Kaua'i, Day 1: Purple Long Beans with Garlic and Mustard Seeds

The downside of cooking away from home is navigating a foreign kitchen. For instance, I would have thought low heat was lower than medium, but that may just be me and my sheltered mainland ways. And under no other circumstances would you be likely to hit upon the idea of trying to rinse rice with the aid of a coffee filter. (Tip: Don't.)

The upside to cooking away from home? Grabbing the most unusual things in the market to make for dinner.

Found on the way north from the airport: Fresh-caught moonfish at Fish Express, local purple long beans at Papaya's Natural Foods, palm trees, green cliffs, bougainvillea and bromeliads, a vast and shimmering sea.

The long beans I just threw in a wide pan with some olive oil, a smashed clove of garlic, and a scattering of black mustard seeds, then tossed, covered, and cooked till al dente.

In the face of what I can only assume is an island-wide drought of coconut milk (since I can't imagine why else a store would be completely out of it...maybe coconut-obsessed island gnomes who strike in the dead of night?), I bravely abandoned my go to recipe for moonfish in favor of a new one (sprinkle with salt, black pepper, and red pepper flakes, pan fry until almost cooked through, serve over black rice...then melt a pat of butter in the pan, toss in a couple tablespoons julienned ginger and let caramelize, throw in some cilantro and a glug of white wine, simmer briefly, pour over the fish).

It'll do.

Intermission

This blog is a blog about food, of course. But it is also, implicitly, a blog about social connection—about creating meals that we share with others, about food as a communal experience; about cooking with and for and because of, about smell and taste and texture that we experience with rather than alone. After all, what are we doing here, you and I, if not creating a shared space, a mutual reality?

Pull up a chair. Let me tell you something.

A friend of mine was recently remembering his dad, who passed away a few years ago, and I overheard an acquaintance tell him two sentences that have been echoing in my head ever since. She said something like: The people we love are concepts in our heads. They live on as long as we remember them.

Which is true, right? In a profound, ringing kind of way.

You can hear them. What they would say. Or see them and how they would look. Corner of the mouth pulling up into a smile. Eyes that crease at the corners. But more than that—you can feel them like a warmth, a presence, a concept in your head that's as real as anything (because everything, when you think about it, is a concept...our whole world is filtered through our minds...so why should one mental representation be any less real than another? There they are, nestled between our memory of yesterday and our thoughts of tomorrow).

So next time you sit down to a meal, bring them. The father or grandfather who passed away. The faithful companion who rested his head on your knee for eleven years. The friend who you somehow lost and the ex who you never stopped loving. Invite them to dinner. Lean into them. Breathe.

Feel that?

Right there.

Concepts in our heads. Food on the table.

Live on.  

 

Arugula Salad with Sardines and Preserved Lemon

You know the saying. When life—in, say, the form of two lovely dinnertime hosts who have just plied you with roasted pastured chicken and grilled eggplant and zucchini from their garden and just-plucked tomatoes and homemade pâté and a veritable panoply of stunning wines and a wide night sky pinned up with constellations, into which a shooting star slips, sudden and silent, as if from another world—when that life, goes the saying, hands you a jar of preserved lemons, you go home and you make lots of things that involve preserved lemon the next day.

 

Okay, maybe that's not the saying. It lacks a certain ring. But it's true. The corollary is, when life in any form does not hand you preserved lemons, you make your own. (Shortcut here). And then, in either case, you make lunch.

Lunch, since you asked, should be this.

Ingredients
4-5 oz baby arugula
Good quality olive oil
About 1 tbsp preserved lemon, chopped
Fleur de sel (or sub kosher salt)
1 medium carrot, coarsely grated
1/2 cup canned navy beans, rinsed and drained
Liberal scattering sprouted sunflower seeds*
2 tins sardines, drained**
Freshly ground black pepper

Drizzle arugula with olive oil, sprinkle with the preserved lemon, and toss well. (Use enough oil to lightly coat the leaves. I just do this directly on the plates, using my hands, or you could do it in a bowl and then arrange beds on the plates).

Sprinkle lightly with salt, then scatter liberally with carrot, navy beans, and sunflower seeds. Top with sardines and freshly ground black pepper.


