Monday, August 23, 2010

Playing with summer: artichoke ragout

I have no idea what a ragout is. I know what a ragu' is , but I think a ragout is, basically, a stew of different vegetables. If I'm right, and Annalena is never wrong, then this is a ragout, inspired by, well, who knows?
Background here: when I was coming of age in farmers markets, I was told that you could NOT grow artichokes in New York. NO NO NO. Too hard, the season was too long, the soil wasn't right, they took too much trouble.

Then I went to a dinner cooked by the King of local cooking, Peter Hoffmann, and he served artichokes. After the meal, I asked where he got them. He wouldn't tell me.
Today, he would. We have become great friends. BUT, nyah nyah, I don't need to have him tell me, because the farmers of NY took it up as a challenge, and now, you can get artichokes from local farmers.

Lemme tell you though, you can't get em cheap. And if you're looking for those huge globe artichokes that come from California and are so good, keep looking. I recently bought a bunch of them from an organic farmer. I didn't notice the 10.00 a pound price tag. Oh well...

Now, nothing will stimulate Annalena to use something in the fridge like the fact that she paid a small fortune for it. And there was that bag of artichokes in the fridge, and Annalena seeing her hard earned money going to the compost pile. THAT was not going to happen.

Well, Italians use fennel with artichokes a lot. And Annalena LOVES fennel. And she had a bulb of it in the kitchen. (Now, if you don't like fennel, try this anyway because the licorice flavor leaves, and if you don't believe me, use celery instead). So.. we got to work. Here we go.

You can do t his, by the way, with globe artichokes. And if all you have are frozen artichoke hearts, or bottoms, go ahead. It will work. Just cut down the cooking time for the dish.

To prep the artichokes, snap back the outer leaves until the break, and keep on doing that, until you get to the faintly green, soft leaves. The stuff you broke off IS going to the compost pile. Then, cut the tips off of the top of them, as these are sharp critters. If the artichokes are small, half them. If they are big, quarter them. If they are huge, do sixes or eights. Put them in a pot with a smashed clove of garlic, a half teaspoon of salt and liquid consisting of half olive oil and half water to cover them. Then cover the pot. Bring it to a low heat, and cook away until the artichokes are falling apart. This can take anywhere from fifteen minutes to half an hour. Remember the line "stick a fork in him, he's done?" Well, that's what you do here.

While they're cooking, get rid of the stems and the fronds of the fennel and contribute to the compost pile again. Quarter the bulb, and then slice it like celery. OR, if you're using celery, well, slice it like celery.

When the artichokes are finished, drain them, and put the liquid into a frying pan (Remember all that olive oil?). Get this hot, and add the fennel or celery, then after about five minutes, add the artichokes back. Now, add a pint of cherry tomatoes. You don't have to cut them in half. I like them whole, but if you have a desire to do so, cut them up. Toss that into the pot, cover it, and let it cook for about another 7 minutes or so. Taste it and correct the seasoning.

You have a wonderful vegetarian , nay, a VEGAN dish here, that you can put on pasta, or serve by itself. If, as I did, you put it underneath some fish, say cod or monkfish and baked it at 425 for fifteen minutes, you will have a dish that will make you wondering "how wonderful am I?" because you will be.

California, you may have figs, but we have... artichokes. And Peter Hoffmann, I still love you and need you, but your cover's been blown on the artichokes.

You knew it was coming: ratatouile

I probably misspelled that, and everyone who CAN spell it and is looking for a recipe will just have to do without mine. SIGH.
Yes, it IS that time of year. If you are a farmers market shopper, you are inundated with a sea of zucchini. Eggplant confront you everywhere. Purple, light purple, white. Tiny, small, medium sized, huge, round, elongated. And that's just the egpplant. Green, yellow, white, curly, long, round, avocado. And that's the squash. There's so much...

Trust me. In three months, we'll all be wishing we had it all. So, if you believe "the best of times is now" (and ragazzi, the best of times is ALWAYS now, whenever NOW is. Trust me on this. Trust me too on 'if you can't be with the one you love, honey, love the one you're with. You won't regret it), then just buck up and do SOMETHING with that bounty.

Like make ratatouile. You know how. Of course you do. This is so easy to do, that you should be making it right now instead of reading this blog entry.

OK, read this blog entry, and then go and make it.

There are as many ratatouile recipes as there are ways to spell it. To Annalena's point of view, as long as they contain the four required elements (just like figure skating's eight required elements - or is it 9 these days?), the ratatouile is valid.

And what are those four required elements? Sue has her hand up as she always does, even though she is a specialist in pastry. Sue KNOWS these things. So someone else answer.

OK, the four required elements of ratatouile are eggplant, squash, tomatoes and basil. Those of you who thought garlic or salt get half credit, because it's not really good if you don't have those in it, but they are NOT required. The differences come in proportion and which type.

