vegetables

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Simple, sturdy: eggplant pasta

September 6, 2010 in main course, recipe, starch, vegetables, whole grains | No comments

There’s something about this meal that is just so honest.

It isn’t flashy. Or even particularly pretty. It is eggplant, slumped and simmered. Simple.

Weeknights beg for meals like this. For things you can set on the stove while you relax and open a bottle of not-too-expensive red wine while you pad around the apartment in bare feet. A meal that relaxes into itself, like a comfy old t-shirt. It isn’t the sort of thing you put on for company, but it is the sort of thing you keep around for when you are tired and don’t want to think about it anymore.

Eggplant isn’t always easy. It can be bitter and seedy and stringy. I get why people don’t like it. It isn’t always my favorite either. But this is a sauce that plays to the strengths of the unassuming aubergine. Chunks of eggplant melt down in the pan absorbing the flavors of garlic and red pepper flakes and thyme. Bits of sun dried tomato punctuate the mellow sauce with intense pops of flavor, and a chiffonade of fresh basil enlivens the gray with dots of bright green.

Tossed with whole wheat linguine, the sauce feels sturdy and nourishing, comfortable and relaxed. Complete unto itself, it doesn’t even need a grating of parmigiano. It holds up well for a few days in the refrigerator, and makes a respectable work lunch to boot.

For the record, I should add that Dan wasn’t crazy about this. He said it wasn’t bad but it wasn’t really his thing either, so perhaps this won’t win over every eggplant skeptic. Oh well, more for me I guess.

Simple Eggplant Linguine

Source: Adapted from Francis Lam on Gourmet.com

The best eggplants tend to be the freshest eggplants, so if you can get them at the farmers market or a store with high turnover you can improve your odds of avoiding bitter ones. I tend to have better luck with smaller eggplants than larger ones. If you do end up with bitter eggplants, you can toss in a little sugar or honey or an extra glug of olive oil to round out the flavor. This dish takes about thirty minutes from start to finish, which makes it a great weeknight meal.

1 pound eggplant cut into half-inch chunks
1/4 cup extra virgin olive oil
3 garlic cloves, peeled and lightly smashed
1/2 teaspoon dried thyme
1/4 teaspoon red pepper flakes
4-6 sun dried tomatoes (not the oil packed variety)
small handful fresh basil
1 cup water
salt
8 ounces whole wheat linguine (any other long pasta is fine)

Soak your sun dried tomatoes in a cup of water for about 10 minutes or until soft and pliable. Drain the tomatoes over a small bowl to reserve the liquid. Dice the tomatoes and set aside. Salt your eggplant and let it sit for about 5 minutes. Meanwhile, put a large saute pan on the stove over medium-low heat and add the olive oil, garlic, thyme and red pepper flakes.

When the garlic is fragrant and starting to show a hint of color, add the eggplant and turn up the heat to medium. After a few minutes, when the eggplant begins to turn translucent, add the reserved water from the sun dried tomatoes. Bring to a boil, then turn the heat down so the water is simmering, and cover, but leave an opening for steam to escape. Let the eggplant cook for about 20 minutes, until soft, stirring occasionally.

Put a big pot of water onto boil for pasta.

When most of the water is absorbed and the eggplant is soft, mash it together with a fork or a wooden spoon until no big chunks remain. Add the sun dried tomates and stir.

Cook and drain your pasta, and add it to the sauce. Chiffonade the basil and add it to the pasta.

Serve immediately.

Yield: About 4 servings.

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Hot, hot, hot: garlic habañero hot sauce

August 28, 2010 in dips spreads and sauces, recipe, vegetables | No comments

The market has been full of beautiful peppers. The usual bell peppers in red, orange, yellow and green, jalapeños, Hungarian wax, Trinidadian perfume, poblanos, and fiery habañeros.

