The Dinner Files

It ends up that yes, you can freeze tomatoes. Not tomato sauce, not tomato paste, not tomato puree (although all those things freeze just fine, too), but actual tomatoes.

I learned this indirectly from my aunt. Indirectly because she was not talking to me, but rather had left instructions with my cousin (her son) while she was out of town to pick the tomatoes from their ample garden as they ripened and put them in the bag already started in the freezer that she kept for all the tomatoes they couldn’t keep up with.

It’s been a great tip – especially since my dashing husband overestimates even his impressive tomato-eating ability when tomatoes are ripe and plentiful and cheap at the market. Once frozen, the tomatoes won’t work as fresh tomatoes – you wouldn’t want to make caprese salad with these, for example – but if you’re going to cook them anyway, it’s perfect. If you were going to peel them in the process then freezing has the bonus prize of making the tomatoes extremely easy to peel without the usual step of blanching them first.

So when I found a bag of Early Girl tomatoes from last summer in the freezer the other day, I decided to pretend it was summer (I needed a distraction from these gray days we’ve been having on the West Coast), if just a little bit. I smeared petrale sole with a paste of ginger and mint (notice all the mint on my table lately? That’s because mint grows like an invasive weed in Northern California, especially when it rains) and baked them, cooked a pot of rice, and peeled a few frozen tomatoes and then gently heated them up in a spicy yogurt sauce. I know it sounds a bit weird, but it is an unbelievably delicious flavor combination. The delicate fish – rice – tomato in spicy yogurt sauce combo was sublime.

Tomatoes in spicy yogurt sauce

I developed this recipe when I was working at Sunset and can never get over how good it is, or how tasty that sauce is on rice. I can now add to its many wonders how delightfully it makes use of frozen tomatoes.

8 ripe but firm tomatoes

2 teaspoons vegetable oil

2 teaspoons cumin seeds

1 teaspoon mustard seeds

2 Tablespoons butter, cut into small pieces

1/4 teaspoon turmeric

1/4 teaspoon cayenne

6 cloves garlic, minced

2 small hot green chiles, seeded and minced

1 teaspoon salt

1 cup plain whole milk yogurt (low-fat or fat-free versions will curdle)

If you’re using fresh rather than frozen tomatoes, blanch tomatoes to make peeling them easier: bring a large pot of water to a boil and prepare a large bowl of ice water, cut a small “x” in the bottom of each tomato, dip tomatoes in the boiling water for about 30 seconds and then use a slotted spoon to transfer the tomatoes to the ice water, drain tomatoes and pat them dry.

If you’re using frozen tomatoes, just take them out of the freezer. In any case, the next step is to use a paring knife to gently peel off the tomato skins and set tomatoes aside, whole or at least as whole as possible.
In a large frying pan, heat vegetable oil over medium high heat. Add cumin seeds and mustard seeds and cover. The seeds will start popping within about a minute. Cook until the popping slows down, about 2 minutes total.
Remove the lid and add the butter. When the butter has melted, add turmeric and cayenne. Stir and cook until brightly fragrant, about 1 minute. Add garlic, chiles, and salt. Cook, stirring, for about a minute. Reduce heat to low and add yogurt. Stir to combine.
Add tomatoes to yogurt mixture, Gently stir to coat the tomatoes with the sauce. Cook over low heat until tomatoes are just warmed through, about 5 minutes. Serve warm.

I have a weakness for celery. Good, fresh celery that has some solid celery flavor to it. I love the crunch of raw celery in particular. For years we’ve made a gingery celery salad with red onion sliced into it much like one served at the once great Eliza’s restaurant on Potrero Hill in San Francisco. The other night a bunch of fabulously crisp celery beckoned from the fridge, but neither ginger nor red onion were on hand.

So I sliced the celery as thinly as my attention span at the end of the day would allow, tossed in a handful of chopped mint, a few thinly sliced green onions, and a few drops of champagne vinegar. Sprinkle on salt as you like.