I really do not care what varieties you use. I just want you to use the best ingredients you have, and then, well... play with it. Tonight, when I made mine, I was faced with two bags of vegetables that I was very reluctant to give up: one was a bag of cubanelle (frying) peppers, and the other... a bag of organic okra. I tossed the okra and regretted it as soon as I did. NEXT batch of ratatouile WILL Have it in. But the peppers? Gee, did that sound logical. Here's how I made mine.

You start with three very large cloves of garlic. Slice them after you've peeled them. Put them aside, and work with EQUAL amounts of each of your required vegetables. In other words, if you have a pound of eggplant, use a pound of squash and a pound of tomatoes. I had a lavender eggplant, some globe zucchini, green and yellow, and heirloom tomatoes. Peel the eggplant and cube it. Stop worrying about how precise the cubes are. Then cube the squash, and the tomatoes. Keep them separate. In my case, I also seeded and cubed the peppers.

Put more olive oil than you think you'll need in the bottom of a big pot. Put the garlic in when it's cold. When the garlic begins to sizzle, add the eggplant, and stir it a bit. Then, lower the heat and cover it.

Come back in four minutes or so, and you'll see why I told you to use more olive oil than you will need. The eggplant will have picked it all up. Add some more, and now, add a heaping teaspoon of salt. Add the squash, and cover the pot again. Cook for another four minutes. Uncover the pot, and now, add another teaspoon of salt, and the tomatoes. At this point, add the leaves of half of a small bunch of basil, and cover the pot again, for another four minutes.

When the time is up, mirabile dictu, the oil will have been re-released as the eggplant breaks down and the water from the tomatoes forces the issue (because it does: the chemistry is a bit complicated, but the liquid phase is forcing some of the oil out of the eggplant.

At this point, you are done, except.... put the rest of the leaves of that bunch of basil in the pot, and turn off the heat.

You will have way more stew than you know what to do with. Well, I will tell you what to do with it. Ultimately, this is a very lean, very high fiber dish. So serve it next to something rich. Like a duck breast . Or, put it in a crepe. Or, on a pizza. Or, in perhaps my favorite way of using it (courtesy of the great MFK Fisher), warm some of it up, with either shrimp or scallops or both on top. The heat from the vegetables will cook the fish, and you have a wonderful lunch or light supper.

And if you happen to have vegetarian, or vegan friends, you can serve them half of this, and put the fish on top of it for yourself. If the vegans are actually vegetarians, put some cheese in it. You will not regret it.

And then, with the leftovers(and you WILL have leftovers), go and make one of the other ideas here.

Folks, "the best of times IS now. " Make that ratatouile, enjoy it, and try to make a mental note for the winter when you're eating root vegetables and longing for a tomato.

Sunday, August 22, 2010

Of Carlo, vacations, ankles, risotto and me: caponata

That's a long title, but I shall explain as best I can. Many years ago, Carlo Middione wrote a cookbook called "The Food of Southern Italy." To say that it was ahead of its time is an understatement. Published in 1987, it clearly preceded the current rush to regionalism in cooking, where it sometimes seems it's not enough to cover "The Cooking of Rome," but "The Cooking of the following three streets." I think it is fair to say that, at the time, the country was very much enamored of NORTHERN Italian cooking, and southern cooking was thought of as red sauce and pasta and meatballs and nothing more. Carlo's book, if you had it, changed all of that. Yes, there were classics in it that everyone knew, but there was SO much more. I used the book often - Guy and I were vegetarians at the time, and there is so much lucious vegetable based cooking out of Southern Italy that you can cook for months without repeating yourself - even though you'll want to. I use the book for a few recipes today, and I'm going to go back. Everytime I read the book, I feel inspired.
Carlo is a San Francisco centered chef. One year, just before we were going on vacation, a review of his restaurant came out in the late, lamented "Gourmet." It turned out that the restaurant was exactly two blocks from where we stay when we visit. We got a last minute reservation with no problem, met a wonderful waiter, named Kevin, and Carlo himself.
Without knowing it, this was the first time I was exposed to seasonal cooking. There was a strawberry tart on the dessert menu, and the waiter came by to say that Carlo did not feel that the strawberries were good enough that day, so he had substituted something else. I do not recall what that was, but this was something that was exciting at the time: the food isn't good enough, so you don't make it. HUH??? Also, there were no salt and pepper shakers on the table. There WAS a note on the menu that said "we feel our food is correctly seasoned. If you disagree, please discuss it with us." BRAVO. I don't put out salt and pepper either, and if people feel slightly intimidated in asking for it, GOOD.
OK, so where comes the ankle? Well, it was 1998. We were on vacation in the fall and I had a freak accident. Three days into the vacation, I "sprained" my ankle. For those who do not know, spraining an ankle can be worse than breaking a bone. Before you could say "metatarsus," I was on crutches.

