A trio of dishes - partly finished - photographed by Sara Hobolt.  

A Trio

I am never quite sure how to call the small dishes that usually open a meal. "Appetizer" is a good standard, but there is also "hors d'oevres", "starter", "first course", and (I've only heard this phrase from MFK Fisher) "titbits", or the more puritanical spelling "tidbits." (For more on this, see Fisher's With Bold Knife and Fork. )

I've always differentiated between appetizers and hors d'oevres as such: Appetizers you sit down for, while for hors d'oevres you stand up. I was recently introduced to synonym for appetizer, "starter", by my roommate, Sara, who brought it with her from the UK. I do now, however, take issue with both words, appetizer and starter - the first because it reminds me of eating at TGIFridays, the second because it seems sort of crude. As Elizabeth David said "I cannot bring myself to use the terms appetizer or starter. The first is meaningless in context and the second makes me think of a man on a racecourse with a stop-watch in his hand." [See Is there a nutmeg in the house?]

And what do you call them if they're just sauces to dip things in? Dips? I couldn't bring myself to call them that either - it's too reminiscent of something that comes in a foil package in powder form that my aunt would mix with sour cream and serve with wilty veggies at a potluck. Blech. [and, on second thought . . . Yummmmmm. Sour cream and onion . . .I'll just block the vision of that wrinkle-y package sitting on the supermarket shelf for years on end only to spew that grey-brown dust into a bowl of runny sour cream and pretend like it never happened.]

I provided the house with three pre-dinner dining media: my homemade hummus, a roasted pepper salad, and tapenade - all served with Zingerman's French baguettes.

I've made this pepper salad before with much success. Take a bell pepper (or two, or three, depending on the size of your crowd) and roast it/them in a roasting pan under the broiler until 70 to 80% of the surface has charred. This takes about 20 min. For three peppers (I used two red and one orange) squeeze the juice of half of a lemon into the bottom of the serving bowl. Add about two tablespoons of olive oil, a grind of pepper, and a pinch of sea salt. Whisk a bit and set aside until the peppers are done.

When the peppers are done roasting, take them out of the oven and let them sit for a second while you grap a zip-lock bag, run tap water into it, and then pour it out. There should be a couple droplets of water on the inside of the bag. Using tongs, pick up the peppers and add them to the bag. Push most of the air out of the bag, and seal it. Let the peppers sit like that for about ten minutes. They should be hot enough that the water will vaporize and steam the skins from the flesh of the peppers so that they are easy to peel.

When ten minutes are up, take the peppers out of the bag and pull away the stems. Most of the seeds will come with the stems. Peel the skin from the peppers and throw it out. Rinse the peppers inside and out to remove the seeds, and chop the peppers into 1-in squares. Toss them with the olive oil and lemon juice. Put in the fridge to chill for at least 30 min, but no more than 45, or they'll get soggy.

Usually, this salad is wonderfully fresh, and a perfect beginning to a summer meal. The peppers are firm with out begin crunchy, have a hint of smoky flavor, and are brightened up by the lemon. This time, I got too distracted and let the peppers roast for too long. They were soggy. I didn't eat them.

I was very proud of my hummus. Now, the usual recipe for hummus calls for chickpeas, lemon, garlic, and tahini, with a pinch of cumin or smoked paprika. I used to begrudgingly purchase tahini at the store, begrugingly because it always has a sandy consistency which I despise, until I discovered the recipe for it in the most unexpected of places - The Joy of Cooking. I had always pictured The Joy of Cooking as a sourcebook for midwestern potluck dishes - Greenbean casserole, creamed corn casserole, casserole a la casserole, etc. Flipping through my mother's copy, which my mother has not opened since she received it as a wedding gift twenty-five years ago, I found the recipe for "Tahin", which reads something like this:

Tahin

A Mideast seed butter of yogurtlike consistency, used to dress salads or as a base for sweets. Combine in a blender:

4 T ground sesame seeds
1 t sesame oil
1T lemon or lime juice (Kate's Note:Lime juice? Really?)
1/2 t salt

Add slowly while blending:

About 1/2 cup water

Remove from the blender and stir in if you wish:

1 to 2 pressed garlic cloves

Since I was making the hummus in a food processor, anyway, I skipped making the tahini ahead of time and just added the ingredients with those of the hummus. I have no idea if this has an affect on the hummus at all.

To make my hummus:

Take two 14-oz. cans of chickpeas and drain them. Remove any extra skins that are floating around. Puree them in a food processor with four large garlic cloves, juice of 1 lemon, 1 teaspoon smoked paprika, 4 T sesame seeds, 1/4 cup of water and a 1/4 to a 1/2 cup of olive oil. (If you want a creamier texture, add more olive oil. For a chunkier health-food store style hummus, use less oil.) Season to taste with sea salt, fresh ground black pepper, more lemon juice, and paprika. Puree again. If the texture is still to chunky, add more olive oil, or a little bit of liquid reserved from the cans of chickpeas. This is VERY garlicky, so if you don't like garlic, add less. Garnish with an olive. (In the photo, it had already been eaten.)

