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crab cakes, green tomato salsa, boiled potato, micro radish

Because of what the severe weekend weather had done for local fishing, our regular Monday fishmonger, P.E. & D. D. Seafood, wasn’t at the Union Square Greenmarket that day. Since I had learned this from the list on the GrowNYC.org‎ app, and because I had plenty of vegetables on hand, I didn’t have to head for the square that day, but because I had a package of their wonderful crab cakes inside our freezer, we were still able to enjoy their bounty that evening.

  • two crab cakes from PE & DD Seafood (crab, egg, flour, red & green peppers, garlic, salt, pepper, breadcrumbs, mayonnaise, milk, celery, and parsley) that I had been storing inside the freezer, defrosted before I began heating them above a low to medium flame, with a drizzle of olive oil, inside a small cast iron pan, 3 to 4 minutes to each side, served on a fresh salsa composed of 9 small green tomatoes from Keith’s Farm cut into thick slices, a finely chopped section of a small stalk of celery and most of one one small thinly sliced red onion, both from Norwich Meadows Farm, 2 different kinds and colors of finely chopped small sweet seasoning peppers, aji dulce and Granada, both from Eckerton Hill Farm, torn Thai mint from Lani’s Farm, all moistened with a little olive oil
  • roughly 12 ounces of la Ratte potatoes from Norwich Meadows Farm, boiled with a generous amount of salt until barely cooked through, drained, halved, dried while inside the large, still-warm vintage Corning Pyrex Flameware glass pot in which they had cooked, a tablespoon or so of olive oil added, seasoned with local P.E. & D.D. sea salt, freshly-ground black pepper, tossed with purple micro radish from Windfall Farms

There was a cheese course.

 

crab cakes on a tomato salsa; buffalo labneh, herbs, spices

The original dinner plan was to pick up some good wild salmon at Chelsea Whole Foods, but when it came time to do so I didn’t feel like going out, even to the corner, having just finished doing several loads of laundry early in the evening.

There was a package of two crab cakes inside the freezer, and we hadn’t enjoyed that treat in a while; I also had supplies to make some interesting ‘fixings’ for a complete dinner, so that’s what we had.

  • two crab cakes from PE & DD Seafood (crab, egg, flour, red & green peppers, garlic, salt, pepper, breadcrumbs, mayonnaise, milk, celery, and parsley), mostly defrosted by the time I began heating the 2 above a low to medium flame, with a drizzle of olive oil, inside a small cast iron pan, 3 to 4 minutes to each side, served on a salsa composed of 2 small to medium chopped heirloom tomatoes from 2 different farmers in the Union Square Greenmarket (Norwich Meadows Farm and Eckerton Hill Farm), and 3 golden grape tomatoes from one, Alex’s Tomato Farm in the Saturday 23rd Street farmers market, combined with a tablespoon or so of olive oil, local sea salt from P.E. & D.D. Seafood, freshly ground black pepper, a bit of dried dried red espelette pepper (very mild) from Alewife Farm, much of one small celery stalk and most of one thick red spring onion, mixed with garnished some chopped epazote from TransGenerational Farm, arranged on the plates, with more of that wonderful Mexican herb sprinkled on top
  • most of an 8-ounce container of plain water buffalo milk labneh from Riverine Ranch, leaving a shallow depression to receive a bit of a very good Greek olive oil (Renieris Estate ‘Divina’ (Koroneiki varietal), Hania, Crete, from Whole Foods Market), a bit of a dry seasoning called L’ekama from Ron & Leetal Arazi’s New York Shuk (the two founders are in this video here), a portion of a sweet Italian cipolla di Tropea from Alewife Farm, finely sliced, a little chopped habanada pepper from Campo Rosso Farm, the chopped stem of a baby purple romaine lettuce stem from Jayne and Elizabeth’s TransGenerational Farm, garnished with chopped fresh za’atar leaves, also from TransGenerational Farm, and arranged on leaves of their lettuce that had been dressed with local sea salt, freshly-ground black pepper, drops of juice from a Whole Foods Market lemon, and a bit of the same olive oil
  • the wine was an Oregon (Willamette Valley) white, Chris Baker Willamette Pinot Gris 2018, from Naked Wines
  • the music was a recording of the Quintet for Oboe and String Quartet (1973) and the Quintet for Bassoon and String Quartet (1977), by the Finnish composer Kahlevi Aho (born 1949) on a Finlandia CD that we’ve owned for many years

