Search for chicories - 13 results found

penne tossed with chicories, tender greens; parmesan

penne_chicories_greens

This meal incorporated the last of the chicories and tender greens from Campo Rosso Farm which we had enjoyed as a ‘take home’ from a recent farm dinner at Untitled. As simple as it was, both the tastes and colors just happened to work out as something of an overture to the Thanksgiving meal which succeeded it the next day.

  • eight ounces of Afeltra Penne Rigata, from Eataly, cooked al dente, tossed into a large enameled cast iron pot in which 2 sliced Japanese scallions from Norwich Meadows Farm, half of a very small hot chili from Eckerton Hill Farm, and one chopped heatless orange Habanada pepper from Norwich Meadows Farm had all been allowed to warm in a little olive oil until softened, a mix of chicories and tender greens from Campo Rosso Farm, torn to fork size, added to the pot and briefly stirred with the pasta, the mix served in shallow bowls, grated Parmigiano Reggiano Vacche Rosse from Buon Italia sprinkled on top
  • the wine was an Italian (Toscana) white, Prelius Vermentino Toscana 2015, from Chelsea Wine Vault
  • the music was that of Harrison Birtwistle, from the album with pianist Joanna MacGregor, ‘Harrison Birtwistle: Antiphonies & Harrison’s Clocks

chicories, tender greens, smoked salmon, bread; cheese

tender_greens_smoked_sockeye

We expected to be away from home on Friday evening, so I had not gone to the Greenmarket. Instead I was prepared to quickly ‘compose’ a salad when we returned. We never left, but the composed salad remained our dinner nevertheless, followed by a cheese course.

  • The ingredients were: some more of the colorful mixture of various chicories and tender greens which the folks of Campo Rosso Farm had presented to guests at a farm dinner at Untitled, tossed with sliced Japanese scallions and chopped habanada peppers, both from Norwich Meadows Farm; chopped lovage from Two Guys from Woodbridge; torn basil from Gotham Greens via Whole Foods; chopped heirloom cherry tomatoes from Norwich Meadows Farm; and a teaspoon of poppy seed, dressed with Maldon salt, freshly ground pepper, a good Campania olive oil, a small drizzle of organic lemon, then divided into bowls and topped with torn segments from a 3-ounce package of Blue Hill Farm smoked Alaskan sockeye salmon, from Murray’s Cheese
  • slices of Orwasher’s Bakery ‘Pain Rustica Umbria’ (unbleached unbromated wheat flour, cabernet grape starter, water, malt, salt, yeast) from Murray’s Cheese Shop
  • the wine was a California (Lodi) rosé, Karen Birmingham Rosé Lodi 2015
  • the music was Bruckner’s Symphony No. 3, Giuseppe Sinopoli conducting the Dresden Staatskapelle

baked cod, potato, smoked chili, tomato; corn on the cob

The small ears of corn were a little larger than the last time I had served them, which pleased me at first, but it turned out both a plus and a minus. Larger ears, it had seemed, would be a good thing, although I can’t say exactly why I had thought that. It did mean that shucking them was a little easier and a little faster, but in this size the cob itself was borderline edible (although I ended up eating all of them, partly because I like variety in the texture of food, and because I hate the messiness that goes with eating only the kernels.

  • one 17-ounce cod fillet from P.E. & D.D. Seafood Company in the Union Square greenmarket, washed, rinsed, and quartered (to arrive at pieces of equal size and thickness for 2 diners), placed inside a platter on a layer of coarse sea salt, with more salt added on top until the cod was completely covered, set aside while a cooking bed was prepared for them composed of 12 ounces of ‘Lilly’ German Butterball new potatoes from Savoie Organic Farm (new to the Union Square Greenmarket this summer) sliced to a thickness of roughly 1/4″ and tossed into a bowl with olive oil, salt, black pepper, and a pinch of a dried smoked serrano pepper from Eckerton Hill Farmthe potatoes arranged overlapping inside a rectangular glazed ceramic oven pan, to be placed inside the oven for 25 minutes or so, or until they were tender when pierced but not fully cooked, then, having already been thoroughly immersed in many fresh changes of water to bring down the saltiness, the cod was drained, dried, and placed inside the pan on top of the potatoes, drizzled with a little olive oil, sprinkled with black pepper, blanketed with thin slices [although even the picture above shows that this time I didn’t slice it thin enough, since the tomato should almost melt] of one yellow/orange heirloom tomato from Campo Rosso Farm (“There isn’t another farm in the U.S growing the variety of Italian chicories they do, and they do it at an incredibly high quality.” – Suzanne Cupps, of the restaurant Untitled at the Whitney), the tomatoes seasoned lightly with salt and pepper and the pan returned to the oven for about 8 or 9 minutes more (the exact time depends on the thickness of the fillets), removed when done, arranged on the 2 plates with the potatoes still below it, garnished with scissored dill flowers from Quarton Farm

marinated, breaded swordfish, potatoes; tardivo, balsamic

Dinner was good, very good. While we were enjoying it I thought to myself, surprisingly good, but if I had considered our routinely good experiences with the terrific fresh swordfish we can get in Manhattan, I couldn’t have been surprised.

