Scottish Cow

Linguine and Clams (from Heat)

First off, if you love food (and I assume you might) and you haven’t read Heat by Bill Buford – you should.  It’s funny, fascinating (at least from the perspective of an outsider) and he’s a fantastic storyteller.  The subtitle summarizes the plot better than I’ll be able to:  “An Amateur's Adventures as Kitchen Slave, Line Cook, Pasta-Maker, and Apprentice to a Dante-Quoting Butcher in Tuscany.”

There you have it.  In the sections relating to “Kitchen Slave” and “Line Cook" Buford is in the Babbo kitchen learning under Mario Batali and his chefs.  One dish that is described is the preparation for is their Linguine and Clams.  It’s interesting to see how such a dish is prepared as it’s ordered from a restaurant kitchen, and amazing to see what an incredible dish it is, with just a few ingredients.  It might even be one of those perfect dishes, if only there were always clams hanging out in the fridge.  Unfortunately, that’s not the case.

This is my adaptation of the preparation described in Heat, but it’s pretty faithful to what he’s described.  I believe he calls for pancetta in the book, which I’ve used a bunch of times (and I think it’s the best), but I’ve also done it with bacon and with regular old ham.  I didn’t have any of the good stuff around this time, but used a nice cured ham, and it still came out wonderfully.  The biggest thing might be timing – I usually end up overcooking the clams – the key is to have the pasta done at the same time the clams are, so it can all come together and land on the table before you’ve got either soft pasta or chewy clams.  You kinda want it the other way around, right?

These quantities work for about 3 people eating – Molly usually loves this dish, but last time complained the clams were too chewy (they were) – apparently Kindergarten is making her a more discerning eater.

For this recipe, like any that cooks quickly, preparation is key.  Get everything set ahead of time, just sitting in bowls or piles on the counter, and let it rip.

- Get 15 or so smaller clams (littlenecks are what I use), and rinse/scrub them – they should be tightly closed or close up when you start handling them.  Set them aside.

- Get ready:

• 1 small or 1/2 large onion, chopped fine
• 1 clove garlic, chopped fine
• 1/2 C of diced/shredded cured/smoked pork product – pancetta, bacon or ham
• 1/3 C or so of dry white wine
• 2 TB butter
• salt/pepper
• fresh herbs (parsley is great), minced
• a big pot of boiling water

- Heat up a large skillet on medium-high, add the pork and cook till crispy (especially if it’s pancetta or bacon). 

- Add the onion and a big pinch of salt and more oil if necessary and cook for a few minutes until soft.  Add the garlic.

- Put the pasta into the pot of water – how much?  Three handfuls.  One for each of us – looks like this (it’s not the same if you aren’t being stared down by a German Shepherd*):

- Cook the garlic for a minute, add the wine, bring to a boil, add the butter, when it melts, add the clams and cover the pan.

The goal, the one I have trouble meeting, is that the pasta should be just about ready when the clams are starting to open.  There’s always a couple clams that don’t want to open.  I poke and prod for a minute and they usually come around to my point of view.

Add the pasta to the pan with the clams and mix it up.  Scoop out about 1/4 C of the pasta water and mix it in, along with the herbs.  The whole thing should come together and look like this:

The sauce is just completely full of the flavor of the sea and the buttery, salty, winey deliciousness.  I’ll leave it with that.

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* This particular German Shepherd couldn’t stare down a squirrel, but that’s besides the point.

What Do You Do With Soybeans?

Forget about to be or not to be - that is the question.

Last month, we got a huge bunch of soybeans from the CSA.  Soybeans are also known as edamame (ed-eh-mommay for those who like me have pronunciation issues.  No comments from quinoa crowd, please).

Soybeans.  Leafy, green, super-healthy, fiber, protein, and I didn’t have any clue what to do with them.  In fact, I had never even seen them au naturel.  Here they are in all their leafy splendor:

This is how we got them, on these enormous 4 foot long branches, dangling with soy-pods.  I convinced Molly that pulling the pods off would be as fun as, oh, I don’t know, whitewashing a fence, and we had a pile of pods in no time.

First we tried one plain and raw.  It was, well, beany.  Kinda crunchy, a mild, buttery bean.

Research said to cook.  Boil in some salted water until tender.  So that was next.  I wasn’t sure how tender to go, since I wasn’t sure what we were going to do with them.  I figured a salad for the first batch and some dip for the second.  Once they were boiled for a bit, separating the beans from the pods was easy (although the pods are edible too.)

