Category Archives: easy

This meal requires no special equipment or techniques.

le Grand Aioli

Posted on May 18, 2011 | Leave a comment

 

The reductive pleasure of this very simple meal is hard to convey. Plain poached cod surrounded by plain blanched haricots verts, asparagus, English peas and little beets. I would have liked baby carrots but we had a bag of the large workhorse variety so I cut them up and didn’t give it a second thought. Baby turnips and long French radishes would also have been elegant, modern and springlike but I came from 2 hours of standing in the fiercely cold rain for kid soccer and when I got to the market I just wanted to get out and get home. Fancy vegetables can wait for next time. (Believe me, there will be a next time) The glory of le Grand Aioli is of course the aioli, with its velvety opulent burn. Seriously, it takes less than 2 minutes to make.  After demolishing the plate of fish and vegetables, which we plunged into the aioli, we went through half a loaf of toasted Colombia bread that had been slicked with a very green olive oil, spreading silky aioli over it thickly too. After that, I nabbed all the crusts of this excellent bread from the plates of my children (what a drag it will be when the kids figure out this is actually the best part) and wiped the little aioli bowl clean. It was that kind of dinner.

Of course, in my mind le Grand Aioli is meant to be enjoyed on a sunny terrace, cracked granite underfoot with a glass of very cold very crisp mineral-y white wine and white threadbare very soft linen napkins somewhere in the south of France or in a garden in England under a trellis of lilacs on an unseasonably warm late spring afternoon. We ate at our dining room table with a perfectly lovely Malbec my dad brought over and 3 children who initially complained bitterly about the meal and then suddenly ate everything in sight. And the sun came out too. I credit the aioli.

Le Grand Aioli – serves 4

You will have to make a court bouillon but most likely you have all the ingredients stored anyway. It’s very quick. Start with the court bouillon and everything else will fall into place.

Court Bouillon

  • 2 pints water
  • 2 carrots
  • 1 large onion
  • 1 stick of celery
  • 2 cloves
  • 7 peppercorns
  • 2 bay leaves
  • 1 tbsp sea salt
  • 2 tbsp white wine vinegar

In a large non-reactive saute pan with a lid (unless you are one of those people who owns a fish poacher in which case now is the time to haul it out), combine all of the ingredients and bring to a simmer over high heat. Reduce heat to medium low and simmer for 20 minutes. Now it is ready to use.

Aioli

  • 1 egg
  • 1 tsp Dijon mustard
  • 1 clove garlic smashed in a mortar and pestle with 1/2 tsp sea salt
  • 1 tbsp white wine vinegar
  • freshly ground pepper
  • 1 cup vegetable oil (or 3/4 cup vegetable oil, 1/4 olive oil – I find all olive oil to be too strong)

Place all ingredients in the tall narrow cylindrical container that comes with an immersion blender and blend for a few seconds until the oil is emulsified and the aioli is thick.

If you have no immersion blender, this can also be done in a food processor or blender, in which case you must leave out the oil and very slowly in a very thin stream add it to the rest of the ingredients as the blades are spinning.

The Vegetables

  • 4 ounces haricots verts
  • 1/2 pound asparagus, rinsed and trimmed
  • 1 pound English peas in their pods, remove their pods
  • 4 little beets
  • Baby carrots, peeled and greens trimmed short — or big carrots, peeled and cut to the size of a baby carrot.

The Fish

1 1/2 lbs skinned cod fillet

Consider also baby turnips, radishes, small potatoes (fingerling), baby artichokes, spring onions. Next time I make this, it’s going to be crazy and even more beautiful. You can also include quartered boiled eggs and garnish with parsley. I was too cold and too tired to do this.

Fill a 4 quart saucepan with water, cover and bring to a rolling boil. Add 2 tbsp sea salt and start blanching vegetables in batches. If you plan to steam the beets, set up a steamer alongside.

Scrub the beets and trim their tails and tops. The beets take longer especially if you prefer to roast them as I do: 1 1/2 – 2 hours in a 400F oven, wrapped in foil, but they can also be steamed and then peeled. I would steam them for 15-20 minutes if they are small.

The haricots verts, asparagus and English peas will take 2-4 minutes in the boiling water. Carrots take 2-5  minutes depending on their diameter. Start checking everything after 2 minutes. Blanch everything separately so you can carefully control when it is perfectly done. The vegetables should be crisp tender. A device called a spider is useful here, for fishing everything out quickly at the right time.

After boiling these tender green vegetables, it is nice to dump them in a bowl of ice water to stop the cooking. I have no ice maker so I pull them a little early and lay them in one layer on a rimmed sheet pan on a dish towel.

As the vegetables are cooking (they’ll be served room temperature), bring the court bouillon to a simmer and lay the cod in it. It will not cover the fish. Put a lid on the pan and simmer for 5 minutes. Turn off the heat and allow the cod to sit in the broth until you’ve finished the vegetables. About 15 minutes.

Carefully remove the fish to a large white platter that can accommodate it with all the vegetables. Serve with toasted crusty bread that has been slicked with olive oil and the aioli. A little dish of coarse sea salt would be lovely for sprinkling over everything.

 

 

 

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After School Snack: Cardamom Scented Mango Lassi

Posted on May 9, 2011 | 4 comments

Even though I love to cook, I never cook with my kids. Why? It’s too messy for one thing. For another, the older kids have gotten minor cuts while chopping and that makes me nervous. Frankly, the kitchen is an excellent place to temporarily check out from parenting – I like the focused solitary activity. Besides, the work I do there is still in service of my family. If I’m acting escapist in hiding out and chopping, so what? When I’m done, we’ll have an excellent dinner. I don’t want to manage developing knife skills, cross-counter trails of sugar, or little hands sticky with raw eggs. (How awful it is to confess to that!) Moms are SO not supposed to admit to these kinds of feelings. Sigh. I’m not going to worry about it though. There are other things to do.

