I had managed to cut off the end of my most important digit while using a mandoline to put this meal together 11 days ago. Knowing something had gone wrong, I immediately pressed index finger and thumb together very firmly and finished preparing the potatoes before I stopped to check the damages. They were considerable, but the meal was terrific, even if I have to assume that I was literally a part of it.

I’ve had to keep the wound dry and I was told it could not be covered with a latex glove until it had totally closed and was pretty secure, so making dinner, even washing the dishes of a made dinner, has been out of the question until, well, yesterday.

On Friday I was told that I would probably be told Monday that I was now free to do stuff in the kitchen, and that’s what happened, but that day was my birthday, and we dined out with friends Michelle and Felix, at Faro, in Bushwick. No kitchen for me that day.

But I had actually jumped the gun, a little, the night before.

I had not prepared a real meal in 11 days, but on Sunday I was determined to do something very easy that might also include a lot of perishable vegetables I had around that were about to go beyond their natural expiration date.

The baked egg dish I whipped up with one hand tied behind my back (never touched anything with my injured finger) turned out super, and it did virtually empty the shelves.

I’m not sure I’m remembering everything that went into the mix, which I baked in the oven at 375º for about half an hour, but it certainly included olive oil; 4 or 5 small scallions from Norwich Meadows Farm; a few ounces of Colameco’s uncured diced pancetta from Whole Foods; torn arugula from Lani’s Farm; a few tablespoons of organic heavy cream; one tiny hot yellow pepper from Eckerton Hill Farm; 8 eggs from Millport Dairy Farm; 15 cherry tomatoes from Alex’s Tomato Farm, Carlisle, NY, at Chelsea’s [Down to Earth] Farmers Market; salt; pepper; black oil-cured olives from Whole Foods; finished with some Hong Vit micro radish and a very small amount of pea shoots/sprouts, both from Windfall Farms, scattered on top once the eggs had been plated; a small jar of an aromatic seasoning blend called L’eKama placed on the table with the eggs

This hearty ‘fish and potatoes’ dish has been one of our favorites ever since I saw the Mark Bittman recipe in the Times in 1999 (By the way, I’ve learned to use only about two thirds of the suggested amount of olive oil;  any more than that and you’ll probably find the potatoes swimming in it at the end).  We never tire of the dish, and only partly because it can be prepared with so many different kinds of fish, basically any white fish. In Bittman’s list, “Monkfish works very well . . . . But other fillets will give similar results, including red snapper, sea bass, pollock, wolffish, even catfish.”

The fish has to be absolutely fresh, as it certainly was here, and it helps when the olives are the right kind (ideally, black, oil-cured, like those commonly labelled ‘Moroccan’), and when the potatoes end up slightly crisp on the edges (I almost never peel potatoes anyway, and certainly not for this recipe).

• the thick 14-ounce hake fillet was from American Seafood Company in the Greenmarket; the potatoes were Red Norland, from Norwich Meadows Farm; the black oil-cured olives from Buon Italia; the 15 Sicilian bay leaves from Buon Italia
• the beautiful purple Winterbor kale, from Tamarack Hollow Farm, was wilted in olive oil where one garlic clove from S. & S.O. Farm, lightly-crushed and cut into 4 segments, had been heated and allowed to begin to color
• The wine was a California (grapes from the Sacramento River Delta with a small amount of Viognier from Lodi) white, Miriam Alexandra Chenin Blanc California 2015, by Alexandra Farber
• the music was Marc-Antoine Charpentier’s ‘Medee’, William Christie directing Les Arts Florissants

I had picked up a Sardinian pasta, ‘Malloreddus’, a while back, but hadn’t figured out what to do with it.  Last night I decided to pull it out of the larder anyway. I still hadn’t worked out a recipe, but while looking around on line, I saw something about a traditional treatment involving a mint and pecorino cheese sauce.

I had the ingredients, and it sounded minimal and respectful of what I had assumed – correctly as it turned out – would be the rather subtle saffron flavor of the pasta.

It was lovely; a delicious macaroni and cheese.

