Taste Memories

Scenes from Tu B’Shevat

Since coming to America, I've become more and more interested in some of the Jewish traditions which we never really practiced back home in Australia. So I was thrilled when my friend Kelly offered to initiate me into the Jewish holiday that celebrates the birthday of the trees, known as Tu B'Shevat. Together we prepared a special vegetarian seder for our friends, featuring certain key fruits and grains, each of which is richly symbolic. It was tremendous fun, and I learned a great deal.

It is traditional to begin the meal with a dish featuring a fruit with an inedible shell, which symbolizes "the kind of human being whose goodness and humanity become accessible through the actions of outside effort and change." [Roberta Kalechofsky and Rosa Rasiel, "The Jewish Vegetarian Year Cookbook," p. 110] We chose the pomegranate to this end, and served a pomegranate, lime, and vodka cocktail.

Next up, one serves a fruit with a soft exterior and a hard pit center, which is likened to "those of us who may give the appearance of being open to receive love and communication but who, when tested, lack compassion and have a heart of stone." [Ibid, p. 111] We set out a dish of briny green olives for this purpose.

It is then time to partake of a fruit which is edible both inside and out, to represent "that part of humankind which can open its heart and its mind to others." [Ibid, p. 113] As is apparently typical, we used figs. We made ciabatta toasts with orange-zest and honey ricotta, topped with sticky figs (loosely adapted from here).

Finally, one consumes food that cannot be used in its raw state, to remind us that "there are some matters that require our active intervention to bring them forth from their state of potential usefulness to actual usefulness." [Ibid, p. 116] As is usual, we used wheat and barley. The wheat was in the form of a bulgur wheat, green grape, toasted almonds, cucumber, scallion, and feta salad. This salad actually served a number of roles, since I believe the meal is also meant to feature almonds and grapes.

We then used barley to make a risotto, flavored with Meyer lemons, thyme, spinach, crème fraiche, and grains of paradise (adapted from here).

Since using dates and carob in the seder is also called for, we finished up with a delicious sticky date, coconut, and carob pudding, with brown butter butterscotch sauce, and whipped cream (loosely adapted from here).

I found the seder quite moving. The dominant themes of renewal and regeneration felt eerily appropriate, given that my homeland has just withstood the most terrible bushfires in Australian history. The figures are numbing - 1800 houses have been destroyed; 7000 people left homeless; and the death toll is now over 200 and set to rise still further. I am mourning the tragedy from afar, and willing that the trees in Victoria bloom again.

Old Faithful

To say that I've been in a cooking slump of late wouldn't be quite accurate, but I've hardly been bursting with culinary ideas, either. Venturing over black ice to get to the grocery store is not an appealing prospect at the moment, especially considering the uninspiring winter produce which I know awaits me. So I find myself making the same recipes time and time again, which are mostly the kinds of things I'd scarcely think to write about. But sometimes the most unprepossessing of dishes can be uncommonly satisfying and handy, which brings me to this little pasta sauce.

Got butter? Got an onion? A head of broccoli? Some kind of stock? Some kind of cream? A bit of cheese? And a packet of spaghetti? Then a fabulous dinner is but fifteen minutes away. What you'll end up with is a lush celadon-colored puree in which to swathe your pasta. The sauce is quite mild, but the broccoli lends just enough of a bracing edge here to keep things interesting. I like to add a sprinkling of red pepper flakes at the end, for color and zip and sizzle. I imagine some toasted breadcrumbs would also be fantastic in their place.

The other nice thing about this recipe is that, like most of those in my regular rotation, it's subject to myriad promising variations. You can add some garlic to the onion (for the last minute or so of its cooking time), or you can fry the onion in bacon fat. For that matter, some actual bacon in this is delicious too, although I'd go easy on the cream and cheese in that case, lest the dish become excessively rich. My favorite rendition of all involves adding some nice oily black olives to the sauce at the very end (after pureeing the broccoli). It's hard to go wrong with this, really. Humble it may be, but still too good not to pass along.

