Grilled Ramps with Pecorino, Lemon and Sea Salt

Spring is my absolute favorite time of year.  Alex loves fall (which is comparable enough when you are looking at the temperature) but a large part of what I love about spring is the appearance of things like sugar snap peas, asparagus and rhubarb at the farmers' market.  The reappearance of the sun and warm temperatures are a bonus.  Ramps are one spring ingredient that has I have never really understood.  The dishes we made at home with ramps were all pretty good, but they never blew my mind (the best was this White Pizza with Ramps) and I can't remember ever ordering a dish at a restaurant with ramps that really stuck out in my mind.  I did have a lovely carrot pasta at Blanca a few weekends ago that had a ramp sauce and a single grilled ramp on top that was lovely, but I think it would have still been lovely without the ramps.  I'm sure I have ordered other dishes with ramps because that's what you're supposed to do at a farm-to-table type restaurant in the spring, but seeing as I can't remember a single one they couldn't have been that amazing.  And yet I keep trying new ramp dishes because I am stubborn like that.  I see them in the farmers' market and I just have to buy them.  And then I have to figure out what I want to do with them.  Again.

Anyway, I saw this recipe in Hugh Acheson's cookbook, A New Turn in the South:  Southern Flavors Reinvented for your Kitchen, not too long ago and I mentally bookmarked it for my next ramp experiment.  It looked different from the usual ramp recipes I come across (i.e. serving them with eggs, pasta or pickling them).  Our fallback is usually pickled ramps, but I wanted to try something new.  And I'm glad I did because this was probably the first ramp recipe where I started to understand why people enjoy ramps so much.  In this dish they have such a lovely garlicky flavor that is nicely tempered by the salty flavor of the cheese and the brightness of the lemon juice.  "Grilling" our ramps on the grill pan seems to have taken their almost oily and pungent flavor down a notch.  I know some people enjoy ramps and eggs together but I have had dishes where the ramps just seemed greasy and a little too in your face funky to me (like in these Fried Eggs with Ramps and Duck Bacon) or completely disappeared into the dish (like these Oeufs en Cocotte with Ramps).  We served these ramps with some seared salmon, but I could see serving them any number of other dishes.

Recipe after the jump!

Blasted Broccoli with Fish Sauce

This recipe has quickly become my new favorite broccoli recipe.  I know it doesn't look (or sound) like much, but it's the perfect side dish.  It is insanely easy to make and very tasty.  I'm not ashamed to admit that we have made it twice in the past week.  Last week Alex and I were making one of our favorite quick and easy meals (Stir-Fried Eggs with Cellophane Noodles) for dinner and I wanted a really simple side to go with the eggs.  We had some nice broccoli that we picked up at the farmers' market and I looked through a few Asian-y recipes we had made in the past with either broccoli or Chinese broccoli but none of them looked quite right.  So I Googled "broccoli fish sauce" and found this recipe on Andrea Nguyen's blog Viet World Kitchen.  And I love it. The broccoli is perfectly cooked - tender, but crispy and toasty.  Somehow it avoids the pitfall of high heat roasting - overly charred and slightly bitter veggies, as well as the pitfalls of steaming, sauteing or otherwise cooking broccoli so that it ends up kind of mushy and blah.  Beyond all that the saltiness from the fish cause provides good flavor, without obscuring the flavor of the broccoli.  I should note that we have used nice fresh broccoli from the farmers' market both times we have made the recipe, so I don't know how well this recipe would suit out of season grocery store broccoli that has less inherent flavor and tenderness.  But I am sure that at some point we will give it a try.  I might also try this with broccolini and just adjust the cooking time as necessary or try it and modify the ingredients slightly.  I bet it would work nicely to blast the broccoli in a combination of oil, s&p and then toss in a thinned out harissa paste mixture for some heat...

Recipe after the jump!

