Summer Salads

As I've explained before, I'm not comfortable with salads. Their apparent simplicity intimidates the daylights out of me. I just have no confidence that I can make it taste good -- ridiculous as that may seem. Which is why I was very surprised when I realised I had a craving for one a few days ago. But instead of simply throwing a bunch of greens together and drizzling it with a quick vinaigrette, I had to go and make a project out of it. Tsk. Just like me. I can't just eat something. I have to go and think about it. Higher education at work here, people.

Not that this is a bad thing by any stretch of the imagination. I probably should have more greens in my diet anyway, if USDA's new nutrition chart is anything to go by... Tangent: was anyone else completely dumbfounded that they didn't think to use a pie chart in the first place? And their recommendations are still difficult to interpret, since they evidently can't even center the design accurately. Moral of the story: if you need a statistics degree to figure out how to eat, USDA's doing it wrong.

Return from tangent: furthermore, that's the exact kind of meal that you would want to have during summer. Fresh, crisp greens with an acid tang; anything else would add to the lethargy you already experience from the heat. Now, personally, I don't think that a salad by itself it enough to constitute an entire meal. A potato salad or a chicken salad, sure. But just a salad? Isn't that kinda... limited?

A question to be explored at a later date. In order to satisfy my craving and food preferences, I uncovered these two recipes, which have temporarily turned the Salad to an accessible summer meal for me.

Chicken Cherry Salad
Obviously, the best way to make a salad more meaty is to add, well, meat. (Duh.) But this one goes a step further by also adding croutons and cherries. Vegetables, protein, starch, fruit -- boom! Full nutritional value in a single dish. I'm waiting for the government to pat me on the head like a good little drone.

Facetiousness aside, I did continue eating this for several days in a row, jealously hiding it from my roommates. It's not as crisp as I expected (maybe I didn't toast the bread fast enough?), but that didn't bother me. In fact, that would have distracted me from the soft texture of the cherries and chicken. The vinaigrette gives everything a pleasant bite (in nice contrast to the cherries' sweetness), especially if you let it all soak it in for a few minutes.

For the Chicken:

• 6 (2,1/4 lbs) skin-on, bone-in chicken thighs
• 1 Tbs vegetable oil
• Salt and pepper

For the Salad:

• 1/4 cup lemon juice
• 3 tbs Dijon mustard
• 3 Tbs dill, chopped
• 2 Tbs honey
• 1 garlic clove, minced
• 1/4 cup olive oil
• Salt and pepper
• 4 thick slices rustic bread, crusts removed, torn into 3/4-inch pieces
• 1 lb fresh cherries, stemmed, pitted, and lightly crushed
• 3 heads butter lettuce, cored and turned into pieces
• 4 radishes, thinly sliced
• 1 Tbs chopped chives

Preheat the oven to 475, and heat oil in a large cast-iron or heavy nonstick skillet over high heat until hot but not smoking. Season chicken with salt and pepper. Nestle chicken in skillet, skin side down, and cook 2 minutes. Reduce heat to medium-high; continue cooking skin side down, occasionally rearranging chicken thighs and rotating pan to evenly distribute heat, until fat renders and skin is golden brown, about 12min.

Transfer skillet to oven and cook 13min more. Flip chicken; continue cooking until skin crisps and meat is cooked through, about 5min longer. Transfer to a plate; reserve the fat.

Whisk together the lemon juice, Dijon mustard, dill, honey, and garlic together in a small bowl. Gradually whisk in oil. Season to taste with salt and pepper. Stir; set aside. Remove the crispy chicken skin and tear into pieces. Do the same with the chicken meat; discard the bones.

Heat the chicken fat over medium heat. Add bread to skillet and toast, turning frequently, until golden and crisp, about 2min. Remove with a slotted spoon and drain on paper towels. Season with salt and pepper while still hot.

Place chicken meat in a large bowl. Add cherries, lettuce, radishes, and chives and drizzle with vinaigrette; toss to coat. Divide salad among plates and garnish with croutons and chicken skin.


Celery, Grape, and Mushroom Salad
Another good way to add meatiness to a dish (minus the meat)? Mushrooms! This is a doubly good recipe for summer because it calls for a grill -- not only for the mushrooms, mind you, but for the grapes as well. What an awesome way to add smokiness to an otherwise fresh and nutty dish! At least, so I imagine. I don't have a grill, so I rely on my broiler. It still tastes excellent, but I will definitely have to make it again when I have earned that essential step on the path to adulthood. NB: if you happen to have unlocked this life achievement already, please make this in its original form and tell me what it's like!

Also, if you want to prove yourself a dork, place the oyster mushrooms on your face and pretend that you're Cthulu.

(...yes, I do such things.)

• 2 Tbs white wine vinegar
• 2 tsp lemon juice
• 1/2 tsp celery seeds
• 1/4 tsp Dijon mustard
• 2 small garlic cloves, minced
• 1/2 cup plus 1 Tbs olive oil (plus more for brushing)
• 1/4 cup almond oil
• Salt and pepper
• 1/2 cup parsley leaves
• 1/2 cup celery leaves
• 1/4 cup salted roasted almonds, chopped
• 1 lb king oyster mushrooms, sliced lengthwise 1/4 inch thick
• 2 cups (12oz) green grapes
• 2 heads butter lettuce, leaves separated
• 2 cups very thinly sliced celery

In a small bowl, whisk the vinegar with the lemon juice, celery seeds, mustard and half of the garlic. Gradually whisk in 1/4 cup of the olive oil and the almond oil until emulsified. Season the dressing with salt and pepper.

In a food processor, combine the remaining garlic with the parsley, celery leaves and almonds and pulse until finely chopped. Add another 1/4 cup of the olive oil and puree to a chunky paste. Season the pesto with salt and pepper.

Light a grill (or heat your broiler). Brush the mushrooms with oil and season with salt and pepper. Grill over high heat, turning once, until tender and browned, about 5min. In a bowl, toss the grapes with the remaining 1 Tbs of olive oil and season with salt and pepper. Grill over high heat until the skins begin to blacken in spots, about 3min; line the grill with perforated foil if the grapes will fall through. Transfer the grapes and mushrooms to a large bowl and toss with the pesto.

Arrange the lettuce leaves on a platter and drizzle with half of the dressing. Spoon the mushroom-and-grape salad onto the lettuce. Toss the celery with the remaining dressing, spoon it on top and serve.

And Now for Something Completely Different

My recent excursions/pilgrimages/quests to the slowly-dying Borders has left me with a ton of new books. Duh. That should be obvious. The unexpected part is that because of this, some mystery of my psyche gives me the desire to revisit all my old books, the ones that haven't been properly appreciated. Does this make sense on any level? Oh wait; I don't care. Books!

Some recipes collections, though, I've been reading far too often. I've been through my Italian a lot, so that's out. Bittman likewise; not good for recipe browsing. I'm sick of staring at a computer screen, so the Internet is of no use to me. Not feeling fancy enough for Food & Wine or the Silver Palate, and tapas are too much effort for too little output. And so on, until I had all but whittled my options away.

And then my eyes alighted on a little-used hardback tucked away in a corner of the bookshelf: Sephardic Flavors. Hmm, that's one I don't use often. Neen & Do gave it to me a few years ago when they were experimenting with new flavours. But not knowing how to approach the food, I haven't made good use of it. Time to remedy that, methinks!