crab cakes on a tomato salsa; baby red cress; grilled leeks

I wasn’t able to get to the Union Square Greenmarket yesterday, so I defrosted a package of the fishmonger’s excellent crab cakes I keep for just such occasions, and I happened to have one fresh green[mosty] vegetable on hand as well.

  • two crab cakes from P.E. & D.D. Seafood (crab, egg, flour, red & green peppers, garlic, salt, pepper, breadcrumbs, mayonnaise, milk, celery, and parsley), in Riverhead made by Dolores Karlin, the wife of Carl Karlin, the fisherman himself, defrosted the night before, brought to room temperature and heated up on a small drizzle of olive oil inside a small, heavy vintage, well-seasoned cast iron pan, 3 to 4 minutes to each side, served on a salsa composed of 5 Backyard Farms Maine ‘cocktail tomatoes’ from Chelsea Whole Foods that had been quartered then combined with a tablespoon or so of olive oil, sea salt, freshly ground black pepper, a bit of dried dried red espelette pepper (not too hot, but that’s a arguable description when comes to peppers) from Alewife Farm, much of one small celery stalk and most of one thick scallion, both from from Phillips Farms
  • baby red watercress from Two Guys from Woodbridge
  • four leeks of various sizes from Phillips Farms, trimmed of their darkest green tops, the larger ones cut in half lengthwise, the smaller kept whole but cut half way down from the top in order to be washed vigorously in cold water, removing any earth (carefully holding the white ends together to keep them from falling apart), dried, rolled in a little olive oil, sea salt, freshly ground black pepper, and a tiny bit of light-colored dried golden habanada pepper, pan-grilled over a medium-hot flame for a few minutes (10 or 12?), turning until all sides had been scored with grill marks and the leeks softened all the way through, arranged on the plates and sprinkled with chopped parsley from Trader Joe’s
  • the wine was a Spanish (Valencia) white, Celler del Roure ‘Cullerot’ Blanco 2017, from Astor Wines
  • the music was a Pentatone recording of Wagner’s ‘Der Fliegender Holländer’Marek Janowski conducting the Radio Symphony Orchestra Berlin and the Rundfunkchor Berlin, with Matti Salminen, Ricarda Merbeth, Robert Dean Smith, Silvia Hablowetz, Steve Davislim, and Albert Dohmen

crab cakes on tomato salsa on wild cress; brussels sprouts

Almost a day off.

This was a casual meal slipped in between some more ambitious holiday season dinners, and it was pretty much improvised; the idea was to give the cook a cook’s holiday, and to include elements or ingredients that had been inside the apartment for a while before they came close to the end of their useful life.

It could also be described as the impecunious diner’s surf & turf, turf here meaning vegetables.