Broccoli pasta sauce

Ingredients:

1 tsp unsalted butter

1 onion, diced

½ tsp kosher salt

2 large heads broccoli, cut into florets

3 cups vegetable stock

¼ cup light cream

¼ cup parmesan cheese, grated

Spaghetti, to serve

 

Method:

Add the butter to a large pot over medium heat.

Sauté the onion with the salt until soft and golden (about five minutes).

Add the broccoli florets, and stir them around a bit.

Add the stock, and bring the mixture to a boil.

Boil the broccoli for 5 minutes or until the florets are soft.

Blend the soup thoroughly with a stick blender (or in an upright blender).

Stir in the cream and cheese, and taste for seasoning.

Serve over pasta.

Creamy Roast Mushroom and Garlic Soup with Thyme

Have you ever had the experience of craving a food that you don't actually like? It has happened to me a lot recently, first with black beans, then with brussel sprouts, and most recently with mushrooms. Never one to resist a craving (I like to think that our bodies know what they need, if only we would listen), I succumbed promptly, and trotted off obediently to Wholefoods to stock up on portabellos and dried porcini mushrooms. I decided to make a soup with them, to christen my shiny new Cuisinart stick blender (thank you, Daniel Santa) and my delightful new Polish pottery bowls (thank you, Mum and Dad Santa). Aren't they adorable?

And you know what? The soup I threw together was ridiculously good, and exactly what I wanted. I've always been scornful of those who bizarrely insist that mushrooms are meaty (how could that be possible?), but they sure are savory, and earthy, and full of umami punch. The addition of thyme manages both to elevate and ground this soup in a way that's difficult to describe, but easy to appreciate.

This was so good, in fact, that I have devoured the entire batch of soup singlehandedly this week (silly Daniel thinks creamy soups are the pits). But if you were to ask me, I'd still deny liking mushrooms. As well as being stubborn, naturally.

 

Ingredients:

kosher salt

olive oil

1 oz dried porcini

6 large portobello mushrooms, destalked and cleaned with a damp cloth

4 garlic cloves

1 tbsp unsalted butter

1 large onion, diced

1 tbsp fresh thyme, taken off the stalk

3 cups vegetable stock

½ cup sour cream (I used light)

½ cup half and half

 

Method:

Preheat the oven to 400˚F.

Lightly oil a baking sheet, and pop the mushrooms and garlic on it. Drizzle them with a little olive oil and sprinkle them with a little kosher salt.

Roast the mushrooms and garlic for about 50 minutes, or until they are both nice and soft.

Meanwhile, soak the porcini in 2 cups of boiling water for about 30 minutes.

Place a large pot over medium heat, and add the butter.

Sauté the onion with another pinch of kosher salt until it is soft and golden (about 5 minutes), adding the thyme during the last minute.

Add the portobellos, porcini and their soaking liquid, as well as the stock, sour cream, and half and half. Blend thoroughly with a stick blender or a standing blender.

Reheat gently, and serve the soup warm, perhaps with an additional dollop of sour cream and a few sprigs of thyme.

 

Serves 4 – 6.

Mexican Tomato, Black Bean, and Lime Soup, with Cilanto Pesto

 

I usually hesitate to blog recipes this straightforward, but 'tis the season to be busy, and we all need a few more dishes like this in our repertoire. For one thing, it's the kind of soup that you want to plant your face in on a chilly December Boston night. For another, the whole thing takes 20 minutes, start to finish. Still more, this soup is soul-satisfying in a way that few dishes this good for you can claim to be. Finally, it's easily adapted for both vegetarians and carnivores, and has plenty of protein either way. Oh, and – nearly forgot – you'll probably have all the ingredients to make it in your larder already. What more could you want? So I'll trust that, when I say that you should make this for dinner tonight, you'll take my word for it and follow suit.

By the way, if you don't feel like dirtying more dishes by making the pesto, just a swirl of sour cream and a sprinkle of cilantro over the soup would be a worthy final benediction. But the pesto really is delicious, if you can be bothered, and transforms this soup from homely to complex. It makes it (dare I indulge in this Martha-ism?) company-worthy. But I suggest that you tuck yourself under a blanket and enjoy a steaming bowl of this alone instead. What better way to find brief respite from the distasteful seasonal madness that is upon us already?

