Harissa: Just try this, please

Posted on June 8, 2011 | 2 comments

 

It was an unassuming dark little blob, nudged onto the corner of an oval platter of creamy hummus, almost hidden beneath a tangle of long cooked greens (chard maybe?!) and a scattering of currants. It’s not like I’m unfamiliar with harissa. I’ve had it on a couple of other occasions. Swirled into creme fraiche, harissa came with a heap of blisteringly hot matchstick french fries at one of my favorite restaurants in Portland. So, I was inspired to buy a jar as I tried to copy another restaurant dish for my birthday party last fall. The prepared harissa, though, was a disappointment and it kind of wrecked the whole meal for me. The little jar with the bright yellow Moroccan pattern on the label looked promising but tasted one note: hot-sweet and tomato-y. No sultry bitter complex fire, which is what I wanted. What I remembered from the Portland restaurant. That little jar has been languishing in my fridge long forgotten, and I bet I’ll toss it next time I see it.

So last week, when my friends ordered the chickpea puree at Sitka & Spruce, I was non-plussed when I saw the harissa, a wall flower hanging out on the edge of the plate, not even seeming to merit mention on the menu. I’ll pay no attention to that, I thought. I’d forgotten how enamored I’d been initially. The puree was fantastic though – I think there was a smattering of walnut or walnut oil, but toasty not bitter like the bitterness you find in tahini. So I ventured toward the harissa, which was darker, less tomato-y looking than the one I bought.

I tore off a piece of the rustic, slighty sour bread and dabbed it into the blond puree, then dipped the tip of my knife into the dark daub. Scent preceded taste: smoke! Then a bite. Oh, so that’s what it should taste like! Here was deft bitterness and deep smoldering heat. A muted lemon note. A complex counterpoint to the creamy foil of the chickpeas. So now I’m infatuated; this is a tiny bit inconvenient because harissa doesn’t seem to be the most kid-friendly condiment.

But therein lies the beauty!  Hummus=healthy, kid friendly albeit slightly bland snack food. Hummus+harissa=sophisticated, sultry fare perfect for grown-ups. Potato chips=blandly attractive and kid-friendly. Harissa+creme fraiche+potato chips=spellbindingly cool, adult nibble, perfect with cocktails. Do you see where this is heading?! I hope I am not overstating the allure of harissa. (I am often guilty of overselling.)

The first batch I made was too small. First of all, the four adults at dinner ate the whole batch in one go; second of all, it was so small my food processor couldn’t whirl it around effectively. I ended up chopping it finely with my chef’s knife and that was fine but if you’re in a hurry, definitely double the recipe. You’ll certainly eat the whole batch before the week is out. Now that I know how easy it is to make harissa, I’ll never buy it again.

And now I can revisit that so nearly wonderful birthday dish and share it with you next time. It was on the very verge of incredible and with this harissa, I know it will be perfect.

Rosemary skewered lamb with Israeli couscous, preserved lemon, hazelnuts and harissa

Harissa

  • 12 dried chile de àrbol
  • 3 cloves garlic
  • 1/2 tsp salt
  • 2 tbsp olive oil
  • 1 tsp ground coriander
  • 1 tsp ground caraway
  • 1/2 tsp cumin
  1. Soak the chilies in hot water for 30 minutes.
  2. Drain and cut in half lengthwise. With the tip of a sharp knife, scrape away the seeds and discard.
  3. In the food processor, whirl the chilies, garlic, salt and oil. Purée until smooth. Add the coriander, caraway and cumin and continue to process until smooth.
  4. This will keep for a month in the refrigerator in an airtight container with a slick of olive oil over the top. But I seriously doubt it will last that long!

