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Frozen, store-bought macaroni and cheese? For dinner? Again?
You can do better . . .
The rules below are kitchen-tested by someone who doesn't know how to cook -- you just can't go wrong with these recipes:
AN ELEGY FOR OYSTERS
by the great Irish poet Seamus Heaney:
"Alive and violated
"They lay on their beds of ice:
"Bivalves: the split bulb
"And philandering sigh of ocean.
"Millions of them ripped and shucked
and scattered."
In September, the next month with an r in it since April, so long ago, we will begin eating oysters again, but must remember
that each of their alien, unfathomable lives is precious, not to be taken lightly.
CAULIFLOWER WITH GRUYERE
How often do we take a moment from our busy lives to think about Gruyere? Not very often, I suspect. And yet it is a cheese
of deep philosophical interest, simple, distinctive and useful.
There was a time when I thought of it only in connection with French onion soup, for without the Gruyere melted on the
piece of thick toast that floats on top of the soup, it is not French onion soup at all. It's just brown stuff made out of
onions.
I began thinking about Gruyere seriously and appropriately due to a chance remark by Mary Frances Kennedy Fisher, speaking
of dining alone. She observed that it's just as easy to eat a piece of Gruyere with a loaf of crusty sourdough bread as to
down some fast food alternative, and more nourishing to the soul, more respecting of one's dining companion -- you.
By a simple taste test, I discovered that she was right. Rarely has a philosophical observation been so easy to prove.
I began reading other gastronomical observations by Fisher with a keener interest. Of course, I could not test all of
them practically, since my kitchen is limited -- no oven, just two electric burners and a toaster oven.
But then I read about the first kitchen Fisher presided over, in Dijon in 1931. It had no running water, which had to
be carried in from the landing, or ice box . . . and two gas burners and a tiny gas oven that could be fitted over them. My
excuse vanished, and I decided to make one of her specialities from that time, for which she gives no rule, just a vague description.
But it was enough.
You take a head of cauliflower and split the fleurs apart, in clusters that are not too small or too large -- enough of
them to cover the bottom of a baking pan. Boil them for about three minutes, no longer, drain them and lay them in the pan.
(Fisher doesn't say whether you should first grease the pan with sweet butter or not, but I think you should. I don't know
why.) Pour heavy cream over each of the fleurs, enough so that the cream covers the bottom of the pan to a depth at least
halfway up the sides of the fleurs, and then perhaps a little more if you feel reckless.
Put a lot of fresh grated Gruyere on top of the fleurs and the cream, enough to make a somewhat less than solid layer
of cheese over the whole thing, part of it floating, part of it on the fleurs. Then grind fresh pepper over it all.
Bake it in an oven at maybe 350° (she doesn't say, because her little oven probably didn't have a thermostat.) Certainly
no lower.
When the top of the thing is toasty brown, take it out. (Fisher wasn't quite sure why her little oven browned the top
of the dish. It must have been because enough of the Gruyere stayed on top of the bubbling sauce to get toasted, and it worked
the same way in my toaster oven, but in a real oven you might need to place the pan on a high rack or something.) Eat it immediately,
with some full-bodied red wine of whatever simplicity. A Cahors would be cool, if you could find it.
Have some good bread to dunk in the strange, rich sauce in which the Gruyere has and has not quite merged with the cream.
This is the meal -- barring some salad or desert afterwards, if you care about those things.
When you eat this meal, the word elegant will not spring to mind. The words perfection, miraculous and inspiring will.
First of all you have a connection with certain evenings in Fisher's long-vanished life in Dijon -- a connection which
can only be described as complex. It makes you feel sad and hopeful, all at once.
Second, you will never think about cauliflower again in quite the same way -- and I say this as someone who almost never
thinks about cauliflower at all.
Third, you will discover a new aspect to the complicated personality of Gruyere. As with French onion soup, its flavor
will make you feel like a virtuous old peasant. In this dish, it will make you feel like a virtuous old peasant whose kindness
has touched the lives of heroes and saints. (This is the inspiring part.)
I am perhaps diluting the absolute virtue of the experience by sharing it here, but really, how can I keep quiet about
a thing like this? Any more than Fisher could?
BLUE TROUT
Sometimes after a long day of writing my mind is gripped by strange ideas about food -- strange in the sense that they
don't involve Swiss cheese and crackers or peanut butter sandwiches or frozen meatloaf dinners.
One day, as it happened, I was reading a piece by Mr. Ernest Hemingway about trout fishing in Europe. In it he described
a method of cooking trout he had encountered in Switzerland at rural inns. It involved boiling the trout until it turned blue
in a liquor made of water, white wine vinegar, bay leaves and red pepper -- not too much of any ingredient in the water, says
Mr. Hemingway, without further elaboration.
