Book Sale Finds & Bread Salad

Some of the best cookbooks we own were purchased at Library Used Book Sales. Getting a $30.00 book for $2.00 is always fun and even if you only find one great recipe in the book it is well worth cost. That is true of The Zuni Cafe Cookbook: A Compendium of Recipes & Cooking Lessons from San Francisco’s Beloved Restaurant by Judy Rodgers. I am sure we have found more than one recipe from this book but the one we have gone back to many times is Zuni Roast Chicken with Bread Salad. Probably the first time we made it we dutifully followed the instructions. But in subsequent preparations the base of the recipe is used with lots of substitutions and variations. Judy Rodgers would have you roast your own chicken and she wasn’t keen on using sourdough bread. But we picked up a roasted chicken at our local grocery and we had just bought a beautiful country sourdough loaf so that’s what we used. It also made it possible to have this salad for dinner even though we didn’t start till very late in the day.

Here are the instructions for the salad we concocted taking many liberties with Chef Rodgers marvelous recipe.

Breast meat from a take-out roasted chicken
4 ounces slightly stale, open-crumbed peasant style bread
2 Tbs olive oil
1 1/2 Tbs Champagne vinegar or white wine vinegar
Salt and freshly cracked black pepper
1 Tbs golden raisins
1/4 C black raspberries
1 Tbs. red wine or sherry vinegar
1/2 nectarine, cut into 1/2 inch chunks
2 Tbs pine nuts
2-3 garlic cloves
1/4 C slivered scallions
2 Tbs lightly salted chicken stock (I used the juice that accumulated in the roast chicken package)
A few handfuls of arugula, frisee or other greens (We used romaine and baby Swiss chard)

Tear the bread into 1″ chunks. Cut off the bottom crust. Toss with olive oil and saute in a dry pan till crisp and lightly colored. You want about 2 cups.

Combine about 1T olive oil with the vinegar and salt and pepper to taste. Toss about 1/4 of this with the torn bread in a wide salad bowl. The bread will be unevenly coated. Taste one that is mostly saturated, if bland, add some S & P and toss again.

Place the raisins and the nectarine pieces in the red wine vinegar and warm water and set aside.

Place the pine nuts in a small saute pan and heat for a minute or two, just to warm and lightly toast. Add them to the bowl with the bread.

Put a spoonful of olive oil in a small skillet, add the garlic and scallions and cook over a medium-low heat, stirring constantly until softened. Scrape into the bread and fold to combine. Drain the raisins and nectarine and fold in. Dribble some chicken stock over the salad and fold again. Finally add the black raspberries and fold gently.

Cut your chicken into pieces. We just used the breast and did rough slices.

Toss the bread mix with the greens and dress with another drizzle of viniagrette and fold again. S & P to taste.

Finally spread the salad on to a platter, lay the chicken on top and serve. Depending on how hungry you are, it serves 2 as a main course.

So next time your local library has a book sale, go the first day before things get picked over and head immediately to the cookbooks. There are treasures there and a lot of good eating.

Final note: Sadly Judy Rodgers died in 2013 of cancer. She was only 57. But the Zuni Cafe and her recipes live on.

Still Finding Asparagus

Here I go again.

It seems like every couple of years I say the asparagus is gone from our old patch. I flatly declared that in 2018. Sure we would get a handful each Spring but you had to expect to be wounded by thistles and raspberry canes that had taken over. Last year was an extended time of neglect. When everything shut down because of Covid-19, so did we. We put in a few tomato plants which did ok but the eggplant and peppers crapped out. I got a fairly good crop of cukes but for the most part we ignored the remainder of the garden space. We just mowed down the weeds and ignored the brambles where the asparagus used to be. Found a few but usually by the time we saw them it was too late.

We had hopes of selling the house and moving last year so we worked toward down-sizing the gardens and yard work. We even had a local landscaper do our mowing. But best laid plans never seem to pan out. The housing market went nuts, prices through the roof. Kind of discouraged us from searching. If you didn’t bid $20,000 or more over the asking price you had no chance. So we decided to make the best of it for now and that meant working on the gardens. So this April, with saws and loppers and the mower, we attacked the bramble/tree/bush/thistle mess that had buried the asparagus patch. Once it was mowed flat we left it to its own devices. In May, the green spears started to appear again. Mostly in the far corner and in the wall behind the garden but there they were. Maybe they needed a year off, maybe our giving it a buzz cut, but whatever the reason we were back to picking again. Just enough now and then, for a meal. Just enough to make us smile. This wasn’t a bumper crop so we could cook up generous servings but, combined with other foods like pasta, it was a nice addition. Here is just one of those dishes with some of those precious spears that Curt created for dinner last week.

