Month: January 2019

lemon/parsley-fried butterfish; tiny turnips, mustard greens

Sometimes I decide to cook something partly, maybe mostly, just because I want to see if I can, and to see what it’s like to cook something or to taste something I may not otherwise have a chance to experience.

Butterfish was like that the first time it appeared on our table; the second time it was a good friend.

Last night, just after the meal, I tweeted: “I get it: cooking – and eating – whole fish isn’t for the timid, but egads it’s so good (butterfish tonight)” This is James Wagner, and I approve this message.

  • four 5-ounce whole cleaned butterfish from Pura Vida Seafood, rinsed, drained, dried, 2 deep diagonal cuts made to each side before they were brushed with a mixture of olive oil, some zest and juice from an organic Whole Foods Market lemon, chopped parsley from Salinas, California, via Eataly Flatiron, and some crushed dried red shishito pepper (with no heat) from Lani’s Farm, seasoned with sea salt and freshly-ground black pepper on both sides, dusted lightly with a local Greenmarket-purchased whole wheat flour from The Blew family of Oak Grove Plantation in Pittstown, N.J., placed in 3 or 4 tablespoons of a mix of olive oil and butter inside a large seasoned oval 16″ steel pan that had been allowed to get very hot, over 2 burners, before the heat was turned down to low, and the fish sautéed  for about 3.5 minutes each side (it should turn a crispy golden brown), or until cooked through, arranged on the plates and sprinkled with more, fresh, chopped parsley

  • a few handfuls of tiny white Hakurei turnips from Mountain Sweet Berry Farm, tossed in a bowl with a little olive oil, salt, pepper, the leaves off of 2 rosemary stems from Whole Foods Market Chelsea and 2 large crushed bay leaves from Westside Market, roasted on a seasoned medium-size Pampered Chef oven pan for 20 or 25 minutes at 400º, garnished on the plates with micro red mustard from Two Guys from Woodbridge

  • mustard greens (in mid-January!) from Norwich Meadows Farm, wilted in a little olive oil in which several small halved cloves of Keith’s Farm rocambole garlic had been allowed to sweat a bit, seasoned with salt and pepper and finished on the plates with a drizzle of olive oil

There was a cheese course, mostly because we had 2 cheeses exactly at their prime.

Because the 2 courses were so very different, there really should have been a sorbet before the cheese as a palate cleanser, but we had none, so we just sucked it up, so to speak.

  • two cheeses, an Ardith Mae camembert-style using 2 milks (goat from their own farm and cow from that of a neighbor) and a ‘Buvarti’ semi-hard water buffalo cheese from Riverine Ranch
  • slices of a 12 grain bread from Bread Alone in the Union Square Greenmarket

 

spaghettto alio e olio; formaggio di latte di bufala semidura

The idea was to go easy after a string of some pretty rich meals, and to serve an entrée early enough in the evening, and also light enough, for us to enjoy a really great new cheese I had bought in the Greenmarket the day before. For Barry it would be his first taste.

  • while the water was boiling for cooking 8 ounces of Afeltra sphagetto from Eataly in a very large vintage (providence: the Providence Biltmore Hotel 1975 closing sale) stainless pasta pot, 3 large garlic cloves, coarsely-chopped, were heated over a low-medium flame inside a large antique high-sided enameled copper pot until they had begun to soften and turn golden, 3 salted anchovies, rinsed thoroughly, filleted, and roughly chopped, added and stirred until they had broken up, followed by part of a dried Sicilian pepperoncino from Buon Italia, crushed, a tablespoon or two of roughly-chopped parsley from Salinas, California, via Eataly, and about a quarter cup of the pasta cooking water (while it was still boiling), the mix then allowed to simmer and reduce slightly while the pasta finished cooking (to be removed from the large pot before it had quite reached the point of al dente, drained, tossed into the copper pot with the sauce, and, the heat turned up slightly, its contents cooked, stirring, for another minute or two, the spaghetto arranged in 2 shallow bowls and another tablespoon or two of parsley sprinkled on top of each

A great cheese.

