Blossom to Stem

Dan raised a quizzical eyebrow when he heard me say “barley salad.”

It’s tough to make barley sound sexy. It tends to sneak into our diets unnoticed, flavoring our beers and bagels and scotch whiskies and malted milk balls, lingering in the background but seldom taking center stage.

Basho, the seventeenth century Japanese master of haiku, mentioned the grain in one of his more famous poems:

Girl cat, so
thin on love
and barley.

Basho had a knack for locating images imbued with sabi, a quality referring to something aged, solitary, tranquil with the beauty of a “rustic patina.”¹ Barley has that rustic patina in spades.

There is something so satisfying about this. Hulled barley’s earthy flavor and pleasantly chewy texture pair well with rich caramelized cauliflower and garlicky, juicy roasted mushrooms. Shaved fennel adds crunch and a smattering of watercress mixes a lively green with the whites, beiges, and browns.

Hearty but not heavy, this is a salad for late winter. It’s a bowl and fork kind of meal. It’s good warm, but works equally well cold. It travels well and keeps well, making it an excellent brown-bag lunch, if it sticks around that long. (And, as it turns out, Dan likes it.)

Lemony Barley Salad with Caramelized Cauliflower, Roasted Mushrooms, and Shaved Fennel

This salad requires about an hour and a half of lead time, but the time-consuming parts can be done in advance. Hulled barley takes an hour to cook and can be prepared a day ahead of time (pearl barley, a more refined, quicker-cooking version can be substituted; it will provide a milder flavor and softer texture). I baked the barley, using a method of Alton Brown’s. It can also be boiled, which would free up the oven for roasting the vegetables. You could easily substitute another green for the watercress–arugula and spinach come to mind.

2 1/2 cups cooked hulled barley (baked, or boiled) and cooled to room temperature
1/2 head cauliflower, sliced about 1/4 inch thick and separated, roughly, into florets
4 ounces button mushrooms, quartered
1/2 medium yellow onion, quartered (the half should be quartered, making the slices eighths, I suppose)
1/2 medium fennel bulb, trimmed and sliced very thin
a few sprigs of watercress, washed and trimmed
1 clove garlic, minced
1/4 cup freshly grated parmesan cheese
1 lemon
1/4 cup olive oil
salt, pepper

Preheat oven to 400°F.

In a large bowl, toss cauliflower and mushrooms and onion slices with about a tablespoon of olive oil. Spread on a sheet pan and season with salt and pepper. Sprinkle minced garlic over the mushrooms, turning to get some on all sides. Roast, turning everything over after 15 minutes, until cauliflower and onions are caramelized and mushrooms are a deep brown, about 25-30 minutes.

Toss barley, cauliflower, mushrooms, onions, and fennel with 3 tablespoons of olive oil and the juice of one lemon. Garnish with watercress, salt and pepper, and grated parmesan.

Yields 4 main-course servings.

1. Parkes, Graham, “Japanese Aesthetics”, The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Spring 2006 Edition), Edward N. Zalta (ed.), http://plato.stanford.edu/archives/spr2006/entries/japanese-aesthetics. [back]

When I mentioned to a few people that I was planning to make Armenian tahini bread, the most common response was, “Where exactly is Armenia?”

This landlocked country in Transcaucasia, bound by Georgia to the north, Azerbaijan to the east, and Iran and Turkey to to the south and west, has had a rough go of it. Outsiders repeatedly mistake and confuse its identity when they remember it at all (Clarissa Dalloway’s muddled refrain regarding “the Albanians, or was it the Armenians?” whose genocide her husband was so concerned about comes to mind). Even the term Armenian was likely a result of a mix-up by the Greeks or the Iranians who mistook them for Aramaeans; Armenians called themselves Hayk. (They are still being misrepresented in popular media, Borat’s “Kazakh”-speaking friend was actually speaking Armenian.)

Still, I’ve found something that will help to fix Armenia in my memory at least. This tahini bread is a traditional food for the Christian season of Lent, which is usually a time for fasting and general self-deprivation, but this is an unusual treat. It dispenses with butter, eggs, and cream in favor of a dough enriched with a bit of olive oil and marbled with sugary, cinnamon-scented sesame paste. When I saw the recipe in the January/February issue of Saveur, I couldn’t get it out of my head.

Saveur describes these as “a croissant mated with halvah.” I approached them thinking cinnamon rolls, but came away thinking of them as a danish’s much heartier, nuttier cousin. They look deceptively bready–but unlike most breads, they crumble. And ooze tahini.

A slice of one of these makes a satisfying breakfast or a good afternoon companion for tea. It can also pass for dessert.

Armenian Tahini Bread

Source: Adapted from the Jan./Feb. 2007 issue of Saveur magazine. Original recipe can be found here.

