It's the Season

Compote.  [kämˌpōt]  fruit preserved or cooked in syrup

Don't let the stodgy image that comes to mind when I say "compote" discourage you from reading on, because folks this compote is as lively as food gets.  One of my favorite things each season is finding (some might say obsessing over) a recipe for a homemade sauce or condiment to keep in the fridge for when you need to liven things up.

Summer is up next, and that means my favorite tomato "vinaigrette" is on deck.  Fall and winter -- all about the roasted pears or some luxurious chocolate sauce.  And, right now, there's spring in all its glory:  think peonies in a vase, buying and eating too much asparagus, sneezing constantly, white jeans and, since we are reaching the zenith of in-season-ness for strawberries and rhubarb, a spritely compote.

For me, the word "compote" brings back bad memories of canned pears for some odd reason.  Is that because canned pears are part of the mix of chopped up mystery fruit in a canned fruit compote?  You know the kind.  A staple of dorm cafeteria meals and always including those super slippery canned peaches as part of the mix with the occasional maraschino cherry added for a festive touch.

Well this is nothing like that.

This dead simple recipe comes to you from Thomas Keller's Bouchon cookbook, via Smitten Kitchen, and even has a clever little twist to brighten things up.  You set aside some of the fresh strawberries and stir them into the cooked sauce as it cools.  In a word....genius.  And here are two more words...SO EASY!

Here’s how it goes:
You chop some rhubarb stalks and halve a couple pints of strawberries. Cook down that mix (reserving a cup or so of the berries to stir in later) with lemon or orange zest and sugar while you listen to some music or read the latest plot summaries for Game of Thrones. When it’s at a jammy sort of compote consistency you like take it off the heat and stir in the remaining fresh berries. Oooooh, now that was complicated.

For this minimal effort, you are rewarded with a compote that’s a sunshiny, sweet-tart of a sauce with many uses. Personally, I would like to bathe in it but you could spoon some over your morning yogurt, play the hero and bring it to your friends’ barbeque with some store-bought pound cake or simply liven up your oatmeal or pancakes one Sunday morning thereby declaring that spring has sprung. 

Strawberry-Rhubarb Compote
approx. 4 cups of compote

1 lb strawberries
1 lb rhubarb
1 lemon
1/2 cup to 3/4 cup sugar

Separate out about a quarter of your smaller berries.  Trim and quarter them and set aside to add to the compote later.

Trim the remaining berries and halve or quarter them, depending on their size.  (You should have about 2 1/2 cups.)  Place in a medium saucepan.

Trim ends of your rhubarb and chop into 3/4 inch pieces (about 3 cups).  Add to the pan with the berries.

Grate zest of lemon with a microplane and add to the pan with berries and rhubarb.
Mix in the sugar and stir to combine.

Cook fruit over medium-high heat, stirring often, until everything is soft and stewy, about 5 minutes.  The fruit will release some juice as it cooks.  Continue to cook for another 5 minutes or so to reduce and the rhubarb is soft.

Remove from heat and stir in the reserved fresh berries and let cool to room temperature. Refrigerated, the sauce keeps for a few weeks.

Ruined

It's called Wonder Bread
But when you take a look at it, you'll understand that the name is a funny bonus, because though it truly is a wonder, it bears absolutely no resemblance at all to that other Wonder Bread.

The thing that makes me a little sad about bread is how it's gotten a bad rap over the past five or six years.  

Sigh...so many bread haters out there...for various reasons, of course. Some, most legitimately need to stay away from bread for health reasons, but others, “the lemmings”, let's call them, just follow whatever the current food fad. Paleo, gluten-free, all-kale, juicing, etc...you know them...and they've proclaimed bread to be “bad”.

So, first off, let me say that I LOVE bread, but in a very finicky, highly selective way. You see, there is so much bread out there in the world that should be ignored and bypassed. The strange and spongy “french” bread (really? French??) I see at my parents' local grocery in the Midwest. The stale pita that tastes like cardboard you get along with a salad at the airport. Sad dinner rolls deposited on your table in many ho-hum restaurants. These are the times you should ignore bread.

But, the bread here in San Francisco?

