Category Archives: easy

This meal requires no special equipment or techniques.

Rain in August = Pappa al Pomodoro

Posted on August 23, 2011 | Leave a comment

On my mobile telephone, I have this weather app so I can look up what the weather’s like in the cities that I’ve lived in. I love to see whether the weather is worse in Stockholm or Seattle, or if it’s raining in Paris or sultry and warm in Rome. For mid-August, it was awfully wet today here in Seattle. Not only wet, but grey and dark and cold. When I checked that weather app for Rome it showed five little shiny yellow circles for the next five days. It’s not really surprising.  88, 90, 92, 89, 88 – so not only sunny but nice and warm too.

As I stand at the kitchen counter chopping away, I think of sitting at table on the edge of the piazza, taking in the heat and the bustle of Rome, where the scent of exhaust and cigarettes mingles with the perfume of fresh tomatoes, sliced and drizzled with olive oil and sea salt on a wide white plate. Or a bowl of bread and tomato soup, served tepid, slicked with olive oil and strewn with basil leaves. (It’s strange – I usually hate the smell of dirty cars and cigarettes here, but in Rome, I loved it.) Those were some premium tomatoes and I’ve haven’t had anything close since we moved up here from California. I loved mopping up the juices with crusty bread and washing it down with a glass of wine as I watched the passeggiata. Now I find myself on a grey day stuck in my kitchen cooking for small children, with less than wonderful tomatoes and I have to wonder, how did this happen?! And it’s August! It’s not supposed to be rainy all the time is it? Of course we are getting tomatoes but they’re from California, Mexico and those Canadian ones they grow hydroponically. Knowing it’s 90 degrees in Rome is killing me. I could be sitting at the edge of the piazza eating something so simple and delicious. Thinking of all those ripe tomatoes in the outdoor market could easily make me cry.

There’s hope though, for dinner anyway. What would you think about making tomato and bread soup? I had this soup several times a week, living in Italy. I’m sure if you’ve never heard of it, it sounds weird. If you’ve ever followed any of my soup recipes though, you know I’m a big fan of the garlic and olive oil slicked toast raft in a wide bowl of soup. This is a bit different. You cook stale bread into a chunky garlicky tomato broth for half an hour, and what you end up with is a satiny-rustic adult-baby food. All of which sounds like too much contradiction to be comprehensible. You’ll just have to trust me. Pappa al Pomodoro will transport you to the edge of a piazza in Rome no matter where you are or what the weather is like. Even if the tomatoes are pallid and mealy, this soup will still be fantastic.

A bowl of pappa al pomodoro, a glass of wine, a crisp salad and the sound of rain falling heavily outside the open back door changed everything. Tonight, the weather felt like an event to celebrate as we ate our wide bowls of silky, bread-thickened, tomato perfumed soup to the sound of raindrops. Even if the tomatoes did come all the way from Mexico.

The finished soup

Pappa al Pomodoro

This soup takes no time to throw together and it uses only water no stock. Don’t be tempted to substitute chicken stock for the water – this soup manages to be deeply flavorful and rich without any stock.

  • 1 red onion, diced fine
  • 1 slender carrot, diced fine
  • 1 stalk of celery diced fine
  • 1 pinch red chili flakes
  • 1/2 c. olive oil
  • 4 cloves of garlic, roughly chopped
  • 1 1/2 lbs  Roma tomatoes, skinned and roughly chopped – I use a serrated swivel peeler – this must be the fastest way to peel them. Don’t use fancy heirloom varieties – they won’t be flavorful enough here – you’ll lose everything that makes them special. what you want is a dense paste tomato – like a Roma.
  • 1/2 a bunch of basil, in chiffonade
  • 1/2 pound of quite stale Italian style bread, in 1/2 inch slices (you can dry it out in a 200 oven for 2o minutes. It should be quite hard.)
  • 1 cup hot water
  • more extra virgin olive oil for drizzling, grated parmesan for dusting

