We will call this meal our Labor Day weekend American red meat indulgence.  These were among the tastiest and best-butchered and trimmed lamb chops either of us can remember ever having.  The Ottomanelli brothers on Bleecker Street are a priceless treasure.  I bought four of them yesterday, and put two of them in the freezer for another day.

• extraordinarily tasty and juicy pan-grilled loin lamb chops (each one, and here each serving, 6 1/2 ounces)  from Ottomanelli & Sons, finished with a salsa verde of lovage, capers, garlic, parsley stems, arugula and olive oil
• pan-grilled Paulina plum tomatoes from Eckerton Hill Farm, brushed with olive oil and a bit of balsamic vinegar
• very tender haricots verts (they started out some green and some purple) from Berried Treasures, blanched and then reheated with oil and seasoned with salt and pepper
• a traditional northern Italian red, from Piedmont, Tenuta la Pergola Monferrato Rosso 2011, blended by Kermit Lynch

 

This mackerel fillet was marinated, flesh side down, for thirty minutes in a mixture of wine vinegar and water, parsley stalks, thinly-sliced red onion and lemon, and a tablespoon of sugar, heated and cooled (it was gorgeous; I wish it could have come to the table!).  The mackerel was then removed from the marinade, patted dry, brushed with olive oil then pan grilled over a high flame.  The flavor was great, but I still felt the fish was missing something in its taste (and appearance), even though the recipe asked for nothing more.  I’m thinking at least chopped parsley, or another herb, sprinkled on top, or maybe something tomato.  A spot of something red on that plate would certainly have made it more exciting.

While I’m critiquing the presentation, I should definitely have sliced those wonderful, sweet Désirée tomatoes into halves before bringing them to the table, sprinkling the lovage on then.

• fillets of Spanish mackerel from Blue Moon Fish Company, marinated as described above, then pan-grilled and finished with a drizzle of lemon, then oil
• boiled ‘new’ Désirée potatoes from Berried Treasures, rolled with butter and oil, finished with chopped lovage from Mountain Sweet Berry Farm
• baby Italian arugula from Hawthorne Valley Farm, simply dressed with oil, lemon, salt and pepper, in spite of its appearance here
• a Spanish rosé, Rioja Muga Rosato 2013

• herb-rubbed (that is, oregano, parsley, thyme, rosemary, lemon zest and garlic, chopped with salt, pepper then added, along with a bit of olive oil) swordfish steaks from Blue Moon Fish, pan-grilled, then finished with a squeeze of lemon and olive oil
• radish greens from Phillips Farm, wilted in olive oil and some warmed garlic from Catskill Merino Sheep Farm, finished with salt & pepper and drops of additional olive oil
• wedges of a red heirloom tomato from Berried Treasures, dressed with oil, salt, and torn New York rooftop basil from Gotham Greens at Whole Foods
• a Sicilian white, Tenuta Rapitalà Terre Siciliane Piano Maltese 2012

It’s what we call a picnic;  it’s our at-home hot weather meal of last resort (although because they’re such a pleasure, it’s sometimes very much a first resort, independent of an evening’s temperature and humidity levels).  We sit at a wooden table next to an open window which looks out onto the roof garden, but there are no bugs.   It may take a while to set out the fixings, but there’s no heat involved (except in the unusual case of last night’s meal, which involved grilling tiny eggplants), and there’s very little washing up afterward.  There’s also no lugging of picnic hampers or insulated wine bags.

• slices of Alto Adige speck from Eataly (only 2 ounces on each plate); a few halved Fairy Eggplants brushed with garlic and fresh marjoram (from Central Valley Farm) then pan-grilled; 2 sliced heirloom tomatoes from Berried Treasures, covered with torn New York rooftop basil from Gotham Greens at Whole Foods, and some good olive oil; parsley from Paffenrath Farms; a handful of red radishes from Phillips Farm; three cheeses, including a soft sheep’s milk cheese, Kinderhook Creek Mini, by Old Chatham Sheepherding Company, from Whole Foods; ‘ Manchester’, a goat’s milk cheese from Consider Bardwell; and, seen on the plate here, Toma Point Reyes cow’s milk cheese from Eataly; finally, slices of a fresh Italian rye from Eataly
• a Swiss white wine, Domaine de Beudon, Fendant Valais 2005, from Appellation wine & Spirits

 

 

Hake with green sauce is apparently a Basque staple, by many accounts, but grilled corn is not a traditional accompaniment.  Maybe if Columbus had gotten to the new world a little sooner?

• hake fillet from PE &DD Seafood, sautéed with oil after a large clove of minced garlic, from Catskill Merino Sheep Farm, had been warmed in it, a good amount of chopped parsley from Paffenrath Gardens added when the hake was turned over to be cooked on the other side
• Bicolor corn from John D. Madura Farms, brushed with oil and seasoned, then pan-grilled, the kernels sliced from the cob, then warmed and finished with lovage from Mountain Sweet Berry Farm
• one small deep-red heirloom tomato from Berried Treasures, seasoned, quickly grilled, then finished with torn basil and oil
• a Sardinian white, La Cala Vermentino di Sardegna 2013

 

• wild Alaskan Sockeye salmon fillet from Whole Foods, seasoned, rubbed on one side with a mixture of ground coriander, seeds, cloves, cumin, and nutmeg, sautéed three minutes on one side, two on the other, skin side, then finished with drops of lemon and a bit of olive oil;  the very simple recipe is pretty much the same as one described by Mark Bittman in the New York Times a few years ago
• green and purple okra from Norwich Meadows Farm, sautéed along with dried chiles in an iron pan over a high flame, seasoned with salt and pepper
• a fresh Loire red, Complices de Loire Jus de Gamay Touraine 2012

