Scallops and sardines

 

Scallops on spinach
(a leftover half a small potato snuck in there too)

The title of this post alone should clue you in that I’ve been eating quite a few meals in solitary splendor because the Burtons’ schedule is busy this time of year. Sardines and scallops are two things I would never serve for family dinner.

Sea or ocean scallops because they are expensive, about $40 a lb. I find I am satisfied with a quarter lb. which gives me three fat scallops. For the family I’d probably have to have a pound and a quarter—not sure if Jacob would surprise me or not. But either way that’s beyond the budget for a weeknight dinner.

I have a friend who assures me that when I think I’m buying scallops, I’m buying shark. Not true if you shop with a respectable fishmonger—I shop at Central Market and trust them. But there are unscrupulous fishermen who flavor shark or skate to taste like scallops. These substitutions are caught in unsustainable ways, so you take a risk with your health if you eat them. How can you tell? Fake scallops are perfect cylinders, as though they’d be stamped out of a machine. Nature never creates two things quite alike, so real scallops are not uniform in size or appearance. Also they have a small muscle on the side that can be removed before cooking.

Scallops are versatile You can cover them with a gratin sauce or make traditional Coquilles St/ Jacques, which puts the scallops in a wine-and-mushroom sauce, with mashed potatoes piped around the edge of the dish (my mom had a huge shell dish she used for this). But to me, nothing beats sauteed scallops in lemon butter sauce, So the other night I had a terrific dinner. Here’s what I did.

Sauteed scallops with fresh spinach

I forgot one stop: refrigerate scallops for 20-30 minutes, uncovered, before cooking. This lets them dry out a bit and makes it easier to achieve a brown crust.

I sauteed spinach in a generous amount of butter, added some salt and pepper, drained it, and put it in a soup plate (you can use a regular plate—I’m just having fun using my soup plates for a lot of things these days).

I added more butter to the skillet and heated it to high. I seasoned with salt and pepper and, when butter was really hot, placed them in the skillet. It’s important not to move them at this point so that a crust forms. Some chefs say one minute on one side. I did two minutes on one side and then flipped them for one more minute. The big thing about scallops is you don’t want to overcook them because they’ll turn to rubber. For years, Jordan would never eat them outside my kitchen for fear they were overcooked. I was careful dislodging scallops from skillet, but I still left some brown behind. A real chef who has mastered this can get a nice crisp uniform crust. After putting the scallops on the spinach, I lowered the heat a bit and squeezed the juice of about half a lemon into the remaining butter, scraping up any brown bits. I poured that sauce over the scallops and spinach.

Sardines

Sardines are a different matter entirely—no one else in the house will eat them, though I doubt they’ve ever tried (they are good at deciding ahead of a taste that they don’t like things). People sometimes get sardines and anchovies mixed up—anchovies are much small, much saltier, and stronger in flavor. The milder sardines are a good substitute for tuna—the meat is mild, rich in protein and omega-3 acids which improve your cognition and general health. They’re generally salty to some degree, but they do not have high levels of mercury as tuna does. I’ve had sardines packed in mustard sauce and tomato sauce—the latter was surprisingly good—but I’ve never had fresh. I buy them canned in oil.

You can broil or roast sardines with lemon and herbs, put them in pasta, add them to salads, grill them, put them in puff pastry. On one of my home alone evenings recently, I had sardines on toast. Here’s what I did:

Toast baguette slices—I think I fixed four. While they are still warm, rub them “aggressively” with a cut garlic clove. Then butter lightly. Top with a tomato slice, sardines (they are hard to get out of the can, especially the first one, so you may get bits and pieces, but that doesn’t matter). Top that with slivers of sweet onion—I happened to have pickled onion in the refrigerator so that’s what I used. Drizzle with lemon and olive oil. These are messy to eat but oh so good!

My ex-husband used to make sardine salad, an idea I’m sure he got from his mother who cooked a lot of traditional Jewish food: Drain and mash a can of sardines with salt, pepper, and lots of lemon. Good as a spread on crackers or a sandwich filling.

