Tilapia with Coconut, Mint, and Chive Relish

We caught a sale on tilapia at the Co-Op the other day and took a swing at a recipe Meg had clipped years ago but that we had never made. It looked easy and fresh which is especially appealing as spring arrives (early this year) in New England.

The recipe is delightfully simple creating a fresh wet rub - based on lime juice - for the tilapia which you then broil quickly in the oven. Alongside this you make a wonderfully fresh relish with cucumber, mint, chives, coconut, and - of course - jalepeno peppers. This too is laced with lime juice while both the relish and the rub contain a good dose of cumin. All in all flavorful and fresh!!

We didn't have the full three quarters of a cup of fresh chives so substituted some green onions which worked wonderfully. The tilapia is appealing for a number of reasons including the price; it's hard to justify a halibut recipe when it goes on sale for $17/lb!

As we served up the first portion, we knew instantly it had passed the "if we had this in a restaurant we would be delighted" test! This is a keeper for sure.

Our first duck egg frittata...

Our friend Chris and his family have, along with a full contingent of happy dogs, a number of pet ducks, several of whom produce eggs. Last laying season, Chris brought in a hard boiled duck egg which Tyler tried and really liked. Last week he brought in 10 fresh eggs for us to try so the questions was, what to do with fresh duck eggs?

I looked in the fridge to see what else we could use with the duck eggs. Peppers, lettuce, baby carrots, celery, asparagus. Asparagus - yes! And I should use up the rest of the button mushrooms too. I decided to make a frittata so I checked The Joy of Cooking for reference. There was a recipe for a zucchini frittata but with a couple of changes you could substitute asparagus. Here's what I did:

First, I braised the asparagus for two or three minutes, then drained and sliced them diagonally. I sliced the mushrooms and cooked them in butter for a few minutes and then removed them to a plate. Then I cracked five duck eggs in a bowl - they were beautiful! Very large orangey yolks and not as much white as a chicken egg. I whisked them together, added salt and fresh ground pepper and then the mushrooms, asparagus and about a half cup of parmesan cheese. The Joy recipe called for shredded parmesan but all I had was grated. It would have to do. Then I added about a tablespoon of fresh parsley.  I whisked all those things together and then poured it into a non-stick pan. I let the concoction cook slowly and as it firmed up, I checked the bottom for color and doneness. I had turned on the broiler/convection oven earlier so when the eggs looked mostly firm, I finished the frittata in the broiler, placing the entire pan in the oven for two or three minutes. When it was lightly browned on the top, I pulled the pan, cut the frittata into quarters and served with fresh parsley on top. 

Our first duck egg frittata and it was fantastic. I think it was a bit more savory than a chicken egg frittata, probably due to the proportion of yolk vs. white. And it was more filling - we could barely finish it, but of course, we somehow managed. Tyler paired his with a Long Trail IPA  and I had a glass of Woodbridge Chardonnay.

We now have two more light turquoise and three beige duck eggs left. We want to figure out a way to compare the flavor of the two varieties but haven't come up with anything yet - stay tuned! Thanks Chris!

Return of Soup Season...

I botched the recipe link in the previous post. Here is the correct one and it is a delight; we had it again tonight and it was wonderful.

Oh and Meg pointed out that I neglected to mention that it is balsamic vinegar that gives that delicious tang; don't use cider vinegar here. Enjoy!

Soup Season

It is officially soup season here in Vermont. It's been a cold winter for the most part but extremely dry resulting in almost no snow. The landscape is more brown than white which is very strange. The wind has been blowing all the time it seems and outside activities are just not that appealing to me. Combine that with the crappy economic times, crazy gun toting biology professors, and the ongoing struggle with both the Man and my waistline and it seems like a good time for some warm, comforting and healthy soup.

For some reason, I have very little history with soup so I'm happy that in recent times we've added to our vegetarian repertoire a simple delicious little recipe for Tomato and Lentil Soup. The bold helping of lentils gives the soup a heartiness that both satisfies your hunger and provides a great helping of protein and fiber at the same time. In fact googling lentils provides links with titles like "Worlds Healthiest Foods" so any delicious way to get them is OK with me.

