Open-Faced Apple Tart

I’ve heard from a few sources that the best tart crust is found in the Zuni Cafe Cookbook, so I gave it a try with the open-faced apple tart which is also in the book. First, I should explain that this book contains a lot of insightful information with each recipe. There are introductions explaining reasons behind the ingredients and techniques and very detailed instructions. It’s clear that Judy Rodgers really cares about food and is keenly interested in passing on her expertise. There’s a lot to learn in this book, and I enjoy re-reading sections each time I use it.

For the basic rich tart dough, Rodgers begins by explaining her use of salted butter. Salted butter? Yes. She prefers a salted butter with 90 milligrams of sodium per tablespoon for the crispy pastry and rich flavor it produces. I used Kerrygold pure Irish butter, because I’m now infatuated with Irish butter, and it contains 105 milligrams of sodium per tablespoon. Close enough. This basic tart dough involves working the butter and flour together with no water. This technique is simple but different from other recipes I’ve followed. The butter is cut into ¼ inch pieces and flipped in the flour to coat. Then, the pieces of butter are pinched with your fingers to make shards and cupped shapes. You continue working the butter and flour with your fingers until the butter breaks apart allowing it all to come together to form a dough. This happened very easily, and the dough was chilled in plastic to let the glutens relax. I left the dough between sheets of plastic wrap, rolled it out without adding more flour, fit it into a tart pan, and set it in the freezer for about an hour.

To fill the tart, cored, halved apples were thinly sliced cross-wise. I used organic Galas and overlapped the slices in a spiral shape. Then, salt makes another appearance. The surface was sprinkled with a couple of pinches of salt to help bring out the fruit’s flavor, Rodgers explains. Sugar was sprinkled over as well. The tart baked for 40 minutes, and I brushed on a honey glaze when it was cool.

The simpler the ingredient list, the more perfect each item needs to be. The apples were crisp and sweet, and the delicious, salted butter worked its magic. The crust was a little thin, so I’ll use a smaller pan next time, but that was my only complaint. The tart tasted of apply apples and buttery butter which may sound silly but that’s the best I can do. The flavors are very straightforward but magnified and better than ever. Try salted butter and try adding a pinch or two of salt over apples in this tart, and enjoy the really surprisingly elevated flavors that result.

Tweet

Pickled Daikon and Watermelon Radishes

I read a fair amount of food writing (slight understatement), and I know I saw something about pickling this or that in Food and Wine at some point. And, there was an article about preserving vegetables in olive oil in La Cucina Italiana which isn’t pickling but had me thinking preservation at any rate. I also have several different cut out pages filed away about quick pickling and the like. All of that got mushed together in my head and when I picked up our CSA vegetables last week, the idea of pickling was on my mind. Well, the kind fellow from Hands of the Earth helped me bag up my portion and made a joke about everyone getting tired of the daikon radishes. I said something about I didn’t mind them, and then he said “you should pickle them.” Yes. I’d been thinking about pickling, and that cemented it.

I referred to a few different sources, which were all about the same, and in the end did this:

2 medium daikon radishes, cleaned and chopped into 1" chunks
6 watermelon radishes, cleaned and cut to similar size as daikon chunks
1/2 red onion, thinly sliced
2 sprigs fresh dill
2 c white wine vinegar
2 1/4 c water
3 T kosher salt
1 t black peppercorns
1 T pickling spice (a combination of allspice, coriander, rosemary, dill, chili pepper, cloves, bay leaves, celery seeds)

- combine vinegar, water, salt, and pickling spice in a medium saucepan; bring to a boil
- place daikon, watermelon radishes, onion, and dill in a large, heat-proof mixing bowl; pour boiling vinegar and water mixture over vegetables; let cool and transfer to an airtight container; store in the refrigerator up to three weeks

The radishes are crisp, vinegary, salty, and addictive. They’ll be great offered up with some olives and cornichons or on the side with a salad. Coming to think of it, I have a thing for veggie burgers and eating little briny bites like olives and pickles with them. Pickled radishes and veggie burgers may become a new favorite pairing.

