Chilled Avocado Soup (Vegan)

by ThaneJuly 26, 2022

It’s a little warm and muggy today in São João do Estoril, Portugal, though I am not complaining. It appears from the news that much of the northern hemisphere is experiencing a heat wave right now, which makes it an ideal time for a super-easy-to-prepare chilled soup, especially one that requires exactly zero time on the stove. [Well, unless your bride asks you to make homemade croutons for it.]

A note about stock and salt: I use a Spanish commercial vegetable stock by Aneto that already has a little salt in it, so I let diners add some finishing salt if they wish. American cooks using commercial vegetable stocks will likely find them to be sodium bombs, so I would advise y’all to take it easy on the salt. Better Th a n Bouillon makes an excellent vegetarian stock base, but it’s not readily available here in Europe. Making your own vegetable stock so you can control the salt content is an option, but you certainly don’t want to do it on a hot day. At least I don’t.

INGREDIENTS

1 liter / 4 cups vegetable stock
125ml / ½ cup fresh lemon juice (lime juice can be substituted)
30g / ½ cup chopped fresh cilantro
3 ripe avocados (minus skin and seeds)
3 green onions (scallions), chopped
4 cloves garlic (but I’m a garlic fiend, so you may want less)
1.25g / ½ teaspoon pimentón de la Vera
Optional toppings: croutons, parsley, diced tomato or bell pepper, toasted almonds, piri-piri sauce or Tabasco, cilantro

DIRECTIONS
Put all the ingredients into a blender. Blend on medium until desired texture is reached. Transfer to pitcher and chill (both you and the soup) for at least 1 hour to allow flavours to meld. Garnish as the spirit moves. Serve.

A Seasoning for All Seasons

by ThaneOctober 26, 2021

*Even our huge Le Creuset Dutch oven couldn’t hold it all; this is about 20% of the finished goods.*

For those of you who have followed the blog, you may have noticed my absence for what seems like an unconscionably long time. Which it has been. In the interim, a giant plague hit the world, I leaned into my semi-retirement, and our family — me, the bride, and two cats — moved to Portugal. While I’m sure at some point I will miss southern California, it hasn’t happened yet, and we’ve been here six months.

Life in Portugal has been pretty great, but it is not without its challenges. The ancient O’Keefe and Merritt gas stove that had been my constant companion for nearly thirty years now belongs, as does our house, to someone else. Its replacement, an electric convection oven, acts up in different ways that the old one did, so it’s taken some getting used to. The oven is also physically smaller than the O’K & M, which meant that some much beloved sheet pans had to go. Our induction range top, while brilliant for boiling water, tends to develop hot spots, which I’m not so crazy about. First world problems.

Our local grocery store(s) also have an irregular supply of spices, and some American staples, such as Italian seasoning and vanilla extract, are vanishingly rare. When you can get Italian seasoning, it often looks like this:

Now I don’t know about you, but I believe no Italian seasoning component should be red. As it turns out, this is just a mixture of sun-dried tomatoes and oregano. Some segredo do mundo (secret of the world).

I tapped my inner pioneer on the shoulder and asked, “What would Vasco da Gama have done?” Had he been interested in Italian seasoning — and there’s zero evidence he was, though his voyages to India sparked a global spice trading market — he would have had his cook make it. So I had my cook make it.

That would be me.

One can find any number of recipes for Italian seasoning out there on the Interwebs, and this one is an amalgam of many. Some omit parsley and marjoram (mine doesn’t), some omit sage (mine does), and the precise balance of ingredients varies, but I think I hit on a blend that seems “authentic” to me.

The one problem I had was that I made too much. Much too much. Like 1.7 kilos. A typical bottle of McCormick’s Italian Seasoning has a net weight of .75 ounces, which equates to 0.02 kilos. I’ll save you the step of getting out your calculator here: I made about 85 bottles’ worth. I am about to become the local Oprah of Italian seasoning. “And you get a jar of Italian seasoning! And you get a jar of Italian seasoning! And you get a jar of Italian seasoning! And you get a jar of Italian seasoning!”

Don’t do that.

*This looks more like a drug bust than an overabundance of* *a pantry staple.*

I’ve cut my recipe down to 10%, which will still yield plenty of the herb blend for any normal human. I wrote the recipe by weight rather than volume, but you could probably get away with using the ratio with tablespoons (5-3-3-3-2-1.5-1), since dried leaves all pretty much weigh the same.

Just put the herbs in a big bowl and give them a good stir, or, if you prefer, put them in a sealable bag and give them a good shake. If you want to go the heroic route (and you happen to be near Lisbon), I still have all the constituent components, because I bought them all in 1 kg bags. I’ll sell them to you real cheap… but you also have to take a jar of you-know-what.

INGREDIENTS (all leaves, not ground)

50 g Oregano
30 g Marjoram
30 g Basil
30 g Thyme
20 g Rosemary
15 g Parsley
10 g Summer Savory

Polvo Guisado a/k/a Portuguese Octopus Stew

by ThaneSeptember 18, 2020

Seems like almost exactly a year ago I was writing about pulpo/polvo/octopus, then I got caught up in the business of actually moving to Portugal (not there yet), and then the plague hit. Although I have been in the kitchen a fair bit, I’ve been away from the blog. I am intending to change that, but it is subject to intervention from a couple of governments, a shipping company, a real estate agent, and life during COVID-19.