 

The beans were mixed with:

- Some slightly cooked corn, stripped from the cob
- Black beans (from a shiny, metal cylinder)
- Some halved sun golds and red grape tomatoes
- Lime juice, avocado oil, basil, salt and pepper

It was delicious. 

If I was really hard-core, I’d have some miso, fermented black beans or tofu to show up, but that’s it….just salad :)

So… any brilliant ideas for soybeans?

Molly and the Earth

The happiness and excitement that Molly exudes when she’s running through the grass to get to the garden is something else.  Trying as carefully as her little hands can manage to cut some lettuce leaves with the purposefully dull pre-school scissors.  Filling the basket, flipping the still-growing yellow and red stemmed chard leaves back and forth, it’s obvious she’s wondering when we get to pick some more.  They are crowding each other out, and we need to make some space where we carelessly planted the seeds too close together, weeks ago, together.  The pride in painting her own little terra cotta pots with pictures of tomatoes and peppers and then getting a seedling into each one, with only a few casualties.  The tears shed over her worm collections, the first of which had its population devastated in what’s come to be known as “The Flood” – the night their screened-in “house” was left outside, presumably for some fresh air, only to encounter a downpour.  There was no ark.

 

It’s gotten to the point where we can dispatch her out to the herb garden with a request for a few cilantro sprigs or some mint, and she’ll usually return with what was requested, usually without dirty roots hanging on, but not always.

She redistributes toads around the yard to the gardens, thinking they’ll be more comfortable there, like a force of nature.  She’s the fifth wind.

It makes me smile when she asks a question that I don’t know the answer to.  “How many cabbages will be on that plant?  Where do the eggplants come out of?”  There’s something to be said for a 31 year-old learning the same things at the same time as his almost 5 year-old.

She’s obviously going to be a better gardener than me some day.  More than that, the building, the digging, the dirt under your fingernails, seeds breaking from the soil – I feel like we’re starting a family tradition – and a wonderful one at that.

She’s learning to work, to have a bit of self reliance in a world that seems to encourage otherwise at times.  She’s learning how good and simple food can be and how annoying it is gritting on dirt between your teeth when you try to eat something straight from the ground.  She’s getting slightly less afraid of things that creep and crawl.  Her pride is a sign, I think, of her feelings for her surroundings.  She may not know it, and certainly has trouble expressing it sometimes, but she cares.  Not just about her family, and her toys, and getting a nice plate of cheese & crackers to snack on in the afternoon.  She cares about this little skewed rectangle of ours, 96 feet wide, and 300 feet from the curb to the weedy fence all the way at the back that we alone are responsible for. 

Good for her. 

So, what to do with all the vegetables…A few ideas, you know, aside from just eating them straight:

1) Better salad dressing – try something different.  One of our favorites is a miso based dressing that was born to be customized.  The dressing gets its body from oil and miso (usually just white) – add some sweet, some sour and herbs and you’re all set.  You really need a blender to get it emulsified and a food processor is probably too big, unless you’re doing a huge batch.

In a blender – a couple spoons of miso, some chopped up chives, scallions or a little minced onion, a spoon of honey or sugar, a little bit of vinegar/lemon juice, a handful of fresh herbs (nothing too strong, hold the rosemary), and give it a blend.  If it’s really thick, add a little water.  While the blender is running, slowly pour in some oil.  I like grapeseed or canola for this (something plain).  The dressing will thicken up as you go.  Stop, taste, fix.  You can add more water if you want it thinner.

It would be great on steamed/grilled veggies as well as the basic green salad.

The picture isn’t fantastic, but then again, it’s just a bowl of dressing.

2) Wrap it – I’ve said it before, wraps are great for kids.  They are excellent for using up leftovers, and hiding ingredients that might be cause for strife (kale, I’m looking in your direction.)  If you don’t have any ingredients to hide, you can set up a big pile of stuff like this, and everyone can build their own (the fruit wasn’t going in.) 

3) Eggs:

Again nothing new, but a little different.  We had some left over spaghetti with pesto.  It ended up getting cooked into a frittata with zucchini, shredded chard leaves and a whole bunch of herbs.  Hard to go wrong with that.

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Chicken Wings, Forget the Buffalo

Let’s get the Q & A out of the way…

You:  You live in Buffalo, right?

Me:  Yes.  Well, 10 minutes to the south, but close enough.

You:  And you made some chicken wings…sweet.

Me:  Yeah.

You:  But…um…those don’t look spicy.  Or buttery.  Or dripping with Franks.

Me:  Nope.