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Not in the mood…Grilled Steak Salad with Arugula, White Beans and Shiitake

Posted on June 2, 2011 | 3 comments

Wednesday Morning

You probably won’t believe me: I’m kind of sick of cooking. (I guess I should qualify that with a “right now”) The weekend turned out to be something of a food frenzy. Friday night Mexican Fiesta, Saturday night homemade pizza with bacon, caramelized leeks, white cheddar, bread crumbs, and arugula (while we were baking, our oven door ended up exploding — but that’s another story) followed by pulled pork sandwiches and coleslaw on Memorial Day. How I love a pulled pork sandwich. Making them, however, is truly a labor of love. And though I totally love my friends, now I’m utterly wiped out. No food, no recipe, no take-out sounds good to me. Here’s Wednesday morning:

9:27 am: Rain, rain, rain, and more rain. Kids are off on the bus. And I don’t feel like cooking. Or planning a meal. Which includes even having pizza delivered. Tonight is crazy anyway. A Little League game to go to at 5:00 pm – right when I would usually be making dinner. Carpool to drive at 6:30 making a driving/cheering-on-the-team/putting-the-four-year-old-to-bed-at-a-reasonable-time a schedule from hell. What the heck am I supposed to make for dinner today!? The weather is just too gloomy to cop out completely.

10:03 am: Still don’t know. Sandwiches?! Something on the grill?! Something on the grill shoved into a sandwich?! A picnic for my Little League-er? A late dinner for the grown-ups? I hate making dinner twice. What the hell?! Still thinking…

10:24 am: Argh. Some people happily eat ham and cheese sandwiches for dinner or even peanut butter and jelly. Why can’t I do this?! Start flipping though cooking magazine…I’m sure somebody out there would be intrigued by the Spaghetti and Ratatouille but not me.

10:45 am: I think I’ll call my cousin. She is good at this kind of thing and has the added advantage of having my aunt as a resource. My aunt seems to know everything — at least everything I want to know. So I call my cousin.

My cousin: What about hotdogs?!
Me: Stop giving me a hard time!
My cousin: Lots of kids eat hotdogs. Let your kids have hotdogs for once!

First of all, this freezing weather (please note that it’s the first of June today!) just doesn’t say “hotdog” to me. Secondly, and just to be clear, I have nothing against hotdogs. I actually love eating hotdogs. But I want the good kind. Long with the snappy skin like you get in Stockholm. Ok I haven’t done exhaustive research on the availability of excellent hotdogs in Seattle but here’s my general reaction to what I’ve come across. There are the creepy, too-fat, weird looking, all beef or bison hotdogs from Whole Foods; there are Hebrew National Hotdogs; and there are Applewood Farms hotdogs. The very pinnacle of any of these offerings hovers around mediocre. If I’m eating a hot dog, please make it an extra long snappy one with hot sweet and spicy mustard or nothing. Unless I’m at a ballgame. Then I’ll eat whatever kind is on offer.

My cousin: Sigh. (I think she might be getting a tiny bit impatient) Let’s look at the Fine Cooking website. I wonder what they’re having?

She’s nailed it of course. So now I’m making Grilled Steak and Arugula Salad with White Beans and Shiitake too.  Why this seems more convenient for me or more accessible to my kids or easier or better than delivered pizza remains a mystery.

Grilled Steak Salad with Arugula, White Beans and Shiitake Mushrooms

I had to change up the recipe a little bit – it’s supposed to use leftovers and flank steak. I like skirt steak. It’s fast, it’s cheaper and I love the  chewy-tender texture. Also, I can’t help but wonder if fennel might substitute for the beans. I have a really hard time getting behind canned beans…We’ll see.

The Beans and Mushrooms

  • 2 tbsp extra-virgin olive oil
  • 2 medium sized red onions, sliced thinly – about 1/8″
  • sea salt and freshly ground black pepper
  • 3/4 lb shiitake mushrooms, sliced thickly
  • 1 can cannellini beans, drained and rinsed
  • 1-1/2 tsp sherry vinegar
  • 1 tbsp chopped fresh thyme
  • 1/4 tsp red pepper flakes

  1. Heat a large heavy skillet over medium high heat. Take at least three minutes to do this. Depending on your stove and how hot it is, this might take 5 minutes.
  2. Add the olive oil, watch it shimmer. Don’t burn it but take it right up to where its about to start smoking. Add the thinly sliced onions and season with salt and pepper.
  3. Stir fairly often for 12 minutes. They should be nicely brown. if the pan starts to scorch, pull it off the heat for a minute and keep stirring
  4. Add the shiitakes and the red pepper flakes. Stir until wilted and soft, about 5 minutes.
  5. Add the beans, vinegar and  thyme. Stir, scraping as much of the browned bits off the bottom of the pan as you can. Set aside.