Since I can’t be in Portugal (as is the case for most of us living in America at present), the next best thing is to bring a bit of Portugal to California.

This particular stew is by no means uniquely Portuguese; in Catalunya, there’s a version known as Estofat de pop i patata; in Greece, you can find the very similar Octapodi Kokkinisto, though it’s usually served over rice or orzo rather than with potatoes; in Italy, it’s Polpi in Umido and Polpo alla Luciana, often including clams or other seafood and served with pasta or just bread. And in Galicia, Pulpo a la Gallega omits the tomatoes, but is frequently served over boiled potatoes. I’m sure if I dug a bit deeper, I could find Croatian and Turkish versions of the dish; heck, even the French might have one, although their version would probably be more elegant, since that’s what they do. From what I can gather, this one originated in the Azores, some say specifically on Pico Island.

In most Mediterranean (and Mediterranean-adjacent) countries, polvo guisado is peasant food; the cephalopod was pulled out of the sea, and the tomatoes and potatoes came out of your garden. No real fancy ingredients are necessary (although I did use a South African Pinotage Rosé, because the South African wine industry is currently in desperate straits due to COVID-19).

One quick note before we get to the actual recipe: a number of friends and acquaintances on social media find the eating of octopuses distasteful. They (the cephalopods) seem to be intelligent creatures, and many people, myself included, find them endearing. I understand and respect those whose ethics have led them away from creature consumption, and am happy to engage in conversation on that topic over the telephone or in person, but social media lack the capacity for nuance, so comments will be moderated. If this recipe is not to your taste, please feel free to avail yourself of one of the many vegetarian and vegan options on the blog.

You may be able to get the octopus pre-cleaned from your fishmonger, but if not, you have a little cutting to do. Removing the eyes, the ink sacs, and the beak are not difficult, and there are many YouTube vids to guide you.

INGREDIENTS
2 lbs. / 1kg octopus, blanched and cleaned
2-3 tbsp. / 30-45ml olive oil
2 large onions, chopped
4 large cloves minced garlic
3 bay leaves
4.25 cups / 1000ml chicken or fish stock (I used Aneto)
2 cups / 500ml wine (rosé, white, and red all work fine)
2 lbs. / 1kg fresh (or canned) tomatoes, chopped (peeling optional)
2 lbs. / 1kg new potatoes (or fingerlings, or whatever you have)
1 thsp. / 5g crushed red pepper flakes
1 bunch fresh cilantro (coriander), chopped
1 bunch fresh parsley, chopped
1-2 small lemons, juiced (or 2-3 tbsp. / 30-45ml lemon juice)
Salt and pepper (to taste)

*Our octopus turns a pinky-purple during its five-minute bath.*

DIRECTIONS
Set a large pot of salted water on the stovetop to boil.
Remove the octopus’ eyes, ink sacs, beak, and interior of the head (if not pre-cleaned by your fishmonger) then rinse under cold water and set aside.
If you’re using medium or large potatoes, wash and quarter them (peeling is optional), and set aside.
Chop onions and mince garlic and set aside.
Chop cilantro and parsley fairly fine and set aside.
Dip the octopus three times into the salted boiling water to curl the tentacles, then submerge it for 5 minutes.

Drain and let it cool, then cut the tentacles and body into 2-inch lengths or chunks and reserve.
In that same pot, add the olive oil; add the onions, garlic, pepper flakes, and bay leaves, stirring occasionally. Fry in the oil for 6 to 7 minutes, until slightly wilted and beginning to brown.
Deglaze the pan with the wine, bring the liquid up to a boil and reduce it by half.
Stir in the tomatoes, season with salt and pepper, add the potatoes, the octopus, and stock. (Note: I used chicken stock, but fish or vegetable stock will also work, and if necessary, you could just use water with perhaps a bouillon cube or paste.)
Bring the liquid up to a boil and reduce to a simmer.

Cover the pot and simmer for about 90 minutes on low heat.
Add the lemon juice, fresh chopped cilantro (a/k/a coriander), and parsley. Simmer for another 5 minutes or so (it’s okay to go longer).
Adjust the salt and pepper (if necessary), fish out the bay leaves (if you can), allow the stew to cool slightly and serve.
Serve with crusty bread or rolls (optional) for mopping up the sauce.
Incidentally, a nice vinho verde goes nicely with the stew, but don’t be fussy about red or white; both are fine.

Split Belly (Karniyarik) — or — The Imam Fainted a Second Time When He Had a Mouthful of Meat

by ThaneDecember 7, 2019

No, it’s NOT just stuffed eggplant! Well, maybe.

First and foremost, this is a recipe — well, actually a roadmap — for stuffed aubergine (a/k/a eggplant), loosely adapted from a Turkish recipe for karniyarik, which I have read translates literally to “split bellies.” I don’t speak Turkish, and I’m guessing you don’t either, so we’ll just have to rely on the experts.

Karniyarik is a meat-enhanced dish, apparently loosely based on a vegetarian version of stuffed aubergine known as Imam Bayildi (literally, “the imam fainted”). Some stories would have it that he fainted because it was so delicious, and I will take that at face value, because stuffed aubergine is indeed swoonworthy.

