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Quick, summery bok choy-and-radish kimchi is the perfect intro to Korean cooking

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Korean cooking is one of the hottest trends out there now – in more ways than one. (Yep, this food can be spicy!) Not only are chefs all over the country using Korean techniques and ingredients and riffing on Korean dishes, but Korean cookbooks are being published left and right. 

Lately I've been cooking from three new ones. Robin Ha's Cook Korean!: A Coming Book With Recipes has been making a splash (and I just finished putting up a traditional cabbage kimchi from that book). 

And there's Koreatown: A Cookbook by Deuki Hong and Matt Rodbard – I'll be testing a recipe from that one later this week. 

In the meantime, I made one dish I think you'll love – a light, summery bok choy and radish kimchi that's quick and easy to make. It's the perfect introduction to Korean cooking. And maybe the perfect introduction to Korean eating, as well – Wylie's friend Michelle, who had never tasted Korean food, loved it. 

The recipe comes from K Food: Korean Home Cooking and Street Food by Da-Hae and Gareth West, a British couple. Los Angeles Times food editor Amy Scattergood recently featured it as Cookbook of the Week. "This is the first non-traditional kimchi that Gareth and I ever made," the authors write in the headnote. "The juicy, crunchy bok choy and radishes make it feel fresh, light and summer – quite different from the typical cabbage kimchi."

Sold! I had to try it.

It's a good introduction to basic kimchi prep. First you trim, wash and brine the bok choy and radishes. The brine is just a mix of salt and sugar you toss the vegetables in, and let them sit for half an hour. Meanwhile, you make a "glue" – a spicy kimchi base you then rub all over the veg. Following the instructions as published, though, I didn't have nearly enough glue to rub all over the copious amount of bok choy, so in my adaptation, I upped the yield of the glue by fifty percent. It's a lot of bok choy when it's raw, but it shrinks way down, and you'll be happy to have lots.

Another little issue: The instructions say that you can eat it immediately, but that it's "best after it has had 3 or 4 days at room temperature to ferment," after which you can store it in the refrigerator. Unfortunately, no instructions were provided on how to do that. I will figure that out later, and let you know. 

Meanwhile, It's really good, so I wanted you to have it right away. I tasted it immediately, as soon as I was done rubbing the ingredients all over – good. Then I covered it in plastic wrap and let it sit overnight in the fridge. The next day it was really good. Refreshing, spicy, fun and yes – ideal for summer. I think you'll love it. Do let us know!

 

One way to honor France: cook up some of its culture

So sad. 

France is so close to my heart. My husband is French. My son – that's him a few years ago in the photo above – is French. Well, half-French, but he's a citizen. 

One feels so powerless in the face of such evil – a Bastille Day attack that left so many people, people who were celebrating what's wonderful about France – dead. And more wounded. 

There's nothing to do. Except maybe what we can do: continue celebrating what's wonderful about France. Liberté, égalité, fraternité. What it means to be French: a love of life, of food, of the world. An open spirit. An embrace of beauty. It has so much in common with what's wonderful about being American.

I'm going to become French, too – as soon as I get off my butt and do the (ridiculous amount of) paperwork. What happened in Nice inspires me to get off my butt. 

But for now –  tonight –  I just want to cook something French. I think it'll be a niçoise salad – yes, for what happened in Nice. I'll try to post a pic and a recipe this weekend.

Meanwhile, maybe you, too, feel like cooking something French. For France.

I can't think of anything more à propos than a pissaladière. The onion and anchovy tart with niçoise olives is definitely something you might eat in Nice. It's really good as an appetizer (entrée, in French, as it's your entry into the meal . . . ) with a glass of pastis. Ricard – an inch or so poured into a tall glass, then diluted with about three times as much ice water – is very very French. Or you could have it with a glass of rosé.

On the other hand, you could do something really simple to start, like cut up a fabulous ripe cantaloupe and serve that as an entrée – that's what my mother- and father-in-law do. They live in Bordeaux most of the year, and spend summers at their house near the beach at Lacanau-Océan. Or trim some radishes, and serve them with sweet butter and salt. 

An artichoke vinaigrette makes a great entrée if you feel like doing a little cooking. 

After that, you could make deviled duck legs. They're super-easy, and crazy-good. Serve them on a bed of frisée, if you like. 

A simple green salad could follow, maybe some cheese, if you want to over-do it. 

For dessert, consider a stone-fruit tart with thyme.

Though you don't want to make that if you're scheming a pissaladière – too many crusts! In that case, or if you really want to keep it simple, and still very French, peel a ripe peach and slice it into your glass of red wine. Eat the slices with a spoon, and sip the wine.

Life is so precious, and so fleeting. As long as we can savor it, we have something no one can take away.

 

12 crazy-good summer recipes

As you may have noticed, Cooks Without Borders is all about crafting the crazy-good: creating or hunting down recipes and refining them until they're brilliant. Not only do these recipes have to work, and work well (as we're pretty sure all our recipes do!) they have to result in dishes so delicious they could glue you to the ceiling. That's when I stop tweaking: We're pretty confident that they're crazy-good. 

Here's are 12 stand-out (yes, crazy good!) summer recipes, listed in order of how you'd eat 'em – from starters through desserts:

Gazpacho Sevillano

Gazpacho Sevillano

Gazpacho Sevillano

In the height of tomato season, our version of the cool classic soup from Southern Spain is a stunner. Follow it with Chiringuito Seafood Paella (see below) and you've got a smashing Spanish feast.

Ultimate Hummus

Ultimate Hummus

Ultimate Hummus

Which version of the Middle-East's glorious classic dip is the best, Yotam Ottolenghi and Sami Tamimi's or Michael Solomonov's (from Zahav in Philadelphia)? Our recipe draws from the strengths of each. 

Pissaladière

Pissaladière

Pissaladière

Didn't manage to swing that vacation in Provence (again!) this year? No matter: Invite friends over, sip glasses of rosé and serve them this amazing onion-anchovy tart. 

Quinoa, Pea and Mint Tabbouleh

Quinoa, pea and mint tabbouleh

Quinoa, pea and mint tabbouleh

This recipe from Zahav: A World of Israeli Cooking, needed no tweaking – chef Michael Solomonov's dish is brilliant as written. I'd only suggest doubling it so you have at least a slight chance of leftovers. 

Totally Awesome Caesar Salad

Totally Awesome Caesar Salad

Totally Awesome Caesar Salad

I spent decades thinking the classic recipe for Caesar salad couldn't be improved upon. I was wrong. This one plays up the coddled egg angle – to delicious effect. Awesome Caesar and burgers on the grill, anyone?

Warm Summer Salad Without Borders

Warm Summer Salad WIthout Borders

Warm Summer Salad WIthout Borders

Got zucchini? This warm summer salad capitalizes on your favorite (and most abundant) summer produce: tomatoes, okra, summer squash, sweet corn. Don't like okra? Leave it out: The salad – great as a starter, main course, side or garnish for grilled fish or meats – is super-customizable. Give it a modern Tex-Mex/Mexican accent, or Greek, or Italian.

Chiringuito Seafood Paella

Chiringuito Seafood Paella

Chiringuito Seafood Paella

One of my favorite summer dinners is seafood paella cooked outside on a grill, and this recipe – adapted from Anya Von Bremzen's The New Spanish Table – is my favorite version. Start with a few tapas, then Gazpacho Sevillano, and you've got yourself a virtual vacation in Spain. 

The Chicken that Killed Grandpa

The Chicken that Killed Grandpa

The Chicken that Killed Grandpa

Easy to put together, this one-dish main course takes full advantage of summer's bounty.

Grilled Butterflied Leg of Lamb

Grilled butterflied leg of lamb

Grilled butterflied leg of lamb

Easy and fabulous. Add Ultimate Hummus, Charred Eggplant Salad or Red Pepper Harissa Dip for a wonderful Mediterranean feast (or collect all three!). Quinoa, Pea and Mint Tabbouleh or Warm Summer Salad Without Borders – or any simple grilled veg – are dreamy accompaniments. 