Don’t let the fishy notion scare you away. Sardines are great for a snack, an appetizer, or dinner alone.

Sardines on toast

Welsh rarebit

 

Picture from Hertfordstreet.com

Welsh rarebit

My mom used to make a dish she called Welsh rarebit. As a child I thought she was saying rabbit, though I knew there was no bunny in this dish. It was, as far as I could tell, melted cheese poured over saltine crackers. To this day I don’t know if there was any more than that to Mom’s version. But I do remember serving it once to my four teens, only to have Colin, my most outspoken food critic, asked queriously, “This is dinner?”

Well, I’ve learned a thing or two since then, and the other night I served Welsh rarebit, garnished with pickled onion and fresh watercress, to a guest who loved it. To make Welsh rarebit you pour a cheese sauce over toast and then grill or broil it. No one is sure that Welsh rarebit traces to Wales, but we do know that it first surfaced in Great Britain in the eighteenth century. It was, indeed, called Welsh rabbit, but the name was changed to avoid confusion. Apparently, Brits also eat a dish simply called cheese on toast (they put everything on toast and mostly, it’s delicious). I’ve also heard it said that rabbit or rarebit is a variation of the Welsh “rare bit,” or small bite.

Here's what I did the other night. This is supposed to serve four. Leftovers do not keep well.

Welsh rarebit

1.5 Tbsp. butter

1.5 Tbsp. flour

½ tsp. dry mustard

1.5 cup stout or beer (I usually use stout, but next time think I’ll use a lighter ale because the stout makes the sauce an unattractive muddy brown)

½ cup water

2 Tbsp. brown sugar, packed

½ tsp. Worcestershire sauce

Thick slices peasant bread, such as sourdough

½ lb. extra sharp cheddar cheese, grated

½ Tbsp, olive oil

Toast the bread

Melt butter in heavy saucepan. Whisk in flour and mustard and cook a couple of minutes, whisking. Stir in beer, water, brown sugar, and Worcestershire sauce. Stir until sauce is thickened and smooth. Season with salt and pepper to taste.

Separately toss watercress with olive oil, a pinch of salt, and pickled onions.

Pour cheese sauce over toast on plates and garnish with watercress mixture. Serve while hot.

Note that I didn’t feel it necessary to put the cheese toast under the broiler. Plain cheese sauce on toast doesn’t have much eye appeal but the garnish took care of that. And the crunch and tang of the onion was a nice contrast to the rich and velvety sauce.

Optional: you can top the cheese toast with a fried egg –this is a buck rabbit or golden rabbit; if you mix a little tomato or tomato sauce with the cheese, it is a blushing bunny.

Mom used to serve this in front of the fireplace on winter Sunday evenings when we traditionally had a lighter supper. It’s fairly rich, so you don’t really need a side dish. If you want to serve something else with it, I’d make it a salad.

How to quick pickle onion

Use pickled onion any time you want that contrast of taste and texture—great on burgers, grilled cheese, salads, you name it.

1 medium red onion, sliced thin

½ cup water

½ cup vinegar (you may use all cider vinegar or half cider and half distilled white)

1.5 tsp. honey

1.5 tsp. fine sea salt

Red pepper flakes (optional, and I didn’t)

Slice the onion and pack it into a pint canning jar, such as a Mason jar—just be sure it is heat-proof.

Heat remaining ingredients to a simmer and pour over onion, being careful to avoid splashes of hot vinegar. Let it sit without top of jar for at least half an hour at room temperature. Then put the lid on and refrigerate.

Mwynhewch eich bwyd (happy eating in Welch!).

 

 

 

It’s almost chili season

 

Chili cheese hot dog bake

Last night as we talked about a grocery list, Jordan said, “We need to get the ingredients for chili, because when the right day hits, it will be sudden.” I used to make what I thought was a pretty good pot of chili. In fact, in a cookbook, Cooking My Way through Life with Kids and Books, I called it “Judy’s mild and tentative chili,” and it got a nice mention in a couple of reviews. But then Christian took over as the chili expert in our compound. He rarely makes the same chili twice. He’s a great experimental cook, though he always follows a recipe. Well, mostly.

