Going through older post drafts, I’m always a bit startled when I come across a photo that I actually really like! It always seems to me that surely I must have posted all the good photos already, and only left the dregs as drafts. But apparently not.

Salad may not seem that exciting, but for me it’s revolutionary. In fact, so are blood oranges – I can’t stand regular oranges, but blood oranges taste just different enough. The redder they are, the better they taste. I can’t tell if that’s a real difference, or if I just like that the reddest ones look less like oranges. We made this during the height of Dave’s obsession with stovetop approximated sous vide cooking, and my obsession with finding salads I actually enjoy eating.

I think what won me over was the realization that salads could include fruit and spices and artistry, and not just a bunch of leaves on a plate. Who knew?

Enjoy!

Archives
2008: Cocoa Nib Flans with Raw Sugar Sauce
2007: Stewed Garlicky Black Bean Spare Ribs

Artichoke and Blood Orange Salad
2 small heads frisee, removed from base and cleaned
1/4 C coarsely chopped flat leaf parsley
for the pickled artichokes
8 artichoke hearts, cut into eighths (held in acidulated water)
150 gm white wine vinegar
1.5 gm gelatin (optional — don’t bother if you have a chamber vac)
1 quarter preserved lemon, rind only, coarsely chopped.
4 cardamom pods, crushed
2 cloves garlic, crushed
for the blood oranges
4 blood oranges
1 tsp ground cardamom
for the vinaigrette
2 tbsp mustard seed oil
1 tsp red wine vinegar
fleur du sel
black pepper

First, make the pickled artichoke hearts.

This is actually a pretty spectacular method for doing sous vide cooking with liquidy contents inside the vacuum sealed bag without having a hugely expensive chamber vacuum sealer. Ordinarily, a FoodSaver or other normal, affordable home vacuum sealer can’t seal up anything that isn’t pretty dry, because the liquid gums up the works (as it were).

To solve this problem, we hit upon the idea of gelling the liquid with gelatin, since gelatin is thermoreversible and melts back into liquid when heated. This turns the liquid into a solid during the vacuum-sealing stage, and back into a liquid during the cooking stage. A perfect solution to all of life’s problems!

1. Bring the vinegar and gelatin to a boil, then refrigerate it until it is set.

2. Make a sachet with the cardamom, garlic, and lemon.

3. Add gelled vinegar, spice sachet, and artichoke hearts to a vacuum bag and seal.

4. Cook at 185 F for 40-75 minutes, until somewhat tender.

Next, prepare the blood orange.

1. Supreme the blood oranges by cutting off the peel to create a whole skinless fruit, then cutting segments of fruit out from between the layers of membrane. There are some great visual instructions on how to supreme citrus here.

2. Toss the blood orange segments with the cardamom.

Finally, construct the salad.

1. Whick together the vinaigrette, and toss with the parsley and frisee.

2. Top with blood orange segments (cold), artichokes (warm), salt, and freshly ground pepper to taste.

3. Serve immediately.

When we catered the VIP suite at SalonCon in September, we tried to think of a fun and interesting way to make sure people got some protein in their diets during the day. Conferences and conventions are notorious for people taking poor care of themselves, and failing to eat real food or get enough sleep. We wanted to do our part to help solve that problem this time.

After leafing through Michael Ruhlman’s Charcuterie again, we decided to play with his cured salmon recipe, and we eventually made a few different flavors to provide to the VIP suite. After some experimentation, our favorite was still one that Ruhlman suggested in the book – black pepper and coriander.

We eventually served it as a one bite course at the restaurant as well, with with fresh cucumber and dill on top of a pine nut tuile.

This home-cured salmon is also a wonderful substitute for lox if thinly sliced rather than cubed. Nothing beats Brooklyn bagels, but the lox you can buy at the store doesn’t come close to beating salmon cured at home and flavored any way you please.

Archives
2007: Clementine Sunchoke Puree
2006: Persian Pomegranate Soup (Ash-e Anar)

Home-Cured Salmon with Black Pepper and Coriander
(adapted from Charcuterie by Michael Ruhlman)
4 oz (or 125 g) sugar
6 oz (or 180 g) dark brown sugar
6 oz (or 175 g) kosher salt
A 2-3 pound salmon fillet, skin on, bones removed
Freshly ground black pepper and coriander seeds to taste

Find a non-reactive baking dish just large enough to contain your fish, but not too large. You want the brine to cover the fish eventually, so if your dish is too large, you will fail.