The recipe is basic - lots of onions, carrots, celery, and garlic chopped finely and sautéed in a big cast iron dutch oven. The recipe urges you to use a food processor to save time but since we finally have some sharp knives around the house (Santa brought us a knife sharpener that really works), I enjoyed it the old fashioned way. Once the veggies are tender you add in a bunch of water, several cups of lentils (I used red though I read that the green lentils are higher in fiber), some tomato sauce along with a dash (actually a tablespoon or two) of vinegar which adds a nice tang to the project. A couple bay leaves and a deadly dried red chili or two and you're good to go. We simmer this for about a half hour or forty minutes and then serve with a couple black olives and some crumbled feta cheese for a delicious satisfying meal.

With this delicious and hearty soup and a nice warming brew, the soul and the body is nourished and the wind not quite so biting. Add in a dash of humanity from the Olympic Games and even the Man can be sent packing.

Buvez: The folks at Smuttynose rule our house this time of year. Their Wheat Wine Ale is a strong and reliable partner to this soup.
 

Pipérade with Poached Eggs

So due to my overzealous behavior at the Co-Op's deli counter Friday evening, we had a bit of pancetta left over after building the Pasta e Fagioli last night. Meg searched around for a good recipe to use it up as part of our Sunday Brunch program. She stumbled on this recipe for something called Pipérade. She also found that Julia had a similar recipe calling for ham. They both looked pretty standard with sautéed onions and peppers - you know - the standard stuff.

Boy were we wrong!

First I noted that the onions and peppers were to be sliced longways rather than being diced; not a big deal but this tells you something about what you're making. Next I find that instead of sautéing the vegetables, we are really slow cooking them until they are very soft and tender. By the time I added the sherry (a bit for the Pipérade, a bit for me!) and the red wine vinegar (we didn't have sherry vinegar), both Meg and I realized we were not in Kansas anymore.

So to back up, I started by sautéing the pancetta until crispy and then removing from the pan and reserving it for later. Next I added the onions, peppers and garlic to the same pan, sautéed briefly and then reduced the heat for 20 or 30 minutes cooking slowly without browning the vegetables.

Now the fun begins. We added chopped roma tomatoes, the vinegar & sherry, stock (we used good vegetable stock) and the reserved pancetta. I brought this to a boil and then strongly simmered the mixture to reduce and thicken a bit.

It's at this point that Meg and I realize we are not making an egg dish at all: we're making a delicious tangy stew with pancetta and vegetables into which we are going to drop a couple gently poached (OK, the first two were overdone) eggs. As Julia suggests, you really should read the recipe before you make it.

The result was unlike anything we'd ever had before; a tangy rich stew with precious prizes of pancetta combining with rich bits of poached egg. Oh and it was beautiful too; richly colored with green peppers and tomatoes. If we had our own food joint, this would definitely be on the brunch menu!

So it turns out this Basque food is often made with serrano ham (instead of pancetta) but otherwise is very similar to what we made. A bit of surfing reveals a restaurant of the same name in the Bay area which looks very tempting indeed.

Buvez: we had some delicious prosecco (operating from a number of white wine recommendations) but I think it was overmatched. This is beer food. Next time I might try indulging in the sweet maltiness of the Smuttynose Wheat Wine - a current cold Vermont winter warmer favorite of mine. Next time indeed...

Pasta e Fagioli

A couple of weeks ago, we had the Food Network on TV and Rachel Ray was making Pasta e Fagioli. She used several ingredients that we had in our cupboard, like canned cannellini beans, tomato, and pasta so I put it on my list of future meals. A couple weeks later, when the temperature dipped into the single digits, I thought it would be a good time to make a hearty soup and I remembered the Pasta e Fagioli. So I pulled out a few cookbooks to find a recipe that looked good to me. As usual, "The Joy of Cooking" was one of the first. Then I grabbed Barbara Kafka's "Soup - A Way of Life" and then "Trattoria" by Patricia Wells. Rachel Ray had mentioned that when she first made the soup on her show, she didn't include tomato and a bunch of people wrote in and told her that she should have. On her latest show, she did include tomato and she was pretty sure that she would get as many letters as before but now saying that she shouldn't include tomato. As Patricia Wells says, "There are about as many versions of pasta and bean soup as there are cooks".  I decided to go with Patricia's version, which did not include tomato.

