the last bunch of flowering bok choy

 

I wanted the beautiful yellow flowers in this ‘Strauss‘ of yu choy sum (Brassica rapa var parachinensis, Brassica rapa var purpurea, or flowering bok choy), to be seen even after I had wilted most of the greens, so I cut them from their stems and set them aside after they had been washed. They were added to the braised greens only at the very end.

The ‘before’ can be seen above, and the ‘after’ just below.

• a little over three quarters of a pound of squid, bodies and tentacles, from American Seafood Company, rinsed, dried, then very quickly arranged in an enameled cast iron pan after it had been and heated on top of the range until very hot and its cooking surface brushed with olive oil, the cephalopods then sprinkled with some super-pungent dried Italian oregano from Buon Italia and one crushed dried pepperoncino, also from Buon Italia, with a good squeeze of juice from a local Lisbon lemon (Long Island Fantastic Gardens, in the Union Square Greenmarket), some olive oil drizzled over the top, placed in a pre-heated 400º oven, roasted for four or five minutes, removed from the oven, and a handful of small sorrel leaves from Windfall Farms tossed over the top and lightly stirred with the juices that had accumulated in the pan
• a bunch of yu choy sum (flowering bok choy) from Lani’s Farm, added to a heavy enameled cast iron pan where one bruised and halved garlic clove from Whole Foods  had been heated until beginning to brown, the greens stirred until tender, then put onto the plates, where they were seasoned with salt and pepper and drizzled with olive oil
• the wine was an Italian (Campagna) white, Falanghina Feudi di San Gregorio 2014
• the music was Peter Maxwell Davies’ beautiful opera, ‘Taverner’, Oliver Knussen and Stefan Asbury conducting His Majesties Sagbutts and Cornetts, Fretwork, and London Voices, with John Graham Hall , Peter Hall, Peter Sidhom, Michael Chance, Quentin Hayes, David Wilson-Johnson, Stephen Richardson, Fiona Kimm, Martyn Hill, Stuart Kale, and Tom Jackman

I hardly lifted a finger in putting this dinner onto the table.

The appetizer was familiar, except for the handful of greens, and the pasta was very familiar, since we had enjoyed the first of it only last week.

• three ounces of thinly-sliced La Quercia Speck Americano, described by the makers as ‘applewood-smoked prosciuto’, from Whole Foods, drizzled with a little a good Umbrian olive oil (Luciana Cerbini Casa Gola) from Buon Italia, served with a few leaves of yu choy sum (flowering bok choy) from Lani’s Farm, drizzled with the same olive oil and a little white balsamic vinegar, and slices of a wonderful rustic loaf of bread, ‘Trucio’ from Sullivan Street Bakery
• some leftover emmer reginetti with cabbage, garlic, anchovies, and chiles, divided into two cazuelas and heated at 350º for about thirteen minutes, removed and sprinkled with chopped parsley from Eatlay
• the wine was an Austrian (Kremstal) white, Vorspannhof Mayr Grüner Veltliner 2014 from Philippe Liquors
• the music was Symphonies Nos. 4 and 5 by Peter Maxwell Davies, the composer conducting the ensembles for which they were written, the Scottish Chamber Orchestra and the Philharmonia Orchestra, respectively

One of these days I’m going to get the ‘turning once’ down pat. In the meantime, the plates often end up looking a little bit rough around the edges.

• two flounder fillets from P.E. & D.D. Seafood, sautéed in olive oil and butter over high heat until golden brown (2-3 minutes on the first side, 1-2 minutes on the other, served with a tomato butter composed earlier by melting some ‘Kerrygold Pure Irish Butter‘ and adding one chopped shallot from Mountain Sweet Berry Farm, cooking it until softened and fragrant, removed from the heat, allowed to cool for 2 or 3 minutes, then tossed with quartered/sixth-ed Backyard Farms Maine ‘cocktail tomatoes’ from Whole Foods, seasoned with salt, and chopped fresh oregano from Stokes Farm added, along with a few drops of red wine (Chianti) vinegar
• young, tender broccoli rabe from from Migliorelli Farm, wilted in olive oil flavored with bruised garlic from Whole Foods, seasoned with salt and pepper, put on two plates and drizzled with more olive oil
• the wine was a California white, F. Stephen Millier Angels Reserve Chardonnay 2014
• the music was two symphonies by Aulis Sallinen, No. 3 and No. 5,  Ari Rasilainen conducting the Rheinland-Pfalz State Philharmonic Orchestra

