Gilding the Lily since 2006
Who says a Dutch baby must be a sweet vehicle for jam and syrup? Not that there’s anything inherently wrong with that, it’s just a little predictable. With a base so eggy, it may as well be an omelet. Once it’s deflated like some kind …
Today is New Year’s Eve, and instead of planning a healthy regime change in 2012 I am doing the opposite. I say: more bread. More dessert. More DIY sticky-icky. I’m bringing butter and eggs and gluten back. I’m bringing the old bitch back. And if …
A match made in heaven, no? I’m not talking about tuna noodle casserole, though I ain’t mad at that; especially not when it’s made with home-canned albacore and fresh sweet onion-shiitake bechamel. I’m just talking about some pasta, some seafood, something green and something dairy. This is a formula that can never disappoint.
Fall and winter is the time of year when we lucky Pacific Northwesterners are flush with an embarrassment of bounty: the last of the fall runs of weary coho and Chinook salmon, the silver streaks of winter steelhead, and freshly molted crab growing into their new chitinous skins. And of course, that’s not even to mention all the food that doesn’t swim or run. We have so much great stuff, and it all tastes good with noodles.
In the first case, I have spaghetti tossed simply with cream, fresh Dungeness crab, spinach and sliced sun-dried tomatoes to compliment the crab’s sweetness. I topped it with a chiffonade of lemon balm from the protected parts of the garden and a sprinkle of chile flake to keep the sleepy cream on its toes.
The second, equally unseasonably light dish is a pile of capellini tossed in olive oil and garlic (and a bit of the cooking water for body), into which flaked steelhead, peas and asparagus were gently folded. I topped the noodle nest with lots of fresh black pepper and Pecorino, because of course I did. The peas and asparagus are more evocative of spring, it’s true; but after a few weeks of kale, leeks and kabocha, well, I certainly wouldn’t judge you for eating out of season.
I always fiddle with ingredients and dishes, but rarely (I hope) to the point that they are unrecognizable by their forebears. This breakfast is one of those rare failures at respectful fusion: a tender Uzbek obi non; an ancient flatbread baked in a clay tandir — …
The best thing about having a compost heap is not the smug satisfaction of reducing your household waste to a mere 10 gallons a month, or seeing healthy organisms thrive in your soil, or the idea that the nutrient cycle may be so poetically expressed …
Sorry for the dead air for the past…oh, my. It’s been a month. I’ve got a lot of irons in the fire right now (including some projects for print), and this just fell off my radar.
But it’s summer! And the garden is full! This hot spell we’ve had is granting my nightshades a bit of leeway, and I dare say I’ll have enough ripe tomatoes to can this year. I’ve had about a quart a week of cukes to pickle, and it probably goes without saying that I’ve been up to my ass in summer squash.
One nice thing to do with zukes (or pattypans, or eight-balls) is to just slice them on a mandoline and throw them on some dough with a bit of meat sauce and cheese. In fact, that’s just what I did.
I had a weird craving for the Levant pizza-esque dish sfiha. It’s normally made with beef or lamb, and is usually nowt more than a meat sauce spread on a flat bread and sprinkled with pine nuts. There’s a little pomegranate molasses in the sauce for tanginess, but otherwise it’s not totally dissimilar to a thick Bolognese sauce.
I just happened to have a tub of rich meat sauce from a chuck roast I ground up—making room in the freezer for the next half-cow when it’s not roast season is a bit of a task, but hey, you end up with little tubs of things that are easier to use on a lazy night. I also had a bag of store-bought pizza dough from Trader Joe’s because despite all of my well-meaning DIY tendencies, I still just haven’t gotten around to learning how the hell to bake bread. I spread the Bolognese sauce all over the dough and topped it with shaved pattypan squash, extra oregano, and crumbled cotija cheese. I know, that sounds totally out of left field, but just close your eyes and pretend it’s ricotta salata and it makes perfect sense, right? They’re both salty, sharp, crumbly and white. One is from sheep’s milk; the other, cow’s. Otherwise, not too much different.
When it came out of the oven, I topped it with a handful of baby arugula and a drizzle of olive oil. I was already bastardizing the sfiha by making it Italian-flavored with Mexican cheese, so I figured I may as well go balls to the ball. And I’m glad I did.
I love salsa verde. Throw it into a pot with a pork shoulder and you’ve got chili verde, ready for stuffing peppers or enchiladas. Mix it with crème fraîche and use it as a sauce for grilled fish. Or just eat it in a warm tortilla …
A month or so ago, I did a cooking demo for Stonyfield yogurt, and ended up with 4 quarts of plain, nonfat Greek yogurt, with an aggressively impending expiration date. At first I tried just slipping it into everything: burritos! salad dressing! cornbread! But eventually …
I love fish cakes. There’s some casual thing about them, all getting sand in your shoes and an itchy sunburn on your shoulders, needing Noxzema and iced tea. Their beachiness could be as literal as the fact that cod comes from the ocean (our local chilly brine, the Mighty Pacific), but I love being swept up in the meibutsu of it all, and the seasonality of it, too. Summer begs for straps and hats and big umbrellas, and for crispy-edged cod cakes with tangy-sweet slaw. This is living.
This is a few pounds of Pacific cod, kissed with smoke, heated until fork-flaky. This is handfuls of your garden’s tiny pearly potatoes, skin rubbed off between your gritty fingers and rinsed away in the garden hose, then boiled and smashed with the same fork. This is mineral parsley, sweet pickled onions, cracker crumbs and a warm egg, all married with yet the same fork. Salt and pepper, a blob of Dijon, and into small handfuls you pat-a-cake. Into a pan with a little bacon fat, this is a few aproned moments in front of the stove.
This is a head of Napa cabbage, rended to slivers with a hasty blade. This is a dressing of rice vinegar, lime juice, sesame oil and sugar; it is minced shallots, snipped chives and mint, pretty-please with cherry tomatoes on top.
This is dinner.
I hate talking about it, but I’ve been sort of counting my calories the past week or so. I should have started a few months ago, but we’ve only just started to have nice weather. Cloudy days were invented for chicken and dumplings, and we’ve …
