The Hungry Tiger

Fennel

I get infatuated with this; we go on a kick of that; suddenly four meals out of every five feature this thing or the other, where the month before it never crossed my mind at all. So we live in a succession of food eras, each characterized by a couple of distinctive flavors that run through everything, until they disappear from the market or we get distracted again. 

 

We are currently in a Fennel Period and a Grilled Lettuce Period. Grilled romaine is so two years ago, but it really is a pleasant way to fulfill simultaneously the desire for something warm and cosy and the desire for something light and salady, without faffing about with a pile of different ingredients. (You know how to make it already, but here's how I've been doing it lately: big head of romaine lettuce, cut in half lengthwise, rinsed, and shaken dry, cut side brushed with olive oil and sprinkled with salt, on a very hot pan for two minutes or so each side, until lightly charred and wilting -- then roughly chopped and piled on a plate with a little of the aged, thick sort of balsamic vinegar drizzled (vile word) on top.)

Fennel: also perfect for that late winter pushmi-pullyu of fresh springy things on the one side and warm roasty things on the other. The bulbs you know about. I made this Ottolenghi quinoa salad for a potluck last week, with quartered brussels sprouts in the place of the fava beans, and it was very good. Sliced very thin, it makes a swell winter salad, especially with apples; or you can slice it thicker, then steam it and dress it with lemon and red pepper oil a la David Tanis.

The new trick at our house, though, is making full use of the stems. Fennel is too big and awkward to fit in the fridge as it comes. So I lop the bulbs off and put them away separately, then trim off the frondy bits for garnishes or the compost bin. The stems, then, I chop up and keep in a container to toss in with everything. They are lovely. They may look a lot like celery, but I think their texture and flavor are much nicer and more interesting. I have been tossing a half-handful in with any pan of roasting vegetables, or stirring them into a pilaf, and it makes everything taste a little springier and a little different from the way it did last month.

If you really want to enjoy chopped fennel on its own merits, though, try Fennel Rice or Fennel and Eggs:

FENNEL AND EGGS

For two.

At least half a cup chopped fennel, mostly or entirely stems, as pictured above
About a quarter cup finely chopped onion  
Butter
3 or 4 eggs
salt and pepper

Beat the eggs lightly and season with salt and pepper. Saute the fennel and onion slowly in butter until transluscent and tender. Pour the eggs into the pan. Scramble until they are set the way you like them. Serve immediately. Hot buttered toast would not go amiss. 

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FENNEL RICE

There is no reason why fried rice, which is ultimately a very basic and versatile approach to a very basic and versatile grain, has to be, or pretend to be, Asian. This makes a pretty, green rice dish that goes well with Italian, Spanish, or California-ish flavors.

I think it would be good as a side with salmon, but what do I know?

1-2 Tbsp. light-flavored oil for frying 
3/4 cup chopped fennel, mostly or entirely stems, as pictured above 
2 tsp. minced ginger 
2 cups leftover, cold rice, preferably long-grain   
1 egg, lightly beaten with 1 tsp. ground cumin
2 Tbsp. chopped flat leaf parsley  
Salt and pepper 

Put your large stir-fry pan over high heat. When it's hot, add the oil and swirl it around.

Keep the heat high and the food moving in the pan. Put the fennel in and cook for about two minutes, then add the ginger and cook for just a moment before adding the rice. Fry, stirring/tossing constantly, until the rice is heated through. Add the egg and cumin mixture. Keep things moving, so the egg just coats the rice and more or less disappears.

Remove from heat and add parsley plus salt & pepper to taste. My own taste says that you want to err on the side of more pepper, but maybe you disagree! If you have some of your fennel fronds around, you may as well chop them up and toss them in there, too: it's pretty. 

Links and things

Cooking Issues: Two hundred apples a day. I love apples, and want very very much to have this experience for myself.

Item: Steve is beside himself with delight that, after a brief breaking-in period in which it looked as if he would be deeply disappointed, the replacement gasket he tracked down for our leaky stovetop milk steamer has made it work again. Hooray!

3191 Miles Apart: Naomi's Quinoa Muffins. Since our house is all about eating quinoa all the time, I think I ought to give these a try.

Orangette: Oatmeal Pancakes. We already love making these in big batches to snack on. Because they're nice and hearty, and also delicious, the leftovers are very nice. For snacking, I like them naked or spread with a little jam, either cold or hot. For the latter, reheating in the toaster oven is the way to go.

