The idea was to find something in which I could incorporate some leftover elk. I quickly came across an old newspaper clipping in a file I’ve marked, ‘using leftover meat’. It seemed it would be a good bet.

The recipe which became my jumping off point had was within a 2012 New York Times Food section clipping. It seemed to have a lot going for it, and it would be a small investment in time and the number of ingredients. While described as a way to rejuvenate overcooked meat, that definitely wasn’t my problem; I merely wanted to stretch a cup of leftover elk and to overcome some of the chewiness which had accompanied its first appearance 4 nights before.

To start with I reduced the strips of elk to very small pieces, (making sure to cut across the grain this time). The instructions called for twice as much meat as I had, but I wasn’t concerned about that. Instead, having almost immediately realized I had far too few potatoes to make a meal for 2, I was stumped for a moment before deciding to throw in a few different roots (one turnip, one parsnip, one carrot, and part of a large horseradish), grating each of them in turn, as I did the Russet potatoes and the yellow onion that were parts of the printed recipe.

Oh, and I didn’t have thyme it mentioned, so I used rosemary and sage.

Otherwise I proceeded exactly as it was written, but while I was supposed to find the underside of my sorta-potato pancake turning a “deep golden brown”, the constituents never bound together enough to be slipped onto a plate and reversed into the pan, as the recipe instructed. I don’t know what went wrong, unless it was the fact that almost half of my ingredients were without the kind of gluten required for the chemistry to make its magic.

I left the vegetables flattened in the pan as they had originally been arranged, and only moved it, in dollops like a rice or porridge, once I thought my ‘Rösti’ was fully cooked, into 2 shallow bowls.  I had made the move just in time, because it I discovered I had very narrowly avoided burning the bottom. There was a lagniappe however: I had somehow managed to produce a certain amount of socarrat, something I had heard of, but never experienced, because I’ve never had a proper paella.

We were both amazed at how delicious it turned out in the end. Amazed.

Melissa Clark’s recipe, much of which I seem to have dodged, is here.

• the ingredients were some russet potatoes and one sturdy carrot from Norwich Meadows Farm, one yellow onion from Lucky Dog Organic Farm, one turnip from Alewife Farm, a parsnip from Tamarack Hollow Farm, a bit of horseradish root from Eataly, less than a cup of leftover cooked elk from a friend of a friend, rosemary from Hoeffner Farms and sage from Keith’s Farm
• upland cress from Two Guys from Woodbridge, not dressed, except for some olive oil drizzled on both the greens and the [alternative Rösti]
• the wine was a California (Napa) red, Sin Fronteras Los Primos Red Wine California 2015
• the music was two of Sylvano Busotti’s 1970’s works, ‘Bergkristall’, and ‘Lorenzaccio Symphony’, Giuseppe Sinopoli conducting the North German Radio Symphony Orchestra

It was a beautiful day, a beautiful fish, and a beautiful meal.

I love tilefish, and I jump at the chance to enjoy it almost every time I see it in the market.* Yesterday was one of those days, and it turned out perfectly.

I’m getting pretty confident about preparing most fish, so when I finally started to put this meal on the table, realizing how late it was, I improvised, pretty fearlessly. I opted for the simplest – and almost the fastest – approach for the tilefish I could imagine, and did the same with the 2 vegetables. Most of the time spent in ‘cooking’ was devoted to picking out, washing, drying and chopping fresh herbs. Beyond that I just separated them for different applications, mixing them up with the fish, potato, and tomato.  All I really had to be concerned about was coordinating the different oven temperatures ideal for each.