Berry and Peach Crisp

Berry and Peach Crisp

Berry and Peach Crisp

This is the crisp that will turn any non-baker into a dessert genius: super-easy and crazy-good.

Stone Fruit Tart with Thyme

Stone Fruit Tart with Thyme

Stone Fruit Tart with Thyme

Peaches, plums, nectarines, apricot: Whatever stone fruit's the ripest and most delicious at the moment goes onto the super-tender and buttery short crust at this base of this gorgeous tart. 

Strawberry-Mezcal Ice Cream

Strawberry-Mezcal Ice Cream

Strawberry-Mezcal Ice Cream

Last, but most definitely and emphatically not least, is our dreamy, mezcal-spiked strawberry ice cream. Whether you go all out and make lamb barbacoa and your own corn tortillas, or run around the corn and pick up tacos, it'll make any summer day an awesome one. 

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Fall in love with the most versatile warm summer salad in the universe

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Are you a friend of okra? If so, you'll love this warm summer salad or summer squash, sweet cherry tomatoes, grilled corn and grilled okra. 

Are you anti-okra? You, too, will love this warm summer salad: That's because you can leave simply leave it out. Add grilled eggplant. Or some cooked black beans. Or fresh green garbanzos, if you score them at the market and you're wondering what to do with them.

I'm calling it a warm summer salad because I conceived it to be eaten warm. But it's also great at room temp. Or even straight out of the fridge the next day. 

It may be the most versatile warm salad in the universe.

It's great with cheese crumbled on – queso fresco or cotija, for a Mexican or modern Tex-Mex feel. Feta gives it a Greek accent. Shaved ricotta salata spins it Italian, especially if you make it with basil. Try cilantro, if you want to be more Mexican, or parsley for more Greek. Or mint. It's a salad without borders.

 

Leaving off the cheese sacrifices nothing – and makes it vegan.

It's fabulous as a starter or main course salad on its own. Serve it next to or under some grilled fish or chicken or lamb (or beef or pork or tofu . . . ) and you've got a gorgeous, cheffy main course. 

See what I mean? It's versatile. 

Don't feel like grilling the corn? Don't worry – just cut it raw off the cob and toss it in with the squash. Want to use more of one vegetable and less of another? Go ahead – it's a free country. Use balsamic or red wine vinegar in place of the sherry vinegar if you like. Throw in a handful of toasted pine nuts, or a spoonful of leftover basil. Serve it on a bed of quinoa or lentils or arugula. Or toss some arugula or microgreens on top. 

It's your salad. Now go for it.

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How to be blown away by your own gazpacho

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If you cook a lot, you've probably made gazpacho before. Maybe you've even made it dozens of times. But how often has it blown you away?

Just as I thought.

And just as we're heading into prime tomato season, it seems the right time to give the perennially popular cold soup – whose birthplace is southern Spain – a fresh look. As I wrote in a story that snagged me a James Beard Journalism Award some years ago, the soup's roots go back a long way: It was born sometime between the 7th and 13th centuries (depending on who you ask). In any case, it pretty clearly predates the arrival of tomatoes in Europe, which may come as a surprise to anyone who knows gazpacho as a cold tomato soup with cucumbers and peppers thrown in. In fact, gazpacho was originally a cold soup of pounded bread, garlic and salt with olive oil and vinegar pounded in. Some of those ingredients are often forgotten by modern American cooks, which is one of the many reasons gazpacho so often falls flat. Bread is essential for body, garlic for a little bite and vinegar for zing; a olive oil adds silkiness and its own fruity personality. 

In the summertime, when the weather's hot and tomatoes are bursting with flavor, gazpacho is one of my favorite things to make and eat. 

I approach it one of two ways. If I want a quick-as-possible version, I soak bread in sherry vinegar, toss it in the food processor with chopped tomatoes, cucumbers, a red bell pepper, a little water, garlic, salt and a pinch of red pepper, give it a whirl and serve it right away with a couple of ice cubes in the bowl. Chopped cucumber, peppers and maybe scallions go on top as garnishes. It's pretty damn good.

Gazpacho garnishes tight.jpg

 

But if I want a version that's absolutely stunning, I take just a couple of extra steps – peeling and seeding the tomatoes, straining the intensely-flavored juice that runs out of them and adding that to the sherry vinegar-soaking bread. I use a vegetable peeler to peel the red bell pepper. And after I purée the soup in the food processor, I give it a whirl with an immersion blender, to make it super-smooth and silky. The few minutes extra results in a gazpacho that's out-of-this-world elegant. 

A great Andalusian gazpacho depends on two things: ripe tomatoes with fabulous flavor, and the right balance of ingredients – including the vinegar and olive oil. If you get your hands on great tomatoes and use them in this recipe, I'm pretty sure you'll be blown away: 

Either way, I generally use the same or garnishes. If I make the super-smooth version, I'll take more care by dicing them finely rather then chopping them in a hurry – and sometimes add radishes and/or avocados. I can't think of a more stunning vegan summertime starter.

You can also follow the lead of chefs, and get all creative with the garnishes. Want to go super-splashy, maybe for a special dinner party? Top each bowl with a spoonful of lump crabmeat or diced cooked shrimp (or boiled tiny bay shrimp), plus some diced ripe avocado and a few pretty sprigs of frisée.

Whether you go the super-smooth route or the quicker route, I think you'll love it. Go ahead: Give it a whirl! 

 RECIPE: Gazpacho Sevillano

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Cookbook review: 'Lucky Peach 101 Easy Asian Recipes' gets three gold wontons

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Shrimp-and-chive wontons bursting with gingery flavor. Fried rice that's even more delicious than what you get in most Chinese restaurants. A foolproof choose-your-veg master recipe for stir-fried greens with whole garlic. The moment (many months ago) I got my hands on Lucky Peach 101 Easy Asian Recipes by Peter Meehan and the editors of Lucky Peach, I felt it was a book meant for border-free cooks. As soon as I started putting its recipes to the test, I was certain of it. 

But it gets even better: When I took the first bite of Meehan's crisp-skinned, honey-colored, incredibly succulent and flavorful Chinese lacquered roast chicken, I was completely over the moon. This recipe, this book are life-changing. 

Asian cooking can be daunting to Western cooks – including pretty experienced ones. But jump into 101 Easy Asian Recipes and start cooking, even pretty casually, and you'll quickly feel you're getting the hang of stir-frying, wonton making and more. Meehan keeps the instructions clear and simple, and the recipes are appealing and uncluttered. As promised, they are easy. 

Chineasy Cucumber Salad from Lucky Peach 101 Easy Asian Recipes

His "Chineasy" cucumber salad – with a lovely touch of sesame and crushed peanuts – is a case in point. It came together in a flash, and it was so nice I gobbled it up all by myself, though it was certainly big enough for two. Sound good? Here's the recipe:

Meehan tends to do without explanations of whether a recipe is Indonesian or Chinese or Korean, or from a specific region of Thailand or Japan, going instead with a looser fusion-y feel. Somehow, the dishes I've been most attracted to feel pretty Chinese. 

Not that all are perfect as printed; among the seven recipes I tested, I had to make some tweaks here and there, which are reflected in the adapted versions you'll find here at Cooks Without Borders. After nearly ruining a pan when making the lacquered roast chicken, for instance, I added an instruction to line the baking sheet with foil. Small detail, though, when the technique – simply combining soy sauce and honey and painting it onto the bird a couple days in advance, then roasting without even flipping it over – is so miraculously good. 

A recipe for stir-fried asparagus worked beautifully, though it yielded twice as much sauce needed for one bunch of asparagus. Easy fix: I doubled the veg. (As you can see, it's still plenty saucy!)

In any case, there's so much inside that's so great that I highly recommend the book to anyone who's even vaguely interested. From its pages, you'll learn to master fried rice. (Here's the recipe:)

And pick up the basic stir-fry technique for Chinese greens. 

Lucky Peach's master recipe for greens with whole garlic is meant for pea greens, spinach or bok choy. I used baby bok choy with excellent results (can't wait to get my hands on some pea greens!).

You can even amaze your friends with shrimp-and-chive wontons. Wow – these turned out so great, I couldn't believe I made them. And I can't wait to riff on the filling, which was gingery and spot-on.