Scanning through the various options, none of which seem remotely similar to my standard cuisine, I eventually settled on mantikos. Evidently based on the Turkish manti*, these are palm-sized savory pastries -- kind of like warm bread dumplings filled with fresh cheese and [meat|onions|spinach] (the recipe offers three possible fillings). Somehow, they both taste delightfully Mediterranean and are bracingly warm for the remaining cold nights of winter. Making them was a bit of a pain, as I am very bad at wrapping up fillings without making a horrible mess. It turns out that it doesn't matter, though: if you can't pinch one mantiko (?) closed, simply let it cook on foil or parchment paper with the opening facing up. Even though some of the filling might escape, the rest can be put out on display.

And if, like me, you end up with too much filling, let me say one word: quiche.

Mantikos
for the starter:

• 1 envelope (2,1/4 tsp) active dry yeast
• 1/2 tsp sugar
• 1 cup lukewarm water
• 2 Tbs flour

for the dough:

• 2,3/4 cups flour
• 1 tsp salt
• 1 tsp plus 1/3 cup vegetable oil

for the meat filling:

• 2-3 Tbs olive or vegetable oil
• 2 onions, chopped
• 2 cloves garlic, minced
• 1 lb ground beef
• 2 tsp salt
• 1 tsp freshly ground black pepper
• 1/4 cup chopped fresh parsley

for the spinach filling:

• 1 lb spinach, stems removed
• 2 eggs, lightly beaten
• 1/4 lb feta cheese, crumbled
• 1/2 cup ricotta cheese, OR 1/4 lb kashkaval or gruyère cheese, grated
• nutmeg, salt, pepper

for the onion and cheese filling:

• 3 Tbs olive or vegetable oil
• 4 large onion, thinly sliced
• 1/2 lb feta cheese, crumbled
• 1/2 lb ricotta cheese, fromage blanc, or cottage cheese
• 2 eggs, lightly beaten
• 1/4 cup fresh dill
• pepper, nutmeg (optional)

to finish:

• 1 egg, beaten with a little water

To make the starter, in a small bowl, dissolve the yeast and sugar in the lukewarm water, then stir in the flour. Set aside for 10min until frothy.

To make the dough, in a bowl, stir together the flour, salt, and the 1 tsp oil. Add the starter and using a stand mixer fitted with a dough hook, beat on medium speed until a soft dough forms, about 10min. Turn out the dough onto a lightly floured work surface and divide into 18 to 24 balls. Place the balls in a bowl, add the 1/3 cup oil, and toss to coat the balls with the oil Cover with a kitchen towel and let rise until almost doubled in size, about 30min.

Meanwhile, select one of the fillings and prepare it. If making the meat filling, warm the olive oil in a sauté pan over medium heat. Add the onions and sauté until tender and translucent, about 10min. Add the garlic and beef and cook, breaking up the meat, until the meat is no longer pink, about 5min. Add the salt, pepper, and parsley and continue to cook, stirring occasionally, until the meat is browned, about 10min. Remove from the heat and let cool.

To make the spinach filling, cook until wilted in the rinsing water clinging to the leaves, squeeze the spinach dry, and chop finely. Place in a bowl and add the eggs and cheeses. Mix well and season with the nutmeg, salt, and pepper.

To make the onion and cheese filling, warm the oil or margarine in a sauté pan over medium heat. Add the onions and saute until soft and golden, about 15min. Remove from the heat, place in a bowl, and let cool. Fold in the cheeses, eggs, and dill and season with pepper and with nutmeg, if using.

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Line 2 baking sheets with parchment paper. On a lightly floured work surface, roll out a ball of dough into a rectangle or square about 1/3-inch thick. Place a generous tablespoon of filling on the center of the dough. Fold in the sides, fold up the bottom, then fold the top over the bottom to seal. Pinch the seams together securely and place seam side down on a prepared baking sheet. Repeat until all the pastries are filled. Brush the tops with the egg wash.

Bake the pastries until golden, 25-30min. Serve hot or warm.


* Plagiarising the recipe notes: "Traditional Turkish manti are made with a kind of pasta dough and are usually dressed with paprika and melted butter or yogurt and garlic sauce. The Sephardic mantikos pastry from Cannakale is a yeast-raised dough."

A Feast for All Senses

So, I've been cooking a lot of sweets recently (as you might have noticed). It's an easy way for me to get my cooking fix -- I can make a dessert, place it out in a public area, and let the vultures -- that is, college students -- descend upon it and feast. This is unlike hearty meal foods; these, I feel like I must store and eat myself. If I were to make a meal for every time I wanted to be in the kitchen, I would leftovers pouring out of the fridge. So I restrict myself to sweets for the most part.

The only problem is, sometimes the taste of sugar gets really old. This happened to me in the past week or so, and I found myself leafing through my various cookbooks looking for something new and interesting that has neither any sugar content nor meat (the missus' take on dead flesh is... limiting). I ended falling upon the Urban Italian book to find a few interesting pasta sauces. It turns out that both of them played heavily on senses other than taste. The first was a thin sauce of anchovies, garlic, thyme, and rosemary. Its smell -- ah! It seemed like gods had come down to anoint my kitchen. But all hope was dashed when I actually took a bite. The texture, the taste -- everything was wrong! The cacophony of flavours eventually resolved itself into a dull burning which, thankfully, prevented me from tasting anything else. I'm never making that again. Blech!

So it was with great trepidation that approached the second sauce. As it was some sort of broccoli pesto, I was afraid that it would have the opposite problem: that it would come across as tasteless mushed greens. And I won't deny that even up to halfway through the recipe, it still seemed like that was the direction in which it was headed. But then something magical happened. At some point after blending the broccoli to a paste with added pine nuts and cheese, the flavour blossomed into something far greater than I thought it would. I'm not sure I can describe it, seeing as it was so unexpected. But the blanched greens mixed their fresh, though mild, taste with the more pervasive parmesan to occupy the whole of my mouth. Add pine nuts for a little texture, and you have a winner.

Of course, you're not done there. You go on to add garlic, oregano, red pepper flakes, and roasted peppers to the mix. The result is one of the most colourful dishes I have ever seen. Now, I don't know what your take on colour in food is. While I recognize that it is not a necessary element, I would much rather present a dish that's interesting to look at. Scoff though you may when cooks try their hand at artistry, you can't deny that a dish like this will give you pause. It's so pretty, how could you not admire it?

Linguini with Broccoli Rabe Pesto, Oregano, and Peppers
For the pesto:

• 1 bunch broccoli rabe
• 1/2 cup olive oil
• 1/4 cup pine nuts
• 1/2 tsp salt
• 2 Tbs grated Parmigiano-Reggiano or pecorino cheese

To finish the dish:

• 2 Tbs olive oil
• 2 cloves garlic, sliced thin
• 1/4 tsp red peppers flakes
• 1/2 cup grated Parmigiano-Reggiano or pecorino cheese, plus extra for sprinkling
• 1 Tbs fresh oregano leaves
• 3 roasted peppers // I won't recopy his recipe; suffice to say you should roasted them until their skins are black & blistered, with a lot of oil, salt, and pepper
• 2 Tbs bread crumbs // Optional, in my opinion
• 1 lb cooked linguini

Make the Pesto
Put a medium-sized pot of salted water on to boil to blanch the broccoli rabe.

Remove the leaves from the broccoli rabe, cutting them off right at the stem. Reserve the leaves. Trim the broccoli rabe stems so that 2-3 inches of stem remain below each floret. Cut these into thirds.

Blanch the stems and florets in the boiling water for 30sec, until the color has intensified. Remove with a slotted spoon to a bowl of ice water to stop the cooking process. Set aside.

Blanch the broccoli rabe leaves in the boiling water until they're tender, 60-90sec. Remove with a slotted spoon to a separate bowl of ice water to stop the cooking process.

When the leaves are cold, remove them from the water and squeeze out the excess water with your hands.