This is not the blue trout described by M. F. K. Fisher, which involves placing the trout live into boiling water, unless
the Swiss innkeepers were holding out on Mr. Hemingway, but it sounded fine.
I remembered that my local Vons supermarket sometimes offers fresh rainbow trout, so I headed over there late at night
and found one handsome specimen in the fish department. I brought it home, filled up a large pot with water -- it was a large
trout -- emptied about six ounces of white wine vinegar into the water, added six fragrant bay leaves and a light sprinkling
of cayenne pepper, and set it all to boil. When it was bubbling I slipped the fish in.
My stovetop coils are inefficient, and I could not bring the water back to a boil quickly, so I simmered the trout for
about fifteen minutes. In boiling water, ten or less would have been more than sufficient. I tested the fish using a method
recommended by an old edition of "The Joy Of Cooking" -- which is to separate the meat from the bone of the spine
at the thickest middle section of the fish. When the meat there is tender but no longer translucent, the fish is done.
I ate the fish with drawn butter, as Mr. Hemingway says the Swiss did. "They drink the clear Sion wine when they
eat it," adds Mr. Hemingway," but THEY don't depend on the beverage department of a California supermarket for their
wine. I made do with a perfectly respectable Pinot Grigio by Bolla, cheap, dry and light.
The result was a meal of almost unimaginable delicacy. Trout is delicate anyway, and the light seasonings in the water
only emphasized the subtlety of its taste. It all resonated on the tongue like a memory of food -- insubstantial and fleeting.
FRENCH ONION SOUP
Everybody talks about French onion soup -- it comes to mind unbidden on cold winter nights, or in the middle of a bad
case of the flu. But almost nobody does anything about it. My sister Lee is a notable exception. One day, after much wheedling
and outright begging, I got her to pass along her recipe, modified from a rule in "The Joy Of Cooking" with her
own refinements. She would not actually send me the recipe, thus committing it to writing, but gave it over the phone while
I took notes.
Then I did something about it.
To make this soup you first slice up three moderately large brown onions, as thinly as possible -- don't chop the slices
up. (Now is the time for your tears.) Put three quarters of a stick of butter into a big pot that can hold six cups of liquor,
plus the onions, and melt it.
Now, as my sister explained, in hushed tones, a terrifying game of chicken with the onions begins. Your goal is to saute
them slowly, patiently in the butter until they turn a dark, a very dark brown. When they have turned the darkest brown possible
they will be just seconds away from burning and turning black -- at which point all your slicing, all your tears, will have
been in vain. The onions will try to fool you, by leaving black deposits on the side of the pot, so you will think they are
as brown as they can possibly get -- but they aren't. Not yet. Not quite yet! Bonne chance, mon vieux!
When the onions are browned to perfection, remove them from the heat and add into the pot six cups of beef broth. Beef
broth can be over-salty, especially the cubed kind, so it's good to use a mixture of low-sodium broth with the regular stuff.
I used two cans of low sodium and one of regular broth. Grind some fresh pepper into the pot.
Simmer this slowly for about half an hour, adding a dash of sherry at the very last moment if you want.
To serve, place the soup in an oven-safe bowl. Take thickish slices from a baguette of French bread, toast them lightly
and then float them on top of the soup, grate Gruyere generously over the surface of all this and bake it in the oven until
the cheese melts.
Eat it with a strong, simple red wine and feel the flu, the chill of the night, the melancholy of the day recede. Rejoice
in the fact that, by following this recipe, you will have plenty of soup left for the days and nights ahead, when it will
only taste better.
LOUP GRILLE AU FENOUIL
Loup grille au fenouil, translated precisely from the French, means wolf grilled with fennel. Those familiar with Mediterranean
cooking will recognize, however, that the wolf, the loup, referred to here is loup de mer, the wolf of the sea, or sea bass.
Sea bass grilled with fennel is one of the glories of southern French cuisine.
I first encountered it in one of the restaurants facing onto the harbor of Villefranche, a small town just east of Nice
-- a restaurant called Mere Germaine. There are several restaurants just like it facing the harbor, and loup grille au fenouil
is not prepared better in Mere Germaine than in any of the others, but Mere Germaine is where I first had it, and so that
must remain the center of my nostalgia for the dish.
It has certainly never tasted better anywhere else -- except perhaps on a terrace barbecue in Seattle once. A friend living
there had discovered wild fennel growing near him in a vacant lot, and used its seeds to season the fish, its stalks to fuel
the fire beneath, resulting in a wholly satisfying sensory experience.