Ingredients:

1 tbsp safflower (or other flavorless) oil

1 tbsp cumin

1 tsp ground chipotle (or more, to taste)

2 medium onions, diced

28oz can tomatoes

32 fluid oz chicken or vegetable stock

15.5oz can black beans, drained and well-rinsed

Juice of 1 lime

Some shredded chicken (optional)*

 

For the pesto:

1 bunch cilantro

½ cup salted cashews

¼ cup safflower (or other flavorless) oil

Juice of 1 lime

 

* I like to keep a supply on hand. I buy bone-in, skin-on chicken breasts on a nearly weekly basis, and roast them at 450˚F for 40 minutes, or until the skin is crisp and the flesh is beautifully tender. I shred the meat and use it all week for this and that. It's so much better (and cheaper) than the dried-out cardboard-like horror that is boneless, skinless chicken breasts. In fact, I'd wager that the misguided chicken-thigh-loving crowd could be won over by breast meat prepared in this way.

 

Method:

Place a large soup pot over medium-high heat, and add the oil.

Sauté the onions with the spices for 5 minutes or so, until the onions are tender.

Add the tomatoes, the stock, and the black beans, and simmer vociferously (covered) for about 10 minutes.

Meanwhile, prepare the pesto, by bashing all of the ingredients together in a mortar and pestle (or whizzing them in a food processor).

I like to puree most of the soup in a blender with the lime juice, leaving about a third of the mixture unblended for some residual texture.

Check the soup and pesto for seasoning and acidity.

If using the chicken, warm it gently and add it to the soup bowls before ladling the soup over it.

Serve the soup with a swirl of pesto on top.

 

Serves 4.

An Ode to Latkes

 

I feel so cheated. I'm (half) Jewish, and yet somehow have totally missed out on the bliss that is latkes until now. How is this even possible? How could the universe be so cruel and withholding as to deprive poor unwitting me of my culinary birthright? Well, universe, I'm pleased to announce that the worm has turned.

 

This small but important revelation occurred last Friday night, when Daniel eyed the contents of our pantry and shyly requested that I make us a certain something from his past. He's not one to ask for such favors too often, and his culinary needs are touchingly modest. He's the sort to patiently attack the mounting pile of dirty dishes while I whip up some ridiculously indulgent and complicated dinner that won't be ready until bedtime, when he'd be just as happy with pasta and broccoli. (At most, he occasionally suggests politely that using a fresh spoon for tasting the sauce each time might be a slight oversight on my part). So, when he asked me to make latkes, I was happy to oblige. And he got that same misty-eyed look when he talked about latkes that he gets when he talks about brisket or bagels. I think of it as the 'next year in Poland' look.

 

And now I believe I understand it. There is something distinctive about the pleasure of making and relishing food that one's ancestors have been gnoshing on for generations. And you know what? I think there must be a latke gene. Because even though we set out without the aid of a reliable recipe, we muddled along just fine, between what Daniel could remember and I could surmise. I have to say that, untraditional as it may be, I think the addition of a little grated apple to the batter was an inspired touch. All in all, this was the most delicious supper we've had in ages.

 

 

Potato-Apple Latkes

 

Ingredients:

 

For the batter:

2 ½ lb potatoes, peeled and coarsely grated (by hand) – we used Yukon gold, which I hear are excellent for latkes

2 granny smith apples, peeled and coarsely grated (again, by hand is probably best)

1 small onion, peeled and finely chopped

2 eggs

½ cup applesauce

½ cup flour

1 tbsp salt

 

Butter and oil, for frying

Sour cream and extra applesauce, for serving

 

Method:

 

Dry out the potato and apple as thoroughly as possible by wringing it in a tea towel.

 

Combine all the batter ingredients in a large bowl.

 

Place a large skillet over medium-high heat, and add a goodly amount of oil and butter to the pan (enough for a thinnish but even coating).

