Le Déjeuner a Le Pichet

Continuing in a similar vein to my last post, I made my midday meal today to resemble what I had while dining in Le Pichet – a gruyère sandwich and green salad with toasted hazelnuts and mustard vinaigrette.

Salade Verte
1 small head of butter lettuce
1 handful raw hazelnuts
1 tablespoon walnut oil
1 teaspoon lemon juice
1/2 teaspoon dijon mustard
Salt and pepper to taste

Wash and dry the lettuce leaves. Arrange on a plate. In a small pan, toast the hazelnuts over medium low heat until they give off a fragrance. Remove from the heat and once cool enough to handle, roughly chop the nuts. Sprinkle the nuts over the lettuce leaves. In a small bowl whisk together the lemon juice and mustard. Slowly drizzle in the walnut oil, whisking well to incorporate the ingredients of the dressing. Season with salt and pepper. Pour the vinaigrette over the salad and eat immediately.

Sandwich en Baguette
Good quality French bread
Gruyère
Dijon mustard
Mayonnaise, optional

Slice the baguette lengthwise on one side. Spread dijon mustard on one side and mayonnaise, if desired, on the other. Slice three to four thick slices of gruyère cheese and arrange in the sandwich. Serve alongside the salad. Various meats can be added to the sandwich as well, such as thinly sliced ham, pate, or rare roast beef.

Soba

One of my favorite Japanese food items is soba. The pure simplicity of these thin buckwheat noodles is incredible. Soba can be eaten in soup or more typically, served cold and dipped in sauce.

Soba can be found in most Asian markets and some organic groceries. There is a precision involved in cooking soba to maintain the chewy texture and unique flavor. Boil a pot of water, then add the dried soba noodles, fanning them out as you place them in the water. Lower the heat so the water is simmering rather than a rolling boil. Stir the noodles every so often with a pair of chopsticks. Cook the noodles for five to seven minutes. Place a colander in the sink and drain the noodles. Return the noodles to the pot and fill with cold, running water. Washing the noodles under the water until the water in the pot runs clear. This washing process removes the excess starch from the soba.

To serve the soba, arrange the noodles on a plate in small bundles. Pour pre-made soba dipping sauce, or soba tsuyu, into small bowls. This can be found at Asian markets or made from scratch using bonito flakes, kombu seaweed, mirin and soy sauce. I recommend locating the packaged variety. Serve the dipping sauce with various condiments, such as chopped green onions, grated fresh ginger and toasted sesame seeds, which can be added to the soba tsuyu. Briefly dip each bundle of soba noodles into the sauce and eat immediately. The delicate flavor of the soba and the fresh taste of the sauce and condiments provide a light and satisfying meal.

Cannolis, Sicilian Recipe for American Television

Mao and I have been indulging in the Sopranos as of late. We are always behind in the television trends. Watching an hour of Italian American melodrama typically results in me cooking some variation of food consumed on the show. We’ve had baked ziti several times. Now I am venturing into the pastry world and making cannolis. A discovery of pre-made cannoli shells at City Market made this an easy project. One can make homemade shells, but why bother with unnecessary work?

Cannolis
1 box cannoli shells
2 pounds ricotta
1/2 cup powdered sugar
1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 bar dark chocolate

Using an electric mixer or food processor, combine the ricotta, sugar, and vanilla extract. Once the cheese filling is well blended, gently fold in shaved chocolate or chocolate chips. Fill a pastry bag (or Ziploc bag with the tip cut off) with the cheese mixture and pipe into the pastry shells.  Serve immediately or chill in the refrigerator. Best enjoyed while watching a blood soaked episode of the Sopranos. Nothing tempers mobster drama like Italian pastry.

Fruit Tart

This is a conglomeration of various recipes I found on Epicurious.

Crust
1/2 cup unhusked hazelnuts
1 1/2 cups all purpose flour
2 tablespoons sugar
pinch of salt
6 tablespoons butter, melted

Filling
2 egg yolks
1/4 cup sugar
1/4 cup flour
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
1 cup whole milk

Glaze
1/2 cup apricot jam
1 tablespoon water

Various fresh fruits, like berries, plums, kiwis, figs and apricots

To make the tart crust, pulse the hazelnuts and 1/2 cup flour in a food processor until fine. Add the hazelnut flour to a large bowl and whisk in the remaining 1 cup of flour, pinch of salt and sugar. Add the melted butter to the dry mixture and combine with your fingers until the texture is crumbly. Pour the dough into a tart pan with a removable bottom, pressing the mixture firmly onto the bottom and sides of the pan. Freeze the crust for 30 minutes. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees, then bake the tart for 35 minutes. Set aside until the filling it ready.

For the filling, in a large bowl combine the egg yolks, sugar, flour and vanilla extract. Whisk until the mixture is pale and thick. In a small saucepan heat the whole milk until it is almost boiling. Slowly pour the heated milk into the egg mixture, making sure to continuously whisk so that the eggs do not cook. Return the custard to the saucepan over low heat and whisk for an additional two minutes to thicken the mixture. Remove from the heat and pour the custard into a bowl and cover the filling with a layer of plastic wrap to prevent a skin from forming. Chill in the refrigerator.

