Archive for the ‘Seasonal’ Category

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Spicy lentil and red kuri squash soup

17 November 2012

This is the soup you want to come home to if you’ve spent the afternoon outside and let dusk fall around you, the chill creeping until your cheeks are flushed and your fingertips frozen. If by any chance you’ve already cut the squash and prepared the cubes (undoubtedly the lengthier proposition in this recipe), the rest can be assembled fairly quickly.

The warmly spiced lentils and faintly sweet squash spring to life with a jolt of lemon, but what really makes the soup sing is the gremolata of parsley, lemon rind, and chili flakes. It is inspired by another incredible lentil soup I had at ABC Kitchen a couple of years ago. I kept note.

***

The soup

1 red kuri squash

1 cup French or Italian green lentils

3 small yellow onions

3 garlic cloves

A 2 x 1-inch piece of fresh ginger

Olive oil

Sea salt

Juice from 1 lemon

Peel and cut the squash into 1-inch (2.5 cm) pieces. Check lentils for small stones and wash in cold water. Peel and thinly slice the onions lengthwise (into half moons). Peel and finely chop the garlic and ginger.

In a heavy-bottomed soup pot, heat a couple tablespoons of olive oil. Add the onions and cook over medium heat, stirring regularly, until they become golden, about 7 to 10 minutes. Add the garlic, ginger, and a good pinch of salt, and cook for another 3 to 4 minutes, stirring often.

Now add the squash and cook for another few minutes, stirring often all the way to the bottom of the pan to mix everything well. Season with more salt.

Pour in the lentils, cover generously (by at least 1 inch or 2.5 cm) with water, and cook at a gentle simmer until the both the squash and lentils are just soft, approximately 25 minutes.

Pour in the lemon juice, starting with 1/2 lemon, testing for acidity, and add salt if needed.

Serve with a large spoonful of gremolata.

The gremolata

Handful parsley

Zest from 1 lemon

1/2 tsp Chili flakes

Excellent olive oil

Finely chop the parsley. Mix with the lemon zest, chili flakes, and just enough olive oil to coat.

Related posts

Lentil soup with cumin

Parsnip and butternut squash soup with sage

Pumpkin leek soup

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Posted in Fall, Fall soup, Lentils / Chickpeas / Legumes, Soup, Vegetarian, Winter, Winter soup | 4 Comments »

Fettucini with immediate tomato sauce

4 October 2012

The last of the summer’s ripe tomatoes may be a little soft, a little blemished, they may not warrant much attention as heads will be turned by the arrival of bright yellow squash and orange pumpkins. What these tomatoes want is this sauce exactly. It is so quick, so easy that it will barely distract from the anticipation of slow roasts and apple pies. It is so good that those blemished tomatoes may soon be missed, as the creeping cold leaves heaps of unripened green tomatoes in its wake, with no better prospect but to be transfigured into chutney.

The sauce sort of made itself one night, and I was taken aback by how easy it was to create such a good sauce in so little time. I’d always supposed that good tomato sauce needs to simmer gently and reduce patiently. On that evening there was no time and, temptingly, in the kitchen, some good fettucini and a few roma tomatoes.

All I did was cut the tomatoes lengthwise in sixths, slice a few garlic cloves, heat some olive oil in a large skillet, throw in the garlic for barely a minute, add the tomatoes, and wait until most of the juice had evaporated and the tomatoes hinged on golden and in some places brown. It took perhaps 10 minutes, just about the time to boil the pasta.

***

For two

5 ripe tomatoes

2 cloves garlic

Good olive oil

Sea salt and freshly ground black pepper

200 g good fettucini

Really good olive oil

Parmigiano-reggiano

Few basil leaves

*

Bring a large pot of heavily salted water to boil for the pasta.

Cut tomatoes in half lengthwise then in half in thirds. Peel and thinly slice the garlic.

Carefully slide in the fettucini. Cook in a heavy boil.

Heat a generous amount of olive oil in a large heavy skillet. **The skillet should be large enough so the tomatoes are in one layer only.** Cook the garlic for barely a minute over medium to high heat, until translucent, then add the tomatoes. Season generously with salt and pepper. Cook the tomatoes over high heat until a lot of the juice has evaporated and they start turning brown.

Start checking the pasta regularly after about 8 minutes (by carefully taking one out and eating it). Drain quickly in a colander as soon as the pasta is just al dente (or to desired consistency) and return immediately to the pot used for boiling the pasta (one could use another pot but it’s much simpler this way). **It is important not to overdrain the pasta. If it is too dry it will become sticky.** Quickly drizzle generously with good olive oil so the pasta doesn’t stick.

Transfer the pasta to individual bowls. Spoon over the tomatoes, add a drizzle of very good olive oil, tear up a few leaves of basil on each bowl, and grate some parmigiano to finish.