Those of you who follow the blog will know it’s not uncommon for me to plunge headlong down the rabbit hole of a recipe’s provenance and expression; this one was no different. I viewed no fewer than a dozen recipes, and found no definitive formula, nor did I discover its origin. I don’t consider the investigatory time wasted, though, because I discovered several variants on the recipe that may find their way into my oven sometime in the future. I have to hand big props to Chef John at foodwishes.blogspot.com, whose video popped up in my YouTube feed and started me down this road to begin with.

Typically, the meat in this recipe is ground, generally beef or lamb. As it happened, I had excess smoked pork shoulder hanging about in the fridge, so that was my meat of choice. The balance of my ingredients hew fairly closely to the harmonized medium of the canon: tomato paste, onion, garlic, cumin, peppers, etc. Some versions include cheese in the filling, but I wasn’t feeling it (although I might in future). Many would have you serve this over (or with) rice or orzo. Fine, but not strictly necessary.

f45b12ec-33a4-4ef3-933b-817b836e0729 — The semi-peeling keeps them from bursting, and gives you a flat surface they can sit on.

INGREDIENTS
2 similarly-sized aubergines (a/k/a eggplant)
.75 lb / .33 kg roasted pork shoulder, shredded
6 mini red bell peppers, diced
1/2 large or 1 small onion, diced
2 cloves garlic, minced
1 can (7 oz. / 198 g) diced roasted green chilies (with juice)
1 tbsp / 7 g cumin powder
1 tsp / 2.5 g ground cinnamon
2 tbsp / 15 g tomato paste
2 tbsp / 15 g Darrell & Nil’s Turkish Spice Blend*
salt and black pepper to taste
2 tbsp / 30 ml olive oil
1 cup / 250 ml chicken stock

*This is a custom spice blend made by some friends. It’s made from paprika, black pepper, cumin, coriander, allspice, cassia, sumac, oregano, Maras chile, clove, cardamom, and nutmeg. Maybe I can get them to cough up the actual recipe, but if not, make sure you include the sumac and Maras chile, which really push the blend toward Istanbul.

8dd089f7-8330-4b8c-b4f7-ad9595e31b01 — Stuff for the stuffing.

DIRECTIONS
Wash the aubergines, peel four equally spaced strips and set aside. The peel allows them to sit flat in the casserole dish or roasting tin.
Preheat oven to 400°F / 205°C.
Drizzle a little olive oil into a casserole dish or small roasting pan sufficient to hold the two aubergines, then pop the veggies into the dish and pop the dish into the oven.
You’ll want to roast the aubergines for 45 minutes to an hour, depending on their size. You don’t want them cooked all the way, because you will be stuffing them. When you take them out of the oven, they should still be fairly firm and holding their shape.

During that time, you can prepare your filling.
Warm a frying pan over a medium heat, and put in the cumin, cinnamon, spice blend, and black pepper; toast the spices for 1-2 minutes, just to bring out a little more flavour. The add the salt, onion, green chilies, and bell peppers; cook for 5-8 minutes, or until the bell peppers are softened and the onions are translucent. You don’t need to brown them, but don’t freak out if they take on a little colour or if they’re still slightly firm. Remember, they have more time to cook when you stuff the aubergine.
Add the garlic and tomato paste, and cook for a couple of minutes more, just to take the rough edges off the garlic. Then remove the pan from the heat and set aside until it’s time to stuff the aubergines.

Fit to be stuffed.

When the aubergines are partially cooked, but still firm(-ish), take them out of the oven and allow them to cool sufficiently that you can stuff them without burning your fingers. Take a knife and “split their bellies” (vertically of course), then spoon in a generous amount of filling. Don’t pack it in too much, though, or the aubergines will split during their second oven sojourn. Pour the chicken stock into the pan (but not over the aubergines), so they don’t burn. You can also use the resulting sauce to spoon over the finished dish, although in my case most of the liquid had evaporated.

Return the stuffed aubergines to the oven for 30-35 minutes, or until a knife can pierce their flesh without resistance. Allow them to cool for about 10 minutes, because they are molten lava hot straight from the furnace. Plate, spoon over some of the drippings, and serve. [Although inauthentic, cheese, sour cream, or crème fraîche could be used as toppings. You could also sprinkle some fresh chopped parsley on top for colour. ]

This is scalable, depending on the number of diners, and is quite mutable while still staying within the parameters of karniyarik. Find the ingredients that exist in your pantry and/or suit your palate, pour yourself a glass of raki for a job well done, and offer a hearty şerefe to your dining companions.

Ensalada de Pulpo con tomates ahumados (Octopus Salad with smoked tomatoes)

by ThaneSeptember 18, 2019

The variety of textures is pleasing on the tongue, and the variety of ingredients ensures that each bite will be slightly different from the one on either side. I think of this as a summer salad, but even though I’m making it in mid-September, summer is still in full swing in Los Angeles (save for the ever-shortening daylight hours).

INGREDIENTS

1.33 lbs / 600 g octopus, cooked and chopped
1 medium bunch fresh parsley, chopped (leaves only — well, mostly)
2 stalks celery, minced
1 orange, zested (zest only)
1 bottle (12 oz. / 340 g) marinated red peppers, diced
1/2 red onion, quartered, sliced thin, and macerated
2 tbsp / 20 g bottled capers, drained
2 dozen smoked and roasted cherry tomatoes, optional
vinaigrette dressing to taste
coarse or flaked sea salt to taste for finishing

DIRECTIONS

I bought my octopus already cooked, but if you don’t have a store that carries such, cooking octopus is pretty easy (cooking it well, however, is perhaps a little more difficult).

