Homework

This is what happens when I take my own advice.  It could be what happens when you take my advice too, if you’re so inclined.  Have some greens along with it.  We had steamed gai lan.  Fantastic.

This is one of those dinners that is not for the kind of person who is afraid of mixing things on the plate.  I caramelized zucchini in a tablespoon of olive oil with whole cloves of garlic — a medium heat, with infrequent stirring and a good stout pan, will get it done in a reasonable amount of time — and then fried two eggs over easy in the residual oil left in the pan.  After breaking the yolks, I ate the garlic and zucchini with yolk and bits of eggwhite and some black pepper.  Sublime, especially because I made a nice cucumber salad to chase it with.  The salad is a riff on the cucumber salad from Friday last, only since I had no cilantro left I used some onions pickled in rice vinegar that were lingering in the back of the fridge.  Salt-fermented chiles add a little dimension and floral heat.  A fine contrast to rich eggyolk and unctuous-yet-nicely-crusted zucchini and garlic.

These tomato babies were hanging out in their fetching green hats, soaking up the sun when I went out in the garden a little while ago.

Ushi likes to watch over the garden and supervise me while I work.

This is a dish that falls squarely into the category that my friend Jeannette calls dolce far niente cooking.  Perfect for hot weather, it is light and cooling but has strong, invigorating flavor.  And, as the dolce far niente thing implies, it requires hardly any effort.

You’ll want a couple-few cucumbers, a healthy-sized bunch of cilantro (yes, cilantro is a vegetable, now hush), a couple cloves of garlic, and a hot chile or two of your preferred degree of heat.  Additionally you’ll need some salt, some rice vinegar, a little sesame oil, a colander, a bowl, and a knife.  Proportions may be varied to suit your tastes and the number of mouths you’re feeding.

Peel your cukes if the skins are thick or bitter, or not if they aren’t.  Seed them if they’re the kind with lots of watery seeds, or leave them intact if they don’t.  Cut the cukes into happy bite-sized pieces and strew with a tablespoon of salt, toss, and let sit while you clean and coarsely chop your cilantro and your chiles.  (If you happen to have a jar of salt-fermented chiles in the fridge, this is a good time to use them.  You can also use drained chopped pickled chiles if you like.)

Rinse your cukes in the colander and give them a good few shakes to get the water off.  They shouldn’t be too salty but they should be a little salty.  Rinse out the bowl.  Put the cukes back in the bowl with the cilantro and chopped chile.  Crush a couple cloves of garlic, or mince them, or however you prefer to render a garlic clove into something approaching a fine schmear, and add that to the mix.  Add a glug or two of rice vinegar and a glugette or demi-glug of sesame oil, toss, taste, correct the seasonings if need be, and serve.

If by chance you should recall, as you head to the table, as I did this evening, that you have an avocado that is on the overripe side, or even one that is just becoming ripe I suppose, seize it up immediately, peel it and chop it up and add it to the salad.

This is very fine as a side dish, especially with cold noodle dishes, fried plantains, or with fish or seafood.  It is also a delight as a main dish on a hot evening, particularly if you add the avocado.

Whooboy, it’s been a time around here, chickens.  I’m deep, deep in the crunch, though not yet in the weeds thank God, with a book deadline July 15.  So if postings get a little catch-as-catch can, fear not, it’s just that the book has eaten my head, my hands, and probably my cooking time, as well as pretty much everything else.

I did get to cook yesterday, though, as a celebration of both my finally finishing a complete draft of the whole book (cue vuvuzelas!) and a dear friend’s birthday (cue birthday cake!).  I made a Mexican feast: carnitas, frijoles, pico de gallo, veggies from the garden, sliced avocado, and bought a kilo of fine, fine tortillas from Tortilleria Sinaloa across town in Fell’s Point.  (I never want to live in a town without a good tortilleria again.)

So tonight I’m having leftovers.  Chopped chard and purslane from the garden topped with a bunch of carnitas and several large spoonfuls of pico de gallo.  In the little dish, some Korean-style pickled daikon.  And in the big quart Mason jar, a big ol’ vat of iced tea with plenty of lemon juice.  Just think of the pickled daikon as Korean curtido.  Muy rico no matter what.

Oh, I took photos.  But would they really express the satisfaction, a long day of writing behind me, an evening’s worth still to go, of spending a half an hour in the kitchen with the cool crispness of bok choy and cucumbers and scallions?  Would they convey the sizzle of the tofu hitting the hot oil in the wok, so loud it made me flinch even though I expected it?  I’m fairly sure they wouldn’t give the remotest impression of how mud-luscious (oh e.e.!) the sensation of mashing soaked fermented black beans with your fingertips can be, or how tantalizing the pungency that rises to the nose when you do it.  And as for the visceral gratification of whacking a peeled whole cucumber with the flat of a cleaver blade until it cracks into chunks, well, I think we can agree that no photograph could do that justice.

