Bread Salad & June Vegetable Curry

The Food Nanny
June 16&17, 2009
Meal 1: Bread Salad with Canellini, Egg, and Poached Potatoes, Grilled Broccoli, & Spinach Soup
· Warm the crutons in the oven on a cookie tray at 350° until hot and crispy – about 10 minutes.
· Meanwhile arrange the greens in a bowl and garnish with the potato,beans, and chopped egg.
· Heat the soup and warm the broccoli in the oven too or serve at room temp.
· Toss the salad ingredients with the hot bread and dress then serve.

Meal 2: June Vegetable Curry, Grilled Flat Bread, Parsi Kichirri Salad
· Heat the curry in a pan with a little water to thin. Serve in bowls and garnish with some yogurt if you like.
· Warm the flatbread.
· Enjoy the kichirri warmed in the oven, on the stovetop with a dash of water or oil, or at room temp.
Local Notes
Why the Hell Did They Let A Bear Peel The Eggs?
Well, the real question is 'How did they train the bear to peel the eggs?'
Anyway, when it comes to egg salad nothing sucks, well, eggs, more than nice, wholesome, farm-fresh eggs. At least until the egg is out of its shell that it. Then fresh hard-boiled eggs are rich and creamy, firm and yielding, fortifying and light all at once. But in their shells, fresh eggs are a bear to peel because there is very little gas built up in the egg. As the egg ages normal cellular respiration produces gasses that lodge between the albumen (white) and the shell (shell). This space facilitates the removal of the shell after cooking. If not present the shell is nearly affixed to the cooked white and a Sissiphean challenge to remove cleanly. So, my apologies on the roughed up hard boiled eggs.
Grill Thrill Seeker
Still more grilled vegetables from the list of :'I never considered grilling that!.' Yes, broccoli grills wonderfully. Follow the instructions for grilling greens posted last week. June is a great broccoli month and since it is starting to roll in we thought we'd give it some feature billing this week. Expect a supporting role next week and for several to come.
Other June vegetables are found in the curry. Seek out the kohlrabi and the turnips. Kohlrabi is one of those vegetables that most restaurants wont serve you, for no good reason other than assuming you won't like it simply because it it neither a potato, a carrot, or broccoli. I love kohlrabi and make a mock potato salad featuring it in the early season before potatoes come into season properly, and also serve it pureed with black pepper and parmesan for a side with special roasts. Also, can you get enough of those little white Japanese turnips? I had to restrain my self to preserve your portions last week of them stir fried with scapes.
So that's what's fresh and hot.
Technique
Curry has taught me a widely applicable technique: Infused oils.
The first step in preparing this curry, and the kichirri (a pilaf of rice and split beans) as well is to make an infused oil. This is done by carefully selecting an assortment, in limited number, of whole spices such as cumin, coriander, fresh or dried chile, anise, cinnamon, fennel, cardamom pods...but they must be whole spices and not powdered, their role comes later.
Gather your spices in a dish considering how they will complement each other and the dish, and understand that a little goes a long way. For a dish for 8-10 for examplieI might use 6 cloves, 6 peppercorns, 1t cumin, 1t corriander and 2" cinnamon.
Next heat your oil and when it shimmers, add the spices and stir. They will sizzle and fry and become aromatic. Being very careful to not burn them, and you must have your onions already prepared before you even heat the oil, let them fry for a minute or so. When ready, dump your sliced/chopped onions ( yes, always) into the pot to stop the spice frying, collect the flavors, and begin the next stage in the process.
This technique is useful when not only making curry, but in say adobo or mole sauce as well. Use it for soups, casserole fillings, on and on. When you want to pump some complex flavors into a dish, consider starting by layering some aromatic spices essences into the oil that will infuse the rest of the dish.

Roasted Red Pepper Stromboli & General Tso's Tofu

The Food Nanny
June 9&10, 2009
Meal 1: Roasted Red Pepper Stromboli, Grilled Greens Salad, Rhubarb Crisp
· Warm the stromboli in the oven at 350° until hot – about 10-15 minutes. · Toss the salad ingredients and dress lightly if you like, the olive oil and garlic that they are grilled with may be just right for you.
· Warm the crisp in the oven during dinner and enjoy for desert. It should be bubbling a little at the edges.