The Salad

  • 1/4 cup sherry vinegar
  • 2 tbsp sliced shallots
  • 1 tsp Dijon mustard
  • 1/2 cup extra virgin olive oil
  • sea salt and freshly ground black pepper
  • 5 large handfuls washed and dried arugula
  1. Whisk the vinegar, shallots and mustard together
  2. Slowly drip the olive oil into the vinegar mixture, whisking all the while to emulsify. Season with salt and pepper.

The Steak

  • 1 lb skirt steak
  • 1/4 c. balsamic vinegar
  • 1 tbsp Worcestershire sauce
  • 2 tsp brown sugar
  • 1 minced garlic clove
  1. Mix the last 4 ingredients and put them in a ziplock bag.
  2. Half an hour before you want to grill, put the steak in the plastic bag with the marinade. Turn steak after 15 minutes to evenly marinate. Preheat your grill to high.
  3. After 30 minutes remove the steak and sprinkle with 1/4 tsp sea salt.
  4. Grill over high heat for 2-1/2 minutes per side.
  5. Sprinkle with another 1/4 tsp of salt and freshly ground black pepper. Rest for 5 minutes. Slice thinly.

To Assemble

  1. Toss the arugula with 2-3 tbsp of the dressing. Arrange in a heap on a large platter.
  2. Set the onions, mushrooms and beans on top of the arugula.
  3. Lay the skirt steak slices on top of the onions, mushrooms and beans.
  4. With a fork, scatter the sliced shallots over the steak. Drizzle the dressing over the top. You probably won’t need all of it.

Wednesday night – the rundown

Well the truth is, I don’t like canned beans and even caramelized onions and salt and mushrooms can’t disguise that the cannellini beans were canned. That being said, this is technically a lovely dinner and even with the canned beans, you could serve this for a quick mid-week meal to guests. Also, the kids liked it. Martin did say: “This doesn’t really seem like something we would eat.” though we were eating it rather happily. The fact I just wasn’t in the mood to cook probably tainted everything and there was nothing I could do to change that. So I probably won’t be adding this salad to my repertoire. Although…what if I did substitute fennel for the beans?…I might just try that!

 

 

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My late spring salad: Beet, Chèvre, Arugula & Pine Nuts

Posted on May 23, 2011 | Leave a comment

So this is it. This is the salad that I wait all spring to make. It’s the chioggia beets you really can’t find in the winter here in Seattle. They’re still only available in the farmer’s markets – the weather has been so cold. This salad’s not fancy. Really, the vibe is more kitchen sink than thoughtfully composed. The varied textures: earthy and sweetly roasted chioggia beets, greenly cooling cucumbers, the sliced shallots pinked up in vinegar, providing a gently persistent bite – that’s what grabs me. Not to mention peppery arugula plus peppered spicy chèvre. Dotted with warmly toasted pine-nuts – I adore this salad. In fact, although it serves four, I would happily eat the whole thing, on it’s own, and call it dinner. (to give you an idea of just how greedy I am, this recipe lushly fills a 15 inch platter)