Chunky tomato broth

  1. Put the sliced stale bread in a large bowl and cover with cold water.
  2. Put the onion, carrots, celery, chili flakes and olive oil in a heavy 6 quart soup pot. Turn the heavy to medium and and stir until it sizzles gently. Turn down the heat and cover, cooking for 12 minutes, stirring a few times.
  3. Add the garlic and tomatoes, and stir, cooking for 5 more minutes.
  4. While the garlic and tomatoes cook down a little, drain the bread, discarding the water. Squeeze all the water out of the bread and crumble into the soup pot. Add the hot water and stir. Season with salt and pepper. Simmer over low heat for 25 minutes, stirring every few minutes
  5. Add the 2/3 of the basil and stir.
  6. Serve the soup garnished with the remaining basil in individual bowls.
  7. Pass the olive oil and parmesan at the table to season further.

Bread soaked in water

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Mission Figs and Blue Castello

Posted on August 9, 2011 | Leave a comment

When we go on vacation, I’m always sure I’ll post at least something short at Notes on Dinner, but it never really works out that way. I took pictures on the trip though and now I have something very easy for August: figs and blue cheese for an appetizer, although it might also be dessert. Oozing creamy cheese shot with threads of sharp blue underscores the sweetness of black figs, sticky with juice. An old wooden board, a knife, a little glass of crisp mineral-y wine. It might seem off the cuff, even haphazard, but it’s not. This is laid back yet composed; some might even say elegant. (That might be me!)

I won’t call this a recipe and it seems silly to write it all out but here’s how it works:

  1. Buy a basket of Black Mission figs and a wedge of Blue Castello or a similarly rich mild blue.
  2. Rinse figs.
  3. Unwrap cheese.
  4. Get knife.
  5. Serve on a cutting board. I like to let people cut the figs and cheese themselves.

That’s it. The only little nicety you might add, if you get to the market in the morning, is to pull the cheese from the icebox an hour before you eat. You could also put a few almonds or walnuts out – they’d be even prettier served in the shell with a nut cracker.  We had a glass of chilly rosé with our figs, blue and almonds and that was just right.

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Herb Garden

Posted on July 14, 2011 | 1 comment

The other night my friend Tom was in town. I hadn’t seen him in 8 years. I’ve known him for 20. Which is staggering. How can we be so old?! We picked up right where we left off as if I’d seen him last week though.

For dinner, I had fingerling potatoes and spring onions. Tiny chioggia beets. A skirt steak. My standard arugula and shallots. I didn’t know exactly what I would do with them but these ingredients are so familiar to me. Dear like Tom in a way. And happily, I had loads of fresh herbs in the garden so I put them to work.

If you’re not growing sage, rosemary and thyme, you might want to think about getting some starts.  Yesterday my herb garden turned my sort of mundane ingredients into something to write about. Sauteed spring onions got a boost from English thyme and sage. Sage and rosemary perfumed the potatoes; the sage shatteringly crisp and glittering with sea salt. Rosemary and  thyme chopped fine scented the steak. What a big payoff for almost no extra effort!

As I put the dinner together while drinking chai with Tom, I made several trips outside to the herb garden, gathering sprigs of thyme, twigs of rosemary and silvery sage leaves. Later, we ate dinner in the garden, though it was barely warm enough for it. Tom wore his coat and I had to get a thick sweater. Still, there is something wonderful about cooking from the garden and then eating out there.

Fresh Herb and Garlic Rub for Steaks

  • 2 lbs skirt steak
  • 2 cloves garlic
  • 1/2 tsp kosher sea salt
  • a small handful of English thyme, rinsed and dried
  • a sprig of rosemary, rinsed and dried
  • freshly ground black pepper
  1. With a chef’s knife, chop the garlic and salt together until very finely minced. Add the thyme leaves and rosemary leaves and continue to chop until you have a rough paste. Add the black pepper. Rub all over the meat and leave on the counter until ready to grill (Ok, if it’s more than 1/2 an hour, you may want to refrigerate it!)
  2. When it’s time, brush the steak with olive oil and grill for 2-3 minutes per side over high heat. Let it sit uncovered and off the grill for 5 minutes. Slice and serve.


