filet after being rubbed with the sugar and spices, before it was refrigerated

 

Thinking of the arguable thesis that an artist’s best work may often arise from working with constraints, I will make the modest proposal that the same thing can work for the creative output of an ordinary cook.

I was unable to get to the Greenmarket on Monday to pick up some fish, so we enjoyed a pasta that night. The next day, not wanting to cook meat or another pasta, I decided to check out the wild salmon selection at Whole Foods. I would have to cook it on the top of the stove, since our oven is ailing, but I knew that was unlikely to present much of a problem, especially since I had just come across a very interesting Melissa Clark recipe which described pan-grilling the fish after it had rested in a spicy brown-sugar marinade. The salmon was not on sale, as it often is, but the wild Coho filets were being offered at what I would call a pretty reasonable price.

I still had a small amount of the red cabbage we had been enjoying for a week or so, and there was a generous amount of upland cress in the crisper waiting to be summoned to embellish a worthy plate.

Finally, still worried that what I had in mind wouldn’t quite add up to a complete meal, I decided to boil a very few potatoes as a foil for the other flavors I had gathered. Because of my introducing the potatoes, the excellent small Balthazar rye boule, which I had bought that day to fill out what I had earlier anticipated would be a pretty sparse course, stayed in the breadbox instead.

The meal turned out to be far more satisfying than I had hoped it might be.

If it had a geographic character, I would say that it lay somewhere between the German-speaking lands of Central Europe and the Pacific Northwest of the North American continent. Maybe New York City.

• one section of a Coho salmon filet (13.2 oz) from Whole Foods, marinated for about 6 hours in a mix of turbinado sugar, sea salt, freshly ground tellicherry pepper, freshly ground allspice, freshly ground nutmeg in lieu of the mace Clark had specified (the only mace in the kitchen had already been ground, probably over 30 yearsa ago, and had sat inside an antique tin container ever since, through 2 removes from since its purchase in Rhode Island), and the zest of half of an organic lemon from Whole Foods
• red cabbage remaining from being prepared earlier 5 days before for an earlier meal and one one which had succeeded it
• upland cress from Alewife Farm, dressed with some good Umbrian olive oil, a little white balsamic vinegar, salt, and pepper
• four sweet Norland red potatoes from Lucky Dog Organic Farm, scrubbed and boiled unpeeled, then halved, tossed with sweet butter, salt, pepper, and chopped lovage from Two Guys from Woodbridge
• the wine was an Oregon (Willamette) red, Argyle Pinot Noir 2013
• the music was Kalevi Aho’s Symphony No. 8, and his ‘Pergamon’, the Lahti Symphony Orchestra conducted by Osmo Vänskä, Hans-Ola Ericsson, organ

I’ve cooked this simple dish many times, and it’s shown up on this blog three times before. It never fails to satisfy whatever either of us was looking for in a meal at the moment; usually it was when we didn’t have the time or patience to come up with something more complicated.

• approximately 8 ounces of Afeltra spaghettone, from Eataly, boiled, but only until still pretty firmly al dente, tossed inside the same pot in which it had cooked with a very savory sauce (created with 4 plump garlic cloves from Whole Foods, roughly chopped, cooked in about a third of a cup of olive oil over low-medium heat until softened and beginning to brown, 3 salted anchovies, well-rinsed, added to the pan and mashed with a wooden spoon, a tablespoon of Mediterranean organic wild capers in brine (from a Providence, RI distributor), rinsed and drained, half of one dried Itria-Sirissi chili, peperoncino di Sardegna intero from Buon Italia), along with several tablespoons of chopped parsley from Eataly, an equal amount of chopped lovage from Two Guys from Woodbridge, and a little of the reserved pasta water, then simmered for another minute or so while the sauce was both emulsified and slightly reduced, the mix distributed in two bowls and sprinkled with another few tablespoons of parsley and lovage
• the wine was an Italian (Sardinia) white, La Cala Vermentino di Sardegna 2013
• the music was the remaining part of Aulis Sallinen’s, ‘The King Goes Forth To France’, the scenes which we were unable to hear during dinner the night before.

I love cucumbers. And thanks to Martha Stewart I’ve now discovered the sautéed cucumber. I took some liberties with her recipe however, in consideration of the vegetable materials I had on hand, and my own taste: I had 3 small Korean cucumbers, I cooked the chunks until they had begun to brown, and I finished them with lovage.

The cabbage was left over from an earlier meal, and tasted even better than it had the first time.