Try to imagine a more than slightly overweight 40 year old trying to get around San Francisco's hills, on crutches. It was NOT going to work and, with great regret, we cut our vacation short. I still remember being miserable that last day as we spent it in our hotel room, watching television, Guy being the support he always has been as we waited for the time we needed to get to the airport - a red eye flight.

There WAS time for dinner, and we were hungry. Carlo's restaurant was about as far as we could get, and there we went. Kevin was there, gently taking my crutches and announcing the specials. He winced as he talked about the white truffle risotto, at 48 dollars a serving.

Remember, this was 1998. I remember Guy saying "it's too much money, NO." And I remember saying "Look, we just saved hundreds of dollars by going home early, have one memory that's good."

It may very well have been the finest risotto we've ever eaten. We didn't finish, took it on the plane, and, well, it didn't hold up. But that was ok.

Carlo's restaurant is long gone. He has a smaller place, the features more informal food, and I miss that restaurant with the door in the shape of a big, opened mouth, I miss his laugh, his smile and all that wonderful food. Still , I have the memories, and I have the cookbook.

This is one of the recipes I make a lot. You can buy jars of caponata. Because you CAN, doesn't mean you SHOULD. In fairness, this dish is somewhat intensive, work wise, but you can pull it off. It's really great. You will love it, and if you have vegetarian friends, they will love you forever for this.

Grazie Carlo, I hope I get to see you again.

Let's get to work. First, the vegetables. you need a pound of fresh tomatoes, that you chop up roughly. Put them aside. Then, about 1.5-2 pounds of eggplant. This is where you use the big ones. I like the light purple ones, but use what you've got. Peel them, and chop them into small cubes. Surgical precision is not necessary here, but do make em small. Also chop up a big onion, and enough celery to measure a cup. Keep all of these veggies separate.

Now, get about 2 tablespoons of salted capers and put em under water. Do the same thing with 2 tablespoons of raisins, be they black or gold (I prefer the gold here). Pit about half a cup each of black, and green olives, and chop them roughly. Also, get a generous couple of tablespoons of pine nuts.

Are you sweating already ? Trust Annalena here ,it's worth it. If you can, put two frying pans alongside each other on the stove. Pour about a third of a cup of olive oil in one of them, and start heating it. After about three minutes, put in the eggplant, all of it, AND LEAVE IT ALONE FOR THREE MINUTES. After you've done that, put a few tablespoons of olive oil in the other pan, and add the celery.

Now, start moving around the eggplant, lowering the heat when you do. I try to stir it every minute and a half/two minutes. It will stick, it will brown, but don't worry, you'll be ok. Meanwhile, stir the celery every now and then.

After you've cooked the eggplant for fifteen minutes, move it and the cooked celery into a bowl. Put a few more spoons of olive oil into the pan where you cooked the celery (put the eggplant pan aside), and cook the onion, for about ten minutes. Now, add it to the eggplant and celery, and the fun begins.

Get that eggplant pan, and add the cooked vegetables. Drain the capers and the raisins and add them. Add the tomatoes, add the olives, add the pine nuts. Finally, pour in two tablespoons of red wine vinegar and add a few teaspoons of salt. Bring the heat to low, and cook, stirring every few minutes for about twenty minutes.

What will happen is all that brown goodness on the bottom of the pan will dissolve into the tomato juice, and the mix will at first be very liquid. As it cooks, it will thicken and tighten. Eventually, you'll hear Lidia Basitanich's favorite sound, the "crackle" indicating that you're just about out of liquid. At that point, the vegetables will begin to stick to the pan, and you know, you're done.

Taste it. If you want it more salty, of course. Sweeter? More raisins. Tarter? More vinegar.

Refrigerate it, and it will keep for a long time. Put it on bread, or into pasta, or under a piece of grilled fish. That's the way I like it, but do it however you like.

I hope that you're fortunate enough to have good food memories, even if they're bittersweet, and that the sweet memories outweigh the bad. Tell me about them if you do.

Saturday, August 21, 2010

The old dog learns a new trick: Meatballs

The regular readers of this blog know that I love meatballs, and that the classic meatball recipe I use, is one I am very proud of. And I can say, honestly, that they seem to be well received, by just about everyone. I never seem to make enough of them.

BUT.... "you don't have to keep up, you have to keep open," as my idol Anna Madrigal said in "Michael Tolliver Lives." And if you haven't read that book, go and get it and read it now. Or, after you make these meatballs.