Asparagus/Egg/Toasted Wild Rice Salad ( 2 servings)

He made this for two so all of these ingredients are obviously geared for two. I did not specify amounts on some since if you are making it for one or three you can easily adjust.

Leaf lettuce
Asparagus (cooked al dente)
Poached eggs (one for each person)
Green onions (juiienned)
Vinaigrette dressing
Toasted /Puffed Wild Rice (1-2 Tbls)
3 Prosciutto Crisps
Mushrooms of your choice (sliced and sauteed)

Vinaigrette Dressing
3 Tbls Olive oil
1 Tbls Vinegar
1 tsp Dijon mustard
! clove Garlic (minced)

Whisk the garlic/mustard/vinegar together in a bowl.
Slowly add the oil and whisk till combined.

Toasted/Puffed Wild Rice

Put a thin film of oil in a heavy bottom saucepan. Add the rice and toast like popcorn. The rice will jump around but not out of the pan like popcorn. After a few minutes they should settle down. They are done. Take off heat.

Prosciutto Crisps

Put prosciutto slices on a sheet pan in the oven. 300 degrees for about 10-15 min. Watch carefully, you want them crisp not burnt.

Make the Salad

Get your water ready and poach your eggs while beginning the layering.

Layer a few lettuce leaves on a plate and top with halved asparagus spears.

Add the poached egg. If eggs aren’t your thing leave off or add a different protein.

Drizzle with the vinaigrette dressing.

Add the green onions and the toasted rice. You don’t need all of the rice. Whatever you like.

Finally add the prosciutto crisps. We put 1 1/2 per plate. And the mushrooms.

Serve with wine of your choice and toasts or specialty crackers. Once the egg is broken into the yolk mixes with the vinaigrette for a wonderful flavor over the vegetables. A great spring/summer dish which I am sure you can play with…sugar snap peas? green beans? thin slices of zucchini? Bon Appetit!

Honor the Source; Venison and Potato Salad

The second left-over meal descending from Kenn’s gift of a venison loin (Honor the Source was the original and Thai Venison Salad the first left-over) is adapted from the Silver Palette cookbook. The original was made with beef tenderloin or rib-eye and an aggressively garlicky dressing.  Although I haven’t tried it with anything other than beef, I think this simple, hearty salad would work with almost any left-over, lean, grilled meat or poultry.

Ingredients, minus the peppers, mustard, vinegar and olive oil I forgot to put in the set up

Venison Potato Salad with garlicky vinaigrette dressing

6 oz (more or less to taste) grilled venison
4 medium potatoes, cooked and sliced
1/2 medium onion, thinly sliced
1/2 cup red, yellow or green bell pepper, cut into bite-sized pieces
2-3 cloves garlic, mashed
1 tsp. dry mustard (or 1 tsp. Dijon style mustard) – optional
1 Tbs. sherry vinegar (or substitute malt vinegar)
1 Tbs. Worcestershire sauce (I use Col. Pabst All Malt Amber-Lager Worcestershire)
2 Tbs. top quality Extra-virgin Olive oil
salt and pepper to taste

In a large mixing bowl, combine the meat, potatoes, peppers and onion.  Toss gently to mix.

Gently mix meat, potatoes and onions

In a small bowl, mix the vinegar, Worcestershire sauce, olive oil, garlic, mustard (if using), salt and pepper.  Dress the meat and potatoes and toss gently to coat

Dress the salad and gently mix

A hearty simple salad for two.

Venison Potato Salad with garlicky vinaigrette dressing

 

Honor the Source; Thai Venison Salad

In the original Honor the Source I pan grilled some medallions of venison loin I was gifted from my friend Kenn. And there were leftovers – on purpose. Today I’ll revisit the leftovers as Thai Venison Salad.

