The Dinner Files

I made a buttermilk cake last summer that I loved – I posted the recipe over at Local Foods. It seemed like the kind of thing that would work well with whole wheat pastry flour instead of the all purpose flour in the recipe. It is, it did.

Whole wheat buttermilk cake

This whips up in a snap – quick enough for a weeknight. Serve the original or the slightly heartier version below with some of those sweet and juicy strawberries that are all over the place these days. Or, if you’re like me, have a piece with a cup of black coffee and call it breakfast.

1 cup whole wheat pastry flour

1/2 tsp. baking powder

1/2 tsp. baking soda

1/4 tsp. salt

1/2 cup brown sugar (light or dark – either works here)

1/4 cup butter at room temperature

1 egg

1/2 tsp. vanilla extract

1/2 cup buttermilk

Preheat the oven to 400. Butter a 8×8 cake pan.

In a medium bowl, combine the flour, baking powder, baking soda, and salt. Set aside.

Beat the brown sugar and butter together until they lighten up and get a bit fluffy. Scrape down the bowl and beat in the egg and vanilla just until well combined. Stir in buttermilk.

Add dry ingredients to the wet ingredients and stir just to combine. Pour batter into the prepared pan, spread the batter in the pan evenly. Bake until a toothpick inserted in the center come out clean, about 30 minutes.

Yes, it’s yet another veggie-heavy pasta/one-pot meal. You know you love them. Well, I know I do, anyway. They are a working girl’s best friend.

This one is a bit different because it used the last bit of the tomato paste I made last summer. It came from an almost-empty half-pint jar in the back of the fridge. That last bit was well covered with oil and had avoided any mold or mildew.

Now that the fridge is clean and I know for a fact that there is not more tomato paste in there, I’m white-knuckling it to tomato season. I can live without caprese for awhile longer, but I find myself oddly psychologically dependent on having that tomato conserva at hand.

Kale tomato pasta

The tomato paste in this sweetens and softens the kale.

1 pound pasta (fusilli is my favorite for this)

2 bunches Dino/lacinato/black kale

3 cloves garlic

3 Tablespoons olive oil

1/2 teaspoon red chili flakes (optional)

2 Tablespoons tomato paste

Salt

Parmesan for garnish

Bring a pot of water to a boil. Add salt to make it taste as salty as sea water. Cook the pasta until tender to the bite or according to package directions.

Meanwhile, clean the greens and chop them. Slice garlic cloves as thinly as you can – don’t stress it too much, it will be tasty no matter how you cut it.

Heat a frying pan large enough to hold the pasta or a medium pot over medium high heat. Add olive oil. Add garlic and chile flakes, if using. Cook, stirring, until garlic is just barely starting to turn golden.

Add tomato paste and stir to combine with the garlic and oil. Add 1/3 cup of water and stir to combine.

Add chopped kale, stir to combine, cover, reduce heat to medium low, and cook until kale it tender, about 5 minutes.

Add another 1/3 cup water if mixture seems dry or kale is sticking to the pan.

Pasta should be ready to drain or already drained at this point. Add drained pasta to kale mixture. Stir to combine. Taste and add more salt, if you like. Top with Parmesan.

The lovely Marisa from Food In Jars sent me this recipe well over a year ago. That’s the kind of recipe backlog I have built up. I finally made this and don’t think I’ll ever stop.

Arugula salad with broiled lemons

The sweet tang of these lemons are the perfect foil for the peppery kick of good arugula. Look for small, dark leaves that are full of natural wild arugula flavor.

2 lemons (regular or Meyer both work here)

1 Tablespoon sugar

1 teaspoon salt, plus more to taste

3 Tablespoons lemon crushed extra virgin olive oil

1 Tablespoon lemon juice

6 – 8 cups arugula

Scrub lemons clean. Slice lemons as thinly and evenly as you can. Put the slices and any juice you can wrangle into a medium bowl. Sprinkle with the sugar and teaspoon of salt. Toss to combine and let sit at least 1 hour and up to a day.

Heat your broiler. Cover and baking pan with foil. Spread the lemon slices in as single a layer as possible given the number of slices and the size of your pan. Drizzle any juice in the bowl over the lemons.

Broil lemons, watching carefully, until they start to brown, 3 to 5 minutes.