Combine the olive oil and the broccoli rabe leave in a blender and blend on medium until a smooth paste forms, about 30sec. Add 1/2 cup water and blend until the leaves are completely puréed, about 30sec. Add the pine nuts and blend on medium-low until smooth, about 15sec. Add the salt and the cheese and blend very briefly, about 5sec, to bring everything together. // Note: I used a food processor instead of a blender; the time to blend is then radically reduced.

To Finish the Dish
Heat the 2 Tbs of olive oil in a large pot over medium-high heat, then add the garlic and brown slightly for a minute. Add the broccoli stems and florets and the red pepper flakes and mix to combine.

Remove the pot from the heat and add the cooked linguini and pesto; blend well. Add the grated cheese and fresh oregano, and mix well to blend everything to a rich smoothness. Top with slices of the roasted red peppers, a dash more cheese, and a pinch of breadcrumbs. Voilà!

Kale and Seaweed Salad. And Qs about Online Sharing

I’ve written three very different versions of this blog post this week. I thought that I was rejecting drafts because I couldn’t get the voice right, but today it occurred to me that it’s the content that was giving me difficulty. I don’t have an answer to the questions that I’m posing; in fact, I don’t even know if they’re the right questions. So this entry is less of a declarative statement than a snapshot of the ideas swimming in and out of focus in my head. Really, I’d just like to grab a beer and have a spirited debate on the subject. So, imagine your favorite draft in hand and bear with me. And this is a soliloquy only due to the format choice – I really would like to hear your point of view.

Why share personal content online? That is the question. Recipes, photos, anecdotes, opinions, musings. Facebook, flickr, blogspot, twitter, Google Buzz, Google Reader. Why share?

That of course begs the question, “sharing with whom?” Because I update my Mom on my latest adventures for different reasons than I post a recipe for a bunch of (very agreeable) strangers. Or at least I think they’re different reasons.

In no particular order: archiving valuable information (recipes, photos) for easy retrieval, getting feedback and thereby validation on creative attempts, keeping in touch/strengthening relationships with distant friends and family, creating communities out of strangers, enjoying hearing myself talk uninterrupted on my soapbox, immediate attention from a wide audience, “popularity” (albeit highly transient…obsessing over hit rates and comment counts…blogging as a gateway drug…).

Why do you share? I bet your first answer is a highly logical, rational, reasonable one. I’m interested to hear that reason, but I’m also interested in the more subconscious one lying just under the surface.

Realization/Confession: I’m an information junkie. My crack is highly concentrated doses of really high quality content, content that pushes my brain to think slightly differently and makes me want to start a discussion with somebody immediately. A juicy local news item pertaining to a business or neighborhood or government institution that I know. An artistically impressive photo that succeeds in communicating a complex set of feelings. A blog post that not only disseminates a recipe but is able to articulate and therefore pass on the meaning buried in that particular combination of ingredients and technical steps. Or the briefest of high quality content messages -- and these days, one I come across with alarming frequency, the facebook update “X has gotten married.”

Quality. À la Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance.

This is important, because I’m trying to figure out how I want to use this blog and my flickr space. Whom am I posting for? How much personal detail is too much? How can I create and share compelling content while protecting myself emotionally and honoring the privacy of my loved ones? Ironically, I feel more comfortable sharing terribly intimate musings with perfect strangers than with remote acquaintances who know me in real life.

That’s all I’ve got for now. Oh, and this recipe. One of the best parts about living in a place and in a social circle where vegetables carry no stigma is that we’ve learned to expect them to be fun. This recipe honors the ingredients that go into it, producing something that is greater than the sum of its parts. It’s one of those rare reasons to love winter produce, that interminable sea of tough greens. The salad itself is fast, flavorful, and incredibly forgiving: change the ratio of greens to seaweed, supplement kale with chard, add mushrooms to make a hearty lunch… you really can’t go wrong. Believe me: we must have made this recipe 5,000 times while I was in grad school. It’s also vegan; translation: Everybody Will Like It. We bring it to almost every potluck we’re invited to between October and March.

Kale and Seaweed Salad (serves six as a side)

1 bunch Kale or Chard
1/2 cup seaweed flakes ("sea vegetable" - dried or fresh. Our grocery sells dried Wakame flakes in its Asian section.
1 Tbs peeled, minced ginger
1 Tbs minced garlic
1 Tbs toasted sesame seeds
Seasame oil
Soy Sauce

Optional: additional veggies like mushrooms or carrots, sliced.

Optional: 2 serrano peppers, chopped.

If using dried seaweed, let it soak in water 5 - 7 min. Drain and place in the serving bowl. Add 1 tsp sesame oil and the minced ginger.

Soak the Kale in water to loosen any dirt, rinse thoroughly. Chop in 1"x2" strips.

In a large skillet, heat 2 tsp sesame oil over medium heat. Add the garlic and serrano (if using) and gently sauté for 1 min.

Add the Kale and optional supplemental veggies and 3 Tbs Soy sauce. Sauté at high heat, stirring constantly. Alternatively, if not using mushrooms, turn heat to low and cover, cooking gently for 5-10minutes.

Add Kale to serving bowl, add sesame oil and soy sauce to taste. Garnish with toasted sesame seeds.

Cheddar-stuffed Challah French Toast served with caramelized Apples and Red Onions

Disclaimer: most of this post was written on December 2, 2010 but I had no camera with which to capture the truly majestic awesomeness of the dish. Kudos to our families for helping me to overcome that particular barrier, and for their ongoing interest in the recipes we recommend here.

It was the most wonderful time of the year, so they say. Twinkling lights, perky tunes, an abundance of invitations to schmooze with semi-strangers juggling alcoholic beverages and green-and-red themed hors d’oeuvre plates. December is also the season of butter and deep-fat fried foods. And I wasn’t sure I was ready for it.

We had had an epic Thanksgiving. There was more food than you could shake a stick at. Do’s sister and brother in law made a superb meal with at least 10 dishes. My father lovingly prepared and FedExed barbequed ribs from Texas. And the whole thing culminated with a glorious 9 course meal carefully arranged by Do and Spuds on Saturday. There was Harissa soup. There were meatballs. (The two together constituted only one course. Yeah. Think about that). It was three full days of indulgences.

In other words, on December 1^st my digestive system was ready for Lent, not Advent.

After barely four days to recover, it was time to haul out the festive spirit and deck the halls for Hanukkah, the Holiday of Lights. (The Holiday of Deep Frying would be more apropos, unless by “lights” you mean the inevitable ensuing stovetop flames). Allow me to recommend this for a nontraditional take on the homey comfort that is holiday food: Cheddar-stuffed Challah French Toast served with caramelized Apples and Red Onions.

Let me skip to the punchline: it’s to die for.

The original recipe was published this time last year in the New York Times. As the original cook describes, this dish started as a gussied up grilled cheese for when your family gets sick of latkes, then morphed into something truly festive. It’s essentially a one-pot dish of creamy, cheese-y, custard-y goodness, but savory. It reminds me a lot of the Germanic flavors that my grandmother brought over with her from Prussia and passed on to her progeny, flavors that say “home” and “Christmas” and “Mommy” to me. More than dinner, this dish becomes a way to include my family heritage in celebrating a holiday from Do’s roots.

I made this dish for both the first and second nights of Hannukah (you can tell it was a success!), and this morning we finally settled on a permutation that’s good enough for the archives. We replaced her gruyere with a sharp cheddar (personal preference), added mozzarella for cheese-y gooeyness and goat cheese for unctuous luxurious flavor, caramelized the red onions in the pan along with the apples, and nixed the “stuffing” concept for the “sandwich” concept (way easier to handle, and the flavors are better integrated). With a little bit of mustard, I promise this version is way better.