Thai Beef Salad is a staple of most Thai restaurants I have been in.  This is my version adapted from a cookbook called Thai Cooking Class, where it is called Yam Nua.  When  making this with beef I usually use a small piece of tenderloin but any good cut of beef would work.  I have also had versions of this in restaurants made with duck breast.  Today, due to my good planning I have two medallions of venison loin already cooked and ready to go.  If you were making this from scratch with beef or some other meat, pan grill the meat to medium rare then set aside to cool before proceeding with the salad.

Ingredients for Thai Venison Salad

Thai (style) Venison Salad

6 oz. (2 medallions)Venison loin, cooked medium rare
2 Tb. water
1 Tbs. fresh lime or lemon juice
1 Tbs. Fish Sauce (I use Red Boat 40˚N but Three Crabs is good too)
1 medium cucumber (or 2 of the small hot-house type), thinly sliced
1 medium onion, halved and thinly sliced
1 medium tomato, halved and thinly sliced
1/2 fresh chili, seeds and veins removed, finely diced (or substitute 1/2 tsp. dried chili flakes)
2 Tbs. fresh cilantro leaf
2 Tbs. fresh basil leaf, torn into rough pieces
2 Tbs. (or more) fresh mint leaves (spearmint preferred)

Slice the venison across the grain into bit-sized pieces

Thinly slice the venison.

Mix the water, lime or lemon juice and fish sauce in a small bowl.

Toss, toss, toss, gently

In a large bowl mix the venison and all the remaining ingredients until everything is well distributed.  Add the dressing and toss until well coated.

Thai Venison Salad with rice, on the side, and a couple of pot stickers

Serve over lettuce leaves or rice.  Makes a light but satisfying summer salad.  Serves 2.

Justified, Corn Slaw and Bourbon

Raylan & Boyd

Last night we joined friends, Richard and Patricia, for the finale of Justified. If you are not familiar with Justified, it is a series on FX and that is based on a story by Elmore Leonard. Briefly it’s the “adventures” of Raylan Givens, a Federal Marshal who is part lawman, part killer (in the name of the law of course) and Boyd Crowder, all around drug dealer, bank robber, preacher, general bad guy and killer (not in the name of the law). They are also charmers, sweet-talkers and skinny as hell. For the past five seasons we have joined our friends for dinner, alternating cooking duties, and have watched the happenings in the hollers and the mine and the towns of Harlan County Kentucky. It has been a fun ride.

Last night our dinner for the final shootout was sandwiches and slaw. Not just any sandwiches, grilled cheese sandwiches. Not just any grilled cheese sandwiches, smoked turkey, caramelized fennel, gala apple jam and Gruyère grilled cheese sandwiches. Oh lord, were they good. Our contribution was salad and Curt decided to go with a corn slaw from Yotam Ottolenghi’s Plenty More cookbook. We never relayed to each other what we were making but the two couldn’t have gone together better if we planned it that way. Here’s the slaw with a few variations.

Corn slaw

CORN SLAW

7 Tbls white wine vinegar
4.25 cups shredded cabbage
3 small carrots, peeled and cut into fine strips
1 medium red onion, thinly sliced
3 cups fresh corn (or frozen if you don’t have access to fresh)
2 red chiles, finely chopped
We did not have red chiles but our substitute was really good. We used a Tbls of CENTO cherry pepper relish, chopped even finer.
1 1/3 cups cilantro leaves
2/3 cup mint leaves
olive oil
Salt & pepper

Put the vinegar and a scant cup of water in a small saucepan along with one Tbls of salt. Bring to boil then remove from heat. Place the cabbage and carrots in a bowl and pour in 2/3 of the salty liquid. In a separate bowl, pour the remaining liquid over the onion and set both bowls aside. After 20 minutes, rinse the vegetables and onion well, pat dry. Place together in a salad bowl.

If you are using fresh corn, grill it in a pan, cool and cut from cob and add to the salad bowl. Or cook your frozen corn till just al dente. Cool and put in salad bowl.

Cherry pepper relish

DRESSING

3 1/2 Tbls mayonnaise
2 tsp Dijon mustard
1 Tbls lemon juice
1 clove garlic, crushed

Whisk all the dressing ingredients together, pour over the salad and stir gently. Add the chile, cilantro and mint, along with a grind of pepper. Give it another stir and serve.