  • two crab cakes from PE & DD Seafood (crab, egg, flour, red & green peppers, garlic, salt, pepper, breadcrumbs, mayonnaise, milk, celery, and parsley), from the older of the 2 packages in the freezer at the time, made by Dolores Karlin, the wife of Karl Karlin, the fisherman, defrosted the night before, brought to room temperature and heated up with a drizzle of olive oil inside a small, heavy vintage, well-seasoned cast iron pan, 3 to 4 minutes to each side, served on a salsa composed of 6 quite ripe Backyard Farms Maine ‘cocktail tomatoes’ from Whole Foods that were quartered and combined with sea salt, freshly-ground black pepper, a small bit of dried peperoncino Calabresi secchi from Buon Italia, chopped Salinas, California parsley from Eataly, dried Sicilian oregano from Buon Italia, and a few cut-up sections of Berried Treasures Farm garlic scapes (the last of the season) that had first been softened by warming them up in a little olive oil over a gentle flame, the salsa in turn had itself been arranged on a shallow bed of wild cress from Lani’s Farm, the whole assembly garnished with some remarkably long-surviving pea shoots purchased from Echo Creek Farm in the Saturday Chelsea Farmers Market very early in December
  • twelve small Brussels sprouts from Lani’s Farm, the last from a quantity that I had also purchased over 3 weeks earlier, washed, trimmed and dried, tossed inside a bowl with a little olive oil, sea salt and freshly ground black pepper, plus more of the dried peperoncino Calabresi secchi roasted inside a medium size unglazed seasoned Pampered Chef pan until the sprouts were partly brown and crisp on the outside
  • the wine was an Italian (Veronese) white, Corte Quaiara, Garganega Campo al Salice 2016, from Flatiron Wines
  • the music was again live streaming of the awesome octonary WKCR Bachfest 2018

crab cakes, tomato/beet salsa; herb/spice-dressed labneh

I knew there would be crab cakes, but everything else was pretty much thrown together minutes before we sat down.

It was a greenmarket day, and therefore a fish day at our place, but I didn’t really need anything other than seafood, and I remembered that I had some really terrific frozen crab cakes that were made at home by Delores Karlin, the wife of the fisherman, Phil, whose stand would be there that Monday. I resolved to try to buy more the next week.

Early in the evening I decided that the labneh that I had also picked up in Union Square on an earlier market day, would make a great base for a sympathetic savory accompaniment to the crab cakes I would be serving on a bed of tomato salsa [that is, a mostly tomato salsa].

I tweeted that evening that the fact our “more or less middle eastern dinner” included crab narrowed down its cultural antecedents, since observant jews and at least most Shia Muslims avoid shellfish, or at least crab.  But I think it’s safe to say, at the very least, this dinner might not look too out of place on some Lebanese or Greek tables.

Both labneh topping and the salsa ‘bottoming’ each ended up with a few unorthodox ingredients.

  • two crab cakes from PE & DD Seafood (crab, egg, flour, red & green peppers, garlic, salt, pepper, breadcrumbs, mayonnaise, milk, celery, and parsley), defrosted earlier in the day, heated with a drizzle of olive oil inside a heavy oval enameled cast iron pan, 3 to 4 minutes to each side, served on a salsa composed of one large chopped green heirloom tomato from Eckerton Hill Farm, some small raw chopped sweet Badger Flame beets from Norwich Meadows Farm (they’re the bits that appear to be carrots in the picture), a little finely-chopped aji dulce pepper, olive oil, sea salt, freshly-ground black pepper, crab cakes and salsa garnished with micro red amaranth
  • a serving of plain water buffalo milk labneh from Riverine Ranch, leaving a shallow depression to receive a bit of a very good Sicilian olive oil, from Agricento, Azienda Agricola Mandranova (made exclusively with Nocellara olives), a bit of a dry seasoning called L’ekama from Ron & Leetal Arazi’s New York Shuk, finely sliced segment of red scallion from Berried Treasures Farm, the chopped stem of a baby purple romaine lettuce stem from from Echo Creek Farm, found in the Saturday Chelsea Farmers Market, garnished with chopped lovage from Keith’s Farm and arranged with the last leaves from that same lettuce stem, which were dressed with Maldon salt, freshly-ground black pepper, drops of juice from a Whole Foods Market lemon, and a bit of the same Sicilian olive oil
  • Damascus Bakery flax and chia pita bread from the Chelsea Foragers Market, heated in the cast iron pan used for the crab cakes
  • the wine was a Washington (Columbia Valley) white, Dave Harvey Columbia Valley Sauvignon Blanc 2017, from Naked Wines
  • the music was the album, ‘Alexander Goehr: Symmetry Disorders Reach’