Because we had originally expected to be otherwise engaged for the evening, the plan was to improvise a simple pasta, but then the reason for doing so disappeared. At 7 o’clock it was still early enough to defrost something that would encourage me to do something with some vegetables I had that were still at their peak, so …
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grilled scallops, lovage; tomatoes, thyme; red-vein spinach
As usual here, all of the main actors ( and most of the supporting cast) were local, but by mid-December some of them are more difficult to assemble. The scallops don’t really have a season, but the tomatoes would clearly have not been able to make it without the help of some creative farming practices, and the very-late-season spinach was …
herbed breaded grilled swordfish; tomato; roasted broccoli
Stephanie Villani of Blue Moon Fish, the wife of the fisherman, Alex Villani, pointed me to the swordfish; I was immediately charmed by its appearance, even before she spoke of the merits of these particular steaks. Swordfish are classified as an oily fish, but they are also normally quite lean, which impacts its cooking and its tastiness. This one was …
breakfast – and lunch – with some favorite good things
It was both breakfast and lunch, and as I’m writing this at nearly nine o’clock that same day, Sunday, I’m only beginning to feel hungry now, after enjoying it 6 or 7 hours ago, our only meal of the day so far. It was also really, really tasty. * the ingredients included terrific rich eggs …
mutton chops; roast root parsley, sunchokes; baked tardivo
(the quince chutney hadn’t yet made it to the plate when I took this picture) When was the last time anyone out there had mutton? Like most everyone in the English-speaking world, at least of my age or younger, I’ve only heard about mutton when it was being reviled as unfit for a proper meal. …
‘gilded hake’, sage, lemon, parsley, lovage; choy sum, garlic
I’ve prepared essentially this same meal a number of times before. Although there are always small variations among the secondary ingredients, if not in both the fish and the greens, I have no idea how one of those meals can end up as exceptionally delicious as the one I put together tonight. If I had to make a …
thyme-grilled quail, chutney; roasted squash, sage; kale
It was Little Thanksgiving, as in Little Christmas? Anyway it both looked and tasted like Thanksgiving, and it came with a lot less bother, and with almost no planning required. four partially-boned (a treat for both cook and diners) Plantation Quail, from Greensboro, Georgia, purchased at O. Ottomanelli & Sons Prime Meat Market on Bleecker Street, dried on paper …
fast food: carciofo ravioli, including the (small) kitchen sink
It was delicious, and it was whipped together in a few minutes, thanks to good store-bought ravioli and a few small treasures I was fortunate to find lying around the kitchen. It was the day after Thanksgiving, and something of a palate cleanser (as well as a cook cleanser). It was also entirely local, with the normal exceptions of olive …
smoked monkfish; hare; chipotle sweet potatoes, collards
It was a very long and leisurely Thanksgiving meal, shared with good friends. The star on the table was not a roast turkey, but a braised three-and-a-half-pound Scottish hare, which was, as the fish in the first course, quite wild (one of our guests found a buckshot in his serving). There were no cranberries, although there was chutney, sweet …
chervil, with eggs, bacon, and such
I wasn’t originally going to post this breakfast, since there was nothing special about it, but then I realized how seldom chervil appears on these pages – or anywhere for that matter, outside of France. It’s a subtle herb, and even more subtle as ‘micro chervil’. It’s also delicate in appearance; that and the combination …