Notes on (the) Dinner Party: Swedish Dinner 2011

Posted on April 4, 2011 | Leave a comment

When was the last time you threw a dinner party? I mean a real one.

I like to cook (ok fine, I love it) and people come over to eat at our house all the time. Mostly, these people are such dear friends they feel like family. They act like family too. Forks and napkins are laid around the table by the kids. Someone that is not me washes the salad. Someone else that is not Martin might make the salad dressing. Martin rolls out the pasta, I make some sauce. They bring a wine to try. We all put the food on the table. The last time my friend Liz and her family came over, I decided to make mayonnaise to serve with the asparagus. I have been making mayonnaise my entire life. And I forgot the egg. Twice. If you’ve ever made mayonnaise or hollandaise, you know it’s all about the egg. Nothing happens without it. What I made was glopp. (I’m going to have to blame the glass of wine for that one) Anyway we all laughed, added some lemon juice to the jarred mayonnaise from the fridge, and carried on with dinner.  The children sat at one end of the table and the adults at the other. Afterwards the kids piled into the living room to watch Miyazaki and the grownups laughed and talked around the dinner table. I really like this kind of dinner party.

So when I offered a “Swedish Dinner” at the school auction last year, I didn’t think too much about it. Like I said, I have people over for dinner all the time. It hit me afterwards. There would be no kids setting the table…in fact, if the table looked like my kids and their friends had set it, that might be a bit of a problem. Also, probably it would not be the best idea to ask our guests to bring a bottle of wine. Or mix up some salad dressing. (“I don’t mind what you make! Make what you make at home!”)  I don’t think so. The family that bought our dinner turned out to be a family I didn’t know…and they were going to live in Sweden for six months before we made dinner for them and 6 of their friends. This seemed a little scary.

Here’s what I found out: Fear turns me into a demon planner. And that I really really like it. Planning. Walking the line of being supremely prepared (we made three versions of the main course in the weeks before the dinner) and being nearly positive that a last minute riff on a classic dessert would be fabulous (adding elderflower cordial to panna cotta, and tweaking the recipe on the fly the night before) and being absolutely right, well, it was like walking on a tight rope for the first time and not falling. In fact, that dessert was so ethereal, so utterly delicious, I felt like I had not only NOT fallen off the tightrope, but that I had actually managed a leap and a twirl!

Lovely Panna Cotta

 

I have to say, I could never have pulled this off without making extensive to-do lists. God, I love to make a list. It totally pays. I mapped out each day for the entire week before the dinner. We made three kinds of bread, one on each day. Then the cookies. The rhubarb-strawberry, cardamom-scented compote happened on Thursday. Six bunches of white tulips bought and arranged on Friday. The last two days were measured and carefully calm. You could’ve set a clock by that to-do list. You should have seen the matrix of work for the night of the dinner! Västerbotten/fennel seed frico on table in living room: 6:45 pm. Check. Parsley garnish on Toast Skagen. Check. Creme fraiche and minced onion on Löjrom. Check. Don’t forget the individual sauce boats! The candles! Check. Check.

If I were reading this, I would wonder, is this actually fun for her?! Writing those lists all the time? Cooking is fun, but cleaning it up isn’t. Why is she doing this? I guess it comes down to what I love about cooking. I can control everything. (Just ask my family – they will tell you I’m so bossy – but I see myself as more of a…visionary?) I love compiling a menu of all my favorite dishes and then throwing half of them out because you can’t have all that cream for god’s-sake! (for example) in one menu. I love scattering the table with candles. Examining fonts, debating color for the text, and in this case translating all the Swedish into English. Dreaming up a dessert and jiggering a couple of recipes to get to it – that’s thrilling. And then there’s completing a fairly complex project in a relatively short amount of time. You can make it work if you make a list. Wouldn’t anyone want to dream up something beautiful and then share it?