 

Fry dollops of the latke batter in batches until they are golden, delicious, and cooked through. Drain on paper towels and gobble with dollops of sour cream and extra applesauce.

 

Makes about 10 big ones.

Fennel Bender

You could be forgiven, dear reader, for taking me to be a secret agent from the National Fennel Grower's Association (there must be such an association, right?) For, in this blog's short life, I have already featured two (make it three) salads featuring fennel as a key ingredient. But I can't help myself, so dearly do I love fennel. It's such an elegant and surprising vegetable, with a taste somewhere between celery and licorice. It's a delicious oddity. Do try it, if you haven't already.

This salad is more than just a vehicle for fennel, however; it is also a lovely way to use up Smitten Kitchen's divine slow roasted tomatoes, which I plan to make all winter long (they're toothsome even when the tomatoes you start from aren't anything to write home about). The resulting marriage of textures is a thing to behold - chewy oven-dried cherry tomatoes, crisp fennel, slippery edamame, and yielding mozzarella. The basil and lemon zest (in the dressing) render the whole affair superbly fragrant to boot. It occurs to me that this is a fantastic recipe for those of us missing summer (or at least summer cuisine), since it conjures up the taste of the season without relying too heavily upon its now dwindling produce.

Edamame, Slow-roasted Tomatoes, Mozzarella, and Fennel Salad

Ingredients:

1 ½ cups edamame, cooked and cooled (other beans would also work well here, I suspect)

½ cup slow roasted cherry tomatoes (I roasted each punnet of cherry tomatoes with 1 tbsp olive oil and ½ tbsp kosher salt for 3 hours at 225˚F)

1 blob of fresh mozzarella (about 4oz), torn

½ cup fennel, finely chopped

A handful of small basil leaves

 

For the dressing:

1 tsp good extra virgin olive oil

1 tbsp red wine vinegar

Zest and juice of 1 lemon

A small pinch of good salt

A large pinch of red pepper flakes

 

Method:

Combine the salad ingredients, whisk the dressing ingredients, and toss together.

Serves 2 as a light lunch.

P.S. I know I'm onto a good thing when Amelia and Freddy take it in turns to sniff it out.

Amelia avec salad.

Freddy avec salad.

Order envy

Order envy is a terrible thing. You know when you're out at a restaurant, and your dining companion orders something so delicious-looking that it's all you can do not to plant your unbidden fork in it territorially? It happened to me recently at Sorellina, when Daniel ordered the Kobe beef meatballs. One small taste of the dish simultaneously conveyed to me the very essence of beefiness, yet made me feel like I was tasting something entirely new. I immediately wanted to sob into my (excellent) appetizer of crab with corn crema. My regret at not having ordered those meatballs still haunts me.

The incident reminded me of another such, years back, in Australia. I should preface this anecdote by saying that my family is very much a family of habit. Every year growing up, we would go to the same destination (Apollo Bay) to stay in the same cabin (Beacon Point Lodges) for the same period of time (one week) and eat at the same restaurant (Chris's restaurant). As a stroppy teenager, I found this summer routine terribly dull, and longed for a family who went on adventuous, glamorous vacations, preferably without me. But I now look back on our times in Apollo Bay with great fondness. The glorious sympathetic curve of the bay where we swam is one of the few mental images I hold in my head (I retain words, not pictures, you see). When we weren't at the beach, we would play mini-golf and pool and scrabble, all of them games which transform both my Father and I from mild-mannered intellectuals into ruthless, vicious competitors (although we both vehemently deny as much). And I have always adored Chris's restaurant: they serve the fresh, ingredient-driven, unfussy yet refined food that is definitive of my culinary aesthetic.

The time when my sister Lucy ordered a feta and leek tart (with a buttery tomato coulis) at Chris's restaurant was my first experience of order envy. I remember surveying the tangle of sweet leeks perked up with tangy, salty feta and bound in a delicate, eggy custard, and immediately yearning to switch lives. I've been replicating the dish in various forms ever since, but I think this savoury cheesecake interpretation could be the best yet. I'm not sure how it fares in comparison to the original, but we're going to Chris's restaurant for Christmas this year when we visit my family in Australia. I can't wait. Here's hoping Chris's menu changes as little as my family's routine, and that I have a chance to finally order that feta and leek tart for myself.