[I will be posting a technique for cleaning and cooking octopus in the Instant Pot® in the next week or 10 days. ]

Most of the work here is cleaning, chopping, and mixing. If you have a Microplane zester, it will make short work of the orange. You can substitute lime, lemon, or grapefruit zest if an orange isn’t handy, but I think orange suits it best.

Macerating the onion entails soaking it in red wine vinegar (or plain old white vinegar if you must) and a pinch of salt for about an hour. During that time, the purple/red of the onion will lighten considerably, and the onion itself will lose some (but not all) of its bite. After the hour is up, you can drain and rinse the onion before adding it to the salad. [You can dress the salad while the onion is macerating; it’s better when the dressing has had a little chance to mingle and be absorbed.]

As for the vinaigrette, I went super simple: 1 part red wine vinegar to 3 parts olive oil, and a teaspoon / 2.5 gm of ground black pepper. I didn’t want to get too fancy, because I didn’t want to overwhelm our cephalopod friend. That said, since there are so few ingredients in the dressing, I made sure to use a really good olive oil. If I’d had access to the appropriate Gegenbauer vinegar, I would have used that, but my remaining sour cherry vinegar wasn’t right for this recipe.

I happened to have roasted and smoked cherry tomatoes taking up space in the fridge, and they were a welcome addition, but by no means crucial. You could use regular cherry or grape tomatoes, or none at all.

Pop the whole lot in the chill chest and refrigerate for at least an hour before serving. This will make an opening salad for 6-8, but the bride and I made it our main course, and polished off about 2/3 of it. We’ll finish up the rest tomorrow because, well, seafood.

And as for summer, I’m gonna hang on to it until reality intrudes, and I have to trade my rosé for a single malt, and my light-filled salads for soup.

Soupe de la Semaine: Cajun White Bean, Andouille, and Collard Green Soup

by ThaneMarch 10, 2019

It turns out, thanks to the bride’s penchant for genealogical spelunking, I have recently discovered Acadian blood in my veins. It’s not an enormous surprise; on Prince Edward Island, the tiny Canadian province from which I hail, the populace is drawn largely from Scots, French, and Irish stock. In practise, PEI Scots didn’t tend to intermarry much back in the day, not just due to the language differences (Scots held onto their Gaelic before yielding to English), but also thanks to Catholic-Protestant interfaith snipery. It is, however, an island, so exceptions were occasionally made. Hence the occasional Arsenault or Paquet or Daigle or Cheverie among the Campbells and MacLeods and MacMillians and MacKays. And conversely.

Acadia, for those of you unfamiliar with the term, was originally a French colony that included the provinces of Canada generally known as the Maritimes, and a little of what is now Maine. [Fun fact: Prince Edward Island was originally known to its European settlers as Île Saint-Jean.] Over the years, wars and treaties with England whittled away at the territorial boundaries, and the people referred to as Acadians tended to be identified more by their language (French) than by their place of birth.

Unfortunately, things really went sideways between the Canadian Anglophones and Francophones in 1755. As a consequence of their participation in the French and Indian War, the Acadians were given the choice of swearing allegiance to the British king, or clearing the premises. You can imagine how that went. What happened next became known as the Great Upheaval, the Great Expulsion, the Great Deportation, or Le Grand Dérangement. Many Francophones, including some of my direct kin, were forcibly repatriated to France (which, incidentally, didn’t really want them). Other Acadians fled south to Louisiana, where they became known as Cajuns.

While there’s a lot of intermingling between Cajun and Creole cultures, the reason this soup is more properly identified as Cajun rather than Creole is largely due to the absence of tomatoes, which is one simple signifier separating the two storied cooking traditions. By some measures, Creole cuisine tends to be “city food,” and Cajun cuisine tends to be “country food,” with simpler ingredients and less reliance on sauces. Please do note that these are generalisations, so please don’t flood my inbox with picayune (or Picayune) commentary to the contrary.

I don’t want to sound like a broken record (or, for our younger readers, digital audio stutter), but it never hurts to splurge on some of the key ingredients. I purchased fresh, uncooked andouille sausage (hotter than the quite tasty Aidells’ pre-cooked commercial version I used in an earlier iteration). The white beans in this recipe were Cassoulet heirlooms from Rancho Gordo. Because I had no homemade stock, I substituted Aneto, which is excellent, if pricey. I deglazed the pot with Croma Vera 2017 Rosé, because it was delicious, handy, and fit the bill. And while I seasoned the soup with fleur de sel from Ibiza, that was merely a pointless extravagance that gladdened me and enhanced the back story. We writers care about that stuff.

Best broth you can buy.

This soup can be made entirely on the stove top. I chose not to, partly due to convenience and partly due to shoddy time management. My Instant Pot® allowed me to bypass the overnight pre-soak for the dried beans, and it also condensed the time necessary to tenderise the celery and the collard greens’ stems. You may, of course, use canned beans and/or canned collard greens… if you must.

How much is enough? Maybe 6 cups or so, chopped. Be as green-dependent as you like.

While I favoured traditional Cajun ingredients for this recipe (although I omitted bell pepper, one-third of the Cajun “holy trinity”), my pal Inmaculada Sánchez Leira (no slouch in the cooking department herself) noted that, save for the comparative lack of root vegetables, it’s not particularly far removed from Caldo Gallego, the classic Galician soup. It’s also fairly close to many recipes involving Black Eyed Peas, traditionally served in the South for good luck on New Year’s Day. In fact, you could easily sub black eyed peas into this recipe… and yes, you can get them from Rancho Gordo (if they’re not sold out).