Set lemons aside while you make the dressing. In a large bowl combine the olive, lemon juice, and any juices left on the broiled lemons. Taste and add salt to taste if you like. Add arugula and toss with the dressing until thoroughly coated. Top with broiled lemons and serve immediately.

Shelling, blanching, and re-shelling fava beans keeps lots (most?) people from cooking them very often. If you find yourself with a nice selection of young fava bean pods – slim and smooth and soft and green – you can actually cook them whole and eat the whole thing.

You don’t end up with the very prettiest dish you’ve ever seen, but it sure is tasty.

I learned this fact and this basic recipe from a clever lady who learned about them from a Turkish friend, if I have my history correct. Perhaps that means these are Turkish. I’d be happy to hear any further intelligence anyone has on the matter.

I don’t get to eat these as often as I’d like. My dashing husband will eat them, but he doesn’t relish them and tends to mention his lack of relish whenever I make them. That means there are usually plenty of leftovers and I get to eat them for breakfast. Now that I think about it, I should go ahead and make them more often.

Braised fava beans with dill

The yogurt on the side is optional but is so fabulous I can’t imagine why you wouldn’t want to add it. I find a whole milk yogurt works well, but sheep milk yogurt, if you can get your hands on it, is even better.

2 lbs. fava beans

1/3 cup extra virgin olive oil

3 – 4 spring onions or 1 sweet onion

3/4 teaspoon salt

1 Tablespoon sugar

1/4 cup chopped dill

Whole milk yogurt or sheep milk yogurt to serve on the side

Snap the end of the fava bean pods and pull off the stringy bits that run down the side. If it breaks off, take a moment to dig it out – you’ll be glad you did when you don’t bite into a weird, out of context fibrous string in the middle of your luscious, delightful braised fava beans.

Chop the onions.

Heat the oil in a large frying pan or saute pan over medium high heat. Add the onions and salt and cook, stirring a bit, until the onions start to wilt, 2 to 3 minutes.

Add the fava pods. Stir to combine. Sprinkle with sugar and add 1/4 cup water. Bring to a simmer, cover, and reduce heat to low to maintain a steady simmer. Cook, more or less undisturbed, until fava pods are fairly tender, about 20 minutes.

Add about 3/4 of the dill, stir to combine, return cover and cook until pods are completely tender, another 10 minutes.

Serve, hot, warm, or at room temperature with a dollop of yogurt on the side of each serving. Garnish with remaining dill.

I got a little crostini crazy last week. After those sweet pea creations I figured anything would be good on toast. In one case, I was definitely right.

These are all about spring – brightly yolked pastured eggs, fresh grassy butter, green garlic, spicy radishes, and delicate chervil.

Egg radish crostini

The eggs are key here. Use the best ones you can get your hands on.

4 eggs

8 thick slices delicious bread

1 stalk green garlic

6 to 8 radishes

Butter

Salt and freshly ground black pepper

Chervil or other spring herbs – thyme, mint, parsley, or dill – chopped

Put the eggs in a pot of water and bring it to a boil. When the water comes to a boil, cover the pot, take it off the heat, and let the eggs sit for 14 minutes.

While the eggs cook, toast the bread.

While the bread toasts, finely chop the green garlic and the radishes.

When bread is toasted, let it sit to cool for a bit.

When the eggs are done, drain and peel until cool running water to keep from burning your hands. Use a large-holed grater to shred the eggs.

Liberally butter the mainly-cooled toasts. You don’t want the butter to melt into the toast but to be its own distinct layer in the crostini. Sprinkle each piece with green garlic. The layer on the shredded egg. Top with radish and sprinkle with salt and pepper. Garnish with the herb(s) of your choice.

I had a lot of fun earlier this spring playing with sardines. It was for the cause of a good story (Our Little Local Fish) in the spring issue of Edible San Francisco). After lots of research and some experimentation, this is the curing method recipe I liked best – easy, delicious, and rather fun.

Home-Cured Sardines

Curing softens the flavor of sardines, makes the texture of the fish more dense and a bit silky. Use them as you would any smoked or cured fish – on crostini, in salads, or on bagels with cream cheese. These sardines are particularly lovely topped with a mixture of grated hard-cooked egg, capers, and a squirt of lemon. Cured sardines can be stored, covered with oil (a decent but not too fancy olive oil works great), for up to a week in the fridge. This recipe scales up (or down) very easily.