Feta and Leek Cheesecake

Ingredients:

The white and just barely green parts of 4 well-rinsed leeks, finely sliced
1 tsp butter
1 tsp kosher salt (divided use)
6oz feta cheese, crumbled
10 eggs
2 cups ricotta (I used part-skim)
1 cup milk (I used fat-free)
A large handful of flat-leaf parsley
Paprika

Method:

Preheat the oven to 350°F.

Put the butter in a large skillet over medium-high heat. Add the leeks and half the salt, and sauté for about 10 minutes, until well-softened.

Place a 9-inch non-stick springform cake pan over a baking tray (to catch leaks, no pun intended). Spread the leeks over the bottom of the pan, and then top with the feta.

Whizz the remaining ingredients except the paprika in a blender until well-combined. Pour the custard mixture over the leeks and feta.

Sprinkle the surface of the cheesecake with paprika, and then bake for about an hour and 15 minutes, until it is softly set. Cool to room temperature, and then unmould. Chill before serving. (You could also serve this warm if you like, but then make sure the cheesecake is a little more firmly set before pulling it from the oven.)

P.S. Don't discard the green parts and stalks of the leeks! I made a delicious vegetable broth using these and the remaining parsley, together with a head of soggy celery, 5 dingy carrots, the carrot tops, 2 peeled onions, 1 unpeeled, smashed head of garlic, and 3 bay leaves. I simply chopped these ingredients into pieces small enough to fit into a stockpot, and then covered them with cold water and added a tablespoon of kosher salt. Two hours at a simmer left me with vegetable broth that was good enough to sip on its own.

Public Service Announcement

Oh dear. Dear oh dear. Dear dear dear. I could go on.

What a disappointing week in cooking it has been! The silence around these parts for the last week is due to the string of (barely) so-so meals that I've been cobbling together. I have lost my cooking mojo, it seems. Picture me hunched in a corner of my kitchen, flagellating myself with a cast iron skillet. I've been so bad.

Last Friday night, for example, I set about making a waldorf slaw to accompany hangar steak. Now doesn't that sound promising? But then I forgot the grated granny smith apples and the walnuts, and the result was bland and soggy and completely forgettable. Also, I soaked my raisins for hours, but they didn't plump up enough, causing me to pout.

No harm, no foul, I thought: until Saturday night, whereupon I failed to get my roast carrot and orange soup right for the second time running (the first time I made it, it was too orangey; this time, it was too insipid). The idea is too delicious to let go of; but the right formula continues to elude me. Next time, I'm roasting the carrots with harissa, and then adding the orange juice when I blend the soup (be warned: do not roast carrots with orange juice and no oil unless you want to spend your Sunday afternoon scrubbing a baking pan. All right, so I may have delegated the task to Daniel. Nonetheless, I feel a change of strategy is in order, if only for the sake of marital harmony).

Finally, I made some sesame-peanut-ginger-cucumber soba noodles on Sunday afternoon. Again, doesn't that sound fabulous? But somehow it managed not to be. The noodles were chewy and chalky, and the sauce was unsubtle and kinda dry (notwithstanding the generous splash of sesame oil in it, I might add). I might try again with better quality soy sauce; then again, perhaps not. Why did I think I would even like sesame-peanut noodles? I am no longer sure. Oh, and I tried putting some pan-seared tempeh in it, which was about as appetizing as wet woodchips. 

Ah well. After such a string of failures, there was nothing for it on Monday but to make the most comforting dish on earth - vegemite toast with a poached egg. I include the above photo as an illustration of how to do vegemite. Please note the generous buttering of the toast in comparison to the tiny uneven smear of the glorious thick yeasty stuff that is Australian ambrosia. For you Americans who think you don't like vegemite, you've been laying it on too thick. Try it again in the illustrated manner, and I dare you not to swoon. 