By happenstance, I wrote a sourcebook for him several years ago. Texas Tech University Press published Texas is Chili Country, a compilation of chili history (no, it isn’t Mexican and Mexicans don’t want to claim it—it’s purely Texan), information about chili cookoffs, an entire chapter on Wolf Brand chili, and lots of recipes from vegetarian to chili made with game, Cincinnati chili (with pasta no less) and the chili for a Coney Island dog. Christian still has lots of recipes to try and we are looking forward to cool weather and that first pot of chili.

Meantime, here’s my chili. I’m standing by it.

Judy’s mild and tentative chili

1 lb. ground beef

Enough oil to sauté onion, garlic, and beef

1 large onion, chopped

1 clove garlic, chopped

1 8-oz. can tomato sauce

1 cup beer

4 tsp. chili powder or to taste

½ tsp. Tabasco

2 tsp. salt

2 c. beans

Brown onion and garlic; add hamburger and cook until all pink is gone.

Add everything else except beans and simmer for 60 to 90 minutes. Stir occasionally, and add more beer as needed (you’ve got that open warm beer anyway). Taste and add more chili powder as needed. Add beans and heat just before serving.

My family likes to top it with chopped purple onion and grated cheddar.

 

Labor Day isn’t quite cool enough for a pot of chili, and this year it was certainly too hot. But the holiday that kicks off Fall is a traditional time for hot dogs. I had invited a friend for supper, cautioning that I didn’t know what we’d have—maybe hot dogs. She wrote back and said, “I love hot dogs!” When I answered, “Kosher,” she replied, “Of course!” So here’s what I did.

Chili Cheese Hot Dog Bake

Hot dogs (I prefer Hebrew National; there were seven in a package, so that’s what I cooked)

Hot dog buns (I used split top, but I’m not sure it matters)

2 Tbsp. butter

2 cloves garlic

1 15 oz. can chili without beans (I used Wolf Brand)

Grated sharp cheddar cheese

Chopped green onion

Chopped tomato

Place the hot dog buns in a baking dish and put a hot dog in each.

Melt butter in a small skillet and sauté garlic until soft. Brush garlic butter over hot dogs.

Spoon chili over hot dogs, distributing as evenly as you can. Cover with grated cheese.

Cover baking dish with foil and bake at 350^o for 25-30 minutes.

Garnish with chopped onion and tomato. It not only tastes good, it makes a pretty casserole.

Don’t you just love Fall? Watch for more about chili, because I’m remembering some good stories from the book, including a mini cookoff in my living room.  

Texas Is Chili Country: A Brief History with Recipes: Alter, Judy: 9780896729469: Amazon.com: Books

 

Chicken and eggplant—but not together

 

Eggplant parmagiana
The stack fell over, but that didn't affect the taste. Scrumptious but rich!

For some time now, I’ve been exploring alternatives to rotisserie chicken for use in casseroles and salads. Rotisseries chickens are expensive, but more than that, they are usually loaded with sodium and other flavorings. Plus I find boning them a pain, though Jordan has taught me that they are much easier to bone when they are warm from the store rather than cold from the refrigerator.

Years ago I used to put a piece of frozen chicken—I bought bags of it at Sam’s—in the microwave with salt, pepper, and a slice of onion. Add a dash of bouillon, cover, and microwave. That was when I had teenagers to feed, not much time, and a microwave. Now I realize that was compressed chicken, not real breast pieces, the teenagers are grown, and I have no microwave. When I first gave up rotisserie products, I poached but the chicken was tough. Then I learned there were better ways to poach—barely simmering for ten or fifteen minutes. Better. Then I saw yet another method, which I tried recently for a Cobb salad. Bring a pot of water, covered, to a boil. Immediately turn off the heat, slide the chicken breast into the water and cover. Leave for at least 25 minutes. The chicken was tender, but so pale it had little eye appeal and the flavor was sort of bland.  

