It happened again.

The second appearance of this astonishing dish was as delicious, simply assembled, and good looking as the first.

I had used the same lotte recipe for the preparation (in the U.S., it’s usually called ‘monkfish’) just a few weeks ago, but yesterday at the Greenmarket I was seduced by two perfect ‘tails’. Then while telling my fish monger how I had cooked them the last time I bought Monkfish, I decided I had to do it again.

The basic, quite simple preparation outline, which I think I altered only with the addition of a bit of a fresh seasoning pepper, comes from the women of the London River Cafe, specifically, their book, ‘Italian Easy London River Cafe’, a brilliant guide to cooking with few ingredients, simple techniques – and spectacular results.

Even the accompaniments were similar to those of the earlier dinner, but I decided to publish it anyway, if only for the photo of the lotte inside the au gratin before it went into the oven.

• two 8-ounce monkfish tails, which is a fish also known as Lotte in France, Rape (pronounced “rah-pay”) in Spain, Coda di rospo in Italy, or Teufelfisch in Germany, from Pura Vida Seafood Company, placed inside an a tin-lined copper au gratin pan that had first been heated inside a 425º oven, with olive oil drizzled on the surface, a number of small sections of a rosemary branch arranged on the bottom and the fish placed inside on top of the herb, covered with thin slices cut from most of one lemon (the lemon had been separately seasoned with sea salt, black pepper after it had been cut), sprinkled with a tiny finely chopped orange aji dulce seasoning pepper from Eckerton Hill Farm and given a drizzle of olive oil, each tail topped with one salted Sicilian anchovy that had first been rinsed well, then filleted, and the fish itself seasoned to taste, the pan returned to the oven and cooked until the lotte was done, meaning, until the juices were opaque [about 15, maybe 20 minutes, although it’s important to check, maybe using a reliable instant read thermometer to show a 145º temperature at the center, but using that gauge alone can be tricky with a small piece of fish], removed from the oven and arranged on two plates (again, without a garnish, because it already looked spectacular)
• twelve ounces of Yukon Gold potatoes (described at the market as “new potatoes”, but this is January) from Norwich Meadows Farm, boiled, halved, tossed with olive oil, salt, and pepper, garnished with micro red sorrel from Two Guys from Woodbridge
• a bunch of beautiful tender rainbow chard, also from Norwich Meadow Farms (again, this is January!), wilted in a little olive oil where a halved clove of rocambole garlic had first been heated until softened and fragrant, seasoned with salt, pepper, and a small glug [Brit.] of olive oil
• the wine was a Spanish (Rías Baixas) white, Albariño “Xión”, Bodegas y Viñedos Attis 2019
• the music was Vivaldi’s 1733 opera, ‘Montezuma’, Alan Curtis directing the Ensemble, Il Complesso Bar (noting that the incomplete manuscript of this opera was only discovered in Berlin only in 2002, and the ensemble’s Vivaldi scholar and violinist, Alessandro Ciccolini, restored or completed it for a performing edition)

Yeah, it’s just a steak but, wow, what a steak!

My favorite beef purveyor didn’t have my favorite culotte/picanya cut the other day.  After a short consultation at their Union Square Greenmarket stand with their guy Mike, I opted for a pair of very well marbled strip steaks (‘New York’ wasn’t anywhere in their description, but I was buying them in New York CIty, and the beef had been raised in New York State, so what’s in a name?).

I cooked them as I would have cooked culotte steaks, which is to say, using a reverse sear process, the only way I’ve become interested in cooking any steak, if it’s of a decent thickness, starting some time last fall.

• a beautifully marbled one pound 100% grass fed, dry-aged black angus strip steak from Sun Fed Beef (Earlville, Chenango County, NY) in the Union Square Greenmarket, brought to room temperature, seasoned on both sides with sea salt and freshly-ground black pepper, placed on a rack inside a heavy oval enameled cast iron pan in a 275º oven probably for somewhere between 45 and 60 minutes (I lost track of the timing), or until medium rare, checking after a half hour with an instant thermometer until it read 90º to 95º, for medium-rare (it will finish cooking in the skillet and continue to increase in temperature, removed, and if the accompanying vegetables are not yet ready, perfectly safe if allowed to wait on a warm plate, covered with tin foil (for, say, up to about 45 minutes), the steak[s] then placed over high heat on the surface of a very well seasoned small antique cast iron pan that had been coated with a very small amount of cooking oil, one with a higher smoke point than olive oil, alternatively a bit of ghee, or a combination of butter and olive oil (I used Mac Nut macademia nut oil from Whole Foods Market by itself), and, remembering that the steak was already fully cooked, and so only needed to be inside the pan long enough to acquire some color, seared briefly (a minute and a half or 2 minutes on each side), removed from the heat, allowed to rest for up to 10 minutes on 2 warm plates, covered loosely with foil, some lemon juice squeezed on top, sprinkled with chopped rosemary from Phillips Farms, drizzled with a Whole Foods Market Portuguese house olive oil, garnished with red amaranth from Windfall Farms
• one bunch of washed, drained, and roughly chopped rainbow chard from Lani’s Farm, wilted in a couple tablespoons ofWhole Foods Market house Portuguese olive oil in which 2 halved garlic cloves from Westside Market had first been heated and slightly softened, seasoned with sea salt and freshly-ground black pepper, and finished with a little lemon juice and a drizzle of olive oil
• the wine was a South Africa (Western Cape) red, Farrington Shiraz-Viognier Reserve 2016, from Bottlerocket Wines
• the music was Schubert’s 1823 three-act German opera with spoken dialogue, to a libretto by Joseph Kupelwieser, ‘Fierrabras’, performed by the Chamber Orchestra of Europe and the Arnold Schoenberg Chor conducted by Claudio Abbado