Inspiration for cooking should come to you from everywhere. Restaurants. Television. Magazines. Even if it's a magazine that you don't read normally, or that you would not expect to provide a good recipe. Such is the case here. For reasons that I surely do not know, we have a subscription to "Details" magazine. It takes me about 6 minutes to read the magazine. "Read" is probably too kind a word. Trash, trash, trash. But hey, it's summer. So I was leafing through it last week, and there was a recipe for what was called "The Ultimate Meatball." I took a look at it. Hmmmm. Nothing too complicated, but it did not involve tomato sauce or poaching them in tomatoes. Now, every time I have made a non-tomato based meatball, I have been disappointed. Hard, dry, and not tasty. But as I read through this recipe, I thought "this could work." Let's give it a try.

Now, as is my wont, I changed the recipe as I went along. I will tell you where I did, and you can go back to the original, or you can use mine, or, best of all, make your own variation. That's how the art evolves.

The recipe called for 2 pounds of ground chuck. I took that, plus a pound of ground veal. We've been through the "cute animals" issue here, many times, so if you are not going to use the veal, don't use it. I'm going to give proportions for three pounds of meat though, so use another pound of ground beef.

Get about a quarter pound of prosciutto, or pancetta, and grind it. How do you grind it? Put it in the food processor and pulse. You don't need stuff that is really, REALLY fine, but do your best. Dump that into the meat, together with a scant (and I mean SCANT) tablespoon of salt. Mine were just on the edge of too salty, using the full tablespoon the recipe called for. Add some red hot pepper flakes. How much? Well, this is up to you. The recipe called for 1.5 teaspoon of the stuff. I have INCENDIARY red hot pepper, so I used just half a teaspoon. The recipe then calls for a tablespoon of ground fennel seeds. I like the play of whole seeds, so that's what I used. Grind them if you want (but know it's very hard to find preground fennel). You also need a tablespoon of fresh oregano leaves. THIS I found very interesting, because most cooks will tell you that you should use dried oregano, instead of fresh. But I went to our roof, got some fresh oregano, and in the fashion of my friend Kevin, pulled off the leaves, one by one. You also need a nice handful of parsley leaves, the flat ones, chopped. 2/3 cup of bread crumbs, whatever type you like, and a cup of ricotta cheese. PLEASE USE GOOD CHEESE. then add 3 large eggs (the recipe called for extra large. If t hat's what you've got, use them).

You will gather from this that you need a really big bowl. You do. Now, get your hands in here, and mix things up until it's about as uniform as you can get it. Chances are, you're going to find little "globs" of ricotta regardless of how much you mix, and that's fine.

Most recipes for meatballs tell you to handle them gently when you form the balls. This recipe said to pack them tight. I disregarded that, and used my standard way of handling them as little as possible. They should have about two tablespoons of meat per ball. Measure the first one, shape it, and you'll be fine. Put them in a greased (olive oil, please) baking dish. I used pyrex, you can use that or ceramic, but don't use metal, and then bake them at 450, for 15 minutes.

Honestly, I had my doubts about 15 minutes, but these were bordering on overcooked when I was done. Next time, I'll bake them for less, because I like them rarer. Again, do as you like in terms of timing.

You will see a lot of fat and liquid come off of this when they bake. Let them cool, and use a slotted spoon to remove them to a container. You'll get about 50.

We ate these today (not ALL of them), in pasta, with heirloom cherry tomatoes and mozzarella. You don't need me to tell you how to make that dish, and I won't. But do make the meatballs, and then do me one better and vary the recipe. I really want to know what you do with them.

Tuesday, August 17, 2010

Try this at home, but be careful (this means you Lily); green tomato pickle and tartar sauce

Pickles. Love em or hate em. Seems to be no intermediate, huh? Well, Annalena loves them. Probably part of her sour disposition. I'm not one for "sweet and sour" pickles. For me, the more sour they are, the better. What the hell is this hell called half sours anyway? I wanna know that the enamel on my teeth is melting as I bite into em. And if my gut rebels, well, it wouldn't be the first time.
But pickles are hard. Well, no, they're not, but making a small batch is. If you're going to go through the trouble of getting things together to make them, might as well make a big batch. IF you are going to store them. In my opinion, the fact that they are pickles, does not mean you have to store them (of course, this does not explain the 12 jars of pickled cucumbers from last year, but that's another story).
Ok, so where is this digression taking us? To a recipe for pickled green tomatoes that is really, REALLY good, and really easy. There are some warnings, and because Annalena loves you all so much, she's going to tell you where you can change the recipe, and probably still get good results.
This uses green tomatoes. Anyone who has grown these knows what I'm talking about. Green tomatoes have a flavor that is sort of in between a ripe tomato and an apple. Late in the year, when the tomatoes are on the vine but there's not enough warm weather to let them ripen, you take them off the vine, and use them any way you can. Farmers have caught on, and as long as cooks can fry them, (the movie "fried green tomatoes" did NOT appear out of the vapor), farmers will take them off the vine so you can use them for different things. This is one of them.

