Minimally Invasive

Thanksgiving dinner was a big, rich, traditional affair, followed Friday by pizza and Saturday by dim sum, all of which left me craving nothing more than fresh, bright flavors with a minimum of fat by Sunday. Because dim sum was preceded by a stockpiling expedition to the Asian market, I had big, new jars of sauces whose expiration dates hadn’t passed who-knows-when calling out to me and a recipe from Cookthink that served as inspiration for that light meal I was craving.

For our Sunday dinner, I brined a chicken in kosher salt and brown sugar for a few hours, rinsed and dried it, then marinated it for about 30 minutes in a mixture of sambal oelek, dark honey, and heroic amounts of garlic. In the meantime, I halved a two stalks of celery and laid them out in a roasting pan with two carrot sticks, half of a red onion, and some peeled, chopped fuyu persimmon. Just before I put the bird in the oven (at 500 degrees for an hour), I stuffed the cavity with the remaining half of the red onion and another peeled and chopped persimmon.

Because the chicken was so moist from the brining, I didn’t need to add any water at all to the pan, but did tent it with foil about 30 minutes in to keep the honey in the marinade from burning the skin to a crisp. The chicken was succulent again, but the real star was the persimmon chunks, which picked up just enough chicken flavor to add savory to their list of qualities, but almost no fat and definitely no greasy feel. I served the chicken and persimmon with a little fresh sambal and nothing more on the side than boiled greens topped with a little sesame oil and sea salt and felt nearly virtuous after our weekend of gorging and lounging.

Last night, I wanted to use some of the leftover chicken, so I threw together a quick soup when I got home. I sautéed a thinly sliced stalk of celery with a clove of minced garlic for a few minutes, then added enough chicken broth to the pot to make about four servings of soup. (Sorry, no measurements — I just eyeballed it.) I shredded the remaining chicken breast and added that to the pot, brought it to a boil, and lowered the heat to simmer. While those flavors were melding, I chopped a package of baby mustard greens and added them about 15 minutes later, letting them cook down for a few minutes before adding the final ingredients — chopped green onion, parsley, and celery leaves, about a tablespoon of Korean red pepper paste, and a drizzle of sesame oil.

The soup was more green than gold, which suited me fine. More vegetables, please! Oh, and a gym, if you don’t mind.

Posting will be light for the rest of the week, but will pick up again this Saturday, when I unveil my brand new project! You’re on the edge of your seat, I can tell.

Thanksgiving weekend marks two milestones for me: Moving to Ringwood, and starting this blog. Two years ago, I decided that moving the contents of my surprisingly spacious East Village apartment in January would’ve been a bad idea, so Gil and I moved everything to Ringwood over the course of November, finally finishing Thanksgiving weekend. It gave us almost four months together before the wedding, and was a real boon. Marriage AND suddenly living together would’ve blown my mind. Taking this in stages, no matter how compressed, was a blessing. And though I grumble a bit about Ringwood and its lack of restaurants, groceries, and proximity to the city, blessed is the best way to describe how I feel. I get to wake up in a house THAT HAS ITS OWN WASHER AND DRYER (you New Yorkers know what I mean), drink coffee, and share my life with this man:

How could I not feel blessed?

And then, just one year ago today, I decided to start this little blog as a means of keeping my mind occupied during long, slow work days. I don’t even remember what those are anymore, but this site quickly morphed into a place I could share my love of food and develop my new-found love of photography while getting some feedback. Knowing people were seeing it also spurred me to try new things in the kitchen instead of relying on old favorites as we all sometimes do. All of the truly excellent food blogs I’ve read since then (two of which didn’t even exist at the time!) keep me on my toes, providing inspiration, and keeping our kitchen humming.

Two benefits I never foresaw kept this experiment going, despite the lack of time I imagined I’d have to post: The more creativity you use, the more you get and it spills over into other areas of your life. This has benefited me more than I ever could’ve imagined at work (of all things!), and keeps my mind humming with new projects and my eyes sharpened for new ways of seeing things. The second benefit is you, dear readers. It’s been loads of fun getting to know you and seeing how people from all over come here to read my silly little scribblings and view the results of my obsessive-compulsive picture taking. I’d always read on other sites that food bloggers were a real community, and that’s been just my experience.

So thank you for sticking with me. My cup overflows. I have exciting things planned for the site in the near future, and hope to continue to share the good stuff and the bad — the succulent and the burned — with you.

I worked longer than the expected four hours Wednesday, but less my typical nine, which threw a wrench into Gil’s big plans for holiday baking. He went all Woody Allen on me: “Can I leave the butter out on the counter long enough to pick you up at the train station? Will it meeeelt? Should I keep it in the fridge until we get home and start the whole process later? I don’t want to poiiiison anyone.” I don’t know a LOT about baking, but I figured that unless our kitchen counter spontaneously combusted, the butter couldn’t possibly get too soft for a standard cookie recipe. So he stopped the handwringing long enough to make the trek to Fair Lawn, then came home and baked his famous chocolate chip cookies Wednesday night. They garnered the expected “oohs” and “aahs” at our potluck Thanksgiving dinner, as well as knowing winks that I’ve managed to turn him into a baker. “Ha!” I say thee, “Ha!” I provided the recipe, but he didn’t learn baking from me, since I usually make with the burning.

Oh, and speaking of burning … !

Wouldn’tcha know it? I learned a wonderful lesson yesterday — never walk away from food that is browning under the broiler:

Hmmm … what’s that smell? Did the heater kick on? I should get back into the kitchen, but how will I find my way through this thick, dark fog?