OK, if we want to split hairs, there was a editing error that might have derailed a less-than-confident cook: The recipe called for square wonton wrappers, but the step-by-step illustration showed how to work with round ones, a completely different routine. (Our adapted recipe shows you how to use the square ones the recipe calls for.) Also, the wontons seemed like they really needed to be served with sauce on them or in a soup, rather than just sent out naked on a serving platter with the dipping sauce, as the book suggests. 

Plated wontons.jpg

I poured some dipping sauce on each serving, which struck me as a little nicer. Um, yeah – pretty great. Check it out:

In a future post, I'll tweak the dumplings, fine-tuning the dipping sauce as well, until they're, you know, off-the-charts crazy-good. 

There's still much more I want to explore in 101 Easy Asian Recipes. A recipe for okonomiyaki – the Japanese cabbage-and-seafood pancake that's on its way to cult status. Thai-style lettuce cups that look delicious. Lion's head meatballs, that Shanghainese favorite. Oyokodon, a homey, Japanese comfort dish of custardy eggs and chicken. And many more.

Of the 101 recipes, there are only two desserts. One is egg custard tarts. The other is oranges. Yes, oranges. "The deal with dessert in the scheme of easy Asian cooking," writes Meehan, "is that you are NOT MAKING IT, not in the 'easy' French way of throwing together a last-minute clafoutis. You are serving fruit. Cut-up fruit if you've got the time."

You see, he's serious about the easy thing. And he has an irresistible breezy writing style that makes the book fun to work with. 

What can I say? Check out the recipes here and the stories about them at Cooks Without Borders. Make one or two that sound appealing. If you love them as much as I did, you'll want to gift yourself with the book faster than you can say dashimaki tamago. 

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Summer dessert slam-dunk: Make this dazzling (and fool-proof!) stone-fruit tart

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After many a summer afternoon spent pitting peaches, slicing fruit, testing crusts and going back to the drawing board, I've finally got it: a stone fruit tart that's more than just beautiful. This one has that elusive quality we're all about at Cooks Without Borders: It's crazy good.

There are definitely crusts that are quicker to put together, but this one – my go-to short crust, adapted from Lindsey Shere's Chez Panisse Desserts – is preternaturally tender and buttery. Seriously, you won't believe how great it is. Though it takes some time (you'll want to start it in the morning, or the day before), there's not a lot of work involved, it's all about resting and chilling the dough. Best of all, it's easy and fool-proof: no rolling involved; you just press it into the tart pan.

Here's how easy it is: Combine flour, salt, lemon zest and a touch of sugar. Add butter, cut into pieces, and work the butter in with your fingers till it looks like this. Sprinkle on a tablespoon of water mixed with half a teaspoon of vanilla, work that in, gather it in a ball, wrap it in plastic, and chill it half an hour.

Now flatten the ball, set it in the tart pan, and use your fingers and palms to flatten it completely and press it into the corners. Keeping flattening and pressing, moving the dough around with your palms and fingers, until it evenly covers the pan. If it seems like it won't work, or it's not enough dough, or whatever, don't worry – it will work. When you're done it will look like this. Poke some holes it with a fork (that's called "docking" the crust, so bubbles don't form under it as it bakes), cover it with foil and stick it in the freezer half an hour or overnight. 

Bake it in a 375 degree oven till it's golden brown. Let it cool slightly, and you're ready to fill it.

Now the real fun begins. Spoon some preserves on the bottom of the crust: peach, apricot or plum, according to your taste and the stone fruit you're using, and spread it around. Gather your stone fruit: I used nectarines, black plums and apricots for this one. Peaches are great too, of course. If you can't decide between peaches and nectarines, consider that nectarines don't have to be peeled (neither do plums or apricots). Pit then and slice them into six or eight wedges each, depending on the size of the fruit. I used medium-small nectarines, and cut them each into six wedges; same for the apricots. 

Arrange the slices, starting with the outer edge of the tart, around the periphery, skin-side down, making them stand up against the edge of the crust as vertically as you can (which may be not very). 

Make another row, using a different fruit if you like (or the same one – whatever, it's your tart!). Use that second row to nudge the first row up vertically. I used nectarines on the outside row, then plums. Then do another inside that one: I used apricots. Then another, then fill in the middle, just standing them up any which way. 

Drizzle melted butter over the fruit, sprinkle it with sugar, then sprinkle it with thyme leaves, if you like. I love that, but if you don't like the idea of herbs on your fruit, you can just leave it off – or add a different kind of depth by cooking the butter before drizzling until it's browned and nutty-tasting. A note about the sugar: I only used a tablespoon, resulting in a tart with bright fruit flavor. It was just right for me, but I wondered if it was on the tart side for others. My friends and Thierry – who has a serious sweet tooth – said it was just right for them; they wouldn't want more sugar. If you like things on the sweeter side, use 1 1/2 or 2 tablespoons.

Into the oven it goes; half an hour later it comes out.

Pretty, ain't she? You can serve it a little warm, or completely cooled; it's great for entertaining, as you can make it in the morning, if you like, and let it sit all day. Serve it just like that, naked, or with a scoop of vanilla ice cream, or maybe a dollop of lightly sweetened crème fraîche.

Happy summer.

 

 

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Did someone say 'butterflied leg of lamb'? Fire up the grill for a dreamy Mediterranean dinner

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Border-free cooks, this may be the perfect summer dinner – especially if you're in the mood for Mediterranean flavors. Grilled butterflied leg of lamb, with asparagus spears thrown over the coals at the same time. A couple of fabulous salads to start, from the James Beard Award-winning cookbook Zahav: A World of Israeli Cooking. A gorgeous tart to make the most of sweet-and-ripe summer stone fruit. 

It's ideal for laid-back entertaining (eat outside!) as nearly everything can be done ahead. 

Friends were coming over last night, and I knew we'd want to relax and hang out, maybe have some nibbles before dinner and a glass or three of rosé before I lighted the charcoal on my old-fashioned Weber. A butterflied leg of lamb on the grill sounded about the right speed; I've been craving summer's char. 

Flipping through Zahav, I happened upon a couple of salads that spoke to me.

The first was quinoa, pea and mint tabbouleh. Irresistible, right? So smart of chef Michael Solomonov (who wrote the book with Steven Cook) to swap quinoa for the traditional bulgur wheat, and toss in peas to play with the mint. No need to use fresh peas when frozen ones (so stress-free) do just fine. 

The dish was as wonderful as I'd hoped – and then some.  I'm going to make it again, pronto. The recipe serves 4 to 6, but next time I'll probably double it so I have some left over for the next day. So good! I can't wait for you to try it and tell me what you think.

I served that as a first course before the lamb, but first we had nibbles: some marinated gigante beans I found at the olive bar at Whole Foods (speared with toothpicks – crazy, right?); spicy pickled okra (also from the olive bar); roasted salted cashews; and Castelvetrano olives (my faves).

But the star nibble was charred eggplant salad from the Zahav cookbook. To make it, you char halved eggplants on a grill or stovetop grill – I used the cast-iron grill that fits right on my stovetop – cut-side down, until the flesh is "like pudding" in texture. It took a long time – about 45 minutes. Alternatively, you can do it under a broiler (cut-side up). Scoop out the flesh (discarding the charred exterior), and use a spoon to beat it to creaminess with minced raw garlic and olive oil; then you stir in salt. The recipe called for topping it with half a cup of chopped fresh parsley, but that turned out to be too much; I cut it down to a quarter cup, stirring half of it into the salad and using the rest as garnish on top – just right.

It was pretty delicious – the proportions were otherwise perfect – and I served it with triangles of whole-wheat pita bread toasted in the oven. I felt it would be even better with a zing of acid, so I squeeze in half a lemon, and it went from delicious to dreamy. 

If you own the cookbook, you might notice that the photo with the eggplant salad recipe is more reddish in color than mine turned out, flecked with something that looks like small bits of roasted red pepper or tomato. Hmmm. Very intriguing. There is a variation offered: adding a cup of tehina sauce turns the salad into baba ganoush (eager to try!). But no other variation is mentioned. It seems like a recipe ripe for improvisation. 