After I read Madhur Jaffrey’s autobiography Climbing the Mango Trees, I thought: I want that kind of childhood for my kids, those kinds of food memories, the tumult of food culture that shaped her life. I imagine her in long braids and a bright dress, banging through the kitchen door after school, welcomed by a round terra cotta bowl of creamy basmati rice pudding scented with cardamom and garnished with shattered toasted pistachios. Or waking to a winter breakfast of daulat ki chaat, whose ingredients include fresh whole milk, seafoam and dew. (Dew!?!) Ms. Jaffrey describes this “heavenly froth” as “the most ephemeral of fairy dishes”.

Ok, ok. I know I can’t collect dew on the roof of my house and come up with some magically memorable breakfast. I can’t even get raw milk very easily. (Anyway, think of the bacteria!) And sea-foam? Forget it. I’m imagining the looks on their little faces if I told them that no, we aren’t having waffles and bacon for breakfast, instead, how about milk with sea-foam and dew!?! I want them to be able to roll with it, but maybe not that much.

Still, I think there are things I can do if I want to give my kids incredible food memories. Imagine getting off the school bus in Seattle, rain running off the shoulders of your parka, and stepping into a warm kitchen. There on the counter, a clear pitcher of golden creamy mango lassi, drops of condensation glistening on the sides.  Serve it cold. Listen for the delicate slurp as you pour it into a glass. Pay attention and catch that earthy lemon scent of cardamom. Isn’t it lucky Ataulfo mangoes are everywhere in late spring?! This has to be a step in the right direction.

Ataulfo Mangoes

Mango Lassi

  • 1 cup mango, cut from 1 ataulfo mango
  • 1 cup yogurt
  • 1/2 cup ice water
  • 4 green cardamom pods
  • 2 tbsp sugar

This couldn’t be any easier.

  1. Put all the ingredients in your blender and whizz for 2 minutes.
  2. Push the lassi through a sieve with a spatula or wooden spoon to remove the pulverized cardamom.
  3. Pour into a glass and drink.

The hard part could be figuring out how to get all the flesh off the mango. A friend from New Zealand taught me. Here’s how:

Get started by slicing the sides off the mango

Cut a grid into the flesh of the mango

Tidy little cubes of mango

Next, peel the core and slice against the pit to remove all the mango flesh

Like I said, I don’t usually bring the kids into the kitchen when I’m working. For lassis I can make an exception.

 

 

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Megadarra/mujadarra: either way it’s delicious

Posted on May 5, 2011 | 2 comments

It’s been a busy crazy week. Sunday night was particularly nuts and we were running all over the place. So early in the day I made Megadarra (also called mujadarra). That sounds exotic, doesn’t it? Yet, it’s the sort of thing you can reheat effortlessly – which makes it useful when nobody in the house is eating at the same time. I recently ran into the recipe at Food 52. I felt as though I’d bumped into a friend I hadn’t seen ages.

Ten years ago,  I was working 80 hour weeks on a competition in San Francisco as an architect. I was extremely pregnant and always starving. Most nights, I would race (well actually, lumber) around the corner just before the tiny middle eastern lunch place closed for the night, then rush (drag myself) back to the office with a huge styrofoam clamshell of steaming rice and dark lentils, tossed with a tangle of caramelized and charred onions. Back at my desk, tilted back in my chair, I’d prop my swollen feet up on my drafting table, pop open the box and inhale. Caramelized onions! Does anything smell better?! Tucked into a corner of the box was a small container of thick garlic and cumin scented yogurt to stir into the mix. Megadarra is kind of messy looking, certainly not beautiful — but absolutely delicious. The scent of delicately perfumed jasmine rice and tender, earthy lentils was complemented by burnished, glossy, sweetly-and-slightly-burnt onions. I’d swirl in the creamy yogurt and savour a dish of far greater complexity than its individual parts. Honestly, I don’t know how I would have completed the project without a big bowl of those steamy messy lentils as we geared up for another long night at the office.

When I later had a couple of small children to cook for, I cobbled together a recipe. Polka Dot Rice is what we called it and I served it with lamb, feta and mint sausages. Megadarra is a holy grail of a dinner; pleasing to both me and my kids. The caramelized onions are a little time consuming – I still think it’s worth the effort. I don’t know what it is about megadarra – I haven’t met a kid who isn’t kind of mesmerized by it. They look skeptical at first and then, shocking their parents, take a tiny taste. Could the attraction be the polka-dotty lentils?! Then suddenly they’re hoovering it into their greedy little mouths, their parents goggle eyed and jaws gaping with surprise. Even really picky kids seem to like megadarra. How did I ever forget about it?

I am obviously not going to write the whole thing up, since the perfect recipe is already out there, but I would like to show you some photos of the caramelized onions. I know most recipes say you can make them in 12-15 minutes! I can never do this. The onions are never as richly brown as they should be in that short amount of time. I just scorch them. It always takes me 30 minutes minimum to make caramelized onions properly. SO. Here’s how I caramelize onions – if anyone has any tips on doing this faster, I would love to know your method!

Also, the herbed and spiced yogurt that goes with this recipe is SO lovely – nuanced, sprightly and wonderful. It would be worth growing a little pot of mint just for this sauce. I was eating out of the bowl with a spoon!

Ingredients for the herbed and spiced yogurt sauce

Caramelized onions in pictures

Four onions, sliced in the saute pan with a little olive oil and butter

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Onions somewhat wilted after 5 minutes on the heat

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Onions - the sugars are released and begin to caramelize

 

 

 

 

 

 

Onion sugars are now richly brown

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Perfect caramelized onions

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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Spring green: Roast Asparagus Salad

Posted on April 26, 2011 | Leave a comment

I have been having an incredibly good time in my kitchen this week, inspired by the first sunny and (slightly) warm weather we have had here in Seattle since…September? Seattle is blooming and everything that has been brown and wet for so long is now green. (And wet. Sigh.) Still, the green is a huge improvement. Now I want to make green food.