Beet, Chèvre, Arugula, Pine Nut Salad – serves 4

  • 4 small chioggia beets
  • 4 handfuls arugula, washed and dried
  • 1 medium sized shallot, sliced thin
  • 2 ounces fresh chèvre – with mixed peppercorns
  • half a peeled and seeded English cucumber, sliced
  • 2 tbsp champagne vinegar
  • 4-6 tbsp extra virgin olive oil
  • 3 tbsp pine nuts, toasted in a skillet over medium heat for a few minutes
  • extra virgin olive oil
  • sea salt and freshly ground black pepper
  1. Preheat the oven to 400
  2. Trim the beets, cutting off both tails and leafy tops. Wrap them in aluminum foil and place them in a small baking dish. Roast in the oven for 1 1/2 – 2 hours. If you are appalled at putting such a small dish in the oven at such a high temperature for 2 hours, you could always roast a chicken to go with it – that would be lovely. (of course if you don’t actually feel like roasting a chicken and all you really want is the darn beet salad and actually not 2 whole hours from now but in, like, 1/2 an hour I suppose you could always steam them in a little vegetable steamer. 20-40 minutes of steaming depending on how big the beets are. It won’t be quite as good but it will still be pretty great.)
  3. While the beets are cooking, put the shallot slices into a small bowl with the champagne vinegar. Manipulate the slices with your fingers to separate the rings and to make sure that they become saturated with vinegar.
  4. When the beets are done, you’ll be able to push a fork into them. Don’t wait until they’re mushy and don’t take them out when they’re still crunchy. If you cook them early in the day they can sit on the counter until you are ready to peel them, slice them and put them in the salad. A cooked beet should NEVER see the inside of the fridge. They become horribly watery and mushy.
  5. Add 4 tbsp olive oil to the bowl with vinegar and shallots. Whisk with a fork and taste – it should be nicely balanced without aggressive acidity. Add 1/4 tsp sea salt and taste again. You may like up to 2 more tbsp of olive oil. Add freshly ground black pepper to taste.
  6. Peel the beets and slice them into 1/8ths.
  7. On a large platter, arrange a bed of arugula. Scatter the cucumbers and beets over the greens. Then crumble the chèvre over everything. Toss the pine nuts evenly over the top and finally dress lightly, you may not have to use all the dressing. Be sure to fish out all the shallots and include them – they add so much flavor and delicate color!
  8. Quickly get out your camera and take a picture before you eat the whole thing! I forgot to take a picture until it was nearly gone last time, as you can see:

So of course I had to make it again the next day!

(Sometimes I make a variation of this salad that includes roast asparagus – which may seem over-the-top and disorganized but I have to confess that I love it. Smoky toasted asparagus and smoky roasted beets – lovely. You can see I included tomatoes here – probably wouldn’t do that again. They weren’t offensive but they added nothing.)


 

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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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Notes on a Cocktail

Posted on May 13, 2011 | 2 comments


Cocktails. I don’t usually make them. Given an opportunity, I like to drink them. And not surprisingly, I have some strong opinions about them. Fresh orange peel, cucumber infusion, muddled mint, Pimm’s, Hendrick’s, sugar cubes, a little float of beaten egg white. Not all in the same drink of course, but that’s the direction I run in: fresh, fruity, herbaceous. Complex without too hard an edge. My idea of a perfect cocktail speaks to something specific: spring, Christmas, elderflowers, cucumbers. I like to imagine a good cocktail is a flavor essay, a barman’s exploration of an idea.

So when the party committee I’m on met for a pre-party cocktail tasting a few weeks ago, I came prepared with a few ideas. I hoped we could come up with a simple but elegant cocktail that would be appropriate for a group of 40-ish moms. Someone brought a stack of those little plastic cups used for measuring out children’s Tylenol, so we could have many small tastes without drinking too much. Hilarious and so smart. One elegant guest brought a colorful bottle and said all we had to do was add some vodka. — This will be so easy, she said, My sister told me this makes quite a decent cocktail. After tasting it we all laughingly agreed with the comment — It kind of tastes like cough syrup. Then someone suggested Cosmos – That’s what the committee chose last year – but aren’t Cosmos a little passé? Too Sex in the City?