Box Vox: Long Egg Packaging. I was familiar with egg presses that will turn your hard-boiled egg into a cube, but this is something else again. I don't even know what illustrative selection to quote. Just go and see it for yourself. (Thank you, Finn.)

Egg salad sandwiches

Why did I think I disliked egg salad sandwiches?

We have been eating them weekly ever since I found out how much I like them freshly made from nice fresh egg salad heaped on nice freshly toasted bread with nice crisp lettuce. Nice! Fresh!

Further, they hardly take any time to put together, say on a night when I get home late after teaching an evening class. They are pretty, with their pale colors and frilly lettuce. They are both light and satisfying, which is pleasant at lunchtime or late at night. As long as you like eggs at all, what's not to like?

And then I had some at someone else's house not too long ago and was reminded of all I had disliked in the past. What is the difference between the stuff I hated and the stuff I love? Was it a failure of seasoning? Insufficient salt? Am I, in fact, a complete fascist for freshness, such that egg salad assembled more than ten minutes before the sandwich is made is as ashes in my mouth? I don't know. Maybe you have some idea.

Braised baby cabbage (photos)

It turned out that we liked the braised cabbage so much we had it all over again tonight. And by then the camera battery had plenty of time to recharge.

Glamorous, isn't it?

Good, though.

I didn't take a picture of what it looked like after we polished it off. Suffice it to say that we both affirmed our qualifications for membership in the Clean Plate Club with admirable celerity.

Seasonably unseasonable: braised baby cabbage

Braised cabbage isn't most people's idea of a perfect midsummer meal. But I bought a few of these adorable little fellows at the farmer's market the weekend before last, and then we had out of town guests from early last week until this morning. So there was lots of eating elsewhere, plenty of staying up late and drinking liberally and getting up early, and very little grocery shopping, until this evening we found ourselves with curiously little fresh food and a strong desire to eat something simple and wholesome.

(That's Snark's hand gripping the innocent little cabbage. It all looks extremely dramatic, doesn't it?)

Combining my feebleness with the contents of my fridge, I cut the little cabbages into wedges and gave them a quick hot sear on each cut side until well flecked with crispy dark brown bits (I love the way cabbage tastes when subjected to this kind of browning). Then they went at the bottom of a heavy pan with a lid and were sprinkled with salt. Over top I scattered a medium onion and a large carrot, both cut into 1/4" slices, and poured about a third of a cup of white wine and three tablespoons of olive oil over all. On went the lid and the heat on medium high until the sound of boiling could be heard from within. Heat down as low as it would go and everything left alone, while I sat quietly in a corner doing not much, until the cabbage was exceedingly tender, in this case about an hour. I very gently flipped the cabbage over about halfway through. Then the lid came off and I turned the heat back up until the liquid had boiled away and the cabbage started to brown again.

We had it in bowls, topped with a fried egg apiece and plenty of freshly ground pepper, plus an extra sprinkle of salt on top. I don't have pictures of the finished dish, not because it wasn't pretty -- although it wasn't, except in the way that things that are ugly but delicious are pretty -- but because my camera's batteries ran out at the crucial moment. You can probably imagine it, though. Braising and wine both do delicious things to cabbage; I highly recommend the combination of the two. I'm sure the fact that these were gorgeous local cabbages didn't hurt, but one of the wonderful things about cabbage is that it keeps beautifully. You surely would get almost as great results with any old cabbage. (Savoy is nicer than the not-crinkly kind, though, in my opinion.) I mean, hell, we bought these a week and a half ago and they absolutely read as amazingly squeaky-fresh. Cabbage! It's a winner.

How to boil an egg (and devil it)

Tomorrow is Snark's birthday, so I was making some deviled eggs, and at long last, I've found the timing that did the trick for hard-boiled eggs. For some reason, the times most people suggest for the supposedly foolproof cold-start method seem to give me overcooked eggs. Very sad! Today's, though, were just right--no grey ring around the yolk, yolks cooked through absolutely but no more. It didn't hurt that they were farmer's market eggs. The yolks were a brilliant yellow as well as being cooked the perfect amount.

