Blossom to Stem

We’ve had a bit of a cold snap around these parts. A little autumnal chill that hints at the jacket weather to come. The kind of weather that begs for closing up windows and putting on warm socks.

Of course, yesterday it was too warm for long sleeves, and even though there was apple pie and roasted squash, it was clear that fall has only been teasing us and has yet to be reliably here.

In the midst of this fitful seasonal hot and cold, there are still odds and ends of summer to use up. And this is something you need to know how to make if you have a few odd tomatoes lying around waiting to be put to good use.

It’s so easy it’s hardly even a recipe. It was invented by those thrifty Tuscans who were always looking for ways to use up old bread (their saltless pane Toscano seems to have left them with an overabundant supply of the stuff).

Panzanella is the sort of dish everyone should have in their back pockets, ready to pull out and assemble in hungry moments. It sounds too simple to be so incredibly delicious. But it isn’t. Really.

It’s another take on the familiar combination of tomatoes and starch so popular in spaghetti and pizza and bruschetta, and it can hold its own against any of them. When I made it for the first time about a year ago, I couldn’t believe I hadn’t been eating it forever. Just crusty bread, tomatoes, olive oil, balsamic vinegar, and basil. And some good salt and a few cracks of black pepper. And you have a dinner to devour. Really.

Panzanella, or Tuscan Tomato Bread Salad

This is a dish with so many variations. Some versions add slices of cucumbers or onions or olives, some use red wine vinegar instead of the balsamic I use here. The traditional method seems to be to soak pieces of day-old bread in water, but I prefer the depth of flavor and complex texture that toasted bread brings to the dish, especially since I usually make this with fresh bread that needs to be a little dried out to soak up the oil and vinegar and tomato juices. If I’m feeling decadent, I sometimes add some fresh mozzarella. Feel free to experiment, but do use a good artisan loaf of bread and the best tomatoes you can find. I’ve given rough amounts here for one person for a main dish, multiply as you see fit.

1 medium tomato per person, sliced into bite-sized pieces
2-3 thick slices of crusty bread, cut into rough 1-2 inch cubes
1 clove of garlic, peeled and smashed with the flat side of a knife
1 teaspoon balsamic vinegar
3 teaspoons good quality extra virgin olive oil (plus an optional smidge of any old olive oil)
a few big leaves of fresh basil
kosher or sea salt
freshly cracked black pepper

In a heavy-bottomed skillet over medium heat add a smidgen of olive oil (optional) and add the garlic clove and the bread cubes and toast until the bread gets golden on a few sides. Stir and toss the bread cubes and garlic occasionally and watch to be careful that they don’t burn. This should only take a few minutes. Add the bread and garlic to a medium bowl. Add the tomatoes and the olive oil and balsamic vinegar. Tear up the basil and add it to the bowl. Add a pinch of salt and a few good cracks of black pepper. Give everything a stir and let it sit for about 10-15 minutes. Give it a stir again. (You can pull out the garlic clove if you like. Its flavor should have rubbed off on everything.) And eat–either straight from the bowl or on a plate if you can wait that long.

Yields one main course serving. (Easily multiplied.)

When I first saw this recipe, I was intrigued by its primary ingredient. Chickpea flour sounded so much more exotic than plain old chickpeas, which manage to make their way to my table in various forms on a regular basis. I couldn’t imagine how the knobby little garbanzos I know so well would behave as flour.

It turns out they behave quite well. Ground to a fine powder, chickpeas retain their characteristic flavor and pale beige hue, a few shades deeper and warmer than all-purpose flour but not as bright as yellow corn meal or as dark as whole wheat. Chickpea flour is fine and soft, not at all gritty or tough. It is a common ingredient in Indian kitchens, where it often goes under the name of besan or gram flour. In Sicily, it is used in the popular street food panelle, or chickpea fritters. In Italian markets in the U.S. it is often sold as ceci flour. It is also one of the main ingredients in socca, a popular snack in the south of France.

In these curried chickpea pancakes, chickpea flour makes for a satisfying main course. This recipe comes from Peter Berley’s Fresh Food Fast, a cookbook that gets plenty of use in my kitchen. These have more heft than any other pancake I’ve eaten. The eggs and baking powder give them plenty of lift, while the chickpea flour gives them a filling density. My turmeric-heavy curry powder turns them a lovely yellow-orange, but other curry powder blends would likely give them a redder cast, which would be lovely too. The green onions and cilantro fleck subtle bursts of green throughout. Every time I make them, I am reminded of how solidly good these are, and I resolve to make them more often, though for some reason they seem to have a tendency to get lost for a few months before I can remember to bring them out again.

But really, I am going to make them again soon.

Curried Chickpea Pancakes

Source: adapted from Peter Berley’s Fresh Food Fast.

The chickpea flour is the only tricky-to-find ingredient here, but it is, of course, essential. I found it under the name garbanzo flour at a local natural foods store. It is also available through various online sources. The tahini sauce here is a nice touch, but, as Berley says, they are also good with a garlic-cilantro yogurt sauce, and I think they’re even quite tasty unadorned. If you don’t like cilantro, you could substitute flat leaf parsley or a combination of parsley and mint.

