I don’t know what the experience of others may be with squid (if only because I grew up in Detroit after the war, and later, when I lived in Rhode Island in the 60’s, the term, ‘squid’ was as likely to describe a Newport sailor as a cephalopod (and we loved sailors whether or not they were well prepared).  Although I have enjoyed it, I have never prepared calamari, that is, squid batter-coated and deep fried (in fact I’ve never deep-fried anything).  That dish may be the beginning and end of the squid experience for most of us, but I have come to believe that these extraordinarily common molluscs are among the most elegant of dishes ever to adorn any table, high or low.  I also think they are peculiarly suited to both the culture and the aesthetic of the twenty-first century: They are remarkably stable in their natural population, and therefore, at least at this moment in time, among the most sustainable of wild food sources we have, and they are both incredibly easy to prepare and to serve;  at the same time, when they are served, they present just about the most beautiful , minimal appearance imaginable.  Not incidentally they also taste incredibly delicious, if you go about it right.

Tonight I was surprised with the results of working with two recipes with which I was already very familiar.  Both elements of the meal were even more delicious than my memory of how they had tasted in the past.  That might be the proof of a great, and very simple recipe (neither of them was my own), and it helps if the pairing is felicitous.  In any event, it was a small triumph for both the fish and the vegetable elements of a pretty simple meal, one which I was able to pull together in forty-five minutes or so of pretty leisurely prep. As an aside, I want to say that I also really like the way the squid bodies kind of inflate in the oven just as they finish cooking, and the smaller ones pretty much stay inflated, as can be seen above.

The squid recipe was from “Italian Easy” and that for the grilled eggplant was from Mario Batali’s “Italian Grill” (I replaced the suggested fresh oregano with fresh basil, in deference to the the dried oregano I was using with the squid, and I added to the pan the last of some baby tomatoes I had on hand).

• cleaned squid bodies and tentacles from Blue Moon Fish, washed, pat dry, arranged in a roasting pan which had been heated and brushed with olive oil, then scattered with a mixture of some super-pungent dried Italian oregano from Buon Italia and crushed dried peperoncino, also from Buon Italia (how do the Italians know exactly how hot to grow their peppers?), with a good bit of lemon juice and some olive oil squeezed over the top, and roasted for five minutes
• Japanese eggplant from Bodhitree Farm, sliced in half , then scored, brushed with a mixture of oil, finely-chopped garlic from Garden of Spices Farm and finely-chopped basil from Gotham Greens at Whole Foods, seasoned with salt and pepper, then pan-grilled, turning once, and a few halved pear-shaped yellow baby tomatoes from Berried Treasures were added to the grill pan after it was removed from the heat 
• the wine was a Greek white (the meal felt at least as much Greek as Italian), Semeli Moschofilero Mountain Sun 2013, from the Peloponese

***

The recipe I used for this meal was published in New York magazine ten years ago, and it was attributed to Sara Jenkins, then of 50 Carmine, today of Porchetta.  It’s delicious.  I’ve enjoyed preparing it several times before pretty much as it was written, but this time I added some sliced pear-shaped yellow baby tomatoes to the top of each serving, mostly because I thought I wouldn’t be able to use them in anther meal before they had passed their prime.  I also didn’t think their juicy raw freshness would compromise Jenkins’ formula.  I have to say now that the tomato really isn’t necessary, and although I felt compelled to use them this time, they should actually have been tossed in the warm bowl after the drained pasta was added to the sauce, rather than added later.

Oh, did I mention that Romanesco is one of the most stylish vegetables you will ever take home from the market?  It’s actually perfectly art deco.

• Romanesco broccoli (yes it looks like cauliflower, including the leaves cradling it, while still unseparated) from from Norwich Meadows Farm, garlic from Garden of Spices Farm, Kalamata olives, capers, salted anchovy fillets from Buon Italia, Afeltra Penna Rigata from Eataly, bread crumbs made in the kitchen, prepared as indicated above, with sliced pear-shaped yellow baby tomatoes from Berried Treasures added to the serving bowls
• the wine was an excellent light Italian red, Per Alessandra Barbera d’Alba 2011

Okay, this may not be easy to explain.  I’ve never actually cooked dolphin before, and in fact I didn’t cook ‘dolphin’ tonight.  What I prepared was  dolphinfish, which is not a mammal by any stretch of the imagination: Think of all those curvaceous creatures which were used to decorate classical furniture, architectural features, and garden ornaments (I’m not absolutely certain, but I believe they were inspired, not by the mammal, but by the fish seen as the beautiful, tanned, blue-haired youth’s catch seen in this Minoan fresco from 3600 years ago.