The tapenade was my favorite. The name is derived from the French word for capers, and originally, it may have been made with them primarily. MFK Fisher, in With Bold Knife and Fork, traces the dish to "a famous restaurant in Marseilles [first made about a hundred and twenty years ago]" but, as she says, "[tapenade] tastes as subtly ancient as Time itself can taste.'' According to Ms. Fisher and Ms. David, it is traditionally served with hard-boiled eggs, but as it was excrutiatingly hot this night we served them, I didn't want to deal with the potential smell. I served it on thin slices of baguette, with the other dishes. Here is the recipe:

Tapenade

1/2 lb oil- or brine- cured black olives, pitted
1 T small capers
6 anchovy fillets, packed in oil
Juice of 1/2 a lemon
2 large cloves garlic, crushed
extra virgin olive oil
black pepper, to taste

Equipment: Food processor

Finely minced together the olives, capers, anchovies and garlic in the food processor. Add the lemon juice and pepper and pulse once or twice. Slowly drizzle in the olive oil until you have a thick paste. Chill for about thirty minutes, or, to make it ahead of time, put it in a clean jar and cover with about 1/4 in of olive oil. It will keep, covere,d in the fridge for about 2 days. (If you want to make it more ahead of time than that, omit the garlic, so as to avoid botulinum, and wait to stir the garlic, finely minced, in until about 1/2 hour before serving.)

Tapenade, if youlove olives, as I do, is a delicious treat. Served with bread, a light cheese, and a glass of white wine, it makes an excellent pre-dinner snack.

More Fun with Stuffed Vegetables

After yesterday's success with the stuffed tomatoes, I wanted to try more stuffed vegetable recipes, and remembered a few that I had seen in Eugenia Bone's At Mesa's Edge.

I was lucky enough to have the opportunity to work in a bookstore where we were given access to advanced reading copies of future releases. One day, when browsing through the free-ARC pile, I came across Ms. Bone's memoir/cookbook, and took it home.

Eugenia Bone is a native New Yorker and food writer. Her husband, on a fishing trip to Colorado, made a decision to purchase a 45-acre ranch there, and so she dutifully packed up the kids and moved to her new home in Colorado's North Fork Valley, sight unseen. The first half of the book details how she adjusted from Manhattan to life on the ranch, and the second gives more than a hundred recipes that she developed using ingredients that she grew in her back yard, or was able to obtain from other ranchers in the area.

I've skimmed through the memoir - there is one particularly endearing piece on how she overcame the "FOOD. NOW!" mindset of the supermarket and learned to fly-fish.

The recipes drew my attention first, though. I opened up the cookbook today because I remembered the plethora of stuffed-veggie recipes that she had listed. There are at least three recipes alone for stuffed chiles or peppers and four or five for stuffed zucchini blossoms. [She also has recipes for some very tasty-looking soups that I can't wait to try out.] I picked the first recipe that I was to make out of this book - Poblanos Stuffed with Grated Zucchini - based on what I like to call the Melty Cheese Factor, or MCF if you will. That is, they are full of delicious, melty cheese. Yum.

I had trouble tracking down some of the ingredients, though, and so I had to modify the recipe - with much success I might add. In the original recipe, the accompanying sauce is made from zucchini blossoms, which I couldn't find anywhere. I threw together some things that I thought would be tasty, and followed the directions that were given for the sauce using those ingredients. I also added some mild cayenne and a little garlic to the recipe.

I've never had much luck with deep-frying, but today, all of that changed. After they are stuffed, the peppers are beer-battered and fried, and they came out of the hot oil with a beautifully golden and crispy crust. As my luck would have it, the batteries in my camera died, and I can offer no proof of this.

I had a bit of a kitchen accident when trying to dispose of all of the hot oil, a tale which I will regale you with for the purpose of self-deprecation here. As a person with half of a brain, I know that oil and water don't mix, and so I was careful not to dispose of the quart or so of dangerously hot canola I had left over down the sink or attempt to cool it off by running cold water into it. Safety first: I set the pan to the side of the sink to let the oil cool before dumping it into a plastic bottle and throwing it in the trash. However, the experimental chemist in me had one of those "What would happen if I . . .?" moments, and so I wet my hand under the faucet and, standing about six feet away, flicked a few droplets into the pan.

Steam rose from the surface, and then a popping sound and then . . . as the droplets that had not evaporated on contact sank to the bottom of the pan and then turned to steam and expanded, a GEYSER that would make Old Faithful question his self-worth leapt from the surface. The show lasted about fifteen seconds; the pan began to rock back and forth, threatening to spill as orbs of blistering oil flew across the kitchen.

Well, I guess that answered that.

[I should have known. This was somewhat of a repeat performance: Three years ago, sitting on the porch at my old house one night, someone asked what would happen if, say, a beer were poured into the Citranella candle. A similar explosion occurred, this one involving flaming balls of wax that were launched upwards of ten feet from the pour site.]

Here is the recipe, as I made it. The beer batter was a cinch, and I can't wait to try it on fish.