Chickpea Pancakes:

2 cups chickpea flour
1 cup all-purpose flour
2 teaspoons baking powder
2 tablespoons curry powder
2 teaspoons kosher salt
1 cup plain yogurt (I use fat free)
4 eggs
1 tablespoon canola oil (or other neutral oil)
6 green onions, both white and green parts, thinly sliced
1 cup chopped cilantro
freshly ground black pepper

Tahini Sauce:

1/2 cup tahini, well stirred
1/2 cup water
2-3 tablespoons lemon juice (approx. the juice of one lemon)
1 clove minced garlic
1/4 teaspoon kosher salt
a pinch of cayenne pepper

First, make the tahini sauce. In a small bowl, combine tahini, water, garlic, lemon juice, salt, and cayenne and stir well. Set aside. (Can be made ahead, covered and refrigerated for about a week.)

Then, make the pancake batter. In a large mixing bowl, combine chickpea flour, all-purpose flour, baking powder, curry powder, and salt. In another bowl, mix the wet ingredients–yogurt, eggs, and oil–until well combined. Add the wet mixture to the dry and stir until well-mixed–a few lumps are okay. Stir in the green onions and cilantro and black pepper.

In a large skillet or griddle, add a thin layer of canola oil over and heat over medium. With a ladle or a measuring cup, add about a half-cup of batter to the pan and cook until bubbles start to form in the middle, about 2-3 minutes. Flip over and cook for another few minutes until the pancake is cooked through and both sides are golden. You can transfer the cooked pancakes to plate and tent it with foil or keep them warm in a 200°F oven until all of the pancakes are done and you are ready to serve them.

You can drizzle with tahini sauce, or leave it on the side for each person to add to taste.

Yields 4 main course servings.

Sometime early in our relationship, when we had been dating for perhaps several months, Dan and I started making scones. It was an almost weekly occurrence, a satisfying project that could be completed in under an hour, proof that we had done something productive in the course of an otherwise relentlessly lazy weekend.

I no longer remember how we settled into scones. I imagine it had something to do with their sturdy, homey appeal, which makes them so comforting to nibble on combined with their faint air of Britishness¹, which lends them a certain cosmopolitan stature and makes them seem somehow less pedestrian than a muffin. Or maybe it was just their undeniable deliciousness.

We tried different recipes, added blueberries or raspberries or cinnamon chips, played with amounts of butter and fat content of milk and ratios of whole wheat pastry to all purpose flour. We ate our share of scones. My sister and our roommate even joked that Dan and I should open a bakery selling scones (and pizza, our other staple at the time).

After a while, for no particular reason, we drifted out of making them. We branched out into other baked goods and found ourselves with busier weekends when we sometimes baked nothing at all.

But we recently revisited the habit with a new recipe and were reminded why scones were so easy to fall for in the first place. This recipe is another one from Alice Medrich’s Bittersweet. Made with cream and no butter, these scones are rich, yet light, and crumble when bitten into. The dough is noticeably less sticky than other scone doughs I’ve worked with, and it comes together easily. Out of the oven, these scones are golden on the edges but otherwise a delicate pale speckled with dark bits of chocolate. I think they’re even better on the second day, when their lightness gives way to a pleasing density. I think I could get used to having scones around again.

Cream Scones with Bittersweet Chocolate Chunks

Source: slightly adapted from Alice Medrich’s Bittersweet

These scones are quite delicate and not too sweet. Any type of chocolate works here, and chocolate chips would be fine, but I prefer the texture of uneven bits of melting bittersweet. These are probably too delicate to stand up to any fresh or frozen fruit, but I have a hunch that dried fruits, such as currants, tart cherries, or apricot pieces would be lovely in lieu of chocolate. Cinnamon chips or other flavored chips could also work, if you aren’t in the mood for chocolate. With more than a cup of cream, they are not exactly health food, but they’re worth the splurge for a treat. A coarse sugar, such as turbinado or demerara will be prettier on the tops, but any mildly flavored sugar, including plain refined white table sugar, will do. You can replace a half cup of the all-purpose flour with whole wheat pastry flour, white whole wheat flour or regular whole wheat flour for a slightly heartier, but still tender and light, scone.

2 cups all-purpose flour
1/4 cup sugar
2 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 1/4 cups heavy cream
4 ounces bittersweet chocolate, chopped into small chunks
about 1 tablespoon milk or cream for brushing tops
about 1/2 tablespoon sugar, preferably turbinado, demerara, or coarse raw sugar for sprinkling tops (optional)

Preheat oven to 425°F, and line a baking sheet with parchment paper.

In a large bowl, mix flour, sugar, baking powder and salt until well combined. Stir in chocolate chunks. Add the cream and mix until the dry ingredients are moistened. The dough will seem a little dry, but should hold together when pinched. With your hand, knead the dough in the bowl, gently, until it all comes together in a smooth ball.