Midnight. The candles are still glowing. ABBA is playing softly in the living room. We are standing with this very nice couple and their friends in the front hall, laughing. The kitchen is in order; the dishwasher purring. Stacked in the refrigerator are boxes with just the right amount of leftovers – beckoning and not too overwhelmingly large for tomorrow. After our guests went home, there were two perfect panna cotta left to eat in the living room by the fire.

Next time I will tell you what I made with the leftovers. Here is a picture:

 

And just so you know, that is the mayonnaise that I made, very successfully, in the lower right hand corner!

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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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“The Best Foodie Day Ever”

Posted on February 1, 2011 | 2 comments

Last Saturday in the hills above Healdsburg, after winding around on wet rural roads, I arrived with a large group of friends in a well appointed kitchen in the middle of a vineyard. The house was backed by vine covered trellises and terraces, with views over bright green rows of grape vines, lichen cloaked oak trees, board and batten barns and curving country roads. A dog was barking distantly, a little rain patter scattered over the stone. Even though it was raining outside, the kitchen glowed – the sun was not too far behind the clouds. Twelve of us stepped into that warm room on the verge of busy-ness. We had been invited to participate in a wood fired oven cooking class.

Everything stood ready. Red and yellow peppers bright on a foil wrapped half sheet pan. An oval platter of wild mushrooms in pale creamy and soft brown clusters. Burnished, silky caramelized onions on a round white plate. A soft pungent heap of Point Reyes blue in a bowl. And slowly scraping around in a box somewhere, a dozen lobsters. A mesh bag of tiny clams. Two small chickens. Resting in a proofing box, quietly rising, plump yeasty rounds of pizza dough. Then suddenly, sleeves rolled up. Aprons tied.  This is the very best kind of work. I can completely lose myself in pungent olive oil, pillowy dough, the forest floor scent of a mushroom. And maybe something a little out of the ordinary, something I have never tried before.  There’s where the fun is.

My friend Lee said: oh my god that was the best foodie day ever! – and he was right. It was the best foodie day ever. One of the best days ever. We had been invited to attend a wood fire oven class taught by Andrea Mugnaini, a wood fire oven importer and teacher. (Thank you Diana!!!) Every person in the group was passionate, curious, funny and kind. There was this big happy focused energy. I thought we might learn how to light the fire and make a pizza. We only had three hours. Maybe we could roast a chicken. I would have been completely happy to have learned just that. We did learn those things but we also learned a lot more. Three hours magically turned into five.

We roasted peppers, made a dozen pizzas, 2 chickens under a brick, a dozen lobsters and clam bake and an apple, blueberry crisp. All in the pizza oven. We learned how to control the fire , using visual cues to see how hot the oven is. I am lucky enough to have access to a wood fired oven and I know I will really use all the recipes and methods I learned that day. Andrea also taught us how to bone a whole chicken – not by cutting it up in pieces. We kept the  body whole, just removing the bones. I have wanted to learn how to do this for years! We learned to kill a lobster with a big sharp knife. I got the feeling that the method of dumping them into a pot of boiling water is for chumps. On Saturday I found out what I was really up for, which, as it turns out, is not just following directions and making dinner, something that up until now I have always been quite happy to do.

I found out I can side-step squeamishness and cut open a bird with scissors and scrape away the flesh from the bone, and do it neatly, undeterred by it’s prone raw body. Now I don’t have to wonder anymore if I can bone a bird by myself – I did it! I can wield a large sharp knife and cleave through the head of a lobster, quickly dividing it in half, and watch as rigor mortis sets in, then promptly dispatch 3 more. After we removed the bones from the chicken, Janis taught us how to roast the back bone, ribs, and legs with salt and pepper and olive oil to make a brown stock. (I hope you’ve made your own stock – You’re missing out if you haven’t tried it.  It sounds counterintuitive, but life is WAY too short to eat stock from a box.)

Maybe it’s nuts to attach so much importance to these obscure food prep skills, and it is hard to describe why it felt so important to try to master them. And even more important to go home and practice so I don’t forget how. I have two plump chickens waiting for me in my fridge.