Cheddar-stuffed French Toast With Caramelized Apples and Red Onions

• 2 challah hamburger buns, or 4 1/2-inch-thick slices challah bread from middle of loaf. (If in the East Bay, Semifreddi’s is our fav).
• 4 oz grated Cheddar cheese (about 1 cup)
• 3 oz grated mozzarella (about ½ cup)
• 5 oz goat cheese
• 1 red onion, thickly sliced into half-moons.
• 2 large eggs, lightly beaten
• 3/4 cup whole milk
• kosher salt, ground black pepper, olive oil
• 1 apple, cored, sliced
• Really good quality French-style mustard.

1. Make the sandwiches: Grate cheddar and mozzarella, combine into one bowl. If using hamburger buns, gently remove “crust” from bottom and top to better allow the bread to soak up the egg. Spread goat cheese on the inside of all bread slices, and tuck as much of the cheddar/mozzarella mixture into the sandwiches as they will bear. Don’t worry if there’s leftover cheese.

2. Transform them into French toast: In a wide, shallow dish, whisk together the eggs, milk, salt and pepper. Carefully, so as not to lose the cheese filling, soak the sandwiches in the egg mixture, turning once halfway through, until most of the liquid has been absorbed, about 5 minutes.

3. Cook with Glamour. Heat oil in

a large skillet over medium heat. Add the apple slices and the red onion in a single layer and cook for 2 minutes. Push them to the side of the pan and add the bread slices. Cook until bottoms are golden, about 4 minutes. Carefully turn bread and apples and cook until bread is golden and the apples are caramelized, 3 to 5 minutes. Crumble any leftover cheese on top, and serve with mustard.

Yield: 2 servings.

Homemade Parmesan Polenta with Shrimp, Pancetta, and Chard topping

So to celebrate Do passing his PhD exams (yes! He passed!), we spent this past weekend in Santa Cruz. Four blocks from the beach, in a 1929 Victorian house that had 5 bedrooms, 30 stained glass windows, and a giant box of Playboys hidden in the attic. I mean, there was stained glass in the stairway, stained glass in the bathrooms, stained glass on the kitchen ceiling. Not kidding. And if all that weren't deliciously random enough, we were there with a college friend we hadn't seen since 2005, my cousin, his wife, his wife's sister + beau, and five other people whom Do & I had never even heard of before we all arrived Friday night. We drove up, made introductions, and promptly began exploring all the nooks and crannies of the crazy house and giggling over the epic quantity of board games we had all brought down. It was that kind of weekend.

By the way, if you're ever in Santa Cruz, the best coffeeshop in the entire Western Hemisphere is called The Abbey. It's this renovated space behind a brick church with huge, comfy, retro couches, funky art, and some of the best coffee drinks I've had anywhere. Do & I happily spent Saturday afternoon there reading and discussing the late 20th century bureaucratization of science research. Very us.

So we read books on the beach. We ate seafood at every possible opportunity. We visited the Monterey Bay Aquarium (just as awesome as everybody claims -- Do remembered almost nothing from when he visited about 15 years ago, until we got to the ray touch pool. You get to pet Rays! Apparently that made a big impression on him back in the day. They feel like velvet, BTW.). It was a very ocean-themed weekend.

We didn't do much cooking during the weekend, partly because we were so busy running around having a good time and partly because cooking for 12 people whom you don't really know is complicated. However, at our last supper club get-together, we had a massive success with a new seafood-themed recipe: an Italian take on southern Shrimp & Grits. Massive Success.

I don't really cook with polenta or shrimp. The former is too often just a swanky cardboard-tasting filler, and the latter is a bitch to clean and/or tastes like rubber when pre-frozen. But this recipe... oh, man. Like most top-quality homemade Italian food, this recipe takes my preconceived notions of "shrimp" and "polenta" and throws them back at me with "You keep using that word. I do not think if means what you think it means."

(This weekend also involved ample quotations from Princess Bride. What better way to bond instantaneously with perfect strangers on Valentine's Day than by talking about "Twue Wuv"?)

Cook's Illustrated has an amazingly simple and delicious recipe for homemade Parmesan Polenta: creamy like grits, but much lighter (think fluffy clouds of goodness), and chock-a-bloc full of a Parmesan/olive oil/black pepper flavor. Not delicate, this one. Which goes well with the rough and ready take on the shrimp: lots of garlic, tomatoes, meaty pancetta flavor, hearty greens, and then these really delicately cooked shrimp. Think Italian. Think Addictive. Vampire deterrent served on pillows of Parmesan.

For those of you who find the thought of homemade polenta intimidating: it is so worth it. And it only takes 5 minutes total of hand time (25min cook time). Please, please, please try it.

For the vegetarians out there, I'm tagging this as "vegetarian" because the meat products are in no way critical to the dish: top the polenta with whatever you want and it'll still be awesome.

And by the way, a great use for the leftover Parmesan Polenta is to have it for breakfast, topped with fried eggs. Almost exactly three years ago, the Nytimes published a recipe for that very dish. Yes, we've had the clipping squirreled away that long and only ever fantasized about it. And I can finally assure the world that the dish is as good as it sounds.










Homemade Parmesan Polenta, from Cook's Illustrated (serves 6-8)
1.5 tsp salt
Pinch baking soda
1.5 coarse-ground cornmeal (also called "corn grits")
2 Tbs butter
4oz good quality Parmesan cheese, grated (~2 cups)

Bring 7.5 cups water to boil in heavy-bottomed pot over medium-high heat. Stir in salt and baking soda. Slowly pour cornmeal into water in steady stream, while stirring back and forth with wooden spoon or rubber spatula. Bring mxture to boil, stirring constantly, about 1 min. Reduce heat to lowest possible setting and cover.

After 5 min, whisk polenta to smooth out any lumps that may have formed, about 15seconds. (Make sure to scrape down sides and bottom of pan). Cover and continue to cook, without stirring, until grains of polenta are tender but slightly al dente, about 25min longer. (Polenta should be loose and barely hold its shape but will continue to continue to thicken as it cools.)

Meanwhile, cook a polenta topping (see recipe below)

Once 25min are up, turn off heat, stir in butter and Parmesan, and season to taste with black pepper. Let stand, covered, 5min. Serve.

Shrimp, Pancetta, and Greens over Polenta, inspired by Gourmet Nov 2009 issue (serves 4)
Homemade Parmesan Polenta (recipe below)
1/3lb pancetta, chopped
4 garlic cloves, minced
1/4 - 1/2 tsp hot red pepper flakes
1 bunch winter greens, sliced into thick strips (chard, kale, whatever floats your boat)
2 Tbs extra-virgin olive oil
1 14oz can diced tomatoes in juice
1-1.5lb cleaned large shrimp
1 Tbs chopped flat leaf parsley

While polenta is cooking, heat 2Tbs oil in a heavy 12-inch heavy skillet over medium heat. Cook pancetta, garlic, greens, and red pepper until garlic is golden (~2-3min). Add tomatoes in their juice and simmer until liquid is reduced to ~1/4cup (~6-8min). Add shrimp and cook, stirring occasionally, until shrimp are just cooked through (~3min). Season with salt.

Spoon Polenta into bowls and top with shrimp mixture. Season with pepper and sprinkle with parsley.

DNA's Spicy Fried Chickpeas

So I've mentioned our friend DNA several times already. Do and he have been friends since our Chicago days, and they would definitely be inseparable roommates if I weren't around. Actually, they lived together for a month while Do was apartment hunting out here, and were kind of disappointed about ending their nightly House marathons when the car & I finally rolled into California. DNA is the kind of guy who, with literally 30 seconds warning, is willing to drop everything and go wine tasting in Napa , test out new Dim Sum places in SF or Richmond, join us for a theatre performance at Berkeley Rep, attempt to recreate Alinea-style food chemistry in the kitchen (we really should break out photos of that), etc, etc. This may not seem particularly impressive until to you realize that DNA is a science PhD candidate in a work environment where 6.5 work days a week is common if not expected. DNA rocks my world.