Poblanos Stuffed with Grated Zucchini

Adapted from At Mesa's Edge by Eugenia Bone
Serves 2 for a light dinner/lunch or 1 for dinner and lunch the next day

2-3 bottles of Heineken (or other lager)
1 cup all-purpose flour
1 t baking powder
fine sea salt
6 T extra virgin olive oil
2 1/2 c chopped onion
1 1/2 large zucchini, grated on the large holes of the grater (about 3 cups
1 cup grated Monterey Jack cheese, grated on the large holes of the grater
about 4 oz white button mushrooms
about 2 T fresh chopped parsley
cayenne, to taste
1 clove garlic, or to taste, minced
2 cloves garlic, or to taste, crushed
2 c homemade chicken stock
1/2 a tomato
4 large poblano peppers
freshly ground black pepper
canola oil, for frying
sour cream, to serve

1 medium bowl
2 medium skillets
a casserole, baking dish or roasting pan
a food processor
a deep skillet or pot for frying
a large strainer or colander
toothpicks

Make the batter by combining one bottle of beer, flour, baking powder, and a pinch of salt in a medium bowl. The batter should be runny like yogurt. Refrigerate for at least an hour.

Preheat the broiler.

Heat 4 T of the olive oil in a medium skillet over medium heat. Add the minced garlic and saute until you can smell it from about 5 feet away, but before it begins to brown. Add 2 c of the onion and cook until it is translucent, about 5 min. Add a little salt and some pepper. Add the zucchini, and cook, stirring constantly, until no water from the zucchini can be seen in the bottom of the pan - about 10 min. Remove from the heat, sprinkle with cayenne to taste, and stir in the cheese. Set aside.

Rinse the peppers and lay them in the casserole, baking dish, or roasting pan so they are not touching one another. Put them directly under the broiler to char the skin. This takes about 20 min or so (but my oven is fussy, it may take shorter or longer, so watch them closely.) Turn them at about 8 min and again at about 17 so that the skin chars evenly on all sides.

Heat 2 T of olive oil in another medium skillet over medium heat. Add 1/2 c chopped onion and the two crushed garlic cloves. Sprinkle with salt and pepper. Saute until the onion is translucent, about 5 min. Add the mushrooms, tomato, and parsley and a sprinkle of cayenne, and saute for 1 min. Add 3/4 cup of the chicken broth and cook until the mushrooms are soft and the mixture begins to take on the red of the tomato, about 5 min. Puree the mixture in a food processor and set aside.

Remove the peppers from the oven and transfer them to a large plastic bag. Add about a teaspoon of cold water and seal the bag tight. When the peppers have cooled, in about 10 min, peel off the skin and remove the stems. (The stems should just pull away from the pepper, and most of the seeds will come with them.) Be careful not to tear the pepper as you are doing this. Rinse out the inside to get all of the seeds.

Gently spoon the zucchini/onion/cheese mixture into the peppers. Close the peppers with toothpicks. Heat about 1 1/2 in of canola oil in a large skillet or pot.

Put the pureed sauce back into its pan and on the burner over medium low heat. Add the rest of the chicken stock and allow it to simmer until it is reduced to the desired thickness.

Remove the batter from the fridge and give it a stir. Dip the peppers in the batter to coat, and then drop them carefully into the oil with a slotted spoon. Fry them for about a minute on each side. Transfer them to the strainer or colander with the slotted spoon when they are done.

Serve the peppers on top of the sauce and with a dollop of sour cream on the side, if you wish. Serve with salad and the other Heineken.

Yum!

New Cookbook

I received The Cuisine of Normandy by Marie-Blanche de Broglie in the mail today. Eugenia Bone uses this cookbook as a reference in her own, At Mesa's Edge, for a scrumptious-looking roast partridge recipe, and I couldn't wait to find out what else Mme. de Broglie had to offer.

She has a lot.

The cookbook itself is very simply designed. It was published in the early eighties, and unlike more recent tomes, this one lacks fancy photography or illustration. There is a short introduction by Simone Beck of Mastering the Art of French Cooking and a forward by the author describing her childhood at "La Coquetterie", her family's estate in Normandy.

The cookbook is divided by season, with summer first, and then by menus. I generally dislike this outline for cookbooks, as it makes things hard to find. The menus are ornate for someone of my ability and means: The first, a country picnic, entails Duck Pate with Calvados and Prunes, a Three-Layered omelet with Peppers, Spinach Salad with Honey and Oranges, and Almond Tartlets. [On the other hand, who cares how ornate they are. After reading over the Pate recipe again, I will splurge and buy that bottle of Calvados - even if I have to go all the way to France to get it.] Each menu comes with wine and cheese recommendations, as well, and most have a soup or appetizer, a salad, an entree and a dessert.

The recipes are straight forward, and Ms. de Broglie's experience as a cooking instructor is demonstrated in her simple way of describing complex tasks. I had no trouble at all following the recipe that I made tonight, or adapting it for only one person. I've read some of the more complex recipes - for terrines and pates and lobster mousses, for example - and they seem equally straight forward. Not knowing much about the intricacies of Norman cuisine, I don't know how much the author's "[skillful] blending of American efficiency and techniques with a European flair"(from the dust jacket) translates into "dumbed down for Americans" but I can say that the dish that I made tonight was excellent.