In a small saucepan combine the apricot jam and water, whisking until the mixture liquifies. Using a pastry brush, brush a thin layer of the glaze onto the cooled tart crust. Allow the glaze to set for a few minutes. Spoon the cooled filling into the crust, spreading the mixture so it fills the crust evenly and smoothly. Arrange various fresh fruits on top of the filling. Brush a light layer of the glaze on top of the fruit. Serve it as a dessert or for breakfast.

Tomatillo Salsa

Ridiculously hot weather leads to me eating copious amounts of popsicles (see previous post) or consuming large amounts of spicy salsa. Tomatillos are in season this time of the year and refreshing when the temperatures hit the nineties.

Tomatillo Salsa
1 lb of fresh tomatillos
1 white onion
4 cloves of garlic
1 jalapeño
1 lime
1 cup fresh cilantro
Salt and pepper to taste
Hot sauce, preferably Cholula

Remove the husks from the tomatillos and rinse the fruit under water. To add a level of smokiness to your salsa, you can char the tomatillos on the stove for a few minutes. If you have an electric range, cover a burner with aluminum foil and over high heat cook the tomatillos until they are slightly charred. In a large food processor, add the tomatillos, onion, garlic, jalapeño (seeds and ribs removed if you are less inclined to spice), juice of one lime, and cilantro. Pulse until slightly chunky. Season with salt and pepper and the desired amount of hot sauce. Pulse once more. Pour the salsa into a bowl and chill in the refrigerator for an hour, then serve with tortilla chips or raw vegetables.

Popsicles and Paletas

Lately I have become obsessed with all things popsicle. I suppose this obsession has been dormant for awhile, as I was a popsicle fiend as a kid, but since moving to PDX I have craved all matter of iced treats. It started with Sol Pops at the Saturdays farmers’ market, but soon morphed into an uncontrollable urge to eat all meals in frozen form. It has not helped that summer temperatures here are well into the nineties and inching towards over a hundred. So to satiate my craving for popsicles and to save us some money, I have been making homemade versions nonstop. Once I located popsicle molds (at Powell’s no less), I set about freezing the contents of our refrigerator and then moved on to other recipes. Popsicles can be as simple as freezing store bought yogurt or fruit juices or more elaborate concoctions. Here are some ideas:

Blackberry Nectarine Yogurt Popsicles
1 cup plain Greek yogurt
Handful of fresh or frozen blackberries
1 small nectarine, chopped
Honey, to taste

In a small bowl, add the yogurt and enough honey to sweeten to your liking. In a blender, puree the blackberries and nectarine. Slowly fold the pureed fruit mixture into the yogurt. Pour into popsicle molds and freeze for at least four hours.

Rice Pudding Popsicles
1 cup rice pudding
1/2 cup skim milk
Dash of Cinnamon

In a small bowl whisk together the pudding, milk and cinnamon until it reaches a soupy consistency. Pour into molds and freeze for five hours. You can substitute any pudding for the recipe. Kozy Shack makes several good, gelatin-free varieties. Chocolate with a hint of cinnamon and cayenne pepper  or a swirled chocolate and vanilla are some other ideas.

Mango Chili Lime Popsicles
1 mango, diced
1 lime
Chili powder
Salt

Add the mango and the juice of one lime to a blender. Add salt and chili powder to your liking. Puree the mixture. Add additional seasoning if necessary. If the mango is not sweet enough, add a splash of orange juice. Puree a second time, then add the mixture to popsicle molds and freeze for several hours.

Kiwi Lime Popsicles
2 green kiwis
2 golden kiwis
1 lime

Scoop the flesh from the four kiwis. Add the fruit and the juice of one lime into a blender. Puree until smooth. Fill molds and freeze until the popsicles set.

Jalapeno Peach Popsicles
1 cup diced fresh peaches
1/4 cup orange juice
1 diced jalapeno, seeds removed

Combine all the ingredients in a blender and pulse until smooth. If the peaches are not sweet enough, add a dash of sugar to the mixture. Pour into molds and freeze for several hours.

Cherry Chip Yogurt Popsicles
1 cup plain Greek yogurt
Handful fresh cherries
1 teaspoon sugar
Dark chocolate

In a small bowl combine the yogurt and sugar. Pit the cherries and chop into small pieces. Grate as much chocolate as desired. Fold the fruit and chocolate into the yogurt mixture. Pour into molds and freeze several hours.

Other ideas: any combination of fruit, juice and yogurt; kefir; simple syrup flavored water; coffee.

Vegetarian Pho

One of my absolute favorite meals is really any take on Asian noodle soup, particularly Vietnamese pho. When the temperatures outside begin to drop, this is the first thing I make to counteract the cold and rain is this soup. It is hard to find a vegetarian version of pho in most Vietnamese restaurants, though I have come across it at some food carts. But this recipe is so simple that I often make several pots of it and store it in the fridge or freezer as a future remedy against the rain.

