Many weeks back some friends of ours in Brooklyn had invited a dozen people to share Thanksgiving with them. We were very happy to be included, but our hosts’ plans had to be canceled only days before the event because of a death in the family. Our fallback was to prepare a dinner at home. Unable to find guests at such short notice who were not already committed elsewhere, we had to re-think our favorite harvest féte as a much smaller affair than we would have preferred.
I would probably have eschewed turkey even if we had guests, but since if seemed we were going to be only two at dinner, I tried to think of an alternative which might be as appropriate as the archetypal American turkey but taste even better. I picked out a small Muscovy Duck, or Canard de Barbarie [original to South and Central America] at Ottomanelli‘s on Monday. Today, Thursday, with a few appropriate “trimmings”, it did its special magic, introducing a hint of “the wild” into a very domestic holiday.
In the end the main course at least turned out to be more French than American. But, upholding one of the traditions of the day, we did manage to have some leftovers, although the vegetables were not among them.
When it includes meat or fish I usually serve the main course of a meal with only one, possibly two vegetables, both for simplicity and to concentrate attention on complementary choices I hope I’d chosen judiciously.
On Saturday night however, I had a larder slightly swollen after a splurge with the bounty of the late fall Union Square Greenmarket. To accompany a small 10 oz. Newport steak from Citarella which would serve both of us, I found I had some Purple Peruvian Potatoes from the stall of Paffenroth Gardens, a bouquet of what we learned was some very sweet red chard from that of Lani’s Farm (formerly known as Yuno’s Farm), and some late-season San Marzano tomatoes from, I think, Bill Maxwell’s farm, which had finally ripened sufficiently on our north windowsill.
They all came together to make one of the most vibrantly-colorful plates I’d ever seen, in a “one-dish meal” that was also totally delicious.
I’ve recently discovered that there really is life beyond salsa for the lowly tomatillo.
The other day I found myself with some golden cherry tomatoes which really had to be made a part of a meal before it was too late. I happened to check out the crisper drawer in the refrigerator at just about the same time. Down at the bottom I found three tomatillos I had completely forgotten I had, having neglected to register them on my critical kitchen perishables list the day I had brought them home from Bill Maxwell’s stand at the Greenmarket several weeks earlier.
[Note to all shoppers: I’m finding that Maxwell’s (Mondays at Union Square) can mean virtually one-stop shopping – and talking to good folks too.]
I was about to throw the tomatillos in the garbage, but I decided to check them out first. I knew almost nothing about the vegetable, including how long they could be stored and where they should be stored. I cut a thin slice and discovered perfect bliss. It looked like jade and it tasted like candy.
I had been trying to come up with for something which would complement grilled swordfish with a Salmoriglio sauce and some braised red kale. Maybe it was the thought of combining the two colors more than anything else that inspired the salad which I assembled from the tomatoes and the tomatillos, but it totally hit the mark. By chance I had some fresh lovage, also picked up at Maxwell’s stand, although more recently, and as I’ll put lovage on just about anything, I hardly had to think for a second before I added the leafy herb to the mix.
Here’s the real deal:
Thinly slice some ripe tomatillos and cut some ripe golden cherry tomatoes in half, combine with a liberal amount of chopped lovage, some good olive oil, a bit of fresh lemon juice, salt and, ideally, pink peppercorns (I love pink peppercorns and watch for any opportuity where they might shine), although black or white pepper will do just fine. Enjoy.
I’ve always been fond of skate, and it probably has little to do with the fact that I’m surprised to learn over and over again just how much the taste is unlike that of most any other fish. But it does, and it is. Prepared along the lines of an old Mark Bittman posting in the New York Times, tonight’s entree both looked and tasted very little like fish and more like very light whipped potatoes dribbled with a delicate but complex brown sauce (gravy). Bittman writes that halibut steaks and fillets, or most any other firm, white-fleshed fish will respond to the same treatment, “but the substitution is not perfect”.
Tonight it was perfect; the fish was very fresh, the other ingredients in its preparation just about the best possible.
The accompaniments were mostly a matter of what looked good in the market (Manhattan Fruit), and although they seem to me now an odd choice, they worked very well together. I think we were dining somewhere in Savoy/Savoie/Savoia/Savoyen.
Have you ever noticed how a skate wing, when stretched to its limit, looks exactly like the wing of a bird? This afternoon was a first for me.
Except for the cheese, the lemon, the oil and the bread (oh and the wine, too), everything in this meal came from the Union Square Greenmarket today, including the fish.
I assembled a simple, very inexpensive meal last night using ingredients found in the refrigerator for the first course (including sliced air-dried beef remaining from the night before, and some hard-crusted two-day-old bread). The radishes had come from the Greenmarket, and I was able to include their tops (which usually have to be tossed out unless they are very fresh) in the second course. I finished the frittata on the top of the range before we sat down to the appetizer, letting it rest for a few minutes, so I ended up serving it when it was barely warm, the flavors just coming into their own.
I had managed to minimize heat build-up in the kitchen on a warm evening. I didn’t use a recipe; the assembly of the frittata was inspired by what I had found in Union Square. It was really, really delicious, with no little thanks to the wine (an Italian rosé). The success of this simple frittata began with my being able to use some very fresh farm eggs, and was secured by the happy and delicious contest between the sweetness of the onions and the bitterness of the greens.
(the center bunch joined us for dinner; the egg seems to have escaped from the vendor’s cartons)
It ended up as a fine anniversary dinner, but because of my forgetfulness it was almost a non-event. On the afternoon of April 27 I was thinking of putting together a pretty simple meal, and already had some good organic sauerkraut and sausage. Then I was reminded, by the other interested party in the relationship, that it was one of our five anniversaries (I used to transcribe all of their dates into my pocket calendar at the beginning of every year, but I’ve become much less dependent on written reminders over the years).
Barry and I had met eighteen years earlier to the day. Ooops.
I decided we could stay with the German theme and still be festive if I only added a few extras. Still thinking simple Teutonic, I came up with the idea of a raw beet salad (raw, in order to minimize the heat in the kitchen on an unseasonably-warm day), and when I picked up a bunch at Whole Food I found that the excellent condition of their organic tops meant I also had the ingredients for some braised greens.
The cooked sauerkraut demanded some time on top of the stove to work through the flavors, and the salad had to marinate for an equal amount of time. I had gone to the store early in the evening and had forgotten these requirements until it was almost too late to prepare a dinner we’d be able to consume before midnight. In the end although I cut the food preparation time a bit short, it didn’t seem to make a difference in the flavors, since everything ended up tasting really good.
I don’t often cook anything resembling a traditional German meal these days. This is partly because of our current taste in food, which is largely in the tradition of the simpler forms of the Italian kitchen, but also, I think, because it seems to me that the cookery of my ancestors doesn’t usually represent an economical use of kitchen time. My own kitchen experience began with my investment in a Fannie Farmer Cookbook [small and paperback, both bad ideas for a cookbook] while I was in grad school, but it was German cooking which seduced me into a life which has always included serious kitchen time. I thought we had broken up years ago, after I started a relationship with Julia Childs and later a good number of Italian cookbook authors, but every so often I find myself reaching for my old copy of Mimi Sheraton’s “The German Cookbook“, which I purchased in its first, 1965 printing , not long after I had arrived in Providence after a year enrolled at the University in Munich (but mostly sitting about in its wonderful taverns and cafes).
I rummaged through the book for refreshers on an approach for both the sauerkraut and the salad, and I came up with this:
Thanks, Mimi.