookie sheet and keep in a warm oven. Serve latkes with sour cream and applesauce.

Potato-Beet Latkes
Serves 6

Ingredients:

- 4 medium russet (baking) potatoes, peeled
- 1 small beet, peeled
- 1 small white or yellow onion
- 2 tbsp. all-purpose flour
- 1/2 tsp. baking powder
- 2 eggs, lightly beaten
- Salt
- Pepper
- Vegetable or canola oil, for frying

Preparation:

1. Using the medium holes of a box grater, or the grater attachment of a food processor, grate the potatoes. If making ahead, place grated potatoes in a large bowl or pot and cover with cold water; store in the fridge until ready to proceed.
2. Using the medium holes of a box grater, or the grater attachment of a food processor, grate the beet. Transfer to a clean kitchen towel, roll up tightly and squeeze out as much liquid as possible. Set aside.
3. Grate the onion on the smaller holes of a box grater, or on the grater attachment of a food processor. Using your hands, squeeze out some but not all of the excess onion juice.
4. Drain the potatoes and squeeze out some of the water using your hands. Then transfer the potatoes to a clean kitchen towel, roll it up tightly, and squeeze out as much liquid as possible. Transfer potatoes to a large mixing bowl and add the grated beets and onion.
4. Add the eggs, the flour, the baking powder and a lot of salt and pepper. Mix well (hands work best for this).
5. Heat a large, heavy-bottomed skillet (ideally cast iron) over a medium flame. Add 1/2 inch of oil.
6. When oil is hot, drop about 2 tablespoons of mixture for each latke to the pan and fry, turning once. Keep oil hot but not hot enough to burn, and add more oil as needed with each subsequent batch.
7. When latkes are well-browned on both sides (about 6 minutes total), drain on layers of paper towel. If not eating immediately, transfer to a cookie sheet and keep in a warm oven. Serve latkes with sour cream and applesauce.

Carrot and Fennel Slaw with Cumin-Honey Dressing
Serves 6

Ingredients:

- 4 large carrots, peeled
- 1 large bulb of fennel, trimmed and core removed
- 3 tbsp. olive oil
- Juice of 1 lemon
- 2 tbsp. honey
- 1 tsp. ground cumin
- Salt
- Pepper
- 3 tbsp. chopped fresh parsley or chopped fresh cilantro

Preparation:

1. Using the medium holes of a box grater, or the grater attachment of a food processor, grate the carrots and the fennel. Transfer to a clean kitchen towel, roll it up tightly, and squeeze out as much liquid as possible. Transfer to a large serving bowl.
2. Place dressing ingredients in a jar, screw on the top and shake vigorously. Check for seasoning. Dress slaw, tossing lightly. If possible make 1 hour in advance and keep in fridge until ready to serve.
3. Garnish slaw with chopped parsley or cilantro and serve.

Homemade Applesauce
Makes about 2 cups

Ingredients:

- 6 medium apples of any variety, peeled and cut into a small dice
- 2 tbsp. sugar
- 1/2 tsp. ground cinnamon
- 1 small segment of fresh lemon peel
- Water

Preparation:

1. Place the apples, sugar, cinnamon, and lemon peel in a small heavy-bottomed saucepan. Add about 3 tbsp. of water and stir.
2. Cook slowly over medium-low heat, stirring occasionally and adding more water as needed. Cook until apples are soft and broken down, about 20 minutes. If you want a smoother texture, you can break up the apples with the back of a spoon or purée briefly in a food processor.

(Expat) Thanksgiving leftovers

2010-11-28T05:56:00.010-05:00

The most beloved of all American holidays has come and gone, and after so much planning, too. As I mentioned in my last post, I've got quite a few American friends here in Toulouse, and together we starting mapping out Thanksgiving almost as soon as we met, back at the beginning of October. Of all holidays, there's something particularly jarring about being out of the country over Thanksgiving. It's just so very American, obviously, centering on our (in)glorious beginnings as a nation; it almost doesn't translate, holding Thanksgiving in another country, and as bountiful and delicious as our expat Thanksgiving was, it just wasn't the same. And, of course, Thanksgiving is all about family; with all of us being so far away from ours, we instinctively banded together, eager to share our own family recipes so that we wouldn't have to go even one year without our grandma's stuffing, or our aunt's green beans.

I hosted Thanksgiving here at my house, and decided to tackle the bookends of the meal: the turkey, to start with, and pumpkin and sweet potato pies at the end (it was a potluck, and everyone who came contributed side dishes). Unfortunately, none of those recipes was a family one. But I decided to pay homage to my grandma Georgia, this year, with the Thanksgiving leftovers. My grandma hosts a feast of a Thanksgiving at her home in Pittsburgh every year: among an all-star lineup of dishes, my favorites have to be her sweet and sour meatballs, and her pumpkin pie. But another favorite of mine is one that slips under the radar: her day-after, turkey barley soup. She makes it with the stripped turkey carcass, of course, adding root vegetables and nutty barley to the mix, and it's the perfect after-Thanksgiving food: warm, hearty, and nourishing without being heavy, it's a welcome change from the rich, starch-heavy favorites of the Thanksgiving table. This was the first Thanksgiving of my whole life that I didn't spend with my grandma (and the rest of my family), but I figured I could bring her into my home here by making her soup.

Well, my own take on it, that is. I actually couldn't remember what all my grandma puts in her soup, but I knew that its two principal characters are turkey and barley. I had both of those things. I also happen to love mushroom barley soup, so I decided to add mushrooms to my recipe. Given that I succumbed to a nasty cold just yesterday, it was almost as if the soupmaking stars aligned.

I started by making the broth: when I woke up yesterday, I plopped the turkey carcass in a huge pot, added lots of cold water, and simmered that baby away for, say, 4 hours or so. Then I turned off the heat, skimmed the fat and foam off the top, strained out all the bones and bits, added some salt, and my broth was done.

Next, I set to work chopping up some tasty vegetables: leeks, carrots and mushrooms. I sautéed them in butter in a big heavy pot, adding some thyme for flavor and some flour for thickening. Then I slowly poured in the broth, and let the mixture simmer as I moved on to my next task.

I believe I've written about this on the site before, but I reiterate that soup is one of my favorite things to cook, period. It's a slow, relaxing process, building layers of flavor but never demanding very much effort or technique. And best of all, it feels so economical. That's what I was thinking about as I sifted through the soft, broken-down bones of the turkey carcass, pulling away the last remaining bits of meat and discarding the skin and fat. This turkey had already fed 15 or 16 people, with plenty of meat to spare, and there was still almost a cup's worth of flesh clinging to the bones. I felt like I was really doing justice to the bird, using every conceivable scrap it had to offer.

When the vegetables in the soup were tender, I stirred in the remaining turkey meat to heat it through, then ladled a steaming cupful into my barley-filled bowl (I cook and keep my barley on the side, stirring it in portion by portion, so that it doesn't get soggy in the soup). I don't know if my grandma would make this soup like I did--if anything, she would probably simplify it by dumping all the other ingredients right in there with the turkey carcass--but the flavors were almost exactly the same as the ones in her version, and they were powerful enough to transport me all the way to Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.

Turkey Mushroom Barley Soup
Serves 12

Ingredients:

- 1 turkey carcass, or 2 turkey legs
- 2 leeks, white and light green parts only, sliced into half-moons and rinsed of any grit
- 2 carrots, peeled and cut into a medium dice
- 1 lb. white or brown button mushrooms, sliced
- 3 tbsp. butter
- 1 tsp. dried thyme
- 2 tsp. flour
- 1 cup barley, rinsed and cooked in boiling salted water until tender
- Salt and pepper to taste
- Chopped parsley, for serving

Preparation:

1. Place turkey carcass or turkey legs into a large stock pot and add 8 - 1o cups of cold water. Place over medium heat, bring to a boil, then drop to a simmer. Simmer, partially covered, for 3 to 4 hours.
2. Turn off heat and skim any foam, fat or impurities off the surface of the stock. Strain stock through a fine colander to remove all bones and grit. Set bones aside.
3. In another large, heavy-bottomed pot set over medium heat, sauté the vegetables in the butter until softened, about 8 - 10 minutes. Add the thyme and the flour and cook, stirring, for 5 more minutes.
4. Slowly pour in the stock, stirring to combine. Bring soup to a simmer and cook, uncovered, until vegetables are tender, about 20 minutes.
5. As soup cooks, remove all edible turkey meat from bones, discarding everything else. When vegetables are tender, add turkey meat to soup to heat through. Check soup for seasoning.
6. To serve, place a small amount of cooked barley in each bowl and ladle hot soup over it. Garnish with parsley.

Dinner club: Part I

2010-11-20T06:50:00.013-05:00

One of the nice things about the program I'm doing in Toulouse is that there's a large community of American assistants in the city. Coming here, finding French roommates and practicing my French was my number one priority, and I'm thankful that I was able to achieve that, but even so, I appreciate having people to take an (English-speaking) break with. Even in a first world, western country like France, which on the surface might seem very similar to the United States, cultural differences--some subtle, others not so--abound. It's important to have friends from a similar background with whom you can discuss, critique, and--let's be honest here--sometimes playfully make fun of those differences.

Towards the beginning of my stay, when I was meeting other assistants at various "mixers," one thing I often found myself talking about was--big surprise--food. Like myself, many others cited an interest in good food as one of the primary motivators for their move abroad. After sharing some less formalized meals together, my friend Bonnie and I decided to organize a dinner club, so that our friends who like to cook could come together more often to share recipes and ideas. So far, we've been meeting twice a week: on Meaty Mondays, that week's host makes a dish with meat, and the attendees bring wine or dessert. On Thursdays, the cook makes something vegetarian. The next week, two different people cook on Monday and Thursday, and the next week two other people, and so on and so forth. It's a nice break in the daily routine, where we can come together, speak English and talk about our jobs over some good food.

Last Monday marked the initial meeting of the club, and I hosted. As I mentioned, I would be making a meat-based dish, and because I would be cooking for 7 people, I wanted to select something budget-friendly. Sadly, that usually means chicken, and since I'm often bored by chicken, I wanted to see if I could find something a little more exciting. Luckily, my local Casino supermarket features a weekly meat sale in a refrigerated case near the front of the store. Each week, they load it up with meat that's about to (but hasn't yet) passed its expiration date, at bargain prices. It's a fun way to be inspired: pick up some meat that's dirt cheap, and let that main ingredient dictate what else you'll buy and cook.

For Monday's dinner, I was lucky enough to find some rich, meaty duck legs on sale. I picked up four large ones, and the total came to less than 8 euro! Duck legs need long, slow cooking, both to render the enormous amounts of fat that they come enrobed in, and also to tenderize the somewhat tough meat. I decided to make a slow-simmered ragù, with shredded duck meat and a simple base of carrots, onions and tomatoes.

I started off by slowly searing the duck legs over a low flame, without any seasoning, in order to render most of their fat. And don't throw that duck fat away! For cooking, it's liquid gold: use it to sauté vegetables, use it to make warm salad dressings, and definitely, definitely use it to roast potatoes: their flavor and richness is, well, indescribably good. (To keep rendered duck fat, strain it into a clean container, cover, and refrigerate indefinitely.)

Once I had rendered the majority of the fat off the duck legs, I removed them to a plate to cool, then I used a small sharp knife to cut off some of the pockets of fat that remained. I sautéed garlic, onions, and carrots, along with a bit of dried thyme, in a heavy pan, then added crushed canned tomatoes and red wine once they had softened. I slipped the duck legs back into the pan, covered it, and simmered away for about 3 hours. Then I took the duck legs back out, chilled them down rapidly in the fridge, pulled away and discarded all the remaining skin and fat, and shredded the meat into bite-sized pieces that I deposited back into the sauce. A little before my guests were due to arrive, I turned the heat under the pan back on, and further reduced and heated the sauce for about a half hour. Finally, I ladled the sauce over some al dente egg noodles, garnished it with shards of parmesan and chopped parsley, and ate. A 30-minute meal this was not, but it was well worth it in the end.

Slow-Cooked Duck Ragù
Serves 8 - 10

Ingredients:

- 4 whole duck legs (both thigh and drumstick)
- 1 tbsp. olive oil
- 2 large onions, cut into a small dice
- 2 large carrots, peeled and cut into a large dice
- 4 cloves garlic, finely chopped
- 1 tsp. dried thyme
- 1 28-oz. can whole peeled tomatoes, crushed by hand
- 1/2 bottle dry red wine
- Salt and pepper to taste
- Grated or shaved parmesan cheese, for serving
- Chopped parsley, for serving
- 1 1/2 lbs. egg noodles, cooked, for serving

Preparation:

1. Arrange the duck legs in a large, deep, heavy-bottomed pan and place over low-medium heat. Cook for 20 - 30 minutes, turning the duck pieces occasionally, until they have rendered the majority of their fat. Strain the fat into a jar for later use. Set duck aside to cool. When cool, use a small sharp knife to cut away any large pockets of fat.
2. Drain off all but 1 tbsp. of duck fat from the pan and add 1 tbsp. olive oil. Sauté the onions, carrots and garlic over medium heat until softened. Add the red wine and bring to a boil, using a wooden spoon to scrape any bits from the bottom of the pan. Add the canned tomatoes and some salt and lower sauce to a simmer. Put the duck back in the pan, cover, and simmer for 3 hours.
3. Remove the duck legs from the sauce and cool them on a plate in the refrigerator. When cool, remove all remaining skin and fat from the duck and discard. Using your hands, remove the duck meat from the bone and shred into bite-size pieces. Stir the duck back into the sauce.
4. Place the whole pot in the fridge and cool for at least 2 hours or as long as overnight. The excess fat will rise to the surface; skim it off and discard.
5. 30 minutes before eating, turn the heat back on and simmer sauce. Check for seasoning. Serve over egg noodles, garnished with parmesan and parsley.

Too much of a good thing

2010-11-15T06:55:00.011-05:00

I've been in France for a little more than a month now, and for the most part I've been embracing French ingredients and cooking methods: you can't get much better than a cuisine based on delicious essentials like good butter, good bread, good cheese, and aromatics like garlic, shallots, onions, and a variety of herbs. That being said, it's getting to the point where I'm starting to miss the heavily Asian accents my cooking has been taking on over the past few years, and especially right before I made the big move overseas.

I find it odd that for a country that happily colonized several Asian countries during its Third Republic, the French are remarkably resistant to spicy food, and, in general, Asian ingredients and condiments are quarantined to a limited number of specialty épiceries , or grocery stores. You should see the "international" section in my local supermarket; I almost literally laughed, when I did. There were a few dusty jars of curry sauce, some teriyaki and soy sauce, a little bag of dried peppers. Not much to work with, that. (To be fair, I've heard good things about the épiceries asiatiques here in Toulouse, and I'm planning on checking them out this week or next. I'll report back.)

Sometime last week, I was jonesing for a quick, spicy dinner, and my heart sank a bit when I realized that my usual staple, fried rice, just wasn't going to be possible: I was lacking, well, almost everything but the rice. I did notice, however, a small carton of coconut milk among the pantry items, and when I also spied some bright red lentils nearby, I had it: curried lentils. I'd never made it before, but it seemed easy enough, and fast, too: red lentils cook through in about 15 minutes.

I set to work chopping up some garlic, ginger, shallots, and a (homegrown!) red chili. Then I took a picture, because I thought the colors looked pretty together:

Then I rinsed some of the aforementioned lentils, drained them, and took another picture because, they, too, looked beautiful:

I sautéed the garlic, ginger, shallots and chili in some oil, adding a few good shakes of curry powder when they softened. Then I added the lentils, the container of coconut milk, and enough water to cover. I simmered this mixture over medium-low heat, adding more water as necessary, for about 15 minutes, then ate the curry over rice, with a squeeze of lemon and some harissa (the easiest hot sauce to find in these parts, France being so near to North Africa and all) on top. It wasn't fried rice, but it went down just fine.

Curried Red Lentils
Serves 6

Ingredients:

2 tbsp. vegetable or canola oil
3 cloves of garlic, minced
3 tbsp. minced fresh ginger
3 shallots, finely chopped
1 hot red chili, seeds removed, minced
1 tbsp. curry powder
3 cups red lentils, rinsed and drained (you cannot substitute green or brown lentils, they don't cook in the same way)
1 can (14 oz.) coconut milk, or use light coconut milk
Water
Salt
Lemon or lime wedges, for serving
Sriracha or other chili sauce, for serving

Preparation:

1. Heat the oil in a medium-sized, heavy-bottomed saucepan set over a medium flame. Add the garlic, ginger, shallot and chili and sauté until softened, about 5 minutes. Add the curry powder and cook until heated through, about 1 minute.
2. Add the lentils, the coconut milk, and enough water to cover the lentils by about 1 inch. Salt. Bring the mixture up to a boil, then drop to a simmer.
3. Cook, stirring occasionally, for about 15 minutes, adding more water if the lentils absorb it all too quickly. Check for seasoning and serve over rice, with lemon or lime wedges and sriracha.