The cheese course was even more minimal, but also more of a revelation, since we’ve often enjoyed this simple emergency pasta, spaghettata di mezzanotte, or ‘bachelor’s salvation’, but we had never had this local cheese. We both agreed it was one of the best we’d ever had, anywhere.

 

broiled sea perch with scallion, anchovy; tomato; cabbage

It’s a beautiful fish

And it’s an absolutely delicious fish. Last night we enjoyed what may have been one of my most successful preparations ever, using a simple recipe I’ve become very fond of, on some very fresh fish.

It’s precisely however because I’m realizing how good this fish is without the addition of strong flavors, and because I know I’ve been in something of a rut, that I’m going to have to try even simpler recipes to showcase it in the future.

  • one pound of 6 red sea perch fillets (sometimes called ‘redfish’, but usually it’s ‘sea perch’ or ‘ocean perch’) from American Seafood Company in the Union Square Greenmarket, brushed with 2 tablespoons of olive oil mixed with about a teaspoon of chopped Keith’s Farm rocambole garlic, then seasoned with sea salt and freshly-ground black pepper and placed inside an enameled cast iron pan, broiled skin side up 4 or 5 inches from the flame for about 4 or 5 minutes, at which time the skin had a little crisp and the fish was cooked through, sauced with a bit of olive oil in which 2 salted Sicilian anchovies from Buon Italia, rinsed and filleted, had been heated over a very low flame for about 5 minutes until the anchovies had fallen apart (this time it had just been prepared, but it could have been done a little earlier and kept warm while waiting for the fish to cook), the fillets finished on the plates with chopped lovage from Two Guys from Woodbridge, lemon wedges served on the side
  • six Backyard Farms Maine ‘cocktail tomatoes’ from Whole Foods Market sliced 1/4″ thick, slid into a medium size copper skillet in which some olive oil had been heating and softening one Camelot shallot from Quarton Farm, allowed to warm and also soften just a bit, seasoned with salt and black pepper, some chopped lovage from Two Guys from Woodbridge mixed in and a pinch or two of dried fenugreek from Bombay Emerald Chutney Company (purchased last fall at the Saturday Chelsea Farmers Market) added
  • a small amount of Savoy cabbage from remaining from the preparation of a much earlier meal (there’s a reason why cabbage was so important in the winter before California and Florida were invented) sliced into fairly narrow ribbons this time, sautéed in a little olive oil over medium high heat, stirring occasionally, until the leaves were tender, had begun to brown and become (ideally) slightly crisp at the edges, seasoned with sea salt, freshly-ground black pepper, and 4 flattened juniper berries, a few drops of sherry vinegar added, the contents of the pan stirred over heat for a moment then arranged on the plates with a drizzle of olive oil
  • the wine was a French (Menetou-Salon/Loire), Domaine Pelle, Menetou-Salon Morogues 2017, from Flatiron Wines
  • the music was the ECM album, ‘Now, And Then’, Dennis Russel Davies conducting the Orchestra della Svizzera Italiana in the music of Bruno Maderna and Luciano Berio, in this case the composers addressing, respectively, the Italian Renaissance and Early Baroque eras and the tradition of classical and flamenco guitar

[the images are somewhat sepia-like because I had accidentally left the camera on the wrong setting]

saddle of hare, game sauce, quince; roast squash; sprouts

The richest, gamiest game imaginable.

Wild hare, two days in a row! Well it was already there, and for several reasons it seemed neither advisable nor possible to push back cooking our second ration of this noble meat to another day.

We found 2 more pieces of shot, for a total of 4 between us.