Shaping these can be tricky. Don’t be alarmed if some of the tahini-sugar mixture oozes out or the dough develops a little hole. Just patch everything up as well as you can and keep going. Their homey, rustic presentation is part of their charm. I used a blend of all-purpose and white whole wheat flour. I thought the mild whole wheat flavor complemented the sesame well. If you want to use regular whole wheat, I’d adjust it to 1 cup and increase the ap flour to 1 1/2 cups to prevent it from getting too heavy. All ap also would also work, if that’s what you have on hand.

1 1/8 teaspoons instant yeast
1 cup sugar
1 1/4 cups all-purpose flour
1 1/4 cups white whole wheat flour
1 1/2 teaspoons ground cinnamon
1 teaspoon salt
1 tablespoon extra-virgin olive oil
1 cups tahini
3/4 cup water, lukewarm

In the bowl of a stand mixer, stir together the flour, yeast, salt, and 1 teaspoon of cinnamon. Add water and olive oil. Mix with the paddle attachment on low speed until it comes together to form a shaggy dough, about 2 minutes. Switch to the dough hook and mix on medium speed for about 6 minutes or until the dough is smooth and elastic. It should clear the sides of the bowl.

Place the dough into a lightly oiled bowl (it can be the same bowl it was mixed in), and turn the dough once to coat with oil. Cover the bowl loosely with plastic wrap and let rise in a warm place until doubled, about 2 hours.

Preheat the oven to 350° F. Turn dough out onto a lightly floured surface and divide into two pieces. Cover with plastic wrap and let rest for about 10-15 minutes. Line two baking sheets with parchment paper and set aside.

Roll out one piece of dough into a long rectangle, about 12-14 inches long and 4-5 inches wide. Spread 1/2 cup tahini over the dough, leaving about 1/4 inch border on all sides. Sprinkle 1/2 cup sugar and 1/4 teaspoon cinnamon over the tahini.

Starting with one of the long sides, roll the dough over itself into a long cylinder. Pinch the dough together along the seam and on the ends to form a seal. Using a bench scraper or serrated knife, cut the cylinder into three equal pieces. Pinch the newly cut ends together to seal in the tahini mixture.

This is where things get messy. Take one piece and roll and stretch it until it is about 7-8 inches long. Starting with the narrow end, carefully roll the dough cylinder into a spiral and, again, pinch the ends together to form a seal. Flatten the dough with your hand and, with a rolling pin, roll it out into a circle that is 7 inches in diameter. Repeat with the other pieces. Transfer to a prepared baking sheet, leaving at least an inch between each dough circle, and bake for 20-25 minutes or until the tops are light brown.

While the first sheet is in the oven, roll out the other piece of dough and repeat the filling and shaping process. Bake as directed above.

Cool on racks. Slice each round into four pieces before serving.

Yields 6 large rounds, for 24 servings. Best consumed within about 2 days. (Can be frozen and revived in the oven for longer keeping.)

I’ve never really found my salad groove. I like salads well enough. I have the best of intentions. I dutifully buy greens, but I seldom have a clear plan of how I’ll use them. They tend to sit in the bottom of the vegetable drawer in the refrigerator waiting for me to find some inspiration, which tends not to arrive until the greens are well past their crisp prime and have become a limp and all-too-slimy shadow of their former selves.

But that’s all going to change. I resolved to get better at salads this year, and one of my early coups involves that peppery green sitting clomplacently at the the tail end of the alphabet, the watercress.

This is a green for the ages. “Eat cress and gain wit,” an ancient Greek proverb counsels. Watercress doesn’t require a fancy treatment. It’s lovely with just a squeeze of lemon juice, a drizzle of olive oil, and a sprinkling of sea salt and freshly cracked black pepper.

It’s also quite pleasant, and quite pretty, when studded with radishes for crunch and color and avocado for a creamy contrast. It made a nice light dinner, but it would certainly do well as first course or an accompaniment, if that’s how you prefer to salad.

Watercress, Radish, and Avocado Salad

The contrast of textures and flavors makes this salad sing, but it could work well with any number of additions or substitutions. Pink grapefruit, cilantro, mint, basil or a tangy crumbly cheese would all be welcome on this plate.

1 big handfull of watercress, rinsed with thicker stems removed (note: the thinner stems are perfectly edible)
2 radishes, thinly sliced
1/2 ripe avocado, sliced into strips about 1/4 inch thick
2 teaspoons extra-virgin olive oil
1 teaspoon freshly squeeze lemon juice
1/8 teaspon sea salt, such as Maldon, or fleur de sel
freshly ground pepper

Arrange watercress on a plate, dot with radishes and avocado, drizzle with lemon juice and olive oil, sprinkle with sea salt and pepper. Eat.

Serves one as a light dinner or two as an appetizer or side

February 14th is a doubly momentous date on my calendar. Not only is it that best-loathed love holiday but also the infinitely less-odious day of my birth.

I’ve never been much for Valentine’s Day, but I am very amenable to birthday treats.

