Viking Sunday Dinner

The bookshelf

Pathetic as this is to admit for someone who's hoping to drive a lot of traffic to her site, I don't use the internet all that much for cooking.  When presented with a particular culinary quandry (such as last week's: how best to grill a 5 1/2 pound red snapper), I do like to turn to the internets (and its many tubes) but somehow I don't find the internet as generally inspirational as I do a really good cookbook. 

For a while after we moved into our house, our cookbooks had no home in our new kitchen and perched rather perilously on the corner of the kitchen counter - and while this was not a great time for home organization, I think Donovan would agree that it was a particularly golden period in my cooking, where I was almost constantly reading, re-reading and reviewing the contents of my stack.

Now better organized, but no less inspirational, they are as follows:

• Appetite, by Nigel Slater.  Donovan finds Nigel's rather slap-dash ingredient lists infuriating, but I think he's got a intriuging approach to home cooking; the book really is about learning to listen to your senses in the kitchen and, especially, at the market.  Also, the food photography is possibly the wierdest, and therefore awesomest, I have ever seen in a cookbook.  If most food photography is Playboy Magazine, Appetite's is underground hardcore.
• How to Be a Domestic Goddess, by Nigella Lawson.  Given, right?  But Nigella is so chatty, so self-depricating, and so constistantly right on with her recipes, I almost never bake without her.  Her sugar cookie recipe alone is worth the price of admission.
• The Silver Palate Good Times Cook Book, by Julee Rosso and Sheila Lukins.  "Pesto is the quiche of the eighties."  Word up - and this cookbook is total eighties, but I love it.  It has the recipes that my mom was crazed for when I was in my tween years - lots of sugary/savory, big flavors, and a certain preciousness that was very right for the time.  It's also a photography-free cookbook - nothing but sketches - which is ridiculously charming.
• The New Cook, by Donna Hay.  From what I understand, Donna Hey is like a religion in her native Australia.  Very clean and crisp recipes.
• Anthony Bourdain's Les Halles Cookbook.  I read Kitchen Confidential first, and was in Bourdain's pocket from there out.  The cookbook is, as can be expected, dictatorial, technique-heavy, and classically French - but with lots of cursing, drinking, and an odd Simpson's reference.  His particular style is not for everyone, and the complexity of some of the recipes makes this really more restaurant cooking than home cooking - but he encouraged me to try making moules, and that's enough to earn him a place of honor forever.
• Home Cooking, by Silvana Franco.  The Italian diaspora in Britain really knows their stuff.  This is a lovely, bright, charming cookbook with a cheerful mix of Continental flavors.
• Many Friends Cooking.  This is the UNICEF cookbook for kids that I had when I was a little girl... and the simplified international recipes aren't brilliant, but the illustrations are absolutely amazing.  Each one features an element of the recipe, and an element of the country of origin - for example, a group of Pakistani on horseback, one brandishing a frying pan, to illustrate deram fiti, or wheat sprout pancakes.  I still use the Snickerdoodle recipe.
• I Like You, by Amy Sedaris.  Ms. Sedaris would probably come after me with knives if I suggested that this wasn't a "real" cookbook, and it's not like it isn't packed with recipes, suggestions, and ideas for entertaining - it is a highly useful book in many ways.  That said, I take I Like You mostly as a brilliant reminder that entertaining has to be personal - a reflection of who you are, not someone else's idea of what makes a dinner party.  And if that means you're inviting lumberjacks for lunch, or making up a big mess of chicken wings for some alcoholics... so be it.

Salad and eggs

One of my favorite things to eat during the day, either as a mildly hungover brunch on the weekend, or as a luxurious midday meal when I'm working from home, is a green salad with a fried egg on top. 

The most basic version is a green arugula salad, lightly dressed with olive oil and lemon juice, with a runny-bellied egg perched right on top and sprinkled with sea salt.  The egg yolk drips down through the bitter green leaves, wilting them and enriching them: absolute bliss.

A slightly more textural and version is pictured above and was an experiment one sunny Tuesday that I will definitely repeat.  A few stalks of celery were sliced down into thin crescents and tossed with fresh peas briefly blanched using the teakettle technique; I added lemon juice, honey, and olive oil and sprinkled the whole operation with fresh chopped parsley, sea salt and pepper.

Homemade croutons emerged from a stale loaf of ciabatta bread cut into one-inch cubes and sauteed in a saucepan with a few tablespoons of oil until crisp and brown; drain these on paper towels.

Pile the celery and pea salad on a plate, and top with croutons.  In a small fry-pan, bring a teaspoon of olive oil to shimmer until a drop of water hisses on contact.  Carefully break an egg into the pan, taking care to keep the yolk intact.  Cook over medium heat until the white is mostly solidified and carefully tip onto the pile of salad and croutons.  Sprinkle with salt and a few extra bits of parsley.

Olive oil pound cake

This is an exceptionally strange pound cake made with olive oil and pepper, where the recipe makes it sound a lot weirder than it tastes. 

It's delicious on its own, but we loved it for a Fourth of July dinner last weekend with a few dollops of homemade lemon curd.  We had some toasted for breakfast the next day with a smear of strawberry jam.

You want a really delicious, fruity olive oil for this recipe - and don't be stingy with the pepper.

I modified it from Bittersweet, by Alice Medrich; she makes hers as a marble cake, but I like it better as a simple pound cake. 

• 3 cups white flour
• 2 teaspoons baking powder
• 1/4 teaspoon salt
• 2 cups sugar
• 1 cup extra virgin olive oil
• 1/2 teaspoon fresh fine-ground pepper
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 5 eggs
• 1 cup milk

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees, and oil and flour a Bundt cake pan. 

Sift together the flour, baking powder and salt in a mixing bowl and set aside.