 

 

April 5

As a word, ‘halibut’ means ‘holy butte’ (butt spelled with an ‘e’ at the end).

The name is supposedly derived from the combination of the medieval English words for holy and butte (the combo has everything to do with traditional Catholic food obsessions, and ‘butte’ here is the general term for flatfish, not a part of the anatomy flatfish obviously don’t possess, even when very  young).

Still, for other reasons, I’ve always considered Halibut a great treat, but it’s generally pretty expensive, so when I spotted a beautiful tray of very fresh looking fillets in the fish display at Chelsea’s Whole Foods market, learned that it had never been frozen, and that it was [very seriously] on sale, I grabbed us a piece.

I then looked inside my files for a very simple recipe, but one with a little zing, and I found something by California chef David Gingrass that I had cut out from Food & Wine 12 years ago.

I mostly followed his instruction.

• after the oven was turned on and set at 400º, one large crushed garlic clove from Chelsea’s Foragers Market and the zest of one small organic lemon from Chelsea’s Whole Foods Market was mixed inside a small bowl with 2 tablespoons of Trader Joe’s very good all-purpose Italian Reserve unfiltered olive oil and allowed to stand at room temperature, discarding the garlic after 10 minutes and the oil put aside while another tablespoon of olive oil was heated until shimmering inside a shiny re-tinned copper au gratin pan and one 20-ounce halved piece of Canadian halibut (I believe from the Pacific, but, sadly, the fish person didn’t know) from Chelsea Whole Foods Market, both seasoned with sea salt and freshly ground black pepper, was added to the pan, skin side up, cooked over high heat until the bottom could be seen beginning to brown [I may have been too cautious with the heat, as my halibut didn’t quite ‘brown’, but I also think: too much oil!], or about 3 minutes, then transferred to the oven and roasted for about 5 to 6 minutes, or until opaque throughout, arranged on the plates browned side up, where they were drizzled with the garlic lemon oil and garnished with micro scallions from Two Guys from Woodbridge
• six Maine cherry ‘cocktail’ tomatoes from Whole Foods, slow-roasted inside a small antique rolled-edge tin oven pan with a heaping teaspoon of dried Italian oregano from Buon Italia, half a tablespoon or more of Trader Joe’s Reserve olive oil, and 3 bruised cloves of garlic from Foragers Market

• I treated the chard that I had on the windowsill pretty much as the escarole was handled in Gingrass’ recipe, heating one tablespoon of olive oil inside a large vintage copper pot, adding one crushed garlic clove, 2 salted but thoroughly rinsed and filleted anchovies, and a bit of Calabresi peperoncino secchia from Buon Italia in the Chelsea Market, then cooking over moderate heat, stirring, for about 30 seconds, before more than half of 2 living (they and their roots rested in water inside a glass container) red chard plants that I had brought home from Stokes Farm in the Union Square Greenmarket, washed, drained several times, and roughly chopped, were stirred in gradually and heated until barely wilted, or for about 2-3 minutes, seasoned with salt and black pepper, then drizzled with olive oil
• the wine was a stunning Spanish (Terra Alta) white, Aureo, White by Joseph Puig 2014, from Astor Wines 
• the music was Renée Fleming’s magnificent voice, along with Handel’s opera seria, of 1735, ‘Alcina’, William Christie leading the Choir and Orchestra of Les Arts Florissants, with Juanita Lascarro, Laurent Naouri, Timothy Robinson, Kathleen Kuhlmann, Susan Graham, Natalie Dessay, and Renée Fleming 

The flounder fillets were beautiful; Warren had just fetched a fresh ‘bucket’ from the truck, and opened it in front of at least one very appreciative customer.

They were a little larger than I might have been able to handle in the kitchen before, but I had recently acquired a beautiful new pan that would help me to do them justice. I also had a generous amount of fresh mushrooms at home, and I knew I wouldn’t have trouble finding a wonderful green vegetable to accompany the entrée, before I left the market.