That’s all.  I’ll let you know what happens on my way to work tomorrow.  I’m guessing there’s gonna be a police blockade along with a couple greasy cooks from the Anchor Bar looking for the guy in Buffalo making chicken wings without the, uh, Buffalo.  I may be breaking some unwritten rule I don’t know about…I mean, I didn’t grow up here.

Two more things before we can talk about what’s actually in the picture above.

1)  Designers of menus at crappy chain restaurants all across the country right now are taking their bland, boring items, throwing the word “Buffalo” in front of them, and putting some hot sauce on top.  Stop it.  Very annoying.  Well, at least you aren’t celebrating our other national claims to fame – an almost good enough football team and crappy winter weather (which isn’t really that bad.)

2)  The chicken wing is a really underused item.  Why is it that you rarely see them other than on the appetizer menu in “Buffalo” form?  They are delicious (much tastier than the breast).  They are cheap (much cheaper than the breast).  They cook really quickly – much quicker than your dry, expensive chicken breast.  Not you personally.  Just someone out there, who had a dry leathery chicken breast for dinner.  We can get wings from a farmer up the road for under $2/LB, frozen in nice 1 LB packages.  Molly calls them “chicken bones” and plays the drums on her plate when she’s done.  What’s not to love?

Looking for something different to do with chicken wings wasn’t difficult to do.  You can pretty much take any kind of dry rub, sauce or glaze and work from there.  I wanted to do something with lavender, because it’s great and it goes with chicken.  Honey because I wanted something sweet, and lemon, because me and lemon, we can’t stay away from each other.  Getting married soon.

The wings went into a bath of some lemon juice, a little vinegar, salt/pepper and olive oil for about an hour before we ate.  Some flavor, some tenderness maybe (not really an issue with these guys) and an interesting study that’s been popping up lately – we knew that those yummy charred crunchy bits on grilled food (hmmm…none of those in the photo above) were delicious and also potentially a carcinogen.  There’s research now that a quick acidic bath might actually help mitigate some of that.  The phrase “unmarinated breasts” appears in that article.  Hopefully that doesn’t cause any unnecessary blushing or run-in’s with your corporate IT policies.  Either way, the marinade doesn’t hurt the wing, so make a basic vinaigrette and let the wings hang out in that.  It may end up having some benefits.

I grilled them directly over a hot charcoal fire, gas grill would be fine, so would a broiler.  As soon as the wings were basically done, but weren’t completely crispy, they got the glaze.  It was a big scoop of honey, a lemon’s worth of juice, a big handful of chopped lavender and some more s/p all whisked up together.  It tasted good just as is – the first clue that it was going to be good on the wings.  Brush it on one side of the wings, flip them, let them sit for a minute, brush and flip again.  Keep doing that – but be careful.  The honey has this deep, dark urge to burn, and it will not be stopped.  If there’s any left, you can give the wings a little coat after they come off the grill.

These won’t be the last non-Buffalo chicken wings this summer.  A perfect dinner served with a salad, and some ice cream for dessert. 

The ice cream was homemade “coffee with crunchies” (Molly’s name for Coffee Heath Bar Crunch) using the coffee ice cream recipe from David Lebovitz’s Perfect Scoop.  Super good.  Here’s the beans soaking in milk, cream and sugar.  What a way to go.

From Vietnam to Germany (Bun Thit Nuong and Riesling)

*** Update: One of my flickr contacts pointed out that this can be considered nem nuong, which is usually skewered sausage-like meat, while thit nuong is flat pieces of meat.  There you go! ***

If there was one, just one cuisine, that I was forced to eat, forsaking all others for eternity, it just might be that of Vietnam.  Granted, my exposure to Vietnamese food is fairly narrow - some restaurants in Buffalo…some in Boston.  Never have I set my clumsy feet on Vietnamese soil for a spoon of Phở or some Bánh mì.  That’s not to say that I never will…

This is my attempt at one of my favorite Vietnamese dishes – I believe the name is Bun Thit Nuong – at least that’s what it was called on the menu of Pho 99 – a wonderful little place that was nestled into the heart of downtown Buffalo, until its building was razed for yet another courthouse.  Come to scenic Buffalo, the personal injury litigation capital of the Northeast.

Grrr…stepping away from the bitterness…I love the flavors of the food, the freshness of the herbs and vegetables, the heat from the chilis, the salty sour flavors of citrus and fish sauce, the smoky char of the grilled meat, the ubiquitous dipping sauces.  Vietnamese food seems to have it all, and this dish, for me, is the perfect example.