Serves 2 for a light summertime meal, and pairs well with a cold glass of Torrontés.



*Available at Costco.

**Current favorites: Wild Planet Pacific sardines in extra virgin olive oil with lemon.

Smoked Bacon and Apple Farro

This post brought to you by our formerly far-flung, recently returned Kansas correspondent.

Ingredients
1 cup farro (preferably not pearled)
2 slices Niman Ranch applewood smoked bacon, diced
Olive oil
1-2 medium Granny Smith apples, flat-diced
1-2 leeks, white and light green parts, halved lengthwise, rinsed well, and sliced
2 cloves garlic, minced
2 large carrots, coarsely grated
1/4 tsp Aleppo pepper
Salt and freshly ground black pepper to taste

Prepare farro according to package directions.

In a large, nonstick skillet, cook the bacon until crisp over medium heat. Remove with a slotted spoon and set aside. Drain half the bacon grease and replace the volume with olive oil, then sauté the leek and apples until tender and translucent.

Add the garlic and carrot and sauteé another 2-3 minutes, stirring frequently to make sure the garlic doesn't burn. Stir in the Aleppo pepper, then fold in the cooked farro. Add salt and pepper to taste, then stir in the bacon and serve immediately.

Serves 2-3.

Slow-Baked Salmon with Lemon and Thyme

I recently found myself in the alarming position of agreeing to cook dinner for 25 people.

Actually, I should rephrase. "Agree" implies that I had some say in the matter. I was unilaterally volunteered to cook dinner for 25.

I raised the possibility that perhaps this was an egregious error. Maybe they meant 2.5? 2.5 people seems feasible. I could do 2.5.

"2.5 people?" I asked.

No. Definitely 25. And they definitely meant me.

At this point, I may or may not have seriously considered moving to a small island off the coast of Thailand.

Here's the thing: I don't cook for 25. I don't cook for ten. I cook for one or two or sometimes four. And a lot of the things I make aren't particularly scale-uppable...you can't quintuple a risotto and expect it to cook the same way (in fact, we tried once in college and dinner was about three hours late). Pan-frying is obviously limited to the number of things you can fit in the pan. Homemade pasta would take days. My obsession with vegetables is heavily contingent on them caramelizing in some way, which gets harder or impossible if you crowd them together.

Plus: Most people tend to expect dinner to involve some central meat thing, and I don't really do central meat things. (Let's be clear: I haven't the foggiest. I would undercook, or overcook, or accidentally make kale instead of a pork roast.) The point being, I had no idea what to do. None.

Fortunately, I was saved by the miracle of slow-baked salmon. Miraculous because—are you ready?—it is easy AND dreamily delicious AND scale-uppable AND fancy-looking. Oh, and it tells you when it's done. The technique was made for a dinner party. Or in my case, a small team of intrepid chefs determined to serve up California cuisine to a couple of dozen hungry academics in the Outer Banks of North Carolina.

Adapted from this recipe, and perfect over Israeli couscous (especially if after cooking the couscous, you stir in a tab of butter, a pinch of thyme, some chopped parsley, a bit of lemon zest, and some lemon juice).

Ingredients
12-13 oz wild salmon fillet*

1 tbsp olive oil
Zest of ½ lemon (about 1 tbsp)
½ tbsp chopped fresh thyme
1 small clove garlic, pressed
Small slosh white wine (just enough to moisten mixture slightly)
Kosher salt and freshly ground black pepper
Lemon wedges & parsley for garnish

Preheat oven to 275°F.

Combine the olive oil, lemon zest, thyme, and garlic. Add about 1 tsp of white wine—just enough to make the mixture easier to spread, without being runny. (If you're scaling the recipe up, still start with this much wine and then add a little bit more if needed.)

Line a baking sheet with aluminum foil. Lightly oil it, then place salmon skin-side down. Spread the lemon zest mixture evenly over the top, then sprinkle with salt and (lightly) with pepper. Let sit 10 minutes for flavors to blend.

Bake for 20-21 minutes until the fat melts out the sides (it will often start by melting in little pools on the top, but you're waiting for the tell-tale sign of it melting at the bottom of the sides of the fillet, just like you see below).