(Belated) Chinese New Year Meal #2: Kung Pao Shrimp and Smacked Cucumbers with Sesame and Preserved Mustard Greens

The funny thing about this recipe is that I started thinking about kung pao shrimp after Alex pulled down all of our various nuts and complained that we had far too many nuts in the apartment and needed to go ahead and use some of them.  I already had a recipe in mind that required some peanuts but the first thing that came to mind when it came down to using more peanuts was to make kung pao.  And as we have already made kung pao chicken and I was looking for a seafood recipe anyway, kung pao shrimp seemed like a really good alternative.  I can't say that I have ever tried kung pao shrimp before, but since when has that stopped me before?  I briefly considered taking the kung pao chicken recipe we made some time ago and modifying it to use shrimp, but then I decided to try something new and go with a recipe I found online.  I was looking at two recipes - one from Rasamalaysia and another from Appetite for China and I ended up deciding to use the one from Appetite for China because I thought the picture was prettier.  As you can see, I'm not above admitting it when I make a decision for purely shallow reasons.  And rather than deviating from the recipe at all, I decided to make it exactly as written.  I was pretty proud of myself for sticking with it.  And we threw in yet another variation on smacked cucumbers from Fuchsia Dunlop's new cookbook because I wanted some sort of easy veggie to go with our shrimp.

Alex and I are currently in disagreement about which of our two (Belated) Chinese New Year meals we preferred.  I preferred Sunday night's Cold Chicken with Spicy Sichuan Sauce and Stir-Fried Broccoli with Chili and Sichuan Pepper whereas Alex preferred last night's kung pao shrimp and smacked cucumbers.  While the shrimp was perfectly cooked, I thought the flavor balance was off - the sour flavor and numbing sensation of the Sichuan peppercorns overwhelmed the sweet and spicy flavor that I was hoping for.  I love the flavor of Sichuan peppercorns, but my biggest complaint about some of the "Sichuan" restaurants in New York City is that they abandon developing layers of flavor in favor of dumping on a bunch of Sichuan peppercorns or hot chilis.  A lot of these restaurants would do well to cut back on the amount of Sichuan peppercorn in their dishes so that the peppercorns perfume but don't overwhelm the dish.  But enough of that.  If I were to make this dish again I would cut the amount of Sichuan peppercorn by half, or forgo them entirely.  I would probably modify the sauce recipe to leave out the hoisin and perhaps play with the proportions of the other liquids.  As for the cucumbers, I am a total sucker for Chinese cucumber salads of all sorts.  We have made several different variations on smacked cucumbers from Fuchsia Dunlop's cookbooks and while this one wasn't my favorite, it was different and easy.  It was nice to have a non-spicy version for a change.  I think her new cookbook has another two variations on smacked cucumbers so we will have to give those a try at some point and I'll see which one I like best.

Recipes after the jump!

Roasted Fingerling Potatoes with Country Ham and Chilis

I know I have said this before, but I'm not typically a big potato-eater.  I love McDonald's french fries as much as the next person (although I love sweet potato fries more), but mashed potatoes and baked potatoes don't really do it for me.  I will eat them from time-to-time if they are part of a dish I order at a restaurant, but that really only happens once a blue moon.  Every once in awhile I like to humor Alex (who really is a potato lover) and roast some fingerling potatoes at home.  This tends to happen in the fall and early winter when the farmers' markets first start displaying pretty little fingerling potatoes.  This year we discovered roast sunchokes and I think they are better than roast potatoes.  So these fingerlings might very well be the first potatoes we have made all year...  

This recipe was intended to be made with new potatoes, but I decided that I wanted to use fingerlings instead because I think they crisp up better.  When I think of new potatoes I tend to think of boiled or steamed new potatoes, rather than roasted new potatoes.  And if I am going to do potatoes (roasted or fried), I want them to be crispy.  These potatoes weren't as crispy as I would have liked but I thought they had good flavor.  Even though the addition of the balsamic vinegar decreased the crispy texture it added a nice mildly sweet flavor.  And I loved the salty porky flavor of the country ham.  In the future I would add another poblano pepper for additional mild pepper flavor.  I might also add some onion for additional sweetness and flavor.  Alex thought the potatoes would be improved by the addition of some heat (nothing new there) as a counterbalance to the sweetness of the balsamic, but I'm not sure if I would add red pepper flakes or just serve the potatoes with some hot sauce.  These potatoes would make an interesting alternative to home fries for brunch.  The cookbook recommends serving any leftover potatoes with poached or fried eggs for breakfast.  We tried the potatoes with fried eggs and I think they would work nicely either way. 

Recipe after the jump!