INGREDIENTS
1 lb. / 1/2 kg dried white beans (or four 15 oz. cans cooked beans, drained and rinsed)
30 ml / 2 tbsp olive oil
2 lbs. / 1 kg Andouille sausage links
1/2 cup / 120 ml white or rosé wine (or water or stock) for deglazing
1 large onion, finely chopped
3-4 garlic cloves, minced
2 large carrots, chopped or sliced into coins
2 large bunches fresh collard greens
4-6 large stalks celery, finely minced
1 medium sprig fresh thyme
3 liters / 12 cups good quality chicken and/or vegetable stock (I used Aneto chicken stock)
1 liter / 4 cups water
5-10g / 1-2 tsp salt
1/3 cup / 80 ml apple cider vinegar
chopped fresh parsley for garnish, optional

DIRECTIONS
Rinse beans thoroughly, then drain (whether you’re using canned or dried beans). [This is where you would add the dried beans and two liters of stock to the Instant Pot®, if you are going that route. Add the 1/2 kilo / 1 lb. of dried beans and about 2 liters / 8 cups liquid (I used all stock). Cook according to instructions. For more recommendations on cooking times, check here and here.] My unsoaked Cassoulet beans took 48 minutes on high pressure in the Instant Pot®, with a natural release (I’m told this helps to keep the bean skins from splitting). Should you choose, you can use the stovetop method to cook beans pre-soaked overnight (or dried beans straight from the packet should you choose). When beans are soft, set cooked beans and stock aside.

Here is where the two paths diverged in the wood. First, I will lay out the stovetop version. Then, I’ll include the Instant Pot® shortcut, for those of you who care to use it.

STOVETOP VERSION
Dice onion; mince garlic and celery. Cut carrots into coin-size slices (if the “coins” get to be larger than a quarter or a 2€ coin, cut them in half). Strip collard green leaves from their tougher stems, slice (or tear) the leaves and dice the stems (skip this last bit if using canned collard greens).

In a large soup pot, heat the olive oil. Then season the Andouille links with a little salt, leaving them whole, and brown them for about 10-12 minutes, or until cooked through and browned on all sides. Remove links from pot and let them cool.

Deglaze the browned bits with a little water, stock, or wine. Make sure to give pot a good scrape.

The liquid and browned bits will add depth to your stock base. Plus, you’ll have pre-cleaned the toughest stain in the pot.

[NOTE: If using Instant Pot® shortcut, skip to shortcut below, then come back here.]

Sauté the onion, celery, carrots, collard greens, thyme sprig, and garlic for about 7 minutes, until soft without colouring (the celery and the collard stems will take longer, so don’t wig out if they’re still a little al dente). While the vegges are in sauté mode, slice or crumble the cooled Andouille sausage. Add the beans and stock you set aside earlier, the extra liter of stock (if you’re not using the Instant Pot® shortcut), Andouille, vinegar, and water, along with a little salt. Bring to a low boil and then reduce heat. Simmer for about an hour or more, or until celery and collard green stems have softened to desired degree. Adjust salt and vinegar, if necessary; discard thyme sprig. Ladle into bowls and add optional shredded parsley leaves for garnish.

The Instant Pot® softens up those tough veggies real quick.

INSTANT POT® SHORTCUT
Instead of adding celery and collard green stems and thyme sprig to the main soup pot on the stove, put them into your Instant Pot® with a liter of the stock, set to high pressure for 7 minutes on the Bean/Chili setting, making sure vent is set to Sealing. When done, you can use either natural or instant release. [If you choose the latter, take care to avoid escaping steam.] Discard thyme sprig and add remaining contents to main soup pot. Continue with recipe as above

Summer Vegan Bean Salad I

by ThaneJuly 22, 2018

Bless you, Steve Sando.

Summertime, and the livin’ is… damn sticky, for the nonce, in Southern California. And there’s another heat wave coming. The last thing I want to do is to, say, sit over a pot of saffron risotto for an hour. I’d like something cool, and refreshing, and clean, and if I were able to subsist on gin and tonic or Croma Vera Albariño, well, I’d probably do that. My doctor might suggest some other course; I bet she’d be just fine with this one.

The first trick to any bean salad is — duh — great beans. I’ve long extolled the virtues of Rancho Gordo’s heirloom beans, and that’s where I started. The bride and I are particularly fond of their Royal Corona beans, which are kin to the Gigandes plaki, often spelled as yigandes, used in the great Greek meze served under an expansive canopy of tomato sauce and often accompanied by Feta cheese and bread. Rancho Gordo founder Sando is something of a bean whisperer, and cultivates heirloom beans all over the world, working with local farmers at fair prices. He is a hero, full stop.

The second trick to a good bean salad is a balance of flavours and textures. No one wants a limp bean any more than they want a wet noodle — and I mean that literally and figuratively. When I knew I would be building off a base of Royal Corona beans, I compiled a culinary dance card of prospective partners, seen below. Since this is a really adaptable bean, I knew I could go off in several directions, but not all at once. So: I decided to make it Vegan. I knew sun-dried tomatoes and marinated red bell peppers would be part of it for colour and taste and texture. Then it was a matter of filling in gaps. Celery for crunch. Capers for salt and tang. Slivered almonds for more crunch. Macerated red onion for a little assertiveness, but not too much, hence the maceration. Scallions and parsley for herbaceousness and colour. Fresh thyme for extra aromatics. There were some herbs and oil in the sun-dried tomatoes, and I decided to use them rather than rinse them off, and finish off the salad dressing as needed.

