Well, that headline was really unnecessary, but while the meal wasn’t about color, it wasn’t diminished by its richness (which, I have to admit, wasn’t entirely serendipitous).

‘Leftover Kasslerbraten‘. The unembellished words don’t begin to describe the awesomeness.

We had begun feasting on this nearly 7-pound roast the first day of this year. We enjoyed its third, and, sadly, its final act, with last Sunday’s dinner.  The second act had been presented shortly after the first, and fully a pound of the roast had remained even after that.  I carefully wrapped that piece, and it rested inside the freezer until this weekend.

To the very end, a superb smoked rib.

• two ribs from a large smoked pork roast which we had first enjoyed with friends on New Years Day 2019, heated for a few minutes in a little butter inside a medium antique copper pot on top of some sliced baby French leek from Mountain Sweet Berry Farm and some chopped baby celery from Norwich Meadows Farm, the chops covered, turned once, and arranged on the plates, covered with the little bit of the juice they had produced, together with the slightly carbonized pieces of leek and celery, a bit of horseradish jelly from Berkshire Berries spread on  top, scattered with some chopped celery leaves

• sixteen ounces of ‘Purple Peruvian’ potatoes from Norwich Meadows Farm, washed and scrubbed, but unpeeled, boiled in well-salted water, drained, dried in the still-warm large vintage Pyrex glass pot, then halved, rolled in a little butter, seasoned with local P.E. & D.D. Seafood salt and freshly ground black pepper, garnished with scissored bronze fennel buds and flowers from Rise & Root Farm in the Union Square Greenmarket

• thirteen and a half ounces of very sweet flat green pole beans (I’ve always called them ‘Romano beans’) from Norwich Meadows Farm, briefly parboiled inside a treasured large stainless steel pot purchased from Peter Hoffman in his Savoy Restaurant, after it had closed, quickly drained, then dried inside the same pot while beans and pot were still warm, set aside in a bowl, reheated in a cast iron pan with a little olive oil while the Kassler was being warmed, seasoned with salt and pepper, finished on the plates scattered with micro lemon balm from Two Guys from Woodbridge
• the wine was actually a cider, a wonderful, very dry New York (Hudson Valley) exemplar, Brooklyn Cider House Bone Dry cider, from the makers’ stand in the Union Square Greenmarket (it’s pretty awesome, and we’re definitely going stock up some more)
• the music was an album which included Clara Schumann’s Piano Concerto, Trio, and Romances, in performances of the Bamberg Symphony Orchestra conducted by Joseph Silverstein, with the soloists Joseph Silverstein (Violin), Veronica Jochum (Piano), and Colin Carr (Cello)

Although I hadn’t anticipated any problems earlier, once I had started to put it together, this meal turned out to be a bit of a challenge.

Without doing any research on it, I had decided to buy a vegetable (I think it’s actually a fruit) that I seen showing up in the Union Square Greenmarket for at least several seasons: Bitter melon [momordica charantia], known in India as Kerala, or elsewhere as bitter apple; bitter gourd; bitter squash; balsam-pear, or any number of other names, whose number suggests it’s more popular than most of us would imagine.

Before Sunday however I knew nothing about this gourd except that there were Chinese versions and Indian versions (on Friday I bought the shorter, more deeply green Indian one, with the much more rugged surface), and that both were very bitter. That description  showed up everywhere, and otherwise I don’t remember any discussion of taste. I read only that it was bitter, very bitter; ‘an acquired taste’, the accounts all said, each adding that it might be something that could be acquired, if you were willing to keep at it).

I love cucumber, and I’m also used to sautéing it. While aware it was unlikely this particular beautiful gnarly green fruit, which also grows along a vine, would be anything like that favorite, my casual decision to associate it with cucumis sativus made it oh-so-easy to take home.

It wasn’t like cucumber, of course.

I have to make it clear that, for my own kitchen-conservative reasons (wanting it to relate to the style of, and to be incorporated into my own Western cooking, including the rest of the ingredients and recipes used in this  particular meal), I chose to not prepare the melon in a manner even remotely related to customs in China or India, which may or may not explain why it was still so bitter when I served it, even though I followed the universal advice to soak the raw pieces in heavily salted water to reduce that attribute.

Supposedly it’s very good for you, and it appears in many forms, including extracts and capsules, that reflect the ancient Indian ayurveda tradition, but health foods and supplements are not a come-on that works for me; I’m more likely to be attracted to the rarity of something than its advertised wholesomeness.