Here's what worked for me: Eggs, size large, right out of the fridge into the bottom of the pan, nestled in so that I couldn't have fit another in a single layer in the pan in question, but not really packed tight, and covered with cold water about 3/4" above the tops of the eggs. Pan partly covered, over a high flame. When I noticed the water had come to a boil (because I heard a little clunk of the eggs bumping), I turned the flame off immediately and covered the pan entirely. Then I set the timer for twelve minutes. When it went off, I used a slotted spoon to transfer the eggs to a bowl of ice water, with plenty of ice.

If you want to be really particular, you can make an effort to center your yolks before you boil the eggs. I've read a few different suggestions for this: store the eggs tip-down, or tip the carton on its side, or give the eggs a spin before you cook them. Anyone have personal testimony about the effectiveness of any of these techniques? If you'd like my exceedingly simple deviled egg recipe, read on. (I expect everyone already has a perfectly good idea of how to make deviled eggs, but hey, why not?)

Eggs with braised pale green vegetables, mustard cream sauce

Okay, eggs, butter, and milk are certainly not roughage, but this frittata, which verges on being a crustless quiche, is mostly a tangle of flavorful, if pale, vegetables, with just enough egg to hold them together. If you accompany it with a big green salad, no one should have anything to complain about. The mustard cream, which can be made with creme fraiche, full-fat yogurt, less-fat yogurt, or sour cream, is an idea from Deborah Madison that I find pulls the dish together magnificently. (It's fantastic with asparagus, too, by the way.)

You can prepare the cabbage and leeks ahead and refrigerate for a few days, in which case assembling the final dish is really a snap. It's not too much work for a weeknight, even so. Also, if you dislike cabbage, just substitute another leek or two.

Nom nom nom + omelette "crepes"

Sun Luck Garden, I love you. We're very happy to have discovered this very fine Chinese restaurant not ten minutes away from our house (by car). The vegetarian options on the menu are excellent and varied -- dishes with the "dark tofu" are especially delectable -- and I've read that if you eat there regularly and show some interest in trying new things, the chef/owner is likely to offer you exciting off-menu options. I look forward to testing this out. Certainly achieving the antecedent part of that conditional will not be a hardship.

PS This recipe for super-thin omelette "crepes" is excellent. Our pan is small, so I find that just one egg, with a tiny splash of water, is best for each omelette. This makes cooking four eggs' worth take twice as long, of course, but it's still very quick and easy. The results are not hot in any way by the time they make it to the table, but that's not a problem as far as we're concerned.

More baked eggs

Julius Meinl in Chicago serves baked eggs much like the ones I wrote about last week. (I think we may even have the same baking dishes.) They are excellent, especially the spinach, mushroom, and feta version. I haven't tried replicating it yet, but I think it could be done quickly and easily, especially with good-quality frozen spinach.

While the oven is preheating, sauté some minced onions or shallots, add the mushrooms, salt, and pepper, and then just toss in the spinach and heat through. (I'm thinking that frozen spinach would be nice because it tends to give off less liquid, thereby not stewing the mushrooms, plus of course the prep is quicker -- parboiled greens would be nice too.) Perhaps a splash of cream. And then the usual egg-baking process, with a thicker coat of feta and a bit more time under the broiler. What do you think? Anyway, take a look at their menu. You may be inspired to try some of the other variations:

Baked eggs

Summertime: several ideas, and a recipe for ajvar

It's getting to be that time of year again -- the time when we can go to the farmer's market and get ridiculous quantities of tomatoes, zucchini, eggplant, and the other vegetables of high summer for what seems like almost no money at all. Here are a few recipes from the past that make great use of this bounty: Ratatouille.

This is, of course, an obvious one, but this version is -- to my mind, anyway -- particularly good. The vegetables strike the right balance of melding together and keeping their integrity. You do have to turn on the oven and turn on the burners (oof, hot!) but the advantage is that you don't have to spend ages sauteeing each vegetable in turn. This means things move more quickly and you have to spend less time hovering over the hot stove in question, for a net win on the hot-and-sticky axis.

Frittata with zucchini and ricotta. This is so good that I have been known to buy zucchini out of season in order to make it.

Summer squash gratin. For when you have more summer squash than these other recipes can absorb. It's simple and savory, and pleasantly not-soggy. I think it's nice to save yellow squash for this one and use green zucchini for the frittata.

Tomato salad. Well, obviously.