Roast Potatoes with Herbs from the Garden

  • 1lb fingerling potatoes, rinsed and dried
  • 1-2 tbsp olive oil
  • a small handful of safe leaves
  • (1) 4 inch sprig of rosemary
  • 1/2 a dozen cloves of garlic, unpeeled
  • sea salt and freshly ground black pepper to taste
  1. Preheat the oven to 400.
  2. Cut the potatoes in half lengthwise.
  3. Toss all ingredients together in a large baking dish where the potatoes fit in one layer without crowding.
  4. Roast the potatoes for 40 minutes, flipping them over half way through.
  5. If you are serving bread also, the soft roast garlic can be squeezed out onto the buttered bread.

Seared Purple Spring Onions

  • 1 bunch purple spring onions, rinsed and dried
  • 1 tbsp olive oil
  • small handful English thyme
  • 6 small sage leaves
  • sea salt and freshly ground black pepper to taste
  1. Quarter the spring onions.
  2. Heat a large heavy saute on medium high for 2 minutes
  3. Add olive oil to pan and then spring onions and thyme.
  4. Saute for 3-4 minutes on their cut sides until golden and crisp.
  5. Add sage leaves and turn down the heat for 2 minutes to allow the sage to scent the onions.
  6. Toss with the roast potatoes  – so beautiful!

I served the steak and potatoes and onions with beet salad – tiny roast chioggias this time – roast for 30 minutes at 400 degrees in their own roasting pan alongside the potatoes.

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Summer and the Ultimate Sandwich

Posted on July 12, 2011 | 5 comments

The Ultimate Sandwich

Whenever I ask my kids what they want for dinner, the knee-jerk response is always: “ultimatesummersandwich” as if it were just one word. It doesn’t even matter what season it is. For me too, in the summer at least, it’s the obvious choice. On a hot day sitting outside in the cool under the grape vines and eating this sandwich with a tall cold beer – that’s a perfect summer moment. On one of the many rainy evenings, I think, well, just because it’s wet doesn’t mean we have to eat stew or something – we’ll have the Ultimate Summer Sandwich! Even though we’re eating indoors, this sandwich is so delightful it makes dinner feel like the best kind of special occasion. (For me “special occasion” means something superdelicious – not necessarily fancy. This sandwich isn’t fancy.)

Here’s what I like about it: the warm spicy-sweet rubbed chicken, the cool creamy tang of goat cheese, the bitter curls of arugula, the richly floral tomato and basil pesto, the edgy bite of the red onion, the chewy baguette. All those contrasts and the whole thing hits just the right note! The sum is far greater than the parts.

If I made one Ultimate Sandwich an entire baguette long I think I could probably eat the whole thing. It’s that good.

 

Pesto ingredients

The Ultimate Sandwich

The recipe is from one of my very favorite cookbooks, which I may have mentioned before: Weber’s Big Book of Grilling. I can’t imagine cooking in the summertime without it.