Eggs in Purgatory

 

I keep seeing versions of this dish, popping up all over the place on my favorite blogs. Here’s my rendition. It’s another delicious alternative breakfast, and it puts to work my all-time favorite – and yet highly idiosyncratic – tomato sauce, which I created quite by accident.

 

Tomato sauces generally start out with a diced, sautéed onion and some garlic and crushed red pepper flakes. You then add the tomatoes, and simmer the whole thing over low heat for 20 minutes or so. I used to make tomato sauce for pasta in just this way, with excellent results.

 

And such was my plan one unprepossessing evening some years back. But, alas, I found the pantry devoid of the requisite onion, garlic, and crushed red pepper (how is that even possible?), forcing me to dispense with all three. Instead, I simply added the tomatoes directly to the olive oil, hoping for the best. Hungry and impatient, I cranked up the burner all the way, hoping to get the process going a bit quicker. When the phone rang, I rushed off to answer it, completely forgetting to turn the heat down. It was fifteen minutes before I realized that my tomato sauce was still bubbling volcanically over the highest heat.

 

I feared for the worst. Imagine my shock upon tasting the mixture, and finding it to be utterly delicious. But, in fact, it makes perfect sense: the high heat concentrates the flavor of tomatoes, rendering them sweeter and more mellifluous. And without the usual background soffrito, the tomatoes really sing. I’ve tweaked the basic recipe over the years (adding a glug of balsamic vinegar, and a little lump of butter with basil chiffonade at the end). But I’ve never looked back from the basic no onion-high-heat technique, and urge you to try it out too.

 

Ingredients:

6 eggs

freshly ground black pepper

 

For the tomato sauce:

1 tbsp olive oil

1 14.5 oz can diced tomatoes (I like Muir Glen’s); or (roughly) the same weight of fresh tomatoes, chopped

good salt

1 tbsp balsamic vinegar

1 tbsp butter

A handful of basil, cut into thin chiffonade strips

 

Method:

 

Preheat the oven to 375°F while you make the tomato sauce.

 

To do this, add the olive oil to a large, heavy-bottomed pot (or a wok) over high heat. Add the tomatoes, a good pinch of salt, and the balsamic vinegar. Let the mixture bubble furiously for about 15 minutes, stirring occasionally.

 

Then, when the sauce is as thick as you’d like it to be, take it off the heat. Add the butter and the basil chiffonade. Taste and adjust for seasoning and acidity.

 

Divide the tomato sauce between 6 ramekins, and then crack an egg over it. Bake for about 15 minutes, until the egg white is set, but the egg yolk is still runny. Give each yolk a good grind of black pepper, and serve with a devilish grin, or angelic aplomb (depending on your level of sinfulness).

 

Serves 6.

Cauliflower Vischyssoise

 

A slight sniffle last week gave me a powerful craving for soup. I decided to make this soup for no other reason than that we had some cauliflower and leeks in the crisper, and I was feeling too lazy ill to trek to the store. My expectations were not especially high, but golly, was it good! Replacing the potato with the cauliflower lent a velvety texture and subtle nutty aroma to this otherwise classic soup. A steaming bowl of it cheered me up immensely, and quickly had me on the road to recovery. (Although I remain far too sick to sort out my laundry, naturally.)

 

Ingredients:

 

1 head cauliflower, defloreted (sorry, I couldn’t resist)

2 leeks, white parts only, rinsed and finely sliced

1 tbsp butter

1 quart vegetable or chicken stock

½ cup sour cream (I used light, and it was fine)

good salt and a whole nutmeg

 

Method:

 

Place a dutch oven over medium-low heat, and add the butter.

 

When the butter melts and bubbles, add the leeks. Let them cook gently, stirring occasionally, for about 10 minutes, or until they are a glossy tangle.

 

Add the cauliflower and the stock, and bring the mixture to a boil over high heat. Then cover the pot, reduce the heat to low, and simmer for about 30 minutes, or until the cauliflower is very soft.

 

Blitz the soup in a blender with the sour cream, and adjust the seasoning to taste. Serve hot, with a good grind of nutmeg.

 

Makes 2 huge bowls.