And he's game for experimenting with cooking, both being our guinea pig and offering up new creations. Last Saturday, inspired by a recipe he'd seen in a Southwest Airlines magazine, he threw together a spicy fried chickpeas appetizer and brought them to our Supper Club get-together. And there was much rejoicing.

The appetizer is really very simple. Breaded and fried chickpeas, with mucho spice added. Result: addictive, a-typical, and better for you than most other appetizer's out there. The 0riginal recipe is here, but DNA found it extremely bland slash didn't have time to finish, so he dumped a bunch of extra spice in. And you know? It worked.

Spicy Fried Chickpeas (serves 8 as an appetizer)

Olive and canola oil for frying

2 (15-ounce) cans chickpeas, thoroughly drained and rinsed

3 tablespoons all-purpose flour

2 teaspoons kosher salt

2 Tbs smoked paprika 1-2 Tbs cayenne (or to taste, conceivably much more)

1. Fill a large heavy-bottomed pot fitted with a deep-frying thermometer with 3 inches of oil (1/2 olive, 1/2 canola) and heat to 375°F over medium heat.
2. Meanwhile, dry drained chickpeas thoroughly with paper towels. Combine 2 tablespoons of the flour, the salt, and the paprika in a large bowl and briefly whisk to break up any lumps. Add chickpeas and toss to coat. Line a baking sheet with paper towels and set aside.
3. Working in two batches, fry chickpeas until they stop popping and have turned golden brown, about 3 to 4 minutes per batch. (Be careful: A lot of commotion and steam erupts from the oil when the chickpeas first drop.) Remove with a skimmer or a frying basket to the paper-towel-lined baking sheet.
4. Toss together chickpeas and paprika and cayenne in a bowl and serve immediately.

Super Garlicky Eggplant Parmesan and a Housewarming

Sometime last year, we started getting together with a small group of friends for dinner every weekend. It was very much the sort of thing depicted in photos of glossy magazines trying to sell you something -- happy laughter around a dinner table, glasses of wine, ample quantities food, relaxed atmosphere, and people just looking like they're having a darn good time. Magazine spreads usually don't show you the "let your hair down" parts of a supper club: everyone hanging out in the kitchen even when a new recipe's not ready until 9 or 10pm, lingering for hours at the table, squishing onto the couch to watch movies off a 15" laptop, lounging on the kitchen floor exchanging stories at 2am, making sure folks are sober enough to bike home at 4am, and having special toothbrushes set aside for when they end up staying the night. Okay, so the last two don't happen every week, but you get the idea. Our little supper club parties hard, if you use a very intimate definition of the word "party."

To celebrate one friend's recent emancipation to a studio of her own (a mere five blocks from our apartment! yay!) and the end of the holiday travel, we all got together last Saturday night. The second-best highlight of the evening was the grand tour of her new place, which is gorgeous and cozy and comfortable and laid out like something from apartmenttherapy.com. The absolute best highlight of the evening was the eggplant parmesan that the hostess made.

[Note: I have no photos of my friend's dish. Eggplant Parmesan, for all its deliciousness, is notoriously NOT photogenic. Somehow Lisa of the Lisa is Cooking blog took the most flattering photos of Eggplant Parmesan, including the one on the right. I'm intrigued by the fact that she used Marcella Hazan's recipe (the Julia Child of Italian cooking), as Do just got that cookbook as a Christmas present].

I'm not kidding, this was the stuff of fantasies. The recipe came from the cookbook "Garlic Garlic Garlic" -- already off to a good start -- *and* the hostess doubled the quantity of garlic in the recipe. It was super rich, the texture was almost creamy, and pungent, oozing with cheese and flavor. It's the kind of dish that demands all your attention as you savor each bite. Even Do, my walking Midwestern diet stereotype, honestly didn't care/didn't notice that there was no meat present. This is infinitely better than chicken Parmesan, and a whole different category from the shoe leather dry versions of eggplant Parmesan I'd had before.

Apparently the dish is a whole production to make, since one of the secrets is a special garlicky-buttery homemade Marinara sauce. The super secret ingredient in the super secret sauce is: 1/2 tsp baking soda. Whoda thunk? The sauce is fairly quick and easy (~30min, 20 of which is unattended simmering), and tasty enough that it's become my friend's go-to tomato sauce. She keeps a half dozen mason jars around just to store big batches of this recipe. That said, putting together the sauce on top of the rest of the dish can become pretty time consuming, so either cook this dish over two days or call over a bunch of friends and put them to work chopping garlic. Clearly, my supper club has strong preferences for the latter.





Eggplant Parmesan (serves 8-10)
5 cups Special Marinara Sauce (see below)
3.5 - 4 lb eggplant, peeled and cut crosswise into 1/2" slices.
up to 2/3 cup olive oil
16 garlic cloves
1/3 cup basil leaves
1/3 cup parsley
1 lb mozzarella, thinly sliced
1 cup Parmesan, grated
2 lb pasta (for serving)

Optional: Pour Marinara sauce into a small saucepan and bring to boil over medium heat. Simmer briskly until sauce is reduced to 4 cups. Set aside. (My friend doesn't find this step to be necessary).

Heat broiler. Lightly brush Eggplant slices with olive oil and season with salt and pepper. Place slices close together on rack and broil until lightly browned on one side (~6-8min). Turn, brush with oil and brown. Transfer browned eggplant to cooling racks. Repeat until all slices are browned. When done, Preheat the oven to 400 degrees.

While the eggplant is broiling, mince together parsely and basil and garlic. Set aside.

Generously oil a 3-4 quart casserole, preferably one that is wide and not too deep. Ladle 1/2 cup sauce into the bottom. Cover the bottom with a third of the eggplant. Sprinkle with a third of the garlic mixture, then one third each of the Mozarella and Parmesan. Cover with 1 cup sauce. Repeat layers. Then, for the last layer, cover with the remaining garlic mixture, then mozarella, then the remaining 1 1/2 cup sauce, then the last of the Parmesan.

Bake uncovered for 50min, until top is browned and sauce is bubbling. Let stand for 10min before cutting into squares and serving over pasta.

Special Marinara Sauce (makes 2 Quarts)
1/3 cup extra virgin olive oil
6 Tbs butter
12 garlic cloves, minced
1 onion, chopped
1 large carrot, chopped
2 tsp dried basil
1/2 tsp dried oregano
1/8 tsp cayenne
2 28oz cans plum tomatoes, with juices
1 tsp crushed red pepper
1/2 tsp baking soda

In a large heavy saucepan, heat olive oil and butter over medium heat. Add garlic, onion, and carrot and saute until carrots are soft (4-6min). Add tomatoes, basil, oregano, red pepper, and cayenne. Bring to a boil and simmer 20min. Season to taste. Add baking soda. Blend thoroughly. It is now ready for use.

Num Pangs: Spicy Southeast Asian Sandwiches

Wow, has there been a lot of good food in my life recently. Today's episode is brought to you by "Spring Cleaning." While "spring" cleaning in January may seem a little pre-emptive, I rest my case on the facts that a) the Bay Area has no discernible seasons and therefore b) returning to Oakland after -4 degree temperatures in Chicago over the holidays fully resembles the advent of spring. So, spring cleaning it was that prompted an attack on our overflowing basket of old Bon Appetits, Gourmets, Food & Wines, and misc other grocery store check-out indulgences. And the resulting clippings have definitely been worth-while.

