Yes, that’s a branch of oregano sticking out of the steak.  The idea of a garnish is generally alien to Italian cooking, but I’m not entirely strict about following cooking traditions, and I did have these two beautiful stems left over after preparing enough herbs to cover the two steaks.

We’re both very fond of Swordfish, and we appreciate the many ways it can be prepared, some of which I have worked with myself. This particular method relates to the Sicilian style (Trancia di Pesce Spada alla Siciliana), as described by Kyle Phillips, although lately I have taken the liberty of adding a very American ingredient, ramp fruit.

It’s a terrific dish.

• a one pound swordfish steak, more than an inch thick, from P.E. & D.D. Seafood, cut into two pieces, briefly marinated in a mixture of olive oil, crushed ramp fruit from Berried Treasures and chopped fresh oregano leaves from Stokes Farm, then drained well and rolled in dried homemade bread crumbs, fried in a hot cast iron pan for about 4-5 minutes on each side, salted, sprinkled with a little lemon juice and drizzled with olive oil before serving
• one ripe heirloom tomato from Berried Treasures, sliced, sprinkled with Thai basil from a friend’s garden in Garrison, New York, then drizzled with the rich savory juices which remained from a salsa prepared the day before
• beet greens from Tamarack Hollow Farm, wilted with a halved garlic clove from Berried Treasures, which had been been able to sweat in olive oil, seasoned with salt, and pepper, and drizzled with fresh olive oil

 

• a small additional course of two Consider Bardwell goat cheeses (‘Danby’, appearing here as a late season lagniappe, and ‘Manchester’), a sprinkling of fresh oregano buds, again from Stokes Farm, and slices of the very sturdy, ‘Tourte de Seigle’ (organic dark rye flour, poppy seeds, liquid levain (sourdough starter), Breton Guérande gray salt) from Maison Kayser
• the wine was an Italian white, Le Salse Verdicchio di Matelica 2014
• the music was the second act of Mozart’s ‘Il dissoluto punito, ossia il Don Giovanni‘ [The Rake Punished, or Don Giovanni], conducted by Carlo Maria Giulini, with Eberhardt Wächter, Elisabeth Schwarzkop, and Cesare Valletti, et al.

Fast food (the crab cakes; the rest was slow).

This may have been my favorite treatment to date for my favorite Greenmarket crab cakes.  It involved placing them on a bed of very ripe heirloom tomatoes and some Thai basil, and adding a ‘topping’ of a peppery melange of baby greens.  I decided on the green side entirely because the only suitable vegetables I had in the crisper were green bell peppers (the last of the bounty a friend recently shared with us from her upstate garden), and some very neat small leeks I had picked up from the Greenmarket the day before preparing this meal.

1. crab cakes from P.E. & D.D. Seafood, sautéed in a little olive oil for about 4 minutes on each side, arranged on a bed of roughly-chopped heirloom tomatoes (a friend’s dark red, from her garden in Garrison, New York, and one Berried Treasures orange), mixed with Thai basil (leaves and blossoms), salt, and pepper, each serving topped with a small amount of ‘Living Japanese Peppergrass’ (pak choi/red mustard/green mizuna/leaf broccoli) from Radicle Farm, then drizzled with a bit of good olive oil
2. leeks from Ryder Farm, split and pan-grilled, combined with strips of green bell peppers from a friend’s garden in Garrison, sautéed, celery from Whole Foods, also sautéed, some briefly-sautéed leek green stems, and garlic chive flowers
3. a simple cheese course with Consider Bardwell’s goat milk ‘Danby’ (made with a surprise end-of-season batch), which produced a great taste and a very long  finish, accompanied by thin toasts made from slices of one of Eataly’s ‘Integrale’ loaves
4. the wine was a remarkable sturdy Quebec rosé, Le Charlevoyou Rosé 2014, vinifié chez Maurice Dufour; I know it’s from a very limited production (we bought it à la maison, just outside Baie-Saint-Paul), and it’s not available in the U.S., but, if it were possible, I would buy a case of this wine today
5. the music was Mozart’s ‘Don Giovanni’, conducted by Carlo Maria Giulini, with Eberhardt Wächter, Elisabeth Schwarzkop, and Cesare Valletti, et al.

It was summer, and the vegetables were easy.