Roast Sunchokes

My favorite new farmers' market discovery of the year is definitely the sunchoke (aka the Jerusalem artichoke).  We have made some fabulous dishes with a number of other farmers' market purchases - broccoli spigarelli was my second favorite (which is lame because I didn't take pictures of it and we only made it once before it disappeared from the farmer's market).  I was shocked by how much I loved the sunchokes.  I don't typically love potatoes and I assumed that the sunchokes would be similarly starchy and bland.  But they weren't.  They don't have the heavy, starchy flavor and texture that I dislike about roast potatoes.  Instead they are wonderfully sweet and just a hint nutty.  And if you roast them long enough they turn nice and caramelized and crusty on the cut sides, with a soft and slightly pillowy interior.  Alex compared them to sweet potatoes, although I don't think they taste like sweet potatoes at all.  Supposedly they taste like artichokes, but I didn't taste artichoke at all.  We tried adding some fresh thyme to the pan with the sunchokes this time, but I don't think it really added anything.  I liked them just as much when roasted simply with evoo, s&p.  We served them tonight with roast chicken breasts, but I think roast sunchokes would go with any number of meat dishes.  Given how successful we have been roasting them, soup is the next step.  Perhaps next fall...

Recipe after the jump!

Stripetti Squash with Garlic, Parmigiano-Reggiano and Herbs

So we took a break for a few weeks (a much needed squash hiatus) and we finally got around to cooking the stripetti squash that I picked up at the farmers' market in early to mid-November.  One of the best things about squash is that you can buy it and then hang onto it until you are ready to cook it.  We also have a cheese pumpkin sitting on the hutch that I picked up a few weeks ago that we hang onto until this coming week.  I don't have any inspiration for what I want to do with it, but I'm sure something will come to me eventually.  

If I hadn't bought the squash in the first place and seen the whole squash prior to cooking, I'm not sure that I would have been able to tell that this was a different variety of squash.  I think the stripetti squash was a little sweeter than spaghetti squash, but they are similar enough in appearance, taste and texture that it wouldn't have occurred to me that this was a different variety.  With that said, I really liked it.  And I would totally buy it again.  As for the recipe, I think it was nice.  I have never tried adding cheese and herbs of this variety to spaghetti squash so it was a very different take on squash for us.  But I wanted to use up some of the fresh herbs leftover from Thanksgiving so I decided this was a good opportunity to do so.  I originally planned to serve this squash with some turkey meatballs but I decided that after the meatloaf I wasn't really feeling meatballs.  But the dish had a very nice combination of flavors and made a really nice side dish.  Between Alex and I we ate the whole 4 cups of squash so that really says something.  In case you're wondering about the cooking method for the squash (boiling it, rather than roasting), we boiled the squash because that's what they told me to do at the farmers' market.  It seemed like a strange cooking method to me, but that's what they said to do so we did it.  And it worked.  I might try roasting it next time just for the sake of variety, but boiling it worked just fine. 

Recipe after the jump!

Sam Sifton's Roasted Cauliflower with Anchovy Bread Crumbs

The week  leading up to Thanksgiving we ended up eating a lot of random vegetarian meals.  It just seemed like the proper (and healthy) thing to do since we knew we would be stuffing ourselves silly on Thanksgiving.  And logically, some of those vegetarian meals were based on recipes that I had considered making as a side dish for Thanksgiving, but didn't quite make the cut.  Before I go any further I should state that this dish was only in the running because Serious Eats raved about it.  It didn't actually go with anything else we were serving (more on that later) but it sounded interesting enough that I bookmarked it as an option if we changed up the menu (we didn't).  Once I knew our menu was set and this dish wasn't going to make it onto the Thanksgiving table, I decided to try it out on just Alex and I.  Our end verdict was that while the cauliflower was pretty good, it wasn't as good as other cauliflower dishes we have made in the past - in terms of texture and flavor.  The bread crumbs did provide a promised hit of "salty-funky" flavor, but I felt like you didn't taste the sage or the lemon.  I also thought the bread crumbs weren't quite as delicious as I had hoped.  As I mentioned below, they were a little oily and gummy, rather than crispy and flavorful.  If I were to make this dish again I would substitute the bread crumbs and the almonds from Mario Batali's St. John's Eve Pasta for the bread crumbs here.  And then I would probably roast the cauliflower much longer - like we did with the Roasted Cauliflower with Turmeric and Cumin a few weeks ago.  Roasting it longer would provide the wonderful sweet, nutty flavor and crispy texture that I really enjoyed with that dish.  To be perfectly honest, with all of the changes I would have to make to this dish before I would make it again I'm not sure there will be a re-do, but such is life.  It wasn't a bad dish.  It just wasn't anything to write home about, nor was it a dish that I would be dying to serve to my family for future Thanksgivings...

