Recently in Savory Recipes Category

When a method works consitantly, I find I don't like to deviate from it. For example, I roast chickens at 425 degrees without basting, and am inherently suspicious of recipes that ask me to do otherwise. I cook bacon in the oven, burgers in my cast iron skillet, and salmon in a hot pan, flesh side down until crisp, then flip it and finish in (the apparently ubiquitus) 425 degree oven. I like my salmon about medium inside, and I've cooked it this way enough that I can sort of sense when it gets there, rarely letting it coast to well-done.

A few weeks ago, I came across some wild salmon with flesh so moist and pink, so well-marbled, it seemed unfortunate to subject to blistering hot stainless, too harsh, like slapping a kitten. I rembered a lovely dish I had last summer at Plouf where the salmon was poached in olive oil and served with succotash. It highlighted the salmon's buttery texture in a way I was anxious to emulate.

I poked around a little, looking for information on how to correctly oil-poach fish. I settled on the manner Anna Hesser describes in Cooking for Mr. Latte. She tells you to pour olive oil to almost cover the fish, put it over low heat, and to spoon warm oil over the top of the fillet once it begins to cook. She says it is almost impossible to overcook this fish. Ha-hah. My results were less ideal.

Another place I'm feeling a bit sentimental about is Georgia. While I can drink a coke without, thankfully, thinking about the bottling museum, and all the boring trips with visiting family and friends, I cannot eat a Vidalia without thinking of Atlanta, where I tasted my very first of those sweet, well-mannered, but still mildly pungent, Southern onions.

The Vidalia is the official state vegetable in Georgia, whose red, low sulfur soil, perfectly illustrates the principle of terroir with the onions that grow in it, sweet and crunchy as apples. All states here have their own official flower, vegetable, bird, fruit, and whatnot, though nothing--peach, sugar magnolia, even coca-cola bottle--reminds me more of Atlanta than a lit up yellow sign for the Waffle House towering above the highway, odd letters missing like teeth.

The (terribly amusing sounding) Vidalia Onion Act of 1986, limits the growing area for the onion, and preserves the name much like A.O.C so no one can start calling their simlilarly sweet onions grown in another state Vidalias. Lately, they're available in California, and not especially expensive, so, I slice them raw into salads and sandwiches, chop them into salsas, and today, utterly caramelised two of them down into a few tablespoons of golden, sweet squish--a tangy, spicy condiment to go with our 4th of July burgers. Martha's bringing a chickpea spread with pita, and strawberry buttermilk panna cottas for afters--can't wait! The apartment may be in a sad state of piles and empty bookshelves, but we've enough Hefeweizen and tasty treats to cheer ourselves up.

Last year, I saw a recipe in Saveur for a grilled chili and shallot condiment meant to accompany steak. "Ooh, tasty!" I thought, then I promptly put the magazine into the drawer of no return, a.k.a. the place I put magazines I someday intend to clip the recipes from. Someday, like, if I ever come down with an illness that leaves me bedridden for a month, because at this point, I'm so backed up nothing less than invalidism will give me time enough to do it.

I hadn't thought about the recipe in months when I bought a huge ribeye steak on sale and needed to think of something to do with it. I knew I'd sear in it my trusty iron skillet and divide it between Stephen and myself, but what should I do to guild the lily? I'd nearly made up my mind to whip up a batch of Stilton-Shallot butter when I remembered the recipe from Saveur, and went for a dig through the magazine drawer.

Lacking a grill, I roasted the chilies and shallots on the hot iron skillet. I laid the ribeye slices on a bed of spinach, arugula, and slices radishes sprinkles with sherry vinegar, and spooned some of the chilies over, letting the oil drip down to dress the greens.

Stephen and i found the results yummy, but it was, how rarely do I say this, almost too spicy for us. Perhaps we aren't the chili-heads we think we are, or maybe it's that I bought the chilies at a Mexican produce market thus was in over my head, but this simple condiment was a challenge. Thinking they were just jalapenos, I retained most of the seeds and ribs, and I left the peppers in fairly large pieces. Even with the strong flavors of the beef and greens, and the relief from an icy glass of hefeweizen, we still ended up with pink cheeks and runny noses and a burn that just wouldn't quit.

Cooking for a family of two has certain challenges. These are not the same challenges as those my mother faced for so many years. I don't come home from work and have to wrestle three kids, two of whom are picky, to a dinner they'll all consent to eat, but I've got difficulties of my own. When you're cooking for two, you eat a lot of leftovers. I find if I want to cook anything more complicated than a turkey sandwich, the effort involved to make six servings is no greater than the effort to make two. Of course, that means Stephen and I eat the same soup/macaroni and cheese/tomato sauce for the next three days.

It also means that we sometimes get our courses confused. For instance, a while ago Stephen was craving crab stuffed mushrooms, a typical appetizer-type item where a person might eat two or three. I made the whole recipe and we had them for dinner with a little salad. The pea and asparagus soup I made recently followed a similar pattern. I envisioned the recipe as sort of a sophisticated first course, but we ended up having a large serving as a light a but somewhat elaborate meal.