I have two to add 2 notes to this recipe:

1. The suggestion, ‘pecorino’ didn’t specify what kind of ewe’s milk cheese was to be used. It was only after slowly heating pieces of my grating pecorino in the cream and finding it never really dissolved, did I realize I should have used softer form of the cheese, but the solids didn’t affect the flavor or enjoyment of the final dish.
2. I suspected the saffron element of the Malloreddus itself might not be very noticeable, I added some threads from my own stock in the spice cabinet; I could have used a little more for even better effect.

• eight ounces a local pasta, Sfoflini Malloreddus, cooked al dente, drained, mixed with a sauce which had been prepared by heating 3 or 4 ounces of a young (ideally) pecorino from Whole Foods, cut into small chunks, inside a small saucepan with about half of a cup of heavy cream until the cheese melted, and kept warm while the pasta was cooking, then, just before mixing, a generous amount of torn leaves of peppermint from Alex’s Tomato Farm at Chelsea’s ‘Down to Earth Farmers Market’ added to the pecorino cream, pasta and sauce seasoned with freshly-ground black pepper (the saltiness of the cheese makes any additional salt unnecessary)

And then, because we hadn’t yet had our fill of cheese, we had, cheese – and fruit.

• bosc pears from Terhune Orchards, and, left to right in the picture, ‘Herve Mons’ Ovalie Cendrée (Poitou-Charentes) goat cheese from Whole Foods, Consider Bardwell Farm’s ‘Danby’ cow cheese, and their (unnamed) blue goat cheese

 

• the wine throughout was an Italian (Sardinia) white, La Cala Vermentino di Sardegna 2014
• the music thoroughout was Handel’s ‘Deidamia’  Alan Curtis directing Il Complesso Barocco

I was nattering with the mongers and wasn’t thinking much about the quantity of fish being drawn from the low tub nestled in the ice. I ended up with a pound of fish, a little more than I would normally buy, but the flounder was so terrific that both of us were very happy the number was a little generous.

The vegetable was equally delicious, an especially sweet and tender batch of young collards from some of my favorite farmers.

 

• six flounder fillets (exactly one pound) from P.E. & D.D. Seafood, seasoned with salt and pepper on both sides, coated lightly with well-seasoned flour (I used North Country Farms Stone Ground Whole Wheat Flour), then submerged in a shallow bowl containing a mixture of one egg from Millport Dairy, a little whole milk, and a pinch of salt, allowed to stay submerged until the vegetable had been cooked and the remaining ingredients for the fish prepared, then removed from the bowl, placed inside a heavy enameled cast iron pan with 2 or 3 tablespoons of olive oil, on top of some chopped fresh oregano from Stokes Farm, a small amount of crushed, dark, dried heatless Habanada pepper acquired fresh from Norwich Meadows Farm, and some chopped scallions (with their green sections), fried over a brisk flame until golden, barely two minutes for each side, removed and arranged on the plates, 2 tablespoons of butter and 2 tablespoons of organic lemon juice added to the pan, along with a little salt and pepper, cooked over low heat for less than a minute, stirring, before being poured over the fillets, and a small amount of ‘Bull’s Blood micro beet’ from Windfall Farms scattered over the top
• three quarters of a pound of loose young collard greens from Race Farm, stemmed, cut in a very rough chiffonade, then braised in a heavy pot in which crushed garlic from S. & S.O. Produce Farms had been allowed to sweat with some olive oil, the dish finished with salt, pepper, and a drizzle of olive oil
• the wine was a California (Napa Valley) white, Matt Iaconis Chardonnay Napa Valley 2015, from Naked Wines
• the music was the album, ‘An Enchanted Being – Music Of Ileana Pérez Velazquez‘, the choice being a response to our having just finished watching Steven Soderbergh’s ‘The Argentine’, the very topical first half (the second being, ‘Guerrilla’), of the political epic duology, ‘Che’, and it had moved us profoundly; we did not want to leave yet

I’ve been working with the same very simple recipe for years, but this was probably the richest, and even the most colorful version yet.

I have no idea why. The only real changes last night were, one, that the meat came from a Pennsylvania Deutsch [sic] farm I’ve come to respect hugely for all of its produce, but which I’ve never seen offer this fresh pork chops. They were delicious. The second novelty, an a happy circumstance, may have been my ability to use, as the other major ingredient to the recipe, a very sweet local lemon grown by David Tifford of Fantastic Gardens of Long Island.