First there was the riff on a dish of black rice, clams, aioli and cilantro that I had at Sitka and Spruce – except I made it with sear-roasted halibut. The cilantro made it a little bit green. I loved seeing it bright and fresh in the photo. The flavor with the lemon was pure sunshine. Here’s what it looked like:

My friend Christine thoughtfully brought over an Alsatian Riesling to drink with it and it was perfect, more so because I got to share it with a really good friend. As soon as I have a chance to make the halibut again, I’ll  take pictures and post the method. I want to show you how to make aioli.

Still, I wanted the food to be greener. So I made up this very very green salad – toying with a dressing from Deborah Madison, spring asparagus, arugula, goat cheese and toasted pine nuts. Here it is:

So, there’s the bitter asparagus and the even bitterer arugula. But the asparagus’ pungency is tempered by it’s bout with the broiler. The flavor becomes rounded, richer, a little nutty. The goat cheese was something leftover from the dinner party, the sort with colored peppercorns. Martin toasted the pinenuts – for warmth and crunch. Then there’s the dressing, borrowed from Deborah Madison’s Vegetarian Cooking for Everyone. I skipped a couple of things – the big one being the capers. Here’s what Nora Ephron says about capers:

Any dish that tastes good with capers in it tastes even better with capers not in it.

I agree 100% and I feel validated in my opinion because Nora Ephron said it first.

Anyway, the dressing. I made it for this cabbage and arugula slaw that I was sure would be wonderful (it wasn’t) but the dressing had potential. (without the capers!) Garlic, salt, fennel seed and black peppercorns are mashed together with a mortar and pestle and then left to macerate with olive oil, shallots and lemon rind. It’s complex. Fire from the garlic and peppercorns, high spring notes of fennel and lemon and the edge-y richness of sliced shallots and champagne vinegar. Without the capers, it’s pretty fantastic. This is an extremely green, salad tour de force. I think after this cold and gloomy winter what I needed was a giant hit of chlorophyll.

With the salad, we made the grilled shrimp with bread crumbs from Marcella Hazan’s Essentials of Italian Cooking that I wrote about last summer and the white bean and basil puree that I wrote about when I first started writing Notes on Dinner.  And here is how to make the green salad:

Asparagus Salad with Arugula, Goat Cheese and Pine Nuts – serves 4

  • 1 bunch of asparagus, rinsed, ends snapped off
  • 2 tbsp olive oil
  • sea salt and pepper
  • 4 generous handfuls of arugula, washed and dried
  • 1 ounce goat cheese – with peppercorns, if you like that sort of thing, crumbled
  • 2 tbsp pine nuts, toasted in a small dry skillet over medium heat until glossy and golden

The Dressing (for this you will need a mortar and pestle)

  • 1 clove garlic
  • 1/4 tsp sea salt
  • 1/4 tsp fennel seeds
  • 1/4 tsp peppercorns
  • 1/2 tsp dry tarragon
  • 1/4 cup parsley, minced and divided
  • 1 shallot, thinly sliced
  • 1 zest of a lemon – finely grated with a microplane
  • 1/3 cup olive oil

Preheat the broiler – set it to high.

In the mortar and pestle, mash the garlic, sea salt, fennel seeds, peppercorns, tarragon and 2 tbsp of the minced parsley until you have a smooth paste.

Stir in the lemon zest, shallots, the rest of the parsley and olive oil and leave to macerate for 1/2 an hour.

While the salad dressing is resting, arrange the arugula on a large platter.

Then toss the asparagus with 2 tbsp olive, 1/2 tsp sea salt and several grindings of black pepper on a rimmed sheet pan. It should be in one layer. Broil 4 inches from the heat until bubbling; toasted but still crisp/tender. My asparagus was just under 1/2″ in diameter and this took about 2 minutes per side – a total of 4 minutes.

Remove the asparagus from the pan and arrange while still hot, over the arugula.

Strew the crumbled goat cheese and pine nuts over everything.

Add the champagne vinegar to the dressing and taste. Does it need more salt?

Ladle the dressing over the salad – depending on how much asparagus and arugula you have, you may not need all of it.

So I have this photo of the dinner and I’m not crazy about it. I don’t like to make excuses when I think something is lame; as my aunt says: you have to feign nonchalance in these situations. But this is sort of funny. My boys were so desperate to get their hands on this dinner (they both love Ms. Hazan’s juicy and crisp shrimp) that when I wanted to stop for less than sixty seconds to take the picture, they both started to cry! So I stopped messing about and served dinner. Everyone was happy. Here’s the photo:
It could have been a lot prettier but seriously, it was totally delicious.

 

 

 

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Codcakes – really?!

Posted on April 21, 2011 | 3 comments

Really. And believe me, I was skeptical. My friend Liz made them first from a recipe collection she got from me! Codcakes. It’s sounds like the sort of tame and ridiculous expletive my mother sometimes uses – “Fishhooks! Codcakes!” I would never say that and if you’d asked me a week ago, I might have said I would never make codcakes either. I imagined something leaden. I worried they’d be fishy – not in a good way. Codcakes sound like the kind of thing an old person would make to use up leftovers. But Liz liked them. In fact I believe what she said was “Sarah, you have to try them. They’re totally excellent!” She was right and I was completely wrong.