NOT “5 Livered Almonds.” The pen was malfunctioning.

This is truly a salad that can be assembled by an elementary schooler, as soon as she can be trusted with a knife (and has the upper body strength to open vacuum-packed bottles, or can inveigle someone to do it for her).

Macerating the onion in this case consists of dicing it and dropping it in a bowl with enough water to cover it, dumping in a glug — that’s a technical term — of some sort of vinegar, and about .5 cup / 170 g of sugar, then stirring it up and setting it into the fridge for an hour or so, to blunt the onion’s sharpness. It’s not quite a quick pickle, but it does temper its aggressiveness.

As for the beans, I made them in my Instant Pot®. Rinsed them, covered them with water, and set the pressure on high for 25 minutes with a natural release. You can soak them overnight if you wish, and cook them in a trad soup pot (I do this in winter, just for the atmosphere), but I was shooting for fast results. I drained the cooked beans and rinsed them with cold tap water, then dumped them in with the already macerating onion to cool them down some more. Kilotonnes of options here, feel free to follow your path.

Give it a bit to mingle flavours, and you may or may not want to top it with a vinaigrette. As it turned out for me, just a few drops of great old Balsamic vinegar and a sprinkling of black sea salt flakes (the flakes were black due to charcoal; they weren’t from the Black Sea) finished it off nicely, even on the second day.

Summer Vegan Bean Salad I
Serves 6-8 as a main course, with extras

INGREDIENTS
1 lb. / 454 g dried Rancho Gordo Royal Corona Beans, hydrated and cooked
24 oz. / 680 g (2 bottles, 12 oz./340 g each) marinated red peppers, drained
25-30 capers
3 large stalks celery, diced
1 red onion, diced and macerated (see note above)
1 bunch scallions (10-12), sliced
1 cup / 60 g chopped fresh parsley
1 tbsp / 2.4 g fresh thyme, finely minced
16 oz. / 454 g julienned sun-dried tomatoes in oil (using the oil)
.75 cup / 85 g slivered almonds

Next go, we may find room for some of those other ingredients on the dance card, plus cucumber, jicama, nopalito, or something else!

Incidentally, if you’re not wedded to the Vegan thing, bacon & bleu cheese, prosciutto & Parmesan, or even chicken & chevre could be welcome additions.

One final and sad note: As I was writing this, I learned that the Pulitzer Prize-winning food writer Jonathan Gold died. He was as much a part of this city’s cultural life as Jim Murray or Jack Smith; he was the culinary literary equivalent for this city of the likes of Mike Royko or Studs Terkel or Herb Caen. He is simply irreplaceable, and his passing at 57 is too soon by decades. I cannot begin to imagine how much our lives will be impoverished by his absence.

http://www.latimes.com/food/jonathan-gold/

Curried Chickpea Smash [Vegan]

by ThaneMarch 27, 2018

It takes all my will to keep from eating it directly from the bowl.

Total dishes dirtied in the course of making this recipe: 1. [Plus five utensils: the can opener, potato masher, knife, fork, and measuring spoon. Oh, and I had to clean off the cutting board that lives on top of the right-hand sink.] That in itself gives this recipe a warm place in my heart.

Big ups to Jessica Prescott, from whose book Vegan Goodness: Delicious Plant-Based Recipes That Can Be Enjoyed Everyday this recipe was adapted. Further thanks to Deb Lindsey and Joe Yonan of the Washington Post, the former for making it look appetizing enough to try, and the latter for testing the recipe so I could goof with it in my own kitchen.

This takes literally about 10 minutes to pull together, even if your knife skills are as poor as mine, and it packs a wallop, taste-wise. Also, if you prefer to make this with garbanzo beans rather than chickpeas, they are an acceptable substitute.*

Curried Chickpea Smash
makes four sandwiches

INGREDIENTS

aquafaba

[NOTE: The amount of onion and/or coriander can vary widely according to taste. I like mine with a little more kick, which is why I go to the high end of the recommendation. Also, I use twice as much curry powder as was in the original recipe, I think partly due to my palate and the fact that my jar of curry powder has a little age on it and may have mellowed. To me, the main bar to clear is finding the right bread-to-filling ratio. If the bun is too big relative to its surface area (like a slider bun), you’ll have too much bread. On the other hand, if you toast regular sandwich bread, you need to go a little light on the filling for structure’s sake. Believe me, it’s a fun problem to have to work out.]

Next time, homemade bread.

DIRECTIONS

Combine the chickpeas, oil, and lemon juice in a medium bowl or flat bottomed storage container such as the one pictured at top. Smash with a potato masher or fork until fairly chunky (try to leave no chickpea whole). Stir in the avocado, minced onion, pickles, cilantro/coriander, curry powder, salt, and pepper. [If you are using this as a dip for pita, chop the spinach and mix it in; otherwise, reserve it for the sandwich building, directions to follow.] Taste, and adjust spices as needed (I often add more lemon juice and/or olive oil to keep it from being too dry, especially if I’m using it as a dip rather than a sandwich filling).

