Take a Bow, Part Three

Part Three: Something In The Air

So the Red Bird was wonderful--full of flavor, and all that--but I was still thinking of tea-poaching when I walked into Whole Foods and their air-chilled bone-in chicken breasts were on sale. I had seen the air-chilled chicken around but had yet to buy it, thinking it was just overpriced chicken.

Wrong.

(Ginger) Tea-Poached Chicken:

1 bone-in chicken breast, skin and fat removed
4-5 slices fresh ginger, peeled
1 cup water
1 teaspoon sesame oil

Place ginger and water in saucepan, heat to boiling, cover and simmer 10-15 minutes. Strain tea and combine 1/4 cup of tea and 1 teaspoon sesame oil in skillet, bring to boil. Rinse chicken, add to pan and cover. Reduce flame to low setting and simmer for fifteen minutes (ten if you're using air-chilled chicken), then turn off burner and let chicken sit in the pan for another ten to fifteen minutes or until done. Remove chicken to heated plate, strain poaching liquid and spoon over chicken.

This was great with jasmine rice and green beans.

As to the air-chilled chicken: Word. I'm going to use that for the Sopa di Lima next time (see "Cluck, Cluck") and not reduce the chicken stock, since the chicken is--you should excuse the expression--so chicken-y. Why? Must be something in the air. I'm not asking.

But don't worry, Mollie Stone's: I still love your chicken.

©2010, 2014 Laynie Tzena.

Take a Bow, Part Two

Part Two: Now That Is A Red Bird.

It was getting a little crowded in my freezer, and so a chicken breast migrated to the fridge. The next day I was all ready to poach it when I remembered I was out of chicken stock. Or, rather, I read the writing on the wall (er, the container) and thought that since said chicken stock had poached a bird or two, been strained and frozen, poached some more birds, then gone back to the igloo, chances were, it had sung its last song.

My virtual friends assured me there were other options. Nothing really grabbed me, but then I remembered how much I liked tea-smoked scallops (don't tell my rabbi), and I decided to poach it in tea.

Then I opened the wrapper. Skin? Oh, this was the breast from the whole chicken I had bought way back when.

Yes, I know chicken skin is not nutritionally correct, but I happen to love it. So this bird was going to be baked, not poached.

I often use paprika in my scrambled eggs, among other things. But I don't use that much of it, and last time I opened the jar it had seemed a little pale. I had read somewhere that heating spices releases more of their flavor.

Red Bird, or Paprika Chicken:

1 bone-in chicken breast
1 lemon, quartered
2 tablespoons (or more) sweet paprika
Pinch kosher salt

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Rinse and dry chicken. Squeeze lemon on top and bottom of chicken, and under the skin, then rub the lemon into the skin, top, and bottom of the chicken. Heat a skillet on medium heat, add paprika, and warm till just starting to smoke. Cool paprika till safe to handle, then rub into skin, top, and bottom of chicken. Use a lot. (The bird will be red.) Sprinkle chicken with kosher salt, cover with foil, and bake in a glass dish for about 20 minutes, then remove foil and cook about another ten minutes. (Leave foil on if you used a skinless breast.) Test with fork; when the juices run clear, it's done.

Next Time: Gilligan Sent Me.

©2010, 2014 Laynie Tzena.

Take a Bow, Part One

Part One: Green is Good.

Lucky me, to stumble on the Bay Bass Band a few years ago at Old First Church. All these years I'd loved the bass, but never questioned its role as the often invisible anchor of an ensemble. Suddenly here was a band of basses, playing music written or adapted just for bass. And the music was great: the first time, I got to hear Francois Rabbath; the second, Ray Brown. But it was more than that. It was finding amazing music in a place you hadn't thought to look. God bless Barry Green.

I thought of that recently as I noticed a fine bunch of Italian parsley lounging on the top shelf of my refrigerator. Sure, I'd used parsley before--in green drinks, in Joyce Goldstein's wonderful Sephardic eggplant salad. Parsley has graced the top of that miso-soba soup we talked about a while back, and many other things, too. But like the bass, it had never been front and center.

