The Dinner Files

I had a birthday dinner for my dad this weekend. It was small, it was loud, it was delicious. It was an alliterative meal of padron peppers, posole, and pies. I’ll tell you all about the pies later, but for the moment I need to spread the posole word.

You can find lots of recipes for posole out there, and I’m sure they are all fabulous. I will say, however, that many of them seem unnecessarily complicated. Posole is a simple dish of pork and hominy seasoned with chile. Not much more is really required. Some salt is going to help things along, and some garlic and a bit of oregano help deepen and round out the flavor.

I kept it frighteningly simple. Rustic, was my dashing husband’s comment, and I took it as a compliment. The bowls were emptied, re-filled, and re-emptied, which I take as the most sincere of compliments people can pay a cook.

Get the recipe for posole. I like to pile a bit of lime cumin cole slaw on top, letting the shreds of cabbage sink down into the posole, adding crunch and freshness to every spicy rich bite.

I have three sisters-in-law. They are each massively impressive in their own way. Their most important trait, of course, is the immense love they have all shown me and mine. A most treasured additional characteristic they share is the ability to make me laugh out loud. And really, that is all I ask of anyone.

What they may not realize, however, is how much they have helped me professionally.

They would not have realized this because none of them are writers. Or cooks.

What they are is this: smart, on-the-ball, professional women with children. Two of them work really amazingly full-time at rather beyond-demanding jobs, the third is career-shifting while raising three kids which hurts my head to even think about. Ow. They have all, over the years, sat and watched me cook. They have all, on various occasions, complimented the results. They want to feed themselves and their families in pleasurable and healthful ways.

And so when I write up a recipe I always image Heidi and Michelle and Mary cooking it. They are, collectively, my recipe barometer. On good days they are merry companions and we swing along through soups and salads with great fun. On bad days they are the witches from MacBeth, thwarting me at every turn with bad news and extra work because they do not already know how to grill a turkey or can’t agree on what, exactly, “blanching” is. How quickly will they, in all honesty, be able to mince those shallots? Do they keep (or want to keep) whole wheat pastry flour in the house? Will Heidi be able to find Asian eggplant easily in Minneapolis, or will it require an extra errand? Am I sure Michelle’s market in Los Angeles carries harissa, or must a substitution be stated? Will Mary, in her Greenwich Village apartment, need an alternative to grilling proper? I must admit that I do not answer their (imaginary) concerns as often as I might, but at least I do think of them, and that is thanks to my sisters-in-law.

One of them (Heidi) made a grilled corn salad this summer that got me thinking. It got me thinking about how to make an even more delicious grilled corn salad. I then made that even more delicious salad last weekend and another of them (Michelle) was quite taken by the results. Dare I hope that the third (Mary) finds a grill and cooks this up? (Hint: char the corn under a broiler instead of on a grill!)

Spicy grilled corn salad

This is yummers, plain and simple. Good all on its own, I’ve enjoyed it served with a lovely grilled tri-tip, a grilled chicken, and some grilled bratwurst (less of a perfect marriage, but tasty nonetheless). The green chile dressing could, of course, be used in plenty of other ways if one were so inclined.

Shuck 6 or 8 ears of fresh sweet corn. Brush them lightly with oil and set, along with 2 jalapeño or serrano chiles, on a hot grill. Cook, turning as you think of it, until the corn is lightly charred all over and the chiles are nicely blackened. Take everything off the grill as it’s done and let sit until it’s cool enough to handle.

Remove the blackened skin, stem, and seeds from the chiles. Chop them up – if they sort of fall apart as you do this, all the better. Put them in a large salad-type bowl and add 1 tablespoon of lime juice, 2 tablespoons of olive oil, some generous grindings of black pepper, and enough salt to make the taste pop. Finely chop a small red onion or a few shallots. (You can put the chopped results in a sieve or strainer, rinse with cold water, and turn out onto paper towels to pat dry if you want to tame the pungency of the raw onion.) Add the onion to the bowl and toss with the dressing. Cut the grilled corn kernels from the cobs and toss them with dressing and onion. Chop up as much cilantro as you have (about 1 cup of leaves works nicely, but more or less is fine) and add that to the mix. Serve it up. Note that a handful or two of crumbled cotija cheese (feta is a fine enough substitute) would not be out of order.

Through a long and convoluted route of emails and packages and hand-offs I found myself with a baggie of coarse ground heirloom red flint corn.

Whoever ground it didn’t hull the corn first, and I could see the bits of hull in the mix that otherwise looked like polenta. Those bits simply never cooked and were clearly never going to cook. So we had a dish that had, at its core, an amazingly deep and provocative corn flavor, but which was cursed with bits of tough, obviously nonsoluble fiber littered throughout.

It was sort of a bummer, but we all ate our bowlfuls anyway. The quickly sauteed wild-caught Florida pink shrimp and spicy okra with tomatoes helped ease it all down nicely, I must say.