Normally, I don’t want to write about specialized equipment or esoteric ingredients at Notes On Dinner. I like to write about food that is accessible to most families, that adults will find interesting and delicious and that will gently challenge children to open up to other textures and tastes than most are exposed to. I don’t expect that most people who read this will have access to a pizza oven. What I do hope is that in the kitchen you can find out what interests you, find a challenge for yourself, even if it is a really small challenge. Cook without any prepared foods for a week! Cook all Indian food for dinner for a week. Roast a pork shoulder and make 5 meals out of it. Eat vegetarian every Monday. It’s these kinds of challenges that make cooking so consuming (yes, really!) for me. I think that’s why, in the kitchen, I am never ever bored.

http://www.mugnaini.com/

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winter/salad: arugula, oranges and shallots

Posted on January 24, 2011 | 6 comments

Winter. Salad. It’s hard to put those words next to each other. Winter salad brings to mind tough-skinned, mealy tomatoes, pale, watery lettuce, limp, wet cucumbers and sad little rings of scallion; bleak as the grey sky. Bitter greens are better. Spinach, arugula, frisee, escarole. Add some finely sliced shallot, pinked up in champagne vinegar? Slices of citrus: grapefruit, oranges? It’s the crescents of deep pink and orange, their sweetness, the bite of bitter arugula and the sharp pink bloom of shallots in vinegar that make this salad so welcome after weeks of dark braised greens. Fresh, crisp intensity – that’s what I want right now. So I’ve been making this salad. (almost every night!)

Winter Salad of Arugula, Orange and Shallot

  • 1 large trimmed bunch or 5 good handfuls of washed arugula
  • 2 navel oranges or 2 ruby grapefruits
  • 1 shallot, thinly sliced
  • 2 tbsp champagne vinegar, or white wine vinegar
  • 3-5 tbsp extra virgin olive oil
  • sea salt and freshly ground black pepper
  1. Slice the shallot with a sharp knife, into thin circles. Toss them in a small bowl with the vinegar. Leave for 5 minutes or so.
  2. With the same sharp knife, carefully cut away the peel of the oranges, leaving almost no pith. Slice the fruit of the orange out, cutting on either side of each segment. You will be left with only the tender fruit.
  3. Pour the vinegar from the shallots into a jar with a lid or another small bowl and add the olive oil to taste.  I add more oil if I use grapefruit, less with oranges. Add the salt and pepper to taste. I would start with 1/4 tsp of salt, whisk it all up and see if you like it by dipping an arugula leaf into it and tasting.
  4. Toss the arugula with the orange or grapefruit sections and the shallots. Add some of the dressing, you may not need all of it. Don’t make a limp overdressed salad. That is not the point! Use a light hand. If you have leftover dressing it will keep in the fridge for when you make the salad tomorrow night!

Since I have eaten this salad so many times in the last few weeks, I am looking to shake things up. Tomorrow I will try 2 tbsp of toasted walnuts and an ounce of crumbled soft goat cheese or mild blue cheese. I know it will be very good.

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Split Pea Soup

Posted on January 17, 2011 | 7 comments

Last week we had an eight year old friend over for dinner.  I had a few misgivings when I offered the invitation because I was committed to making Split Pea Soup and I don’t know too many kids who would want to eat Split Pea Soup. The truth is, this particular kid is averse to some of the most kid-friendly foods like tomato sauce, cheese and pasta so the probability of actually getting him to taste the soup, seemed low. I am not even sure there are too many grown-ups who would be delighted to eat the thick green porridge. I knew even my kids would probably have to be bribed (or as I like to think: incented) with chocolate milkshakes for dessert and another viewing of the Old Spice commercials on Youtube afterwards.  Also, it didn’t help that (as a joke) I described the soup as “green glop with pink chunks in it”. Sorry about that. It did seem funny at the time.  It is a testament to how completely delicious this soup is that every kid ate quite a lot of it, but our eight year old guest devoured it with gusto! If that isn’t enough to convince, I have nothing more to say to you.  As we ate we had some big laughs about the plethora of hair that would grow on his chest because he ate it all – he practically licked the bowl.