Whisk the sugars and salt together.

Spread half the mixture into your dish. Place the fish skin side down on top of the sugar/salt.

Cover the fish with a thick layer of ground black pepper and coriander seeds (about 1 tbsp whole seeds per pound of salmon might be right, but really, do it by eye and to taste).

Spread the rest of the sugar/salt mixture out on top of the fish.

Cover the dish tightly with plastic wrap and set a pan on top of it, with some weights (about 4-8 pounds) on top of that. Canned good, jars, bricks, or those dumbbells you never use would be perfect.

Refrigerate for about 48 hours, checking halfway through to redistribute the cure if necessary to more evenly cover the salmon. If it still feels too squishy, let it go longer, testing with a finger poke every 12 hours or so until it feels nice and firm.

Once it’s done curing, rinse and pat dry.

You can serve it thinly sliced, though as you can see it also worked well cut into small cubes as if a tartare, served with fresh cucumber and dill on top of a pine nut tuile.

Figs are marvelous. Dave and I have been eating them with duck confit (as in this spectacularly tasty recipe, all rich luscious duck and bright fresh figs with mustard seeds and curry leaves to perk everything up), pickling them, and just generally reveling in their availability lately.

Instead of apologizing for not updating this blog often enough, let me tell you some interesting things:

Comment #17 was randomly picked as the winner for the A Pig in Provence by Georgeanne Brennan book giveaway from Yummr. Congratulations, Michelle! Just get me your address and Yummr will ship the book directly to you.

Wouldn’t it be interesting to create dishes and meals based on color palettes from Kris’s Color Stripes?

Our occasional restaurant will be catering the VIP suite at SalonCon on September 13th. SalonCon is a one day event in NJ focusing on.. well.. check out their FAQ. Their tagline is “the Victorian Era for the 21st Century”. They have music, book readings, steampunk and neo-Victorian art, a ball, and a set of salons with speakers, suggested readings, and of course a lot of spirited discussion. If you can, please stop by to say hello, join in the event, and taste some of the tasty treats that we will be providing.

Nancy Weber, an author, caterer, and all-around magnificently creative and wonderful woman, has started making these fantastic butcher’s aprons. The photo below is of me wearing mine while trimming lamb shanks (which we braised into melting tenderness using a adaptation of our Pomegranate Ginger Saffron Braised Lamb Neck recipe). I got mine when I saw it hanging in her apartment and fell in love with it on the spot. You can buy your own butcher’s apron here if you’re interested.

Archives
2007: Ma La Chicken with Roly-Poly Squash
2006: Fig and Date Basteeya


Duck Confit and Fig Crostini
Approximately 1 1/2 C shredded duck confit (recipe below)
5ish fresh figs
30 or so fresh curry leaves
1 tbsp mustard seeds
Olive oil
Baguette
Cucumber
Salt

Slice the cucumber into thin rounds, using a mandoline if you have one. Mix with a few tablespoons of salt, then set aside for at about an hour. Rinse the cucumber slices, squeeze them dry as you can, and set aside.

Slice a baguette, and toast the slices is you like.

Splash a bit of oil into a pan, then add some mustard seeds, some curry leaves, and some of the shredded duck confit. Cook over medium-high heat, stirring constantly, until the mustard seeds start to pop, the curry leaves start to sizzle, and the duck is warmed through.

Slice the figs into 1/4″ thick rounds. Put fig slices onto the baguette slices, then the duck confit with curry leaves and mustard seeds, then the cucumber slices. Garnish with an extra curry leaf.

Duck Confit
1 duck, legs and wings only (save the breasts to sear and eat separately)
Rendered duck fat or oil
1 bay leaf
1/2 tsp dried thyme
1/4 tsp dried sage
1/2 tsp dried rosemary
Plenty of salt.

Take you some duck legs, and wings if you have them, and put them in a pot. Cover them with rendered duck fat and/or oil. Add the other ingredients. Cook for a couple of hours at a low simmer (the moisture in the duck will simmer; the oil won’t, of course), until the duck is very tender and easily pierced with a fork or even a toothpick. Remove the duck, cool and drain, then shred the meat.