The first recipe that I chose to try was a simple one: Tomates aux Oeufs Poches et Coulis de Concombre - Baked Eggs in Tomatoes with Cucumber Sauce. (See the picture below.) Adapting the recipe for one was easy, and it made a delicious light dinner alongside a greens salad and a glass of Chardonnay. [de Broglie recommends a Saint-Emilion.] I chose a mixture of white and cremini mushrooms for the stuffing, and when I make this again, I think that I'll experiment with the type of mushrooms that I use for the stuffing. I also would like to try adding other ingredients to the stuffing. (Bacon. mmmmm . . . .) I found the cucumber coulis unnecessary, though. The flavor did not complement that of the tomatoes well, nor did the mint-green flecked puddle it made complement the look of the dinner. One of my tomatoes, as you can see in the picture below, flattened while baking. That was pretty. You can't tell, but it came out in a sort of star shape.

Here is the recipe, as I adapted it:

Tomates aux Oeufs Poches et Coulis de Concombre

Baked Eggs in Tomatoes with Cucumber Sauce
Adapted from The Cuisine of Normandy by Princess Marie-Blanche De Broglie

Serves a first course for 2 or a light dinner for one.

2 medium-sized ripe tomatoes
8-10 mushrooms, a mix of what ever you like, minced fine
1 small yellow onion, minced fine
2 T unsalted butter
fine sea salt and freshly ground black pepper, to taste
2 eggs
ground coriander
6 inches or so of an English cucumber, split, seeded, and chopped
3 T sour cream

Preheat the oven to 375 F.

Slice the tops from the tomatoes, scoop out the seeds and pulp, and invert them on paper towels to drain. Melt the 2 T butter in a pan and saute the onions and mushrooms over medium heat with salt and pepper until they begin to dry. (I took this to mean that the water had mostly seeped out of the onions and there was very little visible butter in the bottom of the pan.]

Place the tomatoes in a buttered baking dish. Fill the tomatoes with the mushroom and onion mix until there is about 3/4" of space left in the top. Taste the mixture, and sprinkle with a little salt and pepper if needed. Break an egg into each tomato, and sprinkle with a little more salt and pepper and some ground coriander.

Bake in the oven until the eggs have set to your liking. I like my yolks a little runny, and so had to bake them about 20 min. (I really think, though, that my oven temp isn't accurate.) Check them after about 15 min.

While the tomatoes and eggs are baking, puree the cucumber in a food processor or blender, season, and stir in the sour cream. Serve the tomatoes hot, with the cucumber sauce on the side. For a light meal, serve with a salad.

Tomates aux Oeufs Poches et Coulis de Concombre 

The Truth behind Dinner

I know a woman who often, instead of planning meals outright, looks through her cupboards and refrigerator and picks out all of the things that she feels like eating. After completing their preparation, she arranges her choices neatly on a plate and attempts to come to some conclusion about her state that day by them.

"Everything I wanted to eat today was green," she said once. She proceeded to guess why.

Green could be a sign of fertility; she could be pregnant.

Green could be a sign of envy; she could be coveting something.

Green could be a sign of money; perhaps she would soon come into some kind of inheritance.

"I think you're low on iron," I told her.

Trying to learn something about ones mood or fortune or future from the food one chooses for dinner is charming, no doubt. I have attempted this many times for amusement, with much success. I do, however, take more stock in the idea that when we have cravings for certain types of food, as my friend above did when she only wanted green leafy vegetables, our body is trying to tell us that we are missing something. Case and point: I get cravings for rare red meat once and a while, but if I wanted to satisfy them without steak, I find that lentils work well. Both are high in iron. My mother, when she was pregnant, often craved sour things, like lemons, orange juice, and yogurt. All are important sources of folic acid, which has been shown to prevent fetal neural tube defects. [This is all complete conjecture and I can offer no concrete proof of that there is a correlation between cravings for beef and being satisfied with lentils, or my mothers pre-partum cravings and the importance of folic acid during pregnancy.]

Some scientists have taken this idea much farther, into the realm of Nutritional Genetics. The main concept behind Nutritional Genetics is this: We, as humans, have completed at least some of our evolution in radically different environments from one another, and therefore evolved eating different things. We are meant to eat what we evolved to eat, and if we don't, we have health problems.

I first learned of the field of nutritional genetics in an article in the New York Times Science section. Now, some concepts I was already aware of. Diabetes, cancer, heart disease, and high cholesterol are all disorders that can be inherited, but can also be controlled or prevented, to some extent, by diet. (Notice the CYAQ, there.) It makes sense then, that if you are genetically vulnerable to Type II diabetes, that ideally you would have a diet low in simple sugars and saturated fat.

Even if one didn't suffer from diabetes, or other similar diseases, we all have, according to the field, an ideal diet. One that correlates to the foods available to our hunter-gatherer ancestors, whether they be Teutons, Incas, or Hausas.