I wouldn’t admit this to a true crab cake connoisseur because it would  probably lead to a long and boring argument, but for a fast last minute weeknight meal that won’t threaten your retirement savings, these are pretty close to crabcakes. Really very delicious. Crisply browned on the outside in olive oil, tender within and greenly perfumed with basil. The garlic gives them a little attitude. If you don’t agree that they are wonderful after trying them, I’d love to know why.

Codcakes with Basil Aioli

This recipe can be doubled very easily. The five of us demolish a double recipe every time.

  • 1/2 c. mayonnaise
  • 2 tbsp lemon juice
  • 1 clove garlic, pressed or minced
  • 1/4 cup fresh basil, chopped
  • Sea salt, pepper
  • 1 pound cod fillets, skin removed
  • 1 1/2 c. panko, divided in half
  • 1 egg
  • 2 scallions, minced
  • 1/4 c. olive oil

First make the sauce.

In a food processor or blender, process mayonnaise, lemon juice, garlic and basil until pale green and smooth.

Scrape the aioli into a small serving bowl and, without bothering to clean out the bowl of the food processor, pulse half the cod into a combination of finely minced and chunky pieces. Transfer fish to a large mixing bowl and process the remainder of the cod.

Using a large sturdy spatula, mix all the processed cod in the mixing bowl with 3 tbsp of aioli, 3/4 c. panko, 1/2 tsp sea salt, 1/2 tsp pepper, the egg and the scallions. It should look like this:

Form the mixture into patties – these could be quite small – 2″ is good for small children. 3″ would be fine for adults. Put the remaining panko on a plate or wide bowl, and press  all over the patties.

Heat the olive oil in a non-stick pan over medium-high heat. Don’t start cooking until the oil is shimmering. This is important and the difference between stodgy-greasy and golden-crisp. Sometimes I put the pan on the heat and walk away for a few minutes to chop a clove of garlic or change whatever music I happen to be listening to. Acquiring the patience for the pan to get hot enough took me a long time. Let the pan sit on the heat for at least 3 minutes.

Add the patties to the pan and cook about 4 minutes per side, until golden. Serve with aioli or if you have a child who is acting very silly (I did) with ketchup. The aioli also goes very well with steamed or roasted asparagus. You may want to add a little extra of everything to the sauce – you’ll want more.

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How to heat up a cold spring: Smoky Spicy Chipotle Pinto Beans

Posted on April 17, 2011 | 3 comments

Our grill has been hibernating in the garage since November. Last night we had to drag it out. 51 degrees has been the high temperature for the last couple of weeks in Seattle. Drastic measures are required. I won’t be held back by this ridiculous bleak weather. Cooking is an escape for me and cold weather might be the easiest thing to magically dispell if I can just summon the right meal. I knew just where I wanted to be. What I wanted to eat.

Twenty years ago, I moved from New York to San Francisco with Andrea, my college roommate. We had this little apartment in Russian Hill and on weekends we would escape (as if you would need to escape San Francisco!!) to my family’s old ranch house, about an hour and a half south of the city. Most weekends went something like this: On Friday after work, we hopped into her little silver Nissan Sentra with the air vent decals, with shorts and bathing suits stuffed into weekend bags and stashed in the trunk. A bottle of wine and a couple of six packs in a cooler and we took off down 101. Several cars full of friends followed from around the city. Often we met up at this Mexican roadhouse, the Sinaloa, on the old highway just outside of town. Crowded into a big booth under dreamy plaster murals of stars over golden hills we downed margaritas and gorged on gooey enchiladas. Afterwards driving slowly up to the house under a star studded black sky, we wound our way through gold grassy hills now dark. As we crunched over the drive, bats skimmed over the pool. Crickets sang loudly with a croaking toad. The air felt as warm as our skin. We unlocked a quiet house, dropping our bags and everything else.

There is nothing like a lazy morning with a group of like minded friends. The drip and sputter of a big pot of coffee. French toast suddenly sizzling in browning butter – that must have been Lee – I can just see him standing, barefoot and serious, in front of the white enamel stove in his shorts, flipping cinnamon-crisp golden slices. Half moons of pale orange melon and red berries appeared on an enameled platter – I think I can thank Andrea for that. I loved sitting in my bathing suit and a big old white terrycloth bathrobe with Amy on the diving board in the fresh morning air, sopping up maple syrup and toast, toes skimming the chilly water of the swimming pool, the sun warming my shoulders. We spent the whole day by the pool, grazing on salsa and tortilla chips, cherries chilled in ice water and drinking cold beer. Flipping through “Hello” and “OK” until we dripped sweat, then throwing ourselves into the perfect chill of the unheated pool. A couple of somersaults, a botched swandive, swimming down to touch the drain. Then lying down on the hot concrete to slowly dry off.

When the setting sun backlit the live oaks that crowned the hill, the hard edge of the heat began to soften. We were practically liquid from the sun and sleep of the day and it was time to wake up and cook. The best swim was the one in the soft early evening. That pool is so cold. First we lit up the grill. While waiting for the coals, Mark measured Triple Sec, lime juice and tequila into the big pink plastic pitcher. Thick coarse salt round the rim of my glass and I swam in lazy laughing circles around the deep end, trying hard not to spill. Andrea and her boyfriend sat at the edge of the pool, swinging their legs in the water. Amy and Lee lay toe to toe at either end of the diving board. Later when the coals were ashy and nearly crumbling, we grilled flank steak and ate it with spicy pinto beans on warm corn tortillas. Guacamole, bright with cilantro, limes, and garlic, we scooped from an old brown glazed terracotta bowl alongside.

I made steak, beans and guacamole for dinner last night. And margaritas. Is it really possible to conjure that hot lazy day from a simple dinner I made years ago!? I think so.  This was the best pot of pinto beans I’ve ever made, smoky and spicy. The stealthy, rich burn of chipotle is just the thing on a too cold spring night. Just as we sat down for dinner, the sun actually came out and shone brightly over the dinner table. It was magic, I swear.

