The storm on Tuesday meant that our local fishermen did not go out, which meant there was no fish in the Greenmarket on Wednesday. But we had a guest for dinner once again. I wanted it to be at least a little special, but we had enjoyed goat chops the day before and I didn’t want to serve a meat entrée 2 days in a row.

Although I could have devised an interesting pasta dish, I didn’t really have any what I would call starring vegetables on hand, so that didn’t inspire me. While I knew our friend had said he was not a fan of salmon, I decided to take a chance with the wild Coho fillet available at Whole Foods. While it’s a treat I can ‘reel in’ almost any day of the week, and sometimes it’s not even been frozen, I still think of it as special. It’s not local but it it’s wild, not farmed salmon, probably not the species or form of this fish generally available in Germany.

I had what I thought would be some excellent vegetable accompaniments for the recipe I had in mind, so I really looked forward to putting this meal together.

• one 22-ounce wild sockeye salmon fillet from Whole Foods, rinsed dried, coated on both sides with a mix of some light brown vanilla bean-infused turbinado sugar, sea salt, freshly ground pepper, freshly ground allspice, freshly ground nutmeg, the zest of half of a sweet local lemon from Fantastic Gardens of Long Island, and some olive oil to make it a paste of sorts, allowed to marinate in the refrigerator in a covered dish for about 3 hours, the fish then rinsed, patted dry, brought to room temperature, oiled generously, and cooked on an enameled grill pan, flesh side down, for a few minutes, then turned over, removed when the inside was not quite pink, the outside slightly crisp and smoky, divided into 3 pieces, arranged on plates, drizzled with a little olive oil and a little juice from the lemon mentioned earlier, and served with lemon wedges [the recipe is little altered from this one from Melissa Clark]
• four different root vegetables already on hand, about 24 ounces total, some peeled, cut into approximately 3/4″ pieces (they were: carola potatoes from Lucky Dog Organic Farm; celeriac from Tamarack Hollow Farm; parsley root from Norwich Meadows Farm; and carrots from Norwich Meadows Farm), plus several halved shallots from Norwich Meadows Farm, all tossed together in a bowl with two tablespoons of olive oil; salt; freshly-ground pepper; one crushed piece of a mahogany-colored home-dried dark, dried heatless Habanada pepper acquired last summer fresh from Norwich Meadows Farm; and the leaves from several sprigs of rosemary from Eataly, everything arranged, not touching each other, on 2 large, well-seasoned Pampered Chef unglazed ceramic pans and roasted in a 400º oven for about 35 minutes, then sprinkled with 2 sliced garlic cloves from John D. Madura Farm, and some small fresh sage leaves from Eataly, stirred around a bit, removed and divided onto 3 plates
• one large leek from Phillips Farm, cleaned, halved lengthwise, chopped not too finely, cooked in a little heated olive oil until wilted, then some Backyard Farms Maine ‘cocktail tomatoes’ from Whole Foods, each divided into 4 slices, slipped into the pan and barely heated, a generous amount of chopped red thyme from Phillips Farm and a bit of (vanilla bean-infused) turbinado sugar stirred into the vegetables, some of the leek’s green parts, chopped stirred in, the mix served in small oval bowls on the side of the plates, because it was fairly liquid
• the wine was an Oregon (Umpqua Valley) red, Scott Kelley Pinot Noir Oregon 2015, from Naked Wines
• the music was our conversation

I love this fish in so many ways. This may have been my tastiest broiled sea perch with anchovy, ever, and there have been a lot of them.

Here they are still inside the fishers’ bucket at the Union Square Greenmarket:

Unrelated: I think freshwater perch (Perca flavescens) would be even more popular than it already is if it were as red as these beauties, which even stay orange or red throughout the cooking process.

Oops, I just read that my favorite finned delicacy while I was growing up around the Great lakes, ‘the ultimate pan fish’, is now mostly farmed.  You really can never go home again.