Despair’s icy fingers clutched at my heart as I mentally inventoried the pantry for something else to bring to dinner in an hour: Maybe they’d like a couple of salt-roasted potatoes with roasted sardines and mustard? Perhaps a bag of frozen corn and whipped cream? Oh, I know! An open jar of pre-grated bottarga! Maybe they haven’t had the good stuff and would find this oddly endearing!

But fortune sometimes favors the stupid and I got lucky, people! The Brussels sprouts were easily salvaged by scraping off the thick layer of breadcrumbs I thought to add to the recipe at the last minute. People declared them heavenly (take that, you hater!) and I don’t think they were all just being polite — at least not the host, who’s a brutally straight shooter if ever I met one. She’d let me have it in a heartbeat if they weren’t up to snuff.

But no pictures of food, as I’m the most unobtrusive food blogger you’ll ever meet. Instead, I present images of the world’s most adorable dog, Dash, guaranteed to make your heart melt:

Dash loves his belly rubs after a hard day of tug-o-war, and Mark (upper right) & Gil (lower right) were only too happy to oblige.

I hope your Thanksgivings were filled with heavenly dishes and belly rubs of your own.

Roasted hominy, three ways (from front to back): With Singapore curry blend, with harissa and fresh orange juice, with ras el hanout and lime juice.

When I saw PURPLE! and GOLD! cauliflower at the Ringwood Farmers’ Market* this weekend, I had a magpie moment. I’m a sucker for any oddball produce on display, especially if it’s a zingy color, so, of course, I picked it up. It helps that football season’s still going strong and LSU continues not to screw things up too badly on the field; making a gratin of my alma mater’s colors isn’t an opportunity afforded me everyday, after all.

What was lovely in its original state could turn messy and ugly in the oven, I knew, but I forged on, armed with a can’t-fail recipe for a traditional gratin from the incomparable Clotilde of Chocolate & Zucchini. In my typical fashion, I made substitutions, but they were very minor — gruyère for the comté and not even a whisper of nutmeg, a spice I loathe. And you know what? The saturated hues of the cauliflower were a little disconcerting at first, but it was so silky, rich, and delicious we weren’t put off for long. Next time around, I’ll probably make a slightly thinner béchamel and add some roasted garlic to it for flavor. It might not be traditional, but neither is football-inspired cauliflower.

*Sadly, this was the final market of the season, so I’ll go back to stalking the produce department at Zeytinia until next spring. Turns out Gil went to high school with one of the market’s organizers, so I had him introduce us yesterday. She’s an enthusiastic supporter of our local farmers and promises exciting things for our community in the coming year — can’t wait to see what they have in store for us!

Alton Brown’s cakes don’t rise. They ascend.

In the spirit of Chuck Norris Facts, Charlie Hatton gives us Thirty Facts About Alton Brown followed by Thirty MORE Facts.

via Blog d’Elisson 

Those of you who are sick to death of bread pudding, feel free to skip this post. Maybe it’s uninspired, but when a dish is this open to interpretation, it’s a slam dunk when I’m not feeling terribly creative. So when my friend NJ showed up at work today with a bag of Zadie’s whole wheat challah rolls for me, I knew at least a couple of them would make an appearance in a bread pudding this very evening. Not that I had any plans at all for dinner, but there were a few things in the fridge in danger of turning soon and, frankly, assembling this is second nature to me at this point.

But this is a savory one, more in line with something you’d eat for dinner instead of brunch. To get things started, I cubed three of the challah rolls and set them aside in a medium bowl. I sliced one clove of garlic and cooked it in a little almond oil over medium heat until it was lightly browned, then added about two cups of thinly sliced kale to the pan. Once the kale started to wilt, I added a little water to the pan and some of the leftover caramelized onions from Sunday’s lunch and let it cook down until the water had evaporated, then tossed it with the bread crumbs.

For the liquid element, I beat three eggs with a splash of lowfat milk, some dry mustard, sweet pimenton, and fresh thyme and sage. I poured that over the bread cubes and kale and mixed it until the bread was fully saturated. At that point, I threw in a little grated gruyere, then filled four small ramekins with the mixture.

They baked at 400 degrees for about 20 minutes, at which point I topped them with a little more gruyere and some finely grated romano, then threw them back into the oven for about 10 minutes until the whole mess had browned and cooked through.

Thank you, NJ! It was such a good, simple meal — you should try it next time you go to Zadie’s. Oh, and pick up some of those wonderful sponge cookies for me, willya?

Our invitation to Thanksgiving dinner came with a request this year — “Want to make that great brussel sprout recipe you sent me?” How could I say no when I spend so much time proselytizing about the virtues of this neglected sprout? And so armed with the recipe I first tried last year, I set out to recreate and, if possible, improve upon it last night. The aroma wouldn’t be an issue since Gil’s out of town, and I couldn’t take the chance of bringing a substandard dish to this most sacred of American food holidays.

While I loved the original, I thought there was definite room for improvement there. It was maybe too uniform and needed another layer of flavor, so I took my friend Mew’s suggestion and added pearl onions to the mix. Now that I was on a roll, I thought surely a dusting of pecorino romano couldn’t hurt anything, not after using so much heavy cream already. Next time I might try it topped with bread crumbs for extra crunch, but I’m happy enough with this version to serve it to a bunch of hungry friends and probably a few strangers, too. There’s no better way to say hello than over food.

This isn’t a healthy recipe you can eat everyday like Heidi’s, but certainly is worth a yearly indulgence.

(Btw, I finally broke down and bought a new lens I’ve had my eye on for awhile! It’s no macro, but it was inexpensive and is much, much faster than my old one, which means I’ll be able to take better shots in the evening when the lighting isn’t so good.)

recipe after the jump

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