Easy, healthful, and just the thing to counter the heavy, rich foods of winter.

My dashing husband was out the other night and that has started to mean one thing: meat.

He tries to be a vegetarian, or at least eat vegetarian as much as possible. That leaves my son and me craving meat, especially classic meat-centered meals like a nice chop.

So I defrosted some pork chops, pulled out a jar of sauerkraut, and mixed some flour and egg together to make spaetzle.

I’ve seen boxed “spaetzle mix” at stores. Like pancake mix, it’s a convenience item I don’t really understand. How is mixing powder and water really so much easier than mixing flour and egg?

Spaetzle

I never had much luck with spaetzle until I found this formula in The Zuni Cafe Cookbook. This recipe makes a fairly runny spaetzle dough, so those spaetzle makers that have you “grate” the dough into the boiling water won’t work here. Better is a large-holed ricer or colander.

This makes enough spaetzle for 4 standard servings, but my son and I can eat this whole batch. Easily. Luckily, it doubles and triples with great success.

1 1/2 cups cake flour (all purpose flour works too, but cake flour does make a more tender, delicate dumpling)

2 eggs

Bring a large pot of water to a boil. Add enough salt so the water tastes salty.

Meanwhile, put the flour in a medium bowl and make a well or dip in the center of the flour. Crack the eggs into the center. Use a fork to whisk the eggs and gradually incorporate the flour into the egg. At this point you’ll have a fairly thick mixture that straddles the divide between dough and batter. Add 2 tablespoons warm water and mix. Add up to 2 more tablespoons of warm water to thin the batter out so it can “drain” out of the ricer or colander holes.

Place the ricer or colander over the boiling water. Use a spatula to scrape the spaetzle mixture into your device of choice. Use the spatula to push all the mixture through the holes and into the boiling water. The mixture should break into spaetzle-sized pieces as it drops into the water. If that isn’t happening (that is, if the mixture is thicker than I try to make it), use a paring knife to cut the dough as it comes out of the holes.

The spaetzle will sink, then float. Let them cook for about a minute after they float. Drain like pasta or fish out the spaetzle with a slotted spoon if you’re making more than one batch.

Serve spaetzle while hot or – and this is what I do 95% of the time – saute the spaetzle in a hot frying pan with any meat juices you might have another dish or just in plenty of butter. The spaetzle gets crunchy brown bits that counter the tender dumpling nature of the boiled nuggets to perfection. Add herbs if you’re so inclined.

The other night I seared the pork chops in a frying pan, transferred them to a hot oven to finish cooking, deglazed the luscious pork bits from the pan with about 1/2 cup of beer, stirred in a tablespoon of whole grain mustard, and cooked the spaetzle in that. Then I heated up the sauerkraut and we ate like kings. Stuffed, gluttonous kings.

As in love as I am with this Terrine cookbook, it is not for the feint of heart. Not only are many of the recipes for rillettes and patés and other creations that not everyone wants to see made, much less make themselves, but it is also clear that tested though the recipes may have been in the gram/milliliter measurements, the American measurements were not. Lots of details are missing, too – things like what size pan to use.

Don’t get me wrong: this terrine was delicioso. Mucho so. It just doesn’t look a thing like the picture in the book, which was cut into neat slices and had a whiter overall color. Granted, I used smoked black cod instead of smoked haddock, less black radish because I don’t see how three would have fit into the mix, and added some extra horseradish because that root rocks the house, but none of that fully accounts for the softer, less set texture. Nor does it account for the giant chunks of fish in the picture when the recipe calls for one to “thinly slice” the fish (me thinks a stylist took some liberties). As for the color, I’m assuming my fancy-pants, orange-yolked eggs from free-ranging, active birds who scratch for weeds and bugs might have given the custard its decidedly golden tinge.