There was also the fact that I included one of the last fresh habanada peppers of the summer, and it clearly made a taste (and visual) impact, but this wasn’t the first time I had included one in this recipe.

The potatoes were no less delicious, and I imagine that was at least partly because of the appearance of more of that heatless, bright floral pepper, but in a very different guise.

• two fresh 11-ounce pork chops from Millport Dairy Farm, thoroughly dried, seasoned with sea salt and freshly-ground black pepper, seared quickly on both sides inside a very hot, heavy enameled cast-iron pan, one small, fresh floral-scented heatless orange habanada pepper from Norwich Meadows Farm, chopped, scattered on the top surfaces before half of a sweet local lemon from Fantastic Gardens of Long Island was squeezed over them, after which the lemon was left on the surface of the pan between the chops, which were then placed in a 425º oven for about 14 minutes (flipped halfway through, the pepper pieces repositioned on the surfaces, the lemon squeezed over the top once again and once again replaced in the pan), the finished chops removed from the oven and arranged on 2 plates, some ‘Bull’s Blood micro beet’ from Windfall Farms arranged at one end, some of the pan juices (a far more generous amount had accumulated than ever before, largely, I imagine, because of the juiciness of the lemon) poured over the top of the chops, the remainder poured into a sauce boat for use at the table
• I added a small amount of my homemade quince chutney to the plates after the photograph above was taken; it was as wonderful as it had been in several recent meals, but it’s sweetness really wasn’t really necessary for this one
• wonderful nutty fingerling potatoes from a friend’s garden, ‘Lower Hayfields’, in Garrison, New York, halved, tossed with a little olive oil, chopped fresh rosemary and sage, both from Phillips Farm, a small amount of crushed, dark, dried heatless Habanada pepper, acquired fresh from Norwich Meadows Farm, sea salt, and freshly-ground pepper, spread, cut side down, onto a large Pampered Chef unglazed ceramic pan, roasted at about 400-425º [ideally 375º, but the pork required 425º] for maybe 15 minutes, or until the potatoes were both tender and slightly browned
• the wine was a California (Sonoma) white, Scott Peterson Rumpus California Sauvignon Blanc 2015, from Naked Wines
• the music was André Campra’s 1712 opera, ‘Idoménée’, William Christie conducting Les Arts Florissants

I went easy on the trimmings for this latest breakfast/lunch, at least compared to some of my more recent approaches.

• there were 6 eggs plus 4 slices of thick bacon from Millport Dairy Farm; toast from a loaf of French sourdough Levain from Bread Alone; arugula from Lani’s Farm, dressed with a good olive oil, maldon salt, freshly-ground pepper and a few drops of white balsamic vinegar; chopped scallions from Norwich Meadows Farm; a mix of several chopped herbs already on hand; more Maldon salt; more freshly-ground black pepper; a bit of a crushed heatless, orange Habanada pepper from Norwich Meadows Farm which I had dried, dark, and nearly carbonized last month; and, on the side, a small jar of L’eKama, and another containing some very-finely-chopped, very hot, tiny fresh pepper from Eckerton Hill Farm that I had infused in a little olive oil
• the music was a somewhat [jolly?] early (1836) Wagner operetta [sic], ‘Das Liebesverbot’, Robert Heger directing the Austrian Radio Symphony Orchestra and the Austrian Radio Chorus, with Heinz Imdahl, Willy Friedrich, Kurt Equiluz, Anton Dermota, Christiane Sorell, Ludwig Welter, Hilde Zadek, et al., being streamed by Yle Klassinen [from the album notes: “..the premiere was a catastrophe and the second performance was canceled when only three people showed up and some of the cast began punching one other.” (so happy he wasn’t discouraged)]

 

This dinner was pretty simple, very straightforward, both for the ingredients and, at least for me, their treatment.

The second thing I think worth mentioning is the fact that that this does not look like a December meal: Everything on that table that is fresh (fish, vegetables, herbs, fruit, cheeses [actually, only 3 of the 4], and the bread) came from local farmers trading in the Union Square Greenmarket during the last few days. Only the salt, pepper, olive oil, fennel seeds, dried pepper, and the wine (out of the picture) were not local.

Even the wine we chose might be considered out of such with the season: It was a rosé, one which we have enjoyed a number of times, although normally in warmer months than this one.