The timing on this dinner is very easy, as you can made the eggplant salad, tabbouleh and dessert in advance, letting the lamb bask lazily in its marinade (olive oil, red wine vinegar, crushed garlic, chopped mint and cilantro, salt and pepper). Rather than keeping the lamb tied up after it's bones have been removed, you unroll it so it's flattish – that way it absorbs more marinade, cooks more quickly and gets more charred surface. The marinade, meanwhile, is one you can play with, depending on the flavors you want – maybe rosemary and/or thyme instead of mint and cilantro, or more or less garlic, maybe Aleppo pepper or cayenne rather than black pepper. You get the idea. You can marinate it for a couple of hours, or overnight.

Once you're ready to grill and the coals are hot, wipe the marinade off the meat (be sure to bring the meat to room temp for about an hour first) and spread the lamb flat on the grill. Toss some asparagus spears in a little olive oil and salt and throw them on the grill next to the lamb after the lamb has been on there two or three minutes. Keep the grill covered to prevent flare-ups, and flip the meat after 6 or 8 minutes. You'll want to keep an eye on, as it the cooking time can range from 12 to about 22 minutes total depending on how hot the coals are, the size of the cut and how done you like it. If you're going for medium-rare, aim for an internal temperature of about 130. But don't worry if it goes past that – even if it's done to medium it's really good. 

Got it? Here's the recipe:

Once it's done, be sure to let it rest for at least 10 minutes, so it's as juicy and tender as can be. Go ahead and serve the tabbouleh as a first course (or whatever you've dreamed up – the tabbouleh is also really good with the lamb!). By the time you're done, the lamb will have rested long enough. Slice it (across the grain), laying the slices on a platter and pouring over them any juices that have collected on the plate as it rested.  Oh, man – you are in for a treat! Serve it with the asparagus. If you're tired of asparagus, you could just as well have done zucchinis quartered lengthwise on the grill – that would be great with it, too.

Stone fruit tart with thyme

"We should have started with this!" That's usually Thierry's refrain come dessert-time; he has a sweet tooth. I was really, really happy with the way this tart – which starred nectarines, black plums and apricots – turned out.

OK. I'm not going to go on and on about the tart; instead I'll tell you more about it in a separate post. For now, here's the recipe:

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Thrill of the chill: Poached arctic char with dill sauce tastes like summer in Scandinavia

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Oh, wait – it's not summer yet? It's certainly heating up! And when the going gets hot, Scandinavian-style cold poached salmon makes a delicious centerpiece for a dreamy chilled dinner or lunch.

Traditionally, this is done with a whole salmon – and that's fantastic for feeding a crowd. But what if you just want to do a salmon fillet? What if it's just dinner for two? Or what if you go to the fish counter and beautiful arctic char fillets are on sale? 

Grab that fillet and get ready to poach. It's so easy and yield such great results that if you've never done it before, you'll wonder where the technique has been all your life.

 

Lay the fillet skin-side down in a smallish roasting pan (or a fish poacher, if you happen to have one, which I don't). Cover it with cold water and add enough salt to make it taste like the sea. You don't need to add other flavorings to the water, as the both char and salmon have enough lovely flavor on their own; char's flavor is a little more delicate. Bring the water to a simmer, turn off the heat and let the fish sit in the hot water for 25 minutes. Transfer it to a platter and chill it. That's it. Garnish it with slices of lemon and sprigs of dill, if you like. 

You probably don't even need a recipe, but here it is:

A 1 1/4 pound fillet serves two or three; poach two fillets if you want to serve four to six. 

Serve it with a mustardy fresh dill sauce, and asparagus and boiled red potatoes – both are which delicious if they happen to crash into that dill sauce. I nearly forgot: cold cucumber salad's great with it, too!

Here's how to make the cucumber salad: 

And the dill sauce . . . 

And here's the best part. Make the fish and the dill sauce (and cucumber salad, if you're doing that...) in the morning, or the day before. Then you just pull 'em out of the fridge and serve. How's that for chill?

 

 

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Say hello to a super easy (and crazy good!) berry and peach crisp

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In case you haven't noticed, I love love love fruit desserts.

A few days ago I found myself in possession of a fridge drawer full of ripe peaches – placed in chilly purgatory against my better instincts. I get so excited during the season that I overbuy (how is it possible that I'm the only one in the house who snacks on them?), and in Texas almost-summer, they go from ripe to fuggedaboudit in no time flat. So into the fridge they went . . . and joined an embarrassment of blackberries and raspberries. 

Peaches . . . blackberries . . . raspberries . . . hey, wait a minute. Sounds like a crisp just waiting to happen! 

The simple topping on this one, inspired by one I've made a million times from Lindsey Shere's Chez Panisse Desserts, is something every fruit-dessert-lover should have in his or her repertoire. Nothing more than flour, brown and white sugar, salt and a pinch of cinnamon with some slightly softened butter worked in with your fingers and toasted almond slivers added at the end, it puts just the right not-too-sweet crunch on top of luscious fruit. Years ago something gave me the idea (David Lebovitz's blog maybe?) that you can double the amount of crisp and freeze half of it, so if a windfall of ripe peaches or nectarines comes your way, you can quickly achieve a repeat performance. Brilliant.

So, what to do with the fruit? Peel and pit the peaches (about two pounds) and slice 'em into a bowl. Rinse a few baskets of berries (blackberries, or a combo of blackberries and raspberries) and add them to the peaches. Sprinkle a tablespoon of flour and two tablespoons of sugar on the fruit, toss it gently, and turn it into a baking dish. Smooth out the top a little, then distribute the topping over all. Pop it in an 375 degree oven for about 35 minutes, et voilà. The juices, peach and berry wonderfulness mingled together – concentrated and syrupy – bubble up through the crust here and there as it bakes.

Sometimes I serve it warm with vanilla ice cream. Sometimes I whisk some crème fraîche into whipped cream and serve it with a dollop of that. This time I just made good old fashioned whipped cream (lightly sweetened, with a glug of vanilla) and plopped that on each slice.

It was so good, all that juicy fruit bursting with flavor topped by that miraculous layer of brown and buttery crispness, that we nearly wept. 

No one stopped at one piece.

Perhaps you'd like the recipe?

 

 

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Celebrated Dallas restaurateur Monica Greene shares a favorite dish from her Mexico City childhood: ropa vieja

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Monica Greene in the Cooks Without Borders kitchen 

Most Texans see a brisket and think: barbecue. Monica Greene, the legendary Dallas restaurateur, sees a brisket and thinks: ropa vieja.

Everyone in town knows Monica, who visited Cooks Without Borders headquarters (my kitchen!) recently as an honored guest cook. She's no longer in the business; her last (and short-lived) restaurant – Monica's Nueva Cocina – closed in 2012.  Nevertheless, her impact on Dallas' vibrant modern Mexican cooking culture is undeniable and indelible. A pioneer of the movement, she and chef Joanne Bondy introduced the city to dishes like cabrito tacos with apple-plum butter and veal shortribs braised in mole rojo when they opened their ground-breaking restaurant Ciudad in 2000. Her long-running Deep Ellum place Monica's Aca y Alla introduced a generation of Dallasites to the joys of Mexican eating.

What her fans might not know is that Monica, who grew up in Mexico City, also loves to cook.

"Cooking is my favorite thing in the world," she tells me as she slices onions, chops carrots and celery, fills my giant stockpot with water. She's here to make ropa vieja, a shredded cold beef salad that evokes her Mexico City childhood. 

Warm and gregarious as she is, she established her reputation as the face of her restaurants, running dining rooms. "From the very beginning, people told me 'you stay up front.' So when I opened my restaurant, I was a door person. But whenever I had a chance, I'd go work in the kitchen."

The first order of business is getting the brisket trimmed and simmering: It will need nearly three hours to cook to tenderness. Once Monica cuts it in half and drops it into the stockpot of simmering onions, carrots, celery, garlic, herbs and cumin seeds, we take our time and put together all the components of the salad. And yes, we talk – and talk and talk.