Nostalgia is a potent spur to culinary ambition. One day in Ventura, peeking into the tiny seafood selection at my local
supermarket, I noticed a tempting fillet of Chilean sea bass. I bought it, along with some dried fennel seeds from the spice
racks, and decided to see how close I could come to recapturing the taste of those long ago nights on the Cote d'Azur.
Grilling was out of the question -- I have no grill. I don't even have a proper oven -- just a small toaster oven. But
it was enough.
I coated a small pan with olive oil, salted and peppered the bottom of the pan, then covered it with fennel seeds. I placed
the fillet of sea bass in the pan and made two slits in the fillet. I coated the top of the fillet with olive oil, salted
and peppered it, and covered it with fennel seeds, filling up the slits with extra seeds.
I set the toaster oven to broil, preheated it to 450 degrees, then put the pan in. The olive oil collected in the bottom
of the pan soon started to boil, obviating the need to flip the fillet over during cooking, and I broiled the whole thing
for about 20 minutes until the fennel seeds were brown and thoroughly roasted.
I ate it with a respectable Chardonnay from the Coppola vineyards, and the wine was fine, but a drier one would have suited
the taste of the fish better. The taste of the fish was miraculous -- light but flavorful -- and the toasted fennel seeds
gave a pleasant reminder of the dish as it's prepared on the shores of the Mediterranean.
It was not by any means loup grille au fenouil as you'd encounter it there, cooked on a real charcoal fire, seasoned with
fresh fennel. But it was poignantly close.
OLIVER BUTCHER'S RULE FOR ZUCCHINI CARPACCIO
Buy yourself one of those cheapo vegetable peelers with the swivelling blade. Then buy a single, firm, young, organic
zucchini (no more than about 5" long and not too fat and squishy), a bag of raw almonds, some good block Parmesan, some
extra virgin olive oil and one good, juicy organic lemon. I stipulate the organicness, because I've tried the dish with supermarket
ingredients and there's just no comparison.
First: boil some water, blanch a small handful of the almonds for a minute, drain and pop them from their skins, then
chop coarsely.
Now cut the end off the zucchini, then use the vegetable slicer to slice off paper thin coins of zucchini onto an awaiting
plate.
Using the peeler, do the same to the Parmesan -- cutting off paper thin shavings and scattering them over the zucchini.
Then scatter some almonds over the zucchini and shaved cheese, and drizzle everything with a squeeze of lemon juice and
some olive oil.
Now just take out your knife and fork, and eat your zucchini carpaccio and prepare to be shocked -- that's what I was,
shocked -- at how exquisite it is. Accompany it with some good crusty Italian bread to mop up the remaining oil and lemon,
and a glass of chilled rose.
Takes literally five minutes. The perfect combination of a few, good ingredients.
I like a little salt and pepper on it, too -- but don't salt the zucchini in advance or you'll draw the moisture out and
it'll taste spongy.
And if you feel like spending a little more, you'll save yourself a ton of trouble buying a decent mandolin-style vegetable
slicer for the zucchini (though stick with the peeler for the cheese). You can buy a perfectly serviceable model at your local
Target, but you'll have to futz with the blades a little to get the required thinness of slice -- the thinner the better.
MAYA ALLISON'S GUACAMOLE
Guacamole varies depending on taste, but almost always has:
1 medium ripe red tomato
1/2 - 3/4 cup Spanish red onion chopped finely
juice of a lime (lots of limes)
dash of hot pepper sauce (or more)
about 2 tablespoons of cilantro leaves (to taste)
salt and black pepper to taste
I PERSONALLY prefer more cilantro and lime than red onion, and don't like black pepper at all on guac. Many people put
a few fresh cloves of garlic in as well, but I am not a big raw garlic fan. It does give a good bite though.
[Lloyd says -- go with the garlic.]
Cut it all up into little bits, and mash away, adding seasonings to taste.
Hot pepper sauce is up to you, but Tabasco is fine.
PEPPER & EGGS
4 servings
Ingredients:
2 tablespoons olive oil
3 medium red peppers, seeded and thinly sliced (the long thin Italian red peppers called fryers are preferred)
1 small yellow onion, chopped
Salt and pepper to taste
6 large eggs, well beaten
2 tablespoons fresh sage, chopped
Directions:
1. In a medium nonstick skillet, heat the oil and add the peppers and onions. Season with salt and pepper to taste. Sauté
over low to medium heat until wilted and soft, about 10 to 15 minutes.
