Category Archives: Fast

This meal can be prepared in 45 minutes or less.

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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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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After School Snack: Cardamom Scented Mango Lassi

Posted on May 9, 2011 | 4 comments

Even though I love to cook, I never cook with my kids. Why? It’s too messy for one thing. For another, the older kids have gotten minor cuts while chopping and that makes me nervous. Frankly, the kitchen is an excellent place to temporarily check out from parenting – I like the focused solitary activity. Besides, the work I do there is still in service of my family. If I’m acting escapist in hiding out and chopping, so what? When I’m done, we’ll have an excellent dinner. I don’t want to manage developing knife skills, cross-counter trails of sugar, or little hands sticky with raw eggs. (How awful it is to confess to that!) Moms are SO not supposed to admit to these kinds of feelings. Sigh. I’m not going to worry about it though. There are other things to do.

After I read Madhur Jaffrey’s autobiography Climbing the Mango Trees, I thought: I want that kind of childhood for my kids, those kinds of food memories, the tumult of food culture that shaped her life. I imagine her in long braids and a bright dress, banging through the kitchen door after school, welcomed by a round terra cotta bowl of creamy basmati rice pudding scented with cardamom and garnished with shattered toasted pistachios. Or waking to a winter breakfast of daulat ki chaat, whose ingredients include fresh whole milk, seafoam and dew. (Dew!?!) Ms. Jaffrey describes this “heavenly froth” as “the most ephemeral of fairy dishes”.

Ok, ok. I know I can’t collect dew on the roof of my house and come up with some magically memorable breakfast. I can’t even get raw milk very easily. (Anyway, think of the bacteria!) And sea-foam? Forget it. I’m imagining the looks on their little faces if I told them that no, we aren’t having waffles and bacon for breakfast, instead, how about milk with sea-foam and dew!?! I want them to be able to roll with it, but maybe not that much.

Still, I think there are things I can do if I want to give my kids incredible food memories. Imagine getting off the school bus in Seattle, rain running off the shoulders of your parka, and stepping into a warm kitchen. There on the counter, a clear pitcher of golden creamy mango lassi, drops of condensation glistening on the sides.  Serve it cold. Listen for the delicate slurp as you pour it into a glass. Pay attention and catch that earthy lemon scent of cardamom. Isn’t it lucky Ataulfo mangoes are everywhere in late spring?! This has to be a step in the right direction.

Ataulfo Mangoes

Mango Lassi

  • 1 cup mango, cut from 1 ataulfo mango
  • 1 cup yogurt
  • 1/2 cup ice water
  • 4 green cardamom pods
  • 2 tbsp sugar

This couldn’t be any easier.

  1. Put all the ingredients in your blender and whizz for 2 minutes.
  2. Push the lassi through a sieve with a spatula or wooden spoon to remove the pulverized cardamom.
  3. Pour into a glass and drink.

The hard part could be figuring out how to get all the flesh off the mango. A friend from New Zealand taught me. Here’s how:

Get started by slicing the sides off the mango

Cut a grid into the flesh of the mango

Tidy little cubes of mango

Next, peel the core and slice against the pit to remove all the mango flesh

Like I said, I don’t usually bring the kids into the kitchen when I’m working. For lassis I can make an exception.

 

 

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Spring green: Roast Asparagus Salad

Posted on April 26, 2011 | Leave a comment

I have been having an incredibly good time in my kitchen this week, inspired by the first sunny and (slightly) warm weather we have had here in Seattle since…September? Seattle is blooming and everything that has been brown and wet for so long is now green. (And wet. Sigh.) Still, the green is a huge improvement. Now I want to make green food.

First there was the riff on a dish of black rice, clams, aioli and cilantro that I had at Sitka and Spruce – except I made it with sear-roasted halibut. The cilantro made it a little bit green. I loved seeing it bright and fresh in the photo. The flavor with the lemon was pure sunshine. Here’s what it looked like:

My friend Christine thoughtfully brought over an Alsatian Riesling to drink with it and it was perfect, more so because I got to share it with a really good friend. As soon as I have a chance to make the halibut again, I’ll  take pictures and post the method. I want to show you how to make aioli.