My rule of thumb for most recipes is to follow it exactly the first time and then vary it as you wish after you have experienced the original, as intended by the author. Patricia Wells did not have any canned ingredients in her version so I prepared a grocery list for Tyler. We didn't have dried cranberry beans, tiny dried Italian pasta, like ditalini or stars, or pancetta (ours is a mostly vegetarian household), so those went on the list. I carefully specified two ounces of pancetta, exactly enough for the recipe so we didn't have an excuse to use meat again. I also added a bunch of celery with leaves to the list, which I usually buy except for last week when celery hearts were on sale. The soup recipe called for a rib of celery including the leaves as well as a bouquet garni that included celery leaves, so we'll just have to eat more celery in the next week or two.

Last night was the night. I am still recovering from hand surgery so Tyler pretty much made the whole thing. (I, of course, directed the show). Our local Coop did not have dried cranberry beans so we used dried cannellini beans, which we soaked in boiling water for about an hour before "we" started cooking. Tyler sautéed the pancetta with onion, carrots, garlic and celery (with leaves) in olive oil, and then added the beans, water and bouquet garni. After simmering for about a half hour, he added some salt and then simmered for another hour. He then removed a couple of ladles of the beans and veggies putting them in a bowl on the side. Using our awesome immersion blender, he pureed the remaining soup until almost creamy. He added the beans and veggies back in and brought the soup to a simmer and adding the pasta to cook for another ten minutes. (The Coop didn't have ditalini so "we" broke vermicelli into small pieces as a substitute, as Patricia Wells suggested). 

Time to eat! The soup was served in bowls with a drizzle of extra-virgin olive oil on the top. It was just wonderful! We are looking forward to trying other versions of the soup at some of our local Italian restaurants, but it couldn't possibly be better than this!

By the way, Tyler didn't get two ounces of pancetta (surprise!). He got about five ounces. Whatever will we do with the rest? Check in again to find out...

One more footnote: play Dean Martin's version of "That's Amore" while you cook.

Sunday Brunch: Julie Sahni's Indian Eggs

Our Sunday Brunch this week was a new twist on a favorite of ours: Indian Eggs or to be more specific Scrambled Eggs with Cumin and Fragrant Herbs from our new Indian cookbook Classic Indian Cooking by Julie Sahni. 

Meg has made variations on a Madhur Jaffrey egg recipe for some time and it is one of my favorites - especially when she goes heavy on the chilies! This recipe, though simpler, was a real wake up call. It is basically chunks of onions lightly sautéed with scrambled eggs and then topped with freshly roasted/crushed cumin, fresh cilantro and fresh chopped (seeded) chilies. 

Meg and I have become huge fans of gently toasting whole cumin seeds and then crushing them in a mortar and pestle to release their fragrant goodness. The crushed toasted cumin in this recipe, combined with the fragrant cilantro and burning chilies, transforms this simple crunchy egg dish into something really special. We will definitely be making this again and again! Thanks Julie!

Tuna Melt

I'm feeling a bit under the weather this weekend, probably the result of a long work week and a bit of sinus trouble. As lunchtime rolled around today, I was feeling a bit whiny and begged Meg to make me one of my favorite lunchtime comfort foods: a good tuna melt.

In response I got a masterpiece.

Her "tuna melt" included chopped onion, diced hot chilies, roasted red pepper with smoked swiss cheese and tuna on a single slice of Jewish Rye. There may have been some other kind of magic in there because it was an entirely new thing. The smoked swiss and the roasted red pepper combined with the tuna to create a very savory experience. The diced chili asserted itself, adding flavor and heat, without overwhelming. The result was like nothing I've ever had before. 

Followed up with a few gingersnaps, it was just what the doctor ordered!