After reading this article, I thought back on who my ancestors were, what my genetically predetermined diet should consist of. I couldn't think of much. My father's family is Dutch and Frisian; my mother's family is of Scottish, German, and French heritage. As hunter gatherers my ancestors were probably traversing central and northern Europe, following herds of large game. So, without further extensive research, that doesn't tell me much. [I do, however, like to pretend that due to my meat-eating ancestors, I can eat as much fatty, rare-to-the-point-of-just-warmed-over prime rib as I can get (oh, and I can eat it, if I can get it), and not have to worry about high blood pressure, cholesterol, or obesity. ]

In a recent essay ["In the Flesh", Vogue;June, 2005] , Jeffrey Steingarten gave his thoughts on why it would be unnatural to crave anything but fish:

"My idea is that anybody with even half a brain would have migrated toward the sea. Humans are naturally drawn to the seashore; just compare the relative prices of beach front property in Malibu with prices on the Iowa plains. . . High-quality animal protein was there for the asking, clams and oysters and fish that could be easily speared or trapped. Red meat has few nutritional advantages over seafood and many deficits . . . only the most clueless of our species would choose to live deep in a forest or jungle and daily risk their lives for the sake of animal protein."

I don't quite know how much stock to take in these new predestined diets, yet. Having a background in biochemistry, and the inherent genetics courses that go with it, I am wary of buying into the popular misunderstanding/conception that genetic make up can explain everything, though it has been used to explain many things recently from a person's political orientation to whether or not a person believes in God. [I am however, still pondering the question of the genetically controlled diet, while having written off the genetically predetermined atheism and political allegiance as complete crap.]

I found myself in a position today, similar to that of my friend of the green foods. I was hungry, and I had a lot of food in my fridge - mostly leftovers. My pantry shelf was similarly full. I grabbed everything that I wanted: the last 2 eggs, the last piece of tart from Saturday, some greens, and a bowl of the watercress soup that I made yesterday [I will write about that experience later.] For dessert, I set aside a package of Swiss Cake Rolls.

What does this say about me? I asked. Out of the many things on my shelves and in my fridge - this is what I chose? Eggs, salad herbs and leftover soup and vegetable pie?

According to my friend's fortune telling method:

Now, eggs, on Easter, are symbols of new life. They may also symbolize happiness, prosperity, and good fortune. In Aesop's Fable of the "Goose who Laid the Golden Eggs", eggs symbolized good fortune that ended in greed and loss. So, hmmm. . . fortune and loss.

As for the greens: The meals that I grew up with followed, roughly, the square meal plan that came into vogue in the 40's and 50's: meat, starch, vegetable, salad (on top of the vegetable), bread, and maybe, dessert. [For a witty and sensible discussion of this asinine meal plan, see MFK Fisher's essay "How to be Sage without Hemlock" from How to Cook a Wolf. ] So, dinner really isn't dinner without the salad, for me. Perhaps I was in a nostalgic mood.

The tart and the soup were leftovers that had to be consumed; clearly, this is a sign of thrift. So I am feeling frugal today.

And, last but certainly not least. . . the Swiss Cake Roll. For the uninitiated, the Swiss cake roll is a 6"x3"x1/4" rectangle of chocolate-flavored carpet padding, rolled into a perfect cylinder about 3/4-1" thick with a wet tile grout/petroleum jelly emulsion heavily dosed with vanilla and sugar. It is then coated with deep mocha-colored and chocolate-flavored Tinkerbell nail polish, and you can buy twelve of them for fewer coins than those in your coin purse. In other words, they are heaven.

And here, with dessert, is where I fess up and admit that I've known all along why these foods occupy my dinner plate.

You see, I love terrible foods. I do. I love Swiss Cake Rolls, processed and injection-molded cheddar cheese, and the Macaroni that comes in a blue box. I think that Ruffles Cheddar and Sour Cream Potato Chips deserve their own level on the food pyramid, and that biting into a peanut butter and jelly sandwich made with Wonderbread after months of being denied can be an almost spiritual experience. I lived off of Pop Tarts for a week my freshman year of college . . . by choice.

But my favorite foods fill me with guilt. So, every once and a while when dangerous temptation takes over, I have to pile on my plate hard-boiled eggs, arugula, endive and radicchio, a vegetable tart, and soup made of what is basically gourmet swamp-weed (delicious, though) so as to force myself to eat more than Swiss Cake Rolls for dinner.

My astrology chart 

mmmm . . . dessert . . . 

Let Me Clarify . . .

This has been quite an educational weekend. I learned of the presence of two new types of cheese, and the perfect ambient temperature at which to not attempt making pie crust. Today, I learned a third lesson - how to clarify soup broth.

I as reading Elizabeth David's "Is there a Nutmeg in the House?" and came across a recipe for watercress soup. I had all of the ingredients except for the watercress, so I ran out and picked some up.

Earlier on, in a different recipe, Ms. David proscribes a very easy method for clarifying cloudy soup broth to make consomme. [I have now learned from my room mate that this is the same method used to clear-up cloudy wine.] Now, the soup isn't clear, so it really doesn't matter that the broth be, but I wanted to try anyway. I have about 15 pints of chicken stock in my freezer, and grabbed two of them.