The perfect French lunch

2010-11-09T15:14:00.014-05:00

I'm here today to extol the virtues of one of the world's most perfect, most luxurious foods: warm cheese. Yes, warm cheese. Tell me something: when you read those two words together, doesn't your stomach do a little flip of joy in sweet anticipation? Where does one begin, really, with warm cheese? There it is on your pizza, or oozing in between your two slices of sandwich bread, or melting over your bowl of pasta, or possibly bubbling and gurgling slowly, awaiting the next plunge of your fondue skewer (if you're a stuck-in-the-seventies kinda person, like, ahem, someone I may know?).

What's so great about warm cheese (besides, of course, its taste) is its equal opportunism, its democratic nature: it's found alike in cuisines high and low. Let's take, say, lasagna, as just one example of the myriad, masterful examples of classic Italian cuisine built on a foundation of soft, salty, creamy warm cheese. And then on the other hand there's the grilled cheese or the fondue that I cited above: nowhere near as technical, yet every bit as satisfying (and sometimes more so).

The dish I want to talk about today falls somewhere in the middle: perhaps not the most sophisticated dame on the block, but pretty damn classy nonetheless. It's simple baked goat cheese, and it's yet another recipe I learned from Emilie when I was volunteering on her farm in southern France last fall. Actually, the preparation is so straightforward that it barely qualifies as a recipe at all, and it goes something like this: 1. Drizzle goat cheese with oil. 2. Bake. 3. Eat, with bread and salad. 4. Repeat.

Philippe and Emilie, the farmers I worked with last year, brought their impeccable produce to market three times a week, on Tuesdays, Fridays, and Sundays. Those were hectic mornings, which consisted of rising early to finish prepping the fruits and vegetables for sale, loading them into the truck, and harvesting delicate items, like salad greens, at the very last minute. Then it was off to market to set up the stand and sell until sometime around 2 pm, when the last vendors were packing it in for the day. That meant that there really wasn't a lot of time to throw lunch together. What it didn't mean was that we'd eat any less fantastically than we did on all other days. Often, on market days, this baked goat cheese, plus a (homegrown) salad and a fresh baguette, was Emilie's go-to lunch, something that took perhaps five minutes to prepare, but was delicious and filling nonetheless.

Despite having eaten and enjoyed Emilie's baked goat cheese on numerous occasions last year, I just plain forgot all about it until yesterday, when I found myself in my local supermarket right around lunchtime and my stomach started to speak up. I was browsing the cheese section, because when am I not browsing the cheese section here in France, when my eyes settled on a small, firm, dappled round of perfect-looking goat cheese. Emilie's lunches popped right back into my head, and within ten minutes I was home and sliding the olive oil-slicked cheese into the oven:

And about 15 minutes later my little friend emerged all golden, its creamy insides threatening to overrun the tiny cracks in its ever-so-slightly crispy shell:

I don't think my words can adequately capture just how good this incredibly simple dish is: the cheese exits the oven warm, impossibly creamy, salty and tangy, its burnished outside contrasting texturally with its melting interior. I always eat it alongside a simple green lettuce salad dressing with a lemony vinaigrette, as well as some fresh bread, as I mentioned before. I eat the cheese smeared onto the bread, or just as is, with some lettuce speared onto my fork, or sometimes I drag the cheese-anointed bread through the vinaigrette: the citrusy brightness cuts through the richness of the cheese and makes this lunch feel almost like health food. Almost.

Baked Goat Cheese
Serves 1

Ingredient note: select a slightly firm, slightly aged goat cheese for use in this recipe. You don't want anything too fresh, because it won't stand up to the heat of the oven, but you don't want anything too aged, either, because it won't be tangy and refreshing like it's supposed to be. Shoot for something in between.

Preparation:

1. Preheat the oven to a moderate temperature, say, 300°.
2. Place the cheese in a small glass baking dish and drizzle it with about 1 teaspoon of olive oil, smearing it all around the cheese and on the bottom of the dish so it doesn't stick.
3. Bake until the cheese is slightly browned and warmed all the way through, about 15 minutes.
4. Serve, with a green salad (I use a dressing made of mustard, lemon juice, olive oil and salt) and some fresh crusty bread.

Part III: Apple Cinnamon Coffee Cake

2010-11-05T05:55:00.006-04:00

After a bit of a pause (a school vacation, which I spent working on a farm in Ariège, a region in southwest France nestled in the Pyrenees), I'm back in Toulouse and ready to bring my 3-part series on Apple Desserts to a close (for the time being, at least--I've got a bucket of homemade applesauce in the fridge upstairs that's just begging to be transformed into this applesauce cake).

You might notice that many of the recipes I share on this site are adapted from Smitten Kitchen, and this dessert is no exception (that applesauce cake up there, too, comes from SK). Smitten Kitchen is probably my favorite food blog: the site's author, Deb, always seems to select (or create) the recipes for things I just happen to be craving; her adaptations always makes sense, and her recipes always turn out. I especially like to refer to her when I'm baking, since baking is not my forte but is certainly hers (I mean, the woman's Recipe Index has an entire section devoted to sweets!).

So of course when I was looking for good apple dessert recipes, I went over to Smitten Kitchen first. And this apple cake, that's Deb's mom's recipe, fit the bill exactly. It's moist and sweet, and actually reminds me a great deal of an apple cake that my grandmother makes (I suppose when it comes to apple desserts, it's best to keep it all in the family!). What I love about this recipe is its clever pairing of orange with apple: it calls for a little orange juice to be mixed in with the wet ingredients, and I upped the orange ante by using fresh-squeezed juice, as well as substituting orange blossom water for the vanilla. Insert clever pun on "it's like apples to oranges" here.

I know I said the exact same thing about my pumpkin apple bread, but this cake makes just as good a breakfast as a dessert, and I eat it in exactly the same way: with a bit of plain yogurt, to cut the sweetness and richness. As the cake sits (and it won't last long, trust me!), it gets even more moist and luscious. Who wouldn't want to be greeted by this vision first thing in the morning?

Apple Cinnamon Coffee Cake
Makes 1 cake
Adapted from Smitten Kitchen

Ingredients:

8 baking (firm, not too sweet) apples, peeled, cored and cut into medium-sized chunks
1 tbsp. cinnamon
5 tbsp. sugar
2 3/4 c. all-purpose flour
1 tbsp. baking powder
1 tsp. salt
1 c. vegetable oil
1 3/4 c. sugar
1/4 c. orange juice
2 tsp. vanilla extract, or use 1 tsp. almond extract or orange blossom water
4 eggs

Preparation:

1. Preheat oven to 350°. Grease a tube pan or a large rectangular glass baking dish. Toss apple chunks with cinnamon and sugar; set aside.
2. Combine flour, baking powder and salt in a large mixing bowl. In a separate bowl, whisk together oil, orange juice, sugar and vanilla. Add eggs to wet ingredients, one at a time, mixing well to combine.
3. Add the wet ingredients to the dry ones and stir until just combined. Pour half of the batter into the prepared pan. Top with half the apples, distributing evenly. Pour the other half of the batter over the apples; top with remaining apples. Place pan in the oven and bake for about 1 1/2 hours, or until a toothpick comes out clean.

Part II: Pumpkin Apple Bread

2010-10-20T06:15:00.007-04:00

As we talked about a few days ago, my household and I are currently working our way through two large crates of apples. And as I've mentioned on the blog before, I like squash. A lot. So sometime last week, as I was plotting my next strategic attack against the glut of apples, I decided to employ a natural fall companion to the round red fruits: my old buddy, the squash. I had some potiron left over from the squash pasta I had made, so I cut it into a few pieces and threw it into a steamer basket set over some hot water. Ten minutes later, it was soft and scoopable, and peeled away from its thick green skin without putting up a fight. I mashed it up in a bowl until it was smooth, and, together with some flour, baking powder, sugar, oil, eggs, and of course those apples, made this:

It's a pumpkin apple bread, and if you take the 20 minutes needed to produce it (10, if you use canned pumpkin), it just might become your new favorite breakfast. Although this looks like a cake, it's really not that sweet; however, it is supremely moist thanks to all the apple bits nestled within, the perfect bed for some cool, tangy plain yogurt, sprinkled with brown sugar, which is how I took to eating this during the two mornings it was around for. In the mood for something a little sweeter, a little richer? Then stay tuned: I've got a recipe for a classic apple coffee cake coming up in Part III.

Pumpkin Apple Bread
Makes 1 loaf
Adapted from Libby's Pumpkin

Ingredients:

1 1/2 c. all-purpose flour
1 tsp. ground cinnamon
1 1/2 tsp. baking powder
1/2 tsp. salt
1/2 c. granulated sugar
1/2 c. dark brown sugar
1 1/2 c. puréed pumpkin, or use canned pumpkin
2 eggs
1/2 c. vegetable oil
2 large apples, cut into medium-sized chunks

Preparation:

1. Preheat oven to 350°. Grease a medium-sized glass baking dish, or use a round bundt pan.
2. If using fresh pumpkin, take a small portion and cut it into large chunks, removing any seeds. Place in a steamer basket and steam, covered, until very tender, about 10 minutes. Remove. Peel skin away and discard; mash pumpkin in a bowl until smooth.
3. Combine flour, cinnamon, baking powder and salt in a large bowl.
4. Whisk together the sugar, pumpkin purée, eggs, and vegetable oil. Add wet ingredients to dry and stir until just combined. Add apple chunks and stir to incorporate. Pour into prepared baking dish and shake the dish to distribute the batter evenly.
5. Bake for 45 to 55 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted into the center comes out clean. Let cool on a rack before slicing.

A bushel of apples

2010-10-16T09:04:00.022-04:00

A day or two before I arrived at my new home in Toulouse, my roommates purchased a huge supply of potatoes (white- and red-skinned), onions, shallots, and two kinds of apples. Apparently there had been a vendor going door-to-door through the neighborhood, selling bulk produce at low prices. I didn't know this type of thing still happened, but I think it's great. Needless to say, we've been eating our fair share of the haul, and we've still barely made a dent in it:

I, personally, have been focusing my culinary attentions on the apples, because they're a ready-made excuse to bake. As I've discussed many times on the blog, I really prefer to cooking to baking, but that said, there's definitely something soothing about the latter. Since I'm in a new place and don't really have a set schedule yet, baking is both a) something to do with an otherwise free afternoon and b) a centering exercise in the face of so much change. I'm also loving baking for a 4-person household, because it means that my creations actually get eaten in a timely fashion. At home, when I lived with just one other roommate, most of my desserts inevitably ended up in the freezer after a few days.

So far I've made three apple desserts and I'm still going strong. So get ready, folks, for a 3-part series on Apple Desserts. I figure I should start out by talking about the most quintessentially French pastry I've made: tarte Tatin. I think tarte Tatin is well-known in the U.S., but I'd wager that American cooks hesitate to make it, and I believe I know why: it's the caramel. Yes, tarte Tatin involves making a caramel, but it's not the fussy sugar-and-water kind that's unpredictable, prone to scorching and sticking to your favorite pot; rather, it's a butter-and-sugar mixture that doesn't burn but turns a rich, dark amber color and fills your entire kitchen with an unbelievably enticing aroma.

There are two ways to make this simple dessert. The traditional, and easier, way to make it is a one-pot affair: you cook the sliced apples together with the caramel in an ovenproof skillet; when the caramel gets dark and the apples slightly soft, you cover the whole thing with a layer of pastry and pop it in the oven. That's it! Unfortunately for me, there wasn't an ovenproof skillet to be found in my new abode (a kitchen without a slick, seasoned cast iron skillet is something of an abomination in my opinion, but I digress). Fortunately, though, the backup method of making tarte Tatin is also a piece of cake (so to speak), and you also get more control over the color (and therefore the flavor) of the caramel you'll make. All you do is cook the butter and sugar together in a saucepan, stirring frequently, until it reaches the shade you desire. I let my caramel get pretty dark, because I like the bitter notes that come out in a dark caramel; they help offset its sugary sweetness. Once that happens, you pour the caramel out into the dish you'll bake the tart in:

Then, while the caramel is still soft, arrange the cut apples over it, fitting them in tightly. You can quarter the apples, but I like to leave them in halves, because I think the result is prettier. I put the round sides down, so that they'll be face up when the tart gets inverted after baking:

At this point you'll want to pop the dish into the oven and bake it until the apples soften. They won't cook that much longer once the pastry lid goes on, so make sure they're about 75% cooked. Then place the round of pastry on top (if you didn't trim it beforehand, like me, you can just fold the excess back):

Then the tart goes back in the oven, and bakes until the pastry is nice and brown:

At this point the tart will have to cool in the pan for 10 to 30 minutes, so that the caramel sets somewhat. Otherwise, it would all just run out all over the plate you'll turn invert it onto. It won't be easy to wait, but it will be worth it in the end, when you present your friends with this thing of beauty:

The classic French way of serving this dessert is with a dollop of créme fraiche, and it's easy to understand why: the sour tang of the cream cuts through the sweetness of the apples, and it's also cool against the warmth of the just-out-of-the-oven tart. If for some reason you can't find créme fraiche, you can fold some whipped cream into some sour cream. Et voilà! An easy, delicious and oh-so-French dessert:

Apple Tarte Tatin
Adapted from epicurious.com
Serves 8

Ingredients:

1 package (usually 17 1/4 oz.) frozen puff pastry, preferably all-butter, thawed
1/4 c. (1/2 stick) unsalted butter, softened
1/2 c. sugar
6 or 7 firm, tart apples, such as Granny Smith, peeled and halved or quartered, and cored

Preparation (skillet method):

1. Preheat the oven to 400°.
2. Roll out puff pastry and trim to size of the skillet you'll be using. Prick pastry all over with a fork. Set aside, preferably in the fridge or freezer to keep cold.
3. Spread butter over the bottom of a 10" or 12" seasoned cast iron skillet, then sprinkle sugar all over the butter. Add the apples, fitting them into the pan tightly, round sides facing down. Cook mixture, undisturbed, over medium-high heat for about 20 minutes, until juices are a dark golden color.
4. Place the skillet in the oven and bake for about 20 minutes, until apples are about 75% cooked. Remove skillet from oven and lay the pastry round over the apples. Place skillet back in the oven and bake for about 20 more minutes, until pastry is browned. Remove tart from the oven and allow to cool for 10 to 30 minutes.
5. Invert pastry onto a serving plate. Apples should come free easily; if any of them stick, just put unstick them and fit them onto the tart. Cut into 8 wedges and serve with créme fraiche (or alternatively, some sour cream lightened with whipped cream).

Preparation (alternative method): If you don't have an oven-safe skillet, you can make the dessert like this.

1. Preheat the oven to 400°.
2. Roll out puff pastry and trim to size of the baking dish you'll be using. Prick pastry all over with a fork. Set aside, preferably in the fridge or freezer to keep cold.
3. In a medium suacepan, cook the butter and sugar together over medium-high heat, stirring frequently, until caramel reaches a dark golden color, about 10 to 12 minutes. Pour caramel into a 10" or 12" round baking dish.
4. While caramel is still warm, arrange the apples over it, fitting them into the dish tightly, round sides facing down. Place the dish in the oven and bake for about 40 minutes, or until apples are about 75% cooked.
5. Remove dish from oven and lay pastry round over the top. Place tart back in the oven and bake until pastry is browned, about 20 more minutes. Remove tart from the oven and allow to cool for 10 to 30 minutes.
6. Invert pastry onto a serving plate. Apples should come free easily; if any of them stick, just unstick them and fit them onto the tart. Cut into 8 wedges and serve with créme fraiche (or alternatively, some sour cream lightened with whipped cream).

Lovely lovely lard

2010-10-12T07:48:00.016-04:00

One of the best products available in French supermarkets is lardons, or small strips of salt- (not smoke-) cured bacon. Delicious little morsels of porky goodness, here in France they come pre-cut and portioned into small plastic packs that cost less than 2 euros.

Lardons are kind of a go-to ingredient that are perfect for those times when you might feel a lack of culinary inspiration. I can't think of many dishes that aren't improved with the addition of a bit of pork fat, especially when you're making a flavor base of things like sautéed onions and garlic. When you add the little bits to a hot pan, their soft salty fat melts away into the other ingredients, and the pink savory meat crisps up, adding a nice textural contrast to whatever you're making.

The French use lardons in a huge variety of dishes, the most well-known of which is probably coq au vin, the classic stewed chicken with mushrooms, or perhaps boeuf bourgignon, another wintry dish of beef braised in red wine. Among the more casual and less labor-intensive uses for lardons, quiche Lorraine definitely stands out. I've already seen my roommates and their friends make this dish twice, and I've only been here for about two weeks. Quiche Lorraine is incredibly easy to prepare and calls for only a few ingredients besides the lardons: sliced leeks or onions; créme fraiche; eggs; Gruyere cheese; and a pastry crust, either homemade or (most often) store-bought. I think of quiche Lorraine as the French answer to, say, a big pot of pasta and a salad, or something along those lines, which is usually what we Americans throw together when we want to have a big group of people over for dinner without thinking too much about (or spending too much money on) what we want to make.