We ate a shrimp-broth based egg flower soup, black bean sauce tofu with bok choy, and smacked garlic cucumbers.  No rice, we usually don’t unless company’s in the offing, the better to spare my temperamental metabolic system.  Thumb-thick, winey-ripe blackberries for dessert.  Salutary indeed.

And so, back to work.

Some of this weekend’s greens haul, a nice smallish head of napa cabbage, was cut into ribbons, sauteed with onions and garlic, and used as a base for a fava bean and ham hock broth.   Some of the scraps of ham perch on top, for extra juju. Especially with a starchy broth like a bean broth, using greens as a base is an excellent idea, and balances the textures well, whereas using a starch like noodles or rice would just get stodgy.

And speaking of ham hock… Miriam asked, in a comment on the previous post, where to look for local, sustainably-farmed meat and poultry.  This will be a Baltimore-centric answer, so I hope that’s what you were looking for, Miriam.

For convenience, you can go to Mill Valley General Store, at 28th and Sisson (2800 Sisson St. is the actual address).  They’re open Thurs-Sun and they carry meats from Gunpowder Bison, Wagner’s, Five Cow Farm, and I think perhaps others.  I know they’re working on bringing in chickens also. Mill Valley also carries a fine, well-chosen selection of local dairy, eggs, and produce and the freshness is impeccable.  I am particularly fond of the Five Cow Farm beef, which is always salutary.

At the Waverly farmer’s market on Saturday mornings,  you’ll find Broom’s Bloom’s stall.  They sell chicken, pork, and lamb, as well as eggs, all raised north of town.  Gunpowder Bison also has a stall at Waverly.  I’m not sure if Truck Patch Farm is selling at Waverly or only at the downtown (Sunday) market this year, but if you like pork, Truck Patch is  my favorite and I recommend them highly. (Truck Patch is also bringing in beef, I seem to recall, starting nowish… haven’t tried it yet but I expect it’ll be good.)

There are a couple of other meat vendors at the Sunday market under the JFX, but I haven’t actually shopped around too much as I so often get my meat at the Saturday market or at Mill Valley.  One whose meat I can vouch for, though, is the goat from Jeanne Dietz-Band at Many Rocks Farm.  It’s very well reared, well cut, and of high quality.

My standbys are Truck Patch for pork, Many Rocks for goat, Broom’s Bloom for lamb, Gunpowder for bison, and Broom’s Bloom again for chicken.    That said, I keep an eye out for specials and unusual items as they show up.  I recently had a lovely beef heart from Broom’s, and this ham hock was from them as well.

I’m dining alone tonight, my Belovedary down at Camden Yards watching the Orioles lose.  It’s a nice night for it.

Dining alone can be a challenge.  Even I sometimes get tempted not to bother cooking if it’s just me, especially when I am, as I am tonight, working late on a deadline.

I try, though, to do it anyway.  Gently, as a kindness, and not grumpily and rushed as if it were an insult to have to get some food into edible condition for my own continued upkeep.

The summer’s first slim zucchini, gently sauteed in olive oil with plenty of garlic and a pinch or so of dried crushed marjoram and oregano.  That’s the secret of zucchini that is meltingly tender but not disintegrating: slow, gentle sauteeing, not too much movement in the pan, use enough oil, and let things brown just a little to bring out the sweetness and provide a tiny bit of structurally crucial crust.

Eggs scrambled over a low heat with a couple handfuls of thinly chopped fat ends of sweet new green onions mixed in.

Salt, pepper, a glass of cold, smooth, friendly Vouvray that’s almost too sweet for this meal.

Here’s to solitude.

Goodness, Wednesday dinnertime already?  That was how I felt when I walked into the kitchen tonight, with honestly no idea what to cook.  But I had boiled a batch of chickpeas yesterday, and we had a pound of kale in the fridge.  Beans love greens and greens love beans, but how to make it interesting?

The answer I came up with was to roast the chickpeas in a very hot oven, with lightly smashed whole garlic cloves, olive oil, and some crushed dried Aleppo pepper… and to braise the kale in a bit of water until it was tender… and to make a bit of a ragout that would bridge the two.  The ragout was a quick and dirty one, several onions caramelized with oil, with a handful of oil-packed anchovies, then the leftover half a can of diced tomatoes left over from Monday’s dinner.  Simmered for a while, they made a lovely chunky sauce that went well with both the kale and the chickpeas.

