Homework

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.

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.

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.

For those of you who are still unconvinced that delicious, home-cooked dinners with local ingredients are out of your reach due to time constraints, let me just tell you that our dinner tonight took me a grand total of 15 minutes start to finish to prepare.  And that includes the time it took to go out to the garden and pick the baby chard.

A classic in the “greens with proteiny things on top” genre is the bowl of greens topped with fried egg.  Egg yolk, with a little salt and pepper, is one of the best salad dressings you can eat.  (Coddled egg, in fact, is the heart of every proper Caesar salad dressing.)  I prefer my eggs over easy.  There are several nearby egg farmers whose eggs I use, these eggs came from Broom’s Bloom Dairy in Bel Air, Maryland, 30 miles door-to-door from my house.  They also sell at my two local farmer’s markets, which is where I buy their eggs.  The baby chard, as I say, came from my kitchen garden.

Just so’s you know, you can top virtually any green vegetable with fried egg and it will be delicious.  Steamed or sauteed kale, raw or stir-fried spinach, steamed or roasted asparagus, raw or wilted chicory or endive, lettuces of whatever kind you like best, lightly-cooked broccoli, pea shoots, sorrel, beet greens, arugula, or my secret love, radish greens… greens love eggs and vice versa and you will love them together.

We also ate these beautiful maple-ginger bison sausages from the wonderful Nathan Stambaugh at Gunpowder Bison.  Gunpowder Bison is 25 miles north of me and their products are truly top-notch.

Delicious.  And so simple and quick.

I wanted protein, and I got it.

Smoked tofu, crisped up by stir-frying it in smoking hot oil, then stir-fried with broccoli and seasoned with black bean-chili sauce.  We ate every scrap.

One of our standbys, eggs with chives.  I had a bunch of leftover egg whites to use up, so I made this with mostly whites plus one whole egg.  I added some oyster sauce to the beaten eggs.  The two ingredients have a remarkable affinity.