Latkes

I have great memories of potato pancakes that my Dad would make when we were kids. Most of the time, my Mom did the cooking but there were a few items that were my Dad's specialty. Western omelettes, breakfast pancakes and potato pancakes quickly jump to mind. I had been meaning to make latkes before Christmas but just didn't get to it. We still had all the ingredients, including sour cream and homemade applesauce, so we went for it.

We followed a Mark Bittman recipe which started by grating about 2 lbs. of starchy potatoes and one medium onion. We usually hand grate them, as my Dad did, but that's pretty hard work and we were not so inclined, so we grated them in the food processor. It sure goes fast but I think you end up with a better texture if you do it by hand. Next, Tyler squeezed as much water as he could out of the grated vegetables. It's surprising how much comes out. Then we combined the veggies with 2 beaten eggs, salt, pepper and enough bread crumbs to bind the batter. We cooked them in Tyler's heirloom cast iron skillet, in a small amount of hot corn oil. It took about 15 minutes per side and we cooked up the entire batch, keeping them warm under the heat lamp, drying on paper towel.

 

This is not really health food but it sure was tasty! We served them with light sour cream and applesauce on the side. When we heated up some leftovers the next day for lunch, we also added a dollop of Patak's Hot Mango Chutney for some zing. Really good.

We very rarely cook anything in oil and the house smelled a bit like a greasy spoon - it was great coming back into the house after being outside!

These were wonderful - especially with the hot mango chutney. They are pretty fun to make too - we sweat whether they would hold together and learned not to worry: the heat and the eggs do the trick.

I'm also completely psyched to learn that we have at least one heirloom pan in the house! 

Buvez: Sadly the last of the case of Big-A IPA we purchased a while ago at the Co-Op. A great fit as always.

 

Sauerbraten

This holiday season, Meg gave me the honor of choosing our Christmas dinner. As mentioned before, during the holidays, tradition trumps common sense and we indulge in dishes that warm our hearts even if for example, they are non-vegetarian and bad for our arteries. 

As I pondered this responsibility, a couple serious contenders emerged. 

First up was a nice beef tenderloin. I have very fond memories of holiday's at Meg's family's house early in our relationship. One of her family's more recent traditions was serving a beef tenderloin for Christmas dinner. We co-opted this some years later when I hosted my family for Christmas and we put together a killer beef tenderloin.

My second thought was a nice roasted chicken. I perhaps miss chicken more than anything through the vegetarian year because there are some chicken dishes I really love and because when I fall off the vegetarian wagon, I usually do so with either beef or pork. So my thoughts ran to a simple roasted chicken, as we saw Julia Child demonstrate on TV in the immediate aftermath of Julie and Julia. I also had in mind the succulent and flavorful chicken I had during a working lunch once while visiting a company in Paris.

But the vision that kept coming back as I considered this serious question was pot roast. My mom used to make pot roast occasionally during the holidays when I was young. She seemed to cook it forever and it included lots of carrots, potatoes and of course at the insistence of my father, more onions than you can imagine! It was wonderful, plentiful (I was a teenager and ravenous), and delicious.

This train of thought also brought to mind some of Meg's food memories. She has related over the years how, when she was little and her family would visit her grandparents on the weekend, she would awake on Sunday morning to the comforting smell of her grandmother already preparing the Sunday meal. As we talked about this recently, Meg explained to me that sometimes, this wonderful smell was that of sauerbraten, a sour marinated pot roast from her grandfather's German heritage. Vinegar? Pot Roast? A food connection between our families?

My decision was made.

So we started hunting for recipes. We immediately found both common themes and seemingly important differences. In the end we led with a recipe from the classic and well worn Good Housekeeping Cookbook (ours is from 1963) with considerable input from our friend Chris Kimball. In American Classics, the Cook's Illustrated folks discuss the science of braising as a method for creating a tender delicious pot roast. This food novice found it interesting and useful.

So off to the races! Meg ordered a nice 4.5 lb boneless chuck roast from the Co-Op and we set about marinating it. Most of the recipes we considered contained similar ingredients though the Good Housekeeping one also included 4 sliced onions! In the marinade! Oh, I'm feeling good about this. We set up the marinade of vinegar, red wine vinegar, red wine, onions, and a bevy of traditional spices and herbs including bay leaves, cloves, juniper berries and mustard seeds. We put all this in our dutch oven and put it in the fridge, turning once or twice a day for over four days.