So yesterday I was following an old recipe (you can tell by the look of the paper) for a chicken and blue cheese composed salad. It called for coating the chicken breast pieces with cooking spray, salt, and pepper. No kidding? Spray it? My first idea was to put olive oil in the skillet as usual, but then I thought if I was following a recipe, I should do it all the way. I sprayed and used a heavy hand with salt and pepper. I did not pound or flatten the breasts. Once they were suitably browned, I put them on a sheet pan, covered it with foil, and baked (I don’t have an appropriate covered dish in my small kitchen or I wouldn’t have resorted to foil). Although the recipe didn’t call for drippings, I added a bit to the pan. Baked it 15 minutes at 350 and as soon as it cooled, whisked it into the fridge. At dinnertime, I sliced it on a slant, and came up with lovely pieces for a salad. At least for the time being, that’s my preferred method.

The salad I made last night? Tear up some lettuce, dice a green onion, slice a bit of cucumber. Put that in a bowl and dress with vinaigrette. I didn’t like the recipe dressing—olive oil, balsamic vinegar, and mustard was too sweet. Next time I’ll make an oil and lemon dressing. Divide the salad evenly among plates, top with sliced chicken and sliced tomatoes. Sprinkle with crumbled blue cheese.

Wow! I had no idea I had so much to say about chicken. The recipe I meant to share this week is for a quick Eggplant parmigiana, and I stole it from Martha Stewart. Eggplant parmigiana is a chore to make and no one else here will touch eggplant, so I was delighted to find this quick method. You have to start this the night before. Here’s what you need (serves two):

1 medium eggplant

Salt and pepper

Thick tomato sauce (I used crushed tomatoes, Pomi label)

Sliced mozzarella

Parmesan

Italian herb seasoning

Bread crumbs

The night before serving, slice the eggplant into six slices, lay slices out on paper towels on a sheet pan, and salt lightly. Cover and refrigerate. Next day, rinse slices and pat dry.

Heat oven to 400. Replace paper towel with parchment paper. Brush each slice with olive oil and bake 20 minutes.

Make two stacks: eggplant slice, mozzarella slice, tomato sauce, sprinkling of Italian herbs, salt and pepper, and Parmesan; repeat layer, ending with third piee of eggplant. Cover that top slice with fresh bread crumbs. You may want to use toothpicks to hold stacks upright.

Bake at 350 for 20 minutes. Martha says you can serve hot or warm.

Eggplant stacks ready to go in the oven.

Marinated salads – my new summer favorite

 

Bean salad with a salmon patty--a favorite lunch

In summer, my mom always kept in the fridge a container of cucumbers and sliced onions floating in a mix of equal parts vinegar and water, with a liberal sprinkling of salt and pepper. I’ve taken up mom’s habit, except I add a pinch of sugar to soften the vinegar a bit. You kind of have to do it by personal taste.

But sugar has been either a problem or a continuing source of amusement for me this summer. I’m amazed at the amount of sugar called for in lots of recipes, but especially  marinated salads. A friend in California who shares recipes online sent her recipe for Catalina dressing, which Christian likes on taco salad. But it had something like a cup of sugar—I used a tsp. The ranch dressing recipe was similar.

I’ve been keeping at least one summer salad as snack source all summer—the beloved three bean salad (my recipe calls for one tsp honey), various bean salads (there are so many recipes!), even pea salad, although it doesn’t keep as long as the others. Sometimes I substitute a sour cream dressing for the cucumber but, again, the shelf life isn’t as long as the vinegar-based salads. Sometimes the salad of the week is the classic Texas caviar (see Gourmet on a Hot Plate: Texas Caviar - CORRECTION)

Christian likes our marinated salads, but Jordan and I are the ones who eat the most. We can easily make a lunch of a small bowl of cottage cheese and bit of salad. Here’s one she particularly likes:

