This is one of the easiest meals I get to put together, and I do something like it pretty often. It’s easy because the recipes are simple, because I’ve assembled each of them a number of times, and, it’s even easier this time because one of the 3 things on the plate had been prepared earlier – 5 days earlier in fact, as a part of another meal.

The finish for the pork chops this time might be the most spectacular garnish I’ve ever used, at least on this dish, red amaranth, here, while still at the Greenmarket, looking a bit like a map of the Iberian peninsula.

The green was a very sweet (late winter/early spring?) bunch of very sweet, tender collards.

This is a grainy blowup from the earlier appearance of the inguazato, which at that time included monkfish tails.

• two small pork chops (8 ounces each) from Flying Pigs Farm, thoroughly dried, seasoned well with salt and freshly-ground pepper, seared quickly on both sides inside a heavy enameled cast-iron pan (a small amount of a dried orange-golden habanada pepper added as each side was sealed), then half of an organic lemon squeezed over the top and left in the pan between the chops, the pan placed in a 425º oven for about 14 minutes (flipped halfway through, at which time the lemon was squeezed over them once again and replaced between them), removed from the oven and arranged on plates, the really luscious scant pan juices spooned over the meat, which was finished with a flourish of red micro amaranth from Windfall Farms
• a serving of a couscous dish, chef David Pasternack’s ‘inguazata’, a precious leftover from this meal [the recipe can be found through a link of that page], enjoyed earlier in the week
• collard greens from Lani’s Farm, torn into small sections (the stems were tender enough to include in the cooking), washed several times and drained, transferred to a smaller bowl very quickly, in order to retain as much of the water clinging to them as possible, wilted inside a heavy oval enameled cast iron pot in which 2 halved garlic cloves from John D. Madura Farm had first been allowed to sweat in a bit of olive oil, a little crushed dried Sardinian pepperoncino from Buon Italia along with them, the greens finished with a little salt, freshly-ground pepper, a bit of sweet local lemon juice from Fantastic Gardens of Long Island, and a drizzle of olive oil
• the wine was a California (Sonoma) white, Jacqueline Bahue Carte Blanche Sauvignon Blanc Sonoma Valley 2016, from Naked Wines
• the music was Marin Marais’ 1789 opera, ‘Sémélé’, Hervé Niquet conducting Le Concert Spirituel

I’ve made this Sicilian monkfish and couscous dish twice before and it just seems to get better each time. Last night I even managed to obtain socarrat!

It’s also pretty foolproof. I’ve served it with a vegetable each time, but the original, David Pasternak recipe suggests making it a one-dish meal, which would make it even simpler to put together.

I went with a vegetable again last night.

After I had picked up the fish at the Greenmarket earlier in the day, I also found the last bunch of mustard greens.

This is the couscous mix just after monkfish was added, and before it was covered.

• two 9-ounce monkfish tails from Pura Vida Fisheries, prepared using a David Pasternak recipe which includes M’hamsa Couscous from Tunisia (purchased at Whole Foods), olive oil, sliced garlic John D. Madura Farm, a little more than one and a half 16-ounce cans of really superb Mutti baby Roma tomatoes from Eataly (which are also available at Whole Foods), and cracked Sicilian green olives from Whole Foods, and part of one crushed dried Sicilian pepperoncino from Buon Italia, cooked, because the monkfish tails were smaller than those described in the recipe, for a total of only 10 minutes
• mustard greens from Norwich Meadows Farm, wilted in a little olive oil in which several small halved cloves of garlic form John D. Madura Farm had been allowed to sweat a bit, seasoned with salt and pepper and finished on the plates with a drizzle of olive oil
• the wine was an Italian (Sicily, Palermo) white, Corvo Insolia 2015 from Philippe Wine and Spirits, on West 23rd Street less than one block from our table, a wine we have often, and enjoy just as often
• the music was the piano quintet in C-minor of Louis Ferdinand, Prince of Prussia, his Opus 1, published in 1803, Christoph Hammer, fortepiano, and the Schuppanzigh Quartet, heard streaming on Yle Klassinien

[1799 portrait of a dreamy Louis Ferdinand by Jean-Laurent Mosnier, from Wikipedia]

Turkey.

The meal just happened; there had been no plan to relate to the events of the day. Something seriously scary was occurring on the other side of the earth just as I was mentally assembling this meal of monkfish, incorporating 2 tails I had purchased in the Greenmarket just after noon. I was still ignorant of what was going on in Anatolia. But because I liked this scary-looking fish, and because Barry and I had both enjoyed its treatment in this Sicilian formula several times before, I had already decided on a recipe that quite literally stretched beyond the European continental littoral, although the music programming for the meal came later.

The news breaking throughout the day, and evening, inevitably formed a prominent backdrop to our simple plates of monkfish, couscous, and sweet peppers, the recipes and the music relating, although at a considerable remove, to the geographical, political, and cultural environment in which a governmental coup was unfolding.