To make the pickles, you will need 12 ounces (3/4 pound) of green tomatoes. Now, here's a place where the lack of certainty in recipes comes out. My recipe said "3 small green tomatoes (12 ounces)". I happen to have a scale, and I weighed mine. 2 green tomatoes were 12 ounces, and that's what I used. If I had not had the scale and used three, would this have worked? Yes, but it would have been different. Don't worry so much. Also, a medium white onion. No size was given here, so I grabbed what I thought was a medium sized white onion. You also need a cup of water and, according to the recipe, a cup of white wine vinegar. Well, I have champagne vinegar, and cider vinegar. I do not have white wine vinegar. I do not like it. I use it for cleaning scale off of the coffe pot, and that's about it. SO I used cider vinegar. Remember the apple note on green tomatoes? Well... Also, 3 smashed garlic cloves, who cares what size, a teaspoon of peppercorns, and 2 teaspoons of salt. Also a teaspoon of sugar.

Here's where we get to another point where, sorry Lily, you gotta bail out or use a different means. You need a mandoline, or a benriner (and if you don't know what they are, go to the instructions for Lily), and put the tomatoes and the onion through them, getting the slices incredibly thin. If you do not have such a device (and they are dangerous, right 'Lil?), use a sharp knife and cut them as thin as you can. There is actually a very cheap tool you can buy, called a "tomato knife," and Lily, you are hereby instructed to get one of those to make this. Just cut things as thin as possible, and then layer them, in a big measuring cup that holds at least a quart. Bring the other ingredients together in a pot, and bring them to a simmer. Then pour this over the tomato onion mixture, let it sit at room temperature for an hour, then refrigerate it.

Guess what? YOU GOT PICKLES. And they are good. If you happen to have left over sliced beets, you can add them too, and get a beautifully pink or golden product.

So, what do you do with these? Well, you can put them on hamburgers, or hot dogs, for example, OR... you can do this wonderful thing. This is so good, ragazzi, that it makes a great topping for crackers. (How did I know that?). Take about a cup of those pickles, and drain off the liquid. Use the liquid in place of vinegar in a salad dressing. Chop the veggies, and mix them with a quarter cup of buttermilk, and a cup of mayonnaise. Don't bother with homemade here. Hellman's is fine. And just refrigerate that to let it blend.

This is really superb on a piece of fried fish, like striped bass coated in cornmeal (see where we're going next?), but like I say, you can put this on a cracker and have a great snack. OR, you can thin it with olive oil and make salad dressing. OR... well, you just figure out what you can do with something creamy and tart. Sort of like Lily.

I LOVE YOU LITTLE LIL. Take care of your fingers, but make this.

Sunday, August 15, 2010

The cuter the animal revisted: buttermilk fried quail

While not all of us will admit it, every cook has his or her strong spots, and then weak spots. I count many familiar dishes as amongst my weak spots: for example, I can put a pan of brownies in the oven, where the starting ingredients weigh four pounds, and come out with something that weighs 8. I swear, it's true. Guy makes better brownies than I do, no ifs, ands or buts. Similarly, fried chicken. I have been told, gently, by those who know these things, that I should never make fried chicken. I have read books, TOMES in fact, on fried chicken. It scares me. And that's ok because, to be honest, I'm not all that fond of it.

But quail.... Hmmm. We had our friend Tobin coming over for dinner last week. Tobin just finished a very exhausting ballet season in NY, went on tour, is back on tour, and I wanted to make him something special. Now, Tobin has pointed out that, for whatever reason, just about everytime he comes over, out comes the pomegranate molasses. It's true. I don't understand it, but he's right. So, here we are. Louisiana boy, deep summer, something special, and yours truly scared to death of fried chicken.

Quail. I started studying recipes for fried quail which, I learned, is not untraditional in the south. It looked manageable. I made some changes. And it worked. It was good. Tobin ate three of them, we each ate two. Nevia got the last one. Here we go.

Ok, do the math above: you need 8 quail. Most recipes tell you to use the semiboneless ones. Ridiculous. You're gonna pick this up and gnaw the sucker, get the whole ones. They're not that big. Put em in a big container and cover them with buttermilk, and let that sit in the fridge overnight.

The next day, mix up a bowl of 2 parts flour, 1 part cornstarch and a big tablespoon of each of salt andcayenne pepper. Do this before you do the next step, which is to take out the quail, one at a time, and with a scissor, cut them up the backbone to flatten them out, like avian butterflies (like that, eh?). Then, with a baking sheet nearby, dip each one into the flour mixture and cover it generously. Shake off the excess. Leave them, cut side down, on the sheet, until you're done.