It has ruined me so that I've become an insufferable bread snob.

The thing you should know about San Francisco is that it feels like the very epicenter of a bread making renaissance. I remember first moving here almost seven years ago and being introduced to AcmeBread.  (Cue the hallelujah chorus.)

Their baguettes (both sweet and sour) and their pain au levain tasted like the real deal you find in France. I even loved the story of how Acme came to be.  The founder had been a busboy at the legendary ChezPanisse, and became obsessed with breadmaking after a trip to Europe. His bread project was serious and he experimented and refined his technique in the back of the restaurant's kitchen. People must have loved what he was doing because he eventually took over supplying the restaurant with his bread when their regular supplier couldn't meet demand. He was eventually encouraged (nudged) to head out on his own when his operation grew too large for the restaurant's kitchens. Now there is Acme bread in almost every SF area grocery store (applause!) and my favorite location: a small storefront in Berkeley at the main bakery, where there is a perpetual queue of bread lovers (carbs?! Bring 'em I say!). I typically grow giddy with indecision when I reach the front of the line there and am standing in front of an array of Acme's breads and delectable baked goods.

There's more amazing bread in this town than you can shake a stick at, but I don't want to shake a stick at any of it...I just want to slather it with butter and eat it. And by the way, there is not much that's better than a slice of a beautifully made loaf of bread spread with some nice butter.

There are intensely handsome loaves of bread baked by Chad Robertson of Tartine Bakery.

 

Tartine's breads come out of the ovens in late afternoon because that accommodates the baker's surfing schedule (bravo!) but also happen to work perfectly with the idea that you pick one up on your way home from work and enjoy with your dinner. I've always wondered why one of the food magazines hasn't picked up on the success of People magazine's Sexiest ManAlive, or Most Beautiful Woman series with a version that selects a cover bread named Most Gorgeous Bread! each year because if they did, I would immediately nominate Tartine's Country Bread.

More humble in the looks department, yet splendid in its own way is the house bread at Outerlands, a restaurant in the outer Sunset neighborhood of San Francisco. Order their grilled cheese made with the house bread and you have achieved bread-lover nirvana. The house loaf has more the look and shape of a sandwich bread and incredible flavor. Word to the wise, ask if they have extra and take a loaf home for yourself. (Extra bonus: your car will fill with the delectable aroma of bread.) Toast it up in the morning and see what all the fuss is about. You're welcome.

And, speaking of toast, this brings me to Wonder Bread.

I can't remember exactly how I first heard about it...maybe in one of the local food blogs I read from time to time?

Somewhere there was a story about a local guy who was making bread.

JoseyBaker (insert obligatory joke about is-that-his-real-name? here, and, yes, it is.) started out just fiddling around in his kitchen at home in his spare time, making bread and then giving it to people. The bread was good. The sourdough starter he was using came from a friend's grandma or grandpa. How could it not be?

Friends, neighbors...they all wanted more. If I remember correctly, he started a subscription service so people could get his bread on a regular basis with him delivering his bread, on a bike. (It's a perfect San Francisco story.) He connected with a local coffee roaster and they opened up a place where he mills his own flour and makes his incredible loaves...You can get toast there...coffee, of course...and even pizza on Monday nights. Note to self as I was reading that article: find your way to this bread-happy place at some point.

Last winter, I was wandering the bread aisle at my favorite local,worker-owned, food co-op (power to the people!) I saw they had started to carry some of his bread. Happy day! Incredible, artisanal bread available at my go-to market. Life is good. So I grabbed a loaf of Wonder Bread. Shaped like a sliceable, sandwich loaf, it smelled “wonder”ful. Yeasty and nutty and bready...intoxicating, for this bread hound. This is bread with character, people. It has a gorgeous, dark brown top and it's as far from a white loaf of the other Wonder Bread as you can imagine.

A slice right when you get home is delicious. It's a kind whole wheat, but the crumb is beautifully fine and dense. Super tasty. But I also encourage you to wait until morning. (I sometimes fall asleep with a smile on my face because I'm thinking of my morning toast.) Because that's when you want to cut yourself a nice, thick slice and toast it. That, my friends, is when the true magic happens. Toasting does something amazing to this bread and if you sliced it thick enough, you get this perfect ratio happening: a wonderfully chewy interior that perfectly balances the warm, crispy, nutty crust.