Not just any sort of treat though. Context demands that it to be something not-too-cloyingly sweet. Something with quiet bite.

These nibby bittersweet meringues with sea salt, adapted from a recipe I’d long been eyeing in Alice Medrich’s fantastic book Bittersweet, hit the mark. Deep, dark, and delicate, these ethereally light cookies shatter under the tooth and dissolve, giving way to a powerful and pure dose of chocolate and the subtle crunch of cacao nibs. The healthy sprinkle of salt intensifies the chocolate flavor here. These unassuming little cookies pack a wallop.

They were just the thing to share with colleagues to celebrate my 27th. It was good I snuck a few before I took them into the office–when at the end of the day I went to retrieve the container, it held nary a crumb.

Nibby Bittersweet Meringues with Sea Salt

Source: adapted from Alice Medrich’s Bittersweet.

Since there are so few ingredients to compete here, these cookies really benefit from high quality chocolate (I used Callebaut for the chocolate, and Scharffen Berger cacao nibs).

6 ounces bittersweet chocolate, chopped
2 egg whites (about 1/4 cup) at room temperature
1/8 teaspoon cream of tartar
1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
1/4 cup sugar
1/3 cup roasted cacao nibs, chopped
1/4 teaspoon sea salt (such as Maldon) or fleur de sel

Preheat oven to 350° F.

Line two cookie sheets with parchment paper.

Melt the chocolate in the microwave (at half-power, in a glass bowl, stirring at one minute intervals) or over a pan of gently simmering water on the stove top (in a metal bowl, stirring often). Set aside.

In a separate bowl, add the egg whites, cream of tartar, sea salt, and vanilla extract and whip until the eggs are foamy and soft peaks form. Add the sugar and whip until the peaks are stiff. Fold in the chocolate and cacao nibs.

Immediately spoon batter, by rounded teaspoons or half-filled tablespoons, onto cookie sheets.

Bake for 8-10 minutes, until tops look dry and slightly crackled. Rotating the cookie sheet around the 4 minute mark will help to ensure even baking.

Yields about 30 cookies

As an aside: it turned out to be a double day for Medrich’s Bittersweet for me. Dan made me the Tiger Cake, a lovely marble cake made with olive oil and white pepper. Another not-too-sweet but entirely delectable dessert from this great cookbook.

One of my earliest kitchen memories is the smell of the warm, oaty, honeyed clumps of granola that my mother allowed my to stir–carefully, with a wooden spoon–as I stood on a chair to reach the golden mixture on a high rack in the upper part of her double oven. Though I no longer use her recipe, some twenty-odd years later I still find comfort in the sweet, nutty scent that wafts through my apartment when I make this.

I’ve experimented with different flavor combinations and tweaked granola recipes numerous times over the last couple of years. Cardamom, tart cherry concentrate, golden syrup, dried coconut, freeze-dried strawberries have all made appearances in different versions, but the one I never tire of is simple and hearty, sweetened with maple syrup, flavored with vanilla extract and a hint of decadent coconut oil, and hit with just enough of a salty edge to wake up sleepy tastebuds.

A bowl of this, topped with skim milk alongside a cup of coffee keeps me going until lunch. I have yet to discover a more satisfying weekday breakfast.

Maple-Vanilla Nut Granola

Granola recipes are by nature infinitely malleable. Just about everything here apart from the oats and some liquid sweetening agent to glue everything together is optional. The nuts I use vary depending on what I have on hand, but the ratio of nuts and seeds to oats and liquid stays roughly the same. I always use grade B maple syrup here for its rich and distinct maple flavor. You may omit the coconut oil if you wish to avoid adding more saturated fat or simply don’t want to make a trip to the store for a specialty ingredient; it will still taste good (just not quite as good).

10 cups rolled oats
1 1/3 cups sliced almonds
2/3 cup walnut pieces
2/3 cup chopped cashews
1 cup sunflower seeds
1/4 cup whole wheat pastry flour
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 1/4 cups maple syrup
3 tablespoons canola oil
1 tablespoon coconut oil
1 tablespoon vanilla

Preheat oven to 250° F.

In a large bowl, mix the oats, nuts and salt. In a separate, microwave-safe bowl or glass measuring cup add maple syrup, canola oil, coconut oil, and vanilla extract. Microwave the wet ingredients on high for 30 seconds, or until warm through (the coconut oil should be almost liquid) and whisk together until well blended. Pour the wet ingredients over the dry ingredients and mix well, until all dry ingredients are moistened.

Divide into two rimmed 9×13 pans and spread into an even layer.

Bake for 1 hour and 15 minutes, stirring after 30 minutes and every 15 minutes thereafter. The granola should be golden and just slightly moist; it will dry and take on its characteristic crunch as it cools. Remove from the oven to a cooling rack or heat resistant surface and let cool in the pan, uncovered. Store in an airtight container.

Yields about 14 cups, or about 28 half-cup servings.