  • 2 boneless skinless chicken breasts
  • 2 tbsp brown sugar
  • 1 tsp kosher salt
  • 1/8 tsp cayenne
  • 3 handfuls arugula
  • 4 ounces mild soft goat cheese
  • 1/2 a small red onion, thinly sliced
  • 1 long French baguette – not too chewy, not sour (I use La Brea)
  • 1 small garlic clove
  • 1 cup of fresh basil leaves
  • 3 tbsp olive oil
  • 3 tbsp sundried tomatoes packed in olive oil
  • 2 tbsp pine nuts
  • 1/4 cup grated parmesan
  • freshly ground black pepper
  1. Begin by mixing the brown sugar, salt and cayenne in a small bowl. Remove the tenders from the back of the chicken breasts. Lightly pound the thicker ends. Rub the brown sugar mixture all over the chicken, place in a dish and cover. If you are not going to continue with the rest of the recipe, refrigerate until it is time to grill.
  2. Remove the goat cheese from the refrigerator, unwrap and leave on the counter to soften.
  3. Wash and dry the arugula.
  4. Fill a small bowl with cold water and leave the red onion to soak – this will take away the lingering bite.
  5. Slice baguette into 4 equal pieces and cut almost all the way through lengthwise.
  6. To make the pesto, crush the garlic and place in the food processor with the basil, olive oil, sun-dried tomatoes, pine nuts and black pepper. Whirl until smooth. Transfer to a small bowl and fold in the parmesan.
  7. Heat the grill medium hot.  Pat the chicken dry with paper towels. Grill for 8-10 minutes turning half way through. Remove from grill and slice on the diagonal into 1/2″ thick slices.
  8. Spread baguette with goat cheese on one side and pesto on the other. Layer chicken, arugula and red onion inside. Serve at once.

 

 

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More fun with beets

Posted on July 10, 2011 | Leave a comment

As if they weren’t already wonderful enough roasted and tossed into a salad! Those little beets you get in the summertime, red or chioggia, don’t need any cooking at all. All you have to do is peel them and grate them on a box grater. 2 small beets for 1 big salad – I use arugula or little gem for greens, cucumber, shallots, goat cheese, toasted walnuts. You can see how I made the first beet salad here. Just substitute grated raw beets for the cooked. Now that’s fast.

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Summer with a twist – Rhubarb cocktails and gravad lax

Posted on July 3, 2011 | Leave a comment

It’s summer (sort of) here in the Pacific Northwest.  I’m going to keep this quick and offer Gravad Lax – home cured salmon – as an option for when you are tired of the grill.

For me this happens maybe once each summer – usually during a heat wave when it’s too hot to stand around flipping burgers in front of a red-hot pile of charcoal. Instead of singeing your eyebrows off in 90 degree heat by the Weber while your guests are sitting over there drinking cold beer, your dinner is already done, so you can be sitting in the sun with a beer too. You see, you salt the fish two days before you eat it, allowing it to cure in the refrigerator. About half an hour before you want to eat, pull the salmon from the cold of the fridge and shave the thinnest translucent slices possible from the fish. The salt will have pulled all the moisture out and the color will be vividly red. The cool salty-silky salmon is a welcome change from peppery charred filets you might expect on a hot June night. Even though it’s not exactly hot here in Seattle.

I like to imagine serving gravad lax in the long bright evenings you get in Stockholm at midsummer, but without the mosquitoes. We didn’t have mosquitoes last week but since this is Seattle in June, we had rain, rain, rain. No sultry summer evening in the garden for us! Still, we had a fantastic time with friends. With the salmon, we served rhubarb cocktails. I’m including both recipes. Happy summer!

The Stockholm – serves 1

  • 1/2 ounce aquavit
  • 1/2 ounce cointreau
  • 1 1/2 ounces rhubarb puree (recipe follows)
  • dash of orange bitters
  • Prosecco to top up
  • a piece of orange peel, cut wide with a sharp vegetable peeler

Rhubarb puree – makes enough for many cocktails

  • 4 stalks rhubarb, rinsed and sliced into 1/2″ slices
  • 3-4 tbsp sugar
  • juice of one lime

  1. Preheat the oven to 400.
  2. Toss all ingredients together in a small baking dish (for instance, an 8″x8″ square pan or a gratin). Cover tightly with aluminum foil.
  3. Bake in the oven for about 1/2 an hour until the fruit is completely soft.
  4. Push the rhubarb through a fine mesh sieve with a wooden spoon or, if you are feeling completely lazy, puree in the food processor. (if you opt for the food processor, the puree will be somewhat fibrous)
  5. Refrigerate until cold and proceed.