Recipe after the jump!

Roasted Japanese Turnips with Honey

I feel like this is one of those dishes that we tried where we spent the first few bites trying to figure it all out, the next few bites growing to really enjoy it and then I promptly got bored with it.  But let's be honest, who really enjoys every bite of an entire bowl full of turnips?  Even split between the two of us that is a LOT of turnips (particularly when you're not even sure that you really like turnips).  I have no complaints about the recipe itself - this post is more of a commentary on my poor planning in basically designing a meal around a vegetable that Alex and I are firmly on the fence about.  I have had some good turnips in my life (my school in China served a really nice soup with turnips in it and I love the little dim sum cakes with turnip), but generally they strike me as being a little lackluster.  The honey glaze really helped to tame the aggressive peppery flavor of the turnips and the cayenne pepper provided some lovely heat, but after awhile it all just got a little blah.  And the honey mixture really only coated the outermost layer of the turnip and didn't flavor the turnips as a whole.  I think I would have preferred pan-roasting (or oven-roasting) the turnips a little longer until they got a little crisp and developed a little of their own natural sweetness.  But I was afraid to burn them (or overcook them until they were soggy, although I have no idea if that is even possible with turnips) and once I added in the honey mixture I was afraid that the honey would burn if I left the turnips in the pan too much longer.  So I think the end verdict is that this dish is lovely as a side - it really does have a nice and interesting flavor to it, but unless you are a real turnip lover, you shouldn't make it the focus of your entire meal.  If you are a turnip connoisseur, then go to town and ignore everything I said.

Recipe after the jump!

Roasted Cauliflower with Turmeric and Cumin

I have never roasted cauliflower this long - when we roast cauliflower we tend to only roast it for about 30 minutes, which often results in tender, but slightly soggy cauliflower.  I was worried that roasting it this long would result in bitter, overly charred cauliflower.  But it resulted in sweet, crispy, slightly nutty cauliflower.  And when the roast cauliflower itself is that tasty, you don't need a lot of seasonings and flavors.  For this entire head of cauliflower there was less than 2 tsp of spices - the majority of which was cumin.  And yet, the cauliflower ended up tasting buttery and spicy (although the spicy flavor was not unexpected given the red pepper flakes) and not smoky.  I thought it would need some acid, perhaps a squeeze of fresh lemon juice, but it didn't.  The fresh mint and cilantro provided the perfect fresh counterpoint, while the toasted pine nuts provided some nice crunch.  From now on, I am totally going to roast my cauliflower for an hour (provided that it doesn't contain any garlic or anything else that could burn and turn bitter) so it gets that whole sweet, nutty and crispy texture and flavor.

Recipe after the jump!

Squash Half-Moons with Butter, Sesame and Salt

We actually made this squash recipe during the hurricane, but since I had a picture of it (unlike the Mexican Chicken Soup or the Lettuce in Sesame Sauce) I decided it deserved its own post.  Plus I didn't want to bury it in the group post because I thought it deserved better.  I know the picture isn't exactly the best picture in the world, but I think I deserve some credit for thinking to take a picture in the first place.  Actually, Alex took these pictures and he got all artsy with them - close-ups galore.  This picture was my favorite of the bunch.  Squash isn't an ideal subject, but we deserve points for trying!  Anyway, this might have been my favorite dish of the hurricane.  I loved the combination of the toasted sesame seeds, the spices (curry powder, garam masala and cinnamon), the butter and the squash.  Given how sweet kabocha squash is naturally you don't need any additional sugar.  It was absolutely wonderful.  The flavors of the spiced butter complimented, rather than obscuring, the sweet flavor and almost sweet potato-like texture of the kabocha squash.  And the toasted sesame seeds provided a really nice complimentary flavor and texture.  This recipe definitely has become one of my favorite squash recipes.

Recipe after the jump!