2. Pour in the beaten egg, decrease the heat to low, then sprinkle with the sage. Allow the eggs to cook slowly to prevent
excessive browning on the bottom. Every so often, lift the corner of the frittata and let some of the egg slip under the surface.
When all the eggs are cooked through, slide the frittata onto a serving plate and serve at once.
LAMB CURRY
My curry is improvised from an old "Joy of Cooking" rule for stew and various hints thrown out by my brother-in-law
Simon, who makes a fine curry, refined during his years in Kenya. (His goat curry, served at a picnic by a river on the edge
of the Nairobi Game Park, was my first meal in East Africa, sometime in the last century.)
The only real secret to simple, reliable curry, however, is Patak's Curry Paste, available at many local supermarkets,
worth tracking down at a specialty store if not. You need a jar of mild and a jar of hot, so you can mix to taste.
Start with some vegetable stock. This used to be collected from the run-off of boiled vegetables of every kind, but since
we now steam our vegetables, the liquor from soaked and boiled dried beans is a good substitute, especially for curry. Pour
enough of it into a stew pot to comfortably cover the meat and vegetables you will be adding -- lean chunks of lamb, or goat
(I like to use chunks cut off of thick lamb chops, with all the fat removed, but there are cheaper ways to go), an equal volume
of pearl onions, an equal volume of carrots, cut into pieces about the size of pearl onions, an equal volume of potatoes,
cut into chunks of a similar size, and three or four tablespoons of peeled and chopped ginger root.
Begin to warm the vegetable stock and stir in table-spoonfuls of curry paste. I like a 2 to 1 hot to mild ratio, for a
very -- very -- spicy but not searing flavor, but do it to taste. About six table-spoonfuls at least will be required. You
can tell by tasting when you've got enough.
Bring this mixture to a boil, then throw in the ginger and the carrots, cover tightly and reduce heat to produce a steady
but not furious bubbling. After ten minutes, put in the lamb. After another ten minutes, put in the onions and the potatoes.
After another twenty minutes, cut off the heat, let the pot cool, and then put it in the refrigerator overnight. (This must
be made the day before it is eaten.)
This is a dish to fiddle with -- placing the lamb in later if you like it rarer, the carrots in later if you like them
crisper, the onions and potatoes in earlier if you like them mushier, more or less ginger and curry paste.
The next day, put what you want to eat into a smaller pot (you can freeze what's left, if any) and heat it up, thickening
it with some dollops of sour cream if you like. Serve it over basmati rice, and no other kind, with, on the side, some mango
chutney and raita -- plain yoghurt and peeled, thinly sliced cucumbers, chilled -- and some kind of plain bread (real Indian
bread, like poori, is best but too hard to make.) Drink beer with it.
JAE SONG'S RULE FOR KOREAN DUMPLINGS - MODIFIED
To every man and woman, at some moment in life, comes the desire to attempt home-made Korean dumplings. That desire came
upon me recently and the attempt was duly made. There were missteps, miscalculations -- I won't deny that. But the dumplings
were made, they were delicious -- hungry men stuffed themselves with them and were satisfied.
This rule for Korean dumplings is modified from Jae Song's recipe -- modified partly because Jae's recipe was unclear
on certain points of procedure and partly because Jae himself arrived here to collaborate after I had impetuously executed
several key steps in the recipe.
Anyway . . . you start with a pound of ground pork or beef. I chose pork. I cooked it thoroughly in an iron frying pan,
breaking it up into the smallest pieces possible during the cooking. I then put this into a big metal mixing bowl. I added
to it two large bunches of scallions, finely chopped. Two teaspoons of Korean sesame oil. One teaspoon of toasted sesame seeds.
(Toast them in a shallow pan in an oven pre-heated to 350 degrees until they are a golden brown.) Eight ounces of bean sprouts,
steamed for a minute and a half or blanched in boiling water for ten seconds and then thoroughly drained. Two ounces of chives,
finely chopped. One quarter teaspoon of pepper. One half teaspoon of kosher or sea salt -- no more. Two egg yolks.
A quarter inch or so of peeled ginger root, finely chopped, can be added. I think this would be swell but Jae doesn't
like it, so it was omitted from this mix. I mistakenly added a quarter teaspoon of hot chili powder, which I think improved
the dumplings, but in truth the chili powder should be reserved for the dipping sauce.
Buy some won-ton pastry, which comes in circles or squares. After removing them from their packet, keep them under a damp
dish towel so they don't dry out. Have a beaten egg in a bowl nearby. Place a teaspoon or so of the dumpling mix into the
center of a won-ton pastry circle or square. Brush some of the beaten egg around the edges of the pastry piece -- it's easiest
just to use your finger for this -- and then seal the pasty around the filling, making sure there are no major air pockets
and that the edges are firmly joined. This is time consuming but satisfying. Jae and I made about fifty dumplings with the
mix described above. This could serve five or six pretty hungry people but leftovers can always be saved and eaten within
a couple of days or frozen for future use.