• skate from Pura Vida, ‘breaded’ with seasoned polenta flour, pan-fried until golden and removed to plates, shallots and garlic quickly added to the wiped pan with a bit a bit of butter, where they sweated a bit, the heat then turned off , lemon juice and chopped parsley introduced, the simple sauce then spooned over the skate
• flat green or Romano beans from Berried Treasures, par-boiled, drained, dried, and reheated in a bit of olive oil, then combined with chopped orange heirloom tomato from Central Valley Farm
• the wine was a Southwest France rosé, Côtes de Duras “La Pie Collette,” Mouthes le Bihan – 2013

I originally found the recipe on the Kisscook site.

 

 

Once again, the fact that I didn’t want to use the oven on a warm evening was something of the mother of invention, or perhaps this time only the mother of an impetus for borrowing.  My favorite recipe for squid involves a very hot oven, however briefly, so I knew I’d want to come up with something else two nights ago.  This dish is a fairly close working of a recipe created by two people I hadn’t heard of (we really never see TV here at Chelsy acres), Dan Smith and Steve McDonagh, found on line while I was searching for ‘squid’ and ‘grilled’.  It seemed easier, and actually looked better than another I had seen by Lidia Bastianich (I have heard of Lidia.  If  you know her, don’t tell her what I said).

It was delicious, and it’s definitely going to stay in the repertory.

• squid bodies and tentacles (this time not enough, to my taste) from Blue Moon Fish, marinated for about half an hour in lemon zest and lemon juice – here using exactly half a lemon for each (I love that home economy thing) – garlic, oil, dried oregano, salt and pepper, then removed from the marinade and pan-grilled briefly over high heat, sprinkled with lemon juice, and chopped parsley from Paffenrath Gardens
• flat yellow pole beans from Bodhitree Farm, parboiled, drained, dried, later re-heated briefly with olive oil, seasoned and sprinkled with lovage from Mountain Sweet Berry Farm
• the wine was a Spanish white which uses Verdejo grapes, one which we’ve been enjoying frequently lately, Shaya Rueda 2012 

 

• a first course of sautéed pimiento de padrón, from Lani’s Farm, finished with a sprinkling of flaky Maldon salt, followed by
• pan-grilled scallops from PE & DD, finished with a drizzle of lemon, olive oil, and a dollop of salsa verde (chopped parsley and mint, olive oil, garlic, capers, anchovy, dijon, red wine vinegar), accompanied by
• zucchini and yellow squash trifolati, here including San Marzano tomatoes from Mountain Sweet Berry Farm, finished with basil and allowed to sit for a half hour or so, after a recipe in “Italian Too Easy“.  The small, very sweet zucchini were from Berried Treasures, their yellow counterparts from Stoke’s Farm, and the Gotham Greens (Brooklyn rooftop-grown) basil was from Whole Foods
• the wine was a Spanish white, Naia 2013 D.O.C. Rueda, from Verdejo old vines

The last time we enjoyed Pimiento de Padrón was as the first course of  a meal which followed with steak;  this time it preceded a seafood entrée.  The only other difference, aside from two the separate farm origins, lay in their Scoville reading.  In our experience with this second meal the little green peppers far exceeded the ratio usually attached to their reputation (a one-in-ten chance of hotness), and the ‘heat’ itself was the most extreme either of us had ever experienced. I’ve since done some checking on line, and in conversation as well:   While it seems that ultimately there’s no general agreement about the cause, the figures for their randomness, or their varying intensity, I’m guessing (after some sensible input from a Greenmarket farmer) that the little green ones might get pretty fiery if denied a lot of water while maturing in the sun.   In any event, I have to say that they’re unbelievably delicious when you can actually taste them.  Salto Mortale.  I’m not sure the Spanish Salto Mortal suggests the same thing, so I’ll just go with, “Los pimientos de padrón, unos pican y otros no”.  An image of the plated hotties appears below.

I was so taken with the look of the hake fillet at PE & DD in the Greenmarket today that I didn’t think about what I would do with it when I got home.  Only when I had gotten there did I remember that all of the recipes I have used with hake involved a hot oven.  While the temperature outside was as remarkably moderate today, I had no interest in spoiling the coolness of the evening by stoking a 400º stove.    But hake is very similar to cod, and eventually I remembered a simple and delicious recipe which I’ve used with cod fillet:  merluzzo dorato.    I believe the hake version would be called nasello dorato in Italy, but, in any event, I can say for certain that it was a wonderful surprise:  It was the most delicious hake entrée I’ve ever had.

• hake fillets from PE & DD, dredged in seasoned flour and dipped in a beaten egg from 3-Corner Field Farm, sautéed in butter along with a handful of sage leaves from Keith’s Farm, then sprinkled with lemon juice and the pan juices that remained.
• small seasoned pan-grilled San Marzano tomatoes from Mountain Sweet Berry Farm, finished with a dab of olive oil and a bit of balsamic vinegar
• flat yellow pole beans from Norwich Meadows Farm, blanched, then reheated later in a bit of olive oil, seasoned and finished with chopped lovage from Keith’s Farm
• the wine was one of our favorite Spanish whites, Naia 2013 D.O.C. Rueda, from Verdejo old vines.