Then, get a big pan - one that can hold at least three, and better, four , quail in it. Fill it with half an inch of oil. Also, bring your oven to 350. When the oil comes to 350 (or, when you put the edge of a quail into it, it sizzles evilly), put the quail in, cut side UP, and fry them for about four minutes. Check for brownness. You may need a minute more, especially with the second batch. Flip them, and then fry them for half the length of time for the first side. When they're done, put them on the baking sheet, this time lined with paper towels, and leave them in the oven for ten minutes. They won't overcook.

Crispy, greaseless, and delicious. Now, how about some gravy? Glad you asked.

Pour off just about all the fat. Leave maybe two tablespoons. Add two tablespoons of your leftover flour and stir that with a wisk for a couple of minutes. Then, get a dairy product of some kind. I used heavy cream. Use that, or half and half, or milk. 3/4 of a cup or so Don't use buttermilk. It will break and curdle in the heat. Stir it into the flour mixture, and stir it gently until it just bubbles. Taste it. It may need salt. If it's too thick for you, I would say add water, not more cream.

You can pour this over the quail as well as with the mashed potatoes that you WILL serve with these.

You may never make fried chicken again

The proof is in the pudding: CORN pudding

It is no secret to readers of this blog that Annalena is not a fan of corn. So, too, is it no secret that her better half, Guy, LOVES corn. So, as summer peaks and wanes slightly, and corn is everywhere, Annalena thinks "how can I pull this off?" Guy would never ask for corn, and I would feel guilty if I didn't serve it. Always looking for some new way of doing it, I turn to the family of corn puddings.

There are many of these. I think for some people, they are a regular part of the thanksgiving dinner table, made with frozen corn (as was the recipe I give you below, until I changed it to fresh). There are many different things people add to them: ham, peppers, cheese, all come to mind as additives I have had. All are wonderful.

But, let's face it: when you want corn, you want CORN, don't you? Well, here's one to satisfy you. It even satisfied me.

I will tell you that this ain't gonna be a dieter's delight. Make something simple to go with it. I think a simple grilled steak is a right choice, making it with eggplant parmagiana is not. Let's get to work.

You need about 4 cups of corn kernels. You can buy the frozen stuff, but as I write this, every farmer in the immediate world is selling corn. So buy some and get the kernels off the cobs. The way I do it is to break the cob in half and then run a small, sharp knife down the pieces. Then take the back of your knife and rub it against the cob, to get that wonderful, sweet, corn milk out. You will probably need more than four, and maybe as many as 8, ears of corn to get the four cups. If you have too much.... freeze it. Split this now, into two, two cup portions.

Put half of the corn into a food processor, together with four large eggs, a cup of cream, a half a cup of whole milk, 1/2 stick of softened, unsalted butter, 2 tablespoons of flour and a teaspoon of salt. (I am leaving out the sugar from this). Process it until the stuff is nice and fine. You will never get a completely smooth product, the kernels are too tough for that, but you will get something akin to creamed corn. Now, take the paper from the butter stick, and butter an 8 inch baking dish. Stay away from metal ones: use glass or ceramic. Take the corn that you did not process, pour it into the processed stuff, and then pour the whole mass into that prepped baking dish. Put the whole thing on a baking tray, and bake at a 350 degree heat, for at least 45 minutes. My recipe said 45 minutes but when I checked, I had mush. I let it bake for 30 minutes more, and had an incredibly soft, airy souffle like pudding. And it tasted GOOD, the way corn is supposed to taste.

While it's "as high as an elephant's eye," and if you're looking for something new to do with corn, here it is. Try it. Even an unabashed NON fan of corn liked it. I think you will too

Did I find it? Is this Nana's cucumber salad?

When Annalena was very young (yes, that long ago), one of her favorite dishes was her grandmother's cucumber salad. We did not have it often, and we never knew when we were going to have it. Nana was a very big believer in cucumbers. You could tell her, all you wanted, about how they really had no nutrition, and she'd smile and put a plate of them, sliced like cucumber spears in front of you, with salt and pepper. And we ate them.
I smile when I think of Nana and cucumbers, because she used to do something that none of us could ever figure out. She would slice the ends off of the cukes, and then take the smaller, cut end and rub the place where she had just cut, until she got a milky liquid (STOP IT YOU PIGS). We did ask, and she'd smile, and not explain. I just thought it was a silly gesture, until, years later, I read an article about how bitter juices accumulate at the ends of members of the cucumber family, and if you skin them, the juices do move up with the peeling blade to the whole fruit. The way to get rid of it... was to rub the end with something liquid, to draw out the bitterness.

God, that lady was smart. And I tell ya, if it were that easy to draw out bitterness solely by rubbing an end with something wet...