They are bright and inviting, but to be honest, I hardly know what to do with most of them. Oh, I use bell peppers in all sorts of ways, and I throw jalapeños and serranos into salsas and guacamoles, and I use the occasional Thai bird chile in a stir fry (and I’ve even gotten reasonably adept at what to do with the dried varieties, but that’s another story). But there is a vast world of chiles and peppers I’ve never cooked with. I’ve optimistically brought home baskets of them only to find shriveled specimens lying sadly in the bottom of the refrigerator a few weeks later.

But this year I was determined to expand my pepper universe, at least a little.

And when I came across Melissa Clark’s recipe for a hot sauce based on Sriracha, I knew I had to give a go. I returned from the farmers market armed with habañeros and red bell peppers and a bulb of New York white garlic and went to work.

It was surprisingly easy (I don’t know why I imagined it would be difficult…). After about ten minutes of chopping and ten minutes of cooking (and several days of resting) I had two lovely little jars of fiery orange-red sauce.

This stuff packs a wallop. It is, to my tastebuds at least, significantly hotter than Sriracha. But it is also brighter and more complex.

Next time, I might leave out the habañero seeds for something a little tamer. But heat fiends will love it as is. And since it keeps for a long long time in the refrigerator, I can enjoy it in small quantities without worrying that it will go to waste.



Garlic Habañero Hot Sauce

Source: adapted from Melissa Clark in The New York Times

It is a good idea to use a pair of latex gloves when handling peppers this hot, and avoid inhaling the fumes when the peppers are cooking. This hot sauce is spicier than the Sriracha that inspired it, so use start small when adding it to a dish–you can always add more later. Those looking for a slightly tamer hot sauce should remove the seeds and white parts of the habañeros before adding them to the sauce pan.

4 habañeros
2 medium red bell peppers
5 cloves of garlic
3/4 cup white vinegar
1 teaspoon kosher or sea salt

special equipment: latex gloves

Roughly chop the bell peppers and garlic. Wearing latex gloves, chop the habañeros. Remove the seeds for a moderately hot sauce, leave them in if you like things extra hot.

In a medium nonreactive sauce pan with a lid, add the peppers, garlic, and white vinegar. Bring to a boil (take care not to inhale the fumes), turn heat down to low, cover, and simmer for about 10 minutes or until peppers are pierced easily with a knife.

Remove from heat, stir in salt, and puree with an immersion blender (or in a standard blender). Pour into two 8-ounce jars or one 16-ounce jar. Allow to cool before covering. Chill in the refrigerator for a week before using.

Keeps for months in the refrigerator.
Yield: about 2 cups.

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the end of the tomatoes, with bread

October 1, 2007 in main course, recipe, salad, starch, vegetables | No comments

panzanella_blossomtostem

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.)

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beets and blues

September 4, 2007 in main course, recipe, salad, vegetables | 1 comment

beets and gorgonzola salad and baked polenta_blossomtostem

I don’t do well in the heat. On days when the mercury pushes 90 degrees F I wilt. I can go for weeks without cooking anything substantial. I drink big glasses of lemonade mixed with iced tea. I stick my head in the freezer in search of some refreshing sorbet. I sip on gins and tonics with generous slices of lime. I survive on simple sandwiches, on tortillas smeared with pinto bean dip sprinkled with cheese and warmed in the toaster oven, on bags of prewashed sugar snap peas and baby carrots. If I’m feeling fancy, I might snag a nice hunk of multi grain baguette topped with a slice of tomato with a drizzle of good olive oil and a pinch of sea salt, but I’m usually too heat addled to even think of something that sophisticated.

It is nice then, to find a few days of reprieve, when turning on the oven doesn’t sound like punishment and when I can roast some beets and bake some polenta and sit down to a dinner that feels worth eating at the table, slowly, with pleasure.

It is only in the last few years that I have learned to appreciate beets. They have such a pleasing density, such an unusual intensity of hue. I find that their earthy sweetness plays well with bright citrus flavors as well as with pungent and creamy cheeses like the gorgonzola in this salad.

It takes just enough time and effort to make it feel like you went to some trouble, but not enough to overwhelm you. Just enough to convince you that it might be time to make friends with the kitchen again.