Be smart and slather some almond butter on that, and then, maybe a little jam.  Take a bite and behold the wonder.

You too can be ruined by good bread. Just don't tell the paleo crowd...this way there's plenty of bread for us snobs.

*          *          *

For those not inclined towards almond butter, another idea if you come across some outstanding bread is what I call California toast, and no it's not mushing some avocado on toast, though I do get why you might think that.  

California Toast

serves one

one thick cut slice of  a tasty sourdough loaf, toasted 

(Acme's Walnut Levain is particularly nice here)

a couple spoonfuls of good ricotta

honey

You know what to do.

The Vacation Rental Blues

It just can't be... I thought to myself as I rummaged through cabinet after cabinet in the "rustic" kitchen of our Yosemite rental cottage last weekend.  Not a single saucepan in sight.  Nothing that could even stand in for a saucepan.  There was a bizarrely huge Pyrex measuring cup.  Three coffee grinders. (Really?  Three?  Why three?!) Two sad-looking little skillets.  A turkey shaped platter.  But no saucepan.  I sighed.  Typical vacation rental odds-and-ends.  Some improvising was going to be in order.

They say you can cook an entire meal with a single cast-iron skillet...and in my experience, this is indeed what one ends up doing when renting a vacation house with a "fully-equipped" kitchen.

Vacation rental kitchens pose serious challenges for someone like me. 
Yours truly  is a bit gadget-and-fancy-pans obsessed and the various vacation homes we have passed through with friends and family have consistently been a bit odd when it comes to the batterie de cuisine.

It never fails...one can always expect to find a trusty cast iron skillet.  That's a given.  And, then, a battered old enameled lobster pot regardless of how far one actually is from any ocean.  I've been in rental cottages in Wisconsin, where there's not even a remote possibility that one will be preparing a lobster for dinner, and yet, ha...there, lurking in a lower cabinet... the giant, blue-and-white speckled pot, a burnt patch permanently etched into the bottom.  Potato peelers are usually circa 1945.  You know the kind.  They're a bit rusty and hurt your hand when you use them.  Rubber spatulas are kind of icky and never totally clean.  Oh, and let's not forget the Corningware!  The ubiquitous Corningware baking dish with its cheerful blue flowers etched on the side and matching clear lid. Sometimes there will be a crusty, non-stick pan (an oxymoron, I know) and, until this past weekend, I've always encountered a 2- or 3-quart saucepan. 

But we all know it doesn't matter really because it's vacation, and you're relaxed and happy.   I've prepared some of the most memorable meals ever in the humblest of kitchens.  A grilled swordfish cooked in the rain on a tiny hibachi on Martha's Vineyard.  A hearty lentil soup for my extended family on a cold autumn night in Door County, Wisconsin.  Rabbit in Mustard Sauce on Christmas in a tiny Paris apartment.  (Note:  I have never come across a wacky lobster pot in a Parisian vacation rental...it's a uniquely American thing.)

So, there I was, last Saturday in Yosemite, without a saucepan.  It was our turn to cook dinner and I'd planned to make a simple risotto bianco with some grilled sausages on the side followed by a crisp tre colore salad (endive, arugula and radicchio tossed in a bright vinaigrette). 

Risotto is one of a handful of recipes I know by heart which is invaluable when one is vacation cooking.  It gives you a delightful blank canvas adaptable to any location.  Exhausted from a winter day skiing?   Plain risotto with cheese and a handful of herbs is the perfect warming welcome at the end of the day.  Or, maybe it's summer, and you're just down the road from a farm stand?  Risotto welcomes any handful of summer bounty you throw at it:  blanched fresh peas... asparagus... sweet corn...fresh herbs... tomatoes.  Perhaps you would never have guessed it, but risotto is the ideal vacation cooking item.