 

• one 12-ounce tuna steak from American Seafood at Chelsea’s ‘Down to Earth Farmers Market’ (one block west of us on 23rd Street), cut into 2 pieces, tops and bottoms rubbed with a mixture of a tablespoon of dry Italian fennel seed and a little crushed dried Itria-Sirissi chilis (peperoncino di Sardegna intero) from Buon Italia, the two having been ground together with mortar and pestle, the surfaces of the tuna additionally seasoned with salt and pepper before they were pan-grilled for only a little more than a minute or so on each side and finished with both a good squeeze of the juice of some tiny local lemons from Fantastic Gardens of New Jersey and a drizzle of olive oil
• ten or 12 cherry tomatoes from Alex’s Tomato Farm, in Carlisle, NY, purchased that day at Chelsea’s ‘Down to Earth Farmers Market’, halved, rolled in a little olive oil above a low flame, seasoned with salt and pepper, arranged on the plates next to the tuna and sprinkled with leaves removed from a Full Bloom Market Garden basil plant from Whole Foods, torn
• flat green pole beans from Norwich Meadows Farm, blanched, drained and dried, then reheated in a heavy cast iron pan with olive oil in which 3 chopped thin scallions from Norwich Meadows Farm had first been softened over a low flame, then finished with salt, pepper, and chopped winter savory from Stokes Farm

There was a cheese course.

• the cheeses were, from left to right in the picture, ‘Herve Mons’ Ovalie Cendrée (Poitou-Charentes) goat cheese from Whole Foods; Consider Bardwell Farm’s ‘Reconsider’, which is a one-time event: a cow cheese finished in their ‘Manchester’ goat cheese cave; Consider Bardwell Farm’s ‘Dorset’ cow cheese; and a yet-untitled Consider Bardwell blue goat cheese
• thin toasts from a French sourdough Levain from Bread Alone

 

• the wine throughout the meal was a California (Lodi) rosé, Karen Birmingham Rosé Lodi 2015
• the music, before, during, and after the meal, was Mozart’s 1775 opera, ‘La Finta Giardiniera’, René Jacobs directing the Freiburg Baroque Orchestra

Most of these things are some of my favorite things. I’m familiar with the fish, the olives, the peppers, the seasonings, the herbs, the lemon, and the micro beets, but before yesterday I had never touched a cardoon stalk. Now I can imagine Cynara cardunculus ending up joining them.

I’ll be looking for this uncommon Mediterranean vegetable on my next visits to the Greenmarket, since I’ve now assembled a small library of recipes I’d like to try out.

For several years I’ve been enjoying local citrus fruit from David Tifford’s greenhouse at Fantastic Gardens of Long Island, but I don’t think I’ve ever published an image of them; this is what the modest display looked like on Friday at the Union Square Greenmarket.

• two 7 1/2-ounce Tautog or Blackfish fillets, prepared mostly as described in this recipe by Melissa Clark, but substituting cayenne pepper and Spanish paprika (dolce) for the Aleppo Syrian red pepper it specified. I also used Gaeta olives rather than the kalamata Clark mentioned, and I added one chopped habanada pepper when I was adding the olives; the fish was from Pura Vida Fisheries, the fresh sage was from Phillips Farm, the olives from Buon Italia, the juice from local lemons (2 kinds) from David at Fantastic Gardens of Long Island, the ‘Bull’s Blood micro beet’ from Windfall Farm (this time I placed it at the side of the plate rather than on top of the fish)
• one stalk of cardoons from Norwich Meadows Farm, prepared mostly in the manner described on this site, drained after they had been parboiled, cold water over them, drained again and dried on paper towels, seasoned with sea salt and freshly-crushed black pepper, brushed on both sides with a little olive oil, and arranged on a medium unglazed seasoned ceramic oven pan (Pampered Chef), placed in a 425º oven for about half an hour, sprinkling with 3 chopped small scallions from Norwich Meadows Farm near the end of their cooking, removed when they had begun to caramelize [I had used too much olive oil which inhibited their ability to do so), served with a sprinkling of chopped parsley, also from Norwich Meadows Farm

 

• the wine was a California (Napa) white, Sin Fronteras Chardonnay Napa 2015 from Naked Wines [note: we love the name, ‘Sin Fronteras‘, more than we can say]
• the music was the remainder of Glück’s Alceste’, which we had begun listening to two nights before

One of the most exciting – and satisfying – things about assembling a frittata is the freedom you have to put things into it. This could encourage a penchant for cleaning out the refrigerator, but usually without sacrificing the success of the frittata itself (because of the extreme adaptability of the basic formula); that’s what happened this time.