I would make it again to fix the texture and report to you about it then. I’m tempted, I really am. It was a hit with the whole family. But look at that list of ingredients – it’s not exactly the kind of thing I feel like eating everyday. Plus, the book is filled with layered creations I want to try. I’m looking forward, not backwards. So it will be awhile before I make it again. Here’s what I did. If anyone out there wants to firm it up, experiment on my behalf, would you, and report back?

Winter terrine of smoked black cod, horseradish, black radish

This is a lovely, gentle, rich creation. Equally good warm after unmolding and cold out of the fridge the next morning.

1 medium black radish (a.k.a. Spanish radish)

8 oz. smoked fish, I used black cod, haddock or halibut are mentioned in the original

1 1/4 cup heavy cream

5 eggs

1 Tablespoon freshly grated horseradish

2 shallots, as finely chopped as you can manage

1/2 teaspoon salt

1/4 teaspoon freshly grated black pepper

Heat oven to 350. Line a small (8-inch) loaf pan with plastic wrap, letting it overhang over the edges by several inches.

Scrub the radish clean (don’t peel it, you want that black skin to show) and then cut in slices as thin as you can – a mandoline is useful if you have one.

Remove any skin or bones from the fish. Cut or pull into bite-size pieces.

Whisk cream, eggs, horseradish, shallots, salt, and pepper in a medium bowl. Pour a thin layer of cream mixture in the pan. Lay down a layer of radish, cover with egg mixture, layer in some fish, cover with egg mixture, and continue layering until all ingredients are in the pan.

Bring the edges of the plastic wrap over the top of the terrine to seal in.

Set the pan in a larger roasting pan. Fill the roasting pan with boiling water – it should go at least half-way up the outside of the terrine pan, three-quarters of the way up is even better.

Bake until terrine is set, about 45 minutes. Remove from water bath and let cool to warm before unmolding the terrine onto a serving platter or cutting board.

Like any good San Franciscan, I know how to layer. I’ve lived here so long that I’ve become constitutionally incapable of leaving the house without a sweater, which, when I’m here is a good practice. When I’m in, say, Minnesota in August, however, it seems a wee bit pathological. As I type this I’m wearing a long-underwear-grade insulated silk camisole, a t-shirt, a wool/silk lighter weight sweater, and a big cozy cardigan along with wool tights layered with socks under a skirt that itself is multi-layered.

For Christmas a good friend sent me Terrine, by Stéphane Reynaud. In general the cookbooks are no longer such great gifts for me. I have a lot of them and they are part of “work.” As much as I like my work, it still occupies the work part of my brain and not so much the “fun gift” part. I’d like fewer cookbooks, in fact. I’m constantly culling the collection, trying to keep it manageable and in some small way useful. But friends write them and I’m happy to get those, and then publishers send them to me all the time for one reason or another, and the stacks re-form despite my best efforts. So when I opened the present and saw a cookbook I was, at best, underwhelmed. I mean, really, how many patés is a girl ever going to make? Especially with a dashing husband who is quasi-vegetarian?

Then I started paging through it. Oh. My. God. This book is beautiful and inspiring and makes me want to layer everything. Everything. Fish, vegetables, cheese, meats, sweets – everything.

So when friends were in town for the weekend and I had a good excuse to cook too much food, I layered like a crazy person. A terrine starter, then pizza because an all-terrine meal would be weird and my pizza is so good, and then the chestnut meringue “terrine” pictured above.

Of course, the chestnut meringue is not really a terrine. It’s just a layered dessert. It is also the best dessert I’ve ever made. I used the recipe in Terrine as a jumping off point, but cut down on the sugar in the meringues, added vanilla to the whipped cream to great effect, and fixed the messed up not-tested metric-to-American measurements.

Chestnut meringue “terrine”

I’m a lucky girl whose neighborhood market carries this delicious vanilla-ed Clement Faugier chestnut spread. That link will let you buy some if you are not quite so lucky.