Turn the dough out onto a clean counter (or silpat or sheet of parchment paper) and pat into a circle about 8 or 9 inches in diameter and about 3/4 of an inch thick. With a butter knife or bench scraper, cut the dough into 8 wedges. Place the wedges onto the prepared baking sheet. Brush the tops with milk or cream and sprinkle with turbinado (or other) sugar, if using.

Bake for 12-15 minutes, or until the edges and tops have turned golden. Cool on racks.

Yields 8 scones.

1. Even if a scone in Britain is something closer what Americans call a biscuit. [back]

Lifeless in appearance, sluggish
dazed spring approaches–
William Carlos Williams, “Spring and All”

Spring comes to Chicago in fits and starts. We swing from freezing temperatures to upward of 70-degrees and back again, sometimes within the same day. The sun teases us into thinking we barely need jackets, but the wind off the lake reminds us that we should have brought gloves and heavy sweaters, and the ominous clouds urge us to carry umbrellas.

T.S. Eliot famously called April the cruellest month for wantonly stealing away winter’s comforting covers, and there have been years when I’ve been inclined to agree with his assessment. But this year, on the cusp of April, I find my thinking aligned with another poet, Kenneth Koch, wondering impatiently “When will there be a perfectly ordinary spring day?”

Maybe tomorrow, then again, in this city, maybe not until May, or June, or sometime next year…

This is a dish for a fitful early spring day. Asparagus might be the season’s quintessential vegetable. A good bunch can go a long way toward appeasing my impatience for the other parts of spring. Spaetzle, in contrast, are little bits of starchy comfort. These too often overlooked German dumplings consist only of flour, eggs, and water, and are easy to make. Swathed in a beurre blanc sauce, asparagus and spaetzle welcome the green and ward off the chill of a day that straddles spring and winter. This is simple and delicate and makes a lovely dinner with a basic green salad and a glass of wine.

Asparagus and spaetzle with beurre blanc sauce
Source: Adapted from Deborah Madison’s recipe for Asparagus Ragout in Vegetarian Suppers and Judy Rodgers’s recipe for Martha’s spaetzle in The Zuni Cafe Cookbook.

This is an unconventional riff on a beurre blanc sauce. I’ve exchanged red onions for shallots and reduced the butter in the traditional version. The red onions have a stronger flavor than shallots and add bright pink flecks to the sauce, making the effect rather less subtle than the original. You could certainly use shallots here if you prefer. I’ve jumped the gun a bit with asparagus from California. The local stuff doesn’t seem to be available around me yet, but I couldn’t resist and was rewarded with a bunch that tasted like it should. Out of season asparagus tends to taste flat and have a tough, woody texture, which makes it altogether disappointing. Look for bright green stalks with tightly closed tops for better flavor. The width of the stalks is unimportant to the flavor, but roasting times should be adjusted by a few minutes for particularly thick or thin specimens

For the beurre blanc

2 tablespoons champagne vinegar or white wine vinegar
3 tablespoons dry vermouth or dry white wine
1 tablespoon red onion, minced finely
3 tablespoons cold butter, cut into small pieces

For the spaetzle

2/3 cup all purpose flour
1/3 cup white whole wheat flour
2 eggs
6 tablespoons water
special equipment: Colander with 1/4 inch holes (or a spaetzle maker)

For the rest

about 3/4 pound asparagus, tough ends removed
small handful of button mushrooms, thinly sliced (optional)
olive oil
salt
pepper

Preheat oven to 400°F. Cut asparagus into about 1-inch pieces, toss with a little bit of olive oil and place in a single layer on a baking sheet. Roast for about 10-15 minutes, or until tender.

Meanwhile, make the beurre blanc sauce. In a medium sauce pan, add vinegar, vermouth or wine, and red onion. Bring to a boil, reduced heat to medium-low and simmer until reduced to about 1 tablespoon. Remove from heat and whisk in butter, one piece at a time, until all the butter is added and the sauce is smooth and butter-colored. Set aside. (Check the asparagus, remove from oven and set aside.)

Make the spaetzle. Combine flour, eggs, and water in a medium bowl, and blend with a fork until well combined. In a wide saute pan or stock pot, bring water to a boil, and salt generously. Have a slotted spoon and a plate ready. Over the boiling water, place about a third of the batter into a colander and, with a flexible spatula, press the batter through the holes into the water. Be careful to avoid overcrowding the pot–there should be a little bit of room at the surface for the dumplings to move around. The spaetzle should float in about thirty seconds. (If they stick to the bottom of the pot, loosen them gently with a slotted spoon.) After they float, allow them to cook for about 1 minute. Drain them with a slotted spoon and place them in a single layer on a plate. Repeat with the rest of the batter.

In a saute pan over medium heat, add a thin coating of olive oil or butter, add mushrooms if using and spaetzle and saute until spaetzle are slightly browned and crisp. (You could omit this step, if not using mushrooms, and simply toss asparagus and spaetzle with the sauce.) Remove from heat, add asparagus and beurre blanc and stir. Season with salt and pepper.

Yields 2 servings