Garnish with lemon & parsley. Serve hot, or warm, or cold—this fish can really do just about anything.

Serves 3, or multiply by six for a crowd.

And, if you are feeding a crowd, other suggestions include:
Quinoa Salad with Slow-Roasted Tomatoes
These Fish Packets
Grilled Asparagus with Balsamic Reduction
Roasted Bell Peppers
Israeli Couscous
Jasmine Rice

*Definitely splurge on wild salmon for this recipe—and in fact, if you can only find farmed, do something else with it. Slow-baking salmon changes the texture completely, in a wonderful way if it's wild, but in a mushy way if it's farmed. Note also that if you are scaling up, you can leave the fillet (or fillets) whole and let people cut their own, or cut before cooking into individual portions—it works either way. I left them whole, just because it was easier.

Sauteed Radish Greens with Spring Onions

Another Parisian picnic favorite—this one seriously amazing, compliments of the husband.

Ingredients

Olive oil

1 tbsp butter

Greens from 1-2 bunches of radishes, carefully cleaned

2-3 radishes, thinly sliced

2 spring onions, white and light green parts, sliced

Fleur de sel or kosher salt to taste

Heat olive oil and butter in pan over medium heat. When butter is melted, add the spring onions and sauté for a few minutes until they soften.

Add the radish slices to the pan and sauté for another 3 to 5 minutes, until the radishes are soft and become somewhat translucent.

Add the greens and stir to coat. After they have wilted slightly, turn off the heat and allow the greens to wilt a little more with the remaining heat in the pan.

Salt to taste; serve warm.

Serves 2-3 as a side dish.

Haricots Verts avec des Ciboules

One of our favorite things in Paris—the caveat being that all things in Paris were favorite things—but one of those favorite things was roving through some of the many open-air and covered markets that populate the city.

From the Bastille to Saint Germain to Le Marché des Enfants Rouges, we wandered happily among the stalls piled high with oranges and apricots, melons from Morocco, bright red globes of cherry tomatoes still on the vine, leafy bundles of oblong French breakfast radishes, escarole and red mustard frisée—pausing to purchase a handful of green beans here, a bundle of spring onions there—and oh, there's bread around the corner and come look at this terrine over here and did you see all those cheeses, and wouldn't tonight be a perfect night for a picnic in the apartment?

So we picnicked. Frequently. With these green beans as a recurring staple.

 

Ingredients (per person)
A handful of French green beans (thinner and crisper than the typical supermarket variety, but any fresh and crisp green beans will do...if they taste juicy and sweet when raw, they'll work here)
2 spring onions,white and light green parts, sliced
Olive oil
Fleur de sel or kosher salt

Heat a pan over medium-low heat. When hot, drizzle with olive oil and sauté the spring onions until they soften. Toss in the green beans and stir to coat. Cook for about 2 more minutes, stirring occasionally.

Cover the pan to let steam for another 3-5 minutes or so until al dente, stirring once or twice—you want the beans just barely cooked, still with a bit of crunch.

Serve hot, sprinkled with fleur de sel.

Paris Preview

Don't you fret, blogosphere. It's not that I haven't been cooking up or tracking down new culinary adventures to share. It's just that my mouth has been too full of heaven for my brain to formulate the words.

 

 

 

 

Rest assured that I will tell you all about it. Soon. Maybe one more bite.

 

Orzotto with Braised Collards

One side effect of becoming obsessed with vegetables is that every now and then—surely no more than five times a week—I forget to consider the rest of the meal. For example, sometimes I start thinking about collard greens, and then I can't think of anything else. Or if I do manage to consider other food groups, they pale in comparison. "Collard greens," I say to myself. "And lentils?" asks a small, distant, entirely irrelevant voice in my head. "COLLARD GREENS," I repeat, out loud, more firmly this time. "Um, well, actually," says the person standing next to me at the co-op, where I stand gazing longingly at the leafy vegetable section, "I was just hoping to squeeze past you to get some carrots."

The point being, I buy the collard greens, I speed home to cook the collard greens, and somewhere halfway through slicing them, it occurs to me that they may not actually make up an entire dinner all by themselves.