In September 2009, on page 74, Food & Wine reviewed a Cambodian sandwich shop in Manhattan and offered the recipe for Pequillo-Pepper Num Pangs. Though I apparently found the idea of a southeast asian sandwich very tempting, judging by the dog-ears, the length of the ingredient list alone was enough to get this baby categorized in the "make someday, on a weekend, with Do as a sous-chef, after we've both finished graduate school." Lies! Even if you make your own mayonnaise (which I do these days, more on that some other day), this recipe takes a very relaxed hour. And it's unbelievably creative and delicious.

Experiment: try to think about this from the taste-bud perspective, not the time perspective: take luxury homemade garlic bread, spread on some (homemade) mayonnaise, drizzle with Sriracha chili sauce, layer with paper-thin cucumbers, pickled carrots, roasted red peppers, and cilantro springs, coat with a spicy asian take on pesto, and voila.

It's funky, it's colorful, it's packing a *heavy* punch of flavor, and it falls pretty damn high on my virtuous eating scale. If you can live without anchovies (I can't), it's vegetarian. If you use a substitute for the mayonnaise, its vegan. And, unbelievably, you don't need any crazy Bay Area ingredients to make it happen.

Highly Recommended.


Pequillo-Pepper Num Pangs (makes 4 sandwiches, takes 1 hour).
2 medium carrots
2 Tbs cider vinegar
1 Tbs sugar
3 cups Thai basil leaves (normal basil leaves are a fine substitute)
2 anchovy fillets (or, if you're me, the whole can, drained).
Juice from 1 lime
1 1/2 tsp Asian Fish Sauce
1 tsp crushed red pepper (make that 2)
3 garlic cloves - 2 chopped, 1 whole.
1/4 extra virgin olive oil (or less)
Four individual sandwich baguettes or kaiser rolls, split.
4 Tbs butter.
Mayonnaise, for spreading. (it takes 10 min to make yourself, and then you know what's in it!)
Sriracha chili sauce, for drizzling
One 6" cucumber, thinly sliced lengthwise on a mandoline/box grater/whatever you have.
One 6 oz jar of pequillo peppers, drained and patted dry. (it's a shortcut alternative to roasting and peeling 2 of your own red peppers).
12 large cilantro springs.

Julienne carrots. For the love of God, use a box grater or a mandoline or the "slice" function on a cuisineart. As long as the slices aren't so thin that they become mushy, the aesthetics don't matter. In a medium bowl, toss the carrots with the vinegar and sugar. Let stand at room temperature for 1 hour, stirring occasionally.
Take the butter out of the fridge so that it'll be room temperature when you need it. If you're making your own mayonnaise, do so now.

In a food processor, combine the basil, anchovies, lime juice, fish sauce, crushed red pepper, and chopped garlic and process to a paste. With the machine on, slowly pour olive oil and puree until blended. Go easy on the olive oil, you don't want this pesto to be too liquidy. Check for seasoning, and let stand at room temperature for at least 30 min.

Preheat the broiler. Spread the butter on the cut slices of bread (~1/2 Tbs per slice). Toast in broiler. Rub the toasted sides with the garlic clove (you may need more than one clove to do this). Spread with the mayonnaise. Drizzle with Sriracha. Arrange the cucumber, carrots, and pequillo peppers on the bottoms and garnish with cilantro. Spread the tops with the pesto and close the sandwiches. Cut in half and serve.

** You'll probably have half a cup of pesto left over. I haven't decided what to do with mine yet.. though that may not turn out to be a problem, given that I've been dipping my finger in it and licking it off every 3 seconds...

Moroccan Pumpkin Stew: Recreating Autumn.

My least favorite thing about the Bay Area is the absence of autumn.

It's pretty pathetic compared to autumn in Chicago, or even autumn in Washington D.C. (and that's saying something). We live in the East Bay flats, where trees are pretty few and far between and most of those don't change colors. If they do, they go from green to dull brown. I mean, c'mon, I'm not feeling your enthusiasm here, trees! Where's the Glory, the Passion?? And the lack of crispness in the air, what's up with that? My hands down favorite thing about moving to the Northern Hemisphere after a childhood near the Equator was breaking out the cute sweater/mitten/scarf/hat/boots outfits, with crisp wind, red cheeks, hot cider, new textbooks for school. Hitting the pavement after summer with infectious enthusiasm about all the possibilities of a new year. Feeling driven to change the universe. Because, hey, if the trees are breaking out in the visual equivalent of Beetoven's 5th, by god I can put in my all too.

A pathetic autumn leaves me feeling lethargic, apathetic.

So I attempt to recreate fall. Kind of like when we were kids in Africa, we decorated our Christmas bush, hung our Christmas stockings on the back of couches, and ate Christmas cookies to round out the experience. Food and ritual really are critical to seasonal make-believe. To recreate fall, I haul out my boots and sweaters, glorify in my new textbooks, and cook with as many squash and apples as possible. It's not the same, but it's closer.

This pumpkin stew is from the same North African cookbook that gave us the harissa soup, the brik, and a number of other exotic dishes that we haven't posted about. Long term blog followers will remember that, as we discovered during Lent 2008, our biggest struggle with vegetarian dishes is making sure that they're flavorful enough. Hence the significant prejudice against Northern European vegetarian dishes in favor of Indian, Thai, Greek, Tunisian. When I earmarked this pumpkin stew for this week, I was imagining a heavily spiced, hearty concoction. The kind where the flavor combinations blow your mind and meat isn't necessary to provide an underlying robustness.

I should really have read the recipe more closely.

You may like this recipe, which is why I'm posting it. It wasn't what I was going for. Hearty, yes, good texture, but delicately spiced and sweet. Sweet like sweet potatoes lightly drizzled in maple syrup and baked are sweet: not a desert, but more appropriate as a side than as a main. At least to our taste. New discovery: we really far prefer savory main courses to sweet. As Do put it: "if it's sweet, there better be a big hunk of meat in there to counter-balance the flavor." It's not bland at all, but because we really wanted something savory we ended up tripling all spices and serving the stew with generous dollops of Siracha Chili sauce.

Anyways. For those of you less weird than us, enjoy!

Pumpkin Stew (Marak dar Marhzin). Serves 4-6
3 Tbs oil or butter
2 large onions, chopped
2-4 cloves garlic (N: up to 3 more if you have mediocre Harissa, or are omitting the Harissa)
1 tsp Tumeric
1 tsp ground ginger
1 tsp ground cinnamon
2 medium carrots, sliced
2 small white turnips, peeled and cut into quarters
3 cups of water (my recommendation: add a veggie or chicken bouillon cube)
1 lb butternut squash or pumpkin, peeled and cubed
1 lb sweet potato, cubed
1 tsp Harissa (N: supplement w 1 tsp Thai Siracha Chili sauce for heat)
1/3 cup raisins
3 tsp honey (N: omit if you don't like sweet main courses)
salt and pepper
cilantro for serving
couscous for seving

Chop onions, peel and cube the squash, cube the sweet potato. Now bribe someone to re-sharpen all your knives.

Melt butter in a large heavy pot. Add onion and cook gently for 5 min. Add garlic, tumeric, ginger and cinnamon, and cook, stirring occasionally for 2 min. Stir in carrots, turnips, and water (and bouillon cube if using). Bring to boil. Cover and simmer for 10 min. Add pumpkin, sweet potato, harissa, chili sauce if using, raisins, honey, and salt and pepper to taste. Cover and simmer until the vegetables are tender (~20min).

Meanwhile, cook the couscous. Add couscous and boiling water to a bowl in equal amounts (1 cup couscous = 1 cup water), cover tightly for 5-10 min. Fluff with a fork to get lumps out.