Until now.

Parsley Salad:

For the salad:

Small bunch or 1/2 large bunch Italian parsley

For the pesto:

2 tablespoons chopped Italian parsley
1-2 garlic scapes, 1 stalk green garlic, or 1 garlic clove
Drizzle walnut oil*
Healthy pinch lemon zest
Pinch of salt
Pinch of freshly-ground black pepper

For the dressing:

1 to 2 teaspoons olive oil
1 teaspoon walnut oil
1 teaspoon freshly-squeezed lemon juice
Zest of 1/2 lemon
Pinch of salt
Pinch of freshly-ground black pepper

Rinse and dry the parsley. Mince garlic of choice. Pound pesto ingredients using a mortar and pestle, or blend in a food processor, adding enough oil to achieve desired consistency. If you want to be more traditional, use grated Asigao, Parmesan, Romano, or Dry Jack cheese instead of the oil; you could also add toasted walnuts. I just used the parsley au naturel because I wanted it to be the star for a change, to take a bow.

Whisk together oils, lemon juice and zest and seasonings, add parsley and toss, topped with parsley pesto.

*Yes, I know pesto usually has more oil. But remember, this is served on top of a salad with a dressing on it. If if will make you happy to use more oil, be my guest.

Next Time: Red, I said!

©2010, 2014 Laynie Tzena.

Remember That Steak?

My parents often claimed, after eating a certain steak, that it was good, yes--but not as good as that one steak. Remember that steak?

Ridiculous, I thought.

So, since we all become our parents, I do the same things now:

"I miss pizza with sauce. What do they have against sauce out here?"

"We don't have bagels. We have steamed dinner rolls with a hole in the center."

"Don't get me started about egg rolls." (To which a friend recently replied, "Yes, but we have potstickers." Which is a bit like saying, "Yes, Bobby started seeing Susie/moved to Outer Mongolia/became a Moonie. But look, there's always Sammy. What's wrong with him?")

I still remember the egg rolls at Aisin Goro in Boulder in 19-never mind. The restaurant served just two things: Enormous, wonderful egg rolls and jasmine tea. True, they went out of business--maybe people wanted oolong or lapsang souchong.

Your example here.

But really, life is as much about variation as theme, no? The magic is in the things you discover precisely because you can't create the exact replica of something you tasted.

Maybe. If you don't count Mrs. Craig's brownies.

Mary Craig hailed from Glasgow and, in addition to making Scotch Broth and teaching us the people were Scots and the whisky was Scotch, she made the greatest rum brownies on the face of the earth. I remember my mother asking her to use the flavoring instead of the real stuff, but that's about it. The recipe and everything else but the memory of how delicious they were is gone. I have tried a few times, but haven't found the flavor of hers among my little squares.

Once I told my friend Simone I'd had a great encounter with a guy, the kind where you talk about everything under the sun and leave feeling elated. But we never connected like that again, however much I tried.

"Ah," she said, "The search for the lost conversation."

So was it Mrs. Craig's stories that made the brownies better than anything since?

And what exactly was it about that steak?

©2010, 2012 Laynie Tzena.

Cheers for Kale, or The Amazing Venice

When I met the amazing Venice at the farmers' market on Saturday, her proud papa was asking the Green Gulch folks about kale and chard she might like. I volunteered my old friend Dino kale, explaining to Bill that the leaves were like relief maps and to Venice that this particular item was not to be missed as it was both beautiful and scrumptious. I offered a recipe or two, Bill handed me his card and of course*, he works on Macs and PCs (and would later, when I called him, assure me that my other geek friends were right and the Facebook worm was in fact gone from my computer and no, it was not lurking in some random folder waiting for a second chance). We said our goodbyes, Venice came back to say she was now five, and we sang happy birthday.