Meal 2: General Tso’s Tofu, Stirfried Hakuri Turnips &Garlic Scapes, Fried Rice Salad
· Serve the rice at room temp or warm it in a skillet with a little oil.
· Get the pan hot and add a little oil. Stir fry the turnips/scapes for a minute or two to heat through. Remove to a plate.
· Heat the pan again and add more oil. Tip in the broccoli and tofu. Stir fry for about 2 minutes, then vigorously shake the sauce and pour over the tofu. Allow the sauce to thicken for a minute or so and serve immediately.
Local Notes:
'Scape from Urbana
I told you we would have some more scapes. I am sorry to have to cut them for your meals, they are such beautiful vegetables. They are serpetine, swanlike, and ballerinaish. I do like to eat them whole, either stir fried or grilled; but, I am a full contact eater and know that we have to be a little more civilized here. Anyway they eat like greenbeans and taste like roasted garlic and are certainly something unique. We may only get another week out of them as they stiffen and unwind and prepare to ripen their bulbuils, and become inedible. The garlic year progresses nonetheless. Soon we will have 'fresh garlic' familiar cloves but from uncured plants. Also, if any member or friend would really like to grow garlic I can give you some cloves from our own personal variety cultivate from local feral stock found at Meadowbrook Gardens. We call it Urbana Tiger, and I will also give you a crash course in how to grow it. You must grow garlic to understand it.

Technique:
Grilled Greens
A deeply loved friend of mine is the most stubborn man I know.
We will call him E. Menzel.
No, no. Thats too obvious.
Eric M.
Thats better.
So Eric M. is an excellent cook and a profoundly motivated fellow. He is fairly convinced that no food item should be inherently considered ungrillable. He will lighly dance any item he can above the charcoal flames, gently teasing ethereal items above the tenuous grate, and suspending them above Smeagol's Demise.
He taught me to grill greens like spinach or swiss chard, and he inspired this salad. I look forward to adding grilled romaine wedges.
To grill greens you must first believe that thin leafy things can in fact be grilled. Next you must dress the greens to protect them from becoming unappetizing crisped mulch. Do this with a generous hulping of crushed garlic in a liberal ammount of olive oil. Toss and massage the greens with their dressing well. With a pair of good tongs lay the preferably whole leaves across the grate of your charbroiler and watch as the greens wilt, begin to mark, and darken in color. Do think of pan wilting spinach as you do this. When they appear half done, give them a flip to finish. If there is a hot spot on your grill, arrange the stem ends towards it.

Pasta e Fagioli & Kale Lasagna

The Food Nanny
June 2&3, 2009
Meal 1: Pasta e Fagioli of Whole Wheat Macaroni and Chick Peas, Polenta with Fresh Herbs, & Asparagus Hash
· Heat the soup on the stovetop.
· Warm the polenta in the oven at 350° until just warm – about 10 minutes.
· Warm the hash in the oven along with the polenta, or heat it in a sauté pan with a little oil for a minute or two, or enjoy it at room temp.

Meal 2: Lasagna of Kale and Hand Rolled Noodles, Mixed Greens, Pesto Bread Sticks
· Warm the lasagna in the oven at 350° until heated through – about 10 to 15 minutes.
· Toast the bread sticks in the oven with the lasagna for the last minute or two. Dress the greens and serve.
Local Notes:
Paste e Fagioli. Spelled just like it sounds.
Does sarcasm get lost in type text?
Anyhow, please look closely into your soup and you wil see 'The Last Carrot.' Since October of 2008 you have been served not one carrot, not ONE carrot that was not grown in this county. Our supply of beautiful Blue Moon carrots has finally run dry and I will do my best to either find someone growing spring carrots, or to do without them until this coming fall. Jon does not grow spring carrots because they are difficult to germinate and manage and just are not as good as they are in the fall. carrot growing in high labor and thin margin and we should kiss Jon's hands for growing them while also trying to run a farm business. They are the best I've ever had and they speak volumes about the sweet richness of our subterranean wealth here in the Great Corn Desert.
In other news the garlic is beginning to change and I used the last of the green garlic to infuse an oil that got folded into the pasta e fagioli at the end. The necks of the garlic are beginning to harden and become inedible. Fortunately, they stiffen to send up a flower stalk called a scape that is edible in its own right. Expect them to feature in next weeks fare. When cooked they taste like a roasted garlic green bean and can be grilles, sauteed, or used to flavor a larger dish. Ask for them at the market.