Still, I wanted the food to be greener. So I made up this very very green salad – toying with a dressing from Deborah Madison, spring asparagus, arugula, goat cheese and toasted pine nuts. Here it is:

So, there’s the bitter asparagus and the even bitterer arugula. But the asparagus’ pungency is tempered by it’s bout with the broiler. The flavor becomes rounded, richer, a little nutty. The goat cheese was something leftover from the dinner party, the sort with colored peppercorns. Martin toasted the pinenuts – for warmth and crunch. Then there’s the dressing, borrowed from Deborah Madison’s Vegetarian Cooking for Everyone. I skipped a couple of things – the big one being the capers. Here’s what Nora Ephron says about capers:

Any dish that tastes good with capers in it tastes even better with capers not in it.

I agree 100% and I feel validated in my opinion because Nora Ephron said it first.

Anyway, the dressing. I made it for this cabbage and arugula slaw that I was sure would be wonderful (it wasn’t) but the dressing had potential. (without the capers!) Garlic, salt, fennel seed and black peppercorns are mashed together with a mortar and pestle and then left to macerate with olive oil, shallots and lemon rind. It’s complex. Fire from the garlic and peppercorns, high spring notes of fennel and lemon and the edge-y richness of sliced shallots and champagne vinegar. Without the capers, it’s pretty fantastic. This is an extremely green, salad tour de force. I think after this cold and gloomy winter what I needed was a giant hit of chlorophyll.

With the salad, we made the grilled shrimp with bread crumbs from Marcella Hazan’s Essentials of Italian Cooking that I wrote about last summer and the white bean and basil puree that I wrote about when I first started writing Notes on Dinner.  And here is how to make the green salad:

Asparagus Salad with Arugula, Goat Cheese and Pine Nuts – serves 4

  • 1 bunch of asparagus, rinsed, ends snapped off
  • 2 tbsp olive oil
  • sea salt and pepper
  • 4 generous handfuls of arugula, washed and dried
  • 1 ounce goat cheese – with peppercorns, if you like that sort of thing, crumbled
  • 2 tbsp pine nuts, toasted in a small dry skillet over medium heat until glossy and golden

The Dressing (for this you will need a mortar and pestle)

  • 1 clove garlic
  • 1/4 tsp sea salt
  • 1/4 tsp fennel seeds
  • 1/4 tsp peppercorns
  • 1/2 tsp dry tarragon
  • 1/4 cup parsley, minced and divided
  • 1 shallot, thinly sliced
  • 1 zest of a lemon – finely grated with a microplane
  • 1/3 cup olive oil

Preheat the broiler – set it to high.

In the mortar and pestle, mash the garlic, sea salt, fennel seeds, peppercorns, tarragon and 2 tbsp of the minced parsley until you have a smooth paste.

Stir in the lemon zest, shallots, the rest of the parsley and olive oil and leave to macerate for 1/2 an hour.

While the salad dressing is resting, arrange the arugula on a large platter.

Then toss the asparagus with 2 tbsp olive, 1/2 tsp sea salt and several grindings of black pepper on a rimmed sheet pan. It should be in one layer. Broil 4 inches from the heat until bubbling; toasted but still crisp/tender. My asparagus was just under 1/2″ in diameter and this took about 2 minutes per side – a total of 4 minutes.

Remove the asparagus from the pan and arrange while still hot, over the arugula.

Strew the crumbled goat cheese and pine nuts over everything.

Add the champagne vinegar to the dressing and taste. Does it need more salt?

Ladle the dressing over the salad – depending on how much asparagus and arugula you have, you may not need all of it.