Grilled pork served over noodles and vegetables.  The pork is essentially a quick sausage, full of shallots and garlic, and formed into logs.  Pork logs, I’ve been informed, does not sound terribly appealing, and that may be true, but it’s an apt description.  The noodles are rice vermicelli (just thin noodles made from rice, cooked quickly with a soak in hot water), and the salad is shredded lettuce (some herbs mixed in), cucumbers, carrots and bean sprouts.

The most important element, however, is the sauce.  It’s a bowl of Nuoc Cham, the standard Vietnamese dipping sauce.  It’s salty, sour and sweet, and potentially spicy.  It’s one of those things that comes on strong, and once the taste leaves your mouth, you get desperate for more.  And more.  You’re willing to drink the remaining liquid straight from the bowl, much to the chagrin and disgust of some of your coworkers (those poor bastards don’t know what they are missing), and indeed, when you wake up at 2:15 A.M., still burping limey fish sauce and dreaming of pork logs, you know you’re well on your way to an addiction and may find yourself whipping up a batch for breakfast.

This is what I hear anyway.

When I get my hands on this dish, the nuoc cham is poured over the top, as a dressing, the pork is removed from its skewers, delogged, and mixed in, so the flavors can come together in the bowl.  I then disappear into a state of unawareness and bliss.

In the end, my rendition was not nearly as good or as flavorful as Pho’s.  That’s fine with me.  It was still delicious.

To go with it, I went for a German Riesling.  A white wine that can go from cloyingly sweet to dry, Riesling is known to be a food friendly wine, especially with flavorful and spicy Southeast Asian dishes, because of its sweetness and acidity.  It’s also one we were already fans of, and in fact, is a wine that flourishes in one of the few places I’ve been outside of the country.  The Mosel River valley in Germany is known for its Rieslings and the picture below was taken on a trip there back in May of 2001.  My crappy camera and I simply didn’t do justice to the land.

This Riesling was delicious on its own, with citrus and melony flavors.   It wasn’t bubbly by any means, but seemed to have a bit of a sparkle to it.  Once it met the dish, the lime flavors in both the nuoc cham and the wine exploded.  Literally, yes, our kitchen was aflame.  It was like they were destined to meet, the wine both emphasizing the flavors and cooling the spiciness.

And finally, the recipes..

Nuoc Cham

1/4-1/3 C water
1/4-1/3 C fish sauce
1/4-1/3 C lime juice (gotta be fresh)
Sugar to taste, I start with 1-2TB and work up from there
Julienned/shredded carrots
Minced garlic, to taste
Minced chilis/chili rings, to taste

Mix everything together well (might need to whisk in the sugar.)  It’s that easy.  I usually start with equal amounts of the 3 liquids and then add more of them to change the flavors once the rest of the ingredients are in.  The flavors are strong, so more water is always an option.  You don’t need alot of garlic – sometimes I just leave it out, or float a smashed glove in there.  In the pictured version, I used a bunch of green garlic.  Same with the chilis – I like using the rings, as they can be eaten or avoided and don’t completely overwhelm the rest of the sauce.

The Pork (Logs)

1 lb ground pork
Handful of minced shallots
2-3 cloves garlic, minced
2 stalks lemongrass, peeled to the core, minced
2 TB fish sauce
1 TB oil
Salt/pepper
Small handful of bread crumbs (enough to bind the pork)

Mix all the ingredients together – if you want to grind the pork from scratch and get more pork fat in there, go for it.  Fry a small piece to test the flavors and adjust if necessary.  Refrigerate the mixture, squeeze onto wooden skewers using the palm of your hand, and grill/broil until cooked through.

The Salad

Lettuce
Carrots
Cucumber
Bean Sprouts
Mint & Cilantro

The Assembly

Cook some rice vermicelli according to the directions on the package.  Rinse with cool water when done and set aside to drain.  Shred some lettuce (in this case, iceberg works great), add some chopped mint and cilantro, and julienne some carrots and cucumbers.  Put some of the noodles at the bottom of the bowl.  Top with lettuce, carrots, cukes, and bean sprouts.  Lay a couple skewers on the top, sprinkle on some crushed peanuts and cilantro and serve with a big, overflowing bowl of nuoc cham.

Cherry & Yogurt Clafoutis

A quick note before we talk clafoutis:  About last week's entry in Paper Chef #31 – sweet merciful crap, I won!! 