The fillets lying on the counter at home, after being rinsed:

After being placed inside the pan, oiled, garlic-ed, and seasoned:

• four beautiful Atlantic sea perch fillets (one pound total), red, or orange-red colored, sometimes called ‘redfish’, but in New York area at least, it’s normally ‘sea perch’ or ‘ocean perch’, even though they aren’t really perch at all, but ‘rockfish’ [?], from American Seafood Company in the Union Square Greenmarket, brushed with 2 tablespoons of olive oil mixed with about a teaspoon of finely chopped garlic from our local, 8th Avenue Foragers Market, seasoned with sea salt and freshly-ground black pepper, placed inside a large enameled cast iron pan, broiled skin side up 4 or 5 inches from the flame for about 4 or 5 minutes, at which time the edges had become a little crisp, and the fish was cooked through, removed from the broiler and sauced simply with a bit of warm anchovy in olive oil (2 salted Sicilian anchovies from Buon Italia, rinsed thoroughly, filleted and chopped, had been heated over a very low flame for about 5 minutes in 2 tablespoons of oil, by which time the anchovies had fallen apart), the fillets garnished with micro red radish from Two Guys from Woodbridge, Whole Foods Market lemon wedges served on the side
• just under a pound of very sweet small redskin potatoes from Race 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 a little Trader Joe’s Italian Reserve extra virgin olive oil, seasoned with salt and pepper, and tossed with scissored fresh chives, also from Phillips Farms, which were supposed to be served with more chives scattered over the top, but I forgot to add them
• what remained of a large bunch of broccoli rabe (aka raab, or rapini, among other names) from Migliorelli Farm after cooking most of it 2 days earlier, wilted in a little olive oil inside a medium size antique high-sided tin-lined copper pot in which 6 small garlic cloves from Foragers Market had been heated until fragrant and slightly softened, seasoned with salt, pepper, and a couple pinches of dried peperoncini Calabresi peperoncino secchia from Buon Italia in Chelsea Market, divided between the 2 plates and drizzled with a little more olive oil
• the wine was a Portuguese (Alentejo) white, Esporao Monte Velho White 2016, from Garnet Wines
• the music was a recording of the 2018 premier performance [yeah, the premier] of Donizetti’s 1839  opera semiseria, ‘L’ Ange de Nisida’, in a concert performance at the Royal Opera House in London, in association with the remarkable company, Opera Rara, conducted by Mark Elder, the title role sung by Joyce El-Khoury

Look, no tomatoes!

They’ve been a part of virtually every meal this month, and the last, but it didn’t occur to me to include them last night. I was thinking we’d have a cheese course later, and I wanted to keep the entrée down to 2 elements; I knew there would be some color even without tomatoes; and I thought that the lettuce I would be including, plus a micro green, would add a sufficient element of freshness themselves.

And yet there was tomato, although only as a very subtle addition to the self sauce created by the pork.

I love both this special vegetable, and the pork, as well as the recipes I used for each, but the entire entrée was even more successful than I had expected. In the case of the chops, the simple addition of even the small amount of rendered heirloom tomato juices I had, remaining from an earlier meal, may have made all the difference.

The beets were an extraordinary new sweet variety we’ve enjoyed before, using the same recipe, and even though I ended up roasting them longer than I wanted to, they were still delicious. Horseradish is a blessed thing.

• two 8-ounce bone-in loin pork chops from Flying Pig Farm, thoroughly dried, seasoned with salt and pepper and seared quickly in a heavy enameled cast-iron pan before the 2 halves of a small Whole Foods Market organic lemon was squeezed over the top (then left in the pan between them, cut sides down), the chops placed in a 425º oven for less than 14 minutes (flipped halfway through, the lemon halves squeezed over them once again and replaced), removed from the oven and arranged on plates, some of the pan juices, that had been mixed with tomato juices inside a heavy glass sauce boat, spooned over the top, the sauce boat placed on the table to be available during the meal, the pork garnished with micro red mustard from Two Guys from Woodbridge
• a number (but less than a pound) of not-very-large ‘Badger Flame’ beets from Norwich Meadows Farm [more here] trimmed, washed and scrubbed, cut into wedges, tossed in a bowl with roughly 2 tablespoons of olive oil; 3 halved cloves of Rocambole garlic from Keith’s Farm (I should have kept them unpeeled), a generous amount of oregano buds from Norwich Meadows Farm, sea salt, and freshly-ground pepper to taste, covered loosely with foil and baked for 20 minutes or so inside a 400º oven, after which the foil was taken off, the beets turned on another side and roasted for 25 minutes longer, or until they were tender, when they were removed from the oven and arranged on 2 plates on top of the well-washed outer leaves of a head of purple romaine lettuce from from Echo Creek Farm of Salem, NY, in the Saturday Chelsea Farmers Market (on the north sidewalk of 23rd Street, between 8th and 9th Avenues), a little olive oil and drops of a good Spanish Rioja vinegar drizzled on the beet segments and the lettuce, but with the greens also sprinkled with salt and pepper, the beet salad finished with some horseradish root from Gorzynski Ornery Farm freshly grated on top [note that the recipe mostly follows one on page 36 inside the hard copy of the excellent book of simple kitchen formulae, ‘Italian Easy’; Recipes from the London River Cafe‘]