Corn and black bean salad

1 can black beans

1 can black-eyed peas

1-1/2 cups frozen corn, cook and cooled

½ cup finely chopped red onion

2 garlic cloves, minced

Dressing

½ tsp. sugar

2 Tbsp. white vinegar

2 Tbsp. vegetable oil

1-1/2 tsp. fresh lime juice     

¼ tsp. each salt and pepper

How I changed the recipe: originally it called for two Tbsp. sugar, but I cut that down to ½ tsp. The recipe also called for two large tomatoes, chopped—they would add color and flavor to the salad, but for something I was going to keep in the refrigerator for a week or so, they weren’t a good choice. The quality would deteriorate much more quickly than the beans and corn. Canola oil was specified in the recipe, but I have heard contradictory reports on it, including that it will upset your stomach, so I used good old vegetable oil. I think olive oil would add an out of place taste. Finally, the dressing added 1⁄4 tsp. cumin. My mom disliked cumin, so maybe I inherited that. I think it improves some recipes, but it added a discordant taste to this salad the first time I made it. Feel free to try it if you like cumin better than I do.

Refrigerate at least two hours before serving.

I am also loving onions this summer, especially the Texas sweet. Did you know you can easily pickle them in your fridge and use them for accents on everything from hamburgers and sandwiches to salads or to garnish a meatloaf or a steak.

Pickled onion

One large onion, sweet Texas, Vidalia, or red, thinly sliced

½ cup apple cider vinegar

1 tsp. sugar

1-1/2 tsp. salt

1 cup water, hot but not boiling

Pack the sliced onions into a bowl or wide-mouth canning jar. Mix remaining ingredients and stir to dissolve sugar and salt. Pour warm mixture over onion and let it sit for an hour. Be sure all the onion is submerged in liquid. Cover and refrigerate.

You can play with this basic recipe—using white wine vinegar or white vinegar, rice vinegar, etc. Try substituting honey for the sugar. Try pickling tiny baby onions if you often serve cocktails.

Lazy Lady’s Peach Pie—and a comment on cooking shortcuts

 

My not-so-pretty but oh-so-delicious peach galette.

A couple of weeks ago a friend brought me a bounty from her family’s farmer’s market in Rio Vista—a cantaloupe, yellow squash, zucchini, tomatoes, and two huge but rock-hard peaches. I used most of it up immediately, but I kept eyeing those peaches. They were ripening, and I needed to do something with them, but what? We are not dessert eaters, but Christian said he’d eat a peach cobbler with me.

So Saturday morning, I looked up several recipes for peach cobbler. To my dismay, each called for at least two cups of sugar. Way too much! I decided against cobbler for that reason, plus if I were to make it, I’d have to ask Jordan and Christian to drop everything they were doing and bring me a list of ingredients plus a dish. I did not have enough flour or sugar, and I think milk may have been involved.

I thought about what I could do with what I had and my brain hit on the puff pastry in the freezer. I decided to make a galette, a sort of free form pastry where, instead of a trim pie crust, you pile ingredients in the middle of the dough and pull the edges up and over the fruit. It called for one tablespoon sugar. Much more my style. So here’s what I did:

Peach galette (serves six)

1 sheet puff pastry

2 Tbsp brown sugar

½ tsp. cinnamon (optional, but I recommend it)

¼ tsp. salt

1 Tbsp. lemon juice

1 tsp. vanilla extract (I used a scant tsp. almond, and it was delicious)

2-3 large peaches, ripe but still slightly firm, sliced

2 Tbsp. melted butter

Thaw the puff pastry sheet, and when thawed, roll out on a lightly floured board. Roll until thin and roughly in a circle. Line a baking sheet with a pastry sheet and transfer the pastry to it.

Whisk together brown sugar, cinnamon, lemon juice, salt, and flavoring in large bowl. Add sliced peaches, tossing gently but thoroughly to be sure each slice is coated.

If you are a compulsive neat baker, line peaches around pastry in concentric circles. If you’re like me, dump the peaches into the middle of the pastry and even out, leaving a good overlap of dough at the edges. Pull the edges of the pastry up and over the outside of the peaches. Brush all pastry edges with melted butter. Score the outer edges of the pastry.