Serving ideas: pile hot couscous onto a warm platter, make a crater in the middle and pile pumpkin stew into that crater. OR transfer stew to a warm bowl and serve alongside the couscous. OR prepare individual plates of couscous and stew. Don't forget to garnish with cilantro.

Neen's Roasted Yam salad

I don't invent recipes. I really don't. I'm not the type of person who walks into a Farmer's Market and designs the week's menu based on what's available, nor am I the type who has all recipes memorized. I'm the chick with the planner and the mountain of (organized) recipe index cards and one list of ingredients assigned to each person shopping. Yeah. I don't do spontaneous. I'm slowly moving away from teaspoon and tablespoon measures. Very, very slowly.

So you can imagine how impressed and dubious Do was when he came home last night and I presented him with a dish that I had invented. In the grocery store, on the fly. Yah. Who da man.

I swung by the grocery store yesterday to pick up some eggs (for challah) and a head of cauliflower (for spiced Cauliflower soup, recipe to follow). The Piedmont Groceries had just set up its fall display, with pumpkins, Indian corn, and all those cool squash. My brain went from "aaaw, I guess it is fall. Maybe I should do something fall-like for dinner." to "Oh, crap, tonight is the first night of Sukkot [Jewish harvest festival]. I should definitely do something fall-like." to "I think I have a recipe clipping at home for a roasted yam salad that sounded yummy. Ok, let's work from there."

I did end up using the recipe clipping for inspiration (Food & Wine's Roasted Yam and Apple Salad, unknown issue). It had a great method for roasting the yams: sesame oil and cumin. And, with a few tweaks to suit our preference for strong flavor, the vinaigrette was pretty damn good too. The lettuce is indispensable, both for color and because it alone adds crunch to an otherwise creamy salad. You may want to soak the lettuce ahead of time to make it extra crunchy. The tangerines add citrus, again to balance out the creamy flavor of the roast yams. Red Cabbage for color. And the rest, just because I'm the type who likes a lot of "stuff" in my salads and on my pizzas.

It was damn good: we had thirds. Really addictive. FYI, for those celebrating Thanksgiving with us, this may well occur.









Neen's Roasted Yam Salad (serves 8-10)
2 yams or sweet potatoes
1 small butternut squash (alternative: use two more yams)
1 Tbs cumin (on the plus side)
1 Tbs sesame oil (on the plus side)
vegetable oil or spray-on oil
1 cup raisins or dried cranberries
2 heads butter lettuce, torn into bite size pieces.
2 tangerines or apples
1/3 of a small purple cabbage
1/2 cup pine nuts
1/2 bunch of cilantro, coarsely chopped.

Vinaigrette
1/2 cup olive oil
2 1/2 Tbs apple cider vinegar
1 1/2 Tbs Dijon Mustard (on the plus side)
2 garlic cloves, crushed.
1 Tbs Korean Chili paste or any curry paste.
1 tsp Balsamic vinegar

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Peel butternut squash. Chop squash and yams into 1" cubes. Spread on a baking sheet, drizzle with the vegetable oil, the sesame oil, the cumin, salt and pepper to taste. Roast approximately 1 hour.

Meanwhile, whisk all vinaigrette ingredients together in a small bowl and set aside. Separate tangerines into sections, and cut each section into three. Put tangerines into a large salad bowl, along with the pine nuts, the raisins, the lettuce*, and the cilantro. Using a Cuisinart, shred the red cabbage and add it to the salad bowl.

Once the yams are roasted until tender, add them to the salad bowl and mix with the vinaigrette.


*ALTERNATIVE PRESENTATION: Do really liked the contrast between the crunchy lettuce and the creamy yams. One way to keep the lettuce crunchy for as long as possible is to prepare the salad as stated above without adding the lettuce, and instead to prepare a mound of lettuce on each person's plate. Then the salad can simply be heaped on top of the lettuce bed, and mixed together by each guest.

Harissa Soup

For years now, Do and I have grown progressively more interested in the culinary culture of the Tunisian Sephardic community, where Do's maternal side hails from. A recent family reunion, complete with spirited arguments over the proper way to make Malmoula, so fueled this interest that we picked up Tess Mallos' North African Cooking cookbook the next time we were near a good cookbook bookstore. (P.S. Culinary Institute of America in Napa has an outrageous collection of cookbooks in their shop). We have very high hopes for this book: it has all the Tunisian classics of Doran's childhood memories, there are beautiful photos of every recipe, and the dishes seem exotic yet do-able given our time/energy constraints.

So last Thursday we tried it for the first time. We made Harissa Soup.

Yes, you got the name right. Harissa, as in the super fiery hot condiment that is ubiquitous on Tunisian tables. In a soup. Yup. :) It's like saying, "oh we had Tabasco soup tonight." Even my Texas self was a little apprehensive about that one.

Let me just say, it was amazing. I had seconds, Do had thirds. This recipe is going into the regular dinner rotation, and into the "All Time Favorites" category on this blog.

Some reassurance: it was nowhere near as spicy as I was expecting. In fact, I doubled/quatrupled most of the spicy ingredients just to suit our taste, and it still was a perfectly reasonable dish to serve company. Well, maybe not our German friends, but all others. It's spicy, but more in the complex, deep, exotic way than in the fire-in-your-mouth way. It's spicy and complex the way Indian food is spicy and complex: the heat is fun but not essential and definitely not all-encompassing. And it's perfect like that; I wouldn't try to make it hotter.

The soup itself is beautiful - the color is very vibrant in a way that my camera couldn't capture in the kitchen light. Unlike most soups, this one has great texture thanks to the couscous, the potatoes, the bits of tomato, etc. Every bite is interesting, texturally.

I'd be interested in trying to replace the can of tomatoes with fresh tomatoes, especially given how fantastic our tomatoes are out here in California. Do cautions me that some Tunisian dishes, like Malmoula, just aren't as good with fresh tomatoes. I'm thinking that with fresh tomatoes, and chilled, this soup could be a (much more interesting) Algerian take on gazpacho. In the winter, the soup's heartiness could be preserved with the canned tomatoes and Kale would be a fine addition.

Oh, and it's vegan.

Chorba hara bi keskou (Harissa soup with couscous). Serves 6.

4 Tbs Olive Oil
1 small onion, finely chopped
2 cloves garlic, crushed (Neen: use more if your Harissa isn't garlicky)
1 tsp Harissa (Neen: Er, no. If not using imported Harissa, use 4-5 large dollops.)
1 Tbs Paprika (Neen: make that ~3 Tbs)
14 oz can chopped tomatoes, undrained.
6 cups water (Neen: add 3 cubes veggies bouillon cubes)
2 medium potatoes, ~12oz in total
1/2 cup instant coucous
3 Tbs finely chopped cilantro. (Neen: or more. We heart cilantro and used one bunch).

Heat oil in soup pot. Add onion and cook gently until transparent (~10min). Add garlic and cook for 1 min. Add Harissa to taste and cook gently, stirring, 1-2min. Add paprika, tomatoes in their liquid, water, and veggie bouillon cubes. Bring to Boil.

Cut potatoes into 1/2" cubes and add to soup. Cover and simmer until potatoes are tender (~20min). Stir in coucous and boil gently, uncovered, until coucous has swelled and softened (~10min). Taste, add more harissa and/or salt and pepper if desired. Stir in cilantro, let stand 5 min.

Serve hot in deep soup bowls with bread.

Quick and Elegant Salmon with Israeli Coucous Salad

Major success on the cooking front last night:

1. Had an unexpectedly delicious dinner
2. Rediscovered an old cookbook
3. Made up a successful dish from scratch
4. All prep took less than 20 min.