I think I may make it again.  On purpose, next time.

Pazi dolmasi is Turkish stuffed chard.  Normally you’d make it with very large chard leaves, and stuff them with a meat or rice filling much as you would if you were making stuffed grape leaves.  Then they’d be baked, probably with a bit of tomatoey or lemony sauce to keep things moist.

The chard leaves in my garden are not very big yet, so I decided to deconstruct my “stuffed chard leaves” into a quicker, easier dish.  The filling, in this case, I made with some ground bison, because I happened to have some on hand.  You could use lamb, which would be more traditional, or a mix of roasted chopped eggplant and cooked rice, which would also be very nice. The chard is cut into ribbons, and then wilted in a hot cast-iron pan.  Because it’s young chard, the stems are no obstacle, and need only a little cooking.

This is a very approximate recipe

• 1 pound ground bison or lamb
• 2 small or one medium onion(s), diced
• 4-6 cloves garlic, roughly chopped
• approximately 1 tablespoon dried or fresh mint
• approximately 1 tablespoon dried or fresh dill weed
• small amount (a little more than 1/4 teaspoon) ground cardamom, or 2 large dried green cardamom pods, crushed
• small amount (about 1/4 teaspoon) ground allspice, or three dried allspice berries, crushed
• 1/2 teaspoon crushed dried red pepper
• freshly ground black pepper
• 1 cup diced fresh or canned tomato
• approximately 1/2 cup dried currants, tart cherries, chopped dried apricots, or other tart *unsweetened* dried fruit
• olive oil
• salt to taste

Heat a heavy pan until it’s extremely hot and add enough oil to put a light film over the bottom of the pan. Add the onion and saute until it is starting to get caramelized, then add the garlic and saute until fragrant.  Add the meat and break it up with a spoon or spatula. As the meat releases its juices and some fat, add the seasonings except for salt (don’t salt until the end), and continue to cook for 5-7 minutes.  Add the tomato and stir well, then add the dried fruit.  Simmer approximately 10 minutes, perhaps a little more; add a small amount of water if the pan begins to get dry.  Before serving, taste, and salt/pepper to taste.

Serve over a bed of chopped wilted or steamed chard.

This is a lovely savory dinner, easily made.  It can be stretched by combining the filling with an equal amount of cooked rice, if you desire. If you want a garnish, toast a handful of pine nuts in a dry heavy pan, and scatter them over the top.

The filling also makes a fantastic sandwich component, which means you need never worry about what to do with leftovers.  I recommend warm, fresh pita stuffed with a healthy handful of fresh lettuce or spinach, some sliced cucumber, and perhaps some thinly sliced radish, then a helping of this filling.  Drizzle your sandwich with plain yogurt or a mint-garlic yogurt, if you like.

To serve one very hungry person or two less-hungry people (perhaps with the addition of some other dish), prepare the following as mise-en-place:

• about a cup of cold leftover rice, broken up with a fork
• about a cup to a cup and a half of kimchi, very well drained, and cut into reasonably uniform bite-size pieces
• one egg, thoroughly beaten
• one half of an onion, diced
• 1-2 cloves of garlic, thinly sliced
• 1 teaspoon each oyster sauce and sesame oil, combined
• additional egg
• neutral cooking oil

To make the dish, heat a little bit of neutral oil in a wok or a largish frying pan until it is almost smoking.  Cook the scrambled egg and remove it from the pan, then shred it or cut it into strips.  Set aside.

Reheat the pan and add another small bit of oil if it seems to need it.  Add the onion and garlic and stirfry until fragrant and very slightly browned, then add the rice.  Toss well and continue to stir-fry until the rice begins to color in a few places.  Remove the rice/onion/garlic mixture from the pan and set aside.

Add kimchi to the hot pan and stir-fry several minutes until hot.  While it is cooking, heat a small frying pan on another burner over a medium flame, add a little oil, just enough to put a film over the bottom of the pan, and begin frying the additional egg.

Add the rice mixture and scrambled egg shreds to the kimchi, toss, add the oyster sauce and sesame oil, and stir-fry, mixing thoroughly.  When everything is thoroughly combined and hot — this should take only a minute or two — remove it and put it in a serving bowl.

The fried egg should be just about done by now.  If you want it over easy, flip it for a couple seconds, whatever moves you.  Place the egg on top of your fried rice.

Eat and be happy.  This is a fine and easy dinner that is very good if you are feeling somewhat dented and want comforting.