Bake at 375 until the pastry puffs up and is golden—about forty-five minutes but watch it closely. If the pastry starts to turn too dark, remove from oven. Let sit twenty minutes before cutting into wedges. Serve with whipped cream or a dollop of ice cream, though it is good plain—and makes a great alternative breakfast.

I call this a lazy lady’s pie, because it means, at least to me, that I was too lazy to roll out a proper dough for a two-crust pie. Truth is, I have rarely made a scratch pie crust but have used a lot of frozen ones in my long years of cooking. And that leads to yet another confession: though I pride myself on being a scratch cook who would never, for instance, serve a frozen prepared meal, I am not above shortcuts. My most glaring sin in the eyes of purist cooks is that I used canned soups in casseroles. Granted, I am perfectly capable of making a white sauce and seasoning it until it adds perhaps more flavor than the canned soup, but I don’t do it. I used dried pasta (albeit a good brand from Central Market) rather than make my own pasta—yes, I’ve tried it, and it was a pain. I do draw the line at some things: instant mashed potatoes are a no and Minute Rice only goes into one recipe that I can’t figure out how to make without it and the dish is a family favorite.

Part of my philosophy about cooking—and behind my Gourmet on a Hot Plate columns—is to make home cooking easy enough for the home cook that’s it’s pleasant and not a chore. And it should never be a source of guilt. If you want to make tuna casserole with Campbell’s cream of mushroom soup, go for it. Don’t let some purist shame you because you use canned soup and who eats tuna casserole anyway? It’s so fifties. Well, I for one love tuna casserole—and make it with cream of mushroom soup.

And I’m going to keep on making galettes instead of pies. They may not be pretty, but they taste good, and they are easy.

All those summer vegetables in one dish

 

Vegetables ready to go into Briam

I’ve forgotten where I first heard of a dish called Briam, but I thought it an odd name. Turns out it’s an easy and quick traditional Greek dish—and you know how wonderfully the Greek people treat vegetables. This is literally vegetables roasted in olive oil. Years ago, the dish was made with potatoes and zucchini, but somewhere along the way someone added tomatoes and someone else red bell pepper.

The recipe I followed was from America’s Test Kitchen and included red bell pepper. Bell peppers, in fact most any peppers, are among the few vegetables on my never-ever list, so I omitted it. Since this is a layered dish, that meant I omitted an entire layer, and that messed up the seasoning amounts. So I recreated it on my own. Here’s what I did:

Briam

1 lb. potato, golden Yukon, cooked and sliced thin

½ cup good olive oil, divided use

3-4 garlic cloves, minced

Salt and pepper

½ medium red onion sliced

Dried oregano

           Note: recipe called for 1 tsp. I just sprinkled on layers and got too much, so you should measure before you sprinkle.

1 small zucchini, sliced

2 large tomatoes, sliced

½ red bell pepper, optional

Slice vegetables about the same thickness, so that they will cook evenly. Place potatoes, salt, pepper, ½ the olive oil, and garlic in a roasting pan and toss to be sure everything is well covered. Spread out flat as the bottom layer.

Top with onion and sprinkle with salt, pepper, and oregano. (If you are using bell pepper, make two separate layers of onion with the bell pepper layer in between.)

Add layer of zucchini and top with layer of tomatoes, overlapping. The entire surface of the dish should be covered with tomato slices, and vegetables should be snugly nested against each other.

Pour remaining olive oil over dish. Sprinkle with salt and pepper.

Heat oven to 400 degrees. Cover dish loosely with foil, leaving room for steam to escape. Bake for 30 minutes. Remove foil and bake for another 40 to 50 minutes. Let rest for at least 20 minutes before serving. Room temperature is fine. When cool, embellish with chopped parsley. Serve in soup plates if you have them.

Traditionally, this is served with a slice of feta on the side and crusty baguette slices for sopping up the juice. I didn’t have feta, so I sprinkled the casserole with grated pecorino for the last fifteen minutes of baking. I think the feta would have been much better.