If you’re not using this as a dip for pita bread, place a few baby spinach leaves on the bottom halves of the toasted rolls (or bread) and top with the chickpea salad. Top with the remaining halves of the rolls/bread, and slice in half if the resulting sandwich seems unwieldy.

*Chickpeas and garbanzo beans are the same thing. That was a joke.

Soupe de la Semaine: Vegetable & Rice Soup [Instant Pot® recipe] [Vegan optional]

by ThaneMarch 13, 2018

Please, anything but this.

This soup was borne out of a need to use up a bunch of celery before it went south. [Seems like I make a lot of “necessity” soups.] Being an enterprising lad, I Googled “celery soup,” and got about 1.83 bazillion recipes for Cream of Celery Soup. I don’t want to demean the good folks whose soup provided Andy Warhol such a rich vein to mine for his art, but the cream of celery soup of my youth was possibly the worst-period-soup-period-ever. It was always the last can in the cupboard, and was only ever served out of dire necessity. To be fair, I think the only reason my mom kept any in the first place was so that it could be used as a sauce for some sort of ’60s casserole that has mercifully and permanently gone out of fashion. Fortunately, my Google Fu skills are strong, and I eventually landed on what appeared to be a terrific recipe by Martha Rose Shulman of the NY Times. It was modified to fit my ingredients, but it’s fairly faithful to the original.

Stop me if I’m sounding like a broken record here, but if there are two things I could ever want you to take away from this blog, they are these:

chef

roadmap

always

other destinations

Perhaps the two most delightful aspects to this recipe are 1) you don’t have to pre-cook the rice (a few minutes at pressure in the Instant Pot® does the job); and 2) you can make it vegan simply by removing the Parmesan cheese. If you can operate a knife, a spoon, a can opener, and a measuring cup, you can make this. You don’t even really need an Instant Pot®. It just will take longer on the stove (probably about 45 minutes to an hour of simmering, depending on how quickly your rice cooks up).

Doesn’t that look like a bowl full of healthy goodness? And we haven’t even added the tomatoes or the stock yet.

Vegetable & Rice Soup
Makes approximately 16 cups / 4 liters

INGREDIENTS
6 celery stalks / 400 g, diced
1/2 red cabbage / 400 g, shredded
1 medium onion, chopped
1 medium carrot, diced
1 bell pepper, de-seeded and diced (I used 6 mini peppers instead)
6 garlic cloves, minced
Salt (preferably kosher) and pepper (preferably ground white) to taste
1 cup / 180 g uncooked rice (I used brown basmati)
3 tbsp. / 45 ml extra virgin olive oil (spring for some good oil!)
1 28-ounce / 794 g can chopped tomatoes, with liquid
1 1/2 quarts / 1.5 liters water or vegetable stock (Better Than Bouillon enhanced my stock)
2 tbsp. / 50 g tomato paste
1 teaspoon / 4 g dried thyme
2 tbsp. / 3 g dried parsley flakes (or 1 tbsp. / 4 g fresh parsley)
A small (50 g / 1.75 oz.) Parmesan rind
Celery leaves for garnish (optional)
Freshly grated Parmesan cheese for serving (optional)

DIRECTIONS
Chop up celery, cabbage, onion, carrot, bell pepper, and garlic cloves; place in Instant Pot® container. Sprinkle salt and pepper over vegetables and stir. Add olive oil and uncooked rice to container. Set Instant Pot® to “Sauté” and sweat vegetables, stirring occasionally, for about 10-15 minutes, until they soften a bit. Add chopped tomatoes, vegetable stock, tomato paste, thyme, parsley, and Parmesan rind (if desired — omit for vegan version). Mix briefly with spoon or spatula. Turn Instant Pot® to “Keep Warm / Cancel,” which will end the sauté function.

Place lid on Instant Pot®, making sure vent is turned toward “Sealing” rather than “Venting.” Press “Soup” button, making sure pressure is on “High.” Set timer for 16 minutes. Go answer some email or vacuum your front room.

When timer goes off, allow Instant Pot® to decompress naturally, or at least for 10 minutes, before carefully switching vent from “Sealing” to “Venting.” Remove lid, and adjust spices as necessary (soup will be hot). Ladle directly into bowls or mugs and garnish with celery leaves and/or grated Parmesan (omit latter for vegan version).

To borrow a phrase, “Mmmm-mmmm good.”

All Hail the Green Goddess! (plus a godlike potato salad recipe)

by ThaneOctober 14, 2014

How in the world did we ever get from this…

The late, great George Arliss. (photo courtesy Arliss Archives)

to this?

Savory & Vibrant. It even says so.

Funny story, that. It involves a Scots drama critic’s first play, a British star of stage and screen, and a classically-trained hotel chef. [If you just want to skip ahead to the recipe for Green Goddess Potato Salad, not to worry. Just jump down a page or three.]

In 1920, drama critic William Archer took his own advice (from his 1912 non-fiction book Play-Making: A Manual of Craftsmanship) and wrote his first play, something of a pot-boiler called The Green Goddess. It opened, to some acclaim, on 27 Deceember 1920, at the Walnut Street Theatre in Philadelphia, and starred a gentleman named George Arliss. So popular was it that it opened on Broadway (at the Booth Theatre) less than a month later, and toured America for the better part of three years before opening a highly successful (and lengthy) engagement in London.