When I visited PE & DD Seafood in the Greenmarket today I saw a relatively uncommon name marked on the board at the back of the stall, and wanting to take something home I hadn’t prepared before, more or less on an impulse I asked for some of what I saw labelled as “mahi-mahi’.  I think I had always ignored the fish in the past because of the, well, …, *exotic* name always attached to it, and Hawaii sort of doesn’t fit anywhere into my personal aesthetic.  My thoughts went something like this:  Anything which went around calling itself  ‘mahi-mahi’ was certainly not something to be taken seriously, at least not as a respectable local fish or something which might be appropriate for a more-or-less Italian table.

Wade and Jan, the fisherman/owner Phil Karlin’s son and his sister-in-law, set me straight, explaining that mahi-mahi was in fact an Atlantic fish caught off eastern Long Island, and that it was also known as dorado, or dolphinfish (a name easily confused with young Sandy’s charming and intelligent friend, ‘Flipper’ – which probably explains the alias). Now the fillets began to look like something I could work with, so I asked for a piece weighing just under a pound.  I figured I’d easily be able to come up with suggestions for its preparations once I got home, but in fact, even after searching through my food library, I still had no idea how I would cook it.   Eventually, largely with Barry’s input, I decided dolphin would lend itself to the kind of treatment I usually reserve for mackerel or bluefish.  My recipe was an adaptation of one from Marcella Hazan; I obtained it elsewhere, but this is a version which appears on line now.

• very-thinly-sliced German Butterball potatoes from Berried Treasures tossed with olive oil, sliced garlic from Garden of Spices Farm, salt and pepper, roasted in a pan for fifteen minutes in a very hot oven, then covered with a seasoned dolphin fillet from PE & DD Seafood covered with a mixture of sliced garlic, olive oil, lemon juice, and chopped parsley from Paffenroth Gardens, with two sliced heirloom tomatoes from Berried Treasures and a dozen halved Kalamata olives from Whole Foods scattered over the potatoes, the whole roasted for another fifteen minutes, everything then garnished with more chopped parsley
• the wine was a California white, Joel Gott Sauvignon Blanc 2013

This is the dish resting on top of the oven, moments after it came out (I love one-pot meals, even when they don’t look like that’s what they really are).

 

[the second image is from HistoryWiz]

This is probably the first time breakfast has appeared on this site, even if today it also served as lunch, but this one was pretty super.

About once a month we observe Sunday in an even more special way than our tradition of listening to a Bach cantata first thing in the morning, er, …, afternoon while enjoying the first meal of the day (we’re currently in the middle of volume 14 of the Ton Koopman recordings).    Special is eggs.  Eggs are always special. Like Bach, I try to vary the preparation, the seasonings, condiments, and the accompaniments.  Today I sprinkled fried eggs with cut wild wood sorrel, and I served minutina, cut minimally, on the side.

My apologies for the sorrel missing in the picture above; I snapped it quickly and we started eating before I realized my mistake.  This is a detail of the serving, taken after I finally added the beautiful herb:

 

• very fresh eggs from Norwich Meadows Farm, gently fried in olive oil and butter, seasoned with Maldon sea salt (our table salt and my normal finishing salt) and freshly-ground tellicherry pepper
• minutina from Bodhitree Farm, simply washed, dried, then drizzled with good olive oil and seasoned with the same salt and pepper
• slices of the Bronx bakery Il Forni’s ‘Pane di Sesamo’, from West Side Market, toasted to accompany the eggs

There’s a new farm at the Union Square Greenmarket.  Judging from our first experience with two delicious small sirloin lamb chops from their herd of Tunis sheep, B & Y Farms, located in the Finger Lakes, is going to be a hit in New York City and on our own table.  The farm’s stall can be found at the Union Square market only on Fridays, where the meat Judy and Allan sell is fresh, not frozen (they butcher every week).

• lamb sirloin chops, from B & Y farms, pan-grilled then finished with a squeeze of lemon, chopped rosemary from Stokes Farm and olive oil
• purple kohlrabi, from Norwich Meadows Farm, cut as for french fries, tossed in a bowl with oil, salt and pepper, then with a bit of semolina flour, spread onto a large ceramic pan and roasted at 450º, finished sprinkled with cumin and chopped parsley from Paffenroth Gardens
• yellow pear-shaped ‘cherry’ tomatoes from Berried Treasures, halved, then mixed, to compose a salsa, with chopped scallions from Migliorelli Farm, chopped garlic from Garden of Spices Farm, lemon juice and olive oil, salt and pepper, chopped lovage from Windfall Farms and chopped parsley from Paffenroth Gardens (I forgot to add a bit of fresh Thai pepper I still had on hand)
• cavolo nero from Keith’s Farm, braised with halved garlic from Garden of Spices, finished with salt and pepper, olive oil
• the wine was an excellent South African red, Tormentoso Mourvèdre 2012 from Paarl