These are dead simple, very tasty, and wonderfully vocal – both the pop rocks and people’s reaction to them.

Shell your fava beans. Remember, favas need to be removed from the pod, and then the skin has to be removed from each bean individually. It’s a pain in the ass, but worth it once in a while.

Make the seaweed pop rocks right before serving by combining a mix of finely ground kelp, dulce, and nori with unflavored pop rocks and Maldon salt. You can grind the seaweed in advance, but if you mix the pop rocks in too early they will end up clumping together into a solid, non-poppy mass. They’re mostly sugar, and quite hydroscopic.

Saute the fava beans in butter until they smell utterly delicious. Put into small serving spoons or dishes. Sprinkle with seaweed pop rocks and serve immediately.

Archives
2007: Fava Bean and Cherry Salad
2006: Lemongrass Saffron Soda and Ginger Ice Cream Float

This was our amuse bouche for our opening night at Jack. I’m a bit obsessed with nicoise olives at the moment, because I absolutely hated all olives until I discovered these at the Park Avenue Bistro not too long ago. So now I’m using them to add depth to stews, intricacy to cookies, and inspiration all around.

I love alternating sips of chilled, tart rhubarb soup with bites of crumbly, salty olive cookies. I know it sounds odd, but they really were quite lovely together! Brave the olive cookies; you’ll be pleasantly surprised.

Also, my apologies for the radio silence lately. It’s been spring on and off, and I just want to go out and wander the streets and parks whenever the sun comes out. I treasure every evening spent having dinner outdoors in a tank top, every smell of earth and green growing wonder, and even the comforting smell of rain first hitting the pavement. I spent last Sunday night in Prospect Park at a marching band scavenger hunt and capture the flag game. Not to mention the lawyering that takes up time, too. Life is grand, every moment of it.

Speaking of which, if any of you locals like playing board games (such as Scrabble or Go), stop by the Brooklyn Lyceum and say hi on Monday night. I’ll be there.

Archives
2007: Sour Cherry Braised Lamb Shanks
2006: Pear and Basil Tart


Rhubarb Soup
(adapted from La Tartine Gourmande)
18 oz rhubarb
1 3/4 oz sugar
1/4 C water

Chop the rhubarb into cubes. Simmer everything together until the rhubarb is soft and fallen apart. Pass through a tamis. Serve chilled.

Nicoise Olive Cookies
(adapted from The Traveler’s Lunchbox)
9 tbsp unsalted butter, softened
3/4 C confectioners sugar, sifted
1 tbsp extra-virgin olive oil
1 1/4 C all-purpose flour
pinch of fine sea salt
1/2 C (heaping) pitted and coarsely chopped nicoise olives
Maldon salt to taste

Cream butter until soft. Mix in sugar. Mix in olive oil. Mix in salt and flour, gently but thoroughly. Mix in olives.

Press about 1/4″ thick on parchment paper lined baking sheet. Score with a butter knife into squares. Poke holes with a fork. Sprinkle a bit of Maldon salt on top.

Refrigerate at least 30 minutes and up to 1 day.

Preheat oven to 350 F.

Bake until golden, about 15-20 minutes. Remove from oven and cool on wire racks. Cut apart while still warm.

Serve at room temperature or slightly warm.

I love Momofuku, especially now that the Noodle Bar has moved to a larger location where Dave and I can actually bring our friends and chat with them at a table over dinner instead of just hoping to find one or two spaces at the bar. The food is amazing, and being the devoted carnivore that I am, I enjoy chef David Chang’s devotion to adding meat to every dish on the menu (with one exception). Momofuku is not the place to bring vegetarians or people who keep kosher, but for the rest of us it is a pleasure to visit.

While I hope beyond hope that Chang will eventually write a cookbook, Dave decided to do his best to recreate one of our favorite Momofuku dishes on his own in the meantime. Here, then, is his version of Momofuku’s Roasted Rice Cakes – it’s not the Momofuku recipe, but just our own attempt to make something similar at home. (Hey David Chang, if you read this – did we come close to getting it right?)