Note: After a few days in the refrigerator, everything in the jar has turned pink due to the watermelon radishes. The initial, multi-colored look was nice, but pink is pretty too, and it tastes just as good.

Tweet

Seared Portobello and Wilted Greens over Barley Pilaf

While looking through my filed, old magazine pages, I re-discovered this meal which I think came from Living magazine in 1998. The issue date is not printed on the page, and I couldn’t find this recipe on the web site, but an ad on the back of the page has a 1998 copyright date. And, that concludes my research into the origins of seared portobello and mixed greens over barley pilaf. In the magazine, it was made with chard, but I used a mix of braising greens from my CSA. This is, indeed, one of those grainy, healthy, vegetarian types of meals, but sometimes that’s just what I want. Even though it is very healthy, the portobellos lend a savory meatiness, and barley is a hearty, chewy grain, so the meal doesn’t feel lacking or too light. Also, the sauce provides extra flavor and just a hint of richness.

I made a couple of minor changes to the original recipe, and there’s one more change I would make next time. To begin, onion was briefly cooked before the barley was added. Next time, I would let the onion caramelize and then add the barley. Cooking the onion further would have developed even more flavor in the barley layer of the dish. With that in mind, here’s how I’ll prepare this in the future:

3 T extra virgin olive oil
1/2 medium yellow onion, finely chopped
3/4 c barley
2 large portobellos, stems trimmed
1/4 c marsala wine
2 c vegetable broth
2 t chopped fresh rosemary
1 lb braising greens, stemmed and chopped
1 T unsalted butter
salt and freshly ground black pepper to taste

- heat a medium saucepan over medium high heat with 1 T olive oil, add onion and stir until just browned
- add barley to saucepan and stir frequently until toasted, about eight minutes
- add about one teaspoon of salt and 1 1/2 c water, bring to a boil, reduce heat, cover, and let simmer until water is absorbed, about 20 minutes; remove saucepan from heat and keep covered
- heat a large skillet over medium heat with 2 T olive oil, add portobellos, tops up, cover, and cook for eight minutes; turn portobellos and cook eight minutes more; transfer to a plate and cover to keep warm
- add marsala to skillet and cook while stirring to loosen any bits stuck to the pan; increase heat to high and add vegetable broth, rosemary, and several turns of a pepper grinder; cook until liquid has reduced to 1/2 c, about 12 minutes; taste and adjust seasoning as needed
- add greens to skillet and cook, stirring, until greens have wilted and softened, about three minutes; transfer greens to a plate
- add butter to skillet and stir to incorporate
- spoon barley onto the center of each of two plates, top each with half the greens, slice the portobellos and place on top of greens, spoon sauce over top, and sprinkle on extra chopped rosemary if you’d like

Barley is a natural fit with mushrooms to my mind, and the greens joined in well. The flavors were earthy and wintery with the rosemary accent, the sauce had a nice depth, and the butter, of course, made all the difference. This healthy meal was quick to prepare and disappeared from our plates even more quickly.

Tweet

Jalapeño Corn Slaw

This is the slaw that inspired the light tex-mex meal. I knew it was in Nuevo Tex-Mex which got me flipping through the book again and meal planning. I often say of some cookbooks that I want to make everything in them, and I mean it when I say that. It may take some time given how many books are in that group, but this book is one of them. And, now for a confession. I always post about dishes that I’ve just made for the first time, or new variations on dishes, or seasonal versions of recipes that I want to remember. However, I have made this slaw before. But, I didn’t make it right the first time. It was years ago, I was rushed, and I glanced at the ingredients and didn’t read all of the instructions. This time, I read more carefully and prepared it as it was intended. That first time, I made a mostly raw slaw with bell peppers, jalapeños, cabbage, onion, and cooked corn. I missed the roasting step which, it turns out, makes a completely different and entirely better slaw.