I defrosted the chicken stock and brought them to a low boil. I took three egg whites and whisked them with a fork until they were just frothy, then added them to the hot soup. They curdled immediately, and I covered the pot and left it for about 10 minutes.

When I lifted the lid 10 minutes later, there was a thin crust on top, its looks slightly reminiscent of wet dryer lint. I strained the broth through a piece of damped muslin fitted in a strainer. It was as Ms. David said - clear as glass, and a beautiful amber color. I intend to make her tomato consomme recipe, in which this method is used, soon. [I supposed this is probably the method by which consomme is usually made.]

I did use the broth to make the watercress soup, but I'm letting that chill in the fridge over night to eat tomorrow for dinner. I'll have pics then.

By the by, the tart that I made yesterday was delicious cold the day after - even the horrible looking crust. This is definitely something that I will make again, albeit in a tart pan for looks.

You Tart!

My first cooking lesson this week was: "There is more than one type of pecorino." Now, this is exciting - I've learned of the presence of two more types of cheese. More than exciting, this is revolutionary - a discovery on par with an astronomer who discovers two new galaxies, or maybe a herpetologist or entomologist who discovers two new kinds of lizards or bees.

My second lesson this week was far less stimulating: "Don't attempt to make pie crust when the temperature outside is pushing 80 degrees and you don't have air conditioning."

Rewind to this afternoon. I had a piece of my lasagna from Thursday night. It was great leftover. I ate a second piece with out warming it over and it was delicious cold, as well. The noodles, however, still tasted/felt unsatisfactory. I would like to find some way for combining the eggplant-onion-tomato-spinach pesto flavors with out the pasta.

I just got Elizabeth David's “Is There a Nutmeg in the House?", a posthumous collection of her essays, in the mail. It was lovely outside - breezy and sunny, and I took my new book and a glass of ice water to our "garden" - the rather sparse patch of grass in front of our house that has just enough room for three lawn chairs. Reading Ms. David's essays, I remembered a recipe that I had ear-marked for a sunny day in the most recent special collection of Fine Cooking - the Savory Tomato, Corn, and Cheese Tart with Fresh Basil. mmmmm. . .

I put down my book and headed to the market around the corner. On the list: white onion, basil, 1 ear of corn, 1 large medium-ripe tomato, eggs, half and half, and yellow cornmeal. They had basil this time, but if they had not, I would have substituted spinach again. [Not that I'm saying that the two taste anything alike. They do, however, taste good with many of the same things.]

The first step was to make the shell. This is the first time that I have ever attempted to make a pie or tart crust from scratch, and I always assumed it would be difficult. It wasn't - at first.

I mixed the dry ingredients together in my food processor, and then, using the metal blade, cut pats of chilled butter into the mix. Once the butter had been added, I drizzled in the olive oil and then the ice water and continued to process until the dough had formed a ball. I removed the ball from the processor, flattened it, and put it into the fridge for about an hour and a half. So far so good.

When it came time to roll out the dough, though, I ran into a problem. See - I don't have a rolling pin. We have so many extraneous kitchen gadgets in our house, on account of it being a college house that the landlord has never been able to properly empty in about ten years, that I just assumed that we had one. Five sets of measuring cups? Yes. Three woks? Yes. Rolling pin? I'm afraid not.

No problem! I'll just use something else . . .

My first thought was a drinking glass. I found one that was a uniform cylinder - but it was too small. The recipe says to roll the dough into a 15" disk. The glass was but 6" high. We did have a large glass cylindrical vase, though, and I tried that.

Now, after five years in college and a degree in chemistry, I could intuit that glass was probably the worst thing to use for this job. I tried to make do, though - but to no avail. Everything sticks to it, including my dough. Everything, that is, except flour. I tried oiling the surface of the vase lightly, then flouring that, lightly, but it made things worse. After scraping the dough off of the vase, I tried the drinking glas, which worked alright. To get it on the baking sheet, however, I had to cut it in half and then squeeze the two pieces back together - and it kept getting soft. I put it back in the fridge at one point, but it still didn't work. I had a lot of trouble getting the dough thin enough with out geting it too thin or tearing.

The recipe also made WAY too much filling (or not enough dough) and so when it can time to fold the edges over the filling they kept tearing around the base. (The tart is free form 0r "rustic" as the recipe reads.) Next time I make this (and I will make it again - I will not be deterred by mere pie crust) I will double the dough recipe to ensure that I have enough.