I also had a couple of very ripe heirloom tomatoes on the windowsill, but before I had investigated the bitter melon cooking process very far it seemed to me that I had a lot of it, enough to make a second vegetable unnecessary.

I decided to use the tomatoes in a first course, but I didn’t have any form of soft cheese, which would be needed for what may currently be the most familiar way to use really good tomatoes. I did have a great bread, a very dark, complex bread, a corn and wheat bread, nutty, with a hint of sweetness, a kind that would be the rarity I mentioned above, at least in an Italian antipasto context – or in any kind of tomato first course – so I improvised a bruschetta.

Something else was unusual about the meal, although not as unusual as Indian Kerala, at least on our table. Instead of a grape wine, we enjoyed a wonderful bottle of a local dry cider! Think serious Basque dry cider.

• several heirloom tomatoes from Campo Rosso Farm, cut into 1/2-inch pieces, combined in  a medium bowl with local Long Island sea salt from P.E. & D.D. Seafood, some freshly ground black pepper, one small sliced and chopped and red onion from Norwich Meadows Farm, a little While Foods Market house Portuguese olive oil, and some chopped epazote leaves from Jane’s TransGenerational Farm, spooned over several slices of wonderful dark Homadama bread (wheat, corn, water, maple syrup, salt, slaked lime) from Lost Bread Co.after their grill-marked toasted surfaces, immediately after coming off of a very hot cast iron ribbed grill pan, had been lightly rubbed with cut surfaces of a ‘Nootka rose’ garlic clove, also from TransGenerational Farm, served with more epazote sprinkled on top

The main course followed soon after, because both the meat and the vegetable cooking times were short, and I was able to prepare most of the larger and smaller ingredients ahead of time.

Also, I was very interested to see how the vegetable would work out.

• two very thick 10-ounce boneless heritage breed pork chops from Raven & Boar farm, rinsed, dried thoroughly, seasoned on both sides with sea salt and freshly-ground black pepper, plus a very small amount of crushed hickory smoked Jamaican Scotch bonnet peppers from Eckerton Hill Farm, seared quickly in a heavy oval enameled cast-iron pan, one small halved Mexican organic lemon from Chelsea Whole Foods Market squeezed over the top of each (after which the lemon was left in the pan between them, cut side down), the chops placed inside a 400º oven for about 15 minutes altogether (flipped halfway through, the lemon halves squeezed over them once again and again on the bottom of the pan, some finely chopped fresh habanada  chili from only a part of one pepper sprinkled on top of the pork at that time), removed from the oven and arranged on 2 plates, the few juices that remained poured over the top of each, the chops arranged on the plates accompanied by the lemon halves

• one pound of bitter melon from Gopal Farm, washed, cut into 2cm slices, the seeds and pith removed, placed inside a bowl, a generous amount of salt sprinkled on top and with enough water to just cover them, allowed to sit on the counter for about 20 minutes, removed, drained, and dried on a towel or paper toweling, placed inside a large heavy well-seasoned cast iron pan, sautéed over a medium-high flame, turning several times, sprinkled with sea salt after as they pieces had begun to carbonize, and, well into that process, one small sliced red one sliced small red onion from Norwich Meadows Farm added to the pan and the onions allowed to soften, some black pepper and a pinch of dried fenugreek from Bombay Emerald Chutney Company (purchased at the Saturday Chelsea Farmers Market) added, the mix arranged on the plates when done on top of fans of some leaves from a small head of purple Romaine lettuce from TransGenerational Farm, drizzled with both a little olive oil and a small amount of white balsamic vinegar, added part of the way into the meal, hoping it might mitigate the bitterness of the fruit (which is also why I had earlier added the lettuce, at the last moment)

So, the post-dinner report on the bitter melon? In the end it definitely remained bitter, but by the time I had finished I was thinking I may have already begun to ‘acquire the taste’ (Barry was somewhat less positive), but I’m still going to look further into the possibility of bringing down the acerbity.

• the wine was a New York (Hudson Valley) cider, Brooklyn Cider House Bone Dry cider, from the makers’ stand in the Union Square Greenmarket (it’s pretty awesome, and we’re definitely going stock up some more)
• the music was Henry Purcell’s 1692/1693 semi-opera, ‘The Fairy Queen’, performed by Sébastien D’Hérin conducting the ensemble, Les Nouveaux Caractères

The entrée was a pair of simple pork chops. I’d prepared them almost the same way for many years, with slight variations in seasonings, but what pork chops they turned out to be!