Although it might seem as though this post is heading in the logical direction of sharing a recipe for quiche Lorraine, that is not, in fact, what I am about to do (I'll definitely devote a post to the subject later on, seeing as how the quiche and I basically share the same name). Instead, I'm going to tell you about a "recipe" I invented on the fly yesterday, when I was hankerin' for some déjeuner. When I got up to the kitchen, my roommate Ben had already made a big pot of pasta; I also noticed a potiron that had been cut into and was begging to be used up. When I opened the fridge and saw the packet of lardons, I thought of the pairing of salty pork and sweet squash and started salivating. I quickly peeled and sliced up a small portion of squash and set it over some hot water to steam while I sautéed the lardons with some chopped leeks and garlic:

When the squash was just tender, I drained it, stirred it into the leek mixture along with some water, olive oil and salt, and admired the pretty fall colors that resulted:

Finally, I stirred in the cooked al dente pasta, heated it through, and piled it all into a bowl. A little grated cheese and I had a sweet, salty, porky, nutty autumn lunch. All hail the power of pork!

Pasta with Squash, Leeks and Lardons
Serves 4

Ingredients:

1 lb. dried pasta such as penne, ziti or rotini
1 small or 1/2 medium sweet winter squash, such as butternut, acorn or kabocha, peeled, de-seeded, and sliced thinly
1 leek, white part only, sliced thinly and rinsed of any dirt or grit
3 cloves of garlic, minced
1/2 c. or about 4 oz. lardons, or use pancetta or bacon sliced into small strips
Olive oil
Salt
Pepper
Grated Parmesan cheese

Preparation:

1. Set a large pot of water to boil.
2. Place the squash in a steamer basket over a small amount of water and steam until tender, about 6 minutes.
3. Meanwhile, heat 3 tbsp. olive oil in a wide, heavy saucepan. Sauté the leek, garlic and lardons until the pork has rendered most of its fat and the leeks turn tender, about 5 minutes.
4. Salt the pasta water and boil pasta until al dente, about 10 - 12 minutes. Reserve a small amount of pasta water and then drain.
5. Drain the squash and add it to the saucepan, stirring well. Incorporate a little pasta water and season to taste with salt and pepper.
6. Add the drained pasta to the saucepan and stir. If pasta is too dry, add some more pasta water and/or olive oil. Divide among 4 bowls, topping each with grated Parmesan.

France: a little history

2010-10-06T12:49:00.023-04:00

That is, about my personal experience in France, and what brings me here this time around--not French history! (References to Marie Antoinette and a familiarity with Monet's water lilies only get one so far...)

I'm here in Toulouse this year doing something called TAPIF, or the Teaching Assistant Program in France. It's a program run by the French government that, every year, hires thousands of Americans (and some Brits) to come over and help French children in the public school system all over the country to practice English language skills. I'll be working in 3 écoles primaires, or lower schools, alongside the teachers in those classrooms. I won't really be responsible for things like homework, discipline, or curriculum; what I'm there to do is speak English, over and over again, so the kids get used to how it sounds coming from the mouth of a native speaker. I'm also expected to come up with fun, interactive learning exercises that will help cement the student's developing understanding of my langue maternelle.

The first time I visited France was during my freshman year of college. By wintertime, I had already withdrawn from the tiny liberal arts school in Minnesota that I had elected to attend, and was back in New York, taking classes at the New School, working a lot of catering hours, and generally wondering what else to do with myself. When spring rolled around and I still didn't have an answer to that question, I looked at the (relatively) fat stacks of money that I had earned catering, and thought: why not Paris? I'd never been there, but (despite my earlier joke about my lack of Franco knowledge) I had been reading and learning about it for years, mainly in the context of the treasure trove of artistic and cultural capital centered there. I also knew that my old babysitter Virginie lived there; when she graciously offered me the use of her tiny apartment for the 10 days of my stay, my decision was made.

Of course I loved Paris--who doesn't?--and I knew that I'd want to someday return to France and explore more of it. The opportunity didn't really roll around, however, until last fall, when I decided to take a 2-month break from the city life, and uproot myself to Europe, namely to Spain and France, to work on farms through the organization WWOOF. WWOOF, or Worldwide Opportunities on Organic Farms, facilitates connections between farms all over the world who need a helping hand, and people who want to learn about agriculture. When you're interested in going to a particular country, you join its online network for a small fee; once inscribed, you can browse short descriptions of farms looking for aid. In exchange for your work, which is usually fairly basic and takes up about 4 or 5 hours of your day, you get three meals and a place to sleep. Although you don't make any money, you also don't spend any, so it's a great way to travel, and much more enriching than the usual touristic routes.

Now that you're armed with this background information, I can (finally) come to the main subject of this post: a woman named Emilie Missant, whose farm I worked on for one month last fall. Emilie and her husband live in a tiny village in the southeast of France called Lasalle. They run a small working farm and take their produce (bell peppers, eggplant, chilies, salad greens, the best tomatoes and sweetest strawberries I have ever tasted, bar none) to the tiny market in the town square three times a week. While Philippe handles most of the farm work, along with the WWOOFers, Emilie's in charge of the kitchen side of things, turning out jar after jar of pickles, relishes, and confitures (jams) that also get sold at the market. Emilie is an amazing cook, and what I loved most about her style was that it was so simple. She made things like soup, salad dressing, and bread almost every day; the recipes were rote to her and involved little effort, but they were immensely satisfying.

The single food item that I remember most from the farm in Lasalle was the potimarron, a sweet hard winter squash that's closely related to the kabocha. Like all of the produce that Emilie and Philippe grew, their potimarrons were incredibly flavorful and needed next to no adornment. Emilie would incorporate them into a lot of her cooking; I always commented on how sweet and delicious the squash was, and when I would ask Emilie what else was in the recipe, the answer was inevitably something like, "Oh, just a little garlic and oil," or "just some onions." Almost no spices, apart from salt and pepper; and yet the squash was positively bursting with flavor (I don't know about you, but I don't usually make an association between "squash" and "bursting with flavor").

My favorite potimarron dish of Emilie's was a simple puréed soup that the French would call a velouté, which refers to its creamy texture. It has exactly four ingredients: butter; garlic; onions; and squash. And it's delicious. As I've been harping on about on the blog, there's a vast world of flavors out there that we Americans often miss out on, simply because of the manner in which we raise our food (in factories, as opposed to on traditional farms). Fruits and vegetables that are cared for lovingly, and grown without the use of chemicals or hormones, instead of being treated like manufactured goods, have much more taste and, I suspect, more nutrition.

I've made this soup many times in the year since I learned the recipe, and I tweak it a little bit on each occasion. If I can't find kabocha, I use a different type of hard winter squash; I also vary the herbs and seasonings. Although Emilie's soup didn't really need any flavorings besides salt, since her garlic, onions, and squash were so good, I find that when I make this in America I need a little kick from cumin, paprika, or other warm spices. I made some last week here in France, with squash from the local market, which was very flavorful, but didn't quite live up to the memories of Emilie's soup. I guess I'll just have to go back to the farm for that!

Emilie's Velouté aux Potimarrons
Makes 10 - 12 servings

Ingredients:

1 medium kabocha squash, or other hard winter squash like butternut or Hokkaido, peeled, de-seeded, and cut into large chunks
1 large or 2 medium onions, white or yellow, peeled and diced
4 cloves of garlic, minced
3 tbsp. butter
Salt
Water
Optional: spices, such as ground cumin, dried thyme, sweet paprika

Preparation:

1. In a large, heavy-bottomed soup pot, melt the butter over medium heat. Add the onions and garlic along with a pinch of salt, and sweat (don't brown) for about 5 minutes, stirring frequently.
2. If using spices, add them to the onions and briefly sauté them. Add the cubed squash and stir to combine.
3. Add enough water to the pot to just cover the squash. It should be about 6 cups.
4. Bring soup to a boil then drop the heat to a simmer. Cover partially and cook until squash is tender, about 20 minutes.
5. Allow soup to cool briefly and then purée until smooth using a blender or an immersion blender. If soup appears too thin, try not to add all the cooking liquid. If it appears too thick, add some extra water. Check soup for seasoning and serve hot, preferably with a little dollop of créme fraiche.

Over the sea and far away

2010-10-04T16:02:00.010-04:00

Well, hello there! It's been so long, I hardly recognize you! You look great!

So, it's been a while since I've written on this blog. It's not something I'm happy about, but I'm here today to make amends. And by "here," I mean Toulouse, France. That's right, folks: this Brooklyn girl has up and moved to Europe. I'll be spending 8 months in La France, teaching English to little kiddies in the public school system, hopefully having a few adventures, and surely eating very well. And I pledge to document that. I don't really know what made me lose interest in my blog all those many months ago, but I do know that once I made the decision to come to France, I was sure that my time abroad would provide me with some much-needed inspiration. Having decided that I would once again become a loyal blogger after my big move, it was hard to motivate myself to blog at all before I got here. But I'm here now, and blog I will!

I don't know if my cooking will be much different here in Toulouse, but I'm hoping that what I'll make will indeed reflect my new locale. And even if it doesn't, I intend to talk a little bit about what I notice about the food here, and how it differs from what we cook and eat in the United States.

There's one big thing to mention and although I'm sure it's no little known fact, I'll go on and tell you anyway. The food here is fresher and tastier than a lot of what's available back home. In general, French people (and possibly the greater European population) care a great deal about where their food comes from, and what it tastes like. As a result, the factory farms that produce the great, great majority of the meat and produce for sale in the U.S. haven't really caught on here. There's still a great tradition of market (not supermarket) shopping: fresh food, made here in France, that's sold by vendors in the street once or twice a week in smaller villages, and every day (in different locations) in larger cities like Toulouse. I don't know if it's a law or not, but at these markets, each and every item for sale lists its country (and often its region) of origin, and you'll quickly notice that with few exceptions, that country of origin is France. In the United States, the provenance of our food is hidden from us: when you go into a supermarket and buy, say, some apples, a bit of cheese, some crackers, it's likely that your haul has been flown in from 2 continents, maybe more. If you've eaten local food, you know that it tastes better. And so the food tastes better here.

I'll probably devote at least one post to street markets at a later date, but for right now I'll go down another path and talk about two very important food items here in France: bread and cheese. Again, not news: who doesn't think of bread and cheese (and wine) when they think of France? But the quality and accessibility of these two foods is truly remarkable. First of all, there are bakeries, or boulangeries, everywhere. Just all over the darn place. In my small residential neighborhood just outside the city center, there are 4 excellent boulangeries all within walking distance of my house. Each produces seven, eight, possibly more varieties of very good bread (plus five or six kinds of pastries), all baked fresh every single morning. A simple baguette, another cliché French image, is astoundingly good and astoundingly cheap, usually costing around 85 euro cents, or about a buck. (And baguettes really are all over the place. Walking in the street, you can't go long without seeing someone passing by with one or two long loaves tucked under their arm.) Another thing? The boulangeries are open 7 days a week. That's a big deal in a country where almost everything shuts down on Sundays, and people just hang out around the house, or around the café, drinking coffee and chatting. It shows you where French priorities are, though: they simply can't go 24 hours without their daily bread.

The perfect match for a nice baguette is, of course, some well-made cheese. Again, there's no shortage of that here: France produces over 400 varieties of cheese, and each year the French people lament the loss of various kinds of traditional cheeses as they fall out of production or popularity. That's a subject, too, for another post; but suffice it to say that to my American eyes, there's still a lot of excellent cheese to be had here. Many of the most well-loved French cheeses, such as the iconic Camembert, can't even be tasted in their true form in the U.S., because they're traditionally made with raw milk. Because the U.S.D.A. has ruled raw-milk cheeses as being possibly more dangerous to consume than those made with pasteurized milk, America simply isn't allowed to import them. Raw milk, though, can develop many more nuances of flavor than pasteurized milk; the heat used to kill bacteria also kills taste. So there's a much fuller spectrum of goût, or flavor, to be experienced here than you could ever have access to in the United States. Another thing worth mentioning? High-quality, interesting-tasting cheese isn't expensive. I've been trying all sorts of cheeses nearly every day since I've gotten here, and they've rarely cost me more than 3 or 4 euro for a nice-sized hunk.

Et voilà! Those are my opening words on the rich subject of French food. Stay tuned, 'cause there's more to come! Next up? A recipe for silky squash soup that was passed on to me personally via a hardworking French farmer named Emilie. A bientôt!

A happy accident

2010-06-20T18:20:00.032-04:00

Like most fundamental things in life, good cooking has a lot of mythology surrounding it. The origins of iconic dishes such as Caesar salad, Buffalo wings, and oysters Rockefeller, to cite just a few American examples, are often hotly debated, with at least three or four stories of ownership and invention existing for each one--not to mention the endless variations on each recipe that restaurants across the country proudly declare to be the "original."

A related form of cooking mythology is the "happy accident" variety. You know what I'm talking about: those recipes that are supposed to have developed through some chef's error that, magically, turned out to be even more delicious than intended. Toll House cookies probably best exemplify this category. The accepted story goes like this: in the 1930s, Ruth Graves Wakefield was the owner of the Toll House Inn in Whitman, Massachusetts. One night, running low on the unsweetened bakers' chocolate that she used to make the inn's popular chocolate cookies, Whitman decided to break a semisweet chocolate bar into chunks and mix them into her plain cookie dough in the hopes that the chocolate would melt in the oven and create a chocolate cookie. But of course, the chunks stayed intact, resulting in an equally, if not more addicting cookie that has gone on to become the most popular American dessert since apple pie.

Now, I tend to mistrust stories like this. Why? Because I think that most accomplished cooks and bakers, like the ones featured in these recipe myths of origin, tend to be knowledgeable enough to be able to predict how their ingredients will react. Chefs aren't just running around kitchens throwing things into bowls and hoping that they'll taste good in the end (well, not usually, at least). Particularly in the Toll House cookie example, the story just seems far fetched: any experienced baker would know that the chocolate chunks in the cookie wouldn't melt, and so on and so forth for the many other "oops I made a mistake but wow does that taste good" tales that exist.

Or so I thought. Until that very thing happened to me. Allow me to set the scene: it was Thursday, June 17, 2010, and I was hard at work in the kitchen creating a rhubarb, apple, and blackberry tart. I had never made one before, but I knew, more or less, where to begin. I started by making an all-butter pastry crust in my brand-new, shiny Cuisinart, mixing the dough only the barest amount, using the smallest bit of water possible to make it set, and allowing it to rest comfortably in the refrigerator for half an hour before even thinking about attempting to roll it out. I was feeling confident as I set to work on the filling, which consisted of sliced apples, sliced rhubarb, whole blackberries, lemon zest, cinnamon, and sugar.

But not enough sugar. Much to my dismay, after smelling the warm, enticing aromas of browning butter and softening fruit during the hour or so that the tart spent baking, I pulled a beautiful, delicious-looking pastry from the oven and stuck an eager fingertip into the bubbling juices--only to pucker up in disgust at the sour taste. I didn't use enough sugar! And I'm due at a barbecue in a half hour! I racked my brain for possible solutions, and there seemed to be only one: I grabbed a box of raw brown sugar from my pantry and sprinkled a generous handful of the coarse crystals over the fruit, then stuck it back in the oven, under the preheated broiler. In about a minute, when the sugar had turned into a tawny, crackly glaze--exactly like the one you find atop crème brûlée--I declared the tart done. There was nothing else I could do.

Later on, at the aforementioned barbecue, I duly cut my tart into even slices, but with a heavy heart: I had little hope for it now. My friends gathered around to try it, and I sat back to gauge their reactions. And much to my delight, far from running to the nearest trash can or patch of grass to indelicately spit out the bitter crumbs, my pals were oohing and aahing with delight, reaching back for seconds and thirds. I tried a piece. It was phenomenal: the crunchy sweetness of the caramelized sugar topping followed by soft, yielding fruit; the whole thing anchored by a light, crumbly, and buttery crust. It was a mistake, and yet it was so good. I guess happy accidents really do exist.