Vegetarian Pho
1 yellow onion
3 shallots
5 cloves of garlic
1 small piece of fresh ginger
3 cinnamon sticks
4 pods of star anise
8 cloves
Vegetable stock, preferrably Knorr bouillon
Soy sauce
1 package rice noodles

Condiments
Scallions
Fresh herbs, such as mint, basil and cilantro
Sriracha chili paste
Hoisin sauce
Slices of lime

Set a large, deep pot on high heat on the stove. Cut the onion and shallots in half, making sure to leave the peels on the vegetables. Add the garlic cloves, again leaving the peel intact as well as the onion and shallots to the pot. Coarsely slice the ginger and add to the pot. Finally, add the whole spices. Char the ingredients for several minutes. This gives depth to the broth. Meanwhile, prepare the vegetable stock by boiling several cups of water in a separate pot. Add one cube of vegetable bouillon and allow to dissolve. Add enough stock to the charred vegetables and spices to cover the ingredients by several inches. Add several tablespoons of soy sauce. Cover the pot and let the broth simmer for twenty-five minutes.

While waiting for the broth, cook the rice noodles. The best noodles for pho are a thin, flat variety from Thailand, most often used in Pad Thai. Boil a small pot of water. Place the noodles in a large bowl and cover with the boiling water. Allow the noodles to soak for five to seven minutes, then drain and run under cold water. Set the cooked noodles aside.

After the broth has simmered, strain the contents through a colander. Fill several deep bowls with a handful of noodles each. Add the now strained broth to cover the noodles. The addition of condiments can be personalized, but I prefer the addition of sliced scallions, fresh basil, mint and cilantro, as well as hoisin sauce and sriracha chili paste. Squeeze several slices of lime juice over the soup and enjoy.

Pozole Rojo

Pozole Rojo
1 onion
4 cloves of garlic
1 small butternut squash
5 cups vegetable broth
1 15-oz can crushed tomatoes
2 15-oz cans hominy
salt to taste
2 limes
Chipotle peppers in adobo sauce
Chili powder
Hot sauce

Garnishes
Cotija cheese
Lime slices
Cilantro
Creme fraiche

Finely dice the onion and garlic. Cube the butternut squash. In a large pot, heat several tablespoons of olive oil. Add the onion and squash, cooking until the onions are translucent. Add the garlic and cook an additional minute. Add the vegetable broth, crushed tomatoes and salt and bring the soup to a boil. Add the hominy and simmer for ten minutes. Add the juice of two limes and spice to your liking with the chili powder, adobo sauce, and hot pepper. Ladle the pozole into bowls and garnish with crumbled cotija cheese, creme fraiche, cilantro sprigs and slices of lime.

Watermelon, Two Ways

It is hot today in PDX. Well, hot being a relative term at it’s sunny and in the upper 70s. Nothing like the swamp-like humidity of Columbia, but hot nonetheless. So, in honor of the summer I made two watermelon recipes this afternoon.

Fruit Sticks with Lime and Chile Salt

1 small, seedless watermelon
1 mango
1 jicama
1 lime
Salt
Chili powder

This is a typical Mexican street food snack, really refreshing on a hot day. Peel the mango and jicama, as well as remove the rind from the watermelon. Cut the fruit into inch-thick sticks. In a small bowl, mix together a teaspoon of salt and as much chili powder as you like. Arrange the fruit sticks onto a plate and sprinkle with lime juice and the chili salt.

Watermelon Salad

Watermelon
Fresh Basil
Fresh Mint
Lime juice
Chili powder
Salt

Cube several slices of watermelon. Chop the basil and mint and combine with the watermelon in a large bowl. Add the juice of half a lime and salt and chili powder to taste. Toss the ingredients together and serve.

German Jam

Yesterday we visited the farmers’ market and I greedily purchased two pints of gooseberries, completely floored to see them anywhere outside of Germany. However, upon returing home I realized the berries were underripe and far too sour to be consumed in their current state. A quick consulting email to my culinary muse, ze German aunt, and the fruit was saved with a quick jam recipe.

The final product.

Gooseberry Jam
2 pints gooseberries or any other berries
1 cup sugar
1 package pectin, like Sure-Jell
1/2 cup water
1 glass jar

Wash and clean the fruit, removing any leaves and stems. Pat the fruit dry with a kitchen towel. Place the berries, sugar, pectin and water in a large pot over high heat. Bring the contents to a rolling boil, stirring often. Let the mixture boil for four to five minutes. Remove the pot from the heat and transfer the jam to the glass jar. Immediately seal the jar and let it cool before refrigerating. Enjoy the jam with french bread or German style pancakes.

A side note, Canoe in Portland has great jars, which I used for this recipe. They are also perfect for holding all kinds of random household items.