Still in a bit of shock about the whole thing, but there’s a big smile on my face, as every dish looked great.  After making, tasting and writing my entry up, I felt pretty good, but then after seeing the competition, I would have bet on someone else.  Hank did a fantastic write up of all the entries (and fish steak seemed to be a truly inspiring choice) and I had some similar thoughts – sauerkraut strudel?  How could you turn that down?  Magnus’ dish looked incredible and I was immediately struck by the composition of it.  But of all of them, if I had the opportunity to try just one, I probably would have sunk my fork into Natashya’s Moroccan Salmon dish – the flavors looked fantastic.  From start to finish, this was a ton of fun, can’t wait to have another go at it, and especially looking forward to judging (a little nervous too) and picking an ingredient for next month’s round!

…

I had previously threatened a sour cherry dish, but when we got our veggies this week, there were no sour cherries – just 4 lbs of sweet ones.   A let down maybe, but not a big enough deterrent to completely knock me off the target of a cherry-related dessert.

Clafoutis is a great word.  Its appearance takes enjoyment in defying pronunciation – at least for me.  The spellchecker wants nothing to do with it.    But the spellchecker has never tried one, otherwise, I believe, it would find nothing to complain about.

Clafoutis is a classic French custardy dessert.  So custardy, in fact, that when Julia Child translates it in Mastering the Art… she calls it “flan".  To me, it’s basically a pancake batter with fruit that bakes up thick and well…custardy.  Depending on how long you bake it, you can end up with a consistency somwhere along the custardy to cakey continuum.  This came out with a solid, dense custard feel to it, and that seemed perfect to me.

The big change I’ve made from standard clafoutis batters is the substitution of vanilla yogurt for some of the milk/cream.  It’s a favorite key ingredient in our standard pancake recipe, so I figured it would be right at home here.  It lent a great tangy flavor and the vanilla and cherries were made for each other.  It’s your simple, beautiful fruit dessert.  The only thing easier would be eating the fruit straight, and there’s nothing wrong with that either.

Cherry & Yogurt Clafoutis

2-3 C of pitted black cherries, depending on your desired ratio of cake:fruit
3 eggs
3/4 C milk
1/2 C whole milk vanilla yogurt
2/3 C flour
1/2 C sugar
Salt, a big pinch

- Preheat oven to 375

- Butter a 10 inch casserole pan, pie pan, or oven safe skillet.  Scatter cherries along the bottom.

- Beat eggs, milk and yogurt together

- Mix flour, sugar and salt and whisk into egg mixture

- Pour over cherries, shake pan to distribute and bake for 40-50 minutes (maybe longer depending on depth), at least until toothpick in center comes out clean.

Pizza, Pesto and a Plethora of Plants

A quick post tonight…2 weeks ago in the CSA basket (literally at this point, as we’ve been picking up in a flexible laundry basket) we got a ton of arugula.  We also have a bunch coming up in the garden. So...

Arugula in a salad? Excellent.

Arugula pesto?  Oh baby.

This was just thrown together the same way we do our basil-based pesto.  Dump the ingredients in the food processor and go.  It seems to be quite impossible to overdose on any given ingredient.  That goes for the garlic, the cheese, the nuts and the basil (in this case the arugula) – in fact, the only limitation seems to be the size of our Cuisinart bowl.

What? Food Processor?  I’m sorry if you're one of the 67 enraged Italian Grandmothers flinging their mortars, pestles and soppressata at their computer monitors right now.  This is how my mother taught me, and how it will always be done here.

What’s the best thing to do with arugula pesto?  Sure, it’s up to you, but if you ask me, it goes on a pizza.  We try to do a homemade pizza per week around here and I’ll be damned, but it’s one schedule that we seem to have no problem keeping on top of.

Here’s what went into the pesto:

-  Several huge handfuls of arugula, stems below leaves removed (basically fill the food processor)

-  Handful of walnuts

-  Handful of pine nuts

-  6-8 garlic scapes (6 cloves is fine – we didn’t have any)

-  2 handfuls parmesan

-  Salt and pepper

Turn on the food processor and drizzle olive oil in the top while it’s going.  You’ll use a good amount of oil (1/2 cup?).  Stop processing once it’s still a little chunky, but all brought together well.

Once it was made, it was slathered on stretched out pizza dough.  Store bought is fine.  Let it sit in the fridge for a few days to flavor up and get nice and gassy.  Ha…moving on…if you want homemade, the very first recipe here, Molly’s basic bread, will also make a great pizza dough.  Add some olive oil to it (along with the water) and if you can let it sit in the fridge for a couple days before using, that’s fantastic. 