Roasted Beet and Gorgonzola Salad

With its deep red beets and striated blue cheese set against a bed of greens, this salad is a stunner. It can withstand all sorts of modifications. Use any greens you like or have on hand. I used a mix of baby greens, but spinach or escarole or arugula or a crisp leaf lettuce would be fine. If caramelizing the onions and mushrooms feels like too much, leave them out or toss on some green onion or some fresh herbs at the end instead.

1 bunch beets (about 4 medium)
1/4 cup gorgonzola cheese, crumbled
1/2 small onion, sliced
a small handful of mushrooms, sliced
3 tablespoons pine nuts, toasted
a big handful of greens, washed
balsamic vinegar
good extra virgin olive oil
sea salt
black pepper

Preheat oven to 375 degrees F. Wash the beets and trim off the stem and root ends. Rub the beets with olive oil, wrap in aluminum foil, and roast until they give a little when squeezed or prodded with a fork, about 45 minutes.

Meanwhile, in a heavy bottomed skillet over medium-low heat, saute onions and mushrooms in a little olive oil until the onions are caramelized and the mushrooms are deep brown, about 20 minutes. You don’t have to stand over these, just check on them every five minutes or so to make sure they aren’t burning and to give them a little stir. Set aside.

When the beets are done roasting, rinse them under cool water and slip off the skins. If the skins are stubborn, remove them with a peeler or a paring knife, but be careful–those beets are still really warm inside. Cut the beets into thick slices.

Pile the greens on a plate and drizzle with olive oil and balsamic vinegar (toss with your hands to give the leaves a light all-over coating). Add the caramelized onions and mushrooms and slice beets. Sprinkle with pine nuts and gorgonzola. Add another drizzle of olive oil and vinegar and a pinch of sea salt. Eat.

Yields two light main course servings or four side servings.

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in bloom

July 3, 2007 in recipe, vegetables | No comments

garlic_scapes_blossomtostem

If I ever doubted that garlic is a member of the lily family, I am a skeptic no longer.

The bulbs tend to garner the bulk of the attention when we think about the stinking rose, but these lovely “garlic flowers”–as the sign at the farmers market identified them–caught my eye with their crooked necks and curling tendrils and delicate white seed pods.

More commonly known as garlic scapes, these twisty garlic tops are only available for a short time, usually in late June around here. Farmers tend to remove them to improve bulb development, and the stems are often discarded, which is a travesty because they taste so good.

Scapes are easy for any garlic fan to fall for. Their flavor is pleasantly reminiscent of the familiar bulb, but it is simultaneously brighter and more delicate. They are lively and tender and incredibly green. They have plenty of snap without garlic’s characteristic bite.

After the white pods have been removed, the stems can be sliced and sautéd or or steamed and added to stir fries or salsas or sprinkled on salads.

Or at least they can in theory. I wouldn’t really know, and I’m unlikely to find out because I see no point in using them for anything but this pesto.

This is a fantastic way to dress up plain ol’ pasta. It would be lovely on pizza or bruschetta, and it also makes vibrant dressing for a bowl of greens. I thought it was lovely over a simple bowl of penne with sautéd mushrooms and asparagus.

This comes together in maybe five minutes, if you need to take two minutes to dig out the food processor and another two to grate some parmesan cheese.

Garlic Scape Pesto

Just about every source I’ve encountered that mentions garlic scapes offers a variation of this pesto. Scapes can vary in pungency and astringency (as does personal tolerance for those qualities). More delicate scapes might balance well with less cheese, and might even benefit from the addition of a little lemon juice. Older scapes might fare better when matched with a little more cheese and might benefit from the addition of almonds, walnuts, or pine nuts. This is a good starting off point. Feel free to improvise.

1 cup (about 8 or 9) garlic scapes, white pods removed
1/2 cup grate parmesan cheese
1/3 cup extra virgin olive oil
1/2 tsp. salt

Put everything into the bowl of a food processor and blend until it forms a bright green paste.

Taste and adjust seasonings if necessary. Store in an airtight container in the refrigerator for up to a week, or freeze for several months.

Yields about 5 ounces of pesto

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