I hadn’t been able to locate small chops in the Union Square Greenmarket for months, and at first I was disappointed again when I checked out the butcher display case at Flatiron Eataly on my way home Friday.  There I only found chops weighing almost a full pound, but I went with the alternative suggested by one of the butchers, a pair of thick boneless chops, since they weighed only about 8 ounces each. My prejudice is for cuts which retain the bone, both for the appearance and the taste (although I’ve seen discussions which question whether retaining the bone has anything to do with how good the meat tastes), but our dinner experience last night makes me re-examine it.

This was our first pork dinner since returning from Berlin. I have to say, while we had some excellent meals of pork while there, this was better than any of them (although, to be fair, we never had anything like simple chops). It was also better than any I had prepared in the past myself, using this basic recipe. I can’t account for either of these superlatives.

• two thick 8-ounce tied boneless Berkshire pig Autumn’s Harvest Farm pork chops from Flatiron Eataly, rinsed, dried thoroughly, seasoned on both sides with sea salt and freshly-ground black pepper, plus a very small amount of crushed smoked dried jalapeño pepper from Eckerton Hill Farm, seared quickly in a heavy oval enameled cast-iron pan, one small halved Mexican organic lemon from Chelsea Whole Foods Market squeezed over the top of each (after which the lemon was left in the pan between them, cut side down), the chops placed inside a 400º oven for about 13 minutes altogether (flipped halfway through, the lemon halves squeezed over them once again and again on the bottom of the pan), removed from the oven and arranged on 2 plates, the few juices that remained poured over the top of each, the chops garnished with garlic flowers from Alewife Farm
• twelve ounces or so of ‘white potatoes’ from Jersey Farm Produce at our local 23rd Street Chelsea Down to Earth Farmers Market, 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 whole Foods house Portuguese olive oil, seasoned with salt and pepper and tossed again after adding some scissored fresh dill flowers from Lucky Dog Organic Farm
• one medium head of radicchio from Norwich Meadows Farm, sliced broadly and sautéed until barely wilted inside a large, high-sided tin-lined copper pot with a little olive oil in which half a dozen cut up garlic scapes from Norwich Meadows Farm had already been heated until they had softened, seasoned with salt and black pepper, finished with barely a splash of white balsamic vinegar and arranged on the plates
• the wine was an Oregon (Willamette Valley/Dundee Hills) white, Oregon Pinot Blanc 2016, ordered directly from Erath
• the music was Verdi’s 1847 opera, ‘Macbeth’, Claudio Abbado conducting the Milan Teatro alla Scala Orchestra and the Milan Teatro alla Scala Chorus, with Giovanni Foiani, Shirley Verrett, Stefania Malagú, Placido Domingo, among others

The picture reminds me of how good the meal was, and I’m happy with some of the details it describes, since I could easily have just repeated much of the formula I’ve used with so many of the the goat chops I’ve served. At least some of the credit for the innovations must be ascribed to (perceived) necessity.

To begin with, while I had planned on serving roasted fingerlings, since it was warm and humid last night I decided to try something that didn’t need a hot oven. I also thought about how the only potatoes I had in the larder would go better with the very German meal I was planning to serve on Monday, Decoration Day.  Fortunately I had picked up some very attractive light green cucumbers (they were delicious, as it turns out) at the Union Square Greenmarket the day before.

I didn’t have any dill, which is an obvious accompaniment for the cucumbers, but I did have some still very fresh acting fennel fronds in the crisper, left over from a meal more than a week before. I also want to thank Persephone for the blessings of green, or spring garlic, especially welcome in a season which leaves us totally bereft of at least the local dried sort.

Another novelty was the final touch given to the chops themselves: While looking on line for garlic mustard information in order to write about it in an earlier post, I read that this herb and putative invasive garden pest alliaria petiolata went really well with goat.