It’s hot and chewy and crispy and spicy and more than a bit overwhelming on the palate, in a good way.

Roasted Rice Cakes with Onions and Red Chili Pepper Sauce
1 lb Korean rice cakes
2 medium onions
A little oil for frying
1/4 cup hot water (we suspect pork stock would make a good substitute, if you have it)
1 tsp sesame oil
1 tsp soy sauce (or more to taste)
3 tbsp gochujang (Korean red chili paste)
1-3 tsp Korean red chili powder
1 tsp Korean anchovy sauce
Sesame seeds for garnish (optional)

Slice the onions thinly and fry them in a bit of oil until they are lightly browned. Meanwhile, in a separate pan, fry the rice cakes until they are also nicely toasted on all sides.

Combine all the ingredients and stir-fry quickly until they come together, then serve. Use however much red chili powder you can handle – 3 tsp is probably closer to Momofuku’s level of spiciness, but 1 tsp was closer to what I actually wanted to eat at home.

Garnish with sesame seeds to taste, if you like. Dave does. I do not.

When I want to find ripe mangoes – lush, juicy, almost overripe mangoes, in fact – the Mrs. Robinsons of mangoes – all the shelves seem to carry are hard, tart, green mangoes.

But when I’m looking for tart, sharp green mangoes – more a vegetable than a fruit, clear and refreshing like citrus – the shelves are full of fragrant, sweet, tender mangoes that probably don’t even exist except for those times when I’m searching for the green ones.

Why do mangoes mock me so?

Whatever the reason, that’s my excuse for bringing you a not-so-green mango salad today, instead of the Burmese green mango salad Dave and I had intended to create. Made with mangoes that were somewhat unripe, firm and tasty without the dripping lushness or sharp tanginess of either extreme, this salad pops with fish sauce and sesame oil, sharpened with lime juice, and it has the satisfying crunch of raw red cabbage.

Not-So-Green Mango Salad
2 mangoes (green or verging towards unripe, at least), julienned
1 head red cabbage, julienned
6 hungarian wax peppers or similar green chilies, minced
3 shallots, minced
1 tbsp fish sauce, or to taste
1 tsp sesame oil, or to taste
1 tsp palm sugar, or to taste
4 limes worth of lime juice, or to taste

Stir all ingredients together. Optionally, you can add in some shrimp paste or ground tiny dried shrimp. Enjoy!

These latkes look kinda fishy to me.

At least, that was was my first thought when I glanced upon the recipe in Mark Bittman’s Fish: The Complete Guide to Buying and Cooking. I was on a mission to make salmon for dinner, since we don’t eat nearly enough seafood around here, and Dave complains when I pick up fish that he considers too flavorful (mackerel) or too bony (butterfish).

It’s really unfortunate. I grew up sailing, and I love fish. I caught the first fish I ever ate, in fact. (It was a fluke.) I wish we ate more fish, and blame my recent lack of fishy meals on Dave.

This is a perfect way to use up leftover salmon that has become boring, or the flesh left on the skin after you’ve cut salmon scallops for some other recipe. It revitalizes leftovers, transforms them into something different, something… crunchier.

Though Bittman calls these galettes, I look forward to serving them as Salmon Potato Latkes when Channukah comes around.

Salmon Potato Galettes
(from Fish: The Complete Guide to Buying and Cooking by Mark Bittman)
2 C grated peeled potatoes
2 C flaked cooked salmon
1 tbsp salt plus more to taste
2 tbsp minced fresh basil
Butter and olive oil for frying
Freshly ground black pepper to taste

Put the grated potatoes in colander and sprinkle them with 1 tbsp salt. Let them sit for 15 minutes, then rinse them and squeeze out as much water as you possibly can from them.

While letting the potatoes sit, mix together the salmon, basil, salt, and pepper.

You can use leftover salmon for this, or if you have salmon skeletons or skin left over from cutting off scallops, microwave it until the flesh is cooked enough to be easily removed and use that.

Mix the potatoes in with the rest of the ingredients. Form into patties.

Swirl half butter, half olive oil into a pan over medium-high heat and fry the galettes until they are golden brown on both sides and done.