She tells me about her childhood in Mexico City, where she was the seventh of eight children: four boys and four girls. Their mother died when she was three, but she has fond memories of gathering with her siblings every evening around the big butcher block in the center of the family kitchen, where their cook would prepare dinner. All eight kids, and inevitably their friends as well.

"Every once in a while," she says, "you got to choose what we had. I wanted to eat two dishes. One was a chicken breast wrapped in an apple. I've never seen it anywhere else in my entire life. You boil the apple to take off the skin, wrap a pounded chicken breast around it and roast it. The other was ropa vieja." 

The dish, which translates as "old clothes,"takes a different form than the well-known Cuban version, in which the braised shredded beef is served warm, like a stew. Monica's Mexico City iteration is a cold salad.  "In the north, they pan-sear and brown and seal the meat, then put it in the oven." In the south, you boil it; the beef serves as a vehicle to the other flavors: pickled onions and tomatoes and avocado and cilantro. "It’s more of a symphony."

Monica slices nopal – a cactus paddle – before boiling it.

She talks, too, over the course of an afternoon – the kind of lazy, cooking afternoon I love – about some of the challenges she has faced in her life. How hard it was to find a job after making the transition from Eduardo Greene more than 20 years ago to Monica Greene, at a time when people didn't know what to make of such an evolution. At that point she had become a beautiful woman (she shows me photos on her phone) and she felt like a woman, but the way she looked and felt didn't match the name on her drivers' license or social security card. 

Now she's reinventing herself once again, taking time off to travel – she has just returned from Mexico (where she reconnected with one of her brothers) and then Bali. She's in Dallas for a week, spending as much time as possible with her grandchildren, and then she's off to her second home, in Aspen, Colorado for a month – or five.  "I realized I'd been working 41 years," she says, "and I wanted to take a sabbatical and pursue my passions. I have to travel – before there's a time I cannot walk up the pyramid." 

She's also writing. "I took a couple of classes at the Aspen Writers Foundation," she tells me. "They were workshops, basically. And I found I have a lot of passion for it." One project is a Mexican cookbook. "I've been working on it for two years." She's also working on a children's book ("I'm an illustrator also") and a book of fiction. "It's partly the story of my life," she says. "I think when most writers write fiction, they're writing about themselves."

Between anecdotes and bons mots, memories of her aging father succumbing to Alzheimer's and a fabulous reunion with a cherished brother, everything starts to come together for the salad. Rounds of purple-edged Bermuda onions turn to tangy pickles, perfumed with allspice and kicked with habanero chile.  A cactus paddle is declawed, sliced, boiled till it taste like desert green beans. Eggs are boiled ("We're going to overcook them a little," she says, "because we're going to do the yolks in powder and the whites in strips.") Lime juice, jalapeño, vinegar, oil and a whole lot of cilantro get whirred up into a dressing that will pull all the flavors together. Rosé is poured, with predictions of tequila flowing in the near future.

"I don't use technique," she says; "I use tradition." Still, it's fun watching her slice Roma tomatoes, using her knife to liberate their hearts full of sees and coax them into flat obedience on the cutting board, ready to be sliced into even strips. "Yes, I can cut fast, but that's like making love too fast."

 Monica pushes the egg yolks through a strainer, crumbles queso fresco, as I slice avocados to her specs. Neighbors show up, hungry and excited. Monica tosses the ropa vieja, then arranges it on a platter. 

It's got everything: richness, depth, wonderful tang, the prodigious perfume of cilantro. You can serve it just like that, Monica says, or spoon some onto round, fried tostadas for some crunch. 

Dinner is just as relaxed as the cooking was. "It's even better with tequila," Monica suggests, and wow! She has brought a bottle of Casa Dragones. Out come the shot glasses, but this is special, for sipping.

She's right. Tequila and ropa vieja is a match made in heaven. 

Her gift to you: This recipe. Hope for leftovers, but don't expect them.

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The chicken that killed Grandpa: It's like Tex-Mex for produce lovers

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I've been making this fabulous, colorful chicken stew as long as I've been a cook, and eating much it longer. It started life as a recipe my mom clipped from The New York Times Magazine sometime around 1970, written by Craig Claiborne, who was the Times' longtime restaurant critic and one of the premier food writers of his time. Some 35 years later, I wrote about the dish for the L.A. Times. As Claiborne conceived it, was called Rose de la Garza's Texas Chicken. And that's what my mom always called it, until her uncle Sam died the night after she served it to him and Aunt Ruth. Ruth and Sam raised my mom after her parents died when she was a wee thing, and we grew up calling them Grandma and Grandpa.  Was it being orphaned that gave my mom her evil sense of humor? Who knows. But after Grandpa died, she renamed the dish in his honor. 

Since moving to Texas in 2009, I started thinking about the dish's Texas origins. With chiles, summer squashes, corn scraped off the cob and lots of cilantro, it feels so right in the Lone Star State – Tex-Mex for produce lovers. I make it frequently in the summer, and always think of Grandpa. And my mom. And her mordant wit.

Originally, you didn't brown the chicken, nor deglaze the pan, nor use cilantro or coriander seed.  But the recipe, which has evolved over time, is basic and easy.  The original called for a whole cut-up chicken – which I still sometimes respect, if someone's coming over who prefers white meat. But Thierry, Wylie and I are all dark meat lovers, so I recently switched to whole legs. Brown them in olive oil, sweat some onion, garlic and serrano chile with toasted coriander and cumin, deglaze the pan, add the chicken back in and dump on top of it a bunch of zucchini, tomatoes and corn. Cover and simmer. When it's halfway done, add fresh cilantro. Simmer some more. That's it. For very little work, you get something pretty delicious. When the okra looks lovely (slim and small), I might slice a bunch of them in half vertically and grill them, adding them at the last minute. 

We're not there yet with the okra, and it's not really tomato season yet. Go ahead, use a can. You'll use fresh ones when they're gorgeous and plentiful. 

I give you the chicken that killed Grandpa. Now you're part of my (crazy!) family.

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Bouri de Bizerte – roasted branzino – is the centerpiece of a culinary excursion to Tunisia

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Our friends Habib Loriot-Bettaieb and Nicola Longford are both wonderful cooks – he's French-Tunisian; she's a Brit. We'd been bugging Habib for ages to cook something Tunisian for us, and last weekend we prevailed: He and Nicola invited us to their townhouse near the Dallas Farmers Market for a night in Tunisia. Cooks Without Borders' second guest cook event!

The centerpiece of the dinner is bouri de Bizerte – "a typical Tunisian dish," says Habib, as he seeds and slices peppers, "perhaps from the northern part, with the French loup de mer." That's the Mediterranean sea bass you may know as branzino. "Bouri is the Tunisian word for it," Habib explains. "It's from the town of Bizerte, where there's a very old harbor. My nanny Zina used to fix stuff like this." 

(Habib is somewhat camera-shy, which is why the visual focus is on the food.)

The dish – simply roasted loup de mer with potatoes, tomatoes, peppers, onions and saffron – is ideal for entertaining, as you can ready everything in advance, then pop the baking dish in the oven and forget about it for 25 minutes. Have a salad or other appetizer ready, and when you're ready for the main course, just transfer the fish and vegetables and the lovely sauce they create to a serving dish.

For the peppers – felfel in Tunisian – Habib uses Anaheims; they're very similar, he says. 

Habib's bouri de Bizerte, almost ready for the oven. Habib later told me he prefers to slice the vegetables differently, a change that's reflected in the (re-tested) recipe.

 

The dish is easy to assemble. In a baking dish or roasting pan, arrange the fish (whole fishes, heads and tails removed, cut in four) with parboiled Yukon Gold potatoes, quartered onions and Roma tomatoes and the sliced peppers. Add some water infused with a luxurious dose of saffron and some melted butter, a good dollop of olive oil, ground cumin, salt and pepper, toss it all gently to coat the fish and vegetables with the spices and such, then lay lemon slices on top. Then pop it into a 400 degree oven. Want to get started? Here's the recipe:

For a first course, Nicola improvises a salad she learned from Habib's stepmother: sliced oranges with radishes, red onion, cured black olives and mint.