Did I say major success?

When we were planning the weekly menu last weekend, I picked up our copy of New Kosher Cuisine. It's a community cookbook that I'd gotten back in D.C. on recommendation from a good friend. It turned out to be too practical for our cooking style back then (though the Challah recipe is still our go-to challah recipe), but our interests and time constraints have changed radically in the past year or so. Like all community cookbooks it can be hit or miss, but I've gotten better at guesstimating what a dish would taste like based on reading the recipe. And oh man, was "Company Fish" a hit.

It's supposed to be a Shabbat dinner meal, when you have company over (hence the title of the dish). I'm not sure that would work for the super observant unless they were also super prompt (the fish needs to go straight from the broiler to the table, meaning your guests must already be home from shul and/or you don't mind using your broiler after sundown), but it's otherwise perfect for inviting guests over on a weeknight. The dish is super quick: since you marinate it ahead of time, it takes literally no more than 10min to have it from the fridge to the table. It's also quite impressive: strong complex flavors infuse all of the fish, and you really can't help but make sure the last drop of sauce is consumed. And the marinade ingredients are all standard (inexpensive) pantry fare -- what's not to like? Added bonus: the flavor of the sauce and the texture of the fish are on showcase here, so it's good for folks who are apprehensive about "fishy" flavors AND you don't need to feel compelled to buy expensive cuts of fish. Fresh fish, and voila.

The other success was the impromptu salad. Again, very simple: it was all ingredients we had in the fridge, and the chopping was the longest part. But it was so full of flavor and the freshness of summer that (don't read this part Mom) we totally started digging into the serving bowl with our forks once we we'd inhaled the servings on our plates. Great showcase for those uber fresh farmer's market veggies.


Israeli Couscous Salad, serves 4 generously

1 cup Israeli Couscous
1 cucumber
1 beautiful heirloom tomato,
4 oz feta
1 small-medium red onion
2 lemons
1/2 cup chopped mint

Toast the israeli coucous in a little bit of oil, stirring regularly. Meanwhile boil water in a kettle. Once the couscous is toasted to your taste, pour ~2 cups boiling water into the pot (slowly, and stand back, it's pretty exciting). Simmer water for ~6min, or until coucous is done. Drain couscous, put into salad bowl.

Mince 1 red onion, chop 1 cucumber, 1 tomato, and 1/2 cup of mint, and all it all to the salad bowl. Crumble 4oz of feta into the bowl. Add the juice of two lemons. Salt and Pepper very generously.


Company Fish (New Kosher Cuisine cookbook), serves 8-10.
Neen: don't bother being too precise with your measurements. And don't be afraid to cut the recipe down -- fish is always best straight out of the oven.

1/3 cup soy or tamari sauce
1/2 tsp black pepper
1/4 cup fresh lime juice
2-4 cloves garlic, minced
1 Tbs Dijon
Grated zest of two limes (Neen: or a couple tsp lime juice, if that's what you have)
1/4 cup peanut oil
1/4-1/2 cup scallions, chopped
4 lbs ocean perch or salmon, skin removed.

Combine marinade ingredients in a small bowl. Place fish in a non-aluminum dish and cover with marinade. Refrigerate for 3 to 6 hours.

Preheat broiler. Broil fish 4 to 8 min until brown. Transfer to platter and spoon sauce over fish. Serve immediately.

We're Back! (maybe, perhaps, under certain conditions...)

Well, as expected, cooking did not even come close to a priority during our first year in graduate school. Between coursework, research jobs, and cats - oh yeah, we adopted two cats from the Oakland shelter in January - there wasn't a whole lot of room for culinary creativity or exploration. We fell back on tried-and-true recipes, easy pasta dishes, salads, ramen, and eating out. Great ingredients generally, but the overall cooking experience certainly has lacked the intellectual engagement that we could afford pre-graduate school.

But! The summer holds great potential. With no coursework monopolizing our evenings, the abundance of California produce, and apparently a reader who actively uses this blog to feed himself, we're going to try to resume the hobby that is culinary exploration. Bear with us, we're a little rusty.

At some point last year, we developed a tradition of having our friend DNA (kid you not! those are his real initials!) over to dinner on Friday nights. A very casual, family sort of thing: we'd cook whatever we were going to cook anyway and play boardgames, or watch a movie, or talk till the wee hours in the morning over several bottles of wine. Last night, DNA brought a hometown friend of his over, a friendly first year grad student at UCSF. Do made cocktails and we all hung out in the kitchen while DNA and I cooked dinner.

Dinner turned out Fantastic, much to my surprise. I was throwing together a simple summer pasta dish purely in an attempt to use up a bunch of our CSA veggies before they went bad. I was concerned that it would end up tasting too... "green." I've had pizzas and stir fries turn out that way, where the dish doesn't quite come together, and the veggies acquire this bland uniform flavor that permates the whole dish. To preempt this, I threw in ~1.5 lbs of Elgin sausage that I brought back from Texas last month. For those of you not from Texas, Elgin is a po-dunk town outside Austin that produces sausage which is legendary, pilgrimage-worthy. I'm actually a bit concerned that the dish will be less spectacular without that secret ingredient. Another trick that I tried was to create a "sauce" by stirring in ricotta cheese. I'd never done this before but it worked! It added a slightly creamy coating to the pasta, making it a true "dish" and not just a bowl were pasta and veggies happened to find themselves in combination. I will definitely use that trick again. The pasta turned out really, really successful, worthy of being immemorialized on an index card in my recipe box. For those of you who know us, this is how flavorful it was: Do didn't even ask to add hot sauce or red pepper flakes.

The other success story was DNA's spinach side dish. I know very little about it, other than it comes from an Indian cookbook, he's been making it for ages, and it was divine. Also very flavorful (can you tell that that's my biggest concern with veggie-centric dishes?), and the combination with diced mozarella provides a delightful texture contrast. I would have had seconds if we hadn't scarfed it all down on the first go.

Anyways, both dishes are recommended. And maybe next time we'll start pulling out the camera.


DNA's Indian Spinach with Cheese (serves 4 as a side)
1 lb chopped spinach
1 small onion, chopped
1/2 tsp tumeric
1 tsp chopped ginger
1 tsp salt
1/2 tsp cayenne
1 cup water
0.5 lb chopped mozarella
1 tsp veg oil
1/2 tsp cumin, toasted

Put mozarella in fridge. In a heavy saucepan, mix spinach, onion, ginger, salt, tumeric, cumin, cayenne, 1/2 c water. Bring to boil, reduce heat, and cook 5min or until soft. Stir in remaining water, bring to a simmer. Simmer 20-30 min till liquid is absorbed. Stir in mozarella seconds before serving, so as to preserve the differences in temperatures.

Summer Squash and Sausage pasta (serves 6 as a main)
1.5 lb Elgin sausage (or any super flavorful spicy sausage), crumbled
1/2 red onion, chopped
3/4 lb - 1 lb carrotts, chopped into matchsticks
4 summer squash (~1 lb), chopped into matchsticks
1 Gypsy pepper (or another medium spice pepper), chopped into matchsticks
3 tomatoes, chopped into bite-size pieces.
1/2 c ricotta cheese
1 lb pasta

Cook pasta per box's instructions. Set aside.
In a heavy saucepan, cook the sausage in batches. Pour off the fat in between batches, but don't throw it out. Set cooked sausage aside in a large bowl, add the tomatoes to the bowl. Use a little of the sausage fat to saute the carrots, summer squash, and gypsy pepper, add these veggies to the large bowl. Add the ricotta cheese and the pasta, stir to combine and salt&pepper to taste.