Bruléed Apple, Rhubarb and Blackberry Galette
Serves 8

Ingredients:

1 stick (8 tbsp.) very cold unsalted butter, cut into small cubes
1 1/2 c. all-purpose flour
1/2 tsp. salt
3 to 4 tbsp. ice water

1 large apple, peeled and cut into thin slices
3 large stalks rhubarb, peeled and cut into thin slices
1/2 pint blackberries
1 1/4 c. sugar
1/2 tsp. ground cinnamon
Zest of one lemon
2 tbsp. all-purpose flour
1 tbsp. unsalted butter
About 4 tbsp. raw brown sugar, or granulated sugar

Preparation:

1. Make the dough: in the bowl of a food processor, combine the flour and the butter. Pulse several times to distribute the butter. Pulse several more times, adding as little ice water as possible, until the dough comes together in a smooth ball. Do not overmix, as this will result in tough dough. (Alternatively, you can mix the dough by hand, but a food processor will produce a lighter, flakier crust.)
2. Wrap the ball of dough in plastic wrap and flatten it slightly into a disk. Place in the refrigerator and chill for 30 minutes to one hour.
3. Meanwhile, make the filling: combine the apple, rhubarb, blackberries, sugar, cinnamon, and lemon zest in a large bowl and toss to combine. Let it sit while you wait for the dough.
4. Preheat the oven to 350°.
5. Remove the dough from the refrigerator and let it sit at room temperature for about 5 minutes. Then, working on a large, flat, well-floured surface, use a rolling pin to roll the dough out into a large oval of about 1/4" thickness. Carefully transfer the dough to a large cookie sheet.
6. Evenly sprinkle the 2 tablespoons of flour over the fruit filling and toss to combine. Carefully spread the filling over the center of the tart dough, leaving the outer 1 1/2 inches of dough bare. Carefully fold the dough edges over the filling, creating an ovular tart. Break up the 1 tablespoon of butter into small pieces and dot them over the fruit filling.
7. Place the tart in the oven and bake for 1 1/4 hours to 1 1/2 hours. When done, the tart dough will be golden brown, and the fruit filling will have cooked down and set.
8. Remove the tart from the oven and turn the oven to the broiler setting. Sprinkle the additional 4 tablespoons of sugar evenly over the fruit and place it under the broiler for about 2 minutes, or until the sugar has melted. Be careful not to burn the sugar.
9. Let the tart cool to room temperature before slicing into 8 portions. Serve (preferably with vanilla ice cream).

Potluck, please

2010-05-27T17:14:00.014-04:00

I don't know about you all, but I love potlucks. I love hosting them; I love attending them; I even like just talking about them. As much I enjoy eating in restaurants every once in a while, dining out has never really been my thing. That's because my favorite kind of food is the simple, comforting, homey kind; the kind, say, that my friends might make for me. Plus, I've always been a sucker for dim sum/Indian buffet/smörgåsbord-type situations, where you get to try lots of different dishes all at once. So, as you can see, potlucks basically represent the sweet, sweet center of my personal Venn diagram of dining.

I've been fortunate in life, I suppose, because I happen to have found a set of friends who share my passion for potlucks. My pal Patricia, who sadly lives in France nowadays, used to host them in her Brooklyn apartment with some regularity, and a coworker of mine has themed potlucks at her house about once a month. Most recently, though, it was my friend Hallie who invited people over to her new place in Williamsburg for a housewarming potluck.

When deciding what to bring to a potluck, there are a few factors to take into consideration. The obvious one is size: you want to make something that will feed a large group. Another is broadness of appeal: a potluck is not the time to try out that recipe for wasabi-sriracha snails you've been eying. Finally, you'll want to think about portability: if you, like me, are riding your bike or even taking the train to your destination, you don't want to prepare something ultra-delicate that will suffer from transportation.

When choosing my potluck dish this time around, I was inspired, as I so often am, by leftovers. I had a box of phyllo dough that had, funnily enough, been hanging around in my freezer since the last potluck I attended, when I made an Austrian potato strudel. In my fridge, I found some slightly sad-looking shiitake mushrooms that needed to be cooked immediately. Lastly, I had purchased a huge bunch of beautiful fat leeks at the farmer's market, and I wanted to spare them the shiitakes' fate and make sure to use them while they were still in their prime. It was obvious to me, once I considered my options, how all these items would go together: in a rich, savory tart.

I sauteed the leeks and shiitakes together, adding some button mushrooms to fill the mixture out, let that cool, and then folded it into some ricotta cheese, adding grated Parmesan and fresh thyme to tie it all together. Once the filling was done, I set to work on my phyllo, laying out the sheets on a large, clean workstation and covering them with a damp towel. After brushing each sheet with a mixture of melted butter and olive oil, I layered them in a shallow glass baking dish, then spread the filling on top. I added several more sheets of phyllo dough, slid the tart into the oven, and in about 40 minutes had a crispy, golden, delectable-smelling pastry cooling on my countertop. I got to tuck into it a few hours later at the potluck, and it was delicious: the earthy, slightly chewy mushrooms breaking up the soft bland richness of the ricotta, the caramelized leeks adding sweetness and just a little bit of bite. If you try it out for your next potluck, don't expect to bring home any leftovers.

Savory Leek, Mushroom and Ricotta Tart
Serves 10

Ingredients:

1 box prepared phyllo dough, thawed
1/2 cup + 3 tbsp. olive oil, divided
3 tbsp. + 1 tbsp. unsalted butter, divided
1 cup shiitake mushrooms, cleaned, stems discarded, and cut into bite-size pieces
1 cup button mushrooms, cleaned and cut into bite-size pieces
4 - 5 leeks, sliced into half-moons and rinsed of all grit
1 small (15 oz.) container ricotta cheese
1 egg
Grated Parmesan
Chopped fresh thyme
Salt
Pepper

Preparation:

1. Preheat the oven to 375°.
2. In a small pot, melt 3 tbsp. butter, then mix in 1/2 c. olive oil. Set aside to cool.
3. In a large, wide, heavy-bottomed skillet, heat remaining olive oil and butter over a medium flame. Add leeks and mushrooms and cook, stirring occasionally, until leeks are wilted and mushrooms have released their liquid and browned, about 8 minutes. Season with salt and pepper and set aside to cool.
4. Combine mushrooms and leeks with ricotta, egg, Parmesan and thyme to taste. Season with salt and pepper. Set aside.
5. Lay phyllo sheets out on a large, clean workstation and cover with a damp towel. Working with one sheet at a time, brush phyllo generously with oil/butter mixture, then quickly lay it in a 7"x11" glass baking dish. Repeat with 7 more sheets of phyllo.
6. Spread ricotta filling on top of phyllo, distributing evenly.
7. Add a final layer of 8 phyllo sheets on top of the filling, making sure to seal the tart well.
8. Place tart in oven and bake until phyllo is golden brown and crisp, about 40 minutes. Let cool completely, then cut into 10 pieces. Serve at room temperature.

Talking turkey

2010-05-18T21:01:00.010-04:00

If there's a "less is more" school of turkey burgers, then you could not count me among its adherents. I happen to really like turkey burgers, and make them often. Every time I do, my formula is a little different, but each is marked by one particular characteristic: a reckless hand with seasoning, herbs and spices, and add-ins. One might deem this the Kitchen Sink school of turkey burgers.

Ground turkey, I think, needs a little extra help. The packaged kind you buy in supermarkets, and particularly the all breast meat type (which I always steer widely clear of), can be a little dry. It can be a little flavorless. This is because the meat comes from factory raised birds fed a diet of mostly uninteresting things like corn and soy by-products, and if the turkey doesn't eat interesting things, then why would it itself taste good? In order to combat this Tasteless Turkey syndrome, I'm accustomed to throwing lots of flavor at the problem: finely chopped onion or scallions, as well as garlic, are a must; lots of salt and freshly ground pepper are advisable; generous amounts of dried spices like paprika, cumin, and red pepper flakes are common; and chopped fresh herbs like parsley or cilantro often show up, too. One last thing to consider is a little lubrication: I'll often toss in a bit of whole-milk plain yogurt, or a dash of olive oil, to ensure that the burger comes out juicy.

And tonight, my friends, I did all those things--and more--to my turkey meat. But as it turns out, I might not have had to. You see, after a recent viewing of the excellent, eye-opening, generally disturbing but also fascinating (much like a car wreck) documentary, Food, Inc., I've decided to avoid supermarket meat for a while. I don't want to make any hard and fast declarations, especially since my wallet might not be equipped to handle such claims, but for the time being, at least, I've decided to buy the vast majority of my meat at the farmer's market (and avoid the label "Perdue" like the bloody plague). I started my new resolution this past weekend, when a trip to the Grand Army Plaza farmer's market proved quite fruitful (or meat-ful?). I stocked my freezer full of ground pork, ground turkey, and different cuts of free-range beef, so now all I have to do is reach into the icebox for a guilt-free meat meal.

I used up the first of my provisions, the ground turkey (from DiPaola Turkey Farm in Hamilton, New Jersey) in the aforementioned burgers that I made for dinner earlier this evening. I added all the usual suspects--plus a blanket of sharp, rich Cato Corner Farm cheese--and, to be blunt, ended up with a juicy fistful of The Best Turkey Burger I Have Ever Eaten in My Life. Yup--it was that good. Supremely moist and packing a wallop of flavor, I suspect that there was more at work in this burger than the seasonings that I added to it: namely, the freshness and quality of the turkey. Maybe, with meat this good, you don't really need to add much to it. So you should treat yourself to some good meat, too. But for those times when you can't or don't, try the Kitchen Sink technique.

Kitchen Sink Turkey Burgers
Serves 3 - 4

Ingredients:

1 lb. ground turkey, dark meat preferable
Finely chopped onion or scallion
Minced garlic
Salt
Pepper
Dried spices such as but not limited to: paprika; cumin; coriander; chili powder; red pepper flakes
Chopped fresh herbs such as parsley, cilantro or thyme
Worcestershire sauce (optional)
Whole milk plain yogurt, for moisture (optional)
Olive oil, for moisture (optional)
Cheese, for topping (optional)

Preparation:

1. In a large bowl, combine turkey with ingredients and amounts of your choice. The flavorings listed above are a good guideline but can be varied or omitted according to preference. Just remember to add a lot of seasoning. Mix lightly and form turkey into 3 or 4 burgers. If time allows, let burgers rest in the fridge for about 20 minutes. The flavors will meld, and the burgers will hold together better during cooking.
2. Heat a cast iron skillet, grill pan, or grill. Alternatively, preheat your broiler. When pan is hot, add burgers and cook over high until cooked through but still moist, about 8 minutes per side. When burgers are nearly done, shut the heat off, top burgers with cheese if using, and loosely tent the pan with tin foil. This will help burgers to finish cooking evenly, and will melt the cheese. Serve as desired.

Bruschetta (without the bread)

2010-04-20T15:39:00.007-04:00

It's spring here in New York City, and I couldn't be happier about that fact. As soon as temperatures rose above 50 degrees, I retired my winter jacket--perhaps a bit prematurely--and immediately starting craving spring/summer crops like strawberries and tomatoes. Also somewhat prematurely. While the strawberry plants on my deck will probably bear fruit within a few weeks, my tomatoes won't even show their first flowers until June. For the moment, it seems, I'll have to make due with the produce available in my local grocery store. That explains how I, ever powerless to resist or even wait out a craving, found myself with a bag of sub-par supermarket tomatoes last week. I wanted tomatoes, and I got tomatoes.

So how to best utilize an ingredient, like the tomato, that when purchased at the store is almost always woefully lacking in the flavor department? The key is to try your darnedest to deepen and enhance what flavor is already there. In the post I just linked to I suggested slow-roasting tomatoes in order to do just that; and today I'm going to share a fresher, faster alternative to that method. What I did with my most recent batch of wan tomatoes was to make a no-cook tomato sauce that sits at room temperature, marinating undisturbed for as long as your hunger can hold out, increasing in lusty flavor all the while. What you do is dice tomatoes and plop them in a bowl along with minced garlic, shredded basil, a generous amount of salt and a good glug of olive oil (use your best; you'll really taste it here).

This recipe, as you might notice, is pretty much exactly what you'd pile atop toasted bread and call bruschetta (it's just as good with pasta). What happens is that the salt draws out a lot of liquid from the tomatoes, and as the liquid goes, you taste the fruit's flavor more. Same theory behind roasting any fruit or vegetable. In this instance, that liquid mixes and mingles with the olive oil in the bowl, making a sort of dressing that nicely coats the pasta that you will cook and add in. And the warmth of that pasta will heat up the garlic just a little bit, taking away some of its raw edge but leaving a nice spicy bite behind. So until you can get your hands on some nice, fresh, locally grown and seasonal tomatoes, try this move on your everyday tomato and tell me that it doesn't make the waiting that much easier.

No-Cook Tomato Sauce
Serves 2

Ingredients:

4 plum tomatoes or 2 larger tomatoes, cut into a small dice
3 cloves garlic, minced
A generous handful of basil, cut or torn into thin strips
Salt
Olive oil
2 servings of dried pasta

Preparation:

1. Combine tomatoes, garlic, basil, salt and olive oil to taste in a bowl. Let sit at room temperature for a minimum of 20 minutes and ideally for at least an hour.
2. When you're ready to eat, set a pot of water to boil. Cook the pasta to al dente, drain, and add it to the bowl of sauce. Toss to combine, check for seasoning, and serve.

Just saying no to takeout

2010-04-05T20:58:00.019-04:00

I'll admit it: I love takeout. I live in New York, and there is no shortage of reasonably priced local restaurants whose varied cuisines I would be more than happy to see arrive, like magic, at my doorstep. For me, ordering takeout is akin to what I imagine getting room service to be like: a luxurious, I'm-just-going-to-sit-here-watching-movies-while-someone-else-prepares-my-dinner type of indulgence.

That being said, I can probably count on two hands the number of occasions that I have actually gotten takeout in the past 2 years. Not only am I ridiculously ~~cheap~~ frugal, but I also, obviously, love to cook, and therefore rarely do my stove the dishonor of letting it stand idly by while I eat the fruits of some stranger's labor.

One of the best things about becoming confident in your cooking is that, eventually, you'll probably be able to recreate or at least approximate some of your favorite dishes in your own home, without having to waste money on (nor unwittingly ingest the various chemical additives of) takeout. Anyone reading this blog of late will have noticed that I have become extremely enamored of cooking Asian, particularly Chinese, cuisines. And my increased facility with once-mysterious ingredients such as fermented black beans and preserved vegetables is perhaps my best armor against the siren song of restaurant food. That is because for me, and, I would wager, for a lot of people, my number one takeout craving happens to be Chinese food. Nowadays, in moments of tired-after-a-long-day-at-work weakness, I can look into my pantry and avoid the (you know you have one) takeout menu/miscellanea drawer.

Earlier tonight I was sorely tempted by thoughts of the excellent Thai restaurant down the street from me. But before I picked up the phone I checked out what was in the fridge: a lone lean pork chop and the last remaining member of a bunch of Japanese eggplants. Suddenly I was all caught up in a craving for Chinese eggplant with garlic sauce, with tender slivers of pork throughout. I was now committed to the cause, and duly chopped my ginger and garlic and set my wok to heat up. Working very, very loosely from a recipe I found online, I was soon rewarded with a plate full of creamy, tender eggplant and soft bits of pork suspended in a pungent, slightly spicy sauce. Delayed gratification, in this instance, was just as satisfying--if not more so--than the instant kind.

Eggplant and Pork in Chile-Garlic Sauce
Serves 3 - 4
Adapted from The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

Ingredients:

3 medium Japanese eggplants, about 1 pound
2 thin, lean, pork chops, trimmed of fat and sliced into small strips
1 tbsp. plus 2 tbsp. light soy sauce, divided
1 tsp. sesame oil
1 tbsp. plus 2 tbsp. rice wine vinegar, divided
1 tbsp. plus 2 tbsp. rice cooking wine, divided
Red pepper flakes
2 tbsp. chile garlic sauce
1 tbsp. sugar
2 tbsp. finely minced ginger
2 tbsp. finely minced garlic
2 scallions, thinly sliced
Vegetable oil for frying

Preparation:

1. Marinate the pork: In a small bowl combine the pork with 1 tbsp. soy sauce, 1 tbsp. rice wine vinegar, 1 tbsp. rice cooking wine, 1 tsp. sesame oil and a dash of red pepper flakes. Stir to combine and set aside.
2. Slice the eggplant into thick (about 1/2") medallions. Discard stem.
3. Make the sauce: in a small bowl, combine remaining soy sauce, vinegar, cooking wine, and sugar.
4. Heat a generous amount of oil (about 3 - 4 tbsp.) in a wok set over a high flame. Just before it begins to smoke, add the eggplant. Cook, stirring or shaking constantly, until eggplant starts to soften, about 8 - 10 minutes. Remove eggplant to a plate.
5. Add one more tbsp. of oil to the wok and heat over a medium flame. Add the garlic and ginger and cook briefly; then add the pork and cook, stirring, until it is no longer pink, about 3 minutes.
6. Add the eggplant back to the wok and stir in the sauce. Reduce heat to low, cover, and cook for about 8 - 10 minutes or until pork is cooked through and eggplant is very tender. Garnish with scallions and serve with rice.

A meal fit for the Joads

2010-03-29T20:23:00.014-04:00

I've been thinking, lately, about bacon. Thinking about it a lot. Or, I should say, somewhat more than is usual, since it's not exactly rare that I have bacon on the brain. Why the pork dreams, you ask? Well, I've been re-reading John Steinbeck's masterpiece The Grapes of Wrath, a book that sits high atop the American literary canon, peering down and perhaps sneering just a little bit at all the books stacked up below--and deservedly so. I think I first read the book in seventh grade, and it certainly made an impression on me at the time. I don't think, however, that as a child I could truly understand and empathize with the crushing plight of its central family, the Joads, nor could I really appreciate the flawlessness and innovation of Steinbeck's prose. In short, I'm glad I made the decision to pick up the book again (and you should, too!)