I will admit that I loved my dinner despite the corn hulls because while I was chopping the okra my son came into the kitchen and out of nowhere asked if he could help make dinner. I was almost done with everything but realized that the shrimp weren’t peeled. I was going to cook them with the peels on (they stay moist and more flavorful that way and none of us mind shelling them at the table, least of all my dashing husband who, I kid you not, just eats them peel and all, a habit I find distressing but that he relishes), but I’d rather risk slightly overcooked shrimp than kick a willing kid out of the kitchen. So he stood at the sink and expertly peeled the shrimp while I cooked the okra.

I saw two ways to read his offer of help. The bad news would be that I’m so inaccessible and inattentive that the one way he can get my attention is to offer to help me in the kitchen. The good news would be that he wants to hang with me, really enjoyed our recent episodes of dumpling making,  loves being with me and loves cooking. I semi-tortured myself going between these two extreme readings as I stirred the okra and he peeled the shrimp.

Then we sat down to eat and I had my answer. His willing effort came from love. Every good cook knows food tastes better when you remember to add the love, and I could taste it in every bite.

Our CSA box has been confusing lately. Lots of summer vegetables even as the skies are gray and the air is chilly. Such is the way of California living – the sweet corn never seems to end. But you know what? I’m pretty much done with sweet corn for the season. I was, actually, done with corn on the cob way back in August.

So when I unpacked the box this week and found four more ears of corn down at the bottom, I scraped off the kernels, beat in an egg and a few tablespoons of flour and turned them into fritters in but a thin layer of vegetable oil in a large pot. I served them hot with a quick chutney of mint, cilantro, a jalapeno chile, garlic, lemon juice, and a bit of salt. My dashing husband preferred them simply sprinkled with salt because they were so “delicate,” which is really saying something because that man loves himself some spicy.

Two nights later, the pile of zucchini that had been next to the corn taunted me. Fritatta? Pasta? Salad? We’ve had plenty of zucchini versions of all three. You know what we hadn’t had? Zucchini fritters.

Yum. Made with four smallish zucchini, grated, mixed with an egg and two tablespoons of flour. Recipe-style recipes for Corn Fritters and Zucchini Fritters at Local Foods, but seriously, it’s about 1 1/2 to 2 cups of grated veg, an egg, and two tablespoons flour. If it seems super loose, add another tablespoon of flour. A bit of salt and pepper, and you’re good to pan-fry them.

Then things got completely out of control and I used some frozen corn (it was sitting in the freezer, leftover from a very sad bout of recipe testing) to make corn fritters for breakfast yesterday. No, it wasn’t really right. But yes, it was very very delicious.

“You’ll never believe what they served at Commons this morning,” my best friend my freshman year of college said as I took the seat next to her at our Humanities 110 lecture to which I stumbled recently awoken with a cup of coffee in hand, and to which she arrived worked out, showered, groomed, dressed, and breakfasted.

“What?” I asked, waiting for another horror story. We were both vegetarians and considered ourselves connoisseurs of good food. We found the college cafeteria predictably yet disappointingly lacking on both fronts. I had become disenchanted to the point where I was living on a steady diet of coffee and bagels from the coffee shop where I could spend un-used meal credits for a fraction of their cafeteria value.

“Corn pancakes,” she said, “made with leftover corn from last night. The corn was just thrown in the pancakes. It was horrible.”

I sighed. I shrugged. “But that’s what corn pancakes are,” I explained.

She looked at me incredulously. “I thought they’d have cornmeal in them or something, not leftover corn.”

“Yeah,” I replied, “you’d think, but corn pancakes are just pancakes with leftover corn in them.”

That, after all, was what life had taught me. Sometimes on a summer weekend morning when the whole family was up at the cabin at the lake from which I write this, my grandmother would announce that she was making corn pancakes. The first few times I heard this I’d get excited. I liked corn. I liked pancakes. Sounded like a sweet combination.

Then the platter would come out. My grandmother – maker of excellent pot roast, chef of Brie souffle, baker of “death bars” (so sweet and good they almost killed you), a lover of great good and tasty food – used to scrape the kernels off any leftover boiled corn-on-the-cob, mix up a batch of Bisquick pancake batter, stir the kernels into the batter, cook the pancakes, and act like we were supposed to be grateful. The kernels were tough by then, somewhat flavorless after a night in the fridge. They stood out like watery little nuggets in the fluffy cakes. There wasn’t even any cornmeal to serve as a conceptual bridge between the cake and the corn.

Then I went to camp and was served corn pancakes the morning after we’d had corn-on-the-cob for dinner. Corn pancakes, I learned, were nasty, horrid things.

I’ve since made more batches of cornmeal pancakes – crispy on the edges with a bit of body to fight the texture-destroying properties of maple syrup – than I can count.

And I’ve made dozens upon dozens of sweet corn cakes, in which I purée sweet corn kernels into the batter to great effect.

So when my dad and my son returned from a run to get the morning paper the other day with “a dozen ears of Minnesota corn” and my mom rolled her eyes and showed him the dozen ears she’d already bought, I decided to get busy and fix the corn pancake problem that had haunted me for so long.