4 egg whites

tiny pinch of salt

1 cup powdered sugar

1 cup heavy cream

1/2 vanilla bean, slit lengthwise

1/4 cup granulated sugar

About 1 cup chestnut spread

Preheat oven to 200. Prepare two or three large baking sheets by lining them with either silpats or parchment paper.

Whip egg whites until frothy. Add the pinch of salt, beat until they hold stiff peaks (you should be able to lift the beater or whisk out of the egg whites, turn it upside down, and the peak of egg white that clings to the beater or whisk should hold its position). Sift the powdered sugar onto the egg whites and use a flexible rubber or silicone spatula to gently fold the sugar into the egg whites. Deflate the egg whites as little as possible.

You can get fancy and use a pastry bag to pipe out the meringue onto the baking sheets, but that seems messy and silly to me (they get covered with whipped cream later anyway). I diviied out the mixture into three piles on the baking sheets and then used a spatula to form circles, each about 8 inches across. Bake 2 hours without opening the door or bothering them in anyway. Turn off the oven and let them cool in the cooling-off oven (this seems to help keeps the meringues from cracking as they cool.

Meanwhile, you can prepare the cream. Put the cream, vanilla bean, and granulated sugar in a small saucepan. Bring to a simmer over medium heat, stir to dissolve the sugar into the cream. Take off the heat and let cool to room temperature. Use a small spoon to scrape the vanilla bean flesh into the cream and discard the pod. Transfer cream to a medium bowl, cover, and chill until ready to use.

When ready to serve, whip cream until soft peaks form so you can dollop and spread it easily. Remove meringues from baking sheets. Place one meringue on a serving plate, spread with one-third of the chestnut spread and layer on one-third of the whipped cream. Repeat with all three layers. Bring to the table and accept your oohs and ahhs. Then destroy your creation by cutting it into slices. I found this serves 6 just right. You could stretch it to 8 but people might feel like they didn’t quite get enough. You could divide it among 4 for sugar hogs, no problem.

More adventurous, finicky bakers could always make smaller meringue rounds to create individual servings, which would undoubtedly be much prettier.

If you’re invited to my house for dinner anytime soon, consider yourself warned: come prepared for layers.

Back in the day I used to go to Spain fairly frequently, especially if you consider that I had no business in Spain and didn’t speak Spanish.

When I first went – and this is dating myself significantly – the tapas craze had not yet hit these New World shores. Tapas in Spain, where they are everywhere, are different from tapas in the U.S. There you don’t settle down for the evening and order a bunch of tiny plates in one restaurant. No, there you grab a drink and whatever tapas a particular bar is best at one place and move on to the next spot for another glass and a different snack: gambas a la pancha, coquettascroquetas, bocalones boquerones, and, of course, patatas bravas.

“Brave potatoes” have lived in my mind ever since. I finally got it together this week and made some. Shazam! I nailed it the first time out of the gate. We ate them as part of dinner, but if the potatoes were cut into bite-size pieces and toothpicks were used, these would have been fabulous passed hors d’œuvres.

Patatas bravas

The sauce can be poured on or used more as a dip – in any case, make sure not to sauce the potatoes too heavily. This will be difficult because the sauce is crazy good. So good, in fact, that you may want to make a double batch and eat the extras with a spoon before you go to bed.

About a pound of potatoes – Russets or Yukon Gold work well

3 Tablespoons olive oil, divided

1/2 small onion, finely chopped

2 cloves garlic, minced

1/2 teaspoon salt, plus more to taste

1 teaspoon hot paprika

1/2 teaspoon red chile flakes or a small red chile, minced

1/4 cup dry white wine

1 cup pureed peeled tomatoes or tomato sauce

Tabasco, if you like

Cut small potatoes in half or into quarters, or cut them into bite-size cubes – whatever you like. Heat 2 tablespoons of the oil in a large, heavy pot or cast iron pan over medium high heat. Add potatoes, in a single layer if you can, and cook, partially covered, until browned on one side, 5 to 10 minutes. Turn to brown on other side(s) and cook, again partially covered, until potatoes are browned and tender.