Assembling the cocktail:

  1. In a tall cold champagne flute stir together the aquavit, cointreau, rhubarb puree and the bitters.
  2. Top up with chilly Prosecco and float a wide piece of orange peel to finish.

This is now my favorite summer cocktail. That St. Germaine that I sometimes rave about would potentially be an excellent substitute for the Cointreau if you happen to have any lying around.

Gravad Lax – serves 6-8 as a generous appetizer

Allow 4 days to complete the recipe. Note that there is a total of 15 minutes  easy work though.

  • 2 pounds salmon (I used Copper River sockeye)
  • 2 teaspoons peppercorns (I used mixed), lightly crushed
  • 4 tablespoons kosher salt (not fancy kosher sea salt & not sea salt, just regular old kosher)
  • 2-4 tablespoons sugar (I used 3)
  • About a cup of rinsed, coarsely chopped dill
  • lemon wedges, finely minced onion, chopped chives, crème fraiche, cucumber slices, coarse sea salt, thinly sliced dark rye bread to serve

  1. Day 1-2: Freeze the salmon for 48 hours to kill any parasites.
  2. Day 3: First, cut the salmon fillet in half across the short dimension. If you pull any pin bones with needle nosed pliers, you will make slicing and serving a lot easier.
  3. Stir the peppercorns, salt and sugar together in a small bowl.
  4. In a rimmed baking dish (to catch any salt that doesn’t adhere) rub about a third of the salt mixture on the flesh side of each piece of salmon.
  5. Sandwich the salted fish, flesh sides together, with the rest of the salt mixture and the dill in the middle. The thick part of one piece should top the thin part of the other. Place in a gallon-sized Ziploc bag, carefully sealed, in the bottom of the refrigerator for 2 days. I would put the bag in a baking dish. Turn the bag a couple of times a day.
  6. Day 5: After 2 days, drain any liquid and scrape off the salt mixture and dill and place in the freezer for half an hour (you don’t HAVE to put it in the freezer but it sure makes slicing it very thin a lot easier)
  7. Gravad lax keeps for at least a week, drained of all the accumulated liquid, in the refrigerator. Well wrapped, it keeps for 3 months in the freezer.
  8. Serve with crème fraiche, chopped chives or minced red onion, lemon wedges, maybe a few cucumber slices and if you are feeling ambitious (I recommend this) some excellent homemade rye bread with fennel seeds. (If you haven’t tried rye without caraway seeds, you haven’t lived. You won’t be disappointed I promise – send me a comment if you want the recipe!) Otherwise some of those rye cocktail squares or German style pumpernickel would be fine.

I like to make a big platter with everything, piling up the gravad lax and all the condiments in heaps. Little teaspoons can scoop up the crème fraiche and onions. Everyone can build little sandwiches according to their own taste. A little bite of sandwich, a taste of the cocktail, and around it goes. What a nice party! A more organized person than I am would at least provide cocktail napkins. Oh well.

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Dining Around Seattle: Halibut, Black Rice & Aioli

Posted on June 16, 2011 | 2 comments

I don’t know what happened. Or rather, it happened so suddenly. Like exotic mushrooms suddenly sprouting up in the gloom of a damp, dark forest.

I have been nonplussed with the restaurants in Seattle since we moved here seven years ago. There was too much money in them – the interiors, the ingredients, the clientele. To me, they all looked like they were trying too hard. Now all of a sudden, there are so many restaurants to love – where did they all come from?! I probably missed them as I was raising little kids. Now that my three are a bit bigger I can pay attention to what’s going on out there.