Turns out Venice likes kale. Smart girl. When I asked that day what her favorite vegetables were, I learned that the green bean was a popular dinner companion at their house. So I offered a great kale and green bean recipe I'd found online, but as it happens Venice prefers to commune with one vegetable at a time.

Papa Bill eats lots of things, but lamb is not one of them. Meanwhile, Chris at the bank liked the idea of the black bean salad, except for the black beans. No reason you couldn't substitute strips of beef, I told him. Later I realized we could turn that around for le pere de Venice (that's Bill), and substitute beans for the lamb in the tagine we were just talking about (see "Identical Cousins," Part Two). I might have to try that myself, seeing as I have a half-can left of those mystery beans.

*Why "of course"? Because you can find everything at the farmers' market. But you already knew that.

©2010-2014 Laynie Tzena.

International Relations

On the way to make black bean salad at my friend Pam's the other night, I asked if she had any chiles. Nope. And I had forgotten to bring some. So, since the black bean salad we'd had in mind was of the cilantro-jalapeno variety, the question became how to get the heat the chile would normally provide into the salad. I decided to use a healthy pinch of paprika (same family) and some extra black pepper (extended family). And we'd already decided to have soy chorizo with the salad, so that would add some firepower.

Tasting long beans at the Civic Center farmers' market last week, I thought their great, slightly chewy texture would make them a good substitute for corn in a black bean salad. So I brought those along to see. (Pam had corn in the house, so we used that, too.) Also in the bag: purslane, a lemon, a lime, an orange, a red bell pepper, a couple of scallions and a torpedo onion. Oh, and a can of Whole Foods' organic black beans.

Lucky me: Pam turned out to be the Herb and Spice Queen, with an impressive array of dried varieties on hand--a real break since neither of us had fresh cilantro.

She made a strawberry smoothie, which fueled us while she whipped up some yummy mashed potatoes and I got to work on the salad. Here's what greeted us at the finish line.

Long Black Bean Salad:

For the salad:

1/2 can black beans
1 ear of corn or equivalent amount cooked corn
1/2 bunch long beans
1/2 red bell pepper
3-4 stalks (with leaves) purslane
1 scallion, minced, including the greens
1 small clove garlic

For the dressing:

2 tablespoons plus one teaspoon olive oil
1 tablespoon plus one teaspoon lemon juice and lime juice, combined*
Zest of 1/2 lemon
Zest of 1/2 lime
Smidgen Dijon mustard
Healthy pinch dried cilantro
Healthy pinch crushed dried coriander
Healthy pinch paprika
Freshly-ground black pepper
Pinch of salt

Drain beans. (You could reserve the liquid for soup.) If you're starting with fresh corn, shuck, rinse, and cook, then shave kernels off the cob. Steam long beans, then chop into one-inch pieces. Chop purslane and dice red pepper. Mince onion and garlic. Whisk oil, lemon and lime juice, mustard, zests, herbs, and spices together. Add black beans and toss. Add remaining ingredients, toss again, and taste. (I added another squeeze of lime here.)

Pam had mentioned having spinach on hand. So we decided two salads were better than one.

Spinach Meets Orange:

For the salad:

1/2 package baby spinach
1 small head radicchio di Treviso
A few leaves of ancho cress
1/2 orange
1/2 torpedo onion or small amount other red onion

For the dressing:

2 tablespoons plus one teaspoon olive oil
1 tablespoon balsamic vinegar
1 teaspoon fresh orange juice
Healthy pinch orange zest
Smidgen Dijon mustard
Healthy pinch dried mint
Healthy pinch dried basil
Freshly-ground black pepper
Pinch of salt

Rinse, dry, and loosely tear greens. Slice half-orange; remove white pith and seeds; separate into segments. Whisk together oil, vinegar, orange juice, mustard, herbs, and spices. Add spinach and other greens with onion, toss; then add orange segments, toss again, and serve.