12 Pacific sardines

1/2 cup sea salt

Use a sharp knife to cut off the heads just past where their gills are. Cut a slit down their bellies almost to the tail (you can also simply lay them flat on one side and cut off a thin edge down the length of their belly-side), open them up, and (I like to do this part under running water) sweep out their guts with your finger.

You can, of course, ask the fishmonger to do the beheading and gutting for you and leave the guts out of your kitchen. Sardine guts are, however, about as innocuous as fish guts get, so if you know how to clean fish or want to give it a try, this is a good place to start.

Rinse the fish clean and pat them dry (do this when you get them home even if you have the fishmonger clean them).

Lay the fish in a baking pan or similar vessel (you can put them on a rack in the pan to encourage even curing, but it isn’t necessary). I like to put mine in a neat row because they look like little soldiers ready for duty, but you can arrange them as you see fit. Sprinkle them with about half the salt; turn them over and sprinkle with the remaining salt. There’s no need to open the fish up and salt the flesh directly on the inside. They will cure nicely through the skin, and this method will help them from becoming too salty in the end.

Cover the pan with a layer (or two or even three) of plastic wrap and tuck it away in the fridge for two days.

After two days (in the realm of 36 to 48 hours), uncover the pan and rinse off all the sardines under cool running water. Open up a sardine and – this part is really amazing – use your fingers to work the two filets (one on each side of the fish) away from the skin. In most cases, the filets quite easily pull away from the skin. Some bits of skin may remain on the fish, but they are perfectly edible and you don’t need to worry about them.

What you have now are lox-esque versions of sardines. Give them a taste. If yours are quite salty, soak them in cool water for about an hour to leech out some of the salt. They are totally and completely and deliciously edible. They become even silkier and milder if you let them sit covered in olive oil for a few days.

Then, if you want, you can make…

Marinated Home-Cured Sardines

This is but one way to use home-cured sardines. Feel free to play around with this marinade, adding aromatics and herbs as you see fit. Marinated home-cured sardines are delicious served with a warm potato salad, on a mash of root vegetables, or – my favorite – on top of a bed of lacinato kale gently cooked until quite soft. Leftovers – if you’re lucky enough to have such a thing – are delicious alongside scrambled eggs for breakfast.

12 home-cured sardines (24 filets)

¾ cup olive oil, divided

1 small red onion, halved and thinly sliced

2 cloves garlic, chopped

¼ to ½ teaspoon red chile flakes (optional)

⅓ cup agrodulce (or white wine vinegar plus 1 teaspoon sugar, stirred to dissolve)

Lay sardine filets in a casserole dish or wide, shallow bowl.

Warm ¼ cup of the olive oil over medium heat in a large frying pan. Add red onion and cook, stirring, until onion is soft, about 3 minutes. Add garlic and chile flakes and cook, stirring, until the garlic is also soft, about another 3 minutes. Remove from heat and add remaining ½ cup olive oil and agrodulce or vinegar.

Pour still-warm mixture over sardines. Let sit at least 30 minutes and up to two days. For overnight marinating, cover and chill, but bring to room temperature before serving.

All I can say is that I can’t believe that these green pea and pecorino crostini are as good as they are. Smashed sweet peas with some olive oil on toasted walnut bread rubbed with a garlic clove and some pecorino on top? Sure, it sounds tasty, but it doesn’t sound nearly as tasty as these actually are. The key is, I’m sure, that the fresh green peas we’ve been getting are simply beyond fabulous. Plump, truly sweet, tender, and full of green springtime.

Sweet green pea crostini

I use a walnut levain bread from Acme bakery in San Francisco to make these. Other breads would be good, I’m sure, but there is something about the earthy walnut flavor and bit of crunch they add to the proceedings that is pretty close to perfect.

2 pounds sweet green pea pods/English peas/garden peas (this will give you enough so you can snack on them as you shell them)

1 teaspoon salt, plus more to taste

3 Tablespoons super delicious extra virgin olive oil

6 thick slices homemade or artisan baked walnut bread or similar

1 large clove garlic

Fresh pecorino for shredding

Freshly ground black pepper

Mint, chervil, or chives, chopped, for garnish (optional)

Shell the peas.