Meanwhile, in a small saucepan over medium heat, heat the remaining tablespoon of oil. Add onions and garlic and salt and cook, stirring frequently, until onions are soft, about 3 minutes.  Add paprika and chile and cook, stirring, for about a minute. Add white wine and cook, stirring, until most of the wine has evaporated. Add tomato sauce, stir to combine, and adjust heat to maintain a gentle simmer. Cook, uncovered and relatively undisturbed (try to avoid stirring it if you can) until the sauce is thick, about 20 minutes. Taste the sauce and add more salt or some Tabasco, if you like.

You can whirl the sauce in a blender to smooth it out, if you like, but I rather dug the ever-so-slightly chunkiness of the unadulterated version pictured above.

Serve potatoes with sauce in whatever way you see fit.

I am aware I just posted a soup with a fun little swirl on top. Well aware. People, it is cold in San Francisco. And buildings here are not properly insulated. And it’s a long and sad story, but I live in a house that lacks central heating. All I want to eat all day long during these bone-chilling damp months that pass for winter here is soup.

I have a feeling most of you know about the wonder that is barley bean chard soup – you cook up some barley (I boil mine in salted water until it’s tender to the bite which seems to happen in about 15 or 20 minutes), cook up some white beans (or use canned, but the canned ones are mushier – soak the beans overnight or use the quick soak method, then boil until just tender to the bite, add salt to the water and let them cool in the cooking liquid, then drain and use), heat those two things in some chicken broth, and add shredded chard leaves, cooking until they wilt. This soup is then most commonly topped with some grated Parmesan and some black pepper, maybe a swirl of olive oil if you’re feeling kicky.

When I made this, however, we had a small bowl of garlic- and chile-infused/cooked olive oil sitting on the counter – leftover from making pizza. I swirled it in. Divine. Perfection. Why the hell haven’t I been eating this for years?

And that’s how “recipes” are born.

Barley beans chard soup with a chile swirl

This soup can be as easy as dumping several cans together and throwing in a bag of baby spinach or as fancy-pants as making your own broth, cooking up dried beans, and growing your own chard. No surprise for regular readers, but I fall into that latter camp, although the chard I planted seems determined to stay at the baby stage, so we’re eating it in salads instead of working it into soups. Do you think it’s not growing bigger because we keep eating it? Maybe?

Note: You can cook the barley in the broth (you’ll need a lot more broth in that case), but I find it muddies the soup a bit – the barley releases starch and turns the whole thing cloudy.

1 bunch chard

3 Tablespoons olive oil

6 cups chicken broth (I like to make my own)

2 cups cooked white beans (or 1 can)

1 cup barley, cooked

3 cloves garlic

Red chile flakes

Cut white ribs out of green chard leaves. Slice stems crosswise as thinly as possible and set aside. Cut leaves into thin strips and set aside.Slice garlic into Goodfellas-style thin slices and set aside.

Heat a bit of the olive oil in a soup pot over medium high heat, add chard stems and cook, stirring, until they’re soft, about 5 minutes. Add broth, beans, and barley and bring just to a boil. Add chard leaves and cook until wilted, just a minute or two.

Meanwhile, heat remaining olive oil in a small frying pan. Add garlic and cook, swirling a bit now and then, jst until the garlic starts to turn golden. Add chile flakes to taste (I use about 1/4 teaspoon) and take off heat. Let sit in pan until garlic just starts moving from golden to brown. Pour flavored oil in a small bowl to stop the cooking.

Serve soup with a swirl of browned garlic- and chile-oil. Take it one more step with a grind or two of black pepper.

I made this lentil soup from a vague memory of a lentil soup I used to make in college all the time. Whatever cookbook I got the recipe from has long since disappeared. You can use fancier green or puy lentils, but this soup makes fine use of the humble, cheap brown lentil. Make a pot, freeze the extras, save some bucks because there is nothing cheaper to make than a pot of lentil soup.