There was a cheese course, which I did not photograph

• ‘Pawlet’ cow cheese and ‘Manchester’ goat cheese, both from Consider Bardwell Farm, and Riverine Ranch buffalo milk brie
• a mix of several kinds of raisins (colors and sizes) from Trader joe’s Market
• thin toasts of a sturdy She Wolf Bakery sourdough ‘miche’

 

• the wine throughout was an Austrian (Lower Austria) white, Erdenlied Riesling 2016
• the music was Purcell’s 1691 ‘semi-opera’, with a libretto by John Dryden, ‘King Arthur’, Trevor Pinnock conducting The English Concert

Another anniversary!

At least partly because we’re living in the mythical state of sin, we celebrate not one, but five anniversaries: our meeting, the ‘magic meal’, declarations of love, exchange of rings, and happy-ever-after cohabitation.

It’s a series that stretches from 4/27/91 to 1/6/93, and since they don’t show up chronologically within a single year (unless we find a way to make every year last slightly more than 20 months), there will always be some confusion as the dates come up. This meal marked the anniversary of the first, the night we met, but only days before we had celebrated one that had occurred a year after the one we observed last night.

Fortunately the meal turned out almost as well as the event 27 years back.

• one Yellowfin tuna steak (just under 16 ounces) off of Scott Rucky’s fishing vessel, ‘Dakota’, from Pura Vida Seafood Company, halved, seasoned with sea salt and freshly-ground black pepper and rubbed, tops and bottoms, with a mixture of dry Sicilian fennel seed from Buon Italia that had been crushed in a samll mortar and pestle with a little dried peperoncino Calabresi secchi, also from Buon Italia, pan-grilled above a brisk flame (for barely a minute on each side), finished on the plates with a good squeeze of the juice of an organic lemon from Whole Foods Market and some Whole Foods house Portuguese olive oil, garnished with micro scallions from Two Guys from Woodbridge

• ‘Magic Molly‘ fingerling potatoes (this time barely 7 ounces) from Mountain Sweet Berry Farm, washed, scrubbed, left unpeeled, dried, sliced lengthwise, mixed inside a bowl with a little olive oil, sea salt, freshly-ground black pepper, a piece of crushed dried orange/gold habanada pepper, and 2 stems of very fresh rosemary leaves from Stokes Farm, roasted at 375º for abour 25 minutes, garnished with some beautiful micro red mustard from Two Guys from Woodbridge

• most of a large bunch of broccoli rabe (aka rapini) from Migliorelli Farm, wilted in a little olive oil inside a large antique high-sided tin-lined copper pot in which 2 small sliced spring garlic stems from Windfall Farms had been heated until slightly softened, the greens seasoned with sea salt and freshly-ground black pepper, divided onto the plates and drizzled with more olive oil

It’s now too late in the year to find mature garlic heads from the last one from our local farmers at the Greenmarket, but fortunately fresh alternatives have already begun appearing. Last night was the first time I had ever substituted fresh for dry in preparing greens, and the result was very very tasty.

There was a small cheese course, and because it had charmed me in the main course, I decided to throw in some of the micro red mustard.

• ‘Manchester’ goat cheese from Consider Bardwell Farm
• micro red mustard from Two Guys from Woodbridge
• dried Italian figs from Buon Italia in Chelsea Market

 

• the wine throughout the meal was a Portuguese (Dão) white, Quinta Dos Roques Encruzado 2015, from Garnet Wines
• the music was the final act of Richard Wagner’s 1857-1859 music drama in 3 acts, ‘Tristan und Isolde’, Karl Böhm conducting the Bayreuth Festival Orchestra and the Bayreuth Festival Chorus in a 1966 recording, with  Wolfgang Windgassen, Christa Ludwig, Birgit Nilsson, Martti Talvela, Eberhard Wächter, Claude Heater, Erwin Wohlfahrt, Gerd Nienstedt, and Peter Schreier