• four small loin goat chops (averaging just over 3 ounces each) from Lynnhaven Dairy Goat Farm, marinated about 45 minutes to an hour in a mix of a couple tablespoons of olive oil, one sliced stem of green or spring ‘Magic garlic’ from Windfall Farms, a freshly-ground mix of black pepper and other seeds or spices (fennel seeds cumin seeds, coriander seeds, star anise, white peppercorns, and whole clove) that had been accidentally combined when I was preparing a dry marinade for a pork belly, then decided to hold onto for future use, 8 slightly-crushed juniper berries, some roughly-chopped rosemary from Stokes Farm, one medium size crushed, now-dried-but-purchased-fresh, bay leaf from Westside Market, and a little zest and juice from an organic Whole Foods Market lemon, the chops pan-grilled for a few minutes, turning 3 times, seasoned with sea salt and a little more pepper after the first turn, finished, while they rested for a few minutes on warm plates, with a bit of lemon juice and a drizzle of olive oil, garnished with roughly chopped garlic mustard from Norwich Meadows Farm [they were perfectly cooked, with not anxiety, this time

• two cucumbers (12 ounces?), described as ‘Japanese cucumbers’ by the guys at Norwich Meadows Farm where I bought them, although I can’t locate anything on line with their color (light green, almost yellow), unpeeled, sliced into rounds 2 or 3 cms thick, sautéed, along with another sliced stem of spring ‘Magic garlic’, in a little olive oil inside a large antique copper pot over a medium-high flame, turning twice, sprinkling with salt each time, each side allowed to begin carbonizing, adding slices from the stems of several small fennel bulbs from Central Valley Farm, more than half way through, seasoned with freshly-ground black pepper, arranged on the plates, garnished with chopped fennel fronds and drizzled with a little olive oil

• one bunch of purple Russian kale from Eckerton Hill Farm, washed, drained, wilted inside a medium size antique copper pot enameled in a tablespoon or so of olive oil in which 4 bruised small cloves of dry garlic from Mexico via Chelsea Whole Foods Market had first been allowed to sweat and begin to color, the greens seasoned with salt and black pepper, arranged on the plates where a little more olive oil was drizzled on top
• the wine was an Italian (Sardinia) red, Sella & Mosca Cannonau di Sardegna Riserva 2015, from 67Wine
• the music was the 2014 recording by Dennis Russell Davies and the Sinfonieorchester Basel of Philip Glass’ Symphony No.1 ‘Low’, composed in 1992

I had decided early in the day on Sunday that I would prefer cooking a dinner with meat that night to one with pasta, since I had a good supply of both vegetables – and small, or micro vegetables as well – since more of them could be incorporated in, as it turned out, a pork entrée, than in any pasta.

Also, the freezer had grown almost full, which was going to make it hard to bring home something interesting that I might find at the market.

Another note about the dinner: Unusual for a meal at our table, there was not a single garlic clove or spicy chili. It was still eminently delicious.

• two 8-ounce boneless pork chops from Walter and Shannon of Shannon Brook Farm in the Finger Lakes, thoroughly dried, seasoned with salt, pepper, and a large pinch of light gold dried habanada pepper, seared quickly in a heavy enameled cast-iron pan before half of an organic Chelsea Whole Foods Market lemon was squeezed over them then left in the pan, which was then placed in a 400º oven for about 13 or 14 minutes (flipped halfway through and the lemon squeezed over them once again), removed from the oven, arranged on the plates, sprinkled with the chopped stems and leaves of 2 stalks of (pre-spring) baby celery from Windfall Farms, the rich pan juices poured over the top
• just under a pound of small, really wonderful, sweet Natasha potatoes from Phillips Farms,  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 garnished with micro chervil from Two Guys from Woodbridge

• a couple handfuls of beautiful chicory rosettes from Campo Rosso Farm that had popped up from last fall’s plants, washed, drained, dried, each halved – or quartered, if larger, tossed in a large bowl with a little olive oil, salt, pepper, and a number of thyme branches from Chelsea Whole Foods, then arranged inside a large well seasoned Pampered Chef oven pan, without touching, roasted at 400º for about 10 minutes [I have to admit that I went a little overlong this time, but a bit crispy is good too, when it comes to chicory], removed from the oven and allowed to cool just a little before they were drizzled with a very small amount of balsamic vinegar
• the wine, a perfect pairing, was a really terrific unfiltered, unfined pinot noir, a French (Loire) red, Marie and Vincent Tricot’s ‘Les 3 Bonhommes’ 2016, from Copake Wine Works (I can’t say enough about the experience)
• the music was the contemporary Spanish composer Alberto Posadas’ ‘Poetics of the Gaze’, with Nacho de Paz conducting Klangforum Wien (a great listening)