• feta cheese, an excellent ‘Valbreso’ from Roquefort-sur-Soulzon, in the Aveyron department in the south of France from Whole Foods, served with strips of poblano peppers from a friend’s rural Garrison garden upstate, which had been charred over an open flame on my 1931 Magic Chef while being turned on an expanded metal grate, placed in a bag for 20 minutes, the skin, the seeds, and the veins then removed, covered with some good olive oil and garlic chive flowers from Paffenroth Farms, served with slices of ‘rustic classic’ bread from Eataly

 

• spinach and ricotta-filled demi-lunes from Eataly, served with a sliced dark red heirloom tomato from our friend’s Garrison garden, and a small yellow tomato from Berried Treasures, also sliced, scattered with ramp fruit from Berried Treasures, and summer savory from Keith’s Farm, drizzled with olive oil
• the wine was a Catalan white, Domaine Lafage Côté Est Catalan 2014
• the music was various works by the Neapolitan composer, Nicola Porpora (1686-1768), and some of his contemporaries

I think what I prepared here was a hybrid of a dish enjoyed in several cultures, and claimed by at least two.

Wiener schnitzel is the national dish of Austria, even though, by European standards, its history there doesn’t seem to go back very far. Austria, and especially Vienna, may not like being reminded of this, but documentary evidence indicates that its iconic thin, breaded and pan fried veal cutlet was apparently known as “Lumbolos cum panitio“, or ‘Milanese cutlet’, almost 700 years earlier than its first association with the Habsburg capital, where it became known as ‘Wiener Schnitzel“, and remains a star today.  In fact, and as usual, I’m inclined to agree with the antiquarians, who point out that a recipe of its description appeared in the late Roman cookbook, ‘Apicius‘, a work which remains in print today (partly, I like to imagine, for giving the world the breaded veal cutlet, even if its author might have himself borrowed it from another).

Cotoletta alla Milanese, the Milan version of this dish, which may have been the source for the Viennese, includes the rib bone; Palermo apparently brushes it with lard, then pan grills it, flavoring it along the way with oregano and/or parmesan cheese. Okay, I’ve now given up on trying to achieve anybody’s idea of authenticity, and will forevermore just aim for great pleasure.

• two reasonably-thick bone-in veal rib chops from Eataly (from milk-fed calves, humanely raised, group-housed, from Amish and Mennonite farms in Lancaster, Pennsylvania), hammered with a mallet, by the butcher and later continued further by me, using an antique wooden kitchen mallet I don’t get to work with often enough (see image below), until the veal was reduced to a thickness of about a quarter of an inch, sprinkled with a little lemon juice, and salted, on both sides, dipped in whole wheat flour first, then in a bowl of whipped egg, and finally in homemade bread crumbs, then chilled for a half hour before being placed in hot lard (labelled ‘Morrell Snow Cap Manteca’, from Eataly, which I later strained and placed the fat in the refrigerator for further duty) inside two large cast iron enameled pans, cooked for about 2-3 minutes on each side, removed and dabbed dry on paper towels, served on two oval platters with thin slices of lemon
• a small Kopfsalat, or Blattsalat of ‘Living Baby Lettuce’ topped with red amaranth sprouts, both from Radicle Farm, simply dressed with a white vinegar, an equal amount of good olive oil, a pinch of turbinado sugar, salt, pepper. and a little chopped parsley from Paffenroth Farms
• a Tomatensalat, as a side dish, of red and yellow heirloom tomatoes from Berried Treasures, sectioned, mixed with good olive oil, salt, pepper, Thai basil from a Friend’s garden in Garrison, slices of tiny scallions from Tamarack Hollow Farm, and garlic chive flowers from Paffenroth Farms, then let sit for about 30 minutes to mix the flavors
• the large oval plate was early Homer Laughlin, from a huge stash of antique American and English ironstone, in many forms, which I’ve had – and used – for almost 50 years
• the wine was an Austrian rosé, Walter Buchegger Rose Pinot & Co Niederösterreich 2014
• we finished the meal with a bowl of Mars grapes from Troncillito Farm
• the music was Mozart’s ‘Die Zauberflöte’, performed by René Jaco

 

yeah.