So I have this photo of the dinner and I’m not crazy about it. I don’t like to make excuses when I think something is lame; as my aunt says: you have to feign nonchalance in these situations. But this is sort of funny. My boys were so desperate to get their hands on this dinner (they both love Ms. Hazan’s juicy and crisp shrimp) that when I wanted to stop for less than sixty seconds to take the picture, they both started to cry! So I stopped messing about and served dinner. Everyone was happy. Here’s the photo:
It could have been a lot prettier but seriously, it was totally delicious.

 

 

 

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Codcakes – really?!

Posted on April 21, 2011 | 3 comments

Really. And believe me, I was skeptical. My friend Liz made them first from a recipe collection she got from me! Codcakes. It’s sounds like the sort of tame and ridiculous expletive my mother sometimes uses – “Fishhooks! Codcakes!” I would never say that and if you’d asked me a week ago, I might have said I would never make codcakes either. I imagined something leaden. I worried they’d be fishy – not in a good way. Codcakes sound like the kind of thing an old person would make to use up leftovers. But Liz liked them. In fact I believe what she said was “Sarah, you have to try them. They’re totally excellent!” She was right and I was completely wrong.

I wouldn’t admit this to a true crab cake connoisseur because it would  probably lead to a long and boring argument, but for a fast last minute weeknight meal that won’t threaten your retirement savings, these are pretty close to crabcakes. Really very delicious. Crisply browned on the outside in olive oil, tender within and greenly perfumed with basil. The garlic gives them a little attitude. If you don’t agree that they are wonderful after trying them, I’d love to know why.

Codcakes with Basil Aioli

This recipe can be doubled very easily. The five of us demolish a double recipe every time.

  • 1/2 c. mayonnaise
  • 2 tbsp lemon juice
  • 1 clove garlic, pressed or minced
  • 1/4 cup fresh basil, chopped
  • Sea salt, pepper
  • 1 pound cod fillets, skin removed
  • 1 1/2 c. panko, divided in half
  • 1 egg
  • 2 scallions, minced
  • 1/4 c. olive oil

First make the sauce.

In a food processor or blender, process mayonnaise, lemon juice, garlic and basil until pale green and smooth.

Scrape the aioli into a small serving bowl and, without bothering to clean out the bowl of the food processor, pulse half the cod into a combination of finely minced and chunky pieces. Transfer fish to a large mixing bowl and process the remainder of the cod.

Using a large sturdy spatula, mix all the processed cod in the mixing bowl with 3 tbsp of aioli, 3/4 c. panko, 1/2 tsp sea salt, 1/2 tsp pepper, the egg and the scallions. It should look like this:

Form the mixture into patties – these could be quite small – 2″ is good for small children. 3″ would be fine for adults. Put the remaining panko on a plate or wide bowl, and press  all over the patties.

Heat the olive oil in a non-stick pan over medium-high heat. Don’t start cooking until the oil is shimmering. This is important and the difference between stodgy-greasy and golden-crisp. Sometimes I put the pan on the heat and walk away for a few minutes to chop a clove of garlic or change whatever music I happen to be listening to. Acquiring the patience for the pan to get hot enough took me a long time. Let the pan sit on the heat for at least 3 minutes.

Add the patties to the pan and cook about 4 minutes per side, until golden. Serve with aioli or if you have a child who is acting very silly (I did) with ketchup. The aioli also goes very well with steamed or roasted asparagus. You may want to add a little extra of everything to the sauce – you’ll want more.