But I digress. Back to that salad. I have tried, for years, to replicate it. No luck. Not that long ago, the redoubtable Penzey's spice catalog had a recipe for "simple cucumber salad." Yes, indeed, it is simple. It is also WAY too sweet. But when I made adaptions, this is IT. This is indeed, the salad that we grew up with. And I want to share it with you. If you think that cucumbers are boring, try this. Try it alongside of a piece of grilled fish, or something like that. You really will like it. I promise.

You need the regular cucumbers, not the pickling kirbys. The big ones that they wax to preserve at the supermarket. Peel them, and do as Nana did, and rub the edges with the cut knobs until you get the milky liquid (you will get it too). Then slice them into coins. Let's use two medium sized cukes for this. Put those into a bowl, together with a big onion that you peel and slice thinly. Please don't leave the onion out.
Now, add either a couple of teaspoons of your favorite dried herb, or a couple of tablespoons of your favorite FRESH herb. Nana always used dill. I use a mixture of dill and thyme. Play with this as you like.

In a separate container, mix together 1 part of white or cider vinegar, and a scant part, or even half a part, of sugar (the original recipe called for TWO parts. You can see why I thought it was too sweet, can't ya?). And add three parts of dairy. The recipe I had called for heavy cream. Nana would never have used this. I used sour cream. The full fat kind. Use yogurt or buttermilk if you like. So, if you use a quarter cup of vinegar, use a quarter cup or less of sugar, and 3/4 cup of dairy. Mix that all together and taste it. If you think it's too sweet, add more vinegar. I don't think you'll find it not sweet enough. Then mix this together with the cucumbers, and refrigerate it, for about half an hour.

I missed this salad so much that I will be making it often. I waited over 40 years to be able to do it. Make it yourself. See if Nana had a good idea. I think she did.

Saturday, August 7, 2010

Cobbling together... a cobbler. Peach

It's officially high summer. Annalena so declares. There are more tomatoes than she knows what to do with, the cherries are gone, the apricots are waning, plums are everywhere, and the squash... well... the cudgels are amongst us. When it is high summer, it's time to get your fill of peaches. This year, the peaches have been absolutely outstanding. Meaty, sweet, and drippy too, with that combination of sweet and slightly tart flavor that says SUMMER!!! the way few things do.
When I was younger (that long ago), I used to be able to eat one peach after another, and just never get filled with them. Those days are long gone, probably for the better. Still, they may be my favorite fruit, up there with nectarines.
Peaches cook fabulously. They work in savory applications (chicken, pork, quail, even shrimp), in salads, and of course... in desserts, to which we turn our attention now.
Cobblers fall into this big category of desserts that include buckles, crisps, slumps, pan dowdies, bettys, and so forth. You can get into enormously long, complicated, and detailed arguments about what makes a cobbler differetn from a buckle, what makes a buckle different from a crisp, etc. Here's Annalena's definition of a cobbler: a baked fruit dessert, with a top made of risen dough, usually based on baking soda. That dough is sweetened. There is no bottom crust. Period.
OK, take your pot shots at it. I'm especially interested in Tennessee Dan's views on cobbler, because Sue Hubbel, in her wonderful book of occasional essays "Far Flung Hubbel" writes about the pie/cobbler line, which she posits runs just about at the mid point of Kentucky. According to Sue, if you go into a diner above that line, you will be confronted with a variety of pies. Below it, you're in cobbler country, and that's what you'll get.

Cobblers are terrific. They are not hard to make, and they are GOOD. This is one I made today. It's based on peaches. It's generous, juicy, and it's really foolproof.

Let's start with the fruit: PEACHES (DUH). About five pounds of them. Get them at the correct ripeness. What is that? OK, a lesson in peach and nectarine buying. First, LOOK at the fruit. Does it seem to have an undertone of pink or orange or yellow? If it does not, leave it alone. It will never ripen. Now, smell it. Bring it ripe up to your nose. If the vendor will not let you do that, move on. Do you get that "peachy" smell? If you do, we're still in business. If not, put it back. Finally, find the end opposite the end it attaches to the tree. Press it very gently. Is there a slight yielding? If there is, then you've got a perfect peach for this cobbler. If there is no yield, you will want to leave it to ripen a few days and then use it. If it feels like your finger might squash the peach, you can still buy it, but use it fast.

Get a big pot of water to the boil, and fill a bowl with water and ice cubes. Now, cut an X at that point where you were pressing the peaches and drop them into the boiling water for a minute. Get them out with a slotted spoon, and leave them in the iced water, until they're cool enough to handle. You will be able to peel them with no trouble. (you do tomatoes the same way, by the way. You don't need to do this with nectarines.). Slice the peaches right off of the pit, into a bowl. Surgical precision is not necessary. When you're done, squeeze half a lemon into the peaches, stir them together gently, and IF you have about a cup of raspberries or blueberries, or blackberries, toss them in too. If not, no bother.