So, pesto down, torn chunks of soft/fresh mozzarella go on top, a couple halved grape tomatoes, a few spoons of leftover ricotta, a little oil and salt and into your oven at it’s hottest possible setting.  I like to stretch it on parchment paper on the back of a sheet pan, and then slide it onto a baking stone.

If you want a nicely written up arugula pesto recipe, check out this one on Kalofagas.  While you’re at it, make the rest of Peter's recipes too.  We're doing his Kolokithokeftedes (zucchini fritters) tomorrow.

....

Yesterday in the CSA, we got 5 heads of assorted lettuces, collards (or kale), dandelion greens, herbs, a huge bunch of rainbow chard, and 4 lbs of cherries.  All the non-lettuce greens were wilted down and packaged up.  As I said, there's a pizza per week, and the chard and last weeks spinach went onto the pizza tonight.  No photos...yet...but here are some of the veggies, and a little friend that made his escape on a dandelion leaf.

Braised Tuna with Walnut Socca

Last week I discovered Paper Chef.  What’s that you ask?  If you don’t already know (Congratulations!  You were under the same rock as me apparently…), the idea is simple – you’re given a list of ingredients – make something out of them, blog about it and let it be judged against everyone else’s entries.  I discovered it via Hunter Angler Gardener Cook (the June winner) via Simply Recipes.  How have I not come across this before?  It’s only been going on for almost 4 years at this point.    The idea caught my eye and so did the list of ingredients for the month:  Fresh oregano, chickpeas / chickpea flour, walnuts and a fish steak.  “Hmm…” you say. 

That’s what I said too.

Before I get any further with my recipe, I’ll note that I misread the rules until just now as I was putting this post together– my dish is really two dishes, but the rules are pretty clear (ahem, reading them now, at least) that it needs to be one dish.  However – all the of the ingredients are in one of the dishes, so I guess my effort needs to be judged solely on the braised tuna alone, and not the socca.  Oh well.  If I had served the braise on top of the socca would it have counted?  Eh, it doesn’t matter.  Except that the socca is damn tasty – so although it can’t be judged, it should definitely be eaten.

** UPDATE (7/8, 10:00 AM) **  I heard back from Paper Chef World Headquarters this morning, and it turns out the two dishes are to be considered as one, as they are served together and not really two full blown entrees.  Woot!  (Thanks Ilva)

So...what’s socca?  Well, that’s one of the reasons the contest caught my eye – it’s a flatbread made from chickpea flour (besan).  There are French and Italian (farinata) versions of it and It’s been sitting on the top of my list of dishes to try for awhile after reading Bittman’s recipe.  The lightbulb above my head lit up again a few weeks ago when there was both a follow up column on his blog and I had stumbled on some chickpea flour at the store.  Now with the contest, the stars now seem to be aligning.  Is it lame that my stars align in terms of unusual flours?  Speaking of which, I swapped out some of the chickpea flour for toasted and ground walnuts.  The effect was awesome, and the dark, rich, nuttiness came right through.  The socca experiments will definitely continue.

For the main dish, I had to fight every grill-loving, smoky-charcoal-dreaming bone in my body not to grill the fish steak.  It was almost painful not to and in fact, I probably should have, instead of having both the oven and the stove cranking away when it’s 85 outside.  Anyhow, I had never tried braising fish, so this seemed like the time to do it.  It was also lovely having an excuse for buying a fish steak.  We usually end up having fillet cuts of your standard white fishies (trout, tilapia, snapper, etc), so this was a treat.  The braise is based on tomatoes and chickpeas, and finished off with a nice dose of oregano, lemon zest, and walnuts.  It was very quick and I think the flavors and textures came together really well:  The soft tomatoes, slightly firmer chickpeas and the crunch of the toasted walnuts.  While not served with its typically delicious raw-red interior, the cooked to faintly-pink tuna in the braise was tender and still moist.

So, thanks for the contest, the inspiring ingredients, and an excuse to cook a few new things.

And finally, thanks for reading!  What would you have made??

I can’t wait to see what others turn in…

Tuna Braised with Chickpeas & Tomatoes

1 tuna steak (about 3/4 lb)
14 oz can chickpeas, rinsed & drained
28 oz can diced tomatoes (if you’ve got honest-to-god, in-season reds, use them by all means!)
1 small onion, diced
3 cloves garlic, minced
Chili flakes (I used aleppo – not too hot)
Dry white wine
1/4 C heavy cream
1 TB roughly minced fresh oregano
Zest of one lemon
1 C chopped walnuts

- Toast the chopped walnuts either in a toaster oven (or regular oven on a sheet pan) until they start to get a little crunchy and firm up.  Careful – it’s a quick step from here to burnt bits.  Set aside.