Smoky Spicy Chipotle Pinto Beans

This menu is just a variation of the Mexican Fiesta menu I wrote up last year. The steak grilling method and guacamole recipes can be found here.

  • 2 cups pinto beans, soaked overnight
  • 1 chipotle chile in adobo sauce, chopped with a sharp knife to a pulp
  • 3 tbsp canola oil
  • 1 large red onion, finely chopped
  • 3 cloves of garlic finely chopped
  • 2 tsp cumin – if you can get it together, toast and grind the whole seeds yourself – you’ll thank me
  • 1 1/2 tbsp New Mexico chile powder
  • 1  1/2 tbsp flour
  • sea salt
  1. Put the drained beans with 8 cups of cold water into a heavy pot – that can hold about 6 quarts. Turn the heat to high and when the water boils, let it go for about 10 minutes, skimming off any scum.
  2. Add the chipotle and lower the heat to a simmer.
  3. Heat the canola oil in a medium saute pan over medium heat. Add the onion, garlic and cumin and saute for 5 minutes, stirring so it doesn’t catch. It should be browned not burnt and bitter.
  4. Turn the heat to low and add the flour and the chile powder and cook for a few more minutes, keep scraping at the bottom of the pan. Don’t let it stick and burn.
  5. Scoop up 1 1/2 cups of water from the bean pot and pour it into the saute pan, stirring. When the sauce has thickened,  scrape the whole thing back into the beans.
  6. After the beans have been cooking about half an hour add 1 1/2 tsp of salt. Continue to cook  until the beans are tender, about a half hour more.

 

 

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Like spring: Royal Trumpets, Asparagus and New Potatoes

Posted on March 24, 2011 | Leave a comment

I was pushing the cart around the vast islands of produce at the grocery store the other day, knowing I would incite a full scale revolt if I brought any more kale into the house. Sometimes it is overwhelming, wanting to try something new and having no idea what it should be – especially towards the end of winter. There just aren’t a lot of choices in early spring in the PNW.  Anyway, staring out over the vast expertly displayed mountains of mostly green crinkly leaves (those winter stalwarts—kale, chard, escarole), there beyond that, the mushroom display. Chanterelles!?! Love them. Nope. That’s fall. Then I saw these:

Royal Trumpet Mushrooms

 

Hmm. They look a little like this Swedish type called Karljohan which I have always wanted to try. Royal trumpet mushrooms are handsome. Creamy large fungi clustered with smaller, sometimes tiny, versions of themselves, they sport a broad cappuccino colored cap. Royal trumpets look like storybook mushrooms. Suddenly, I imagined them cut in rough pieces, their edges sizzling and caramelizing in butter. The fresh loamy scent transformed, intensified, browned and buttery, and scattered with crystals of seasalt and scented with black pepper. I put half a pound in a paper bag and trolled on. On the opposite bank were slim green spears of asparagus. So spring-ish! Popped them in the cart. On the other side of the large wooden crate, a heap of small purple plastic mesh bags of tiny new potatoes, the largest potato no bigger than those shooter sized marbles. Yes. Done.

The thing is, I know none of these vegetables are seasonal here in Seattle – not at this time, in March, except maybe the potatoes. Those I think were from Oregon. But I didn’t care. Not this week. I am so ready for spring!

Royal Trumpets, Asparagus and New Potatoes

  • 1/2 lb Royal Trumpet Mushrooms, wiped clean and cut into 3/4″ pieces
  • 1/2 lb Asparagus, thin as pencils, snapped into 1 1/2″ lengths
  • 1/2 lb tiny potatoes, peeled
  • 1 1/2 tbsp butter
  • 1 1/2 tbsp olive oil
  • Sea salt and freshly ground black pepper

Here’s where I had trouble deciding whether or not to include this recipe at Notes on Dinner. I have this incredible gadget that my mother-in-law brought me from Sweden. Can you guess what it is?

This is a Swedish potato peeler although if you guessed a salad spinner you wouldn’t have been far wrong. It does have another basket that fits inside and it can dry lettuces too. I really hate to write about specialized equipment and it does seem especially unfair given that these potato peelers are nearly impossible to buy outside of Sweden, or in the U.S. anyway. You put the potatoes in the bowl, then fill the bowl with water and turn the handle quickly. The centrifugal force flings the potatoes against the sides and the tiny sharp ridges sand away the delicate skins of small potatoes. The water washes their grubby little skins away.

It is only 1/2 a pound of potatoes. So…

  1. Put the potatoes in a saucepan and cover them with water. Heat until boiling then add 1 tsp sea salt. Simmer until just done. If the potatoes are really quite small this could take no more than 10 minutes. Start checking at 8 though, just to be safe. When the potatoes are done drain them, and set aside.
  2. In a large non-stick skillet over medium high heat, melt the butter with the olive oil.
  3. Add the mushroom pieces and the potatoes, stirring every minute or two until they are light golden brown all over.
  4. Add the asparagus and continue to stir until it is crisp-tender and also, if you look carefully, lightly browned.
  5. Add sea salt and black pepper until it tastes delicious. (I would start with 1/2 tsp of salt and add 1/8 tsp increments until it is just right for you.)

I served this with that Tom Douglas fish recipe I wrote about months ago. This time I used cod, though, which was really so much better than the halibut I used last time. The finished recipe has this mild heat and lemony edge which I loved alongside those nutty forest-y mushrooms and potatoes. The parsley salad was the icing on the cake, so to speak. If you are curious, my kids loved this dinner. One of the very best. (They did, however, skip the parsley salad.)