In a large mixer bowl, beat together the sugar, the olive oil, the pepper and the vanilla extract until smooth and creamy.  Add the eggs, one at a time, then beat the mixture until pale and creamy, about 3 minutes.

Stop the mixer and toss in about a third of the flour mixture, then mix on low until just incorporated.  Add half the milk, and mix until just incorporated.  Add another third of the flour mixture, then repeat with the milk and final third of flour mixture.  You'll want to scrape down the sides of the bowl with a spatula between additions.

Pour into the prepared cake pan and bake until a cake tester comes out clean - about an hour and ten minutes.

Let the cake cool in the pan for about 20 minutes, then invert and gently work it out of the pan.

Grill-top flatbread

When we inherited a massive offset smoker this summer from our neighbors who moved to Boulder, I admit I had some reservations.  It had been sitting - no, lurking - in a dark corner, looking like a massive black iron steam engine, whipped out only on grand occasions when 8 hours of rib smoking were in order.  I was intimidated, a little.

However, when Donovan and I dug it out and installed it in a new place of honor, we discovered that it was actually a lot more functional than it looked - and could be used as a very servicable grill for projects both large and small.

One of the emerging favorite uses to which to put our new friend is grill-top flatbreads.  These are not quite pita, not quite foccacia - and have developed a cult following.   This makes 6 flatbreads, which 6 people will devour in record time.

• 1 packets of active dry yeast
• 1 cup warm water
• pinch of sugar
• 2 teaspoons sea salt
• 1/2 cup whole wheat flour
• extra virgin olive oil (so much olive oil)
• 2 cups white flour

This is a nice place to use your mixer, if you have one with a dough hook.  In a large mixer bowl, disolve the yeast in the warm water with the pinch of sugar.  Let it sit for about 5 minutes until you see some foaming action!

Stir in the salt, a few good glugs of olive oil and the 1/2 cup of whole wheat flour.  Things will be pretty gooey at this point.   Switch to your dough hook and slowly start adding the 2 cups of white flour, about a half-cup at a time.  Knead at medium speed until the bundle of dough is smooth and elastic.

If you don't have a mixer, just use a big wooden spoon to stir in the white flour until it gets a bit stiff, then tip it out onto a well-floured board and knead by hand, adding the remaining flour, until smooth.

Plop the ball of dough into a well-oiled bowl (more olive oil), cover with plastic wrap and let it sit for at least an hour until it has doubled in size.

30 minutes or so before you're ready to eat, prep the flatbreads.  Grab a tray or plate and some wax paper; you're going to roll out the individual flatbreads, oil them, and lay them out, seperated by wax paper. Tip your oily dough back onto a board - it should be sufficiently oiled that you won't need more flour - and divide it into six equally-sized pieces.  Roll each piece out flat to about 8 inches - no need to get too fussy about the shape - then brush it with olive oil on both sides and lay it on a piece of waxpaper that you've set out.  Repeat with the remaining pieces; you can stack them with wax paper between, just remember to oil them on both sides.

OK, grill time.  I'm assuming you have a hot grill prepared, and have already cleared it of its other recipes.  I like to cook these after I've finished cooking whatever meats we're eating for dinner (they need to rest after all!) and while people are sitting salivating waiting for Donovan to give the word.   Carefully peel the little slabs of dough off their pieces of wax paper and lay them reasonably neatly on the grill over the hot coals (or gas if that's how you roll).  They will cook quickly - maybe 1 minute per side.   Keep an eye on them for charring and flip them with tongs as soon as they start to brown. 

As soon as the flatbreads are browned and slightly puffy on both sides, yank them off the grill and give them a last brush with some olive oil and a sprinkle of sea salt before you put them on the table for people to tear into with their bare hands.

If you want to get really snazzy, you can brush them with olive oil in which you've allowed a crushed clove of garlic and a few snips of fresh rosemary to marinate for a few hours.

You could also try making grill-top pizza this way, though I haven't tried that yet.  I may give it a shot this weekend - will keep you posted.

Vegetable extremes!

My favorite ways to cook vegetables are miles away from one another.  The first involves the very gentlest of cooking – so much so that you’re not even doing it over the stove – the second, roasting the holy hell out of them.  In either case, this is a way to make vegetables that are robust enough to complete the meal when paired with a nice piece of meat, chicken or fish.

Technique 1: the teakettle technique

If you have an electric kettle, you’ll love this approach (if not, just use your stovetop kettle).  Fill it up full with water and bring it to a boil; meanwhile, trim your veggies, and rinse them in a metal colander.  When the kettle’s on the boil, set the metal colander in the sink and slowly and carefully pour the boiling water over your veggies.  When you’re out of boiling water, the veggies are done.  Blast them with cold water from the faucet for about a minute to stop the cooking.  You’re done. 

This is a green bean’s heaven.  Green beans cooked this way are tender and perfect; toss them with olive oil and salt, or a vinaigrette, or some plain old melted butter.  Snow peas also are amazing cooked like this, and respond well to a bit of sesame oil for seasoning.  Broccoli can be tossed with olive oil and lemon juice and served as a side – or any of these can be mixed into salad greens.

Technique 2:  the holy-hell roast

Big roasting pan, a few big glugs of oil (olive or canola) and some high heat – around 450 degrees.  The only variable is how long it will take for the vegetable in question to achieve the critical brown caramelized quality that makes this so tasty.  Brussels sprouts, halved lengthwise with a few cloves of chopped garlic, were made for this technique (don’t even consider boiling a Brussels sprout, no matter what your mother says) and will take about 20 minutes.  Broccoli, amazingly, also takes this method well, but will only take about 8 minutes.  Hard root vegetables like carrots and parsnips will be around 25 minutes.

Eat your veggies!