On committees, strong opinions can sometimes be a liability; other times, they come in handy. I’d brought bottles of chilled Prosecco and St. Germaine. An orange and a little orange zester to make the curl were wrapped in a tea towel in my purse. (I think that darn zester is still lost in the bottom of my handbag.) Anyway. I quickly mixed up the cocktail. It was a little heavy handed. Next time I do this I’ll slip the jigger in with the zester so I can measure properly. Still, we all agreed it was pretty lovely, cold with a subtle floral perfume. Especially compared to the cough syrup and vodka number we’d sampled previously. That’s how I ended up in charge of the cocktails at the party we were throwing. Which is kind of a joke because I never make cocktails; I only order them.

So yesterday, I went out to get my ingredients. I didn’t even know that the liquor store doesn’t open until 11. I had to stand outside in the ridiculous wintery rain for 20 minutes. Sigh. What if it didn’t really open when it was supposed to? Then at 11 on the dot, the lights flicked on and the door opened.

Wow. I couldn’t believe it. The same old guy. I’ve only been here a handful of times in the past 7 years and it’s always him. He’s vast and almost troll-like. He has small warty eyes. Many warts. Stringy grey long hair in a pony tail. His shirt is too large. His pants are too long and not exactly clean. Really he’s a toad of a man. Usually I run in and out of the liquor store. It’s not the sort of place that inspires lingering.

I asked him – So can you tell me about the Creme de Cassis. We’re having this party. Champagne Cocktails, Kir Royale. Can you recommend —

— Oh I can recommend something! He cut me off, not unkindly. He hurried to another display — I know which one you should buy. It’s a little pricey though — a thoughtful smile on his face.

He waved me over and took down a small bottle with pale green leaves and black currants on the label. A long and slender bottle from an artisanal distillery in Oregon. The liquid inside the blackest purple and gently viscous. I tipped it sideways and looked at the color, admiring the pretty label.

—Tell me about this one, I said. How is it different? (From the other, much larger bottle, half the price over there on the wall.)

He peered at me intently. I could see by his expression he was reliving some taste memory and wanting me to be there with him. I actually think I was there with him, kind of. – Let me tell you what I do with that stuff. Don’t waste it. I make these sugar cookies — he mimed how he carefully held the cookies with his fingers — So thin. So delicate. The sugar gives the perfect crunch. They shatter then melt in your mouth.

(Are you kidding me?! Delicate. Shatter. Melt.)

Then he says — I serve them on a very rich vanilla ice cream, with the vanilla bean flecks in it and then I carefully drizzle just a very tiny amount of this blackcurrant over the ice cream. It’s perfect.

(You sir, in your own peculiar way, are perfect too.)

Wow. — My grandmother liked her ice cream that way too. With a little purple-y liqueur drizzled on top. Only she just used Pepperidge Farm Chessmen. That certainly sounds very delicious. I will buy a bottle of that for myself. Imagine it swirled into a little Prosecco with a strip of orange peel! I will sit on the little bench on the patio, sipping Kir Royale, surrounded by sage, oregano, chives and Shasta daisies, taking it all in. For the ladies of the preschool however – all sixty of them – I think the big bottle will do just fine.

That guy totally made my day.

A Trio of Champagne Cocktails

If you can chill the Champagne glass, that would be very nice. For sixty, I doubt that I will.

Kir Royale

  • 1/2 ounce Creme de Cassis
  • cold Champagne
  • a curl of orange peel from an organic navel orange

Pour the Creme de Cassis into the cold champagne glass. Pour Champagne  to nearly fill the glass. Squeeze the orange rind over the drink, then drop into the glass.

Champagne St. Germaine

  • 1/2 ounce St. Germaine (a French elderflower liqueur)
  • cold Champagne or prosecco
  • a curl of lemon peel from an organic lemon

Pour the Champagne into a cold champagne glass. Stir in the St. Germaine. Garnish with lemon.

Classic Champagne Cocktail

  • 1 sugar cube
  • angostura bitters (I actually use blood orange bitters)
  • Champagne
  • orange or lemon peel (as above)

Soak the sugar cube with bitters and place in Champagne glass. Pour champagne over the sugar cube. Garnish with lemon or orange peel.

 

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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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