All you need is a some onion, chicken stock, a splash of white wine, a couple pats of butter, grated parmesan and the rice.  The best rice for risotto is a fat, short-grain known as arborio or the medium-grain carnaroli, and I keep a canister-full in the pantry at all times.  (A plastic bag of rice travels exceedingly well.)  The rice is sauteed with the onion in the butter, and then hot chicken stock is added, one ladle at a time, slowly over the course of about thirty minutes of cooking, so it's gradually absorbed by the creamy grains of rice.  The easy stirring during the cooking is simple to do while you're sipping wine and catching up with friends or family and there's always someone to hand the spoon off to while you grill up the sausage, or wash the lettuce.  My frozen container of chicken stock even acted as an ice pack in the cooler of food we brought along with us. 

Last weekend we improvised and heated the chicken stock in the giant Pyrex measuring cup in the microwave and the risotto turned out beautifully.  Extra tasty, in fact...as many vacation meals seem to be.   Magnificent surroundings and a happy group at the table are really all you need.


Risotto Bianco
adapted from Alice Waters' The Art of Simple Food
serves 4  (easily doubles to serve 8)


2 + 1 tablespoons of butter
1 small onion, diced fine
1 1/2 cups risotto rice
5 cups chicken broth
1/2 cup dry white wine
1/3 cup grated Parmesan cheese
Optional:  a couple tablespoons of minced fresh herbs like thyme, parsley, chives
Note:  for additions see below

1.  Melt butter in a heavy saucepan...or dutch oven...or enameled cast iron pot over medium heat.
Saute the onion until soft and translucent.

Meanwhile, bring the chicken broth to a boil in a separate pan and then turn off the heat.

2.  Add the rice and cook, stirring now and then about 4 minutes.  Do not let the rice brown.

3.  Pour the white wine over the rice and continue stirring until all the wine is absorbed.

4.  Add 1 cup of the warm chicken broth and cook at a vigorous simmer, stirring occasionally.  When the rice starts to get thick, pour in another 1/2 cup of the broth and add a pinch of salt (if you're using store-bought chicken stock, whick is already pretty salty) or a teaspoon of salt (if you're using homemade stock).

5.  Keep adding broth, 1/2 cup at a time, every time the rice thickens.  Do not let the rice dry out.
After fifteen minutes, start tasting the rice, for doneness as well as seasoning. 

6.  Cook until the rice is tender but still has  firmness, 20 to 30 minutes.  If you find yourself running low on chicken stock, just continue by adding water.  You'll be adding less and less as you get closer to finishing the risotto.  You don't want it to be soupy.

7.  When the rice is done stir in 1 tablespoon of butter and the Parmesan cheese and herbs, if using, turn off the heat and let the risotto sit for 2 minutes and serve.

Miscellaneous additions:
A handful of frozen peas is a great addition to risotto, as are fresh shrimp.  Add these about halfway into the cooking.
Fresh corn sliced off the cob or chopped fresh summer tomatoes are also fantastic and can be added about ten minutes before finishing.
Mushrooms can be sauteed and added both at the beginning and at the end.

An Evening with Friends

"We're turning off all the lights!"

In what seemed like the blink of an eye, our apartment plunged into darkness this past Saturday night and then gradually developed a warm glow, as a group of our friends went around lighting candles.

The fact that this all took place in the moments before I was to commence making Pad-Thai-for-the-First-Time-Ever made me more than a little nervous.  Who knew Earth Hour, the global let's-all-turn-off-the-lights-for-an-hour call to action on climate change, was to coincide with Asia Night at our house?

Asia Night was an idea my friend, K., and I came up with as a way to experiment with some Asian recipes we'd always wanted to try.

Steve was in from the get go -- initially signed as our resident Rice Master (authentic sticky rice was definitely on the menu) and then coaxed into the role of Dessert/Ice Cream Guy.  (How can you not love the man?!)

An invitation went out:

Intrepid friends -- come traverse the world of Asian cuisine with us!

Menu-planning took place the week before at our favorite local Asian dining spot, for inspiration.  Our menu was far-ranging and ambitious.  I started calling it Asian Jumble Night.