(the image was shot before its rich spicy self sauce was added to the lamb)

 

The little roast had been marinated with a rub of toasted cumin seed and [the equivalent of] two different chile powders, so the sauce for this partial lamb shank, once it had been produced, was unbelievably rich and complex.

When I first removed the pan from the oven, and the meat from the pan, there were virtually no juices visible, and certainly nothing worthy of being called a sauce. A few minutes later however, after I had quickly returned the lamb to the oven, I found it had produced a rich, spicy sauce, I’ll say ‘automatically’, and it was now cooked exactly medium-rare.

The recipe I started with, ‘Roast Leg of Lamb with Red Chile Crust‘, is from the book, ‘Bobby Flay’s Bold American Food‘, but I only realized once I had begun to prepare this little roast that I didn’t actually have most of the ingredients it specified. In fact , Flay asked for 2 chile powders and I didn’t have either.

I improvised, so wildly that I can’t remember what ended up in the ‘rub’ I used, although I do remembering toasting some cumin seed. The lamb turned out more than just pretty good.

My other story is about the problem of determining when something has been cooked à point. This was an especially small roast, so it was probably not going to suitable for most roasting procedures, including Bobby Flay’s (he suggested roasting for 15 minutes, at a high temperature, as a way to ‘sear’ his roast, but that would be brutal for a roast less than a third the size of the one his recipe was working with.   I probably should have seared it very briefly in the pan, but I wasn’t certain that would do anything, since there really weren’t any meat surfaces to sear. In the end I just roasted it in a ‘moderate’ oven and removed it to rest on a wooden board at the moment I thought it had achieved a state of perfection.

At that moment however there were almost no juices visible, and certainly nothing that appeared to be a sauce. I should have gotten the message then, but it was only when I had begun to slice it that I realized that the outer inch or so alone had been cooked as I wanted. I quickly returned the lamb to the oven for about 7 or 8 minutes. Removing it again, I found that a genuine rich sauce had been rendered from the shank’s juices, and the meat was now cooked exactly medium-rare.

• one boneless leg of lamb, a half shank, from 3-Corner Field Farm, weighing 1.45 pounds, rubbed all over with a red chile mix described by Flay in the recipe I linked to above, allowed to rest at room temperature almost 2 hours, then simply roasted in a heavy, oval, enameled cast iron pan at 325º for about 35 minutes, maybe a bit more, removed and served with the self sauce it had produced, and sprinkled with a chopped herb (an optional gesture, and I used lovage here)
• four Backyard Farms Maine ‘cocktail tomatoes’ from Whole Foods, pricked with a fork, added to the roasting pan near the end of the cooking time, and allowed to remain inside after the lamb had been removed to a wooden board to rest for ten minutes or so, moving them about in the pan juices

• eight walnut-size purple-top turnips from Norwich Meadows Farm, scrubbed and peeled, cooked briefly (4 minutes, or until lightly browned in spots) over moderately high heat in a little butter, a fourth of a cup of good chicken stock, two thyme sprigs and a small pinch of sugar added to the pan, which was then covered, and the whole cooked for less than 30 minutes, or until the vegetables were tender, seasoned with salt and pepper and sprinkled with chopped parsley from Eataly