  • a 12 ounce/325g saddle from the Scottish Mountain hare purchased from Ottomanelli’s in the West Village, on Bleecker Street just east of 7th Avenue, that we had enjoyed the night before (the back had been cut into 4 sections and already marinated, along with the other pieces cooked on Sunday, after which it was tightly wrapped and placed overnight in the refrigerator), brought to room temperature and placed, backbone side upwards, inside an enameled cast iron roasting pan just the right size for the 4 pieces, barded with 2 long rashers of streaky bacon from Millport Dairy Farm that had been parboiled for 2 minutes then rinsed in cold water, to remove some of the strong smokey flavor of the pork, each strip then cut into 4 sections in order to be more easily arranged lengthwise on top of the hare, fastened with toothpicks, the meat placed inside a pre-heated 425°F oven to sizzle for only 7 or 8 minutes, the temperature then turned down to 325°F, and the saddle cooked for only another 10  minutes or so, the meat removed and kept warm inside a small oven pan while the pan on which it had cooked was deglazed with a tablespoon of Courvoisier V.S. cognac, followed by about 8 ounces of a very rich stock (a mix of mostly a good low-sodium chicken stock with a wonderful full-flavored wine and vegetable ham stock created with this meal, and occasionally reheated to refresh it), boiled to reduce it by half, the heat turned down, the liquid allowed to cool slightly and then only about 2 ounces of heavy cream from our local Ronnybrook Farm Dairy added and stirred continuously over a flame until the sauce had thickened, the hare then arranged on warm plates on the top of the bacon slices and the sauce ladled over both, the plates finished with chopped lovage from Two Guys from Woodbridge [cook’s note: I think I would have been off adding the stock to the pan (but not over the meat itself) at the time the oven temperature was turned down, but in perhaps a smaller amount: this might have allowed the hare to cook more evenly, and also to be less well done and more moist, but I suspect all of this would have been more simple to accomplish had the animal just been larger..]
  • a quince conserve from Wilkin & Sons (the quince and fig chutney I had made having been exhausted at dinner the day before)
  • one 5-inch black futsu squash from Norwich Meadows Farm, scrubbed, halved vertically, the seeds and pith removed, cut into wedges just over one half-inch thick at the outside end and mixed by hand inside a large bowl with a relatively small amount of olive oil, sea salt, freshly-ground black pepper, and pieces of golden crushed dried habanada pepper, arranged on a large, unglazed, well-seasoned ceramic pan and roasted in the 425º oven on one side for 15 minutes, turned onto the other side and allowed to roast for 10 more minutes, removed from the oven and transferred to a large heavy copper pot in which 3 crushed cloves of Krasnodar red garlic from Quarton Farm and half a dozen large sage leaves from Whole Foods Market Chelsea had been gently heated  in a bit of olive oil, then gently mixed in with a wooden spatula
  • more small Migliorelli Farm Brussels sprouts, from the large number I had purchased more than a week earlier, washed, trimmed and dried, tossed inside a bowl with a little olive oil, salt, and black pepper, roasted inside a medium-size Pampered Chef pan until the sprouts were partly brown and crisp on the outside
  • the wine was a brilliant French (Bandol/Provence) red, Domaine Castell Reynoard Bandol 2013, from Copake Wine Works (and a great pairing)
  • the music was a wonderful 1964 recording of Mozart’s ‘Die Zauberflöte’, Karl Böhm directing the Berlin Philharmonic and the RIAS Chamber Choir, with Evelyn Lear, Roberta Peters,  Lisa Otto, Fritz Wunderlich, Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau, Franz Crass, Hans Hotter, Hildegard Hillebrecht, Cvetka Ahlin, Sieglinde Wagner, and Friedrich Lenz, among others

hare in cognac sauce; chutney; buckwheat risotto; cabbage

One Scottish hare.

It turned out to be a 2-day feast, not necessarily because there was so much meat, but mostly because I was anxious to try to specifically prepare ‘saddle of hare’ (the phrase had always attracted me, like ‘haunch of venison’). For the saddle, see the next day’s post.

But there definitely was enough protein for 2 meals, since this really is probably the richest, gamiest traditional European-tradition game of all: A little hare goes a long way.

It’s not rabbit.