Because it’s January and fresh sweet corn is not available, I used frozen corn kernels which were ok. If making this with fresh corn, you should roast it on the cob and then cut off the kernels. With frozen corn, I defrosted it, tossed it with a small bit of oil, spread it on a baking sheet, and roasted it in the oven until fragrant and slightly browned. Its flavor became concentrated, it became even sweeter, and it was fantastic. The bell peppers should also be roasted, then skinned, seeded, and chopped. I seem to remember Bobby Flay mentioning on thousands of occasions that peppers should always be roasted in the oven instead of over a gas flame. Oven roasting actually cooks the pepper flesh instead of just charring the skin and results in better flavor, and that’s what I did here. He’s right about oven roasting, but I also do the quick and easy turning over a gas flame when short on time. So many confessions today.

The slaw, then, was crunchy raw cabbage, jalapeño, and onion, sweet and concentrated roasted corn, oven roasted red and orange bell pepper, and lemon juice, champagne vinegar, and chopped cilantro. The combined ingredients sat in the refrigerator for a couple of hours, and came out bursting with varied flavors, colors, and textures. You can control the heat of the jalapeños by removing the seeds and membranes which I did because the sauce served with this meal was already hitting the upper level of our heat tolerance. That left the slaw as a welcome, cool, acidic, sweet, savory, fresh part of the light tex-mex meal.

Tweet

Light Tex-Mex

I believe this whole meal started with a crisp, fresh head of green cabbage. We only have one more pick-up in our fall/winter CSA subscription, and I’m trying to make good and interesting use of these vegetables. I remembered a jalapeno corn slaw from Robb Walsh and David Garrido’s Nuevo Tex-Mex, and that inspired another look through that fantastic, little book. This book includes everything from drinks to desserts, and it never disappoints. There are salsas, sauces, enchiladas, huevos, tacos, appetizers, rice variations, and sweets. To make a light meal with the slaw as a side, I was thinking of roasted salmon with a spicy sauce and maybe some simple but flavorful rice. I’ll post more about the slaw later, and today I’ll show the Ancho-Tomatillo Sauce and Mexican Mint Marigold Rice that I chose.

I realize the sauce looks mole-like, and I just prepared a mole a couple of weeks ago, but it’s different, it really is. First, this is much less involved. Onion, garlic, tomatillos, anchos, guajillos, and serranos are sautéed together with some broth and lemon juice. Once the dried chiles are somewhat reconstituted, all is pureed with cilantro and strained. The sauce is then re-heated in olive oil and seasoned to taste. I usually skip straining, but I’m glad I did it here. The sauce became velvety smooth, and the last re-heating with oil step made it even more so. The complex spice and sweetness and the layers of mole flavor are not part of this sauce. Instead, this sauce is more of a punch of piquant chile heat, rounded earthy chile flavor, with slight tangy undertones. The resulting dish was all about the sauce with the roasted coho salmon serving merely as a delivery system for it. A lighter fish would have disappeared all together, but the salmon performed adequately.

The spicy sauce required a quiet, calming companion like rice, and the Mexican mint marigold variation was lovely here. Mex. mint marigold, tagetes lucida, is an herb that grows easily here in Texas with an anise scent and flavor. Tarragon doesn’t fare so well in our heat and humidity, so it makes a very good substitution. It’s a low-maintenance, compact, perennial and produces little, yellow flowers in the fall. Its slender leaves are easily pulled from its stems, and a tablespoon of chopped leaves were added to the finished rice. First, onion, garlic, and chopped serrano were sautéed with the rice before water and butter were added. That adds a lot of flavor and a near nuttiness, and sautéing the rice in oil prevents the grains from sticking together once cooked. Tossing in the chopped herb added a subtle bit of freshness and barely there anise.

In the end, I got what just I wanted: big flavor, some serious spicy heat, an interesting rice dish, and cool, refreshing, crunchy slaw, all in a light meal.