• broccoli rabe from from Migliorelli Farm, wilted in olive oil in which one large bruised and halved clove of garlic from Whole Foods had been allowed to begin to brown, seasoned with salt and pepper, placed on the plates and drizzled with a little more olive oil
• the wine was a luscious super California (Sonoma) red, ROX Scott Peterson All Blacks Sonoma County 2013, which we had enjoyed with lamb once before
• the music, begun earlier in the afternoon, and interrupted after the first act for a long intermission (because of all of the noise in the kitchen), was Wagner’s ‘Parsival’, in a 1992 recording from the Bayreuth Festival, conducted by James Levine, and including the soloists Waltraud Meier, Simon Estes, Franz Mazura, Matti Salminen, Hans Sotin, Michael Pabst, Matthias Hölle, Ruthild Engert, Sabine Fues,
  Helmut Pampuch, Peter Maus, Deborah Sasson, Susan Roberts, Monika Schmitt, Alison Browner, Peter Hofmann, Hilde Leidland, Margit Neubauer, and Ruthild Engert, with the Bayreuth Festival Orchestra, Bayreuth Festival Chorus

there will be a total of only two meals today

 

We finished the first meal of the day at 2:30. Later there will be a small half shank leg of lamb, roasted, served with some sympathetic vegetables. There will be nothing betwixt. The image above should help to explain why.

I don’t know what to call this dish, which is something of a hodgepodge. Because it is that, and because it will still be that the next time I do something like it, I won’t describe how it was put together. I probably couldn’t anyway, but, if it helps, I will say that I cooked it in a preheated 375º oven for about 10 or 15 minutes (or until the whites had become opaque).

• The ingredients were, in order of their appearance in a small-ish ceramic oven dish: a little butter; a generous number of halved Backyard Farms Maine ‘cocktail tomatoes’ from Whole Foods; some wilted Shunkyo radish greens from Lani’s Farm; quartered thin slices of a hard, smokey paprika sausage whose identity I can no longer supply; finely-chopped wild garlic from Lani’s Farm; 8 eggs from Millport Dairy; salt; pepper; dabs from a small jar of an aromatic seasoning blend with the name, L’eKama, on top of the eggs once the portions were on plates; and a little chopped lovage from Two Guys from Woodbridge scattered over all
• the music, played on the highest holy day of the Christian church, was Heinrich Schutz, ‘Die Auferstehung unsres Herren Jesu Christi‘, performed by the Hilliard Ensemble; for what it’s worth, it was succeeded by a James Levine/Bayreuth recording of ‘Parsifal’, which is likely to be completed before the second, and last, meal of the day

red radishes

 

red fish

 

I know that only some of the red survives the cooking processes; it’s the taste that keeps me coming back.

• four fillets of red sea perch (a total of just over a pound) from American Seafood Company, brushed with olive oil and some chopped wild garlic from Lani’s Farm, seasoned with salt and pepper, then broiled 4 inches from the flames for about 4 minutes until the skin was crisp and the fish cooked through, sauced with a bit of olive oil in which 2 rinsed, filleted salted anchovies from Buon Italia were heated until they had fallen apart, the fish finished on 2 plates with a drizzle of local lemon from Fantastic Gardens of Long Island, and chopped lovage from Two Guys from Woodbridge
• Shuynkyo radishes from Lani’s Farm (which describes them as ‘hot and sweet’), some of the greens cut off and set aside (I had already used a certain portion earlier, and, surprisingly, after this meal there were still some remaining), scrubbed, most of them halved, tossed in a little olive oil with salt, pepper, and rosemary leaves, arranged in a ceramic pan on the stove top where they were cooked over high heat until some at least had lightly browned in spots, placed in a 425º oven for about 15 minutes, removed, returned to the range, a little butter stirred in, and the greens which had been reserved earlier, now roughly chopped, tossed into the pan and cooked until barely wilted, finished with juice from the same local lemon used on the fish  [note: next time I will cook the greens separately, since, in this process, they ended up pretty much negating the crispness the radishes had arrived at earlier]
• the wine was a California (Sonoma) white, Jacqueline Bahue Carte Blanche Sauvignon Blanc Sonoma Valley 2015 from Naked Wines
• the music was various concertos by Antonin Reichenauer,  Marek Stryncl directing Musica Florea

We had just come back from a staggeringly beautiful performance of Heiner Goebbels’ production of Louis Andriessen’s ‘De Materie’, and it was about 10:30, so dinner had to be quick. I also thought that it had to be minimal (that would have seemed advisable tonight even if we had all the time in the world).