But I'm getting off track--let's get back to the bacon. You see, in The Grapes of Wrath, the rise and fall of the Joads' fortunes can be reliably tracked by one thing: whether or not they have "side meat" sputtering away on the stove. In one of the early scenes of the book, when prodigal son Tom returns home from prison, he finds Ma in the kitchen in a classic scene of domestic tranquility, removing "high brown biscuits" from the oven and "curling slices of pork" from the pan. The book, here, carefully constructs for us a whole, complete picture of family life that is about to be torn down, shattered, trampled and spat upon by the powers that be, or Big Business. The bacon is just one of the things that assure the Joads they are safe, at home, together. But it's a persistent image. All throughout the rest of the book, Ma, Pa, Tom and Al all bring up side meat--repeatedly. As soon as they've got some coins in their pockets or even some credit at the rapacious company stores--they're spending it on side meat. When they're all out, things are bad. But when there's some bacon frying in the pan, it's a small victory; the sound and smell of the crackling pork, and the nourishment it brings, reminding them that they are still human, that they're still a family unit.

Now, bacon doesn't hold the same resonance for me, but it sure is darn delicious. And the Joads' constant yearning for it definitely got me hungry. That's when I put down my book, put on my coat, and strolled down the street to Jubilat Provisions, a Polish-owned meat shop that bursts at the seams with a seemingly endless variety of house-made kielbasa and other sausages, as well as various types of patés, smoked and cured meats, fresh Polish baked goods and jars and cans of imported delicacies of every stripe (it's one of my favorite food stores ever. Do yourself a favor and check it out the next time you're having a BBQ). And one of the best items in the house is the thick-cut, double-smoked bacon. I picked up a little less than a pound, using it first in an Austrian potato strudel that my friend Patricia and I brought to a potluck over the weekend, then, of course, crisped up in a pan for breakfast, and when I still had some left over, I thought of the Joads. Although they're not southerners, they eat (when they can manage to) what I think of as soul food: biscuits. Pie. Warming stews. Lots of things fried up in grease in a cast-iron pan. As it happened, my mom had made Southern-Style Barbecued Pulled Pork, and had given me some of the leftovers. So I had that component down. There's not much that goes better with pulled pork than good old fashioned collards do, and that's when I figured out how to use up my bacon. Finally, I wanted something sweet and starchy, but less heavy than cornbread, something that would fry up nice in my iron pan: I found a recipe for a type of corn griddle cake and worked from there. The resulting meal that I sat down to was warm and comforting, with sweet, soft meat; melting, smokey greens; and crisp, nutty, savory corn cakes. This plate's for you, Joads.

Traditional Southern Collard Greens
Serves 4

Ingredients:

2 large bunches collard greens, washed, with tough stems removed
4 slices of bacon, cut into a small dice
Half an onion, sliced very thinly
2 tbsp. apple cider vinegar
Salt
Pepper

Preparation:

1. In a deep, heavy-bottomed, medium-sized pot, heat the bacon over a medium flame until it starts to sizzle and render its fat, about 3 - 4 minutes. Add the onion and cook, stirring occasionally, until it is tender and translucent.
2. Take several leaves of greens, roll them into a tight bundle, and slice them into long ribbons of medium thickness, adding them to the pot and stirring as you go. Repeat, in batches, with remaining greens. Season greens with salt and pepper, add about 1/2 cup water, and cover the pot. Drop the heat to low and cook, stirring occasionally and adding more water if necessary, until greens are very soft but not mushy, about 35 - 40 minutes.
3. When greens are done, shut off the heat and add the apple cider vinegar. Taste for seasoning and serve.

Corn Griddle Cakes
Adapted from epicurious.com
Makes 12 - 15 cakes

Ingredients:

1 cup yellow cornmeal
3/4 cup all-purpose flour
1 tsp. salt
1/2 tsp. baking soda
1/2 tsp. baking powder
1/2 tsp. pepper
2 tsp. sugar
2 tbsp. unsalted butter, melted and cooled, plus more for brushing the griddle
1 large egg
1 cup buttermilk (or sour 1 cup milk with 1 tsp. white vinegar or lemon juice)
1 cup thawed frozen corn kernels

Preparation:

1. In a medium-sized bowl whisk together the dry ingredients (cornmeal, flour, salt, baking soda, baking powder, pepper, and sugar).
2. In a small bowl whisk together the buttermilk, egg, and melted butter.
3. Add the wet ingredients to the dry, stirring to combine (don't worry about a few lumps). Stir in the corn kernels.
4. Drop the batter into a buttered cast-iron skillet set over medium heat, dropping about 1/4 cup batter at a time. Cakes will be about 3 - 4 inches across. Cook until browned and crisp, about 3 minutes per side. Repeat with remaining batter.

*Note: these cakes can be eaten savory or sweet. They were delicious with my Southern dinner and equally so the next morning reheated with additional butter and drizzled with maple syrup.

Simple but good

2010-03-22T20:21:00.010-04:00

When people are first getting to know me, they discover pretty quickly that I'm ~~obsessed with~~ really into food, and they invariably ask me this question: "So what's your favorite thing to cook?" I never know quite how to respond to this, because I really, truly, don't play favorites with my food. What I enjoy about cooking is the creativity and invention at work in it; the sense of freedom that I feel in choosing ingredients that I think might go well together and then attempting to unify them, sometimes successfully and sometimes not, with the flavors and cooking techniques that I surmise will do the most justice to those ingredients. What I'm trying to say is that 99% of the time when I'm cooking, I'm just winging it: not following recipes and rarely making the same dish on a regular basis, because what I love most about the process of cooking is how it's new every time.

Since that's a pretty long answer, what I usually say goes something like this: "Well, I like to cook lots of different things, but what I like best is simple food." And it's true. Though there are exceptions to the rule, you'll notice that most of the recipes I share on this blog are very intuitive, with few steps: the kind of food that even people with little cooking experience could make easily. For me, it's a kind of bang-for-your-buck thing: with the type of food I make, a relatively small amount of planning and labor can often yield an extremely satisfying result. I try not to get too touchy-feely about the process of cooking when writing on this blog, but the truth is that sometimes it seems almost magical, like some sort of alchemy: putting in but salt and heat and time, and then sitting down to something that is truly complex, with layers of flavor and shades of richness.

The following recipe definitely fits that description. The ingredients are as follows: chicken, soy sauce, brown sugar, star anise and lime. Count 'em: 5. I just made it up one night when I had some chicken thighs to use up (as I often do), and a craving for Asian flavors (as I often do). It won't deplete your pantry, and it'll take about 15 minutes from start to finish: it's simple, but it's good.

Soy-Braised Chicken Thighs with Star Anise and Brown Sugar
Serves 1

Ingredients:

2 chicken thighs
Salt
Pepper
Vegetable oil
Dark soy sauce
2 tbsp. brown sugar
2 star anise pods
Water
Half a lime

Preparation:

1. Generously salt and pepper both sides of the chicken thighs and sear them in a wide, heavy pan set over high heat until well browned on both sides, about 6 minutes. Remove chicken from pan and set aside.
2. Drop the heat under the pan to medium. Add about 1/2 a cup of water to the pan and stir to deglaze. Add about 2 tbsp. soy sauce, the brown sugar and the star anise; stir to dissolve the brown sugar, then drop the heat so that the mixture bubbles slowly. Add the chicken, cover, and cook until chicken is tender, about 12 minutes.
3. Remove the lid and allow sauce to evaporate until it is quite thick and coats the chicken in a sort of glaze. Taste for seasoning. Eat the chicken over noodles or rice, squeezing the juice of the lime over it before you do.

Tofu for carnivores

2010-03-17T20:49:00.011-04:00

I love tofu: firm or silken, smoked or not, freshly made or prepackaged, I'll happily take them all. I also love meat. I happen to really, really like tofu and meat together, as in, in the same dish.

If this pairing seems incongruous to you, then you've probably missed out on many of the best dishes that Asian, particularly Chinese, cuisines have to offer. You see, in America tofu has acquired a pretty poor reputation for being the wan, tasteless, colorless and textureless ingredient that people sub in for meat, resulting in such unfortunate products as Tofurky, Boca Burgers, and the like. You can't taste the tofu in these things at all; it's covered up, hidden away behind a thick veil of salt, herbs and spices.

Asian cooking takes a different stance on tofu. It's a revered ingredient, one whose smooth texture and clean flavor is as at home nestled in among a medley of vegetables as it is sitting shoulder to shoulder with, say, some pork...shoulder. Rather than attempting to substitute tofu for meat, Asian recipes oftentimes place the two together--a sort of yin and yang, if you will forgive the terrible, terrible pun, a harmonious, balanced relationship that allows both ingredients to shine. Some of Asia's most famous dishes--such as Chinese mapo dofu, Korean kimchi jjigae, Filipino tokwa't baboy, and Thai pad thai--all call for both meat and tofu. All are delicious.

It was from Asia that I took my cue last night when I decided I wanted to have a light, flavorful and balanced soup for dinner. I had made some Chinese-style chicken earlier in the week, and as a result I had a whole potful of chicken broth flavored with ginger, scallion and Szechuan peppercorns leftover. To give my soup a sort of Thai inflection--bearing tom yum soup in mind--I heated up the broth with some crushed lemongrass, poaching some additional chicken thighs at the same time. When the chicken was cooked through, I shredded it and added it back to the broth, along with some sliced shiitake mushrooms, some diced drained tofu, and some soba noodles. When the noodles were just cooked, I added dashes of dark soy sauce, sesame oil and rice wine vinegar to taste and topped off my bowl with some thinly sliced scallion. Utilizing Chinese broth, Thai herbs and Japanese mushrooms and noodles, this soup was definitely all over the map. But the one thing about it that I think all those various nations could appreciate is its perfect union of meat and soy.

Asian Soba Noodle Soup with Chicken and Tofu
Serves 4

Ingredients:

4 cups chicken broth, preferably homemade, if possible flavored with aromatics such as ginger, scallion and garlic
1 stalk fresh lemongrass
1/2 a block extra-firm tofu, or use smoked tofu
2 chicken thighs, bone-in, skin removed
8 - 10 shiitake mushrooms, cleaned and sliced
1 generous handful Japanese soba noodles
2 scallions, thinly sliced
Dark soy sauce
Sesame oil
Rice wine vinegar
Salt

Preparation:

1. Drain the tofu: cut the half block of tofu in half again, this time lengthwise. Place the two pieces on a deep plate lined with paper towels, then put a heavy plate on top. Weight it down; I used a large can of tomatoes. Place in fridge and allow to drain for at least a half an hour.
2. Heat the chicken broth. Add a length of lemongrass that you have crushed with the back of a knife. Add the chicken thighs. Bring the broth to a gentle simmer and cook until the chicken is cooked through, about 8 - 10 minutes. Remove the chicken with a slotted spoon and let cool in fridge.
3. When chicken is cool, shred it with your fingers and place the meat back in the pot. Remove the tofu from the fridge and cut it into small, evenly sized cubes. Add them to the pot. Add the sliced mushrooms and bring the soup back to a simmer.
4. When soup is simmering, add the soba noodles. Cook until they are al dente, about 6 - 7 minutes. Discard lemongrass. Add dashes of soy sauce, sesame oil and rice wine vinegar to taste. Salt to taste and garnish soup with sliced scallions.

Birthday fun (with pork)

2010-01-21T20:51:00.015-05:00

January 9th marked the 24th year in a row of my existence on this earth, and, also, marked the second year in a row that I chose to celebrate the occasion by feeding a huge, slow-roasted hunk of pork to my friends. For my potluck dinner/birthday party this year, I stuck with pork shoulder because it's a) ridiculously cheap, b) ridiculously easy to make, and c) feeds a ridiculously large number of people. Plus, it's a delicious cut of meat that fills your apartment (and stairwell, and foyer) with a heady, tantalizing, rich aroma during the six to seven hours it spends basting in its own porky juices in your oven. I don't keep many traditions, but I like the fact that one of the few that I observe involves consuming a large section of a pig once yearly.

So I had the pork shoulder, and I prepared it much the same way as the pernil that I made last year, marinating it overnight in a potent blend of chopped garlic and onion, chili powder, olive oil and vinegar. The next day, I slow-roasted it at 300° for, well, the entire day. But after that, all bets were off. I was serving pork shoulder again, but I wanted to mix up my preparation. I decided to convert the pernil into southern-style barbecued pulled pork. I mean, how can you go wrong with that? (Answer: you cannot.) So after six or seven hours when the pork shoulder emerged from my oven glistening with crispy fatty crackling and virtually melting off the bone, I pulled off great big hunks of meat, and, with almost no effort needed at all, shredded them up into long, soft strands. I piled these into a big heavy pot, then folded in a sweet, smokey, homemade BBQ sauce as well as (shhh) a healthy ladle of pork fat drippings that I had rescued from the bottom of the roasting tray. I then turned on the heat again, though this time on top of the stove, letting the pork cook into the sauce over a low heat for about an hour. The pork came out just as I had hoped: moist, tender, and full of sweet and slightly spicy flavor:

And let's not forget the cornbread. After all, what's a southern barbecue without cornbread?

If every year finds me surrounded by good friends and copious amounts of pork, the future looks like a bright one to me!

Southern-Style Barbecued Pulled Pork
Serves 12 - 15 (with leftovers)

Ingredients:

1 pork shoulder, 8 to 10 pounds
4 cloves garlic, peeled
1 large onion, quartered
2 tbsp. fresh oregano leaves or 1 tablespoon dried oregano
1 tbsp. sweet paprika
1 tsp. ancho or other mild chili powder
1 tbsp. salt
2 tsp. freshly ground black pepper
Olive oil as needed
1 tbsp. wine or cider vinegar
1 recipe Sweet and Smokey BBQ Sauce (see below)
Reserved pork drippings, as needed

1. Score meat’s skin with a sharp knife, making a cross-hatch pattern. Pulse garlic, onion, oregano, paprika, chili, salt and pepper together in a food processor, adding oil in a drizzle and scraping down sides as necessary, until mixture is pasty. (Alternatively, mash ingredients in a mortar and pestle.) Blend in the vinegar.
2. Rub mixture into pork, getting it into every nook and cranny. Cover with plastic wrap and place in fridge. Let marinate for 12-24 hours.
3. Heat oven to 300 degrees. Remove plastic wrap from pork and place in a roasting pan, filling the bottom with about a half inch of water. Roast pork for as long as you can, or six to seven hours (you cannot really overcook it), covering the skin with foil if it starts to burn. Remove foil before cooking time is over to allow skin to crisp well.
4. Let meat rest for 10 to 15 minutes, then pull off pork cracklings (serve these with lime, hot sauce or both. You won't be disappointed). Using your hands, tear all pork meat off bone in big chunks. When all meat is removed from the bone, shred it into a large, heavy pot, using either your hands or two forks--either way, this is a messy job.
5. Fold in the majority of the homemade BBQ sauce, as well as a good ladleful of pork juice and drippings reserved from the bottom of the roasting pan. Cook, covered, over low heat, or until pork is completely soft and tender and has absorbed a good deal of the sauce, about 1 hour. Taste and add more BBQ sauce, drippings, or seasoning as needed.

Sweet and Smokey BBQ Sauce
Makes about 3 cups

Ingredients:

2 cups ketchup
7 tbsp. apple cider vinegar
2 tbsp. water
Juice of 1 lemon
2 tbsp. Worcestershire sauce
12 dashes Tabasco sauce
1 tbsp. Dijon mustard
1 tsp. chili powder
1 tsp. sweet or smoked paprika
3/4 c. dark brown sugar or more, to taste
3 cloves garlic
2 chipotles en adobo plus 2 tbsp. adobo sauce
1 tsp. salt
Ground pepper to taste

1. Combine all ingredients in a heavy saucepan and bring to a simmer. Cook for 45 minutes or until sauce has thickened, stirring often to prevent burning and adding more water as necessary.
2. Puree until smooth with a stick blender. Taste for seasoning, adding more brown sugar or salt as necessary.

Skillet Cornbread
Adapted from epicurious.com
Makes 1 loaf

Ingredients:

1 c. all-purpose flour
1 tbsp. baking powder
1/2 tsp. salt
1 c. yellow cornmeal
1/4 c. sugar
1 c. milk
1 large egg
1 sticks (1/2 c.) unsalted butter

1. Preheat oven to 375°. Place several small pats of butter into a large cast iron skillet and place skillet in the oven. (If you do not have a cast iron skillet, butter a large, shallow glass baking dish and set it aside.)
2. Melt remaining butter in a small saucepan over medium-low heat.
3. In a large bowl whisk together flour, baking powder, salt, cornmeal and sugar.
4. In another bowl, whisk together melted butter, egg, and milk. Pour the wet ingredients into the dry and stir until just combined. Batter will be thin.
5. Remove skillet from oven and pour in the batter. Place in middle of oven and bake until golden brown and cooked through, about 35 minutes. Remove skillet from oven and cool on a wire rack.