• it was a bell pepper frittata, and the preparation went somewhat along the lines of the one shown in this post, but once you’ve cooked a few frittatas, anything like a detailed recipe seems pretty unnecessary, if not useless; for this one I used 12 ounces of small particolored sweet peppers from Norwich Meadows Farm, garlic from from S. & S.O. Produce Farms, one small leek from Tamarack Hollow Farm, one shallot from Norwich Meadows Farm, bits of 2 small hot peppers (one yellow and one green) from Eckerton Hill Farm, 8 eggs from Millport Dairy Farm, a couple tablespoons of whole milk from from Trickling Springs Creamery via Whole Foods, rosemary from Phillips Farm, marjoram and winter savory from Stokes Farm, thyme from Keith’s Farm, 3 small celery stalks and their greens from Norwich Meadows Farm, Piment d’Espelette from the French Basque (purchased in a small town north of Baie-Comeau, Quebec from the producer’s daughter), a bit of gremolata first prepared for this meal, and ‘Bull’s Blood’ micro beet from Windfall Farms
• the wine was a Spanish (Rueda) white, Bodegas & Viñedos Neo Primer Motivo Verdejo Rueda 2015
• the music was Bohuslav Martinů, ‘Concertino for Piano Trio and String Orchestra’, H. 231, and ‘Rhapsody-Concerto (Memorial to Lidice)’, H. 232

A pretty glorious meal.

I’m probably most comfortable with Italian-oriented cookery, and its modern emanations, but when I return to one of my earliest enthusiasms, German cooking (which began in the early-60s in Germany and was later encouraged by Mimi Sheraton and her 1965, ‘German Cookery’), both the ingredients and the process seem totally familiar, and the results are usually very good.

Last night we enjoyed one of the very, very good results.

While I took many liberties with some classics, the meal remained basically pretty German, including that its culture was the specific source for both the pork and the beets (Pennsylvania German), and the wine and the music (Frankish German).

 

• three small leeks from Tamarack Hollow Farm, mostly only the white portions (the better green, upper sections reserved), sliced once lengthwise, rinsed (these needed very little) and swirled around for a minute in a small amount of butter (in the past I have also used bacon fat or duck fat, alone or in various proportions) which had been heated inside a round tin-lined copper pan before adding 2 smoked loin pork chops [‘Kassler‘], from an Amish family farm in Pennsylvania which sells its produce at the Union Square Greenmarket as ‘Millport Dairy‘, a Pyrex glass cover added immediately and the chops kept above a very low flame (just enough to warm them, since as smoked meat, they were already fully-cooked), turning the chops once, and, near the end of the cooking time, the green parts of the leeks set aside earlier added and stirred about, the pork removed, plated, brushed with a horseradish jelly from Berkshire Berries, the pork then drizzled with the juices, including the the leek segments
• fourteen ounces of some quite small purple-top turnips tiny white purple-top turnips from Gorzynski Ornery Farm, scrubbed, but not peeled, cooked briefly (4 minutes, or until lightly browned in spots) over moderately high heat inside a large enameled cast iron pan in a little butter before a fourth of a cup of good chicken stock was added, along with several sprigs of thyme and a small pinch of sugar, the pan covered, and the turnips cooked until they were tender (only about 15-20 minutes in this case, and the stock had already reduced by then to a slightly-thickened sauce), the thyme removed seasoned with salt and pepper and sprinkled with chopped parsley from Norwich Meadows Farm
• a rich, spicy quince chutney, remaining from this dinner
• small side dishes of pickled red beets from Millport Dairy Farm
• the wine was a German (Franken) white, Weingut Schmitt Kinder Gutswein Silvaner Trocken 2014, from Chelsea Wine Vault\
• the music was [most of] Glück’s Alceste’, John Eliot Gardner conducting the English Baroque Soloists and the Monteverdi Choir, with Yann Beuron, Dietrich Henschel, Anne Sofie von Otter, Joanne Lunn, et al., to be continued another evening