Also, Barry loves artichokes in any form.

The music choice was a cinch: Bach, and, arguably, at his most minimal, a performance of ‘The Well-Tempered Clavier’.

• twelve ounces of a 1-half kilo package of Italian artisan pasta, Foglie al Carciofo (artichoke leaves), from Maestri Pastai Selection, served with a simple sauce of chopped spring scallions from Lucky Dog Organic which had been heated for a couple minutes in a little olive oil along with some dried Itria-Sirissi chili (peperoncino di Sardegna intero) from Buon Italia, the sauced pasta briefly emulsified with some of the reserved pasta water and sprinkled with freshly-ground Tellicherry pepper, then tossed with a little upland cress from Stokes Farm and served in shallow bowls with grated ‘Parmigiano Reggiano Bonat 3’ from Buon Italia
• the wine was an Italian (Sardinia) white, La Cala Vermentino di Sardegna 2013
• the music was Bach’s Well-Tempered Clavier, Book I, played by Maurizio Pollini 

the swordfish steak sections marinating

 

and on the plate with the vegetables

 

which included the greens from one of these radish bunches

 

I had intended to roast both radishes and radish greens as the vegetable for this meal, but the mild weather gave me second thoughts: I was not anxious to have the oven heat up the kitchen, so I ended up cooking only (some of) the greens, braising them on top of the stove (reserving the remainder for another time). I substituted some colorful fresh (hydroponic) tomatoes, in the form of a salad, for the radish roots, which will be a part of another meal.

• one swordfish steak (off of Scott Rucky’s fishing vessel, ‘Dakota’, out of East Islip, Long Island), from American Seafood Company in the Union Square Greenmarket), trimmed at the stand by the vendor’s owner, Glenn, cut into two pieces at home, marinated for about half an hour in a mixture of olive oil, chopped fresh oregano from Stokes Farm, and finely-chopped wild garlic from Lani’s Farm, drained well and covered with a coating of dried homemade bread crumbs, pan-grilled above a fairly high flame for about 3-4 minutes on each side, removed, seasoned with salt and pepper, sprinkled with a little local lemon juice from Fantastic Gardens of Long Island, a little more wild garlic, then drizzled with olive oil before serving
• a few quartered Backyard Farms Maine ‘cocktail tomatoes’ from Whole Foods and two larger quarterd (or maybe ‘sixth-ed’) yellow tomatoes from Shushan Valley Hydro Farm, mixed with a good Umbrian olive oil (Luciana Cerbini Casa Gola) from Buon Italia, a squeeze of Lisbon lemon, also from from Fantastic Gardens of Long Island, and a little chopped lovage from Two Guys from Woodbridge
• radish greens from a large bunch of Shunkyo radishes from Lani’s Farm wilted in a large cast iron enameled pan in olive oil in which one large halved garlic clove from Whole Foods had begun to color, seasoned with salt and pepper
• the wine was an Italian (Sicily) white, Corvo Insolia 2013 from Philippe Wine in Chelsea, located about 50 yards from our front door
• the music was various concertos by Antonin Reichenauer

a fantastic dish, and assembling it could hardly have been easier; try it!

 

When I manage to put together a meal as delicious – and as simple to duplicate – as this one, I want to broadcast it as well as I can. Mark Bittman’s ‘Pasta with Savoy Cabbage’ recipe is brilliant to begin with, but I was very lucky to have a very special local pasta (with local grains) on hand to substitute for his suggested, and more familiar, “dried pasta, like spaghetti.”

My secret was a package of New York’s own artisanal pasta, by Sfoglini Pasta Shop, specifically, their ‘Emmer Reginetti‘, which I had picked up somewhere recently, although I’m not certain where. For more on the fascinating story of emmer (aka farro), start here.