Slightly Spicy Lentil Soup

I used to eat this soup with cottage cheese, an idea I got from Jarra’s, an Ethiopian restaurant in Portland I went to weekly in college that served cottage cheese with its spicy lentil dishes. Now I serve it with a drizzle of fruity olive oil-garlic-parsley-lemon zest mixture. I can’t help but wonder what I’ll be serving it with in the 2030s….

6 Tablespoons olive oil (divided)

2 onions, finely chopped

2 stalks celery, finely chopped

2 carrots, finely chopped

7 cloves garlic, minced (divided)

1 small hot chile, minced (add more chiles for a spicier soup, but I didn’t need to tell youheat freaks that, did I?)

2 teaspoons ground cumin

2 teaspoons ground coriander

1/4 teaspoon ground cinamon

1/4 tsp. cayenne

3 cups brown lentils

5 thin slices ginger

Salt to taste

3 Tablespoons minced flat-leaf parsley

1/2 teaspoon freshly grated lemon zest

Heat 2 tablespoons of the olive oil over medium high heat in a soup pot. Add onion, celery, and carrot. Cook, stirring, until onions are soft, abotu 3 minutes. Add 4 cloves worth of the garlic and the chile and cook, stirring, until very fragrant, about a minute.

Add cumin, coriander, cinnamon, and cayenne. Cook, stirring, about a minute.

Add lentils, ginger, and 8 cups water. Bring to a boil, partially cover, reduce heat to maintain a simmer, and cook until lentils are very soft and starting to fall apart. How long will this take? That depends on your lentils and how dried out and potentially old they are – anywhere from 30 to 50 minutes. When lentils are done add salt to taste (I used about a tablespoon) and more water for a thinner soup, if you like.

Meanwhile, combine remaining garlic, remaining 1/4 cup olive oil, parsley, and lemon zest. Add salt to taste and let sit at room temperature until you’re ready to eat. Swirl some into each serving of lentil soup.

Note: For a creamy soup and more dishes to do, go ahead and whirl the whole thing (in batches) in a blender.

Add this to the roster. You know, that roster of quick, yummy dishes you can pull together with little notice and minimal effort. The bit of chile warmed me right up and the browned garlic helped bring out the sweetness at the heart of fennel.

Double fennel pasta (with browned garlic)

1/2 pound spaghetti or other long noodles (that’s angel hair above because that’s what was in the cupboard)

2 Tablespoons olive oil

3 cloves garlic, thinly sliced

1/4 teaspoon red chile flakes or 1 small red or green chile, minced

1 bulb fennel, halved and thinly sliced

1 teaspoon fennel seeds, crushed (use a mortar and pestle or bash with the bottom of a frying pan)

1/2 teaspoon salt

1/2 cup white wine or broth

1/4 cup finely chopped flat-leaf parsley

Cheese for the top

Bring a large pot of salted water to a boil and cook the pasta until tender to the bite, reserve 1 cup of the cooking liquid before you drain the noodles.

* Save time by cooking the “sauce” while the pasta cooks; save dishes by cooking the sauce in the pasta pot after you’ve drained the noodles. *

Heat the oil in a large frying or saute pan or the pasta pot over medium high heat. Add garlic and cook, stirring, until it just starts to turn golden and brown at the edges. Add chile flakes or fresh chile, stir to combine. Add fennel, fennel seeds, and salt and cook, stirring, until fennel softens a bit, about 2 minutes. Add wine or broth, cover, reduce heat to medium low, and cook until fennel is quite tender, about 5 minutes.

Add parsley, stir to combine. Add drained pasta and reserved pasta liquid, stir to combine, increase heat back to medium high, and cook until most of the liquid is absorbed/evaporated and all the flavors combine, 2 to 3 minutes.

Serve with plenty of parmesan, pecorino, or whatever hard cheese you like on top of your pasta. Some people may also want freshly ground black pepper. Indulge them.