So, yes, I’m talking about couscous, and in this case a rather classic Sicilian dish little known outside la Regione Siciliana (or Rome), which incorporates a wonderful ingredient usually associated only with the cultures of North Africa, and, to a lesser extent, the middle east.

Which gets us back to Turkey.

The music, celebrating complexity, diversity, and beauty of the culture of the Levant, was a conscious decision.

 

a farm stand’s colored awnings can cast an unworldly light on vegetables

 

The preparation of the early season peppers  which I picked up at the market the same day I found the fish may not have been particularly Mediterranean, but I’m very fond of both the taste and the process.

• two 8 1/2-ounce monkfish tails from Pura Vida Fisheries, prepared using a David Pasternak recipe which includes M’hamsa Couscous from Tunisia (purchased at Whole Foods), olive oil, sliced garlic from Whole Foods, one and a half 16-ounce cans of superb Mutti baby Roma tomatoes from Eataly (also available at Whole Foods), and cracked Sicilian green olives from Whole Foods, and almost all of one whole crushed dried Itria-Sirissi chili (peperoncino di Sardegna intero from Buon Italia), the fish cooked, because of its size, much longer than specified in the recipe (I think I went with 15 minutes)
• a dozen or so small black and white (actually a deep purple and a creamy pale green) bell peppers, from Norwich Meadows Farm, stemmed, split, seeded, the pits removed, sliced lengthwise 2 or 3 times, fried for a few minutes in olive oil inside a steel pan while pressed under a weighted iron pan, skin side down, until blistered, then turned and fried, again under the pan, for another minute or so, a small handful of washed and dried leaves and tender stems of some whole Thai basil from Norwich Meadows Farm and a splash of (medium quality) balsamic vinegar added to the pan, stirred for a few seconds until the herb was wilted and the vinegar had sort of exploded in the heated oil, removed from the heat and served beside the fish [I did this in 2 batches, because, in my hurry, I had started with a pan too small to handle all of the peppers at once]
• the wine was a French (Provence) rosé, Famille Sumeire Château Coussin Le Rosé de S. Méditerranée 2015, from Chelsea Wine Vault
• the music was the Jordi Savall album, ‘Istanbul’, followed by his ‘Orient-Occident’, both with Hespèrion XXI

The monkfish recipe is absolutely terrific. I had already been a big fan of couscous, and my enthusiasm had been magnified by my two earlier experiences with this Sicilian treatment of coda di rospo. Somehow joining these few ingredients results in one of the sweetest food marriages I have ever witnessed.

We hadn’t enjoyed chard at home for some time, and this bunch of rainbow chard (larger than we cold consume in one meal, so there will be another appearance) was just about the most beautiful I had ever seen; also, it turned out, possibly the most delicious. Unfortunately it is the very last of this farmer’s bounty we will be be privileged to have on the table: Nevia No’s wonderful Bodhitree Farm has retired.

• one 17-ounce monkfish tail from Blue Moon Fish, prepared using a David Pasternak recipe which includes M’hamsa Couscous from Tunisia (purchased at Whole Foods), olive oil, sliced garlic from Whole Foods, some superb Mutti baby Roma tomatoes from Eataly (also available at Whole Foods), and a handful of  Backyard Farms Maine ‘cocktail tomatoes’ from Whole Foods, cracked green olives from Dickson’s Farmstand Meats, and almost all of one whole crushed dried Itria-Sirissi chili (peperoncino di Sardegna intero from Buon Italia), the fish cooked, because of its size, much longer than specified in the recipe (15 minutes?)
• rainbow chard from Bodhitree Farms, sautéed with olive oil, finished with juice from an organic lemon, and most of another crushed dried Itria-Sirissi chili
• the wine was an Italian (Sardinia) white, La Cala Vermentino di Sardegna 2013
• the music was a great evening of Q2 streaming, and included ‘Continuum II’ by Jane Antonia Cornish, and ‘Muistin pitka jyrina’, by Riikka Talvitie

This dish, or at least the Inguazato part, appeared on the site earlier in the month.  I don’t usually repeat myself with such frequency, but the recipe is really good, I had picked up the monkfish that day, and I happened to have delicious cherry tomatoes and also some green olives that were unlikely to all end up in martinis.

• a monkfish tail from Blue Moon Fish, prepared using a David Pasternak recipe which involved couscous, olive oil, sliced garlic from Berried Treasures, some cherry tomatoes, also from Berried Treasures, cracked (Sicilian-like?) green olives from Whole Foods, and almost all of one whole crushed dried chile
• minutina from Bodhitree Farm, barely wilted, then tossed with cut chives from Eckerton Hill Farm, seasoned, and finished with olive oil
• the wine, appropriate to the cultural source of the recipe was a Sicilian white, Corvo Insolia 2013 from Philippe Wine in Chelsea