- Get a heavy, medium sized pan with a lid over medium heat (I used a 3.5 qt dutch oven).

- Add swirl of oil, onions, a big pinch of salt, small pinch of chili flakes.  Saute until golden and soft.

- Add garlic and stir for a minute.

- Add a big splash of white wine, bring to boil and cook for a couple minutes.

- Add the chickpeas and a little more than half the tomatoes.  At this point, mine was a little dense and needed some liquid.  I was debating more of the tomatoes, but instead added about 1/3 C of water and that worked.  If you want it more tomatoey, go for it.

-  Bring to boil, turn to medium-low and place the tuna on top, nestling it in about half way.  Cover the pot almost all the way and cook at a steady, low simmer until the tuna is gray up the sides, but still pink on top (took me 10 minutes roughly).  Flip tuna over and go until tuna is as desired (I did about 5 minutes more).

- Remove tuna and set aside, covered.  Add the cream, oregano, lemon zest and a big handful of the toasted walnuts.  Stir to combine.  Add salt and pepper as needed.  Serve along with the socca.

Walnut & Oregano Socca

3/4 C chickpea flour
1/4 C walnut flour (see steps below)
1 C warm water
E.V. Olive Oil
2 big pinches salt
Several big grinds of pepper
1 TB or more minced oregano

- Place a 12 inch cast iron skillet in a oven at 450

- Take half of the toasted walnuts, and pulse them in the food processor until very small (couscous sized?).

- Sift the the chickpea flour into the walnut flour, add the salt and pepper

- Whisk in the water, a couple glugs of olive oil and the oregano.

- Take the hot skillet out, pour a couple more glugs of oil into it, swirl, add the batter, and swirl again. 

- Bake for about 15 minutes, until the edges brown and start to curl up.  Turn on the broiler to get the top browned if necessary (it was for me both times I’ve made it)

- Remove and cut into wedges.

This Week in Veggies

Here's the minimalist photo of the CSA share for the week.  A little sample of each, instead of a giant pile of green.  There were lots of options this week - a couple pounds of spinach, herb choices, scallions, and a choice of kale, red and green mustard greens, mizuna, collards and komatsu (which I thought was the name of a tractor manufacturer).  I went for the kale - Molly picked the mizuna.  I have no clue what we're doing with the kale.  Way back when, I made some joke about eating kale salad to make up for 2 meals of welsh rabbit in a row.  I guess this is payback time.  Mother nature's a bitch, eh?  I'm thinking some kind of rice bowl with the shredded, sauteed kale in it.  Egg on top?  We'll probably saute the mizuna and have it with something off the grill.  The spinach will go into some pasta probably, or even just a salad.

So, any great kale recipes out there? 

And we had our second round of strawberries (woo-hoo!) and a choice of 1 1/2 lbs of either sweet or sour cherries.  Excuse me while I drool on the keyboard.  I didn't have anything in mind already for sour cherries, so we'll brainstorm this week and opt for some next week.

Here's a couple quick veggie dishes we had last week.  Neither was from the share, but both were from local farms.  First the potatoes. 

This is adapted from a potato recipe in All About Braising by Molly Stevens.  This is one fantastic book, if you haven't seen it.  In addition to some incredible recipes and flavors, she does a great job on general techniques and approaches to braising.  I would eat a pair of dirty Chuck Taylors if they were nicely braised.

We had some new potatoes, red and white, some tiny, some a little bigger.  Just rinse them off, halve/quarter any big ones and put them in the pot.  Add some garlic (minced, whole, chopped greens, whatever), salt, pepper and any herbs you want.  If you've got some duck fat, you're my hero.  Put in a scoop.  If not, a couple TBs of butter or olive oil will be good.  Fresh herbs are great - save them for the end.  Put water in the pan so it's about halfway up the potatoes.  Heat on high, bring to boil.  Turn down to a pretty good simmer and put a lid almost all the way on.  You want them to braise (keeping the heat in) but also want some of the moisture to escape.  Stir them around every now and then.  When they are just about done, crank the heat back up and boil away all of the liquid with the lid off, tossing the potatoes occasionally.  They will finish up all glossy from the reduced liquid along with whatever fat was left.  Add your herbs now, more salt and pepper if necessary, and you've got my favorite side dish made from potatoes.