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Like spring: Royal Trumpets, Asparagus and New Potatoes

Posted on March 24, 2011 | Leave a comment

I was pushing the cart around the vast islands of produce at the grocery store the other day, knowing I would incite a full scale revolt if I brought any more kale into the house. Sometimes it is overwhelming, wanting to try something new and having no idea what it should be – especially towards the end of winter. There just aren’t a lot of choices in early spring in the PNW.  Anyway, staring out over the vast expertly displayed mountains of mostly green crinkly leaves (those winter stalwarts—kale, chard, escarole), there beyond that, the mushroom display. Chanterelles!?! Love them. Nope. That’s fall. Then I saw these:

Royal Trumpet Mushrooms

 

Hmm. They look a little like this Swedish type called Karljohan which I have always wanted to try. Royal trumpet mushrooms are handsome. Creamy large fungi clustered with smaller, sometimes tiny, versions of themselves, they sport a broad cappuccino colored cap. Royal trumpets look like storybook mushrooms. Suddenly, I imagined them cut in rough pieces, their edges sizzling and caramelizing in butter. The fresh loamy scent transformed, intensified, browned and buttery, and scattered with crystals of seasalt and scented with black pepper. I put half a pound in a paper bag and trolled on. On the opposite bank were slim green spears of asparagus. So spring-ish! Popped them in the cart. On the other side of the large wooden crate, a heap of small purple plastic mesh bags of tiny new potatoes, the largest potato no bigger than those shooter sized marbles. Yes. Done.

The thing is, I know none of these vegetables are seasonal here in Seattle – not at this time, in March, except maybe the potatoes. Those I think were from Oregon. But I didn’t care. Not this week. I am so ready for spring!

Royal Trumpets, Asparagus and New Potatoes

  • 1/2 lb Royal Trumpet Mushrooms, wiped clean and cut into 3/4″ pieces
  • 1/2 lb Asparagus, thin as pencils, snapped into 1 1/2″ lengths
  • 1/2 lb tiny potatoes, peeled
  • 1 1/2 tbsp butter
  • 1 1/2 tbsp olive oil
  • Sea salt and freshly ground black pepper

Here’s where I had trouble deciding whether or not to include this recipe at Notes on Dinner. I have this incredible gadget that my mother-in-law brought me from Sweden. Can you guess what it is?

This is a Swedish potato peeler although if you guessed a salad spinner you wouldn’t have been far wrong. It does have another basket that fits inside and it can dry lettuces too. I really hate to write about specialized equipment and it does seem especially unfair given that these potato peelers are nearly impossible to buy outside of Sweden, or in the U.S. anyway. You put the potatoes in the bowl, then fill the bowl with water and turn the handle quickly. The centrifugal force flings the potatoes against the sides and the tiny sharp ridges sand away the delicate skins of small potatoes. The water washes their grubby little skins away.

It is only 1/2 a pound of potatoes. So…

  1. Put the potatoes in a saucepan and cover them with water. Heat until boiling then add 1 tsp sea salt. Simmer until just done. If the potatoes are really quite small this could take no more than 10 minutes. Start checking at 8 though, just to be safe. When the potatoes are done drain them, and set aside.
  2. In a large non-stick skillet over medium high heat, melt the butter with the olive oil.
  3. Add the mushroom pieces and the potatoes, stirring every minute or two until they are light golden brown all over.
  4. Add the asparagus and continue to stir until it is crisp-tender and also, if you look carefully, lightly browned.
  5. Add sea salt and black pepper until it tastes delicious. (I would start with 1/2 tsp of salt and add 1/8 tsp increments until it is just right for you.)

I served this with that Tom Douglas fish recipe I wrote about months ago. This time I used cod, though, which was really so much better than the halibut I used last time. The finished recipe has this mild heat and lemony edge which I loved alongside those nutty forest-y mushrooms and potatoes. The parsley salad was the icing on the cake, so to speak. If you are curious, my kids loved this dinner. One of the very best. (They did, however, skip the parsley salad.)

 

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winter/salad: arugula, oranges and shallots

Posted on January 24, 2011 | 6 comments

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

Winter Salad of Arugula, Orange and Shallot

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

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

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

Posted on December 2, 2010 | 1 comment

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

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

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

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

Lamb Burger with Chutney and Smoked Cheddar – serves 4

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

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Remembering Russian Hill – A very quick pasta for winter

Posted on November 23, 2010 | 3 comments

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

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

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

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

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

Serves 6

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

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