Spring Rolls
Both K. and I adore spring rolls--fried or not--and we tend to order them whenever we're out together and see them on the menu.  The goal was to re-create the clean tastes we love with the rice paper wrapper, non-fried version and two traditional dipping sauces:  the clear, zippy nuac cham and the creamy, zesty peanut sauce.

Chicken Soong
Steve and I are fans of this delightful Chinese appetizer, which features finely minced or ground chicken, kicked up, so to speak, with tangy notes of citrus and the crunch of finely minced vegetables, sauteed together and then served in lettuce cups drizzled with Hoisin sauce.  It was a favorite at our regular Chinese food spot in Chicago, Ben Pao and we were determined to re-create it for Asia Night.  (Upon reflection, I realized it was kind of a Chinese version of Sloppy Joe, and who doesn't love a Sloppy Joe?)

Thai Fish Cakes
This recipe caught my eye in a cookbook that I've mentioned here before--local chef Cindy Pawlcyn's Big Small Plates.  The photos looked amazing, the combination of ingredients tasty and well, it didn't remind me of Sloppy Joe!

Nam Phik Awng
This one was all K.
After returning from a Laos vacation last year, she couldn't stop talking about a delicious dish she'd tried there and her efforts to track down some kind of recipe were akin to a quest of sorts.  It's a kind of stew, using tofu or ground pork, served with sticky rice (itself an art form!) and steamed vegetables.  You make a small ball of sticky rice with your hands and then dip into the sauce, alternating with steamed vegetables. K.  was a woman on a mission to recreate one of her favorite food memories and Asia Night was the place to do it.  (Her description of it got me to thinking about...you've got it... Sloppy Joe, again, but hey, it was all good.)

Green Papaya Salad
Steve was not thrilled with adding this one to the menu, but K. and I insisted.  The wrestling match between K., the papaya and a mandoline was definitely not for the faint-hearted, but the resulting salad was lovely.  A cool and refreshingly crisp respite from all the spicy food on the table. 

Pad Thai
Hands down, my favorite Thai dish, I've been obsessed with the idea of to giving it a try at home from the moment I read Chez Pim's blog post:  Pad Thai for Beginners.  The only intimidating factor was that the recipe is designed to be cooked in the way of traditional Pad Thai --which is to say, like the Bangkok street food it is--a couple servings at a time, in a hot wok.  Call it Short Order Pad Thai.  Yikes.  

The invitations went out.  Web sites were studied.  Cookbooks were consulted.   "Hot Sour Salty Sweet:..." a gorgeous book on Southeast Asian cooking K. received for Christmas a few years ago provided most of our guidance and inspiration.  A variety of shopping trips to various Bay Area Chinatown's (we are so lucky to have them in multiples here) to track down ingredients took place and before you knew it, the kitchen was full of people, laughter and the sound of a sizzling wok on a Saturday night.  Everyone pitched in and helped chop and as it turned out, we would cook up one thing, eat, drink, and then continue cooking, eat, drink, etc... 

Our friend, S., pretty much stole the show with her brilliant Apple Soju Cocktail.  A refreshing drink that gets a little sparkle from tonic water and crisp flavor from little matchsticks of Pink Lady apples--it was incredibly delicious and got things off to a great start.  

Each dish came with a story and our friends all enthusiastically embraced the jumble-y nature of the menu as we cooked our way through the evening together.  The Chicken Soong was a hit.  The sticky rice steamer K. ordered specifically for the party did double duty as cooking vessel and conversation piece.  The Nam Phik was definitely Sloppy Joe-like and fantastically good, served with the rice and beautifully steamed vegetables.  The Thai Fish Cakes turned out a bit messy, falling apart as I attempted to turn them in the saute pan, yet still tasty.  I made my way through two batches of Pad Thai-to-order without incident and the results were delicious.

Unfiltered sake and Beer Lao helped weave it all together...and are probably the reason we completely forgot to make the spring rolls (d'oh!!) until late into the evening.  Oddly enough, we'd made the spring roll sauces, but not the spring rolls. 

As we sat around in the candlelit semi-darkness (we decided to extend Earth Hour past its initial sixty minutes), eating Steve's insanely good Asia Night ice cream creations (Toasted Coconut ice cream, Mango Sorbet and Kaffir Lime Sherbet) I looked around at my friends feeling almost overwhelmed by happiness.