It was to be four of us for dinner. There would be the same number of courses, but only one of them required any real cooking, and very little cooking at that.  The kitchen therefore never had the chance to heat up (although, since we ate in the dining room/gallery, I suppose it wouldn’t have mattered much anyway).  Also, while normally I have difficulty interacting with guests as I would like to while cooking, I really knew my way around each of these four plates, so I was able to invite everyone into the kitchen area while I was still working on them.  Yay!

I really recommend these ‘recipes’ to anyone who might have the same entertaining parameters.

Also, the meal was delicious; the main course featured two of my favorite things, they were both incredibly fresh (probably caught and picked the day before), and they were prepared in just about the simplest way possible.

The tuna, which followed a serving of Speck and greens, was prepared using Rose Gray and Ruth Rogers‘s simple recipe; the very basic treatment of the okra was a suggestion I had come across somewhere long ago; and the intentionally un-spicy cherry tomato salsa was another simple treatment, my own invention.

• three tuna steaks from P.E. & D.D. Seafood (they totaled about 28 ounces, to feed four), small sections of each removed to make up a fourth serving, tops and bottoms of the steaks rubbed with a mixture of fennel seed and crushed dried peperoncino peppers which had been ground together, seasoned with salt, and pepper, then pan-grilled for only a minute or so on each side, and finished with a good squeeze of lemon and a drizzle of olive oil
• a combination of small green and purple okra (about a pound) from Ryder Farm, sautéed in olive oil with additional crushed dried pepperoncini in an iron pan over a high flame, then seasoned with salt (the purple ends up more or less a darker green when cooked)
• really tiny red cherry tomatoes from Berried Treasures (Franca could not remember at the moment I asked her exactly what they were called), which I sliced most of the way through so they wouldn’t explode when picked up with a fork, tossed with good olive oil, salt, pepper, Thai basil from a friend’s garden in Garrison, New York, and some garlic chive flowers from Paffenroth Farms, then left to sit for about an hour before being served in bowls to the side of the dinner plates

Speck has become one of our favorite antipasti.  For some reason it always makes me feel it’s part of a festive occasion, and this time it genuinely was, since we were sharing it with good friends, and they had thoughtfully brought along a bottle of an excellent Austrian sparkling wine (this is probably not the right time for me to bring up the historical connection between the Südtiroler Speck and the country in which the Grüner Veltlinger Sekt was produced).  I served the salumi with a very good bread and a bit of arugula (as it turned out, too small of a bit, so I added some celery leaves I had on hand).

• thinly-sliced Alto Adige Speck from Eataly, each piece rolled around a fork’s tines and put on a plate where it was drizzled with some very good olive oil, and accompanied by arugula from Keith’s Farm which I had mixed with a smaller amount of roughly-chopped celery leaves from Whole Foods, the greens seasoned and dressed with the same good oil and drops of lemon
• the antipasto was accompanied by slices of a loaf of ‘rustic classic’ from Eataly

After the tuna, there were three regional cheeses (‘Manchester’ and a special late-season ‘Danby’, both goat cheeses from Consider Bardwell Farm; and ‘Brebis Blanche’, a sheep cheese with a coating of ground mixed pepper, from 3-Corner Field Farm), served with thinly-sliced ‘Rustic Classic’ from Eataly, toasted.

The dessert was some of Berried Treasures’s celebrated strawberries (the breed a mix of domestic and wild), topped with a scoop of Madagascar Vanilla Ciao Bello gelato, with a sauce composed of a few of the berries which had been macerated a bit with Toschi Orzata Orgeat syrup spread over the ice cream and garnished with chopped hazelnuts.

• the wine with the Speck was an Austrian sparkling white, Szigeti Grüner Veltliner Brut from Gols, on the Neusiedler See, in Burgenland
• the wine with the tuna was a New York Cabernet Franc rosé, Schneider & Bieler Rosé “le breton” 2014 from the Fingerlakes
• the name of the wine with the cheese course has faded from my memory
• The after-dinner drink was Varnelli L’Anice Secco Speciale Mistra Liqueur, from the Marche.
• the music was our own conversation

The idea was to put something together which would use some of the vegetables accumulating in the refrigerator, and whose preparation wouldn’t be to complicated.  A frittata would fit the bill.