The pork was from a new Greenmarket source, one which happened to have the smaller-size chops I’ve had difficulty finding lately. I used the same recipe I’ve used for years, but since my oven is currently unavailable, I cooked them on top of the stove in a heavy enameled cast iron pot. I think I should have seared them a little longer before squeezing the half lemon over them and covering it: They turned out less than brown, but the flavor was terrific.

Since I’ve just pointed to the recipes or procedures, now I only have to list the ingredients:

• the pork chops, from Sawkill Farm, weighed just under 14 ounces altogether
• the cabbage ingredients were described here
• the 3 Korean cucumbers (totally 8.5 ounces) were from Lani’s Farm, and they were sprinkled with chopped lovage from Two Guys from Woodbridge
• the wine was a California (Sonoma) white, Jacqueline Bahue Carte Blanche Sauvignon Blanc Sonoma Valley 2015, from Naked Wines
• the music was roughly the firsthalf of an 1984 opera of Aulis Sallinen, ‘The King Goes Forth To France’, which begins, topically but with an entirely fantastical story, with the English royal court heading south to escape a future ice age (read the album notes!), Okko Kamu conducting the Helsinki Philharmonic Orchestra, the Tapiola Chamber Choir, and the Finnish Philharmonic Choir, with the soloists Riikka Rantanen, Jyrki Korhonen, Lilli Paasikivi,
  Mari Palo, Laura Nykänen, Herman Wallen, and Tommi Hakala

At first I thought I wouldn’t do a post of this meal, since the main course was simply a matter of re-heating a pasta we’d had a few days earlier (even if these leftovers always present their own pleasures), but the antipasta was new, and so delicious, I decided that I should ‘memorialize’ it, at least for the sake of my own files (that is, this blog).

The total amount of salumi used in both servings was less than 4 ounces (2 ounces on each plate), even though the image makes it look like quite a large portion. The copa was sliced very thin.

• the ‘copa spicy giorgio’ was from Eataly, and it may have ultimately come from Salumi Artisan Cured Meats, the company and meat shop/restaurant co-founded by Mario Batali’s father, Armandino
• it was accompanied by a little upland cress from Alewife Farm, dressed with some good Umbrian olive oil, a squeeze of lemon juice, salt, and pepper
• the bread was ‘Commune’, from Sullivan Street Bakery

• the pasta was what had been left from a dinner of a few day before, spaghetti alle vongole in bianco (spaghetti with clams), although we had finished the clams themselves on the first night; it was divided into two ceramic oven dishes and heated at 350º for less than 15 minutes (I usually try to get it to the point where the more exposed pieces of pasta have become a little brown and crunchy), sprinkled with chopped parsley from Eataly

 

• the wine through both courses was an Italian (Marche) white, Le Salse Verdicchio di Matelica 2014

 

 

 

 

Green, very green this meal was.

• it began with a revisit with an Italian artisanal pasta, Foglie al Carciofo (artichoke leaves), from Maestri Pastai Selection, this time using 5 ounces, dry, served with a simple sauce of chopped spring garlic from Lani’s Farm which had been heated for a couple minutes in a little olive oil along with some dried Itria-Sirissi chili (peperoncino di Sardegna intero) from Buon Italia, the sauced pasta briefly emulsified with some of the reserved pasta water and sprinkled with freshly-ground Tellicherry pepper, then tossed with a little cultivated upland cress from Alewife Farm, served in shallow bowls with grated ‘Parmigiano Reggiano Bonat 3’ from Buon Italia

• the secondo was an 18-ounce tilefish filet from Pura Vida Seafood, prepared something like this Melissa Clark recipe, but I replaced the scallions with ramps from Mountain Sweet Berry Farm (bulbs and stems), and, for the chopped herbs I used over 3 tablespoons in a combination of finely-chopped lovage from Two Guys from Woodbridge, winter savory and thyme from Stokes Farm, oregano and mint from Phillips Farm; the fish was cooked on top of the stove in a magnificent 5-and-a-half-pound new [old] oval copper pan, briefly using aluminum foil for a cover, and both a small brush and a wooden spoon to repeatedly spread/ladle the ramp-herb butter over the fish
• the contorno was some very tender collard greens from Migliorelli Farm, washed, drained, and braised very lightly in a heavy pot, finished with salt, pepper, and a drizzle of olive oil
• the wine through both courses was a South African (Western Cape/Constantia) white, Klein Constantia Sauvignon Blanc 2014
• the music was Philip Glass, String Quartets No. 1, 2, and 3, performed by the Smith Quartet