The second one was baked tomatoes.  These were originally going to have baked eggs (ham, tomato, herbs, goat cheese with an egg on top) done inside of them, but they seemed a little too small.  So instead, they got restuffed with that stuff, minus the egg.  Use a knife to cut the top of the tomato off, aiming it in diagonally towards the center as you go around.  I poked my hand right through the side.  Don't do that.  Once the top is off, scoop out as much as you can without breaking the skin.  Chop what you've removed and put in a strainer to get out the liquid.  At this point you could do all sorts of stuff.  For these, I mixed some of the chopped reserved tomatoes with some sliced ham, cubes of bread, fresh basil, marjoram, salt and pepper.  Sprinkle salt and pepper in the tomato bowl, put a little spoon of ricotta in the bottom, fill it with your stuffing and sprinkle the tops with grated parm.  Bake at 400 until done.

That was really pretty easy.

Tonight felt like summer.  A late dinner on the front porch, Molly dancing on the lawn and feeding strawberries to Abby, the band across the street in the park playing Sousa for a crowd in lawn chairs, kids running in circles like a swarm of flies and the breeze coming in from the west, straight off the lake, nice and cool. 

We're even supposed to have some thunder tonight.

Ours, All Ours

Yes!

For dinner the other night we had a salad composed entirely of stuff that grew in our dirt.  Our dirt!  I realize this isn't terribly novel or earth-shattering, but it was the first crop out of our first real family garden - so I'm allowed some excitement. 

For days Molly and I had been stealing lettuce leaves out of the garden when we were nearby, but then we noticed a red radish top sneaking out of the ground and decided it was time.  The following night, we headed out with the basket to collect.  The spinach is growing miserably - probably went in too late, possibly went in too close together, definitely wasn't thinned out.  So we've got about half of it in that basket.  The lettuce looks like a big leafy carpet, it having been seeded too closely also, but we've got a ton of it.  I'm guessing the leaves would get bigger if they actually had some breathing room, but who knows.  They are damn tasty in their current size, so I'm not complaining.

The arugula is growing like crazy too - it was a gift to Tina from another Buffalo blogger (thanks Josie!!) - so we had three different leaves, and some sliced radishes.

To go with that, we had a quick homemade vinaigrette and here's the plan for that...

A vinaigrette is supposed to be somewhere in the range of 3:1, oil to acid, with some salt and pepper.  That's the important part.  The rest is just adding additional flavors.  A little mayo or mustard.  Some garlic, chives, shallots, scallions and/or some herbs.  You can use a whisk (more work), a blender (more creamy) or an old jar (ah, just right).  This is how I always remember doing it, so sure enough, it's how I still do it. Put everything in and do the shake.

This one started with about 1/4 C of lemon juice and 3/4 C of oil (half grapeseed and half e.v. olive oil).  Olive oil has a lot of flavor, grapeseed helps tame it.  I love lemon juice.  I actually ended up adding a little rice vinegar because it didn't have enough acidity.  A couple good pinches of salt and pepper.  Some minced green garlic and chives.  And a little bit of mustard and a little bit of taragon.  It may not have needed all those additions, but it was nice and bright and full of flavor (and not full of whatever it is that keeps bottled dressing alive in the fridge for months.)  Just keep tweaking it until you've got what you want.

Here's it is, before and after the shake-a, shake-a, shake-a:

...

Not related, but for those that think the food writing in the Times is perhaps a bit snooty - they did a root beer tasting - I thought that was cool - their tastings are wine most of the time, beer sometimes (love those), but this was a first.  Like the author, I rarely drink soda, but when I do, a nice root beer is always good.  Yes, I said "soda."  Any comments from the "pop" drinkers will be moderated swiftly and appropriately.

Finally, there's three new links included at the side - Amber's Ambry, Turkey Cookies and Angry Chicken - three crafty blogs.  "Crafty blogs? WTF?!"  You say,  "Is he going soft?"  Nope, actually I've always been.  They are mostly focused on crafts, but all 3 often have thoughts about cooking, food and gardening as well.  Food and crafts.  There are some obvious parallels.  They are both all about the homemade.  They are both concerned with turning quality raw ingredients into something better.  Creation and experimentation.  Patterns and recipes.  Immense satisfaction.  Excessive and creative swearing when your equipment isn't cooperating.   

Most importantly these blogs are all very funny, well-written, and personal.  You get a real sense of the author through the words.  It's why I read them and why you might be interested as well.  Even if you, like me, don't get very excited about buttonholes and rolled hems.

Mmmm...rolled hams...