Butter-Blanched Southern Greens

I love Trader Joe's.  It is one of my favorite grocery stores, partially because they have great frozen meals and great pre-washed and prepared greens.  They also have the happiest, nicest people working there.  This is the first time that we have tried their Southern Greens Blend, which includes mustard greens, turnip greens, collards and spinach.  This is also the first time we have tried our new Jean-Georges cookbook, Home-Cooking with Jean-Georges: My Favorite Simple Recipes.  The recipe almost sounded too simple to be worthwhile.  But blanching greens in butter seemed like an interesting approach and sometimes simple is good, so I decided to give it a try.  I had to cut down on the amount of butter because 12 tbsp for a pound of greens (or 6 tbsp for 1/2 of a pound) seemed like an obscene amount.  So I cut the amount of butter by 2 tbsp for 1/2 lb of greens.  And we used the mixed greens rather than the mustard greens as the recipe called for.

Alex and I were both surprised by the amount of flavor the greens picked up from the butter.  He was worried that the greens were going to be bitter and/or bland, but somehow they weren't.  We were trying to decide just how we would change the recipe, but I'm afraid that adding any additional ingredients would mask the delicate (but rich) flavor of the butter.  We didn't use the optional mustard oil that the recipe called for, but maybe we will try that next time?  Altogether this was a pretty decent first recipe from our new cookbook and a fun new way to cook greens!

Recipe after the jump!

Miso-Marinated Chilean Sea Bass with Sauteed Asian Greens

So there are a billion different recipes for miso-marinated or miso-glazed sea bass out there.  This was our version.  I picked up some pre-portioned sea bass fillets from Whole Foods and wanted to do something easy and vaguely Asian with them.  I tend to like Chilean sea bass when prepared with Asian ingredients (a combination of ginger, soy, lime and cilantro being my typical marinade/sauce) and flavors, so I decided to stick with similar Asian flavors, but try a different recipe.  So we went with miso, mirin and sake.  And then we served the fish with some Ginger-Cilantro Rice (which I will post about later) and some Asian greens (hon tsai tai - a mild Asian mustard green) sauteed simply with garlic and soy sauce.

I thought the fish was crazy delicious - one of my favorite things we have cooked recently.  It was sweet, but not cloyingly so.  Then there was the miso that shone through the sweetness without overpowering the other flavors.  Most importantly, the fish was very moist and tender - perfectly cooked.  Beyond being tasty, the fish is super easy to make and requires very few ingredients.  Marinating the fish takes a few hours, but the dish is just so easy and the marinade imparts so much flavor that I can't hold the marinating period against it.  I would gladly marinate everything that went through our kitchen if the end result was this good.  As for the sauteed greens, I love Asian greens simply stir-fried with garlic.  This is one of the basic recipes for stir-fried greens that I use and vary depending on my mood and what we have in the fridge.  I wanted it to be super simple to go with the sea bass so all I threw in was garlic, soy and sesame oil.  Sometimes I mix things up with ginger or hoisin or cornstarch to thicken the sauce up.  But not this time.  This time I wanted it to be as basic as could be so I could both taste the hon tsai tai (which I have never tried before and thoroughly enjoyed) and so the flavors didn't compete with the fish or the rice.  The greens weren't as delicious as the sea bass, but I thought they were the perfect simple side for the meal.

Recipes after the jump!

Sauteed Greens

One of my favorite stalls at the farmers' market behind the Museum of Natural History is 5 lbs of Dirt Farm.  5 lbs of Dirt is a small farm in the Hudson Valley that grows (in my opinion) some of the best lettuces, greens and other veggies that I have ever seen.  Just look at their pictures on Facebook.  They are absolutely beautiful.  I have been eying what they call "big mix" for awhile now and I decided on Sunday to go ahead and buy half a pound.  One of the ladies there assured me that it is her favorite of the greens.  She eats it raw, but said that it would be delicious sauteed.  I'm not sure exactly what is in big mix, but it looked (and tasted) like Swiss chard, kale, mustard greens, tatsoi, arugula, spinach and various crazy looking lettuces/greens.  I have no idea what some of them are.  If I had been thinking ahead I would have taken some pictures of the greens before and after cooking them so you could get a sense of what exactly was in the "big mix."  But if you're that interested, pop on over to their Facebook page where they have several pages of it.

This recipe was a nice foil for the pork schnitzel that we served with it.  I wanted something to cut through the rich, hearty schnitzel so I thought that some apple cider vinegar would be both sweet enough and acidic enough to work well to balance out the pork, while also compensating for the bitterness of some of the greens.  I briefly considered throwing in a pinch of sugar, but I decided against it because the onions and apple cider vinegar should already provide the dish with some sweetness.  I liked these greens.  Alex thought they were fine, but not amazing.  Then again, he's not a huge fan of sauteed greens.  I really like sauteed greens in theory, but I often find the greens themselves to be too bitter for me.  I thought these greens were nice because we got to experiment with the gorgeous "big mix" without being overwhelmed by the bitterness of some of the greens.  The flavors here were fresh and vibrant, with a subtle kick from the crushed red pepper flakes and the acidity from the apple cider vinegar, tempered with the richness of a tbsp of butter.  I have to admit that I stole the idea for the butter from some recipe that I stumbled across online.  It seemed like an interesting idea so I went ahead and incorporated it.

Recipe after the jump!

Seared Radish Crostini and Wilted Mustard Greens Salad with Bacon

The past two weeks radishes have been part of my haul from my CSA.  I don't know about you but I generally find radishes pretty to look at, but not all that palatable.  I don't mind them thinly sliced in salads, but their peppery bite is something that I'm not altogether sure I enjoy in big moutfuls.  My father used to eat raw radishes and scallions with just a sprinkle of salt - something I will never be able to do.  Since I don't really enjoy the taste of raw scallions (although I do love the crunch), I decided to try roasting them.  Depending on the ingredient, roasting can either mellow flavors out or intensify them.  In this case, I was hoping that roasting the radishes would mellow them out and make them a touch sweeter.  About a month ago I saw a recipe on the NY Times website that called for roasting radishes and making crostini out of them so I have been saving it for the day when I had enough radishes from the CSA to whip up some crostini.  To go with the crostini I decided to make a salad with another part of our CSA haul - half a pound of mustard greens.  I'm not overly familiar with mustard greens, so rather than go at it blindly I decided to hit Epicurious for some recipes and inspiration.

I was very happy with tonight's dinner.  And by extension I am super happy with our CSA Chubby Bunny.  All of the produce we picked up yesterday was super fresh and super delicious.  The radish crostini was really interesting.  I loved the combination of the toasted bread, the nutty and buttery bagna cauda-based sauce, and the roasted radishes.  I might very well be a radish convert.  I do think that the recipe makes an enormous amount of sauce for the amount of radishes it calls for, but that's ok with me.  I used a levain boule from Balthazar as the base for my crostini and it worked out fabulously.  I thought that the salad was also pretty fabulous.  The balsamic and the onions made the salad slightly sweet, and the bacon gave it a nice porky, salty flavor.  Hurray CSA and hurray dinner.

Recipes after the jump!