Habib and Thierry are opposed to it. "Anything sweet is dessert," Thierry insists; Habib agrees. Nicola and I feel otherwise: The salty cured olives and perfumey mint are so nice with the oranges, and the salad is refreshing and beautiful.

Are you siding with Nicola and me? Use a small, sharp knife to slice a flat spot on the top and bottom of each orange, then cut down and around the sides to remove the pith before slicing it. 

Here's the recipe:

Happily, Habib has his own Tunisian salad to offer. (The more the merrier!) It's a simple dice of tomatoes, onions and cucumbers. Dried mint adds the Tunisian touch, and naturally a dose of good olive oil is involved. Habib uses English hot-house cukes, which he peels, but when I make the salad a few days later to create the recipe, I use small Persian cucumbers, and leave the peel on for a bit more color and texture; I also add Aleppo pepper. You can use either kind of cuke, and any kind of red pepper. Habib and I both used Roma tomatoes, but when we come into tomato season (soon!) I'll make it again with some great heirlooms. 

Habib's Tunisian salad

Habib's Tunisian salad

Oh, another thing: The salad is just right served solo as a starter, but when I recreate it for recipe development purposes, I find myself facing a big bowl of it just as lunchtime rolled around, so I serve it (to myself!) on romaine leaves. That's really nice too, as you can pick up a romaine leaf and eat it with the salad.

Ding! That must be the bouri de Bizerte – ready to serve. Don't forget plenty of crusty bread – you'll want it to sop up those delicious juices! With its gentle spices, it's wonderful with crisp white wine – French Picpoul de Pinet is Habib's favorite with it – or a light red, like a Côte de Rhône. 

I love this dish because you get the wonderful flavor of the fish roasted on the bone, without having to fillet a whole fish at the table, and the saffron and cumin infuses the potatoes and other vegetables with exotic perfume. You do need to remove the bones from each piece and be careful when you eat it – maybe not the dish to serve when you have your boss over for dinner!

"Everybody makes this dish, all over the Mediterranean," says Habib. A slight exaggeration? Perhaps. It's definitely a winner.

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Messy, gorgeous and dramatic: The berry Pavlova is a spring-into-summer stunner

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My friend Jenni has an incredible flair for entertaining. Talk about making things look effortless: You can arrive for a dinner invitation at Jenni's at 7, and she'll just be walking in after a day at the office, bags of groceries in tow. You think: Did I get the day wrong? 

You didn't. She just doesn't fret about doing everything (or anything!) in advance. It'll be 10 p.m. before we eat, you think. And then whooosh!!! – Jenni goes into action, chopping onions, tearing lettuce, tossing things in a pan. Here, you slice the zucchini; I'll do the garlic. Out on the counter goes a fat, oozy burrata, a slick of olive oil, some pesto and prosciutto, crusty bread. Wine corks pop. Flowers land in a vase. Everyone's nibbling, and sipping, and laughing. Somehow before you know it, you're at the table – and wowed by what's before you. A butterflied leg of lamb strewn with rosemary branches. A spectacular salad, grilled asparagus, roasted potatoes. How did she do this? (She shares her delicious secrets at her blog, Jenni's Table.) 

Jenni and her husband Philip are from South Africa; we met through our kids when we all lived in L.A. (Wylie and their son, Max, were playing on opposing baseball teams, and we moms got to talking in the bleachers.) Now they live in London, which is where her family's originally from. Every couple of years we have a reunion in Southwest France, where Jenni's mom has a house, not far from Thierry's family. There we cook out of the garden, bake the orchard into pies. Sisters show up, and their husbands. Everyone's happy in the kitchen. Joy camps out in the garden. We always eat outside.

One of those crazy marvelous evenings at Jenni and Philip's house in the hills of L.A., Jenni whipped up a gorgeous, dramatic dessert: a magnificent Pavlova piled with whipped cream, smothered in berries from the farmer's market and strewn with pistachios. She must have made the Pavlova shell – a giant cushion of French meringue – that morning. Or maybe she'd snuck home at lunchtime, who knows. 

Anyway, impressive as it looks – the thing makes a pretty incredible statement! – it's actually very easy to put together, more time (unattended in a slow oven) than effort. And once you know how to make a Pavlova shell – the base of it – you have the perfect vehicle on which to show off all kinds of summer fruit: ripe peaches, plums and nectaries; macerated apricots with toasted sliced almonds; peaches tossed with blackberries – even something like mango and roasted pineapple showered with grated toasted coconut. Curiously, the Pavlova isn't South African or British; it's Australian, named for the Russian ballerina Anna Pavlova, as the story goes, after one of her tours through Australia. (It may possibly have been invented in the U.S., however.) 

Egg whites and sugar whipped to stiff peaks

But let's get to the important part: how to make one. To create the shell, whip room-temp egg whites till they hold soft peaks, then gradually add sugar, and continue whipping till they hold stiff peaks; whip in vanilla. 

The Pavlova, ready to go into the oven

The Pavlova, ready to go into the oven

Spoon the meringue into a thick circle on a parchment-lined baking sheet, and make a slight depression in the center with a spoon (just so the edges are slightly higher than the center). Put it in a 350-degree oven and immediately turn down the temp to 300. Let it bake for an hour and a half, then open the oven door and let it cool like that. Nothing to it! It'll look all craggy and rough. 

The Pavlova shell: ready to dress up!

But those cracks and crags are just the thing for catching the whipped cream and berries and juices you'll pile on top. 

Jenni tossed berries in sugar and added a spoonful of Banyuls vinegar – very French (and hard to argue with). Lately I've tossed them in Grand Marnier. Whip up a pint of cream and mound it on top. Spoon on those juicy berries and scatter toasted chopped pistachios over them. Or leave out the nuts and fold some chopped fresh mint in the berries. Riffing is encouraged! The Pavlova itself is easy and forgiving, crisp on the outside, like a cloud inside. When you eat it, you swim through a whirl of textures and tastes, cool and creamy and pillowy-crunchy, all bright and sweet and juicy.

Ready for the recipe? Here you go . . .

It's a summer fruit game-changer, for sure.

 

 

 

The chicken and vegetable stir-fry that's all things to all eaters

Here's a dish for those evenings when you want to eat something totally healthy, with a lot of greens, few calories and maximum deliciousness. Sound impossible? What if I tell you there are only about 260 calories in a generous serving? And that it's so delicious, Thierry and Wylie get excited when I whip it up? (And no, 19-year-old Wylie is not watching his weight.) They eat rice or rice noodles with it; I skip the starch. 

If you haven't yet mastered stir-fry technique, this recipe will walk you through it – and it provides a blueprint for you to improvise on later. Change up the vegetables, leaving something out, if you feel like it or can't find it, and adding cut-up asparagus (blanched like the bok choy) or a handful of baby spinach (tossed in at the last minute) or some dried shiitakes that you've reconstituted in boiling water. Or a can of sliced water chestnuts instead of the daikon. If you happen to have gai lan, you can use that instead of the broccoli (no need to peel the stems, though it may need an extra minute to cook).

You could just cut everything up and start tossing thing into a hot wok. But marinating the chicken first in oyster sauce, Shaoxing wine, soy sauce and sesame oil gives it great flavor, and blanching broccoli and bok choy keeps them bright green and makes their time in the wok a no-brainer. 

A touch of sambal oelek (Southeast Asian chile sauce, available in jars in Asian markets) adds the right gentle zing at the end; if you don't have that, you can skip – or substitute Sriricha or a finely chopped small, fresh chile, like a Thai bird chile.

Here's the technique.

Have everything cut up and prepped in advance. Start with the chicken – a couple of skinless, boneless breasts you cut into 1/2-inch slices, and let them marinate while you cut up the rest of the veg.

Next blanch the bok choy, snow peas and broccoli in water with a little baking soda, salt and a piece of smashed ginger. Refresh each in cold water and set them (separately) aside. 

Now you're ready to stir-fry. Heat oil over very high heat in a wok and stir-fry the chicken. Set it aside while you stir-fry ginger, garlic and onion, broccoli, daikon, bok choy, carrots and snow peas, then add in the chicken. Then add a little oyster sauce, sambal oelek and fish sauce, to make a light sauce. Toss it all together over the heat and it's ready to eat. 