Hurricane Cooking - Dan Barber's Brussels Sprouts, Mexican Chicken Soup, Lettuce in Sesame Sauce

First things first - the hurricane hit and we are A-OK.  I know that much of lower Manhattan (as well as various suburbs and boroughs of Manhattan) are underwater and without power, but we survived pretty much unscathed.  While we were cooped up in the apartment we ended up cooking quite a bit, so this is going to be one large post containing a number of new recipes that we made over the past few days, in no particular order.  We also made a bunch of recipes that we have made before (like these Buttermilk Biscuits with Green Onions, Black Pepper and Sea Salt) And due to the weather, we don't have pictures of all of the recipes, which is unfortunate, but what can you do?

First up is this brussels sprouts recipe, which I saw on Serious Eats and got really excited about because it couldn't be easier.  Once I started reading further I realized that it is a little finnicky and tedious in that you are supposed to make sure all brussels sprouts are first added to the pan cut-side down, and then "turn each sprout over carefully on its back" after the brussels sprouts have seared up nicely on the cut side.  We cut corners a bit and weren't as precise in the cooking process as perhaps we could have been.  Things I will use from this recipe - the cooking method.  You get an unreal amount of caramelization on the brussels sprouts in a fairly short time period.  I would probably try different vinegars and seasonings in the future, but it was a beautifully simple recipe.  You got nice sweetness from the balsamic, balanced nicely against the nutty flavor of the caramelized brussels sprouts.  It wasn't the most amazing recipe I have ever made, but it was a really nice, simple side.

Now for the Mexican chicken soup.  This was something of a day long endeavor.  I started prepping the stock while on a conference call at 11:00 am.  The stock took about an hour to prepare, before we let the chicken cool in the stock for another few hours.  Around 6:30-7 pm we got started on making the soup to serve to some of our neighbors.  It smelled wonderful while it simmered away.  By the time the soup was ready I was really hungry and excited to finally taste it.  We don't often go to the trouble to make homemade stock and every time we do it really excites me because soup made with homemade stock is better than soup made with boxed stock by several orders of magnitude.  And when you make homemade stock you can season and modify your stock so that the flavors best suit the soup you are preparing.  This time I added various ingredients that are typical of chicken stock (onions, carrots, celery, thyme, garlic, bay leaves) and a few ingredients that I think of as being typically Mexican (chilis and cilantro).  I think that the flavors of the soup were really interesting.  I was a little worried about the texture of the blended hominy and chilis, but it ended up being nicely thick and hearty.  The chilis gave the soup a nice slightly sweet, slightly spicy flavor.  I will definitely be making the soup again because it's great cold weather fare and pretty simple.

Now for the Lettuce in Sesame Sauce.  I'm not really sure what there is to say about this recipe - I have a feeling that the sesame sauce is not going to appeal to a lot of palates.  I told Alex I thought the salad would go really nicely with a batch of Sichuan Dumplings in Chili Oil.  The combination of the thick and nutty sesame sauce would be nicely offset by the sweetness and heat of the chili oil.  We ate it with fried rice, which wasn't the most ideal pairing, but we had a limited selection of ingredients left by Tuesday afternoon...

Recipe after the jump!

Spinach with Melted Leeks and Cardamom

I can't figure out what it was about this recipe that made me want to cook it.  I have never been a huge fan of creamed spinach - if it is there I will certainly eat it, but I have never ordered (or made) creamed spinach in my life.  I do like sauteed spinach, either by itself or folded into pastas or omelets.  The Spinach Catalan Style is one of my favorite sauteed spinach recipes.  But spinach is everywhere right now (both in the farmers' market and the grocery store) and it seemed due time to try a new spinach recipe.  I know I mentioned that I was planning on making this dish along with a few others when we made the Warm Mushroom Salad with Shallots and Sherry Vinegar.  And I am determined to use the Andrea Reusing cookbook now with the remaining bounty at the farmers' market.  So this seemed like a match made in heaven.  The only problem was that Alex and I both found the dish to be a little muddy tasting.  When we tasted it in the pan it was tasty - perfumed nicely with the cardamom and with the creamy tang of the creme fraiche.  But by the time we plated the spinach and got it to the table (which took no more than a minute), the flavors got muddled and the spinach itself developed a somewhat slimy texture.  Perhaps we should have skipped that last minute of cooking everything together with the creme fraiche and leeks and pulled the spinach from the pan a minute earlier to prevent any overcooking.  Or perhaps we should just recognize the fact that we don't really like creamed spinach and call it a day. 

Recipe after the jump!