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Posted in Basic, Easy, Fall, Pasta, Seasonal, Summer, Vegetarian | 3 Comments »

Quick pickles

29 September 2012

The bounty of fall, the joy of coming home after a summer away; it’s the time of year when I am overrun by the desire to cook, pickle, and can, buy way too many fruits and vegetables at the market, and usually only barely manage to rescue them, in extremis, days and sometimes weeks later, and turn them into whatever easy preserve I come across that day. Despite my determination, every year, to squirrel away a veritable pantry of homemade goods for the winter, my canning endeavors are completely haphazard. This year for example I made a few versions of this jam every time there were too many excess plums on the brink. I made a quart of tomato sauce with a few extra pounds of overripe tomatoes. I studded a cake with practically fermenting concord grapes.

But one recipe I was determined to make, the instant I saw it, was Kitchen Culinaire’s peach and lavender jam. At one market on Tuesday I found peaches from upstate New York which evolved from rock hard to mealy soft without a whiff of peach in between. On Saturday I went to look for the seller of West Virgina peaches at the Mount Morris Park market that inexplicably and without a word moved blocks away to the corner of Lenox and 122nd. This producer sells hands down the best peaches I’ve ever eaten in New York, and I wish I’d known of the market’s move sooner in the season. This Saturday I went and bought many many many pounds of peaches, heaved them home, and didn’t make any jam. When, after years of peach frustration, one finally finds fruit that is all that a peach used to be, so long ago, the only thing to do is to eat it just so.

For days we ate peaches, with nothing more than a little Greek yogurt and light drizzle of honey. But I was on a mission, I had to make this jam, so I rescued the last three sweet juicy pounds and proceeded to infuse the lavender, cut the fruit, weigh the sugar, and set the jam to simmer. It smelled incredible, so fragrant and delicate, like a summer in Provence. And then I overcooked it. Beginner’s mistake, bad planning, distracted multi-tasker, I had to stop the cooking to pick up Balthasar from school, when I started it again I was giving Louise a bath and suddenly the jam wasn’t golden brown anymore but deep brown with sparkly foam, the scent of lavender entirely replaced by peach caramel…

Today I rushed out to buy peaches and make jam immediately; there were none, the farmer’s market replaced by a small flea. And so, even with the very best intentions, this year I didn’t manage the one jam that I had set out to do. And despite my best intentions, this post will not be about peach lavender jam.

It’s about pickles. It happened by chance. I saw kirby cucumbers at the market, bought some with no plan in mind; days later when it was high time to use them, I went to this great resource for all things in jars, found this recipe, made it. It’s great.

***

Slightly adapted from Asian-Inspired Quick Pickles by Food in Jars. One-pint Mason jars are the perfect height for these pickles. Makes 2 one-pint jars.

2 one-pint Mason jars
4 or 5 kirby (small pickling) cucumbers
1 chili pepper
1/2 small red onion or 3-4 scallions
2 garlic cloves
4 small sprigs fresh mint
4 small sprigs fresh coriander
1 cup rice wine vinegar
Juice from 2 limes
2 Tbsps sugar
1/2 teaspoon salt

*

Cut each cucumber into six spears. Cut the chili pepper in two lengthwise. Thinly slice the onion (or peel the scallions, cut then into kirby-length pieces, and slice them lengthwise) and garlic cloves. Wash the mint and coriander.

Dividing the ingredients equally between the two jars, pack the cucumber spears and slide in the chili pepper, onion (or scallions), garlic, mint and coriander.

In a small bowl, stir together the rice wine vinegar, lime juice, sugar, and salt. Pour the liquid over the cucumbers, close tightly, and carefully invert the jars to combine all the flavors.

Let the pickles sit in the refrigerator for at least 24 hours before eating.

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Posted in Easy, Fall, Homemade and preserves, Seasonal | Leave a Comment »

Children’s dinner | The ‘I wish it was cauliflower’ (but it’s not quite the season!) zucchini gratin

20 September 2012

Every morning I make lunch for Leo and Balthasar to take to school. When this began I thought I would use the opportunity to be terribly creative; in fact it has become the least inspired aspect of my cooking life. One day I make sandwiches, one day pasta. I alternate. I know the boys will eat this. The problem with school lunches is that I am not there, at the end of the table, frowning, admonishing, and — yes — forcing them to finish their grilled mackerel and ratatouille.

The children eat many things, and, if I may, I don’t think it’s because ‘we’ve been lucky’ but because I’ve made it an excruciating. daily. struggle. But not at school. At first I was just happy that they finished their meal; now I’ve become stuck in this pasta/sandwich routine. I am mindful of what goes into the lunchbox, of course, my mother‘s ever knowledgeable advice always chiming in my ears. But I leave the really good food, the fun food, and the mealtime fights for the evenings.

It seems to have payed off. Leo and Balthasar can be coaxed into eating practically anything; Louise, who is 2, is still in a tug of war. Some things need a bit more prodding, and, unhelpfully, it happens that onetime hits suddenly misfire. But there is some predictability. Naturally oftentimes I have little more patience than to throw some frozen peas into boiling water, serve that with a sunnyside egg, and call it dinner; but I know that practically anything that is diligently prepared, well seasoned, and cooked to the standards of something I would serve guests will be polished off.