Our lepus europaeus was brought down in the field, with a shotgun, although not by the cook. While it was here we discovered two clues for identifying the manner of its demise, one while preparing the hare, one while enjoying it on the plate.

I bagged it myself only after spotting it behind the glass-door of Ottomanelli’s freezer the afternoon I picked up a large Kassler roast I had ordered for New Years Day. The price of the hare was surprisingly reasonable, especially considering how far it had flown to get here. I couldn’t resist bringing it home, even knowing it would steal a good chunk of the less-than-vast interior of our apartment refrigerator for much of a week while it lay inside, defrosting, then waiting for the cook’s attentions.

  • one Scottish mountain hare (2.6 lbs) purchased frozen from Ottomanelli’s on Bleecker Street in the West Village, defrosted over several days, cut into 10 pieces, including 4 sections from the saddle, which were later to be reserved later for a second meal, placed inside a large bowl in a marinade composed of one sliced ‘Expression Sweet’ yellow onion and 3 small carrots, also sliced, both from Norwich Meadows Farm; several small stems of celery from Phillips Farms, cut into small pieces; 4 cloves of Krasnodar red garlic from Quarton Farm; 7 large sage leaves from Whole Foods Market; 8 peppercorns; and one half bottle of wine (F. Stephen Millier Symphony), all left inside the refrigerator overnight, turning a few times before preparing the dinner the next evening, when the meat was removed from the marinade and dried, the wine and the vegetables strained and reserved separately, a tablespoon of olive oil heated inside a heavy enameled cast iron dutch oven, the vegetables tossed in and sautéed until translucent, then the hare browned over high heat inside another pan, a seasoned steel skillet, in roughly a tablespoon of butter, after which it was deglazed with about a tablespoon of Courvoisier V.S. cognac, the meat and the juices transferred to the dutch oven with the vegetables, where everything was seasoned with sea salt and one cup of the wine marinade poured in, followed by enough good chicken stock to partially cover the hare, cooked over a moderate flame for about an hour and 15 minutes, stirring occasionally, when another tablespoon of cognac was  added, plus about 2/3rds of a cup of light cream, the liquid allowed to thicken, while stirring some, hare and vegetables arranged on the plates, ladled with the sauce and finished with chopped lovage from Two Guys from Woodbridge
  • a rich chutney remaining from dinner on New Years Day, whose ingredients and preparation are described in this post
  • three fourths of a cup of ‘Buck Berries, Naked Winter Barley’ from the [Union Square] Greenmarket’s Original Grains Project, cooked a bit like a risotto, with 2 and a quarter cups of water, stirring occasionally until thickened, or roughly 40 minutes (I didn’t actually time myself), seasoned with salt and butter, 6 large sage leaves, a bit of crushed home-dried habanada pepper, a couple tablespoons of butter added and stirred in off heat at the end [Cook’s note: next time I think I’ll try preparing it more like I do risotto, starting with the fat, heating the grain in it, them adding the liquid, which can vary]
  • one small Savoy cabbage from Norwich Meadows Farm, washed, quartered, cored, sliced into one-half-inch ribbons, sautéed in a scant tablespoon of olive oil inside a large heavy, tin-lined copper pot until wilted but still a little crunchy, stirring occasionally, seasoned with sea salt and freshly-ground black pepper, 8 or so slightly smashed juniper berries then mixed in, a few drops of balsamic vinegar added and stirred over the heat for only a moment, the cabbage arranged on the plates and finished with a drizzle of olive oil
  • the wine was a very special Italian (Piedmont) red, Cascina Chicco, Barolo ‘Rocche del Castelletto’ 2013, from Flatiron Wines
  • the music was Mozart’s 1786 opera buffa, ‘Le nozze di Figaro’, Yannick Nézet-Séguin conducting the Chamber Orchestra of Europe and the Vocalensemble Rastatt, with soloists Luca Pisaroni, Christiane Karg, Sonya Yoncheva, Thomas Hampson, Angela Brower, Anne Sofie von Otter, Maurizio Muraro, and Rolando Villazón Mauleón