Roast Spaghetti Squash with Shredded Coconut

I am so excited that squash season is finally here.  Yay.  I know you can get butternut and spaghetti squash year-round at most decent grocery stores, but I love the selection of fresh squash at the farmers' market during the fall.  I have been on the lookout for delicata squash (which I think is my favorite of the squash varieties I have tried) but I am also determined to try a few new varieties this year.  I am thinking cheese pumpkins or blue Hokkaido squash (if I can find it).  We have a kabocha squash at home right now, but I pick at least one kabocha squash up per season.  Strangely enough, I never ate any variety of squash prior to moving to NYC.  My first year here I was wandering through the farmers' market in Union Square where I saw a squash that looked interesting and I bought it.  I haven't looked back since.

We tend to be a little lazy with spaghetti squash and we make our Spaghetti Squash with Moroccan Spices repeatedly without even considering searching for a new recipe.  This time I wanted to try something new and I took some inspiration from a pumpkin-coconut curry that I was considering making with our kabocha squash.  One thing I will say about roasting the spaghetti squash in the oven is that it cooks far more evenly.  Cooking it in the microwave is obviously much faster, but you end up with pockets of undercooked or inconsistently cooked squash.  So I would recommend that if you have the time, go ahead and roast your spaghetti squash.  It is worth it.  As for the seasonings, I thought that the combination of the heat of the cayenne chili (we added additional cayenne pepper, but it might be spicy enough with just the chili for most people) and the sweetness of the squash and coconut was lovely.  I have never tried cooking with coconut oil before but I thought it was a nice way to add a little additional coconut flavor to gently perfume the whole dish in addition to the more concentrated flavor of the dried shredded coconut.  I might try the coconut oil in a few more stir-fries until I figure out exactly what role it is going to play in our kitchen, but this was a good first attempt!

Recipe after the jump!

Sauteed Savoy Cabbage with Speck and Lemon

Say hello to what might be my new favorite cabbage variety.  There are a few reasons for my changing allegiance, including aesthetic ones - Savoy cabbage is way prettier than regular green cabbage.  Plus, the leaves were much more tender than regular cabbage.  It was also pretty sweet, although the chicken stock and the speck in this recipe masked the sweetness a little with their meaty, savory flavors.  I'm sure if you simply sauteed some Savoy cabbage until lightly caramelized it would pack a lot of sweetness.  I am going to have to buy a few more heads of Savoy cabbage at the farmers' market this fall and winter to experiment.  As a side note, I know that I promised you guys that I would be making this recipe in my last post, Warm Mushroom Salad with Shallots and Sherry Vinegar, although I thought it would take me at least a few more days to get around to it.  But we decided to scrap our original plans and make this sauteed cabbage recipe last night because it was a little chilly out so the warm savory cabbage sounded delightful and (more importantly) the Savoy cabbage was taking up a lot of space in the refrigerator.    It was warm and comforting and very flavorful.  Sauteing the cabbage in the chicken stock really imparted a lot of flavor into the cabbage.  And every once in awhile you got a nice meaty bit of speck that gave the cabbage some of its smoky, porky flavor.  That generous squirt of lemon juice right at the end gives the whole dish some brightness and acidity to counterbalance the heavier, meatier flavors of the stock and speck.  Yum.

In the end, this simple little sauteed cabbage dish outshone the salmon we served with it.  In the salmon's defense - this wasn't a really nice $20+ per pound piece of wild organic salmon.  It was organic salmon, but it was farmed.  I know, I know.  It is my own fault for buying farmed salmon (which incidentally still cost about $14 per pound).  But the wild salmon at the grocery store didn't look particularly nice so I decided to be lame and buy farmed salmon.  Lesson learned - this particular salmon had literally no flavor whatsoever.  I won't stray again.
Recipe after the jump!