A Bronx feast fit for a Baron

2009-12-25T13:16:00.064-05:00

A short while ago, the intrepid members of the MTA Dining Car eating club convened once again. This time our mission--to enjoy cheap, bountiful and authentic eats--would not be so easily attained. That's because we decided to venture far, far into the Bronx, taking to our beloved IRT in somewhat diminished numbers and riding almost to the very end of the 6 line. Why suffer through such a long commute? you might ask. The answer is simple: we had been inspired.

You see, for several weeks, my cohort Kiera and I had been eagerly following the hilarious, creative and informative antics of filmmaker Justin Fornal, aka the Baron Ambrosia. A self-described "quaffer of culinary consciousness" whose theme song queries, "he doesn't rest, he only feasts, how will he soothe the savage beast?" the Baron is a veritable ambassador for the culinary riches of the borough of the Bronx that he calls home. In his expertly written, colorful short videos that often include elaborate plots, songs, and dance numbers, the Baron visits restaurants, cafes and takeout spots all over the Bronx that are turning out reasonably priced and reliably delicious food. Just don't look to the Baron to provide any recommendations for white tablecloth fare: the man is all about bringing our attention to inexpensive, come-as-you-are neighborhood spots; the kinds of places that locals revere but outsiders might never otherwise notice.

Watching the Baron's videos, we knew instantly that we had found a culinary compatriot who was championing our same cause. We trusted the Baron implicitly, and for our next eating club outing we wanted to take the Baron up on one of his suggestions. After we viewed the marvelous "Roti Express" episode (hint: it involves a Bollywood-style dance number. Need I say more?), we knew we had our place: the Coconut Palm Bar and Grill, a lively spot that serves up a large variety of Guyanese dishes.

Now hold up a second!--you might be thinking--what exactly is Guyanese food?! Prior to my dining experience at the Coconut Palm, I couldn't have answered you. For most Americans, myself included, any mention of the country calls up a sole image, that of the Jonestown massacre that occurred there in 1978; I had little idea of what present-day Guyana is like, and even less of what it eats. Now I know that Guyana is a melting pot in the truest sense of the word. It has a unique history: located on the northern coast of South America, Guyana has been colonized, over the ages, by no less than 4 superpowers: the French, the Spanish, the Dutch and the British. And if there's anything that colonizers like to do, it's bring slaves and indentured servants--loads and loads of 'em--with them to their new home country, so that they, you know, don't really have to worry about things like raising food, cooking, and cleaning. And bring help they did: from India, Africa and China, in particular. As a result, most of the country's modern-day population is comprised of the descendants of that multinational work force. A sizable segment of the population consists, too, of Aboriginal indigenous groups (see Wikipedia).

So what does all this demographic data mean in terms of the food? It means that the mark of all these disparate cultures is left on the cuisine in recognizable ways. Guyanese food is most strikingly similar to Caribbean cuisines; that's because Guyana lies directly south of the Caribbean island chain. Fans of Caribbean food will notice the prevalence of items like rice and beans, jerk chicken, stew chicken, oxtail and goat that the native populations of Guyana have been cooking up for centuries. More recent influences show up as well: those Indian immigrants brought over flatbreads like dhal poori and roti; the Africans carried over traditional ingredients such as sweet potatoes and peanuts; and the Chinese cooked up a variety of Guyanese-inflected Asian dishes such as fried rice, lo mein and chow mein.

All this and more is yours for the sampling at the Coconut Palm. The restaurant offers a vast array of traditional Guyanese dishes, and because the cuisine is so incredibly diverse you will get to experience an incredible variety of tastes and textures. When the Dining Car stopped in a short while ago, the friendly staff at the restaurant truly treated us to some bang for our (twenty) buck(s), starting us off with numerous plates of appetizers and, later on in the evening, setting up our very own personal buffet that positively brimmed with fluffy rices, tender stewed meats and aromatic breads. Oh--and how could I forget?--we had a very special guest in our ranks that evening. Can you guess who it was?

That's right, ladies and gentlemen, the Baron Ambrosia himself showed up, bringing not only his lovely self but also an (intimidating) flask of scorpion wine (yes, with a real scorpion in it) procured in Vietnam:

The Baron also (!!!) provided parting gifts for everyone: DVD copies of last years' holiday special, one for everyone, that he brought in a huge, orange, Santa-style sack. Look for the Baron's 2009 holiday special, airing on Bronxnet and online on New Year's Eve this year:

The Baron was truly a generous, gracious guest and, of course, we have him to thank for discovering the Coconut Palm in the first place. We look forward to many a savory Bronx dining experience based on his recommendations and we want to offer him one final, warm thank you for his attendance! OK, now on to the (delicious, copious) food, starting with the appetizers:

Polourie: small, deep-fried balls of light chickpea batter, these taste like savory doughnut holes. What's not to like?

Potato balls: like balls of soft mashed potatoes, fried. Again--nothin' wrong with that

Fried fish: I don't recall what type of fish these were, but they were tasty

Fried shark. A suggestion of the Baron's, the chunks of fish were soft and flakey with a crisp greaseless exterior. Perfect

Blood sausage, aka blood pudding. Yum. There's that colonial European influence showing up

And now on to the buffet of main dishes. Here you can see Don helping himself to, from left to right, rice and beans; fried rice; curry goat; curry oxtail; and stew chicken:

And, finally, here's a closeup on my (first) plate: starting with the fried rice at 12 o'clock and going clockwise you'll see a piece of dhal poori; stew chicken; curry oxtail; curry goat; and rice and beans:

A huge thanks to the interborough trekkers that make up our membership and to the helpful staff of the Coconut Palm, who provided us with heaps of fragrant, filling food! Interested in attending our next event? Join our mailing list by shooting an email to mtadiningcar@gmail.com.

Embracing a trend, a little late

2009-12-07T22:05:00.009-05:00

When it comes to food, I'm pretty much immune to trends. What I like to eat, and what I will always like to eat, is simple, straightforward, honestly delicious food, and that won't change, no matter how many types of goopy sugary cupcakes flood the market, or how many ways chefs find to make liquids, foams and gels out of what should be nice, fresh and unadulterated ingredients.

For the past few years, there's been one trendy ingredient on the American food scene, and its name is chipotle. No, I'm not talking about the restaurant, although that chain did indeed rise to prominence during the unstoppable reign of its eponymous ingredient. What I'm talking about are chipotle peppers, or jalapeño peppers that have been allowed to ripen past their usual green color to a deep red, then harvested and smoke-dried. In Mexico, chipotles find their way into many traditional dishes and accompaniments, most notably being incorporated into a variety of salsas, but here in the U.S., we usually see chipotles in one particular form: chipotles en adobo. Adobo, as that helpful Wikipedia link explains, can refer to a range of seasonings and marinades, but in this instance corresponds to a particular preparation of thick, rich and spicy tomato-based sauce. Chipotles en adobo are whole chipotles that are canned in adobo sauce; the chipotles absorb the liquid from the adobo and become soft and pliable, while the adobo, in turn, takes on the smoky quality of the chipotles.

Sounds pretty delicious, doesn't it? Well, lots of American restaurants and cafes would agree. Because over the past few years, many of them have snuck chipotles onto their menu, and you can usually find them in one place: on the sandwiches. Blended into the mayonnaise. Chipotle mayonnaise, or chipotle mayo, as it's more commonly (and lovingly) referred to, is everywhere. Do a Google search for the term and you'll get 559,000 results. To give you a small Brooklyn-based sampling, both the cafe I worked at as a cook for about a year and the restaurant where my roommate Anne waitresses feature the mayonnaise on their menus: at the former, we spread it thickly on a grilled vegetable-and-cheese sandwich, and at the latter, they serve it as a dipping sauce for their (highly addictive) homemade grilled flatbreads. And I have to admit that the stuff is pretty tasty. I'm not really a mayonnaise fan: for me, at least the commercial stuff just seems greasy and not very flavorful. But the heat and smokiness of the chipotles really does cut through that greasiness and adds a nice bite to plain ol' mayo.

Still, I wasn't really sold on the idea. From time to time I'd get a taste of chipotle mayonnaise and I'd think it was ok. But for the most part, I tended to avoid menu items that advertised the peppers: they just seemed gimmicky, overly ubiquitous, so I passed on them. Until, that is, I cooked with them. About a week ago, I went over to my friend Malcolm's house for dinner, and together we followed a recipe for chilaquiles that came from a Martha Stewart cookbook. The recipe was dead simple: basically, you saute garlic and oil in a pan and add crushed canned tomatoes and a little bit of chipotles en adobo. You then mix in shredded cooked chicken and simmer the sauce for about 5 minutes. That's it. When it's done, you serve it over crushed tortilla chips and top it with all the fixins, like cheese, avocado and sour cream. Yum. Am I right? Well, I tasted it and I am right. And I was amazed. The chipotles added so much flavor to the sauce: slight, pleasant heat; intense, smooth smokiness; and a little sweetness, too. I was sold. Several days later, when I set out to make a dish I often eat for dinner, Mexican-style beans, I made sure to buy a little can of chipotles en adobo and add them to my dish. Same effect: they added so much flavor, and made my beans taste that much more authentic.

So is there a moral to this story? I hope not, because if there was one, it would have to be something like this: don't be afraid to be a sheep. Don't resist. If something's trendy, it's damn well trendy for a reason, and you should just go along with it. And that's not my message at all, folks. But I will say this: sometimes, when an ingredient or food preparation really catches on, it truly is because it's tasty. Just think of McDonald's...wait, that wasn't what I meant to say. Listen, just try these Mexican beans. Maybe someday soon they, too, will be over 99 billion served.

Mexican-Style Beans
Serves 4 - 6

1. Heat a wide, heavy-bottomed skillet over a medium flame. Add about 2 tbsp. of olive oil and about 3 minced garlic cloves. Cook, stirring, for about 1 minute.
2. As the garlic cooks, add dried spices to the pan: about 1 1/2 tsp. ground cumin; 1/2 tsp. ground coriander; 1/2 tsp. oregano; 1/4 tsp. red pepper flakes and 1/4 tsp. chili powder. Stir to combine.
3. Just as the garlic begins to turn golden brown, add about 1/2 cup canned tomatoes, either crushed or whole in liquid. If using whole tomatoes, crush them as you add them to the pan. Add 2 or 3 minced chipotles (from a small can of chipotles en adobo) and about 2 tbsp. of their liquid to the pan. Stir to combine and season with salt.
4. Drain and rinse 2 small (15.5 oz) cans of beans. You can use any beans you like; I always use black beans and sometimes, as in this instance, mix in pinto beans as well. Add the beans to the pan, along with about 1 cup of water and stir gently. Bring to a simmer and let cook for 12 - 15 minutes, or until the mixture has thickened and its flavors have come together.
5. Taste for seasoning and serve. I eat my beans over rice and top them with things like fresh salsa, lime juice, sliced avocados, a cheese like queso fresco, etc., and I usually heat up some corn tortillas to go with, too.

From Europe to the Caribbean

2009-12-02T17:42:00.013-05:00

As should be evident from my post below, I'm back from my time spent farming in Europe. It was great fun and I ate a lot of great food and hopefully, someday soon when I'm more organized, I'll share some photos and descriptions of a few of the things I ate abroad. For now, though, let's focus on the more recent past. Though I did indeed dine well during my stays in Spain and France, there were a few flavors that I started to miss, like all kinds of Asian food, and, especially, spicy food. So just a few days after my return, I met my friend Malcolm at one of my very favorite takeout joints, Errol's Caribbean Bakery.

Located on the corner of Flatbush Avenue and Hawthorne Street in the area of Brooklyn traditionally known as Flatbush but newly minted by real estate agents as Lefferts Gardens, Errol's is a true neighborhood spot. The first time I visited, it was late one summer night, close to midnight, and Errol's was one of the few spots on Flatbush Avenue that was open. A few friends and I walked in, expecting to find the place mostly empty. Yet while we waited for our food, a steady stream of people came and left, chatting familiarly with the amiable folks behind the counter. Before I even tasted a morsel, I had a good feeling about Errol's: it was warm, friendly, and homey. And, possibly more importantly, it was bursting with many kinds of delicious-looking baked goods:

That's because in addition to offering a wide array of hot, savory dishes, Errol's stays true to its name by serving up a variety of freshly made breads, rolls, cakes and other kinds of sweets. Every one I've tried has been great: from soft, sliced whole wheat loaves to more Caribbean-specific delicacies like currant rolls, soft yeasted rolls studded with currants, and both regular and whole wheat versions of bread pudding, which are huge, thick squares of dense, not-too-sweet custard. I can't remember the exact prices of these items, but I do know that they are very cheap, somewhere in the neighborhood of a dollar for individual servings, and are served in generous portions. But let's get to the hot part of the menu, shall we? You can choose from the following options:

There's a lot of good stuff there, to be sure, but if you're anything like me, you'll go for an order of the stew chicken: for a small ($5), you'll get two large pieces of tender, juicy bone-in chicken cooked down in a dark, rich sauce, served with rice and peas, cabbage and two soft, sweet plantains. Now that's a recession special I can really get behind. I can personally attest, also, to the outstanding quality of the curry goat, the curry chicken, and the jerk chicken--they're all fresh-tasting and delicious--but the star of the show, for me, is the stew chicken:

So if you find yourself in Brooklyn craving some cheap, flavorful and filling Caribbean delights, check out Errol's in Lefferts Gardens. I can assure you that you won't be disappointed.

Thanksgiving leftovers, Chinese style

2009-11-29T16:10:00.013-05:00

After all the shopping, preparation and cooking, Thanksgiving is over and everything has returned to normal (except, perhaps, our waistlines). If you hosted or even attended the holiday meal, it's a pretty sure bet that you've got some leftover turkey in your fridge at this very moment. Not to fear: at this time of year, food publications all over the country are printing recipe after recipe designed to make use of the excess bird: some more traditional, some less so. The recipe I'm sharing today definitely falls into the latter camp. Now don't get me wrong: my favorite Thanksgiving leftovers are, most certainly, of the traditional ilk. My personal choice has always been, and always will be, a sandwich of turkey and cranberry sauce on rye (the only appropriate bread for a Jewish Thanksgiving gathering). But I have to admit that after eating one, two or three of these beauties and still being left with turkey to use up, my tastebuds start to crave something a little less familiar and a little more exciting.

Such was the position I found myself in earlier today. With stomach grumbling, I opened the fridge door and noticed two items: a Ziploc bag of sliced turkey meat generously gifted to me by my grandmother, and a small container of white rice that I had prepared earlier in the week before going out of town for the holiday. Instantly I had it: fried rice. Leftovers, basically, were created for fried rice: I've talked about it on here before, and I'm sure I will again. That's because once you've got a standing supporting cast of Asian condiments like soy sauce, sesame oil and chili paste on hand, the glory of fried rice can be yours at almost any moment: nearly any kind of protein, no matter how it was originally seasoned, or any kind of cooked vegetable, can be cut up and thrown into fried rice, and it will taste good. Take my word for it. Or go a step further and try this recipe yourself.

Turkey Fried Rice
Makes 1 serving

1. Cut a small portion of leftover cooked turkey meat into a small dice. Set aside.
2. Defrost a generous handful of frozen peas or frozen mixed vegetables by placing them in a bowl and covering with hot water.
3. Mince 1 - 2 garlic cloves and cook in vegetable oil in a large wide skillet or wok set over a medium flame.
4. After 2 minutes, add a serving of leftover cooked rice. Heat through, adding soy sauce, sesame oil, sriracha or chili paste and Chinese preserved vegetables, if available, to taste (about 1 teaspoon each).
5. Drain the peas and add them to the pan. Add the turkey meat to the pan. Stir frequently to heat everything through.
6. In a small bowl, beat 1 egg. Add it to the pan, stirring constantly, to break up and cook the egg. Taste the rice for seasoning and serve with a handful of chopped fresh cilantro.

Eating Club: Staten Island Ferry to Little Sri Lanka

2009-11-22T22:14:00.044-05:00

Anatomy of a Sri Lankan buffet plate (clockwise from the papadum): leeks, dhal, eggplant, chicken curry, potato, bitter gourd, coconut sambol, goat curry, and kingfish curry; mango and pineapple chutney, yellow rice (center).

***

For many, the Staten Island ferry is not so much a form of transportation but rather a free, fail-safe way to entertain out-of-town guests: hop aboard, point out the Statue of Liberty, and wait in the Staten Island ferry terminal for the next boat back to Manhattan. But Staten Island is not merely a turn-around point nor an imagined place--a netherland--where Hans van den Broek plays cricket in Joseph O'Neill's Netherland. In fact, among other groups, Staten Island is home to more than 1/3 of New York's Sri Lankan population. Interesting note: while there are ethnic clashes in the mother country, Tamils and Sinhalese are at peace in Staten Island's Sri Lankan enclave (at least according to a somewhat dated City Limits article).