Tweet

Braised Carrots with Carrot-top Sauce

Happy in the Kitchen by Michel Richard has been a delight to read and to explore. The gorgeous, exciting food is fun to read about, and it’s interesting to learn the techniques that made it all possible. Richard’s approach to food is to consider variations beyond classic preparations. With each ingredient, he explores what new and different things it can do or become. For him there is always something to discover, and that’s what inspires him as a chef. The most interesting thing about this book is that despite the jaw-dropping look of the food, the preparations are all pretty simple. That was his intent: to present these new and different ideas that are not difficult to make.

So, with some incredibly fresh and beautiful red carrots from Hands of the Earth Farm, I set about creating Richard’s braised carrots with carrot-top sauce. I know, it’s a plate of carrots. But, wait. It’s a plate of perfectly tender, braised carrots with a mind-blowingly delicious sauce and a simply dressed salad. This is a must-try dish for the carrot-top sauce alone. The preparation began with chopped onion sauteed with butter. Then coriander, orange juice, and salt were added along with the carrots. That combination simmered for a few minutes. Chicken broth was to be added but I had none and used water instead. Water worked fine. After adding the water, the simmering continued for another 15 minutes. Meanwhile, the leaves were removed from the carrot stems, and then they were blanched, shocked, and squeezed dry. When the carrots reached a state of desired doneness, the remaining sauce was added to the blanched carrot leaves. Those were pureed with additional butter. Seasoning was adjusted. A quick salad was to be made of mache, but I used chopped baby spinach and arugula instead. The chopped spinach and arugula were tossed with red wine vinegar and olive oil.

The bunch of carrots scene was achieved with the leaf-like salad situated at the top of the plate with the whole carrots below which were sprinkled with dried orange zest. The sauce was spooned alongside the carrots. One minor concern was that my sauce wasn’t quite as bright green as that in the book, but it was so good I didn’t worry about the color for long. I served this as a shared first course, so all the carrots were positioned together on one plate.

The carrots’ orange juice-braised sweetness was balanced by the acidity of the vinaigretted salad. The butter-rich sauce with the savory onion and bright carrot leaf flavors was an unbelievably nice component. After seeing this dish in the book, I knew there would be visual appeal, but I had no idea how flavorful it would be. As soon as we tried it, the cuteness and wit of the dish became completely secondary to taste and textures and just plain deliciousness. It was intriguing enough to try and so enjoyable it’ll definitely be made again. Every item presented in the book looks like a similar win-win situation, and I’ll be trying more of them soon.

Tweet

Roasted Squash Salad

The planning, shopping, and cooking for Christmas ended with splendid indulging and leftovers for a few days. Indulging continued on through New Year’s week, but I was no longer cooking. While visiting family, I got to sit back, relax, and catch up on magazine reading. Is there anything better than not setting an alarm for several days, getting to sit and read without even needing to glance at a clock from time to time, and knowing someone else is making dinner today? Well, that last one is nice once in a while. I spotted this roasted squash salad in the December issue of Bon Appetit which I lazily read right after finishing Saveur and just before picking up Eating Well. Rough week. The combination of flavors sounded great, and it looked like a meal in itself.

The peeled butternut squash was thinly sliced and roasted with a glaze of balsamic vinegar and a scant bit of brown sugar. The remaining ingredients were simply arranged on the plate. The one change I made was using pears instead of apples. Endive spears were fanned about, pear slices were interspersed, the roasted squash was mounded nearby, and dried cranberries and blue cheese crumbles were spilled atop it all. The plated salad received a drizzling of balsamic and lemon vinaigrette.

It was simple and lovely, and tasted as good as I knew it would when I sat idly reading about it a few days ago. What culinary challenges and delights will 2009 hold? Which filed-away recipes will finally be attempted this year? What classics will I ruin beyond all recognition? I have no idea. I really want to make a sourdough starter. I want to make tamales in my own banana leaves. I want to make ice cream too. And, I have a stack of new books waiting to inspire all sorts of new dishes.

Tweet