Let's make our thickener now. Half a cup of sugar, please, and 3 tablespoons of corn starch. Also, about a half teaspoon of cinnamon, and a quarter teaspoon of salt (don't leave it out). Stir that together, and then stir it into the peaches. Pile them in a 9 inch earthenware or ceramic baking dish.

Now, we'll make the dough topping. This is so easy in the food processor, you should do it there, if you have one. If you don't, it's easy to do by hand. Combine a heaping cup of flour (closer to 1 1/3 cups, 1/2 cup of sugar, 1.5 teaspoons of baking powder, 1 teaspoon of baking soda, a pinch of salt together. Cut in a half stick of cold, unsalted butter. You can do this with your fingers or the food processor. Finally, a SCANT half cup of buttermilk or yogurt (you can use lowfat yogurt, don't use nonfat). Pour most, but not all of this, into the flour mixture. Stir it together. Is it moist, but not horrifically wet? If so, you're done. If not, add some more milk. If it gets too wet, don't worry. Just put out some flour on a board, and either roll this out, or press it out with your hands, until it's about 1/3 inch thick. Then, use whatever you have, to cut circles, or stars, or half moons of dough. Put these on top of the fruit, in whatever pattern you like. You'll have scraps. Reroll em and recut them. Use as much of the dough as you can. You have enough. When you're done, get a little milk and a paint brush and paint the top of the cobbler. Move the baking dish onto a baking sheet, and then move it into a preheated, 375 oven. Let it bake for 30 minutes or so. The fruit will bubble up, the dough will brown and your kitchen will smell wonderful. Be careful taking it out of the oven, because fruit and sugar when hot is very sticky and the burn is painful.

This will keep warm for many hours. The fruit releases the heat slowly. Don't refrigerate it. The moisture in your fridge will make that top crust yucky. Cover it with something if you must, and for heaven's sake, eat it as fast as you can.

Now, go through that and tell me: was it really that hard? Now look at the fat content: half a stick of butter is four ounces. The only other source of fat is from the buttermilk. PULEEEZE. If you figure that this will serve at least 8, and you leave out the ice cream, it's not all that bad a dessert.

Of course, leaving out ice cream with cobbler? UNTHINKABLE.

Sunday, August 1, 2010

tuna confit, continued

So, in the last post, I told you about how to make this delicious tuna confit, and the things you can do with it. I referred to the pasta I was going to make, and now, it has been done. So, while I almost never print posts that call for you to have read another one as a prerequisite, you do need the prior one, to get this one.

You have that tuna confit, and now, we turn to one of Annalena's favorite ingredients, fresh shell beans.

I have written about these before, mostly in the context of soup. And they are wonderful in soup. Creamy, fresh tasting, and somewhere in between a green bean and a dried bean. But they are wonderful as themselves too. Right now, the only ones that are available are the most popular ones: cranberry beans (if you grew up in an Italian home, you now them as borlottis. There is a Spanish name for them too, which I am forgetting at this time. If you are familiar with Spanish food, however, you'll know the ones I mean. ).

When you buy these guys, they look unpromising. They have torn, dried pods, and they look like something someone forgot. So does Annalena at times. That doesn't make her any less tasty.

Ok, enough of that. This is how you want them. It will make them much easier to shell because, let me tell you, trying to shell beans that are too moist is not easy on your fingers or your patience. Get enough of them to get about a heaping cup of fresh beans. That will probably be about a pound. If you can budget for more, space and money wise, do so. Shuck/peel/shell them, however you call it. Check out how the colors red and white can exist in so many different variations. Then get over your sentimentality, and cook them. How? Ok, easy. Get a pot of water to a rolling boil and salt it well. Toss in the beans. Lower the heat, and let them cook for about twenty minutes, until they are "al dente," or at a texture you like. There is no right or wrong about this one. Drain them, and immediately pour some olive oil on the drained, hot beans, and some kind of acid. I happen to like lemon juice, but "pick your poison" here. Meanwhile, get the tuna out of its oil, and break it up into small bits. Combine it with the beans. If you like (and you will), half about a cup of cherry tomatoes into this as well. Don't cook them, just stir them in.

If you didn't want the pasta, you now have a wonderful side dish. Trust Annalena, though, you want the pasta. Boil up about half a pound of fresh, stubby pasta: elbows, farfalle, rigatoni, something like that. Again, do this to your degree of preferred doneness. Drain the pasta, combine it with the bean/tuna/tomato mixture, stir it all together, and then pour in just a smidge of that tuna oil. If you like, you can stir in the fresh herb of your choice. And you have a wonderful meal, that is a bit off the beaten track, but won't taste that way.

This one is really, REALLY good. Give it a try. And treat it as an object lesson: if you have a "staple" in the fridge, like the tuna (you could do the beans ahead of time, too), look at the miraculous half hour meal you can come up with.