The tart did not look as pretty as the picture in the magazine did - see my picture below - but it did taste good - even the crust. The crust was buttery with just a hint of sweet. It wasn't as flaky was I would have liked - a fact I attribute to the heat and my pinching the many tears back together - but I think that I can work on that. The filling - onions, sweet corn, tomatoes and basil, topped with Parmigianno-Reggiano - was delicious: sweet and summery. I think that when I make this again, I may add less basil and some chopped black olives instead of the corn. Spinach might also be a nice addition. I also think that I'll make it in a standard tart pan, for looks, and I won't cook it as long - maybe only 35 or 40 min. The tart tastes better, to me, at room temperature. Here is the recipe as I made it, adapted from The Best of Fine Cooking: Cooking Fresh - Spring/Summer 2005:

Savory Tomato, Corn & Cheese Tart with Fresh Basil

Makes 1 Tart; serves 4 for lunch or 8 as an appetizer

For the Cornmeal Tart Dough:

1 1/4 c unbleached all-purpose flour
1/3 c fine yellow cornmeal
1 1/4 t fine sea salt
1 t sugar
6 T European-style unsalted butter, cut into 1/2 in pieces and very cold
3 T extra virgin olive oil
1/4 c ice water

For the filling:
extra virgin olive oil
1 large white onion, sliced thin on the horizontal
fine sea salt and freshly ground black pepper
2 large cloves garlic, chopped fine
a handful of basil, coarsely chopped
kernels from 1 ear of sweetcorn
1 large medium-ripe tomato, sliced thin
Parmigiano-Reggiano
1 egg yolk mixed with 1 t half-and-half


To make the dough: In the bowl of your food processor, mix together the flour, cornmeal, salt and sugar using the metal blade. Add the butter two or three pieces at a time, pulsing in between until each pat of butter has been cut up into tiny pieces. When all of the butter has been added, continue to process until the dough has broken into large pieces. While the machine is running, drizzle in the olive oil and then the ice water. Remove the dough as soon as it comes together in a ball. Wrap in saran wrap and put in the fridge for an hour and a half. Go read a book. Have a glass of wine.

Heat extra virgin olive oil in a sautee pan over medium heat. When the oil is hot, put the onions in the pan and allow them to cook, stirring occasionally, until they start to brown, about 12 minutes. Season with salt and pepper. Add the garlic, corn, and basil, stir, and cook about 1 min. Take the pan off of the heat.

Position the rack in the middle of the oven. Preheat the oven to 375 F. Using whatever means necessary (roll, push, etc.) form the dough into something resembling a 15 in disk on a floured surface. Transfer the dough to a baking sheet (one w/o sides) . Spread the onions and corn onto the dough, leaving about 2 in of space around the edges. Layer the tomatoes in a single layer on top. Sprinkle the tomatoes with salt and pepper. Grate a generous amount of Parmigiano-Reggiano on top of the tomatoes. Fold the edges of the dough over the filling and brush with an egg wash made with the egg yolk and half-and-half.

Bake the tart at 375 F for 45 min, until the crust is browned and the cheese is melted. Let cool for ten minutes before eating.

Well, the recipe did say it was supposed to look "rustic." 

Tapas at Cafe Felix

Mom and I had dinner plans today, and went to Cafe Felix on Main St.

Cafe Felix is one of my favorite lunch spots. I often stop in there after a visit to Afterwords, the discount bookstore on Main, to read and eat. The ambiance is cheerful (the bright yellow walls do a lot) and there are enough clientele like myself who enjoy a quiet lunch and a book that they don't ask if you're waiting for someone when you're dining solo.

I was expecting the same menu as they serve at lunch, and was craving their "Zelda" sandwich - tomatoes, Brie, and red onion brushed with olive oil on their fresh baguette - warmed under the broiler. mmmm. . .heaven. Simple? Yes. Cheap to make at home? Yes. Better on their bread? Most definitely.

I'd never been there past three o'clock though, and when I showed up and the menu was different, I was disappointed. I'd been waiting for that sandwich all day. (I shouldn't have been surprised though. Who serves crepes and sandwiches for dinner?) My disappointment vanished quickly, however, when I glanced over their choice of tapas.

Now, it was some hard choosing, but Mom and I finally settled on three cold dishes. I tried my best to order like a professional AP Spanish student, but it had been too long. I butchered every last ll and ñ. The waitress smiled patiently. Next time I'll have to bring a guide - or just point.

We had a Gambas con Aguacate - a shrimp and avocado dish, with lemon and olive oil and a cool tomato-garlic sauce. The sauce was delicious, as was the avocado - but the shrimp was lacking. It was a little tough and chewy. I only had one.

The next dish was Carne Relleña- a pork tenderloin stuffed with a mix of chorizo, roast red bell pepper, hard boiled eggs, and thyme, on top of a bed of caramelized onions in red wine sauce. It was cool and spicy with a nice array of textures. The onions were a special treat - the red wine flavor was subtle and perfectly complemented the sweet tang of the onions.

My favorite of dish all was the Patatas y Huevos Fríos - Potatoes and Hard-Boiled Eggs. They were cooked and sliced thickly, covered in a garlic-caper sauce, then sprinkled with chopped black olives. The sauce was thin - almost a salad dressing consistency, and had just a hint of lemon. The dish was amazing, to say the least, and the one I ate tonight that I'm most likely to try to duplicate at home. The waitress brought us a basket of bread straight from the oven, and after finishing the potatoes, we soaked up the rest of the sauce with the fresh bread. Deeeeee-lish.

Looking back over the menu, there are a million other things I should have tried. The shrimp and avocados were a regretful order, though overall, it was a lovely meal. I left sated, but not stuffed. I expect I'll be back there next Friday night - for more potatoes, and perhaps some mussels and squid. Yum!