• two very fresh flounder fillets (a total of 19 ounces) from American Seafood Company, seasoned on both sides with sea salt and freshly-ground black pepper, sautéed fairly gently in a couple tablespoons of butter inside a large (13-inch), thick-walled antique tin-lined copper pan, flesh side first, turned after around 2 minutes, maybe slightly more, and the other side cooked for about the same length of time, removed and arranged on 2 plates, either covered, to keep warm, or, if it’s convenient to do so, placed inside a barely-warm oven, the heat under the pan kept low, another tablespoon – or better, 2, maybe 3 – of butter added, and when it had melted about 6 ounces of roughly-chopped yellow oyster mushrooms from Gail’s Farm in Vineland, New Jersey tossed into the pan and sautéed, stirring, until lightly cooked, the mushrooms seasoned with sea salt, freshly-ground black pepper, and a pinch or so of crushed dried Espelette pepper (only a medium heat) from Alewife Farm and 4 small thin ramps from Eataly Flatiron (I spotted them there and decided impulsively that I couldn’t wait for them to arrive in the Greenmarket), the bulbs chopped, the leaves sliced, plus a little more than a tablespoon of juice from a local Persian lime [yup, local], the gift of David Tifford of Fantastic Gardens of Long Island, added to the pan, everything briefly stirred with a wooden spatula, the mushrooms and their juices spooned on or around the flounder [the dish may need more butter along the way, so at least be aware]

There was also some brilliant rainbow chard,

from the folks upstate at Fledging Crow Farm:

• a modest-sized bouquet of rainbow chard from a farm new to the Union Square Greenmarket that very day, Fledging Crow Vegetables, (with a fascinating origin story), wilted inside a a large antique high-sided copper pot in a tablespoon or so of olive oil in which one garlic clove from Norwich Meadows Farm had first been heated and softened slightly, seasoned with sea salt and freshly-ground black pepper, finished with a little lemon juice and a tiny drizzle of olive oil

• there were slices of possibly the best loaf of bread I’ve ever tasted, ‘Pane da Tavola’, from Lost Bread Co., which is described as rustic Italian-style, charred crust with notes of coffee and cacao (organic bread flour, spelt, malted barley, salt, water, yeast), modeled after the famous bread of Genzano, Roma
• the wine was a French (Burgundy/Mâconnais), Les Grands Crus Blancs Pouilly-Vinzelles 2017, from Bottlerocket
• the music was Salieri’s 1786 operatic tragédie lyrique, ‘Les Horaces’, whose text is by Nicolas-François Guillard after Pierre Corneille’s Horace (it was commissioned by the Paris Opera, but the Queen is reported to have rejected it for Fontainebleau), performed here by Christophe Rousset and Les Talens Lyriques

About the music, which we really enjoyed, I’ll wager that, in the end, it will be recorded that F. Murray Abraham and Milos Forman were the ones who totally made Antonio Salieri’s posthumous career.

 

[image of the people of Fledging Crow Vegetables from thegoodfoodcollective.com]

Last night we had plans to see what turned out to be a brilliant production of Athol Fugard’s brilliant 1969 ‘Boesman and Lena’ at Signature Theatre. We knew we’d be home fairly late, late at least for making a dinner, so while at the Greenmarket that afternoon while picking a seafood and a vegetable, I chose what what could be placed on the table in a short amount of time. An excellent crusty loaf of bread, also from the Union Square market, was enough to finish the course.

• fourteen scallops (15 ounces) from Pura Vida Seafood, washed, drained, and very thoroughly  dried on paper towels (twice), generously seasoned with sea salt and freshly-ground black pepper, pan grilled for about 90 seconds on each side, arranged on warm plates, finished with a squeeze of a sweet local lemon from Fantastic Gardens of Long Island in the Union Square Greenmarket, and a drizzle of Trader Joe’s Italian Reserve extra virgin olive oil,

garnished with micro red chard, also from Two Guys from Woodbridge

• red frill mustard from Two Guys from Woodbridge (most of that farm’s live plant, sold in a container with its roots in water), wilted gently inside a medium size antique copper pot in a little olive oil in which one halved clove of ‘music’ garlic aka ‘strong neck’ from Windfall Farms had been heated gently until it had begun to soften, seasoned with salt and pepper, arranged on the plates and drizzled with the same Trader Joe’s olive oil

• pieces torn from a sturdy ‘baguette sarasin’ (buckwheat flour bread) from the Eric Kayser shop on Broadway below Madison Square
• the wine was a French (Loire/Sancerre) white, Serge Laloue, Sancerre 2017, from Flatiron Wines
• the music was the Kevin Volans album, ‘Volans: Music for Wind Ensemble’

 

[the image of the baguette is from the bakery’s own site]