The usual talk of how sharing food brings people together seemed profoundly true to me in that moment somehow.  (Maybe due to my second glass of sake?)  It reminded me of something Bay Area chef David Tanis writes in of my favorite new cookbooks, A Platter of Figs and Other Recipes.  In a section he calls "The Case Against Restaurants", he makes the point that getting a group of friends together in the kitchen to cook a meal is a far more memorable and important way to enjoy the food and each others company than sitting down in a restaurant and I couldn't agree more.  There was a certain magic happening in our home kitchen last Saturday.  It was filled with a kind of camaraderie that seemed boundless as we joined millions of others, turned off the lights and ate a meal together by candlelight.  And by the way...I've been thinking about next year's Earth Hour...
...prepare yourselves for India Night!

Choc-tee!  Kampai!  Yung sing! Chia!


Cooking notes/Additional Recipes:
Web links above are pretty much self-explanatory.  I recommend reading Pim's Pad Thai blog post several times before cooking to familiarize yourself as well as one, or even two Apple Soju Cocktails, for courage.

Chicken Soong
adapted from Big Bowl Cookbook
makes 10-12 lettuce packages
NOTE:  This is a wonderful lettuce wrap starter. I would even make it for dinner.  The cool, crisp lettuce leaves make the perfect transport for the zesty, fresh-tasting filling.  Don't skip the lemongrass -- it totally gives this dish citrusy zing.  It's really an easy dish to prepare, once you have your ingredients prepped and assembled, you're simply creating,  well...a Sloppy Joe of sorts.  Delicious!

Filling
2 tablespoons fish sauce
1 tablespoon sugar
2 tablespoons fresh lime juice
1/2 teaspoon kosher salt
1/4 cup peanut or vegetable oil
1/4 cup red onion, diced
2 tablespoons sliced scallion
2 tablespoons diced fresh red chile pepper
1/2 cup finely diced celery
1 tablespoon chopped lemongrass
2 tablespoons chopped water chestnuts
3/4 pound ground chicken thigh meat
1 teaspoon cornstarch mixed with 1 tablespoon water
1/2 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
1 tablespoon chopped fresh Thai basil
1 tablespoon chopped fresh mint
2 tablespoons fresh whole cilantro leaves
1 kaffir lime leaf, julienned
8 to 10 crisp Bibb/Butter lettuce leaves

Hoisin sauce for drizzling

Dipping Sauce
3 1/2 tablespoons fresh lime juice
1 teaspoon minced fresh garlic
2 tablespoons sugar
1/4 cup fish sauce

Prepare the filling:
Mix together the fish sauce, sugar, lime juice and salt and set aside.

Heat a wok or large skillet over high heat and add the peanut oil.  When the oil is hot, add the onion, scallion, chiles, celery, lemongrass, and water chestnuts and saute, tossing over high heat for 30 seconds.  Add the chicken and continue to cook until the meat changes color.

Stir in the fish sauce mixture and bring to a boil.  Stir the cornstarch and water mixture to combine and drizzle into the pan.  Continue to stir until the chicken mixture has a clear glaze.  Remove from teh heat, stir in the black pepper, basil, mint, cilantro and kafffir lime leaf.  Toss to combine and remove to a small decorative bowl.  Place this on a larger platter and surround with the lettuce leaves.

Combine all the ingredients for the dipping sauce and place in a small serving dish.
To eat, use a lettuce leaf as a cup, drizzle with hoisin sauce and then spoon some chicken mixture into the lettuce.  Fold like a taco, dip in sauce and eat.


Nam Phik Awng (Chili Paste Awng with Pork)
Serves approximately 8
NOTE:  This dish is known as a jeow in Laos and northern Thailand and is eaten as a condiment for steamed green vegetables.  Tofu is a good substitute for the pork.  We served it with sticky rice and steamed cauliflower,  chinese broccoli forgetting to use the Napa cabbage that is still in my fridge!