Bring a medium saucepan of water to a boil, add 1/2 teaspoon of the salt to the water, add the peas and cook about a minute. Drain and rinse with cold running water to cool them off quickly. Shake as much excess water off as you can.

Now you can work in a bowl by hand or with a blender or food processor. Put the peas and 2 tablespoons of the olive oil in the vessel of your choice. Mash the peas with a fork or pulse to half-mash the peas.

Toast the bread. Cut the garlic clove in half and rub the toasts with the garlic. Discard the used garlic clove or use in another dish. Spread each toast with its fair share of the pea mash and drizzle them with the remaining bit of olive oil. Sprinkle toasts with grated pecorino and black pepper, as well as more salt to taste (a bit of fleur de sel is nice here) and any herbs you choose to use.

For the record, if you make too many of these delights for your guests to ingest – perhaps because you cooked a four-course dinner for eight when there were only four of you present and you made an extra-large salad in a last-minute moment of panic that by some insane logic there wasn’t enough food – any leftover crostini make a tasty breakfast.

A friend recently introduced me as a chef to another guest at her child’s birthday party.

Nope, I said. I’m not a chef.

Perhaps it was not very gracious of me to point out the mistake in that situation, but if I introduced someone as a computer programmer and they actually work as a “cast member” at Disneyland, I’d expect to be corrected.

I understand that to many people the label “chef” is one of respect – more a way to denote the (high!) quality of my cooking than to describe my job – but to me a chef cooks for strangers. I can think of few things I’d rather less do than work in a restaurant kitchen. I like the quiet of my kitchen. I like the alone-time I get in there. I like cooking for grateful family and friends; people who would never think of sending something back.

While in no way a chef, I am an extremely accomplished professional cook (though I say it myself, as my grandmother used to say). I know that just because something is “easy” for me in the kitchen does not mean it will be so for everyone.

Yesterday I was reminded that there is a reason we hadn’t had this gratin in a long time even though it is so very delicious. The reason is that it is a total pain in the ass to make. It involves the cleaning of artichokes – paring down these mighty thorned thistles into tender, sweet hearts. I’ve done it before, many times, and I work quickly. It took me 20-plus minutes to turn five large artichokes into a pile of slivered hearts floating in acidolated water, ready to layer into the gratin. I don’t want to think about how long it might take less practiced hands (or how quickly a true chef might turn those puppies around).

Artichoke potato gratin

Cleaning the artichokes is a pain, but this gratin is tasty. We eat it as a main dish with a salad, but you could serve it alongside a nice roast chicken or grilled salmon.

4 or 5 large artichokes

6 large Yukon Gold potatoes or medium Russet potatoes

2 Tablespoons butter

Salt and freshly ground black or white pepper

2 cups grated cheese – I like to use sheep milk cheeses like Pecorino or Petit Basque, but Parmesan or gruyere work great, too

1 cup chicken broth

Preheat oven to 400.

First things first, you really do need to turn those artichokes into artichoke hearts (lucky for you, I took those pictures!). Very thinly slice each heart. Keep them from browning too much by putting them in a bowl of cool water to which you have added lemon juice or vinegar.

Now peel the potatoes and slice them all very thinly. Fun!

Rub a 9×13 (or similar) baking dish or gratin pan with 1 Tablespoon of the butter. Arrange a single layer of heavily overlapping potato slices. Sprinkle liberally with salt and pepper. Spread half of the artichoke heart slices (patted dry) over the potatoes.

Add another single layer of potatoes. Sprinkle with half of the cheese. Layer another group of potato slices. Sprinkle with salt and pepper and the remaining artichoke heart slices. Next, add a final layer of potatoes – these will be on top so make it pretty!

Now gently spoon the chicken broth over the dish. Sprinkle the top with salt and pepper, cover with foil, and bake until just tender, about 40 minutes.

Uncover, sprinkle on remaining cheese, dot the whole thing with the remaining tablespoon of butter, and bake until completely tender, bubbling, and brown – about 20 more minutes. If you can stand it, let the gratin sit for about 10 minutes before you cut into it.