Ready to stir-fry? Let's go!

Ottolenghi meets Zahav: Introducing the ultimate hummus recipe

First there was Yotam Ottolenghi and Sami Tamimi's recipe for hummus, published in  Jerusalem: a Cookbook in 2012. Then there was last year's sensation – the hummus tehina from Michael Solomonov and Steven Cook's Zahav: A World of Israeli Cooking, which just won the 2016 James Beard Book Award for Book of the Year. Finally, we had an easy way to make amazingly smooth, creamy and fabulous hummus, and America went nuts over it. 

Now that the excitement is simmering down, I started simmering up: I have at last (after receiving a review copy) given Solomonov's recipe my full attention and put it to the test. 

Yes, it is wonderful. But it's also somewhat more complicated than it needs to be. And there were a few minor issues. It needed more salt, and my chickpeas cooked much quicker than Zahav said they would. The recipe said they would be tender in about an hour; mine were falling apart after 25 minutes; 10 minutes later they were mushy to the point of being waterlogged, resulted in too-watery hummus. Covering the pot of chickpeas simmering over medium heat made the pot overflow the first time I tried it; next time I tried lower heat, but the same thing happened. 

I wondered: How did this differ from Ottolenghi and Tamimi's recipe? So I went back to that one for guidance. They didn't cover the pot. And their estimated time to tenderness was "between 20 and 40 minutes, depending on the type and freshness" of the chickpeas, "sometimes even longer." 

Aha. Two great recipes. How about synthesizing them, taking the best, most thoughtful aspects of each? The goal was to achieve maximum flavor and amazing creamy texture with a minimum of time and effort. (Of course if you want a quickie cheater version using canned garbanzos, you can do that, too.)

The thing that probably makes Solomonov's recipe brilliant for a restaurant actually makes it cumbersome for the home cook: It calls for 1 1/2 cups "basic tehina sauce," which you have to make first. The recipe for it – a whole separate recipe – yields 4 cups.  That's great for a restaurant doing serious volume, but silly for a home cook making one batch – which is already a ginormous amount of hummus. Ottolenghi's recipe simply has you put those ingredients (tahini, garlic, lemon juice) directly into the food processor without making a separate sauce first. However, Solomonov's recipe, in breaking out the tahini sauce separately, does something clever: He has you drop whole cloves of garlic into lemon juice, pulverize them together in a blender, let the mixture sit and mellow for 10 minutes, then you press it through a fine sieve and discard the solids. It's the mellowly garlic-infused lemon juice that goes into the tahini. 

Great effect, but it's kind of a pain in the butt. I found a compromise: While the chickpeas are simmering, you crush the garlic through a press into lemon juice and let it sit and mellow till the chickpeas are tender. No need for straining, pressing, discarding. 

So here's how it goes: You soak the chickpeas overnight, with a teaspoon of baking soda to start breaking down the garbanzo skins so you get that amazingly smooth texture. Next day drain and rinse them, and simmer them (uncovered) in a lot of water with another teaspoon of baking soda. Drain them and purée in a food processor. With the motor still running, add tahini, the lemon juice-and-crushed-garlic mixture, salt and a few tablespoons of ice water. And let it run and run – until the hummus is incredibly smooth, creamy and light. 

Wow, is it incredible – wonderfully warm, nutty and vibrant. It almost seems alive.  You will be licking your spoons and rubber scrapers like a kid with Tollhouse cookie dough. Such a simple food, and such an amazing one. 

 

 

 

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How to be French: First get your hands on some duck legs

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Have you ever wanted to be French? It's not that hard. Here's how to do it without breaking a sweat.

First get your hands on some duck legs, maybe six of them, or eight. Finding them is not as challenging as it used to be. 

Open a jar of Dijon mustard. Salt and pepper the duck legs and rub them with herbes de Provence. Now slather some of the mustard all over them. Sprinkle them liberally with panko, then drizzle a little melted butter over them. Slide the duck legs into a slow oven and forget about them for an hour and a half. Take them out.

Et voilà. Now you are French. I don't even need to tell you to grab a glass of red wine, as you are already French. 

If you're feeling contrary (hey – you must be French!) you can leave out the herbes de Provence. 

It was my friend Regina Schrambling who created this dish. Regina credits the great cookbook author Madeleine Kamman, citing a Kamman recipe for Dijon-rubbed duck legs sans herbes de Provence, and with standard bread crumbs instead of panko. But I love Regina's Reginafication of it; the herbes de Provence definitely add that certain je ne sais quoi. 

It's a great dish for entertaining, as it requires minimal effort yet delivers fabulous flavor and marvelous crunch. Plus you shove it in the oven and forget it, so it's absolutely stress-free. 

Because you're French, if it's a proper dinner you're scheming, you'll start with asparagus vinaigrette or leeks vinaigrette or an artichoke vinaigrette.

Or begin with céleri remoulade or a little frisée salad with walnuts and Roquefort, and serve some butter-braised asparagus avec. Just use this recipe and substitute frisée for the escarole. You could roast some potatoes in duck fat, if you had it – which you will after you make the duck legs, so next time. Haricots verts blanched then finished in butter are very French too, and here's a bonus: You could serve any old green beans and call them haricots verts. 

If you want to blow your friends' minds and be super-French, serve a salad after the duck legs, then some cheese, then some fruit. 

Or make a lemon-raspberry tart, and call it a day.

Bonne nuit.

 

 

 

 

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Ten-minute dazzler: This ginger vinaigrette turns simple fish into a modern Asian show-stopper

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Red snapper with ginger vinaigrette

I wish I could remember exactly what inspired this dish. I'm pretty sure New York chef Jean-Georges Vongerichten published a recipe for salmon with ginger vinaigrette somewhere, at some point, maybe in the 1990s – was it in a cookbook? A cooking magazine? I can't find any trace of it, no matter how much I Google. Did I dream it?

In any case, what I loved about the sauce was that it starred lots of julienned ginger – more ginger than you usually see on one plate. I made it once, Thierry and I both fell in love with it, and I made it many times after that, tweaking and changing it over the years. Lime juice, fish sauce and scallions (not in the original) now come into play. It didn't take too long to realize it's spectacular on just about any kind of fish: Not just salmon, but tuna, halibut, snapper, scallops, shrimp – even fish with serious personality, like mackerel. 

Did I mention it's super-easy to make, and fabulously healthy? It's ideal for a light and festive dinner for two, or as the centerpiece of an elegant dinner party. 

 

The genius of it is the ginger vinaigrette, which comes together in no time flat, but you can even make in advance, which is especially handy if you're entertaining. Just whisk together lime juice, rice vinegar, fish sauce, soy sauce, olive oil and toasted sesame oil, then add sliced scallions, chopped cilantro and julienned ginger. If you're making it more than a few minutes ahead of time, wait till the last minute to add the cilantro.

Seared halibut in ginger vinaigrette

Last weekend I found some gorgeous halibut fillets on sale (it's usually so expensive!). After a couple days of seriously exaggerated eating, I wanted to make something light, lovely and easy for a relaxed dinner at home with Thierry. Halibut sounded luxurious, to boot.

It's really easy to overcook halibut, making it kind of dense and hard. But if you salt and pepper it, sear it in an oven-proof skillet in a little hot olive oil (four minutes skin-side up, two and a half minutes skin-side down), then finish it for three minutes in a 400-degree oven, it comes out absolutely perfect: lightly seared on the outside, silky and wonderful on the inside. Its delicate flavor is gorgeous with the ginger vinaigrette, which you just spoon onto a couple plates while the fish finishes in the oven. Set the fillets on top of the sauce when it comes out. 

We had it with roasted asparagus and radishes, which took on a whole new dimension as it crashed happily into the vinaigrette on the plate. Loved it!

 

But it doesn't have to be halibut, and it doesn't have to be seared. Grilling season is starting, and just about any kind of grilled fish sings with this, from tuna to snapper to mackerel – or skewered shrimp! Ditto fish done in a pan (scallops, salmon) or roasted in the oven (branzino!). 