It started last fall when I finally visited the Corson Building. Rustic, very rustic. I’m calling it run-down palazzo chic – whatever that means – with edgy neo-Northwest Mediterranean food. If you have a chance to go, you’ll see what I mean. Then, Sitka and Spruce in their latest incarnation on Melrose. Turn of the century, romantic industrial interiors with riffy Northwest-inflected, Middle Eastern food. That one might be my favorite. But then there’s Spur! Also local ingredients but with that sous-vide spin. It’s still forthright Northwest food though, because this is Seattle. And it totally works. Finally, I went to Revel for lunch on Monday and despite a dire (and I mean dire) dessert, the Korean-inflected meal straddled comfort food and spring seasonality and all I wanted was more, more, more! I think our waiter was stunned and (dare I say?) impressed with all that my friend Christine and I managed to eat.

Anyway, I love it in a restaurant when there’s this sense that the chef is throwing down the gauntlet, saying: Here is what I know about living here in this moist, dark part of the world and this is what I have to say about it. At Sitka and Spruce, for instance, the food hovers between the briny sea life of the Sound and the fertile plains of eastern Washington. I love the deliberate, thoughtful, local-ness of the ingredients, but it doesn’t stop there. The chef dallies with dukkah, with harissa, with stinging nettles and pickled lady fern. And that‘s the sweet spot for me. I get home from a dinner like that and I want to try making food that way; employing local ingredients and spinning them into another faraway culture. Even if it just means I’m barely more than copying. That’s okay with me.

A couple of months ago I wrote about that clam and black rice dish I tried to make from the menu at Sitka and Spruce. Instead of clams I used halibut, which was finally making it’s first appearance of the spring.  I wanted to write out how I did it, but I was intent on writing about aioli first. Well, I guess I made le Grand Aioli already so that recipe is already done. Now this dish will be supremely easy. Fifteen minutes of work; dinner on the table in less than an hour. Hooray.

Grilled halibut, black rice, aioli & cilantro

(inspired by the clams in a similar preparation at Sitka and Spruce)

  • 2 lbs halibut filet, skin removed by fish monger (halibut skin is notoriously difficult to remove)
  • kosher sea salt and freshly ground black pepper
  • 1 1/2 cups black rice
  • 3 cups water
  • 1 tbsp extra-virgin olive oil
  • 1 recipe aioli
  • 3 cups cilantro, washed and dried, with tough stems removed
  • 1 lemon, cut into wedges
  1. In a medium sized, heavy bottomed sauce pan, bring the water, rice and 1/2 tsp of salt to a boil. As soon as it reaches the boil, put on the lid, turn down the heat to low or until it just simmers . Set the timer for 50 minutes.
  2. Light the coals on your grill, or preheat a gas grill on high.
  3. Lightly season the halibut with sea salt and pepper and brush both sides with olive oil.
  4. When there  are just 10 minutes left on the rice, start to grill the halibut. With a thin metal spatula, carefully turn the fish after 4 or 5 minutes. If it falls apart, don’t worry! It will all get covered by the cilantro anyway. Grill for another 4-5 minutes. When fish is just opaque in the middle it is done. Remove to a clean plate.
  5. Give the rice a stir and then heap onto a large platter. With a spoon drizzle a few tablespoons of aioli over the rice. Lay the halibut fillets on top and drizzle over a few more tablespoons of the aioli.  Strew the cilantro over the top. Garnish with lemon.

Serve with a bunch of asparagus, tossed in olive oil, salt and pepper and grilled. Everyone will be happy. This dinner manages to be both effortless and complex. Halibut is so delicately rich in contrast with the darkly earthy rice. The cilantro and aioli were jewel-like in comparison. Even my fish-phobic 11 year old was begging for seconds.

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Harissa: Just try this, please

Posted on June 8, 2011 | 2 comments

 

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Harissa

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

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

Posted on June 2, 2011 | 3 comments

Wednesday Morning

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Grilled Steak Salad with Arugula, White Beans and Shiitake Mushrooms

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

The Beans and Mushrooms

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

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

The Salad

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

The Steak

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

To Assemble

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

Wednesday night – the rundown

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

 

 

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

Posted on May 23, 2011 | Leave a comment

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

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

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

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

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


 

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