Our local market has good fish, but the only kind we’ll eat is the wild salmon, since it’s not yet overfished and is safer to eat than other varieties. So we’re lucky that it’s just a mile down the road, but it means I have to work at coming up with new ways to make salmon (today I’m going to the better market 10 miles away for some variety tomorrow.) I rubbed this filet with…
Category: Lazy
I normally never buy the skinless, boneless chicken pieces, since the fat and bones are essential for flavor and stock-making, but it’s what they had at the place I went shopping. At least they had thighs. I marinated them all day in lemon and tangerine juice with garlic, ginger, cardamom, yuzu kosho, and rosemary, then threw them in the wok, followed by pak choi and some of the marinade thickened with flour. Served on brown…
One of the problems with Thanksgiving is that it’s easy to eat badly for days beforehand since all the time and effort in the kitchen are in the service of delayed gratification. So this evening, after much toil on prep, I whipped up a quick roux-thickened, pancetta enriched milk and tomato sauce with some minced dried porcini, dried tomatoes, garlic and herbs and tossed penne in it, followed by a bag of our frozen peas.…
A roast chicken, with Japanese yams and whole garlic cloves in the pan, plus sautéed kale with lemon and a lemony gravy made with the pan juices. Just right for a rainy day and I got to work right up to dinner time. A 2001 Cheze St.-Joseph Cuvée Ro-Rée was well suited to this simple meal, though I think I like the 03 better.
That’s pretty much it. All homegrown, except the pasta; I used the last of the homemade butter in place of olive oil. The chard turned the pasta pink.
Chicken pieces, crusted with coarse cornmeal and spices, browned in the big pan then sat aside while supplì of the smoked chicken risotto (with a similar cornmeal coating, and fromage blanc inside) sizzled in about half an inch of oil next door. Back in the big pan, mirepoix, leeks, tomatoes, scallions, peas, and broccoli- all just picked- deglazed all the chckeny goodness along with a splash of wine from the fridge. I’m sure we drank…
Plating, schmating. This was money. Local, organic lamb leg steak with endive mash, kale, and little cakes made from the leftover yam-sweet potato mixture with black olives, lemon zest, and Moroccan spices added. All drizzled with a reduction I made from the lamb chop bones in the fridge, mirepoix, bay leaf, and red wine. I got started early on this, which is why the reduction had time to happen, since I was blanching and freezing…
I’ve been working like mad to get ready for a show, so dinners have been necessarily limited in scope. This time, a good hunk of salmon in the oven for a few minutes with ras-el-hanout, salt, pepper, herbs, and paprika got just firm while I steamed Japanese yams and sweet potatoes to whip together and I busted out some mash since summer is ending and the simple pleasure of fresh bitter greens is about to…
Milo got another cold- mild, but still requiring this sort of medicine: a broth made from mirepoix and chicken thighs in which cannelini cooked for two hours, and into which I dumped broccoli, parsley, and peas at the last minute. Just before that, some frozen porcini agnolotti from the store had a simmer. A 2006 “Petit Bourgeois” Chavignol (by Henri Bourgeois) sauvignon blanc was good, but a tad crisp and austere for such hearty peasant…