Stuffed Red Peppers & Three Bean Chili

The Food Nanny
May 26&27, 2009
Meal 1: Stuffed Red Pepper, Pesto Pasta Salad, Chic Pea Salad
· Warm the pepper(s) at 350° until just warm.
· Serve the accompanying salads at room temp.

Meal 2: Three Bean Chili, Corn Bread Muffins, Cumin Cole Slaw
· Heat chili on the stovetop or microwave. Careful, it is spicy. Cool it a notch with some yogurt, sour cream or cheese.
· Warm the muffin if you like and eat the slaw cold.

Futomaki & Enchiladas

The Food Nanny
May 19 & 20, 2009
Meal 1: Pea Shoot Futomaki, Sweet and Sour Cabbage Soup, Noodle Salad
· Heat the soup on the stovetop. Add some extra hot seasoning if you like.
· Serve the futomaki and noodles at room temp. Enjoy the maki with soy sauce and wasabi if you have it!

Meal 2: Swiss Chard Enchiladas, Yellow Rice with Sunflower Seeds, Mixed Greens
· Heat the enchiladas gently at 350° until just hot and maybe a little bubbly.
· Enjoy the rice at room temp or heat it in a pan or microwave.
· Dress the greens and serve.

Hand Cut Manacotti & Miso Hot Pot

The Food Nanny
May 12 &13,2009

Meal 1: Hand Rolled Manicotti With Grilled Asparagus and Herbed Chevre, Chick Pea Salad, Mixed Greens
· Heat the manacotti in the oven at 350° for 15 -20 minutes, or until the sauce begins to bubble.
· Serve the chick peas at room temp, and dress the salad.
Meal 2: Miso Hot Pot with Bok Choi, Udon, and Marinated Tofu

· Allow the vegetables etc. to come to room remp in their container or another vessel if you prefer.
· Heat the Miso soup to just under a boil – do not let it boil- and pour it over the vegetables etc. Allow the dish to steep a minute or two and then dig in with spoon and chop sticks!

Local Notes:

Boc Choi is perhaps the most elegant of the cabbages, or brassicas to be more accurate. Yes, its true that broccoli, cabbage, turnips, canola, and the chois are all the same species Brassica rapa.

As for the choi, just look at those lines, the graceful curve of its vase-like profile, the seamless integration of leaf and petiole, and its helix pattern of growth. Study brassicas enough, especially cauliflower, and you will get some serious insight about the nature of our cosmos.

These are Jon's chois and they are just scrumptious. I could not help but ordering more after last week and planning a menu just to fit them. I love to peel the petioles from the stem and cook them whole so as to eat that whole thing with its transition in texture from the undulous leaf to the fat crunchy suculence of the petiole base. However, you may also opt to cut them for politeness or even safety. In which case, cut them at the dividing point of the leaf and the petiole ( if you can find it), and cook them separately as the thin leaf parts will cook faster than the thick petiole parts.

Technique:

Sick of Sidedishes

We ordinarily eat vegetarian when dining out, or even out of home. In a nutshell, we only eat meat when we know and approve of its provenance. Previous to this we ate a vegetarian diet for a few years. When out or say, at a wedding, this typically meat eating those side dishes that did not contain meat. This is not a satisfying gustatory experience and I get tired of it pretty quickly.That being said it is important to understand that vegetarian cuisine is not just cooking the remainders from other cuisine.