Gratin for example. Actually, I don’t think I’ve ever made gratin for guests. But nonetheless, gratin is a great example.

It started out with cauliflower. Winter is not the most propitious season to get children excited about vegetables, and at some point I had to find new ways to prepare cauliflower. I personally like cauliflower best raw, but one day I decided it was time to tackle gratin. I say ‘tackle’ because I was intimidated by béchamel sauce. Many years ago on a skiing holiday I volunteered to make béchamel sauce. It was for lasagna, I think. I knew the basic ingredients and felt confident that, by virtue of being French, I was the person best qualified for the job. All I managed to do was create a giant, ever expanding monster of butter, flour, and milk, which probably wasn’t even any good. As it happened, I had to suffer some lessons in béchamel making from Thomas, who made copious fun of me. This was a very long time ago.

I’ve since gained some confidence in the kitchen, so a while ago I decided to tackle béchamel again to make cauliflower gratin, which, come to think of it, is now probably my favorite way of eating cauliflower.

The punchline, of course, is that children love gratin. They also love anything that’s been simmered or stewed with onions, garlic, herbs, spices. They love ratatouille (they do!), they also love risotto (but weeknight dinners rarely enjoy the leisure of 45 minutes of undivided attention). So when I made this squash and zucchini gratin the other day, despite slight initial dismay that it wasn’t cauliflower, the children ate heartily, and asked for more.

***

Gratin is easy to make once the béchamel demon has been tamed. Ideally I’d make simple broiled or pan fried fish with this gratin, since fish and zucchini go so well together. On this particular day I was unprepared and just had some leftover rice, fried to crispiness in olive oil. That was good too.

Quantities are for a 9 x 13 inches (23 x 33 cm) oval dish.

6 medium-sized zucchini and/or yellow squash

Lots of basil leaves

Sea salt

Freshly ground black pepper

Good olive oil

About 3 1/2 cups (850 ml) béchamel sauce (this deserves its very own post and will be up soon, but in the meantime look here)

Freshly grated parmesan

*

Preheat oven to 375°F (190°C)

Wash and thinly slice the zucchini crosswise (into disks) approximately 1/4 inch (1/2 cm) thick. Wash the basil leaves.

Place the zucchini slices upright in the dish. Intersperse a basil leaf every 4 or 5 slices. Sprinkle with salt and pepper and pour a very thin drizzle of olive oil over the zucchini.

Pour the béchamel sauce evenly over the zucchini and grate lots of parmesan on top.

Bake the gratin for about 45 minutes, until nicely brown and bubbling. (Placing the rack in the upper half of the oven will help the gratin get a good color.)

*

Related posts

Children’s dinner | Cowboy food

Children’s dinner | Fake rabbit in the vegetable garden

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Posted in Children, Easy, Summer | 4 Comments »

Grilled pork chops with fennel, sage, and pimentón

13 September 2012

I have a dilemma, and it involves pork.

As I may have mentioned, a few years ago I discovered Flying Pigs Farm at Union Square market. Before then I never bought pork (ham and bacon excepted), but since I’ve become more than a little fond of the animal, largely encouraged by a pretty remarkable recipe for slow roasted shoulder.

As I may also have mentioned, last November a real local butcher, Harlem Shambles, opened in our neighborhood.

So I have a problem of fealty: where should I buy pork now?

Rather than resolve this question just yet I’ve embraced this sudden begging supply of excellent pork and expanded my pork-cooking horizon further; I’ve been making pork chops. We’ve grilled them and, due to uncooperative weather gods, have seared them in a pan. Both work very well; key are the quality of the pork, and seasoning that respectfully complements the flavor of the meat.

They were amazing, I thought. Whether here or there, another great reason to buy pork.

***

Serves 4, one pork chop per person

4 (1 inch-thick) all natural and preferably heritage breed pork chops
1  1/2 tsps fennel seeds
1 tsp coarse sea salt
8 sage leaves
Smoked Spanish paprika (pimentón)

*
Take the pork chops out of the refrigerator and prepare the rub at least 45 minutes before cooking.

In a mortar, crush the fennel seeds with the sea salt.

Rub the chops on each side with the spices and add a sage leaf in the middle. Let sit at room temperature. *Meat cooks more evenly if allowed to come to room temperature.*

Just before cooking — on a grill or in a pan faintly coated with olive oil — sprinkle some smoked Spanish paprika on each side of the chops.

Cook the chops over very high heat so they become beautifully brown on the outside without having time to dry up inside. It’s difficult to give an exact cooking time but it should be approximately 4 minutes on one side and 3 to 4 on the other.

As always, let the meat rest in a warmish place 5 to 7 minutes before serving. The chops should be faintly pink inside and very juicy.

*

Related posts

Slow-roasted pork shoulder

Pork rillettes

Ratatouille

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Posted in Easy, Fall, Meat / Poultry, Spring, Summer, Winter, Year-round | 1 Comment »

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