My family and I sailed around the Cyclades in Greece a few summers ago, and while we felt that the cuisine on the islands became tedious after a while, there were a few things we never tired of: dolmas, spanikopita, and milk pies.

My dolmas are a bit of a stretch from traditional Greek or Turkish stuffed grape leaves, which sometimes call for pine nuts but never hazelnuts, and which can call for currants or meat but rarely both at the same time. I think that hazelnuts and garlic were meant for each other, truly, and that meat can always be improved with a little fruit. (I plan to devote my life to creating hazelnut/garlic recipes, in fact. Maybe I should start a food blog event devoted to the pairing?)

To be fair, I’m still holding a bit of a grudge against some Greek traditions, anyways. When I tried to visit the island of Delos, we were turned away because the center of the ancient world was closed on Mondays.

I’d still kill for a good Greek milk pie recipe, mind.

Dolmas (Stuffed Grape Leaves)
(inspired by Apricots on the Nile: A Memoir with Recipes by Colette Rossant)
For the filling
1 1/2 lb ground lamb (you can substitute beef or pork, but lamb is better)
6 cloves garlic, minced
3/4 lb hazelnuts, ground
2 2/3 C rice
1 oz fresh parsley, minced
1 1/2 tbsp ground cumin
1/3 C lemon juice
1/2 C olive oil
Salt and freshly ground black pepper to taste
Everything else
A big jar of grape leaves
1/3 C olive oil
2 1/4 C water (or chicken stock)
Optional: lemon juice and/or yogurt for serving

Rinse off the grape leaves in cold running water. Place them in a bowl, cover with boiling water, and let stand for 5 minutes. Drain and let them cool as you construct the filling.

Mix all the filling ingredients together. There, your filling is constructed!

One by one, spread out each grape leaf shiny side down. Pinch off the bit of stem that’s sticking out and set it aside. In the center of the leaf place about 1-2 tbsp filling, shaped into a small log. Roll up the leaf according to the second set of instructions here. (You can find another good set of instructions for rolling up the leaves here, too.)

Once you’ve stuffed all the grape leaves you can, find a heavy-bottomed saucepan large enough to contain them. Cover the bottom with a layer of loose grape leaves, the left-over ugly ones or any spares, and throw in those pinched off stems, too. Cover that with a layer of stuffed grape leaves, packed tightly, seam side down. Arrange another layer on top of that, continuing until all the stuffed grape leaves are in there. Cover with another layer of loose grape leaves. Pour the olive oil and water or stock in over that.

Bring it to a boil, then lower the heat and simmer, covered, for about an hour, or until done.

Serve hot or cold. (I prefer them cold, but it’s really just a matter of taste.) Optionally, you can drizzle lemon juice on top and serve them with greek yogurt for dipping on the side.

I first tasted fava beans a few days ago. I’m not sure how I managed to miss them until now, but I did. But now that I know how creamy they are, how fresh green and buttery in texture, I will be sure not to miss them again!

Preparing fava beans to be cooked is a two step process, one that I imagine would be most pleasant done with a group of friends sitting in rocking chairs out on the front porch (or here in Brooklyn, crowded together out on the front stoop).

First, you have to open up the pods and remove the beans. Next, you have to peel the thick skin from each bean. You can blanch them first if you like, but I didn’t, since they came off fairly easily without. It helps to have nails that can pierce the skin.

The flavor combination works well – it’s a great example of the adage, ‘Things that grow together, go together!’ This time of year, I become very brave, figuring that anything fresh and beautiful I find at the market will meld together with whatever else catches my eye. It tends to work out.

I don’t plan to bust out the grill until next weekend, but we have finally started eating dinner out in the backyard, at least. Dave pulls out the big photography lamp that we like to call ‘the sun’ and sets it up out back, running the power cord in through the window, to light our late night dinners in the summer.

The salad is simple:

Saute your fava beans in ramp butter, with some freshly ground black pepper, salt, and truffle salt to taste. When they are soft and creamy, stir in some sweet cherries, which you have previously halved and pitted. Mince some preserved lemon peel and stir that in, too.

This does involve a few ingredients you have to make in advance, but if you keep them always on hand, salads like this are quick and easy to create.

This is my entry for Vegetables, Beautiful Vegetables and Salad Stravaganza.