My mom called just as I was garnishing the soup and preparing to take the picture. I had just burned my arm and I was trying to get the photo before I lost all the natural light. I rushed to finish before the soup got inedibly cold. "Mom," I said, "I'm kind of in the middle of something, I'll call you back!" For a two-person family, that's about as frantic as it gets.

The first proper dinner with our market shopping: a fava bean, red onion, and goat crema ristotto.

I made a vegetable stock with those tasty red onion greens and garlic greens, an onion, a small carrot, and a couple of bay leaves and sherry. In the meantime, Glyn shucked the favas, and kept them aside. For the risotto, I sweated some finely chopped bacon, half a red onion, three cloves of that young garlic, and about two cups of arborio. Cooked it in the strained stock gradually, stirring constantly, until it was almost tender. In the meantime, I boiled the favas, whose skins were quite tough and bitter so Glyn shucked the favas, again.

Then I added the favas, the other half of the chopped red onion, another clove of minced garlic, a few leaves of chopped basil, lemon zest, some grated parmesan, salt and pepper. At the table, we dropped a spoonful of the tangy, goaty crema on top, and it melted gently into the risotto.

Mae West said that too much of a good thing is wonderful; I'm apt to agree. Rarely one embrace self denial, I'm often up for one more glass, one more scoop, one more kiss or one more chapter. Sometimes it gets me into trouble, resulting in headachy mornings, larger pants sizes, chapped lips, and sleep deprivation.

Sometimes, my penchant for pleasure works out for the better, because not all of the things I hate to abstain from are bad for me. Take, for instance, my nearly baccanalian consumption of vegetables. I'm never content with five asparagus spears or a half cup of peas. I happily eat plates brimming with sautéed broccoli and mashed carrots, can go through a bag of mesclun in one sitting, and will eat a whole bunch of radishes with sea salt as a hearty snack. My passion for produce is especially obvious when it comes to pasta.

It depresses me to order a dish with a name like Penne with Mushrooms, Spinach, and Peas, only to recieve an enormous, America-sized pasta portion sprinkled with nine peas, six leaves of spinach, and two sliced mushrooms. When I make such a dish, I lean ever closer to a 1:1 pasta to veg ratio. It may not be classic or authentic, but I want the vegetables to be the star.

I have no patience for lunch. Unless we are talking me and a girlfriend, fancy salads, and maybe a naughty midday cocktail, the idea of lunch doesn't rouse me at all. I am exactly motivated enough to think of and prepare one interesting, reasonably healthy meal per day. Most of the other daily eating is just a trial providing little pleasure and much resigned eye rolling.

I always wanted to be the sort of person who could placidly eat a tuna sandwich or bowl of chicken noodle every day for a week. Or, even better, one of those truly blessed souls whose tummy rarely rumbles at midday, the sort who often "forgets to eat." Instead, I feel a slight hollowness beginning at 11:30 every day combined with a fickle desire for variety. This does not, of course means I have the interest or motivation to meet my own luncheon needs.

A bit of peppery Pecorino gives young, fresh things the feeling of being in the autumn of their lives--serious and sheepy. And the hard wedge of Pecorino Romano in my fridge has made me so many snacks and meals over the past few weeks that I'm having trouble saying goodbye: a pale green fava bean puree that Glyn made to start Stephen's birthday, popcorn, soupe au pistou, gnocchi, and now, an omelette sandwich. I have grated it over salad, broken little curls on top of buttered bread, and let the salty, grainy scraps dissolve on my tongue.

There's still a thin rind, printed in pink Italian letters, wrapped up in parchment, that I cannot, will not, give up--it will meet its watery end in a good vegetable stock. I owe it that much.

Even when the summer came, and the only free table was under the slow, useless fan inside-- Catherine and I made it to the restaurant down the street to share a bottle of wine, a series of salads, and an order of their Gnocchi alla Romana. There were no mints or chocolates to settle our tummies or freshen our breath after that; a bottle of limoncello and two tall shot glasses were always plonked down with the bill. Our thought was, drink as much, or as little as you like, your bill is counted. And we did. Some nights, we each took a brimming glass-full of the sweet, lemony burn. And then another, before getting on with our evenings. Some nights, we didn't touch the stuff and got an eyebrow raise that said, what's wrong honey, you haven't touched your Limoncello?

Because we were there a lot. Mostly for their semolina gnocchi baked in Parmesan, and milk, a crisp layer of buttery semolina crumbs on top. And partly for that waiter, who, at least in the haze of butter and nutmeg, had the old-school charm and high bottom of an Italian George Clooney.

Usually it's an obvious choice: sweet or savoury? One leans towards one or the other in the ten minutes before the movie starts. But The Piano, (which I missed seeing in the theatres by about thirteen years) is a movie that demands both sweet and savoury popcorn. Chilli Pecorino, and Caramel--hot, salty, and sweet (sighs dramatically).