This month, the MTA Dining Car--a monthly eating club devoted to outer borough trekking--headed to Staten Island. The destination: Sanrasa's $11 Sunday buffet in Tompkinsville (aka Little Sri Lanka), just a 10-minute walk from the ferry terminal on Staten Island.

We gazed out of the rain-slickened ferry window, searching for the Manhattan skyline. It was the kind of gloomy afternoon in which one realizes: winter is nearly upon us once more. And yet, we knew the meal to come would warm our hearts and sinuses with hot chilis and fiery curries, chasing away the onslaught of seasonal despair.

The view from the ferry's bow: in the distance, the Verrazano-Narrows Bridge; in the foreground, what appears to be the kind of kiddy gate that one might use on a staircase.

Bay Street en route to Tompkinsville.

There's something vaguely Soviet about Staten Island.

On the exterior of the Cargo Cafe, thanks to the handywork of the local Budos Band, a pirate fights a fire-breathing dragon beneath a "Starry Night"-inspired sky. Previously, paintjobs by artist Scott LoBaido have included scenes of King Kong and giant parakeets with humans dangling out of their mouths. For the Cargo Cafe's interior, self-described "Creative Patriot" LoBaido once painted a portrait of Rudy Giuliani as a Roman soldier atop a rearing stallion, raising a billowing American flag with the flagpole doing double duty as a spear--which Giuliani uses to slay a demon/terrorist in the wreckage of what appears to be the Twin Towers.

Just up the street: a more conceptual painting, which the Cargo Cafe's manager thought to be a LoBaido as well.

One house still featured Halloween decorations. (Yes, that's a toy puppy with a knife in its skull.)

At long last! The Sanrasa buffet spread. Earthenware pots are to Sri Lankan food what the slow cooker is to flyover state American food: a sign of home cooking.

For the dhal, the lentils are simmered in coconut milk along with turmeric, cumin seed, red chili, and clove. Sanrasa owner Sanjay Handapangoda pan-roasts the spices himself.

Bitter gourd ("karvilla" in Sinhalese) is sliced, fried, and tossed with raw red onion, vinegar, mustard seed, and green chilis for a multilayered sweet and tangy flavor. If you assume Sri Lankan food to be a variant of Indian food, this dish will convince you otherwise.

The implicit question of the buffet is: how to stop? Returning to the buffet line "just for dessert" (see mango mousse in lower-right corner), one might then look down to see a full plate of chicken curry, yellow rice, dhal, pineapple chutney, bitter gourd, and coconut sambol (an all-purpose sweet and spicy condiment of grated coconut, chili, and lemon juice).

And yet: somehow we stopped eating, boarded the ferry, and watched Staten Island grow distant from the aft-end of the boat.

In the end, the sun came out just in time for it to set. Even if you live in New York, in moments like these, you're allowed to take photos with a tourist's unselfconscious sense of awe.

-Kiera Feldman

The MTA Dining Car: D/M/N/R to 36th

2009-10-08T01:18:00.007-04:00

Last month, the MTA Dining Car -- a monthly eating club devoted to good food, good company, and outer borough trekking -- headed to Bay Ridge for Palestinian food, filling every seat at Tanoreen. The procession of courses was endless. Surely, everyone longed for relaxed-fit pants. And the same was true of the previous month's Thai feast at Sripraphai in Woodside, Queens (0f note: it is not an exaggeration to say that the red snapper changed us all).

This month, in lieu of our usual sit-down, family-style $20 prix fixe meal, we opted for a more freeform, el cheapo (~ $10/person) approach: the taco tour. Diners met at Brooklyn's Sunset Park on a warm and breezy Sunday afternoon and then headed south on 5th ave.

First stop: Tacos Xochimilco at 45th st. There was much disagreement as to the best taco--some said chorizo, others argued for carne asada, and I think one person even made a case for lengua. But everyone concurred that the staff, seemingly unperturbed by the (normally frowned upon) big group/small order combo, was kind of saintly.

By the end of taco round #1, the MTA Dining Car numbers had swelled with latecomers; concerned that the taco tourists might seem an obnoxious hoard, an executive decision was made to send out smaller scouting parties with food orders para llevar and then regroup in Sunset Park, whereupon the taco tour would morph into a taco (and assorted taqueria fare) pass-around. One group headed across the street to Tacos Matamoros, another headed down to 51st to Ricos Tacos, and a third group picked up a sampling of desserts at Ines 24-hour Bakery on 4th ave and 36th. (Plans to hit up two 4th ave taco trucks were quickly abandoned: evidently the 36th st truck is only there evenings, and--make of it what you will--no one volunteered to journey to the truck at 60th.)

When you take a bite of the carne asada torta from Matamoros, you know: this is no mass produced beef patty but rather a slab of grilled beef. Something that once lived and breathed. Something that had a mother.

The carne asada taco from Matamoros: lightly sprinkled with cilantro and onion, and a perfect texture-flavor union of charred, salty, and crunchy.

One diner double-fisted a carne asada torta and a Ricos carnitas taco, as if unable to choose between the two. (Ricos tacos were a group favorite. Look at that wrapper bleed-through!)

With French cuisine, you eat sorbet to cleanse the palate; Indian food uses raita; and with Central American food, might I recommend flan? It's slightly sweet yet balanced by the understated savory of egg--cool and refreshing to a tongue that's spent the last few hours awash in the meat juices of enough animals to comprise a barnyard. Plus, after all that tiresome work of flesh gnawing and tearing, a gelatinous course proves restorative.

Behold the towering decadence of Tres Leches cake. With each successive dessert pass, one diner--as if performing a public service--would instruct the new Tres Leches cake holder, "Eat from below!" And the advice was sound: moistened with condensed milk, the bottom layer is, indeed, the most gooey and delicious--and a bit of a spoiler for all cakes you'll eat henceforth in that they'll seem a dry disappointment. Sorry.

And so, as the afternoon faded into evening, we concluded the taco tour in Sunset Park at the eponymous hour, looking out over a pink hued Brooklyn and lower Manhattan; in the distance, the Statue of Liberty rose out of the water. Sighing with contentment, we descended the park steps and headed for the subway, bound for our respective homes, where we would nap.

-Kiera Feldman (with photos by Jen Ball)

Hasta luego, à bientôt

2009-09-02T14:00:00.003-04:00

Later tonight, I'm getting on a plane and flying to Madrid, Spain. From there, I'll travel to the region of Asturias in the northwest of the country, where I'll be volunteering on a small-scale vegetable farm that I found through the organization called WWOOF. After a month there, I'll pack up and head to a different farm, located in the southeast of France, where I will remain for one month before flying home.

As I've made evident on the blog, I've been getting pretty into gardening on my deck lately. So I thought I'd take a little time on some actual farms to see how this growing thing really works. I figure it will only serve to expand my knowledge of food and its production. What I learn will no doubt be relevant to what I usually write about here on the blog. So I'm going to try to do my best to update here, when I can, with some photos and observations. Wish me luck!

What I made with what I grew

2009-08-25T21:13:00.008-04:00

Summer may be winding down, but my container garden is in full swing. This year I planted all hot-weather plants--tomatoes, bell pepper, zucchini and eggplant--and each one is loving this August heat. The tomatoes I've harvested have been the best-tasting I've eaten in a long time; the eggplant is tender and delicate in flavor and, best of all, extremely prolific; but the zucchini hold a special place in my esteem because they found their way into one of the freshest, easiest and most delicious summer side dishes I've made.

But first things first. To set the scene, let me show you a photo of what the zucchini looks like growing on the plant:

When I harvested the first fruit, I didn't quite know what to do with it. The zucchini was small, so I didn't really want to cook it down; that would cause it to lose all its bulk. I decided, first of all, to leave it raw; I assumed that, owing to its diminutive size, it would be sweeter, in this state, than most market zucchini. When I spied a container of Greek-style yogurt in my refrigerator, I had it: a zucchini-yogurt salad. I make this dish all the time with cucumbers, adding lemon juice and salt and not much else, and I wagered that it would be even more delicious with my fresh, home-grown zucchini. But just to make sure, I took one extra step: I salted the zucchini judiciously ahead of time, then drained off the water that accumulated in the bowl. This process, traditionally used on eggplant to remove its bitter juices, accomplished the same feat with the zucchini and, moreover, rendered it a bit more pliable and "cooked"-seeming than it would have had I skipped that step. Slicked with cold, creamy yogurt and pepped up with a few slices of raw onion, plus a scant handful of chopped fresh oregano, this zucchini salad was the perfect antidote to the type of hot, sweaty summer day that (ordinarily) causes me to lose my appetite.

Zucchini Yogurt Salad
Serves 2

Ingredients:

2 small green zucchini
Half a small white or yellow onion
1/2 cup plain Greek-style yogurt
Juice of 1 lemon
1 tbsp. chopped fresh oregano
Salt and freshly ground black pepper

Method:

1. Slice the zucchini into ribbons that are about 1/8" thick. Use whatever method is easiest for you: I sliced the zucchini lengthwise, creating a flat surface, then lay the halves down and sliced each portion crosswise into thin strips.
2. Place the ribbons in a bowl and then salt them generously, with about 1 tsp. kosher salt. Chill the bowl in the refrigerator until the zucchini has given off a fair amount of liquid, about 15 - 20 minutes. Remove the bowl from the fridge and drain the zucchini well. (Drain--not rinse. You'll want the remaining salt as seasoning.)
3. Slice the onion into thin half moons. Break up the strips of onion and add them to the bowl.
4. Add the yogurt to the bowl, then squeeze the lemon over. Season with pepper and, if needed, salt, add the chopped oregano, and mix well. Taste for seasoning. The salad is best served very cold; if necessary, place the bowl in the fridge for a few minutes to chill everything down.

The MTA Dining Car pulls into Bay Ridge

2009-08-18T22:49:00.017-04:00

Last month I shared the details of the first meeting of the MTA Dining Car, a budget-minded yet adventurous eating club that I co-founded with my friend Kiera. That event took place in Woodside, Queens; this month, for our second-ever meeting, we decided to switch up the borough, casting our glances (and appetites) on Bay Ridge, Brooklyn.

Brooklyn's food scene has received a lot of attention of late, mostly due to the presence, here, of a disproportionately large (when compared to the other boroughs) population of young, fairly daring, eco-conscious restaurant owners and food purveyors. OK, so Brooklyn is hip, and its culinary achievements are no exception to that rule. But while Brooklyn hasn't always been viewed as hip, it has always been home to the food-obsessed: that's just what you get in a borough populated, traditionally, by Italians and Jews, two of the most food-focused cultures that I know of. So while the kitchen supply stores and chocolate shops in Williamsburg garner the media's praise, the traditional, old-school restaurants and bakeries in Bay Ridge and nearby Bensonhurst continue to provide residents with dependable, delicious food--yet they remain under the radar.

But these establishments don't escape the ever-watchful eye of the MTA Dining Car. Quite the opposite, in fact: these unassuming, neighborhood-oriented restaurants and shops are the ones we like best. Bearing those descriptors in mind, this month Kiera and I decided to bring our crew of eaters to Tanoreen, a home-style Palestinian café modest in its size but not in its culinary ambitions.

I've eaten at Tanoreen several times, and on each occasion the restaurant's offerings have blown me away. Bold, punchy flavors show up in each dish, whether in the form of a veritable mountain of chopped parsley; in the sour tang of copious amounts of lemon juice; or in the smoky char of a piece of grilled meat. The food at Tanoreen is vibrant in its presentation, too: colorful little piles of shredded red cabbage adorn most dishes, and jewel-like pomegranate seeds stud some of them, too. And so without further delay, I'll show you what I'm talking about.

Fatoush Salad
Shown next to a dish of olives and pickled beets, this refreshing salad featured lettuce, tomatoes, cucumbers, parsley, sumac, lemon juice and olive oil, all tossed together with crushed-up pieces of toasted pita bread. A sort of Middle Eastern Caesar salad, if you will, and a perfect start to our dinner at Tanoreen.

Lentil Pilaf
Of all the delicious things that I ate during this meal, I think that these lentils may have been my favorite. What's so exciting about lentils? you might ask, and for good reason. I don't know quite what it is about lentils, but I happen to love them. This dish allowed them to shine through in all their glory. It was incredibly complex, featuring soft yet toothsome lentils that were warmly spiced with cumin, red pepper flakes, and perhaps a touch of cinnamon, then topped with sweet, sticky caramelized onions. Though this version didn't include rice or any cooked grain, it was a close relative to the classic Middle Eastern dish mujaddara.

Falafel
What is there to say about falafel? These spiced, deep-fried chickpea (or sometimes chickpea-and-fava-bean) patties are the quintessential fast food. Though they originated in Egypt, they're now popular all over the world, but especially throughout their home region of the Middle East. Though I ate a falafel sandwich a day on a short trip through Israel a few years ago, I can unequivocally state that these falafel, at Tanoreen, were the most exquisite falafel I have ever tasted. Shatteringly crisp on the outside and creamy yet textured on the inside, they were heaven piled into a wedge of pita and drizzled with tahini.

Beef Stew with Green Beans
If the falafel was my favorite dish of the night, this was my second favorite. There wasn't much to it: simply chunks of well-browned, meltingly tender beef surrounded by soft green beans in a rich, sweet tomato sauce. Served next to fluffy rice shot through with tiny pieces of crispy brown pasta, this was comfort food at its best.

Chicken Kabobs
I know what you're thinking: what's so great about chicken kabobs? because I thought the same thing when the manager at Tanoreen presented us with our menu. I like chicken OK, but it's not very exciting, and I like kabobs OK, but I make them myself with some frequency and therefore don't really need to order them when I dine out. Here's the thing, though: I've never made kabobs like this. The chicken was so juicy and tender, and moreover was completely suffused with the succulent flavor of whatever marinade the restaurant uses on the meat. These kabobs were truly exceptional.

Braised Tilapia in Pesto Sauce
This was a simple-looking dish that was anything but simple in flavor. It was a firm, perfectly cooked, flaky piece of white fish bathed in a rich parsley-and-olive-oil sauce that the restaurant called pesto, perhaps because the mere word acts as a sort of Pavlovian bell for most Americans, causing them to salivate at the very thought of eating some. Anyway, I digress. The sauce covering this fish was decidedly not pesto, but it was, decidedly, delicious. As was our whole meal. As was our whole experience. And here's the photographic evidence:

Just look at all those shiny, happy youngsters! 38 of us, in fact: we closed out the whole restaurant. This Dining Car is gathering steam, and if you want to hop on board, you'd best email us at mtadiningcar@gmail.com.

Tanoreen
7704 Third Avenue (77th Street)
Bay Ridge, Brooklyn
(718) 748-5600

My new favorite grocery store

2009-08-04T21:39:00.004-04:00

A little while back I had a package of ground lamb sitting in my freezer begging to be used up. I finally figured out what to do with it when I read this post alerting me to the existence of Patel Grocery, a little Indian shop located in Sunset Park not too far from my home in the South Slope. Lamb plus Indian spices? Yes, please.

Not only do I love to eat Indian food--I might even declare it my favorite cuisine if I were willing to play favorites with food, which I am not--I love to cook it, too. Preparing Indian food is one of the few exceptions I find myself making to my general no-recipes rule of cooking. Indian recipes are complex, relying on a delicate and precise art of the layering of small amounts of potent, fragrant dried spices. The end result, when it turns out right, is incredibly flavorful and completely captivating.

You can't wing this stuff--or at least I can't. So when it's time for me to cook up some Indian fare, I turn to the masters: Julie Sahni or Madhur Jaffrey, both well established and well-respected food writers and cookbook authors. On this particular occasion, I opened my well-worn copy of Sahni's Classic Indian Cooking to the chapter on meat and found my way to a recipe entitled Safaid Keema, or Ground Meat in Scented White Sauce. In the recipe, ground lamb is simmered with onions, whole milk yogurt, chunks of potatoes, and (of course) a precise blend of dried ground spices. I was sold.

With my ingredient list in hand, my friend and dining companion on this particular occasion (and countless others) Gideon and I hopped on our bikes and pedaled the ten minutes to Patel Grocery. We found ourselves in a little store teeming with vegetables, spices, lentils and several varieties of rice--and one very friendly and generous owner. Once we had what we needed for dinner (plus several other impulse buys on my part), we biked furiously back to my apartment to answer the call of our empty bellies. About an hour later, our efforts were rewarded with a big pot of rich, warming lamb and potatoes, which we served over basmati rice and a bit of sauteed eggplant. My kitchen smelled like Indian food for days--and that's a good thing.