Still Life of Lasagna with Mixed Herb Salad and grapes 

First post! Hoorah! And a messy lasagna recipe . . .

I've been planning my own food-themed blog since February, as a sort of graduation present to myself. I've finally gotten around to it. Hoorah!

Today on my lunch hour, I came across this recipe on the Italian Food site at about.com. It sounded delicious, but when I got home, I wasn't so sure. I love lasagna. I love pesto. But lasagna and pesto, alone, together? hmmm. . .

Well, I like tomatoes and onions and so I made plans to add those in as well. I also had a lonely eggpant sitting in my fridge that was about to go bad. When I got home, I thinly sliced the eggplant and set it in a deep bowl. I tossed a small handful of kosher salt over the slices, filled the bowl nearly to the top with cold water, and left it on the counter for 30 minutes while I ran to the market around the corner.

Now, I know that the jury is still out on the salting/soaking of eggplant. Some people swear that salting the eggplant takes away some of the bitterness, but to be honest, I've never noticed that, and it is the slight bitterness with a touch of sweet that is characteristic of the vegetable that I enjoy about it. I have found, however, that salting and soaking eggplant for about a half an hour before cooking prevents it from soaking up too much olive oil and other liquids.

At the market, I encountered two problems. The first was expected - they didn't have Tuscan or Sardinian pecorino. (I had never realized until coming across this recipe that there were different kinds of pecorino - you learn something new everyday.) I could have run across the street to Zingerman's, I suppose, but I would have filled up on cheese instead of lasagna.

The second problem was a little more troublesome: They didn't have basil. I grabbed a couple of tomatoes, a yellow onion, a bulb of garlic, a bunch of fresh thyme, lasagna noodles, a block of unsalted butter, a block of Parmigiano-Reggiano, more olive oil (just in case - I go through about a liter a week), and a case of "mixed herb salad". There's another grocery store within walking distance, but just in case they too were out of basil, I grabbed a bag of spinach as a substitute. Good thing I did. The other store was out of basil as well.

Back at home, I drained the eggplant slices and patted them dry. I spread them out on a roasting pan grate (problem #3: no foil in the house), and brushed them with extra virgin olive oil. I've been using a Spanish olive oil that I found at Sparrow's called "Zoe", which I like a lot. It's very light and fresh and has a slightly spicy taste to it. It also "comes to you in an attractive tim which not only protects and preserves the oil, but may also be used as a decorative vase when empty." (This is from the tin itself. Kitschy!)

I peppered the eggplant and then put it under the broiler for about 7 minutes on a side. Meanwhile, I set the noodles to boil (problem #4: bad quality lasagna noodles) in a pot of salted water with a little olive oil. I chopped up the thyme and set it aside, then thinly sliced the tomatoes. When the eggplant slices were done, I set them aside on a plate and then set the tomato slices on the grate. I brushed these with olive oil, and peppered them. I put them under the broiler for 6 minutes, and then set them aside on another plate and sprinkled them with the chopped thyme and about 1 T of dried oregano. I turned the over down to 375 F. When the noodles were done, I drained them and then rinsed them with cold water. I spread them out in layers between clean, fuzz-free dish towels.

While the tomatoes were in the oven and the noodles were still boiling, I sliced the onion thinly. I melted about 2 T of unsalted butter in a pan on the stove over medium heat. I minced one large clove of garlic and, when the butter had melted, added the garlic to the pan. While the garlic was cooking in the butter, I got out the food processor for the spinach pesto. When I could smell the garlic from about five feet away, I layed the onion slices in a thin layer in the bottom of the pan and let them simmer for a few minutes while I set up the food processor. When everything was in place, I put a glass lid on the pan and turned the heat down to medium low. When the onions were translucent, about 15 min later, I turned off the heat.

I used the curly-leafed spinach in this recipe - I find that it tastes better when cooked than the flat-leaf variety, which I feel is better for salads. I rinsed enough spinach that would fill the bowl of my food processor, and put it into the food processor, with the water from the rinse clinging to the leaves. I pulsed until I got rough paste, then added two large garlic cloves, a handful of pine nuts, and more spinach - up to the top of the food processor bowl. As I pulsed this time, I drizzled in enough olive oil to make a smooth paste. I grated about 4 T of Parmigiano into the bowl, and then pulsed again. I reapeated these additions: Spinach, pine nuts, olive oil, and then pulse, until I had about 1 1/2 cups of a smooth paste. I transfered this to a bowl.

I oiled the bottom of an 8x11 casserole dish, and layed down 1 layer of noodles. I added a thin layer of the spinach pesto, and then the eggplant in one layer. On top of the eggplant, I put another layer of noodles, then a layer of tomato, and then the onions. On top of the onions, I put a layer of noodles, then a layer of paste, then a layer of tomatoes, and then added the two leftover slices of eggplant that I had. On top of this, I grated enough Parmigiano to cover. I put this in the oven until the lasagna had warmed through and the cheese had melted, about 18 minutes.

I ate the lasagna with a side of the mixed herb salad and a glass of home-made lemonade. Yum!