• about half a pound of smoked chorizo from Millport Dairy, skinned and chopped into small pieces, and one thinly-sliced large yellow onion from the farm of friends in Garrison, cooked together in olive oil until the chorizo was brown and the onion tender, the mixture allowed to cool a bit before being removed and added, along with two kinds of cooked kale from the Garrison farm, a few pieces of chopped jalapeño peppers from the previous day, and half a teaspoon of Spanish pimentón, to a bowl of eight eggs from Millport Dairy which had been whipped, mixed with a little milk, flour, salt and freshly-ground pepper, the egg and vegetable mixture subsequently cooked in a little olive oil in a covered pan over medium heat until the eggs were nearly set, then uncovered and browned under a broiler, and sprinkled with some fresh garlic chive flowers from Norwich Meadows Farm which had been warmed in olive oil
• the wine was an American sparkling, Gruet Brut, from New Mexico
• the music was Mozart’s ‘Lucio Silla’, performed by Adam Fisher and the Danish Radio Sinfonietta

Well, that was invigorating.

I had been told that these Jalapeños could be safely consumed alone after they had been sautéed until they blistered, something in the manner of Shishitos or Pimientos de Padrón, but without the gamble.  They were given to us by our gentlefolk weekend farmer friends, who assured us that they weren’t actually hot (maybe it was something about the strong yanqui ‘microclimate’ of the area north of New York where they were grown).

Barry and I aren’t wimps when it comes to the hotter representatives of the capsicum family, but these peppers upstaged our experiences with the most unforgiving batch of their cousins, the ones which you can count on being hot only ten to fifteen percent of the time. It was [almost] fun while it lasted, and, as I said at the top, they did get our attention.  In the end however we couldn’t finish them, especially as we were worried we wouldn’t be able to taste the main course.

 

HOUSEHOLD HINT: How to cool your mouth after a pepper assault?  I know this is totally anecdotal, but I got almost nothing else to give:  Try putting a little salt on your tongue, following up with some cold water.  It worked for us this time, even before we reached into the freezer for some cold sorbetto (which worked as more of a palate cleanser than ever on this occasion).

 

The entrée, served about twenty minutes later, was soothing, and without incident.  It was a recipe which I have come to depend on (perhaps too much however; I’m going to have to do some thinking about alternatives).

• four three and a half ounce Spanish mackerel fillets from Blue Moon Fish Company, washed, dried, brushed with olive oil, seasoned with salt and pepper, pan grilled over high heat for six or so minutes, turning once, transferred to plates and completed with a salsa of halved small red and orange cherry tomatoes, also from Garrison, which were tossed with olive oil, salted capers which had been rinsed and drained, some finely-sliced fresh garlic from Phillips Farm, lemon juice, salt, and pepper
• some excellent, very sweet curly kale (I think it was Russian kale) from the same friends’ up rivergarden, torn form its stems and cut in a rough chiffonade, braised in a heavy pot in which slightly-crushed garlic from Phillips Farm had previously been heated in some olive oil, then finished with salt, pepper, and a drizzle of more olive oil
• the wine was a French white, Anne Pichon Sauvage Vermentino Vaucluse 2014
• the music was Monteverdi’s ‘L’Orfeo’ performed by Concerto Italiano

When I was growing up, Friday was fish day.  We were in the midwest, far from the sea, but we were surrounded by the Great Lakes, and it was the 40’s, so the great and the less great waters were still able to support, just for starters, perch, bass, pike, white fish, lake trout, lake herring, smelt, sturgeon, and all kinds of bass.

I now live in New York and, because of the glorious ocean bounty of the fisher folk who set up stalls in my local greenmarket, fish day is now Monday, Wednesday, Friday, and Saturday, every week of the year, except for those days on which I’m unable to get to Union Square.

On the days in between, while I will sometimes serve meat, I prefer to put together a dish in which vegetables have a chance to shine, although usually assisted by some form of pasta, eggs, rice, or other sympathetic medium.

This Tuesday evening the medium was bread, or toast, to be precise, and it was very good toast.  I had a chance to try a recipe which had originally attracted me because of its tempting, and very seasonal ingredients, and also, at this time, because it would include a good number of the heirloom tomatoes I had been recently accumulating on the north windowsill.  There was also the added attraction, on a very warm evening, of the fact that it could be assembled with no heat whatsoever.