Now that there is a vegan among our members, I have to remeber that vegan cuisine is not just vegetarian food with certain things omitted. It has its own ways of achieving all the concept I have been writing about lately: body, complexity, satiety, richness, fattiness, umami, etc. It is a challenge to me to approach this, as in all honesty vegan cuisine is one in which I claim no expertise. But, the concepts for how to approach it are there in the head and hand. This is why I stress technique over recipe.

This weeks pasta is made of egg, and the filling contained cheese. So, how solve it ? Well, for the pasta I used store bought dried ("...Know when to fold 'em...") but for the filling I rehydrated some of our shiitake mushrooms, and made a nut paste to bind it with the grilled asparagus pieces. This paste consisted of toasted almond, olive oil, and spices ground in a mortar and pestle. The mushrooms are laded with satisfling umami falvors (glutimates). The nuts gave the mixture a savory, rich, and unified composition, while the olive and nut oils, plus the nut protien, gave the filling a satisfying, fatty aspect that the tongue and body appreciates.

I even like it myself.

Asparagus Fougasse & Stir Fried Baby Bok Choi

The Food Nanny
May 5 &,6,2009
Meal 1: Asparagus, Roasted Red Pepper & Chevre Fougasse, Asparagus Soup, Spinach Salad
· Warm fougasse in the oven at 325° for 10 -15 minutes.
· Heat the soup and dress the spinach as you like.

Meal 2: Stir Fried Baby Bok Choi with Green Garlic Sauce,"Egg Roll,” Sweet and Sour Rice Salad
· The omelet and Rice may be served at room temp or warmed briefly. Warm the egg in an oven or microwave. Heat the salad in a frying pan with a little oil and a splash of water.
· For the stir fry: Heat some a couple/three T of oil in a fry pan over medium or med high. When it is nearly or just smoking add just the vegetables carefully – it will be loud and splattery. Stir them around and shake the sauce vigorously. After a couple of minutes add the tofu and quickly thereafter the sauce. The sauce will thicken in a minute or so. Stir and serve immediately.

Local Notes:
After pestering him incessantly for the past month or so, Jon's asparagus is finally here. I'm so glad it worked. I'll have to employ the same technique for tomatos.
Today's menu has been on my mind for weeks: Asparagus Two Ways.
First the fougasse, a breathtaking little bread if ever there was one. Stuffing it with asparagus and Prairie Fruits chevre in addition to the traditional roasted red pepper seemed only logical...even when we first made this item for FN, several months ago.
Secondly, the soup.
I love the frugality of this soup. My business motto is: Quality Pays. And good asparagus, is an epitome. The majority (tender part) of the asparagus is used for a feature dish; in this case the fougasse. But the tail end is useful also. These ends were combined with a white mire poix ( 4/28/o9) and pureed to make the soup. I could have also infused custard, or muffins, or myriad other things, but not so with the aged, woody crap commonly available, especially in January. So, my aspartagus pays me twice rather than costing me once, and I wish more restauranteurs and chefs knew this. A real chef loves the shrimp shell more than the shrimp, for the shrimp is his master's, and the shells are for him. Savvy?
Plus, did you notice the size of those asparagus1 Some dwarfed my thumb and were pure succulence. Despite the 'pencil' asparagus fad of 1996, I was taught by Max Hansen himself to prefer " the big fat f****ers," and Jon's deliver. More to the point, however, uniquely excellent food enhances a cook's ability to differentiate himself, to offer something unique, and perhaps better. And, that pays. Enjoy.

Technique:
The Stir Fry
Wow. Where to begin. The stir fry is perhaps the most elegant, effective, and economical cooking technique of all.
This should come as no surprise. Consider its inventors and their needs:
Make delicious a rice based diet with minimal animal protien or fuel.

Hot. Fast.
This is how to stir fry.Intensely sear bite sized pieces of food in small batches and then combime at the last to finish as one, with minimal loss of nutrients or labor time, over the stove at least. Many stir fry dishes require a considerable investment in planning and preparetion.
I have heard that traditional Chinese restaurants have two Chefs. One who cooks, and one who cuts.