Notes: I’ve mentioned what we did for chiles. We were short on corn so we only had about 1 1/2 cups in our salad but the full amount of corn would have been great. Also we used a little more carrot.

So what does the bourbon in my title refer to? Well, Justified is set in Kentucky after all (the bourbon state of America) and they certainly drank enough bourbon in the course of five seasons. So as the last episode progressed and certain deeds were done and particular characters bit the dust we sipped our Knob Creek straight bourbon whiskey. And when the final credits ran we tossed back our final shot.

Knob Creek Kentucky Straight Bourbon Whiskey

Just Another Wednesday Night

Wednesday. Dinner. Our House. Just the two of us.My husband loves to cook. Once everything is prepared and cooked and tossed and toasted it is time to take the elements and compose the plate.

Tonight was sliced avocado, topped with a salad composed of apple, radicchio, curly endive, red onion and blood orange tossed with a balsamic vinaigrette. Add to this garam masala seasoned scallops. Texas toast and white wine on the side.

Yes, just another Wednesday night. Bon Appetit!

All Garden Dinner, Almost

Elegant looking but soooo easy.

I’m talking Salad Niçoise (pronounced nee-suaz) a classic from the city of Nice on the French Mediterranean coast. This is a hardy composed salad much like the American Cobb Salad but with tuna, green beans and potatoes instead of chicken, bacon and avocado. It is also Americanized because the French would use anchovies and raw vegetables but we use tuna canned in oil, and we boil or blanch the vegetables.

To begin, gather your vegetables. If you don’t have a garden or a farmer’s market your local grocery store’s produce section will be just fine. Or if you have a friend with a great garden tell them if they give you vegetables you’ll prepare them a French dinner. Oui!

Some good choices are green beans, yellow beans, green onions or sliced red onion, baby carrots and peppers (red or yellow are best for color but if you only have green,  green will do). Potatoes should also be part of your salad and fingerlings like Russian Banana are perfect. We used small yellow beets and tomatoes (we used red and yellow cherry and a green fleshed variety) as well. I think cherry tomatoes are fine but wedges of a red ripe tomato are just beautiful in this salad.  Marinated artichokes are a welcome addition too.

You can stop there but a true Salad Niçoise should have some protein and as I mentioned earlier we use canned tuna. A light tuna in oil is what I prefer and I don’t even like fish but for some reason this is one of my exceptions. Another fine addition is hard-boiled eggs; one egg per diner. While you are at the store pick up some pitted olives, we prefer Kalamata; they are a nice salty addition and their dark purple color give a good contrast to all the reds and yellows and greens.

Once you’ve decided on your vegetables, blanch the beans until tender-crisp.  Boil potatoes, beets, carrots till tender (peel all after cooking) and hard-boil the eggs. Cut your tomatoes into wedges, peel and cut your eggs into halves. We roasted a red pepper and then cut it into strips or you could use jarred roasted peppers if you’d prefer not to roast them yourself.

Arrange everything, artfully on a large platter. You could put down a bed of nice lettuce, although we didn’t.   I usually put the potatoes in the middle and arrange the other vegetables in groups around the perimeter, put the tuna on top of the potatoes and strew the olives over the entire shebang.  Drizzle a vinaigaratte dressing over the top and voila! dinner for 4 or a smaller version can make for lunch a Nice lunch.  Nice, get it!

Salad Niçoise

This can be expanded or contracted to suit your occasion, platter size or the availability of ingredients.

An Expanded Vinaigarette

1 tsp dry mustard
1 clove garlic, minced
1 shallot, minced
1 small Roma-type tomato, seeded and diced
3 green olives, minced
2 Tbs flat-leaf parsley, minced
2 Tbs red wine vinegar
6 Tbs extra virgin olive oil
salt/freshly ground pepper to taste

Put mustard, garlic, salt, pepper and vinegar in a bowl and whisk together. Continue whisking while slowly adding the oil until the dressing blends. Add the shallot, tomato, parsley and olives and whisk to combine.  Taste and adjust salt or pepper if needed.

Serve the salad with a nice Sauvignon blanc or a Petit Syrah. Your guests will love you for being so Nice to them.