Pickled Green Tomatoes

We finally succesfully pickled something!  Hurray us!  This is our third attempt at pickling since Alex bought us a bunch of mason jars.  First we made pickled rhubarb - which might have been totally delicious, except that it got shoved to the very back of the refrigerator and forgotten.  By the time work slowed down and I found it I was too skeeved out by the fact that it had been in there for a few months to eat it.  Pickling attempt #1 went in the trash.  Then we tried pickling green beans.  Our Szechuan Beans weren't a total failure, but we weren't happy with them.  But these pickled green tomatoes were full of wonderful complex flavors.  They were much better than the green beans, which were harshly vinegar-flavored and left you with an oily aftertaste.  These green tomatoes were spicy, with a very distinct floral flavor from the coriander and the sweetness of the cider vinegar and honey.  Delicious.  I have to give a shout out to Jacob's Pickles for giving me the idea to pickle green tomatoes in the first place.  Their green tomato pickles are delicious, but I would pit ours, which I think were more aromatic and spicier, against theirs.  You are going to want to serve these pickles with something meaty or fatty to offset the bite of the pickles.  In my opinion, eating a bowl full of just these pickles would be inadvisable.  You would totally blow out your palate after the first few and wouldn't be able to enjoy them as fully.  We served them with our Roast Turkey Breasts with Asian Spice Rub, but I think fried chicken, juicy bone-in pork chops or egg and cheese biscuits would work too.

Recipe after the jump!

Roast Brussels Sprouts and Cauliflower with Maple Syrup, Bacon and Cayenne

We found ourselves in the interesting position yesterday afternoon of having a half serving each of cauliflower and brussels sprouts in the fridge left over from the Brussels Sprout Fried Rice with Crispy Cauliflower.  I was trying to figure out how to use those vegetables individually (I was going to make a pizza with the brussels sprouts and some bacon or speck), but I couldn't figure out what I wanted to do with the pretty yellow cauliflower.  And then I decided, why not throw them both together and roast them in a single dish.  Genius.  My initial thought was to make a riff on the Momofuku Roasted Cauliflower with Fish Sauce Vinaigrette and make a batch that included both brussels sprouts and cauliflower.  We make that recipe with both ingredients separately, why wouldn't it work with them combined?  Easy peasy.  But we didn't have mint or Rice Krispies and we had a nice piece of slab bacon in the refrigerator just begging to be used.  So I decided to roast the veggies with bacon, maple syrup and cayenne.  Alex asked if I wanted to add garlic and/or onion, but I decided that I wanted to keep it as simple as possible.  I really liked our roast veggies - but then again, I always like roast veggies (particularly roast brussels sprouts and cauliflower).  And just like always, Alex liked the veggies but wasn't as happy with them as I was.  He doesn't mind roast veggies, but unlike me he never really craves them.  I really like the combination of sweet, salty and spicy flavors in this dish.  My love for those flavor combinations shouldn't be any surprise to anyone since I have made a number of brussels sprouts dishes with bacon and various spicy sauces in the past.  It's not as spicy, exotic or audaciously flavored as the Fatty 'Cue Brussels Sprouts or the Brussels Sprouts with Kimchi Puree and Bacon, but our was tasty and a lot easier to put together. 

Recipe after the jump!

Roast Corn with Spicy Miso Butter

I was pretty shocked to see fresh ears of corn still at the farmers' market this past weekend, but I bought a few on the off chance that they were still good.  Given that I wasn't sure how fresh and sweet the corn would be I thought it would be good to both cook it and slather it in some source of sauce.  I settled on this spicy miso butter because I thought it looked significantly different from anything we had made with corn in the past.  I also thought it would be fun to pair a savory and spicy butter with the roasted sweet corn.  Turns out that despite my skepticism, the corn was pretty sweet.  I actually asked Alex if there was any sugar in the miso butter.  While this recipe works really nicely with fresh sweet corn from the farmers' market, the miso butter packs enough of a punch that you could totally use it on out of season corn.  For a quasi-Asian barbeque I think this would make an excellent side.  The one thing I will note is that the miso butter was nowhere near as spicy as I had thought it would be given the amount of Sriracha and cayenne in it.  It was actually very mellow.  But delicious.

Recipe after the jump!

Indian-Style Broccoli with Spiced Yogurt

For some reason I have been talking about broccoli all weekend.  Alex finds it totally mystifying when I get so fixated on vegetables but I can't help it.  Apparently he never craves vegetables.  All I can think about right now is broccoli, cauliflower and brussels sprouts.  Don't get me wrong - I am happy to eat other things along the way, but I need some veggies in my life ASAP.  Luckily, Sunday is farmers' market day.  I also wanted delicata squash, but they didn't have any so I ended up getting a nice spaghetti squash along with my broccoli, cauliflower, brussels sprouts and fresh bread.  I also thought about getting green tomatoes, but Alex shot me down.  I admit it - sometimes I need to be reined in a little.  We already had more produce than we can easily eat in a week.  Anyway, since I have been babbling about broccoli all weekend I decided that the first order of business would be to make some broccoli for lunch.