Along the way — and by the best triangulation available to me, sometime around March of 1923 — it played in San Francisco. While in The City, Arliss stayed at the Palace Hotel (which is still around, incidentally), and dined at the hotel’s restaurant, which at the time was overseen by Executive Chef Philip Roemer. Depending on which story you want to believe, either the chef decided on his own to honour Arliss with a salad dressing inspired by the play, or Arliss himself put the chef up to it as a publicity stunt. Personally, I would like to think the former.

And, before you could say, “Wow, I wonder if this salad topping will still be around and popular nearly a century later,” Roemer had created the Green Goddess dressing. [Before we get into the actual recipe stuff, a couple of notes. Not only was the play successful, but it was made into a movie twice (both times starring Arliss), once as a silent in 1923, and once as a “talkie” in 1930. It’s worth noting that the goddess was more grey than green, as both films were shot in black and white. Arliss was nominated for the Best Actor Academy Award for the 1930 version (he had won the previous year for Disraeli), but ultimately lost to Lionel Barrymore, who won his only Oscar for A Free Soul. In fact, Arliss himself presented the Oscar to Barrymore.]

Much like the salad dressing’s creation myth (even the hotel’s own website has gotten it wrong, predating the play’s creation by half a decade), the “official” recipes for Green Goddess dressing vary widely. And while I mean no disrespect to any of the bottled versions’ manufacturers, do have a go at making it yourself. It’s dead simple, and it tastes so much better. As for the potato salad, which calls in the original recipe for green beans, I think asparagus (if available fresh) is better suited to it. Both provide a bit of toothiness, but roasted asparagus and roasted potatoes mesh like Ginger Rogers and Fred Astaire.

“Fred, I can’t believe he compared us to vegetables! He can’t even DANCE!”

GREEN GODDESS POTATO SALAD WITH ASPARAGUS
Ingredients:
3/4 pound/1/3 kg roasted or grilled asparagus
3 pounds/1.5 kg roasted fingerling or “baby” potatoes, halved or quartered according to size
1/4 cup/60 ml olive oil
sea salt
cracked black pepper
Green Goddess Dressing (recipe below)

For the potatoes:

Teeny taters.

Preheat oven to 450°F/230°C Halve or quarter potatoes and place in plastic bag with olive oil; shake until coated and arrange in a single layer on a cookie sheet. Liberally sprinkle salt and pepper over. Roast for about 30-35 minutes, or until golden brown. (About 20 minutes in, turn over with spatula for even roasting.) Remove when done, allow to cool, and place in large mixing bowl.

For the asparagus:

Chopped spears that have nothing to do with Britney.

Preheat oven to 400°F/200°C Wash and trim and place in plastic bag with olive oil (you can use the bag from the potatoes if you wish, although you may need to add a little olive oil); shake until coated and arrange in a single layer on a cookie sheet. Liberally sprinkle salt and pepper over. Roast for about 15-20 minutes, or until slightly browned, but still with a little snap. Remove when done, allow to cool, chop into 1 inch/2.5 cm pieces, and place in large mixing bowl with potatoes. Mix with Green Goddess dressing and chill for 1-2 hours in refrigerator. Devour unreservedly.

GREEN GODDESS DRESSING (adapted from Gourmet magazine)
Ingredients:
3/4 cup/180 ml mayonnaise
3/4 cup/180 ml sour cream
3 tablespoons/45 ml tarragon vinegar or white-wine vinegar
3 scallions, chopped
3-4 flat anchovy fillets, chopped, or 2 teaspoons anchovy paste
1/4 cup/10 g chopped fresh flat-leaf parsley
2 teaspoons/2 g chopped fresh tarragon
1 teaspoon/5-6 g sea salt or kosher salt
1/2 teaspoon/2.5-3 g black pepper

Pulse mayonnaise, sour cream, vinegar, scallions, anchovies, parsley, tarragon, salt, and pepper in a food processor until dressing is pale green and herbs are finely chopped. Refrigerate until use. Editor’s note: You don’t have to be either green or a goddess to make this salad spectacular. Although either would certainly enhance the presentation.

The finished salad, with wooden fish.

Note on metric conversions:
Since American measurements are generally based on volume rather than weight, I’ve had to be a little loose with the metric conversions. For liquids, of course, they are pretty precise, but for dry ingredients, they’re a little more fungible (after all, a tablespoon of salt weighs a lot more than a tablespoon of dried parsley flakes). That said, the Interwebs have some conversion guides that have allowed me to get close, and fortunately, this recipe is pretty forgiving. I suppose in future that I would be wise to use my fabulous OXO Good Grips Stainless Steel Food Scale with Pull-Out Display to give an accurate measurement. But wisdom was never my long suit.

templeofthetongue

thought for food

Tag Archives: parsley

Chilled Avocado Soup (Vegan)

A Seasoning for All Seasons

Polvo Guisado a/k/a Portuguese Octopus Stew

Split Belly (Karniyarik) — or — The Imam Fainted a Second Time When He Had a Mouthful of Meat

Ensalada de Pulpo con tomates ahumados (Octopus Salad with smoked tomatoes)

Soupe de la Semaine: Cajun White Bean, Andouille, and Collard Green Soup

Summer Vegan Bean Salad I

Curried Chickpea Smash [Vegan]

Soupe de la Semaine: Vegetable & Rice Soup [Instant Pot® recipe] [Vegan optional]

All Hail the Green Goddess! (plus a godlike potato salad recipe)