1 small head of garlic cloves, peeled and chopped
4 tablespoons vegetable oil
1 tablespoon fermented chilli soy bean paste (available at Asian markets)
1/2 pound minced or ground pork (or tofu)
1/2 teaspoon sugar
1 tablespoon soy sauce
1 teaspoon (or to taste) chili paste
2 large tomatoes, chopped
water or stock to adjust mixture to a thick, salsa-like consistency
1 small bunch spring onion, green tops only, chopped finely, for garnish
a few sprigs of cilantro, for garnish

Heat the oil in a hot wok or skillet over medium-high heat.  Toss in the chopped garlic and stir fry briefly.  Remove the garlic if it is browning too quickly.  Add the fermented soy bean paste to the oil, squishing the paste down so it cooks, but does not burn or stick.  Add the minced pork or tofu as well as the garlic if you've set it aside.  Add the sugar, soy sauce and tomato.  Flavor with the chili paste.

Simmer, stirring occasionally, until the meat and tomatoes are cooked and integrated with the other ingredients into a rich, chunky sauce.  Add water or stock to thin if necessary.  Taste and adjust seasoning.  Stir in the the cilantro and spring onion tops.

Keep warm in a low oven while you prepare the steamed vegetables and sticky rice.
Steam the vegetables for five minutes or less, to keep them vivid green and retain crispness.

Serve on a large platter with rice and sauce in side-by-side bowls and the vegetables arranged on the platter.

To eat, ball up a small amount of sticky rice and dip, alternating with the steamed vegetables.

Grills Just Wanna Have Fun

There is something about cooking outdoors...over open flames. For me, just about year 'round, there's a kind of primeval yearning to sear food over hot coals.
I'm filled with envy when I watch Jamie Oliver throw things into his outdoor wood-burning oven and I can recall years of bitterness over not having access to a grill when we lived in a pre-war apartment building in Chicago with no outdoor space.
That meant summer holidays at our place were celebrated with 'urban' barbecue-- burgers under the broiler, or on a ridged, cast iron pan... and a kitchen hallway smoke detector perpetually disconnected.

The move to San Francisco changed all that. The apartment we moved into came with a gas grill on the deck and a small brick terrace...perfect for a charcoal grill. Now, I'm not going to get into a big debate between gas and charcoal, but just know that we never let go of our chimney starter -- a relic of the years in Boston where we had outdoor space for a charcoal grill. The chimney starter accompanied us from apartment to apartment, and even cross-country, with the hope that some day we would find a place to have a grill.

A couple weeks ago, Steve found a neighborhood garage sale and, wouldn't you know it... a barely used Weber kettle grill. $25 later we were lugging it into the back patio, giggling like two teenagers and plotting our first meal. (Shrimp kabobs.)

So, when my friend, K., said it was time to get together for one of our Sunday evening cook-a-thons you know it was going to be All About The Grill.

We quickly decided the centerpiece of the meal was going to be some kind of beef.

Why?

Because we were both craving chimichurri! The incredibly delicious and meant-for-grilled-meats condiment hailing from Argentina.

Two giant t-bones (grass-fed, of course...this is San Francisco!) were our choice, and we decided to go with The Zuni Cafe Cookbook's version of chimichurri. Then, the discussion turned to what else we could throw on the grill.

Asparagus! Corn on the cob! Large, green chile peppers!

Then K. suggested peaches. We agreed to recreate a salad she had tried at some restaurant in the Marina. These recreations of something K. has had in a restaurant seem to serve us well.

The ingredients for the salad:

Peaches, grilled, of course, and then stuffed with goat cheese or gorgonzola (my suggestion)

Spring onions, grilled, natch

Bresaola, (Note: Bresaola is beef and has a very delicate flavor--almost too delicate for this salad, I think. We both agreed -- next time, go with Serrano for that extra kick of salty, porky deliciousness.)

All, draped over a bed of greens tossed with a vinaigrette.

Wine was poured. Ingredients prepped. The chimichurri prepared.

We stood in the dwindling end-of-day light, tending the various fruits and vegetables arrayed on the grill. Smoke swirled around us and and the smell of grilling peaches was heavenly.

We raised our glasses. A toast... To Grilling!

A note about chimichurri.