Remembering that long black bean salad later, I decided to recreate it. But this time I had a serrano chile along for the ride. I've been roasting them over a gas flame lately. So I did that. And the cilantro? Out of stock. And no dried cilantro flakes, either. So into the mortar and pestle went dried whole coriander, accompanied by some cumin seeds. I used stone-ground mustard this time around for an earthier feeling, and lemon since I was out of limes.

One more thing: Don't use Progresso black beans. Or, at least, not here: When I opened the can I found the wrong baby in the crib. Were they black beans? Some other variety, I suppose. Certainly not what I usually think of, which I suppose is Mexican black beans. But I made the salad anyway, and it tasted just fine. I had a corn tortilla and a bit of yogurt on the side--and a solution to Lamb Tagine au Pere de Venice. Stay tuned.

*Why lemon and lime juice combined? Because I just had one lime on hand.

©2010 Laynie Tzena.

Identical Cousins, or That Reminds Me (Part Two)

Part Two: Don't I Know You From Somewhere?

When I tasted Vesta Flatbread's melt-in-your-mouth lamb sandwich the other night at Porchlight's "Kitchen Confidential" (where I also got to meet one of my heroes, Nikki Silva of the Kitchen Sisters), I immediately thought of my favorite lamb tagine.

Lamb Tagine with Fennel:
(from Hilaire Walden's North African Cooking)

2-1/2 lb. lean shoulder of lamb, cut into 1-1/2 inch cubes
1 onion, grated
2 garlic cloves, crushed
2 tablespoons chopped cilantro
Pinch crushed saffron threads
3/4 teaspoon ground ginger
1/2 teaspoon freshly-ground black pepper
1 cup water
3 fennel bulbs, thickly sliced
2 tablespoons lemon juice
Salt
1 preserved lemon in salt, quartered, rinsed*
1/2 cup kalamata olives

Mix the lamb, onion, garlic, cilantro, and spices together in a heavy, flameproof casserole. Pour the water over the lamb and herbs, bring to a simmer, then cover and cook gently for about 1-1/4 hours until the lamb is almost tender.

Add the fennel, lemon juice, and salt, cover and cook for another 20 minutes or so, until the lamb and fennel are tender. Transfer the lamb and fennel to a warm serving dish. Scatter the preserved lemon and olives over the lamb, cover and keep warm.

If necessary, boil the cooking juice to reduce and thicken it, then pour it over the lamb and fennel and serve.

And go straight to heaven. Do not pass Go, do not collect $200.

Well, it turns out the reason the sandwich put me in mind of the tagine was that it contained lamb, fennel, and kalamata olives.

And speaking of olives: When I saw Dirty Girl's gorgeous radicchio family the other day I realized the Hickory Dickory Chicory salad** had a cousin.

Hickory Dickory Chicory Goes Green:

For the salad:

1 head radicchio di Traviso (the long maroon and green one)
1/2 to 3/4 lb. Castelvetrano olives

For the dressing:

2 tablespoons Spanish or Portuguese olive oil
1 tablespoon fresh lemon juice
Healthy handful grated lemon zest
Small handful chopped lemon basil (optional)
Smidgen of Dijon mustard
Healthy pinch of freshly-ground black pepper
Even tinier pinch of salt than last time

Cut off the very bottom of the treviso, and pull the leaves off the base. Rinse and pat dry, then pile the leaves one on top of the other and slice into strips. Slice strips in half and set aside.

Slice the olives into half-moons.

Whisk the oil, lemon juice and zest, lemon basil, mustard, and pepper together, and taste the dressing. Now add the treviso and toss; add the olives, toss again, and taste, adding salt if necessary. Toss again and serve.

You could also top this with toasted sunflower seeds, for a slightly more distant relative of the "Hickory Dickory Chicory."

*Walden says to discard the preserved lemon flesh, if you want. I include it in the dish--the more preserved lemon, the better, if you ask me.

**See "Identical Cousins, or That Reminds Me, Part One:  How Sweet It Is," http://cookwithlaynie.blogspot.com/2010/06/identical-cousins-or-that-reminds-me-in.html

©2010, 2013, 2014, 2015 Laynie Tzena.