I do not come from Split Pea eating people. My mom never made split pea soup. Even my husband, who is from Sweden, where many families have split pea soup and pancakes every Thursday night, even his family never really adopted the tradition. So I am not sure why I decided that the Split Pea Soup from the most current issue of Cooks Illustrated would be just the thing. But it was.

Since I had never made split pea soup before, I looked it up in the Joy of Cooking to see how this version differs from the traditional method. Barring substituting a ham steak and bacon for the ham hock, the methods are strikingly similar. It’s a lot easier to shred a ham steak than deal with the complexities of the hock with its skin, bone and fat. In addition to the traditional croutons (please just make these yourself – or don’t bother) I added crumbled bacon and a swirl of something called balsamic cream that my dad brought me from Germany. Perfect with this soup and I will tell you how to make something similar if you want to try it.

Split Pea Soup is warming, filling, mild and yet somehow very delicious. I can’t pretend that it is pretty.  It is very easy to make. It is perfect for January.

Split Pea Soup

  • 2 tbsp unsalted butter
  • 1 large onion, chopped fine
  • sea salt
  • 2 medium garlic cloves, minced or grated with a microplane
  • 7 cups of water
  • 1 ham steak – about 1 pound, cut into 4 pieces
  • 3 slices of thick cut bacon
  • 2 cups split peas
  • 1/2 tsp of dried thyme or 2 sprigs fresh
  • 2 bay leaves
  • 2 carrots cut into 1/4″ dice
  • 1 celery stalk, cut into 1/4″ dice
  • Black pepper, crumbled bacon, croutons and balsamic reduction (recipes follow) for garnish
  1. Over medium high heat, melt the butter in a heavy bottomed 6 quart soup pot. Add the onion and a 1/2 tsp of salt. Cook 4 minutes, stirring.
  2. Add garlic and stir for 30 seconds.
  3. Add water, ham steak, bacon, split peas, thyme and bay. Increase heat to high and bring soup to a simmer. Cover and reduce heat to low. Simmer until peas are tender – about 45 minutes.
  4. Remove the ham steak and put on a plate. Cover with aluminum foil to keep it from drying out.
  5. Add carrots and celery and cover. Simmer for a further 30 minutes.
  6. While the soup is simmering, shred the ham with two forks, removing and discarding skin. Remove thyme sprigs – if you used them, bay leaves and bacon slices and discard. After 30 mintues, stir the ham into the soup and serve right away. The soup will keep in the refrigerator for up to 3 days. If it gets too thick, it can be thinned with a few tablespoons of water.

Croutons

  • 1 tbsp unsalted butter
  • 2 tbsp olive oil
  • 2 cups 1/2″ bread cubes  – I used a dense baguette with the crusts removed
  • Coarse sea salt
  1. Melt the butter with the olive oil in a medium sized heavy bottomed saute pan.
  2. Add the bread cubes.
  3. Stir occasionally for 7 minutes until the bread is golden and crisp
  4. Sprinkle with a couple of pinches of sea salt

Balsamic Reduction

This is so easy that it isn’t really recipe.

  • 1/2 cup of balsamic vinegar
  1. In a small heavy bottomed sauce pan, reduce the vinegar by half until it is thick and syrupy and coats the back of a spoon.
  2. Cool.

Don’t forget to add freshly ground pepper just before serving!


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Shades of Fog City – Lamb Burger with Chutney and Smoked Cheddar

Posted on December 2, 2010 | 1 comment

When I first moved to San Francisco, I occasionally visited a restaurant called Fog City Diner. A well-heeled but touristy place at the base of the Filbert Steps, Fog City was an out-of-towner and yuppies’ haunt. Singles crowded the bar and the bridge and tunnel set hogged the booths. Often you had to wait forever for a table and  sometimes the food and the service were uneven.