• the simple recipe I used had been cobbled together by Martha Rose Shulman, and I made it serve as an entrée; my ingredients included heirloom tomatoes from Norwich Meadows Farm; steamed red kidney beans (Melissa’s, prepared in France, using only salt and natural flavors); organic celery stalks and celery leaves from Whole Foods (only because I hadn’t known I would need celery when I was at the Greenmarket the day before); garlic from Phillips Farm; excellent Valbreso feta cheese (which originates in Roquefort-sur-Soulzon, in the Aveyron department in the south of France), also from Whole Foods; fresh spearmint from Lani’s Farm; arugula from Keith’s Farm; and toasted whole wheat (formerly called ‘Integrale’) from Eataly
• the wine was a California rosé, David Akiyoshi Sangiovese Rosé Lodi California 2014
• the music was [several of] Dauvergne’s delightful ‘Concerts De Symphony‘, performed by Concerto Köln

• one flounder fillet (.84 lbs) from P.E. & D.D. Seafood, washed, dried, divided into two equal pieces, brushed with a bit of good white wine vinegar and salt, lightly floured, sautéed briefly in olive oil and a touch of butter, removed to warm plates, the pan in which they were sautéed wiped with paper towels, then butter, lemon juice and parsley from Tamarack Hollow Farm added, and briefly heated while scraping the crusty bits on the bottom of the pan, the sauce which resulted poured over the fillets
• some very sweet collard greens from a garden in Garrison, New York, a gift of a friend (and gentlefolk farmer), cut as a rough chiffonade, then braised in a heavy pot in which slightly-crushed garlic from Phillips Farm had heated in some olive oil, the dish finished with salt, pepper, and a drizzle of olive oil
• thin scallions from Tamarack Hollow Farm, sliced, heated in olive oil until pungent before some small red and orange cherry tomatoes, also from our friend’s field in Garrison, New York, were stirred in and cooked until they began to wrinkle and soften, a generous amount of chopped thyme from Phillips Farm then added, along with salt and a pinch of sugar, and heated for another 30 seconds or so
• flat-leaf kale from a garden in Garrison, New York, the gift of a friend (and gentlefolk farmer),
• the wine was a terrific California white, in a Burgundy style, Matthew Iaconis Napa Valley Chardonnay 2014 (it’s Matt’s, and it comes from Naked Wines)
• the music was Mozart’s ‘Mitridate, re di Ponto‘ (he was barely 14 at the time he composed it) performed by Christophe Rousset and Les Talens Lyriques

This meal was clearly dominated by vegetables, and, as is sometimes the case in our kitchen, the meat was more or less reduced to the role of a foil for their virtues. There were three ‘sides’, rather than the usual one or two, since a friend returning from a weekend in the country had surprised us late in the afternoon with a gift of some of her garden’s bounty.

This entire dinner, in spite of the fact that it included three dressed vegetables, took only one hour to assemble!

• two thick loin lamb chops from 3-Corner Field Farm (one for each serving), thoroughly dried, cooked on a very hot grill pan for about 4 minutes on each side, seasoned just after having been seared, then removed from the pan and each topped with about 8 slightly-crushed ramp fruit from Berried Treasures, the ‘buds’ having been heated earlier in a bit of olive oil, finally the chops finished with a squeeze of lemon and a drizzle of olive oil
• snow peas from Norwich Meadows Farm, parboiled, drained, and dried, then re-heated in olive oil, tossed with spearmint from Lani’s Farm, seasoned with salt and pepper
• small, very tender, bicolor corn from Sycamore Farm, steamed and the kernels cut from the cob and reheated along with some warmed chopped jalapeño pepper from Garrison, New York, the gift of a friend, tossed with chopped lovage from Keith’s Farm
• flat-leaf kale from a friend (and gentlefolk farmer), torn form the stems and cut in a broad Chiffonade, then braised in a heavy pot in which slightly-crushed garlic from Phillips Farm had previously been heated in some olive oil, finished with salt, pepper, and a drizzle of more olive oil

 

• there was a cheese course:  slices of pepper-covered 3-Corner Field Farm Brebis, and toasts of whole wheat bread (or ‘Integrale’) from Eataly

 

• the wine throughout was a California red, Matt Parish Cabernet Sauvignon Napa Valley 2013
• the music was Lully’s ‘Bellérophon‘, Christophe Rouset conducting Les Talens Lyriques & Choeur de Namur