Fortunately, I am an experienced cupboard forager. Which in this case turned up orzo and butter beans. The result? Rich, satisfying, collard greeny pasta perfection.

Ingredients
Olive oil
1 large red onion, halved and sliced fairly thinly

2 strips Niman Ranch applewood smoked bacon, sliced into strips

3 large cloves garlic, pressed or minced

1 bunch collard greens, halved lengthwise and sliced into one-inch strips*

Salt & pepper, to taste

1 loose tbsp finely chopped oregano

1/3 cup chicken broth + 1 1/4 cups chicken broth

1 1/2 rounded cups whole wheat orzo pasta

1 can butter beans, rinsed and drained**

Parmesan (optional)

Sauté onions over medium-high heat in a wide pan with a little olive oil for a minute or so, until they begin to cook down a little. Push to one side and add the bacon to the other. Cook until the bacon begins to brown a little, turning the onions over once or twice in the meantime. Stir to combine, and continue cooking until until the onions are golden. Add the garlic, turn heat to medium, and saute for one minute more. Add the greens and salt and cook, stirring, for two more minutes, then add the oregano and 1/3 cup broth and bring to a boil. Turn heat to medium-low, cover, and cook for 25-30 minutes, stirring occasionally and adding a little water if it starts to dry out.

About 15 minutes before the collards are done, start the 1 1/4 cups of broth heating in a small pot. Bring to a boil.

When there are about 10 minutes left, add the butter beans to the collard greens and stir to combine. Replace the cover. Add the orzo to the broth, turn the heat down to low, and simmer for 9 minutes or according to package directions, stirring once in the middle. Uncover, stir, and simmer off any excess broth. Fold the pasta into the collard greens.

Add a little grated Parmesan if desired, top with black pepper, and serve warm (too hot and you'll lose some of the flavor).

Serves 3.

*If you have a particularly small bunch of collard greens, you can add about 1/2 cup of frozen kale or spinach when you add the butter beans if you want a little more green.
**World Market has Italian butter beans that are much more giant, fat, and buttery than the normal butter beans you find in the supermarket. They are particularly amazing in pastas and pasta salads. They are also not remotely local or BPA-free, so I'm not recommending them, I'm just objectively describing their tendency to make my tastebuds swoon with happiness.

Best Ever Scrambled Eggs

Many people claim to possess the recipe for the best scrambled eggs ever. Clearly, it's an empirical question, and we are an evidence-based household. "When in doubt, eat lots of stuff," is our motto. This recipe wins the scrambled egg standoff in our kitchen every time.

Of course, don't take my word for it. Develop some healthy scientific skepticism, and then conduct a series of rigorous experiments. When people ask you what you're doing eating breakfast for the third time on a single Saturday, shout, "SCIENCE!" (Or shout, "HOBBITS!" Either way, I'll be happy.)

Ingredients
Olive oil
2 medium leeks, white and light green parts, halved lengthwise, rinsed very well, and sliced
1 tbsp butter
4 eggs from pastured chickens
Slosh pastured cream
Crusty whole grain bread (toasted if desired)

Heat a wide, nonstick pan over medium-low heat. When hot, add the olive oil and the leeks. Sprinkle with a pinch of salt to help prevent browning, and sauté for about 2 minutes. Turn the heat down to low and continue to cook, stirring frequently, for about 10 minutes more until leeks are very soft.

In a bowl, scramble the eggs with a whisk until frothy. Just before you start to cook them, add a slosh of cream, and whisk to combine. (You want as much air as possible in the eggs.)

When the leeks are very soft, push to the side of the pan. Melt butter in the other half. Pour in the eggs, and wait a moment so that the bottom starts to set, then fold over. Repeat every 10-20 seconds until eggs are just slightly runny in the middle—they'll set the rest of the way as you serve. (You may want to flip the leeks over at some point, too, to prevent browning.)

Serve eggs on warm plates, sprinkle with salt, and top with the leek mixture. You can serve these over toast if you want, but I actually prefer the toast separate—the delicate flavor of the eggs comes through better when they're on their own.

Serves 2.