  • one beautiful 16.5 ounce swordfish steak from American Seafood Company halved, marinated on an ironstone platter for about 45 minutes, turning once, in a mixture of a few tablespoons of olive oil, a teaspoon of chopped fresh, slowly drying, but still very sweet and pungent tarragon from Stokes Farm, a bit of peperoncino Calabresi secchia from Buon Italia, a small section of a home-dried habanada pepper, and the chopped white sections of one very small Japanese scallion from Norwich Meadows Farm, after which the swordfish was drained, both sides covered with a coating of homemade dried breadcrumbs, and pan-grilled over medium-high heat for 3 or 4 minutes on each side, or until barely (or, actually, not quite) cooked to the center, then removed from the pan and arranged on 2 plates, sprinkled with a little Maldon salt, some of the chopped greener parts of the scallion, drizzled with a bit of juice from a Whole Foods Market organic lemon and garnished with a little purple micro radish from Windfall Farms
  • ten or so ounces of of ‘pinto’ potatoes from Norwich Meadows Farm, scrubbed, boiled unpeeled in generously-salted water until barely cooked through, drained, halved, dried in the still-warm large vintage Corning Pyrex Flameware blue-glass pot in which they had cooked, tossed with some Whole Foods house Portuguese olive oil, seasoned with Maldon salt and freshly-ground black pepper, tossed with some roughly cut lovage from Two Guys from Woodbridge
  • two mid size red chicories (radicchio), that were something like a cross between treviso and tardivo, or what Chris and Jessi of Campo Rosso Farm have dubbed, ‘Rosa di Campo Rosso’, sliced broadly, sautéed until barely wilted inside an antique medium, high-sided tin-lined copper pot with a little olive oil in which one sliced Camelot shallot from Quarton Farm had already been heated until it had softened, seasoned with sea salt and freshly-ground black pepper, finished with a dash of balsamic vinegar, arranged on the plates, and drizzled with a little olive oil
  • the wine, totally new to us, was a wonderful Greek (Mantinia/Peloponnese) white, Troupis Hoof and Lur 2017 [for a little about newer Greek wines, including this one, look here], from Copake Wine Works, which is also pretty new to us (we expect to regularly order more from them)
  • the music was Tchaikovsky’s 1892 lyric opera, ‘Iolanta’, Emmanuel Villaume conducting the Slovenian Philharmonic Orchestra and the Slovenian Chamber Choir, with Anna Netrebko, Sergey Skorokhodov, Alexey Marko, and Vitalij Kowaljow

new year’s eve prosciutto; truffle agnolotti, pepper, chicory

And Champagne of course.

The picture above was taken in the subdued light of the dining gallery, which I normally can’t trust to be bright enough for an unblurred image. It worked this time, but I didn’t trust it for a second shot, so I took a picture of the pasta while it was still on the kitchen counter (nearly photobombed by a very old twisted wire trivet I’ve had for almost 50 years that I brought with me from Rhode Island in 1985).

It was New Years Eve, one of my favorite holidays (made it through another year!), and one we usually prefer to celebrate quietly at home with a simple supper and a complex champagne, each as elegant as possible for their respective attributes.

This year it involved, truffles, a beautiful radicchio, and an Aube sparkling (Champagne, but a younger vignoble, located south of the Marne).

The first course would have involved sea food in some form, had I been able to find something special, but this year’s holidays fell on days unfriendly to the local Greenmarket suppliers, and I didn’t want to chance the crowds in the 2 retail stores where I could have found something.

Instead, I splurged in the very best prosciutto I could find, and it happened to boast a rich red which anticipated the color of a chicory that literally jumped out of the main course that would follow it.

  • roughly 6 ounces of a 24 month prosciutto DOP Dall’Ava  D.O.K di San Daniele, of friuli, from Eataly Flatiron, drizzled with Frankies 457 Sicilian olive oil
  • local Bowery arugula from Foragers Market, dressed with the same olive oil, a bit of juice from an Whole Foods Market organic lemon, Maldon salt, and freshly-ground black pepper
  • a demi-baguette from Eataly I’d purchased just as it came out of the oven on 23rd Street
  • the wine was an Italian (Campania) white, Casa d’Ambra Ischia Bianco 2017, from Garnet Wines

The main course just sort of came together, almost by itself, once I spotted the black truffle agnolotti at Eataly: Great butter, black pepper, yes, and a generous amount, plus a good Parmesan (best slivered), and then the torn leaves of 2 tiny gorgeous crimson very late season chicories, and a drizzle of fine olive oil

  • thirteen ounces of black truffle agnolotti from the fresh pasta shop inside Eataly’s Flatiron (black truffle, porcini mushrooms, pecorino and romano cheeses), cooked very briefly, or until they had just popped to the surface of the water, drained and slipped into a large antique high-sided copper pot in which more than 3 tablespoons of Organic Valley ‘Cultured Pasture Butter’ had slowly been melted, arranged, half of it at a time, inside shallow bowls, finished by inserting leaves of 2 very small ‘heads’ of ‘Rosa di Campo Rosso’ radicchio (like the northern Italian tardivo) developed this year by Chris Field and Jessi Okamoto of Campo Rosso Farm, drizzled around the edges with a bit of Frankies 47 olive oil
  • the wine was more of the Ischian white, and then some from the bottle of another Italian (and again a Campania) white, Benito Ferrara Greco di Tufo 2017, also from Garnet Wines
At midnight, shortly after the main course, there were Italian dried figs and almonds from Foragers Market to share with the champagne toast.

 

  • the music throughout the evening, until midnight, was the final hours of live streaming of  the octonary WKCR Bachfest 2018 (at midnight, the live programmers let us down easily with another hour of Bach, and then ‘Jazz Til Dawn’ reminded me that I really loved cool jazz in the late 50s-early 60s (although we didn’t call it that then), and that I could go there again