• one one-pound tilefish fillet from American Seafood Company, rinsed, dried, halved, seasoned with salt and freshly-ground pepper, placed inside a tin-lined copper au gratin pan in which 3 tablespoons of Kerrygold Pure Irish Butter had been allowed to melt in the pan inside the oven until barely browned, but before a small amount of chopped baby leek (the green part) and at least 3 tablespoons of chopped herbs (basil from Full Bloom Market Garden, and tarragon, both from Whole Foods; and parsley from Gristede), roasted, skinned side down, then turned, for about 12 minutes, or until done, removed to the plates and sauced with the pan juices
• four Backyard Farms Maine ‘cocktail tomatoes’, some from Eataly, some from Whole Foods, halved, then heated gently in a small copper pan, seasoned with slat and pepper, and scattered with a little chopped oregano from Stokes Farm
• a couple handfuls of nutty fingerling potatoes (10?), the last of our stock from a friend’s garden, ‘Lower Hayfields’, in Garrison, New York, halved, tossed with a little olive oil, fresh rosemary from Hoeffner Farms and sage from Eataly, each chopped only a little bit, a small amount of crushed, dark, home-dried heatless Habanada pepper, acquired fresh from Norwich Meadows Farm last summer, salt, and freshly-ground pepper, spread, cut side down, onto a medium Pampered Chef unglazed ceramic pan, roasted at about 425º [ideally 375º, but the tilefish required 475º, so I moslly halved the difference] for maybe 15 minutes, or until the potatoes were both tender and slightly browned
• the wine was an Argentinian (Mendoza) white, Familia Mayol Garnacha Blanca Mendoza 2014, from Chelsea Wine Vault
• the music was by Karel Husa (who died 4 weeks ago at 95), his ‘Music for Prague 1968’ (1969), and ‘Apotheosis of this Earth’ (1970), Jorge Mester conducting the Louisville Orchestra (along with the University of Louisville Choir in the second piece), both in orchestral reworkings of compositions originally composed for concert band

 

*the photograph of a beautiful fresh tilefish fillet on ice is from an earlier post, in that instance also a purchase from American Seafood

On Tuesday I had intended to prepare a sauce for a dry pasta, but I couldn’t decide on which sauce or which pasta, and it was getting late, so I thought it might be time for the package of filled pasta I had in the freezer; the sauce suggested itself, and in fact almost made itself.

• Rana butternut squash-filled dried tomato-pasta round ravioli, cooked until not quite al dente, introduced to a tin-filled high-sided thick copper saucepan in which one thinly-sliced baby leek and a bit of a home-dried heatless, orange Habanada pepper, both from Norwich Meadows Farm, plus about 15 fresh sage leaves from Eataly, had all been heated over medium heat with 2 or 3 tablespoons of butter until the butter had begun to turn nut-brown and the sage to shrivel, at which time one fourth to one third of a cup of water was added and the mixture stirred, becoming loose and a little soupy, cooked (about 30-45 seconds, or until some of the water is absorbed and the pasta perfectly done), half of a cup of grated Parmigiano-Reggiano Vache Rosse from Eataly tossed in and stirred, now making the sauce somewhat creamy, the contents of the pan seasoned liberally with pepper and salt to taste and served, with more cheese at the table
• the wine was an Italian (Campania) white, Fattoria La Rivolta Taburno Falanghina del Sannio 2015 from Chelsea Wine Vault

• the music was Alfred Schnittke’s last symphony, No. 9 (completed by Alexander Raskatov), Owain Arwel Hughes conducting the Cape Philharmonic Orchestra, followed by Schnittke’s own version of his extraordinary 1977 ‘Concerto Grosso No 1’, reconfigured in 1977 with solo parts for flute and oboe, in this recording also supported by the Cape Philharmonic Orchestra under Hughes

[the 1972 portrait of Alfred Schnittke is by Reginald Gray, and appears on Schnittke’s Wikipedia entry]

We had some elk in the freezer, remaining from some given to us last spring by a friend who has a cousin who hunts, in the wilds of Kansas. At that time it had been a sirloin steak; on Sunday it was a flank steak.

I’ve had very little experience with that cut, even with beef, so I did some reading, and although I thought I had approached the process in a reasonable manner, the result was more chewy that I had supposed it would be. One of the reasons I’ve avoided flank, skirt or similar cuts is my fear of slicing the meat in the wrong direction once it’s been cooked, which is probably what happened here (it’s best sliced “across the grain”, a description not always obvious to me when I’m in a hurry).