Ajvar. This is a green vegetable concoction in rough puree, not the smooth sludgy red stuff I've seen in jars at the grocery store. It's made with eggplant and green peppers, and lots of olive oil. It's spectacular, and one of the few things that actually makes me eager to buy green peppers (I generally prefer red). I see that I never did give a recipe for it, and I think I've made enough little tweaks to the original Paula Wolfert recipe by now that I feel comfortable writing it up here. I'll put it at the end of this entry.

Meanwhile, I'm eager to make one or the other of these gazpacho recipes from Lobstersquad -- or both! But first I need to buy a pitcher to put it in, which is something I'm long overdue to do anyhow. This skillet corn from my own mama's website looks fantastic, too. What summer vegetable dishes are you making?

Yes, very good: eggs and onion jam

As promised, a couple of spoonfuls of onion jam stirred into scrambled eggs was delicious. The only flaw was that I didn't make more, though between that and the buttermilk and sorrel frittata we had for lunch, we doubtless consumed our cholesterol rations for the entire week in a single day.

Arugula salad with fried eggs and sizzling mushrooms

Tonight we were in the mood for something light for dinner -- a salad, but something a bit more substantial than an ordinary green salad. I had a big bag of arugula from the farmer's market, as well as lovely eggs with positively orange yolks, and some golden oyster mushrooms.

This does dirty two whole pans (horror!) but the results were well worth it, and the labor involved was minimal enough that I didn't break a sweat. These quantities are, obviously, for two.

1. Take two shallow bowls or deep plates and make a bed of torn arugula in each one.

2. Take about half a pound of oyster mushrooms. Rinse off any dirt, trim away woody ends, separate them, and slice into roughly 1" pieces. Dice a small onion or a couple of shallots and sauté in two tablespoons of olive oil on medium-high heat for a couple of minutes. Add mushrooms and cook a minute more before lowering the heat to medium low. Add half a teaspoon of salt and a generous sprinkling of cumin. Leave the mushrooms to cook gently for about 20 minutes, stirring every now and again, until they start to brown around the edges. If they finish up before you're ready for them, just turn them off and let them sit in the pan.

3. When the mushrooms are getting nearly done, fry two eggs in salted butter. When they are done to your liking, slide one egg onto each bed of arugula. The heat of the egg should start to wilt the greens a bit.

4. Array half of the mushrooms over each egg. Sprinkle a bit of sherry vinegar over each salad (important!), grind a few turns of the pepper grinder over each, and serve. If you've left the yolks runny, the diner can break them to make a dressing for the greens -- the olive oil and butter, of course, will serve to dress them, as well. A shaving of parmesan or crumble of goat cheese would be a fine addition, I'm sure. I may try that next time, though it was delicious enough without. Bread makes the meal a bit more substantial and gives you a means to wipe the plate clean. Sorry no picture; we ate everything up too quickly!

Cheese and nut loaf

Back when I wrote about the ever-popular red lentil kibbe, I mentioned that I had a retro kind of craving for some kind of stodgy vegetarian loaf. In the comments, Wendy pointed me to what has become a fast favorite in our household, a Deborah Madison recipe for what we now call simply Loaf. We love it ardently and eat our way through one nearly every week.

Hot is just fine, but we prefer it cold, either alone or in a sandwich, topped with brown mustard. It is not pretty. I don't care. No doubt this is precisely the dish our future children will find unbelievably disgusting. Too bad for them. They can tell lurid stories about it on HyperNeuroGullet and get lots of sympathy; we will still know it is great.

I will not lie to you: Loaf is going to be a pain in the ass to make unless you're in the habit of preparing the constituent parts in quantities large enough to provide for multiple batches. There are nuts to toast and chop, mushrooms and onions to saute, rice to cook, cheese to grate (and I will also say that if ever there was a place for pre-grated cheese, this is it). But if you love it as we do, then you will know that you will be making it week after week, and so you will toast and chop several cups of nuts at once, saute mushrooms in bulk, and portion out big pots of rice into little tubs containing one and a half cups apiece.

It is also a fact that a single loaf is quite a lot of food. Two and a half slices is a hearty serving. I have made a few minor modifications to the recipe after finding out what little variations made for particularly successful iterations.

Help my lunch!

I would very, very much like to find a little plastic caddy for taking some small number of deviled-egg halves (ideally two) in my lunch with me. My lunch goes in a box, so the caddy would not have to protect the halves from the consequences of going upside-down. Can anyone help me find such a thing?