It was a perfect match for a rather cold evening on one of the first days of spring, especially because the other principal ingredient was a fresh cabbage which had presumably been harvested on one of the last days of autumn, at least 3 months ago.

The miracle of cabbage: It’s what kept many of the poorer folk in northern European climes alive throughout long winters without supermarkets or central heating – or animals or vegetables that were still alive.  But this isn’t our grandmother’s pungent crucifer, as attested by the recipe’s origin in the northern reaches of the Italian peninsula. The presence of bay leaf, anchovy, garlic, chile, and wine produced an aroma – and a flavor – which would awaken the most indifferent eater and please the most fussy gastronome.

I followed Bittman’s recipe pretty much to the letter, except that I used only 75% of its proportions, used a very different pasta, and finished it with a combination of parsley and lovage.

• my ingredients included the Sfoglini Emmer Reginetti, garlic from Whole Foods, canned salted anchovies from Buon Italia, dried Itria-Sirissi chili (peperoncino di Sardegna intero) from Buon Italia, Italian bay leaves from Buon Italia, a white cabbage from Phillips Farm, parsley from Eataly, and lovage from Two Guys from Woodbridge
• the wine was an Italian (Südtirol/Alta Adige) white, Alois Lageder Pinot Grigio Dolomiti 2014
• the music was an album of compositions from composers associated with Venice in the baroque era,  Uri Rom, Antonio Vivaldi, Alessandro Marcello, Giovanni Porta

‘Pan-Seared Cod with Mushrooms’: It’s a fascinating recipe, but I have to append a bold note to my copy: ‘do not try this again unless you really do have low-sodium stock.’ I can’t say I wasn’t warned, since the instructions had made it very clear; it’s just that I haven’t yet been able to locate a [good] vegetable stock described as low sodium.

I’ve made 2 adjustments to the original recipe: First, I used a quarter of the amount of mushrooms it suggests, as once before; and second, I used lovage rather than the parsley or chives indicated.  I also could have gotten away with maybe half the stock specified, since I included far fewer mushrooms than the site had instructed.

Once served, at least initially, the cod was more salty than either of us would prefer, but a squeeze of lemon and some good fresh bread (‘rustic classic’ from Eataly, sliced) allowed us to appreciate the food, and the wine, and in the end the salinity seemed to have disappeared.

I’ll still say it’s a good recipe, and not just because it’s something of a novelty, but it probably has to be used with some caution.

• two cod fillets (totalling 15 oz) from P.E. & D.D. Seafood, prepared roughly along the lines of this recipe, with the changes noted above, using oyster mushrooms from Blue Oyster Cultivation, flakes of dried Itria-Sirissi chili (peperoncino di Sardegna intero) from Buon Italia, vegetable broth made from a concentrate manufactured by Better Than Bullion, ‘Kerrygold Pure Irish Butter‘ from Whole Foods, juice from a delicious, rather sweet lemon grown locally by Fantastic Gardens of Long Island, and lovage from Two Guys from Woodbridge
• four yellow tomatoes (hydroponic) from Shushan Valley Hydro Farm, halved, seasoned with salt and pepper, pan grilled, then sprinkled with chopped thyme from Forager’s and chopped oregano from Stokes Farm
• some very peppery wild cress from Lani’s Farm, wilted a bit with olive oil over a medium flame together with finely-chopped wild garlic, also from Lani’s Farm, then seasoned with salt and pepper, and finished with a drizzle of olive oil
• the wine was an Oregon (Willamette Valley) white, Underwood Pinot Gris 2014
• the music was Georg Phillip Teleman’s ‘Orpheus’, René Jacobs directing the Academy for Ancient Music Berlin and the Berlin RIAS Chamber Chorus, with Ruth Ziesak, Werner Güra, Maria Cristina Kiehr, Isabelle Poulenard, Axel Köhler, Hanno Müller-Brachmann, Dorothea Röschmann, and Roman Trekel