Intrigued? Here's the halibut recipe:

Or maybe you want to try it with a different kind of fish. And you know what? I'm thinking it would also be great on grilled or seared chicken breasts. Here's the recipe for just the vinaigrette:

Please let us know you you like it!

 

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A million delicious ways to put asparagus on your springtime table (including some new ones!)

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Goodbye, Brussels sprouts. Hello, asparagus – springtime's A-list vegetable.

Of course fava beans, English peas and artichokes rock the season as well, but asparagus stands apart, as it's so abundant and easy to get along with. If asparagus were as expensive as it was once upon a time, we'd likely celebrate it as a luxury, up there with morels and ramps and fiddlehead ferns. But it's not – which is why it finds a starring role on my table several times a week when it's in season.

There are a million delicious things you can do with it, from steaming to roasting to grilling to braising, sautéeing or stir-frying – even shaving the stalks with a peeler and adding them raw to a salad.

Most traditional is steaming it – in one of those upright baskets. I've never owned one; instead I trim the ends, use a vegetable peeler to peel the stalks halfway up or more, lay them flat in a wide pan and simmer them in salted water. After draining the stalks well, you can dress them in butter and serve them warm or send them to the table with a fluffy, lemony hollandaise. Or dress them in vinaigrette (that's lovely served warm, at room temp or chilled). Or keep them naked, chill 'em and serve with mayo. 

Easiest is roasting asparagus. A turn in the oven gives it a completely different character, no less delicious. Just snap off the tough bottoms or trim them with a knife, lay them on a baking sheet with a teaspoon or so of olive oil and a sprinkle of salt, roll the stalks around to coat them, and roast for 17 minutes (for stalks of medium thickness) at 400 degrees F.

Grilling is nearly as easy: Brush the stalks or roll them around in a little olive oil, sprinkle with salt, toss them on the grill or a hot grill pan and cook until they're just tender.

One mistake people (including home cooks and many a restaurant) often make: undercooking them. They shouldn't be crunchy; they need to be tender. How to know when they're done? Use tongs to lift them up by the middle of the stalk. When they're done, they'll droop a bit on either side. 

Roasted asparagus and radishes from Steven Satterfield's Root to Leaf cookbook

Last spring I fell in love with Steven Satterfield's recipe for roasted asparagus with green garlic and radishes, from his then-just-published cookbook Root to Leaf: A Southern Chef Cooks Through the Seasons. I haven't been able to find green garlic where I live in North Texas, so used regular garlic, Satterfield's suggested substitution. Simple and fabulous, the dish instantly became a regular player in my spring repertoire. Best of all, it's so easy to put together you don't even really need the recipe: Just cut the asparagus into 1 1/2-inch lengths, cut the radishes into quarters and toss both in a bowl with a little olive oil, finely chopped garlic, salt and pepper. Spread them on a baking sheet, baking dish or roasting pan and roast in a 400 degree oven till they're just tender, about 15 minutes. Want more specifics? Here's the adapted recipe:

Last weekend I fell in love again: With a technique for braising asparagus in butter I gleaned from a recent story and recipe in the New York Times by David Tanis. 

Butter-braised asparagus with herbs

The technique is brilliant: Place asparagus spears flat in a pan with a good deal of butter and a little water, salt and pepper; cover the pan and cook till the asparagus is just tender. Remove the asparagus and reduce the cooking liquid to nice sauce. Tanis adds lemon zest, lemon juice and chopped herbs, then garnishes the dish with herb leaves. It was super, though I had to tweak the recipe a bit (mine needed more liquid and longer in the pan; I added more water and a little more butter. I'll add an adapted recipe here once have time to retest it (watch this space!). In any case, butter-braising gives the asparagus a rich and luxurious silkiness and this too will become a go-to treatment chez moi. I love the lemon and herb flavors with it, but it should be great without them, too.

Meanwhile, in case you're wondering about the photo that leads off this post, that's a salad of shaved raw asparagus, sautéed asparagus and black lentils from Michael Anthony's V is for Vegetables, which just won a James Beard Foundation Book Award in the category of Vegetable Focused and Vegetarian. Again, this recipe needed some adjustments (more acid in the dressing, for one thing), but it's pretty swell, so I'll tweak and provide an adaptation soon! (I was wowed last fall by Anthony's cooking at Untitled at the Whitney Museum in New York City, so was excited to cook from his book). 

Asparagus with new-wave gribiche

Are you still with me? I want you to have all these asparagus ideas and recipes in one place. Another great way to serve asparagus is with sauce gribiche, whether the new-wave version shown in the photo above, or a slightly more traditional one. Just simmer the stalks in salted water, roast or grill them (as explained earlier in this post), and dress with the gribiche of your choice. Here's the new-wave gribiche recipe:

And here's an adaptation of Judy Rodger's four-minute egg gribiche from The Zuni Cafe Cookbook: 

Just one more direction, and it's a good one: Stir-fry asparagus Chinese-style. I wrote about this version adapted from Lucky Peach 101 Easy Asian Recipes in mid-February, when springtime was still a dream away.

I know you want the recipe. Here you go:

Now let's get cooking!

 

 

 

 

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Artichoke vinaigrette: an easy, elegant, French (and vegan! and healthy! and make-ahead!) appetizer

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Growing up in California, I took fresh artichokes for granted. After all, Castroville – the town that bills itself as "the artichoke capital of the world" – is right there in the central coastal part of the state, not far from Monterey. I used to love stopping there on road trips and seeing the giant concrete artichoke sculpture that greets you at the edge of town.

In the spring and summertime, my mom always steamed artichokes and served them as an appetizer with melted butter to dip the leaves in. I love them even more dipped in mayo, or a mustardy red wine vinaigrette. Wylie loves it with balsamic vinaigrette.

A classic French way to serve artichokes is  à la vinaigrette – that is, actually dressed in the vinaigrette; shallot vinaigrette suits them particularly well. Pouring the sauce over them while they're still warm lets the vinaigrette penetrate the leaves – no additional dipping sauce required. An artichoke vinaigrette is also pretty beautiful. It's great as a sit-down starter at a dinner party or as a sharable treat before the dinner gets started. 

A few years ago, I served boiled artichokes as an appetizer to new friends in Texas, and was surprised that they found them exotic. "How do you eat them?" they asked. We showed them how to pull off a leaf, dip it in sauce, scrape off the meaty part (closest to the crown) with your teeth and discard the rest of the leaf. When all the leaves are gone and only the thin, prickly ones at the heart remain, you pull those off, scrape the fuzz off the crown with a spoon, and eat the heart  – the prize! – which is also delicious dipped in mayo or vinaigrette.

 

Many cooks boil artichokes rather than steaming them. I've prepared them both ways, and find that boiling them in plenty of salted water gives them the best texture. Acidulating the water with lemon juice (as some cooks do to prevent discoloration) is unnecessary; I find the results to be the same with unacidulated water. Instead, after I trim them, I simply rub the cut surfaces with half a lemon.

For a party of four to eight, I often make two artichokes and serve it with another app or two. For a dinner party, you can serve one per person, or for a more casual dinner, one for every two to share.

So, how to trim them? You can get all fancy, and remove the chokes if you want to, but I usually don't. 

Once you do it once or twice, it's easy. Using a sharp serrated knife, slice off the stem, creating a flat surface for the artichoke to rest on. Then slice off the top straight across – removing the tops of the inner few rows of leaves. Next use your fingers to break off the tough row or two of small leaves around the bottom.

 

Finally, use kitchen scissors to snip off any remaining leaf tips (be careful – there's a prickle at the top of each). Rub the cut surfaces with half a lemon and they're ready to cook.

Boil them in lots of salted water in a covered pot. Don't worry if they bob up to the top; flip them over with a spoon once or twice so they cook evenly. While they're cooking, whisk together the vinaigrette. 

Drain the artichokes upside down, then dress them with the vinaigrette. Voilá. Easy, chic, delicious and healthy. And there are a couple of bonuses: You can serve them warm, or make them ahead, serving them chilled or at room temperature. And . . . they're vegan!

Ready to try? Here you go!