In any event, it was tasty, and there was enough left to include in another dinner.

This rich meal began with a light course of smoked fish, garnished.

• Duck Trap River smoked whitefish from Whole Foods served with some lightly-dressed upland cress from Two Guys from Woodbridge and sections of a sweet local lemon from Fantastic Gardens of Long Island
• pieces broken from an Eric Kayser ‘baguette monge’
• the wine was a California (Sonoma) white, Scott Peterson Rumpus California Sauvignon Blanc 2015, from Naked Wines

The main course was pretty simple to prepare, in spite of the richness of the ingredients.

• one twenty-ounce, one-inch-thick flank steak from an elk shot in the wild, dried rubbed with olive oil and a very generous coasting of freshly-cracked black peppercorns, set aside for more than an hour, then placed over moderately high heat in 1-2 tablespoons of a combination of butter and olive oil inside a round 12-inch enameled cast iron pan, cooked rare-to-medium rare, which meant about 2 or 3 minutes on one side, then turned and cooked for another 2 or 3 minutes, transferred to warm plates, the bottom of the pan scraped with a wooden spatula to collect the juices, and a quarter cup of brandy added to the pan and cooked over high heat until reduced to about 2 tablespoons, the sauce poured over the meat, which was then garnished with chopped parsley
• some Brussels sprouts, together with one small ‘Honey Nut’ winter squash, and one Russet potato, all from Norwich Meadows Farm, the squash and the potato peeled and cubed, all tossed together with oil, salt, pepper, and two unpeeled garlic cloves, spread onto a ceramic oven pan and roasted for about half an hour at 400º, or until tender and caramelized, removed from the oven, drizzled with a bit of white balsamic vinegar, sprinkled with salt, pepper, and sage, and stirred
• the wine was an Italian (Val d’Aosta) red, Feudo di San Maurizio Saro Djablo 2015, produced by Michel Vallet, “..the owner, winemaker and dreamer of Feudo di San Maurizio in the village of Sarre in Italy’s alpine Valle d’Aosta region hard by the Swiss border…”

• the music throughout was Carl Maria von Weber’s 1823 opera, ‘Euryanthe’, with Renate Krahmer, Tom Krause, Harald Neukirch, Jessye Norman, Siegfried Vogel, Rita Hunter, and Nicolai Gedda, the Dresden Staatskapelle conducted by Marek Janowski

It’s near the depth of winter as I write this, there are no Pimientos de Padrón to be found in the Union Square Greenmarket, and, in the event, we’re also on the other side of a great ocean from the Iberian peninsula, but during a conversation with friends last night I was reminded of a wonderful meal we enjoyed almost 10 years back in the Basque town of Getaria.

The peppers in the photograph had been brought to the table after we had finished some freshly-oiled anchoas, local anchovies, and, as I recall, before 2 servings of wood-grilled monkfish had arrived. The picture was taken at about the moment we had watched our large cola de rape being carried by the gills just past us on the stones seen in the background, on their way to the massive open-fire grill behind Barry.

The warmth and simplicity of the environment, sitting outside, sheltered from the warm sun above the harbor in an ancient Cantabrian town, and the delicious food and wine*, plus the perfect companion in Barry, and the más amable de los posaderos, made this unforgettable meal. It’s one of the few I have ever been tempted to include on this site, normally limited to those I prepare myself.

I can’t say that simplicity is the only thing that attracts me on the rare occasions we eat out, but when it’s as inspired as this meal was, I would never ask for anything more.

The pleasures of this moment can be shared years later because it was recorded in the image included here, first published in May of 2007 to accompany a post on my general blog, written before I had begun writing about the food we enjoyed.

 

• the elegant thin glass tumbler, advertising one of the local sidras on its side, actually held an austere local Basque white wine, Txakoli, and later we enjoyed an excellent Rueda, from Valladolid, recommended by our host, who asked, “You want to drink a good wine, no?”