I used to follow a recipe found on Epicurious, which was mainly parsley, very green and, in retrospect, a bit boring.

The recipe we used was apparently shared with Judy Rodgers by two chefs from Argentina who spent some time cooking in the Zuni kitchen in the late 90's. It is fantastic and there's no going back.

This chimichurri uses a mix of chopped fresh herbs and the key is warming the olive oil so that when the fresh herbs are added they create a very satisfying sizzle as they hit the oil. The addition of a jalapeno, charred over an open flame is so much better, to me, than the typical red pepper flakes. The other important ingredient is paprika -- it gives the sauce a sultry, smoky finish that is addictive.

Make this sauce and you will be finding any excuse you can to throw some meat on the grill.

It is, in a word...amazing.

Connie & Maryanna's Chimichurri

adapted from The Zuni Cafe Cookbook by Judy Rodgers

makes about 1 1/4 cups -- keeps well for weeks, refrigerated and improves with time

1 jalapeno, preferably red (we used green)

2 teaspoons tightly packed fresh oregano leaves

2 teaspoons tightly packed fresh thyme leaves

1 teaspoon tightly packed fresh rosemary leaves

1 cup extra-virgin olive oil

1 tablespoon sweet paprika

1 tablespoon tightly packed, coarsely shopped fresh flat-leaf parsley

1 or 2 teaspoons finely chopped garlic

2 bay leaves, crumbled

2 tablespoons red wine vinegar--the good stuff

About 1/2 teaspoon salt

Freshly cracked black pepper, to taste

Char the jalapeno, either directly over a gas burner, or charcoal fire, or under a broiler

until the pepper is freckled with black and smells good

When the pepper has cooled slightly, halve, seed and mince it. Don't rub off the tasty black blisters -- include them in the chimichurri.

Place the oregano, thyme and rosemary in a mortar and pound lightly. (K. and I decided to pound, AND do a little mincing, to vary up the texture. It just looked a little too 'leafy' after just pounding.)

Warm the oil in a small saucepan until it is hot to the touch. Pull from the heat and stir in the herbs, plus all the remaining ingredients, including the jalapeno -- don't forget the paprika!

(If making the chimichurri more than a few hours in advance, wait to add the parsley until you are about to use it.) Taste. Leave to infuse for at least 1 hour at room temperature before serving.

Dinner and a movie

The Netflix pile sits, ignored. Nothing has moved in our “queue” in months and Steve is making lukewarm threats of canceling, or switching to only one dvd (horrors!). I’m not sure why, but I lose interest in all things video or television in the summer. It just feels right somehow. Maybe it’s a kind of vacation. Summer evenings should be for lazily flipping through magazines, turning the pages of a detective story or just drinking cold wine and enjoying the dusk.

Yet, the other night I felt like watching a movie. I was looking forward to an evening to myself and had made a stop at Fox & Obel to stock up on some delectable charcuterie—a favorite dinner option during dog days of summer—and their excellent bread. Was thinking that some sort of salad might be nice with the jamon Serrano and cheese I was drooling over, and we had the most beautiful yellow string beans in this weeks box. Now, I don’t know much about three-bean salads, except that they remind me of college dorm food – not good. What I came up with is a Two-Bean Salad, if you will…and it made for the most perfectly crunchy sidekick to my cold plate.



The movie…Children of Men was ehh. Gloomy and grim, I stopped it at about the halfway point, refilled my glass of chilled Sancerre and reached for the August issue of Vogue.



Two-Bean Salad
(enough for 4, or 2 with excellent leftovers)

1 lb. yellow, or green, string beans
1 can chickpeas, well-rinsed
1 small red onion, sliced
2 ribs celery, sliced
½ large red bell pepper, sliced
1 handful Italian flat-leaf parsley, chopped

Vinaigrette:
combine in a small jar with a lid (or, whisk together in a bowl)

2 tablespoons champagne vinegar
a squirt of lemon juice
4-5 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil
salt & pepper to taste

Steam the string beans until just barely tender (I like them with a bit of crunch) and then blanch in bowl with ice water.
Drain, and pat dry. Combine beans with remaining ingredients in a large salad bowl, and then toss with vinaigrette.