You can boil or steam the dumplings until they are fully heated all the way through. I like them better fried. Use olive
or vegetable oil and fry them over moderate heat until each side is light brown. They go from light brown to burnt very quickly
so be vigilant.
Serve them immediately with the dipping sauce below:
1/2 cup soy sauce
1 teaspoon Korean sesame oil
1 teaspoon toasted sesame seeds (crushed or not)
1 teaspoon thinly sliced scallion
1/4 teaspoon hot red chili powder
1/4 teaspoon sugar
1/4 teaspoon pepper (white or black)
[Jae says: "Mix thoroughly. If refrigerated, will be good for a week. It's real good -- sometimes I eat it with tofu,
or just rice and seaweed ..."]
I strongly urge the use of low-sodium soy sauce for this -- I think it lets the various flavors of the dish shine forth
more clearly.
Jae, John Sosnovsky and I ate most of the dumplings with dexterously maneuvered chopsticks and some kimchi -- the sine
qua non of any Korean meal. Kimchi is pickled vegetables of various sorts and can be purchased at most good grocery stores
with an ethnic foods section or at specialty stores. We drank beer with it. If you can find a good Korean beer like OB, so
much the better.
Jae believes that the ground meat should not be cooked before being wrapped in the pastry, though not all recipes agree
about this. If you follow Jae's advice you will need to boil the dumplings long enough to cook the meat almost completely
before frying or completely if you're eating them boiled. Test one first to be sure you've got the timing right. Jae says
that the uncooked meat in the mix makes it easier to stuff the pastry -- and I'm sure he's right. Also, frying the dumplings
without boiling them first -- unless you deep fry them -- doesn't always cook all the pastry all the way through.
These dumplings are a simple yet wondrous treasure from the Land Of the Morning Calm.
CROCK POT
5 May 2006
Jae Song writes from New York:
To save money I started cooking with my roomate Joe -- we have a crock pot and we decided to cook something in the crock
pot every week that will sustain us for that week.
The beauty of the crock pot is that you just throw everything in there and turn it on and by the end of the day it's done.
You literally just throw the ingredients in there and turn it on.
But with a little extra care, you can make something tastes a little better.
Our last masterpiece was beef stew and it turned out great. You need a pretty big pot for this -- ours is around 1' diameter
and 8" tall -- this fills the pot to the brim:
2.5 lbs of chuck beef (cut in cubes)
2 carrots (medium size)
3 potatoes (smallish size)
3 onions (small to medium size)
5 ocra
3 cloves garlic
1 jalapeno pepper
red wine of choice or stout (or oatmeal beer) 3-4 cups
salt
pepper
Adjust amount of ingredients depending on the size of your crock pot
What I did was first put in the onions (chopped), garlic (minced) and jalapeno (minced -- be careful doing this and wash
yourself afterwards) so it can perfume the rest of the ingredients as we pile it on top (don't know if this really does anything
in the early stages of the cooking process but why not?)
Then I seared the beef on a really hot pan (put beef in pan and don't touch until the skin turns dark brown) . . . we
are not cooking the meat here -- just trying to reduce the fat on the outer layer with the heat to release the sugar and caramalize
on the pan. If a little gets burnt and sticks to the pan that is fine. Just sear the outer areas of the beef and then throw
in the pot. Of course burning the beef is bad so pay attention.
Then throw the rest of the ingredients in the pot (chopped -- I like to chop the carrots really small for some reason).
sprinkle salt
sprinkle pepper
Then deglaze the pan you just used for the beef with your wine or beer. Turn on the heat to medium -- pour around a cup
and a half in and with a wooden spoon scrape up everything in the pan -- basically clean the pan with the wine. Pour that
into the pot. Add 2 and a half more cups.
Turn on the crock pot and let it cook for ... 3 hours -- mix it up -- let it cook for another 3 hours -- mix it up --
taste -- add salt if needed -- let it cook for another 3 hours and it should be done.
You don't really have to keep checking on it every 3 hours -- you can just mix it once after 4 hours, taste and season
and let it cook.
You can also just chop everything up and throw in the pan -- pour in 3 and half cups of water, turn it on and come back
in 8 - 9 hours and it should be done.
This lasted us a good week -- we ate it with bread and with rice, with some added tobasco sauce at times or chilli powder.
It cost us 18 bucks.
Try it if you're in the mood to cook.
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