 

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White Bean and Kale Soup, Fennel Variation: Part 2

Posted on March 14, 2011 | 17 comments

 

I don’t think my dad can stand it anymore. I think he might stop coming for dinner. My kids are complaining.  I just need one last brothy fennel scented bowl and I might be able to stop for awhile…

I hope you’re feeling smug. You have stock in the fridge and the freezer now.   Now the soup will be a snap. One thing about making stock is that it slips so easily into the rest of the day – especially if you’re fearless about leaving the barely bubbling pot on low heat and getting on with other things. Although I like all the small building blocks – slicing an onion is an exercise in thoughtful efficiency, smashing every clove in a head of garlic can be cathartic. The scent of fennel seeds crushed under a pestle – and I’m in Italy. There is nothing monumental about any of these tasks but the result is there simmering on the stove. If all you ever do is open a box of stock, all you get is that funky boxy chicken smell.

The work on Day Two is minor. You set the beans to soak  late in the day after the dishes are done, your kids are asleep and you are about to open a good book. At least that is what happens to me every single time. I get into bed at about 11:30 PM with my book, something I’ve been dying to read all day, and then suddenly I remember, I have to soak the beans! So I haul myself out of a warm bed, through the cold house, and downstairs to dump 1 1/2 cups of cannellini beans in the biggest Pyrex bowl and cover them generously with water. Then I go back to my book. That’s the end of Day Two. See what I mean? A four year old could do it – if he could stay up that late.

In the morning, it’s good to start before anyone else is awake. Outside is still darkly grey, but I flick on the light and the kitchen glows like a lantern. Drain the beans and put them in a large pot. Then cover them with 2 inches of water. Add a few smashed cloves of garlic. 24 peppercorns (don’t ask me why 24 – I read it in some recipe somewhere a long time ago and it just stuck) and bay in a large mesh ball. Start the pot to boil. When it does, lower the heat and leave to slowly simmer. I make a cup of coffee and go with my mug back to bed. I can laze around with my book for around 45 minutes then it’s probably time to turn off the stove. Taste a bean and see if it is soft – not mushy though – and nearly ready to eat. Now it is time to salt – if you salt at the beginning, the skins will be tough. Add salt to the water until it is quite salty – at least 2 tbsp. Turn off the heat. Let the beans sit there in the cooking liquid until you’re ready for them.  For me this could take at least until lunchtime.

Kale and Cannellini Bean Soup with Fennel, (Finally!)

  • 8 cups homemade chicken stock
  • 1 red onion
  • 1 generous pinch of red chili flakes
  • 3 carrots
  • 3 celery stalks
  • 1 fennel bulb
  • 1  bunch of kale
  • 4 cloves of garlic
  • 4 canned plum tomatoes
  • the cooked cannellini beans, drained
  • 1 tsp fennel, freshly ground in a mortar and pestle or in a clean coffee grinder
  • the juice from one lemon
  • sea salt and pepper

Optional condiments

  • grated parmesan
  • green spicy olive oil
  • homemade croutons or toast with olive oil and garlic

Ok – the rest is quick.  Check it out: Chop the onion.

See how I sliced the onion in half from top to bottom, then made long parallel cuts toward the root.  After that it is very simple to slice thin perpendicular cuts to get perfect small dice. Cutting an onion this way is much faster than randomly chopping into tiny pieces.

Peel, then chop the carrots:

Trim then slice the celery:

 

Trim and core the fennel, slice into 1/4″ slices – they should look like long quarter moons.

Wash and remove the ribs of the kale. Slice into ribbons.

 

Take a large heavy bottomed soup pot (I use a 7 1/2 qt. enameled cast iron) and heat over medium heat.

Add 1/3 c. olive oil, the chopped onion and 1 tsp. chili flakes. Stir thoroughly and lower heat. Cover. Simmer for 10 minutes stirring occasionally.

Add the carrots and celery. Raise the heat to medium-high. Stir and cook with the lid off for 5 minutes.

Add the chopped garlic , ground fennel and sliced fennel. Cook for two minutes.

Add the tomato. Cook for 2 minutes.

Taste for salt and pepper. If you decided not to salt the stock, be sure that the vegetables are salted until they taste deliciously but not too salty.

Add the beans, then stock. Bring the soup to a simmer. Cook for 15 minutes. Add lemon juice to taste and taste again for salt and pepper. I like the lemon subtle. The juice from one small lemon should be plenty – this is not lemon soup.

While the soup simmers, bring a medium pot of water to the boil. Add a tbsp of salt and blanch the kale for 3 minutes. Drain and rinse with cold water.

If I were you, here’s what I’d do.  (I am always guilty of overselling – sigh. I do hope you like this!)  If you have one, set a wide soup plate on the counter. Pour a glass of wine and leave it on the table where you plan to eat so that the flavors open up. Toast a piece of rustic bread by brushing it with olive oil and running it under the broiler. Don’t burn it and do toast both sides – it should be golden and crisp on the outside and almost creamy inside. Peel a clove of garlic and cut it in half. Rub the cut half over one side of the toast and put it in the soup plate. A handful of  blanched kale goes on the toast. Ladle soup over toast and kale until the bowl is brimming. Drizzle a tablespoon of pungent green olive oil over the top and grate parmesan cheese lightly over all of it. Take the soup plate and go sit with the glass of wine.  Take a deep breath – the fennel and garlic are the most forward. Then the warm scent of chicken stock. Pale and yielding cannellini beans contrast with deep green chewy kale. Something about the toast pushes me over the edge. Taste it. White Bean and Kale Soup is grown-up and sophisticated yet so mild and comforting it could be child’s food.