Finally it was time to cook! I pulled the roast out of the marinade (Wow does this smell good! Can I eat it now?) and set it aside patting it dry and removing the sliced onions from it. I then rubbed it down with flour, salt and pepper,  warmed a small amount of bacon fat in the dutch oven and browned the roast on all sides.

This is my idea of heaven. The house just smelled wonderful, warm, delicious and comforting. When the browning was done, I added the roast to the combination of the reserved marinade (and onion solids!) and fresh goodies include more onions, cloves and mustard seeds. Then into the oven at 300℉ for about four hours, checking occasionally.

Unveiling the roast after four hours was a revelation! The roast was surrounded by delicious broth which I combined with crushed ginger snap cookies to reduce to a nice thick sauce for our sauerbraten.

The result was delightful. As we sat down to eat, it seemed to me that this version of sauerbraten took Meg back to Sunday afternoons in Ventnor, New Jersey and also to her mother's version. For my part, combining the delicious sour tang of the marinade with deep onion flavor in a slowly braised meat produced a delicious and comforting Christmas dinner - as well as several meals afterwards!

Buvez: I conferred with my nephew and homebrewing enthusiast Sean on a German lager to serve with this meal as I know zip about lagers. His recommendation: a good strong Dortmunder Export beer. Though the Co-Op is quite weak in the lager area, it was able to deliver an Ayinger Jahrhundert-Bier 

Here's to Sauerbraten!

Wow!

We just finished our first recipe (Fish in Velvet Yogurt Sauce) from the book Classic Indian Cooking by Julie Sahni. It was just fantabulous - and trust me, I mucked it up in at least seven ways.

Looking forward to getting it right! Wow!

Son of Hangtown Fry...

Since the successful completion of the hangtown yesterday, I've been reminiscing about this succulent seafaring decadence. I discovered this article on the hangtown which is both informative and present some other ideas about preparation. This fellow is not alone in frying the oysters separately but I remain under the spell of the minimalist; it's just easier to cook things all together.

I managed to resurrect the fact that it was Winship restaurant in Sausalito where Meg and I discovered this treat in October of 1996 as part of a birthday follow up. Sadly I see that this artery clogging bundle of joy is no longer on their menu; perhaps a victim of the local health department. I thank them nonetheless for bringing this delight into my life.

I also must mention that our Thanksgiving trip to Eastern Maryland this year produced not only a crab feast of epic proportions but a genuine hangtown fry at the Imperial Hotel's fabulous Bloody Mary Brunch. Nice - and interesting - to find a dish so connected to California (I guess Placerville to be specific) done and done so well here on the East Coast.

Though we are already starting to count calories this new year, I think I'm going to stockpile some exercise in anticipation of the next hangtown. When is the next holiday I can co-op as a food holiday...

Hangtown Fry!

New Years Day is a great opportunity to access the year that has past by and to make plans and set goals for the upcoming year. It's also a great day to have prosecco for brunch and to indulge in the joy that is the hangtown fry.

I first met the hangtown fry about twelve years ago when Meg and I took a day trip to Sausalito above San Fransisco. At our brunch stop I found something fascinating on the menu: an omelet that had oysters in it. How could you go wrong? I tried it and I loved it.

I don't remember all the details of that hangtown (I think it was pretty packed with ingredients) but in recent years I've followed the advice of our friend Mark Bittman and simplified the recipe to include just oysters, good bacon, and shitaki mushrooms. I've also decided New Year's Day is the perfect excuse for this indulgence.

This year's version came out better than most I'm happy to say. Bittman emphasizes crisping the bacon and cooking the eggs slowly. I did a pretty good job of both and I embellished the eggs with just a splash of prosecco which we truly think improved their consistency. The oysters were quite fresh and I didn't overcook them. Yum!

It's going to be a great year!

Buvez: Mionetto Prosecco di Valdobbiadene (thanks Elisebeth!)