Safaid Keema (Ground Lamb in Yogurt Sauce)
Adapted from Classic Indian Cooking by Julie Sahni
Serves 6

Ingredients:

4 tbsp. vegetable oil
2 1/2 cups finely chopped onions
1 tbsp. minced garlic
2 tbsp. grated fresh ginger
1 1/2 lbs. lean ground lamb
4 medium potatoes, quartered
1 cup frozen green peas
1 1/2 tsp. ground cumin
1/2 tsp. ground cloves
1 tsp. ground cardamom
1/2 tsp. red pepper flakes
2/3 cup plain whole milk yogurt
1/2 cup milk
2 tsp. kosher salt

Preparation:

1. Heat the oil in a large, wide pan and add the onions. Cook over medium heat until the onions turn light golden brown, about 15 minutes, stirring occasionally to prevent burning.
2. Stir in the garlic and ginger and cook for 2 minutes. Add the lamb, breaking it up in the pan with a wooden spoon. Cook until the meat loses all pink and begins to brown.
3. Add all the remaining ingredients except for the frozen peas, stir, and add 1 1/2 cups hot water. Bring the mixture to a boil, reduce the heat, and simmer, covered, for 20 - 30 minutes. Uncover and add the peas. Simmer, uncovered, for an additional 15 - 20 minutes. When sauce is thick, shut off the heat and serve over rice or with bread such as naan or poori.

The fruits of my labor

2009-07-21T18:00:00.023-04:00

Back in June I showed you some photos of the herb garden on my deck and some examples of dishes I made with my bounty. I mentioned that I was also growing some vegetables in containers, but didn't share any pictures of them because they weren't producing much yet. Well, all that's changed. Spring wasn't kind to the hot weather crops--tomatoes, eggplant, zucchini and bell peppers--that I planted. It was long, rainy and cold, whereas those plants thrive in hot, sunny weather. So their growth was stunted for a while. They have, more or less, rebounded of late, and it's fun to check on them every day and note their progress. It's even more fun to cook and eat what they provide me. Here's a little tour of my garden:

Tomatoes: a compact "Better Bush" variety that yielded me my first ripe tomato, shown here.

Tomatoes: a larger, leggier "Celebrity" variety that did poorly when I first planted it; I uprooted it, tossed it into a corner of my deck, and forgot about it. Miraculously, it survived and produced flowers; when I noticed, I re-planted it and it's been doing well ever since.

Zucchini squash: all the yellow blossoms you see here are male blossoms; the female ones, from which the zucchini fruit grows, haven't arrived yet. When they do, bees (or, if there aren't enough on the deck, I--with a Q-Tip) will visit both the male and female blossoms, thus pollinating the female blossoms and ensuring good fruit production.

Cucumber: a close relative of the zucchini plant, it doesn't look much different, huh? Again, all these blossoms are male; the female ones develop later in the season.

Bell pepper: this plant is so pathetic it hardly merits sharing, but at least it does have one pepper. This plant is the one that suffered the most during the spring. It had lots of little baby peppers, but all but one of them fell off due to excess rain and lack of sunshine. This hardy little pepper continues to grow and mature, though, and as of today had a little patch of yellow on its shoulder. First it will turn yellow, then finally red when it is ready to harvest.

Eggplant: this variety, known as Asian or Japanese eggplant, is what I prefer to cook and eat. While Italian eggplants are often huge and full of bitter seeds, Japanese eggplant are slender and rarely grow to be more than 7 or 8 inches long. They have very few seeds and more sweet, creamy flesh. This is how my first ripe eggplant looked yesterday before I harvested it: it was about 4 or 5 inches long and could have matured more, but it was weighing the plant down so I removed it and cooked it:

Sauteed, very simply, with olive oil, salt and red pepper flakes.

Allow me to show you, too, how I ate my first ripe tomato:

Sliced and sprinkled with salt and pepper, no more, no less. That basil--purely a garnish--is home-grown too, of course!

It's obvious that my vegetable garden brings me a lot of pleasure. But the question is, does the produce taste any better than what's available in stores? So far, my answer to that question is a resounding yes. The tomato I grew was sweet, firm and vibrant-tasting; full of that true tomato flavor that is so often missing from store-bought tomatoes these days. The eggplant I cooked came out creamy and sweet, with a pleasant hint of bitterness from the deep purple skin. I don't do anything special to my plants--I water them when the soil is dry, and occasionally--like, once every month occasionally--feed them with a weak Miracle-Gro solution. That's it. So the moral of this story is that you, too, should try your hand at vegetable gardening and see if your thumb isn't green. It may be too late in the season now, but there's always next year!

The MTA Dining Car: next stop, Queens

2009-07-16T18:03:00.024-04:00

Exciting developments are afoot here in my food-obsessed little world. Several weeks ago I was discussing vittles with a fellow food-loving friend, Kiera, when she made what I immediately recognized as a genius proposal: that she and I start an eating club. The word yes was out of my mouth in a heartbeat. I've made various eating club-like attempts over the years, the peak being in high school when my closest friends and I would gather at my house every few months to cook elaborate, ethnically themed (Indian, Middle Eastern, Greek, Thai, etc.) meals. But, as is evident here on this blog, most of my culinary endeavors occur in my kitchen, with me creating and consuming the food. I love eating out, but I rarely have the money to do so (when I do, I try to post my meals here on the blog, but you'll notice that my Cheap Eats section is a bit wanting). So when Kiera promised me organizational help and the attendance of a large group of people, effectively driving down the overall cost of dining out, I was sold. We recruited Kiera's friend Benedict as the final part of our trifecta and agreed on a name: the MTA Dining Car. Our title reflects our focus on outer-borough eating, the kind which tends to be more exotic, more exciting, and more reasonably priced than many Manhattan and some downtown Brooklyn restaurants.

With that focus in mind, I quickly suggested what I thought would be the perfect spot for our inaugural meeting: the Thai restaurant Sripraphai, located off the 7 in Woodside, Queens. I'd been reading about this place for years--it's one of the rare New York restaurants whose greatness seemingly all city-based foodies agree upon--but had yet to make it there myself. Now was the time. Kiera, Benedict and I arranged for a $20 per person (tax and tip included) family-style feast for the group. The menu, with a few slight alterations made for the vegetarians among us, was to include some of Sri's most lauded dishes. Among the appetizers, there would be Crispy Chinese Watercress Salad; BBQ Beef with Chili and Mint; Chicken Satay; and Tom Yum Soup. For the mains, we would be presented with Drunken Noodles with Chicken; Green Curry with Pork; Whole Red Snapper with Chili; and Chinese Broccoli with Oyster Sauce. Are you salivating yet?

Kiera and I made it to the restaurant by 7 PM to await the arrival of our guests, sipping on Thai iced teas with tapioca balls to pass the time. And one by one they came. We had worried that we might not meet our goal of 30 people and that we might get stuck paying the difference in the bill, but, as it turned out, we had fretted needlessly. All in all, we received 31 people, an affable crew composed of mine, Kiera's and Benedict's friends (and friends of friends). And we ate. We ate well. I've read that Sripraphai is the best Thai restaurant outside of Thailand, and while that is surely hyperbole, who am I to argue? The dishes we were brought certainly represented the best--the most complex, layered and delicious--Thai food I have ever eaten. I've never been to Thailand, but I'll definitely be returning to Sripraphai.

And so, without further ado, I'll show you the pictures I managed to snag of the food. The night was a whirlwind of plates and conversations, so, unfortunately, I missed a few. But like I said, I'll be back to photograph (and eat) more, and you should go see (and eat) the food for yourself.

Chicken Satay
The most adventurous choice on a Thai menu? No, but it was everything you'd want in satay: tender, juicy chicken paired with a thick, creamy peanut sauce and a refreshing salad of cucumber, chiles and red onion.

BBQ Beef with Chili, Mint, Onion and Lime Juice
Now things are getting interesting. This dish was fantastic, and, to my palate, unusual. The rich, tender bits of meat were coated in strong, spicy and acidic flavors that perfectly cut the beef's fattiness. The copious amounts of cilantro scattered over the top didn't hurt, either.

Crispy Chinese Watercress Salad with Shrimp, Squid and Chicken
Here it is: one of Sripraphai's most talked-about dishes. The cashews poised so delicately and unassumingly on top signify the riches below: supple, spicy watercress is lightly battered and deep-fried until crispy, somehow also maintaining the fresh, verdant quality of raw greens. As if that weren't over-the-top enough, the watercress is studded with tender bits of sauteed shrimp, squid and chicken. If you make it to the restaurant, this is a must-order appetizer.

And now onto the two main dishes I managed to photograph:

Fried Whole Red Snapper with Chili Sauce
Stunning, right? The only thing better than this dish's presentation was its taste. The fish was perfectly crisp and greaseless, with firm flesh and a mild, buttery flavor. Sweet and spicy chiles were strewn across the top with abandon, and a sweet, light sauce made with sugar or tamarind moistened everything perfectly. Need a must-order main? This is it.

Drunken Noodles with Chicken
OK, OK, I know I just said that the fried red snapper was your must-order main dish. But say you're not really a fish person. Say you're much more of a noodle person. Well, then look no further. Drunken noodles is one of my go-to Thai takeout dishes: I love the wide, flat noodles and the spicy but sweet sauce that drowns (or, perhaps, intoxicates) them. I've had a lot of iterations of drunken noodles. I've probably liked them all. But if I had to pledge my love for one of those versions, it would be this one. I couldn't stop eating it--and that's after a parade of seven courses and an endless amount of rice. Yes, this dish won my heart. And if you give it a chance, it'll win yours too. I guarantee it.

Sripraphai
64-13 39th Ave. (between 64th St. and 65th St.)
Woodside, Queens
(718) 899-9599

P.S. Are you in New York? Do you want to dine on delicacies with the rest of us MTA Dining Car members? We welcome strangers. Email us at mtadiningcar@gmail.com.

Food & Wine, Patrick & Willy

2009-07-11T17:56:00.012-04:00

About a month ago (this post, like most of my posts recently, is long overdue--hey, it's summer!), Patrick and Willy came over for yet another one of our dinners. It so happened that at work at Food & Wine that day I picked up the July issue of the magazine, thumbed through it, and found about a million recipes I wanted to try. I settled, though, on one that sounded perfect for a hot, humid day: Za'atar Flatbreads with Cucumber-Yogurt Salad. Za'atar (or zatar), a Middle Eastern spice blend that usually contains crushed sumac, dried thyme, and sesame seeds, is one of my very favorite ingredients, but I had only ever eaten it in restaurants and had never before cooked with it. But, like they say, there's no time like the present--or, at this point, the recent past. I promptly dog-eared the recipe, and, on my lunch break, strode the few blocks over to the market in Grand Central and, more specifically, to the Penzey's Spices stall therein. I grabbed a bottle of zatar and was halfway to having dinner on the table.

Well, maybe not quite halfway. But the rest of the recipe was remarkably simple. When I got home from work, I stopped into Peppe's, one of the many respectable pizzerias in my neighborhood, and picked up a round of pizza dough for $3. At home, I pounded it out, oiled it, and slapped it on a very hot charcoal grill, spooning a mixture of zatar and olive oil on the side facing up. About 6 minutes later, we had hot, yeasty bread that was perfect for scooping up the verdant, cooling accompanying salad of cucumber, spinach and peas bound together with Greek-style yogurt:

To round out the vegetarian menu, I prepared another dish courtesy of Food & Wine: a green bean, roasted red pepper and cherry tomato salad that I had sampled in the test kitchen earlier that week. Brightened up with fresh thyme and basil from my garden and topped with crunchy, nutty toasted almonds, the salad perfectly rounded out the evening's menu:

I'd say everyone was pleased, particularly Willy:

Za'atar Flatbreads with Cucumber-Yogurt Salad
Adapted from foodandwine.com
Serves 6

Ingredients:

All-purpose flour, for dusting
12 oz. prepared pizza dough, divided into 2 pieces
5 oz. baby spinach
1/2 cup frozen baby peas, thawed
1 cup peeled and finely diced cucumber
2 tbsp. chopped parsley
2 tbsp. chopped mint
2 tbsp. chopped dill
2 tsp. minced garlic
One 17-oz. container Greek-style plain whole-milk yogurt
1 tbsp. fresh lemon juice
1/2 cup extra-virgin olive oil
2 cups shredded romaine lettuce
Kosher salt
1/2 cup za’atar spice mix

Preparation:

1. Preheat the oven to 450° and place a pizza stone on the bottom rack to heat for 30 minutes. Alternatively, light a charcoal grill or heat a gas grill on high.
2. On a lightly floured work surface, flatten the pizza dough into two 9-inch rounds, about 1/4 inch thick; transfer to 2 well-floured pizza peels or inverted baking sheets. Let stand until slightly risen, 20 minutes.
3. Meanwhile, in a large saucepan, wilt the spinach with 1 tablespoon of water over high heat. Transfer to a colander and rinse with cold water. Squeeze out the liquid and chop the spinach; transfer to a bowl. Add the peas and mash lightly with a fork. Stir in the cucumber, parsley, mint, dill and garlic. Add the yogurt, lemon juice and 2 tbsp. olive oil and stir to combine. Fold in the romaine and season with salt.
4. In a bowl, combine the za’atar with the remaining oil and a generous pinch of salt.
5. Shake the pizza peel a few times to loosen the dough. Dust flour under any areas that stick. Spread the za’atar oil over the dough. Slide the rounds onto the hot stone and bake for 10 minutes, until golden and crisp. To grill the flatbreads, oil one side lightly and flip that side onto the hot grill. Spread the za'atar oil over the side facing up. Grill for about 6 to 8 minutes.
6. Transfer the breads to a work surface and cut into wedges. Serve with the cucumber yogurt.

Green Bean, Roasted Red Pepper and Cherry Tomato Salad with Toasted Almonds
Serves 4
My improvised version of a Food & Wine test kitchen recipe

1. Preheat the oven to 425°. Lightly coat 2 red bell peppers in oil and place in the oven on a baking pan to roast until they are soft and their skins are blackened, turning occasionally, about 14 - 16 minutes. During the last few minutes of cooking, place a large handful of whole, preferably blanched almonds on a small baking pan and toast in the oven. Remove peppers from oven and place in a bowl. Cover the bowl with a tight layer of plastic wrap and set aside to cool. Remove almonds from oven and set aside to cool.
2. Blanch one pound of trimmed green beans in a shallow pan of salted water until bright green and still crisp, about 4 - 6 minutes. Drain and run under cold water to stop the cooking. Place green beans in a large bowl.
3. When peppers are cool enough to handle, peel skin from them, open them up and remove their seeds. Slice peppers into strips and add them to the bowl with the green beans.
4. Cut one pint of cherry tomatoes into quarters or halve one pint of grape tomatoes. Add tomatoes to bowl.
5. Dress salad with a mixture of lemon juice, red wine vinegar, olive oil, salt and pepper, to taste. Add generous handfuls of chopped fresh herbs, such as thyme and basil, and mix well.
6. Coarsely chop the almonds and sprinkle them over the salad. Divide between four plates and serve.

Why I love leftovers

2009-06-25T15:44:00.006-04:00

I've never understood people who don't like leftovers. Whatever their reasons may be--that the food they prepare will never taste as good as it did when it was made fresh, that they get sick of eating the same thing (no matter how delicious it is) two or three times in a row, that they simply don't have the refrigerator space--I don't get it. I love leftovers. Leftovers, actually, sort of define my cooking style. I don't often follow recipes, preferring to rifle through my fridge (and freezer), taking stock of what needs to be used up and how it would best be transformed into something else. Leftovers don't bore me; they inspire me.

I even like leftover food that I didn't make in the first place. Working at a food magazine and also in catering, I'm often sent home with extra food that might otherwise get thrown out. Such was the case last weekend when I worked a fancy, exclusive party on Fire Island. A ton of perfectly cooked, expertly seasoned filet mignon remained unserved at the end of the night, and I packed away two particularly succulent-looking steaks to bring on the bus ride home. They made their way onto my dinner plate a few nights later when Gideon (of Snackin' with Steinberg fame) came over to eat. While he made his excellent rendition of guacamole, I sliced the steaks thinly and laid them over a salad of soft romaine and slivers of red onion, heaped them with fresh cilantro and chopped salty peanuts, then dressed the whole with a mixture of lime juice, fish sauce, sugar and vegetable oil. And so out of distant French origins, a delicious Thai beef salad was born. You still don't want your leftovers? Pass 'em over to me.

Thai Beef Salad with Lime Dressing
Serves 2

1. Wash and dry two generous servings of romaine or red leaf lettuce, about half a large head. Tear them into large pieces and divide between two plates.
2. Thinly slice 1/2 of a large red onion and divide it between the two plates, distributing it evenly over the lettuce.
3. Thinly slice one medium to large portion of rare, seasoned steak--the cut is not that important as this is a dish to make with leftover meat--and fan the slices out over the salads.
4. Take a good handful of fresh cilantro--stems and all--and tear it up, sprinkling it over the salads.
5. Coarsely chop a large handful of roasted salted peanuts and sprinkle them over the two salads.
6. Make the dressing: in a small bowl, combine the juice of two limes with about 1 tsp. soy sauce, 1 tsp. fish sauce, 1 1/2 tsp. sugar, a pinch of salt and about 3 tbsp. vegetable oil. Whisk mixture and taste; you might need to adjust the ingredients if the dressing is too sour, too sweet or otherwise unbalanced.
7. Dress the salads, drizzling the dressing evenly to ensure that all the ingredients are well coated.