There you have it. My most favorite meal. (at the moment)

 

 

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My Desert Island Food: White Bean and Kale Soup, Fennel Variation: Part 1

Posted on March 8, 2011 | 5 comments

Consider that for years I have scrupulously avoided all dark mineraly leafy greens. Chard, spinach, escarole, kale. So bitter and chewy – not what I was after in a vegetable. So no one could be more surprised than I that my current obsession is with lacinato kale. Dinosaur Kale. Black Kale. The blackest, most tooth-y leafy green of them all. I’m still not quite sure how it happened. And of course kale’s healthy. In fact, as far as I can tell, it’s the healthiest thing at the grocery store. It gets a 1,000 point ANDI* score, right up there with mustard, turnip, collard greens and watercress, making it almost 30% more healthy than even spinach! Why the fixation on kale? The strange dark chewiness – intriguing! I have a girlfriend who is so into lacinato kale that she eats it raw. But first she has to massage the kale. She said it was part of being macrobiotic or something. Massage. Kale. Really?! I should be on the receiving end of any massage, not mere kale.

Anyway I don’t eat it raw. No. I like kale blanched then sauteed with little rings of shallots and ribbons of prosciutto. Tossed with sherry vinegar and a knob of butter. Or in white bean soup. And make that cannellini beans not navy beans. For me, white bean and kale soup is the pinnacle of all soups. I have been working on variations of this soup for over a year and I think I am nearly there. White bean and kale soup might be a strange thing to crave on a desert island, I know, but for me this is the best kind of food: flavorful, nourishing, and more-ish. So today, I am going to start a two-part article on my desert island food which, shockingly, turns out to be White Bean and Kale Soup with Fennel. The creamy beans, the blackish intensity of the kale, the delicate, particular perfume of fennel. Not to mention the chicken broth holding the whole thing together.

Store-bought stock will not cut it in this recipe. I don’t want you to try this with Pacific Organic Chicken Broth or anything else from the soup section at your grocery store. The full experience starts with a deeply flavorful but light-handed, deftly salted broth. If you start with stock from a box, I can’t be responsible for your impression of my favorite soup! You will think I’m a nutcase if you start with industrial broth. (You probably think I am a nutcase anyway!) We have to start from the beginning. Chicken bones, water, salt and pepper, carrots, celery, etc. And go from there. This is how I do it. Part One.

Chicken Broth

People like Ina Garten start their stock from whole chickens. In Ms. Garten’s case, from 3 whole chickens. I have tried this with 2 whole chickens (my pot, while huge, is not that huge) and it is very nice, but it costs $28 just to buy the birds. Stock should be about thriftiness, though not mean frugality. The components should be fresh and plentiful, but whole chickens?! Not here. Save them for roasting and do as I do. Fresh backs and necks with maybe a leftover roast leg or thigh for richness.

Don’t freak out about the length of the recipe. This is fifteen minutes of hands on work. Fifteen minutes! You can handle it.

  • 4 pounds of backs and necks
  • if you have them, any frozen roasted chicken bones or leftovers from a roast chicken
  • 3 large carrots, peeled and chopped into 1″ pieces
  • 3 celery stalks, washed and chopped into 1″ pieces
  • 2 red onions, peeled and cut into 8 pieces
  • 1 head of garlic cut in half across the equator
  • 2 bay leaves
  • 24 peppercorns
  • parsley, tied up and tied to the pot
  • olive oil, sea salt, ground black pepper

Preheat the oven to 450.

Toss the raw chicken backs and necks in a wide roasting pan, giving the bones plenty of space with 2-3 tablespoons of olive oil and 1 heaping tsp of sea salt and some freshly ground black pepper.

Roast for 4o minutes, until deeply browned and very fragrant.

Put the bones in the bottom of your soup pot. I used to use an enormous stainless steel pot, but it was so unwieldy and the process became too much of a production. Now, I use an 8 quart Le Creuset stock pot that I think of as medium sized and make enough stock for 2-3 pots of soup. I use 8 cups of stock for the soup and freeze the leftovers.

Once the bones are in the soup pot, the roasting pan will be a sea of chicken fat and olive oil, pour all of it off and dispose of it properly (not down the drain!). Then take about 1/2 cup of water and scrape up all the brown flavorful bits off the bottom. Do this while the pan is still hot! Be thorough – there is a lot of flavor there. Pour all of the browned pieces and now very flavorful water into the stock pot as well.

Add any leftover roasted bones from a roasting chicken now, or any leftover cooked chicken on the bone if you have it.

Place the carrots, celery, onions, garlic, bay, peppercorns and parsley into the pot. You can tie the parsley to the side, or not. I like to fish the parsley out at the end as it is kind of slimy and soggy – even though I strain the stock anyway.

Add water until it completely covers the chicken and vegetables and is dangerously close to overflowing.

Heat the water over high heat until just about to boil. Then lower the heat and simmer very, very gently (barely bubbling) for 3-4 hours. Skim off any scum that forms on the top.

When the level of the soup has dropped about an inch and your house is redolent with the the warm scent of chicken broth, it is time to taste. Be thoughtful – you haven’t added sea salt yet.  You have to think carefully about what you are tasting. And you have to choose, salt the broth now or salt the soup later?  I usually salt the soup later – at the beginning when I am cooking the onions, carrots and celery. If you can’t wait that long to start to see that it is perfect already, add one teaspoon of sea salt (I love Redmond Salt from Utah), taste and then add very small increments until your stock tastes lightly salted and totally delicious.

Now it is time to strain off all the vegetables and chicken and bones which will be sapped of anything worthwhile and need to be thrown away. Line a colander with 3 layers of paper towels and ladle the broth through them into a large bowl. You will probably need at least two large bowls.

Then, if you are making soup the next day, ladle 8 cups into a storage container that fits into your refrigerator. Ladle the rest into Ziplock bags in either 4 or 8 cup increments and freeze, labelled and with the date.

I do this every 3 weeks and now I have a huge stockpile of…errr, stock!