It is pretty easy to sum up my thoughts on this dish.  The flavors are fantastic - I thought the spiced yogurt worked beautifully with the broccoli.  And the slight gritty-ness of the coarsely ground spices added some nice texture and little bursts of flavor.  We were both a little worried at first that the spices should have been more finely ground, but I actually really enjoyed biting into the occasional toasted cumin seed or fennel seed.  My one complaint/modification would be to the cooking method - instead of blanching and then pan-roasting the broccoli in the future I would just roast it in the oven.  There is no point in boiling something and getting it kind of soft and soggy before trying to sear it up and crisp it around the edges.  It doesn't make sense.  So in the future I would totally toss the broccoli florets with a little evoo and s&p and throw it in the oven at 425 degrees F for roughly 25 minutes - until the broccoli is crisp-tender and starting to brown around the edges.  And then I would drizzle it with the sauce.  I think that would be a better (and easier) variation on the dish.  As an added benefit there would be one less pan/pot to wash!

Recipe after the jump!

Corn on the Cob with Lime Salt

The only sad thing about the transition to fall is the near immediate loss of corn at the famers' markets.  The loss of tomatoes makes me sad, but it's a little more gradual.  Corn just disappears one day and that is that.  So I have decided to take advantage of whatever corn remains and make as many corn recipes as I can using fresh corn from the farmers' market for as long as I can.  I am determined to make Ad Hoc's Creamed Summer Corn this weekend because it would be an absolute travesty not to, but I want to try some new recipes too (tonight the plan is to make quesadillas with fresh corn in the filling).  So I picked this one, which is also a Thomas Keller recipe, but is a much simpler alternative to his creamed corn.  Actually, it might actually be the simplest recipe in Ad Hoc at Home.  The best thing about this corn is how the emulsified butter really coats the corn with just the right amount of buttery goodness.  I don't know about you but I hate trying to butter corn on the cob - the spray butter is easy but doesn't taste as good and trying to evenly coat it with a pat of butter is impossible.  So I am going to use this method for buttering corn a lot in the future.  The lime salt was pretty tasty too.  I would like to try it with some mango and see how that goes...  Yum.  As for the chives, they were pretty but I'm not sure they added a ton of flavor.  We actually tried sprinkling a variety of different dried chili flakes that John gave us on the corn - I went for banana pepper and cayenne, Alex tried out just about all of them.  They gave the corn some kick in the best of ways.  So if you like spicy (and have some nice chili flakes on hand, or just some ground cayenne from the supermarket if that is all you have), you should definitely consider sprinkling a little pepper on your corn for some added flavor!

Recipe after the jump!

Szechuan Beans

I am going to start this post off by giving a brief shout out to Alex.  Last weekend we went to Cincinnati to visit his family.  We were supposed to make these green beans Wednesday night, but we had tickets to a show and too much going on to make them before the show, so it didn't happen.  Then we were going to make them Thursday night, but we had laundry to do and we just totally forgot.  Friday morning I looked in the fridge and realized that we had forgotten to make the green beans, but I had to run off to work.  So poor Alex got to hang out at home and make them that morning.  And they were way more labor intensive than I had realized.  Oops.  Thanks (and sorry) hon!  Actually, I end up doing that to him a lot - giving him a recipe and having him prep and start dinner for us while I rush home, only to realize that I never really read the recipe in the first place and it is way too labor intensive for a random Wednesday night when I don't get home until 9:00 pm.  So thanks for being such a good sport!

Now, back to the green beans.  I really wanted to like these green beans because the recipe sounded so promising, but they were a little too harsh for me.  The vinegar flavor was just really strong, although the flavor that really lingered on your palate after the quick burn of the vinegar was the sesame oil.  Alex says he wishes they had a little less sesame and a little more heat.  The write-up on Serious Eats was just so complimentary that I really expected to love the beans, but they left me feeling a little lackluster when eaten on their own.  We have another jar in the fridge that I think I will use as a garnish for soup or noodles.  We had a noodle dish while ago at Mission Chinese Food (see our post here) that combined soba noodles with radish, pear and cilantro that I thought was mighty tasty.  Perhaps we could make our own riff on it and use the remaining green beans?  Maybe it was a little silly on our part to expect them to stand entirely on their own...

Recipe after the jump!