Still, I kept going back because there were a few things I loved about Fog City. One, they made a perfect Pimm’s Cup. Okay I did have to coach the bartender a little bit on how I like it – with fizzy lemonade and a long slice of cucumber, but he was game. The lemonade was made from fresh lemon juice, simple syrup and soda and it made an excellent Pimm’s. Also, the onion rings were exemplary: a crisp cloud enclosing an almost melting interior onion. My favorite though, was the lamb sandwich on focaccia with homemade chutney.  I seem to remember that it was apricot, but it may have been tomato. Whatever. Whether tomato or apricot, it was spicy and floral with that chutney tang I love. The rosy, gamey lamb, the tangy chutney, the chewy focaccia – it was perfect.

Perhaps you think a proper British Pimm’s Cup would be out of place with something so flavorful and almost exotic? No. Not for me anyway. The spicy, sweet Pimms found its match in the spicy, sweet sandwich. And all those people lurking at the bar, wheeling and dealing or on the hunt? Why would anyone subject themselves to that racket after a long day at work? I didn’t even notice them once we scored the booth. Socked in by the San Francisco fog, the restaurant glowed like a beacon. I would run for the glowing windows from work to meet good friends. Cozied up together in a booth, chatting happily and looking out at a gloomy night with the perfect sandwich – who cares if you’re surrounded by yuppies on the prowl?

Fast forward and 20 years later, here I am in Seattle, three kids, a husband, a dog and a cat – I am not running around at night, my mouth watering for a lamb sandwich and a cocktail that complements it perfectly (although some nights I might wish I were). I can’t go back to being twenty-two. Maybe though, maybe, I can conjure up something like that sandwich, since I definitely can’t go back in time. Some weekend in the future, when I have all the time I need to roast a leg of lamb and make focaccia, and whip up a little homemade tomato chutney, I can make the lamb sandwich exactly the way I remember it. Tonight I was in a hurry though – and this quick version made me smile:

Lamb Burger with Chutney and Smoked Cheddar – serves 4

  • 1 1/2 pounds ground lamb
  • 1 slice white sandwich bread, processed into fine crumbs
  • 2 tbsp milk
  • 1 clove garlic grated on a Microplane or pressed in a garlic press
  • 3/4 tsp salt
  • 3/4 tsp freshly ground black pepper
  • 2 tbsp Major Grey’s Chutney, plus additional to serve – I like Patak’s which has a looser set than most chutneys
  • 1/4 pound smoked cheddar – I used Beecher’s
  • (4) brioche buns
  1. Heat a gas grill on high for 15 minutes. Then turn down one (or two – if you have a three burner grill) of the burners to low, so that one burner is left on high and you have a cooler part of the grill to heat the buns.
  2. While the grill heats up, in a medium sized bowl, combine the bread crumbs, the milk, the garlic, the 2 tbsp chutney and the salt and pepper. Mash with a fork until the bread crumbs have formed a thick paste.
  3. Add the ground lamb to the bowl and combine the lamb with the paste lightly but thoroughly with your hands. Form into 4 equally sized patties.
  4. Spray each patty on either side with olive oil.
  5. When the grill is hot, place the patties over the hottest burner for 3-4 minutes, closing the lid. Then turn the burgers, again closing the lid,  and set a timer for 2 minutes. After two minutes, place a slice of smoked cheddar on top of each burger. Close the lid again!
  6. When there is just about 45 seconds left, lightly toast the brioche – be careful! Brioche burn so easily!
  7. Serve immediately accompanied by more chutney.

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Remembering Russian Hill – A very quick pasta for winter

Posted on November 23, 2010 | 3 comments

When I first moved to San Francisco I lived in Russian Hill, which in retrospect was like living in a village within the city. Perched high up above North Beach and Van Ness, Russian Hill felt like a remote hill town in Italy. The bustle of San Francisco was all around, but that was at the bottom of the hill. At the top of the hill, embedded in the mass of apartment buildings, elegant townhouses and tiny parks were short strips of restaurants, dry cleaners and little dusty corner stores. Occasionally a tiny dress shop or gallery would appear…and then disappear. I was a regular at a bakery, a little brunch spot, my bus stop and a small, bustling restaurant.