*Aggregate Nutrient Density Index    http://andiscores.com/

P.S. Ok…after some thought – who am I kidding?! Kale and White Bean Soup may be my desert island food right now – but how long will this obsession really last!?!?! When I change my mind, I’ll let you know.

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How I have fun: Meyer Lemon & White Chocolate Curd Tart

Posted on February 10, 2011 | Leave a comment

February is the beginning of the long birthday season at our house. From February to May we have 1-2 birthdays a month around here. On average this leads me to make 8 cakes and 60 cupcakes over the whole season since there is a family party, a friend party and a classroom party with cupcakes for every person. (Jeepers. Now that I have written that out, it does seem out of control! I may have to rethink this…)

Birthday season could be a pretty long slog for me, baking cake after cake after cupcake, so I have to mix it up and take some chances. Often I make things for the first time for the night of the party, sometimes without a real recipe. I would hate to get bored and I never have time to make a test version. Anyway since I was writing last time about not ever being bored in my kitchen, I thought I should write about how I made this dessert: Meyer Lemon and White Chocolate Curd Tart in a Macadamia Nut Crust.


 

Obviously this is not the first Meyer lemon and white chocolate concoction. Surely not the first in a macadamia nut crust. It wasn’t actually even a recipe, but a compilation of the tart crust I had left from Christmas in the freezer, Meyer lemons – whose tangy sweetness I love to play with in their short winter season, and one of Martin’s favorite sweets, white chocolate. This tart was delicious and so pretty. The high bright lemon notes soothed by creamy vanilla in the chocolate with a rich base flavor of macadamias. The best part though, was playing with all the pieces: the stashed crust, the seasonal fruit, the favorite ingredient. I like to imagine a jazz ensemble playing around with sound and start thinking about making food that way. All the fun is in the improvising.

We ate the last pieces of this tart with large bowls of cafe au lait  the following morning in bed. How I love birthday dessert with coffee when I wake up the next day! (especially if I’m also reading a good book) If you haven’t tried this, I recommend that you do as soon as the next birthday rolls around.

Meyer Lemon & White Chocolate Curd Tart in a Macadamia Nut Crust

Read the whole recipe through before starting. There is nothing complicated about any of it. It just requires a small amount of planning.

Macadamia Nut Crust (you must allow the tart dough to rest in the pan for at least 4 hours before baking – really the best thing is to just plan ahead and make it in advance – or have one stashed like I did!)

  • 3/4 c. unsalted raw macadamia nuts
  • 1/4 c. granulated sugar
  • 1 1/2 c. all purpose flour
  • 1/2 c. unsalted butter, in small cubes, very very cold. (I cut it into small pieces first and then stash it in the freezer until it is time to blend)
  • 1 large egg yolk, also very cold
  1. Combine the nuts and the sugar in the bowl of a food processor. Pulse quickly and carefully until the nuts are finely ground. Careful! Don’t over process and make nut butter.
  2. Add the flour and pulse once or twice to blend.
  3. Add the cold butter and pulse for 10-20 seconds – until the pieces of butter are the size of large peas.
  4. Add the egg yolk and pulse for 7 seconds, until the mixture just begins to come together.
  5. Put all the crumbly dough into a bowl and knead together until the dough is uniformly moist. There should be no streaks of flour or egg. Don’t overwork and only use your fingertips so you don’t melt the butter. If the butter melts, the dough won’t be flaky. Don’t let this scare you and prevent you from trying! Tarts are very fun to make.
  6. Press the crumble into a 9″ square tart pan with a removable bottom. The dough should be evenly pressed with no bare patches. I try to get a generous 1/4″ at the rim of the tart pan for structural stability.
  7. Wrap the tart pan with plastic wrap and chill for at east 4 hours or overnight. (the shell can be frozen at this point for up to a month. No need to thaw when needed. Just proceed to baking)
  8. To bake the tart shell, preheat the oven to 375F.
  9. Place a large piece of parchment over the crust and fill the entire shell with pie weights (if you have them) or use dried beans (I have a box of garbanzo and black beans that I have used as pie weights for several years. If you use dried beans, never try to cook them later – they’ll be terrible.) Place the tart shell on a baking sheet.
  10. Place the baking sheet in the center of the oven and bake for 15 minutes or until the edges of the pastry are dry and just beginning to color.
  11. Remove the baking sheet from the oven and carefully lift out the parchment and dried beans. Watch especially as you pull the parchment off the base of the tart as it will still be quite moist and fragile. I have patched back in any pieces that I accidentally pull off but I hate to do it!
  12. Return the sheet with the tart shell to the oven for 7-10 minutes until the pastry looks dry and is pale gold.
  13. Cool completely on a wire rack before filling.

Meyer Lemon and White Chocolate Curd

  • 5 eggs
  • 3/4 c. sugar
  • 2/3 c. Meyer lemon juice
  • 5 ounces finely chopped white chocolate – I used Green and Black’s which has dense flecks of vanilla bean
  • optional: the seeds from one vanilla bean – if you use another brand of chocolate
  • 1 pint of raspberries
  • powdered sugar
  1. Beat the eggs in the bowl of a double boiler or a pyrex bowl that fits into a saucepan.
  2. Beat in the sugar, the lemon juice and the seeds of the vanilla bean if using.
  3. Whisk the ingredients until thickened over the simmering water in the saucepan. Do not let the bowl touch the water.
  4. In about 5 minutes, the mixture should have thickened to the consistency of pudding.
  5. Whisk in the pieces of white chocolate until the mixture is smooth.
  6. Immediately pour the curd into the prepared cooled tart shell.
  7. Cool at least 4 hours at room temperature before garnishing and serving.
  8. Garnish with a pint of washed and carefully dried raspberries. I start by placing one raspberry in each corner. Then one half way between each corner and so on. Then all the berries are placed evenly around the edge. Finally dust the tart with powdered sugar.


 

 

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