It was at the intersection of Hyde and Union, and there were 3 or 4 little restaurants clustered at the corner. Intimate in size, not places to cross the city for (parking would just about kill you if you were driving ) but warm, welcoming and familiar. The restaurant corner was two blocks from my apartment. My favorite was the Italian one that was not called I Fratelli. I honestly can’t recall the name – I’m drawing a complete blank. This was not a restaurant that anyone (except me!) would ever write about. It was a very good place to meet another friend or two who also lived on Russian Hill. Which is one of the things I liked about it. In fact, one reason I loved that Russian Hill restaurant was because it was small and unpretentious and so completely removed from the chic, bourgeois, dressy Union Street and the funky, too touristy North Beach.

When I walked home in the dark after work (in my memory it is always wintertime – you would never go to this restaurant on a bright sunny day), I anticipated passing that little restaurant. The windows would be steamed up and there always seemed to be a seductive aroma ambling out the doors and down the street, drawing me in. The scent was of browning lamb chops and pepper, of arugula, shaved parmesan and spicy red wine – at least that’s what I always imagined. Even though the food wasn’t fancy, it was very good.  Through the window I could see the patrons, either tête à tête or in happy more boisterous groups. Everyone looked at home and relaxed. It was that kind of restaurant.

It was around that time that my friend Mark gave me River Cafe Cookbook (published in the U.S. as Italian Country). Rustic Italian cooking was a really big deal at the time and it seemed like everyone was talking, thinking, dreaming about it—including me. As I cooked my way through Ribollita, Cannellini Bean Soup, Pappardelle alle Lepre and the Polenta Almond Lemon Cake, I came upon Cloe’s Quick Sausage Sauce. I know, after all those pretty Italian names “Cloe’s Quick Sausage Sauce” sounds pedestrian and un-lovely. It’s not. The creamy fennel scented pork has a little hit of heat from the chilies, summery warmth from the tomatoes, richness from the cream and the complex tang you can only get from a good aged parmesan cheese. I’d had a similar dish at that little Russian Hill trattoria. On a wintery night, you could light the candles, pour a glass of wine and eat this; tête à tête or in a happy boisterous group. It will be wonderful I promise.

Cloe’s Quick Sausage Sauce, River Cafe Cook Book, Italian Country

Serves 6

  • 2 tbsp olive oil
  • 1 red onion chopped fine
  • 5 Italian sausages, spiced with fennel seed, removed from casings
  • 1 1/2 tbsp finely chopped rosemary
  • 1/4 tsp red pepper flakes
  • 2 bay leaves
  • 1 28 ounce can Italian tomatoes, drained and coarsely chopped
  • 2/3 cup heavy cream
  • 1 1/2 cups grated parmesan, divided
  • 1 pound pasta – I like cavatappi
  1. Heat the 2 tbsp olive oil in a 10 inch heavy sauté pan. sauté onions over medium high heat until browned.
  2. Add sausages, rosemary, red pepper flakes and the bay leaves. Mash the sausages over high heat until finely crumbled and continue to mash and push around for 20 minutes. They are done when they seem to have started to disintegrate. Don’t be lax here, and just break them up and leave them. Take the time to thoroughly break them up and keep going – it is key to the texture of the finished dish.
  3. While sausages are browning, start a large pot of water for the pasta. Once it is boiling, salt generously
  4. When 20 minutes is up, add the tomatoes to the sauce and return to a simmer. Remove from heat.
  5. When the pasta is cooked and drained, toss into the sauté pan with the sauce and add the cream. Heat until steaming, remove from heat and add half the parmesan.
  6. Serve immediately and pass the remaining parmesan at the table.

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