It worked. If you find yourself buying a bit more corn than you really needed at the market this weekend, set aside a few ears to make sweet corn pancakes.

Sweet corn pancakes

Like all sweet, corn-y things, these pancakes have a particular affinity for blueberries – fresh on the side, as a syrup poured on top – but maple syrup works too.

About 4 medium ears of sweet corn

1 cup flour

1 tablespoon baking powder

1/4 cup sugar

1/4 teaspoon salt

3/4 cup milk

2 eggs

2 tablespoons vegetable oil

4 tablespoons butter, melted – plus more for cooking the pancakes

Shuck the corn and cut off kernels. You should have about 2 cups of corn kernels – a bit more or less won’t matter too much, but if you find yourself going over 2 1/2 cups, either stop cutting off kernels or reserve the extra for a salad or other use.

Heat a griddle or large frying pan to medium-high heat. Meanwhile, in a medium bowl, combine the flour, baking powder, sugar, and salt.

In a blender or food processor, whirl the milk and 1 – 2 cups of the corn kernels until fully pureed (purée all the corn kernels for smooth, corn-flavored pancakes; purée half the corn kernels if you want to reserve some to add whole to the pancakes).

Add the eggs and oil to the milk-corn mixture and whirl until blended. Add flour mixture, 1/3 at a time, and whirl until smooth after each addition. Add the butter and pulse a few times to incorporate it into the batter. Stir in the reserved corn kernels if you chose kernel-laden cakes.

Coat the griddle or pan with a bit of butter or spray oil. Pour the  batter in about 3-tablespoon amounts to make 3- to 4-inch pancakes. Cook until bubbles appear over the entire surface, about 2 minutes. Flip the pancakes and cook them until they’re golden brown on the second side and cooked through, about 1 minute. Repeat with the remaining batter.

Like all pancakes, serve these hot with butter and berries or maple syrup.

Yum. This was a good one. I made the turkey mixture from this turkey taco recipe, put it on some toasted corn tortillas (fried would have been good, too), and topped the whole thing with this corn avocado salsa and some shredded lettuce. Perfect easy, fresh summer dinner.

I am burying the lede. I forgot to take a picture of the lede. The lede should be (and in life was) the rib-eye steaks from our meat CSA. I defrosted a pair – they were cut a bit thin and I was worried they would cook up ill, but they were delicious simply grilled over a hot flame for 5 minutes on each side having only been lightly drizzled with a bit of oil and salted fairly liberally a moment before being laid ever-so-gently on the piping hot grill grate. I was so excited to eat them that picture-taking was the last thing on my mind as I sliced them diagonally and dabbed them with a garlic compound butter.

I served them to my dashing husband and young Ernest along with some grilled potatoes (with more of the butter slathered onto those, you can be sure) and the salad you see above. It was all very summery and satisfying. It was my last dinner in San Francisco for awhile. Ernest and I are headed to Northern Minnesota for a nice long stay again this summer. What draws us there? Well I could go on and on about the clear lake water for swimming and the extended family for fun and the walleye pike for eating but let me sum it up thusly: the living is easy and the child care is cheap.

But not just any sausage and not just any polenta. There was, yet again, sweet corn in our farm box last night. I could barely look at it. So I husked it, cut it off the cob, and stirred the kernels into a pot of polenta. I highly recommend this use for corn you don’t feel like eating but need to consume.

More interesting–to me anyway–was the sausage, pepper, onion combo I whipped up. There were some sort of sad-sack red peppers in the farm box too, so I roasted and peeled them before sauteeing them with some sliced onions and garlic in the fat rendered from cooking some sweet italian sausage and kielbasa from the sausage making party (I guess that’s what you’d have to call it) my friend and neighbor had last winter. We each brought ingredients for a variety of sausage, helped each other stuff them, and then had a great exchange. My totally awesome garlicky Toulouse-style sausage and the lovely spicy chorizo are long gone, but I put some of the other varieties in the freezer. They went very well with the polenta.

Ernie joined me on a little day trip up to Bodega Bay yesterday. He patiently climbed trees and played in a ditch while I attended to a photo shoot. He was rewarded with this ear of grilled corn and proceeded to entertain the crowd with crazy antics like this.

By the time we headed home we were starving, because an ear of corn only fills a person up so much and as any food writer knows, there is oddly no food to eat at food photo shoots. By the time everyone is done shooting the food it is old and sad and you’ve been looking at it for way too long to find it even remotely appetizing. Funny, huh?

So E and I stopped off at The Boat House in Bodega Bay for fish-and-chips (except we substituted onion rings for the chips) and some bbq oysters. We waited a long time for the oysters. We had fully finished the fish and were sitting and waiting for some time when the runner finally came out with our platter of oysters. He put them on the table and said, “they’re a bit crispy, but they’re still good.”

What? Are you kidding me? Are you seriously serving me overcooked oysters? On purpose? Even the lovely deck setting and brightly shining sun couldn’t make up for that. We each tried one and decided to head home. The idea of waiting for more of the same was just too much.

Has anyone ever had one? I hadn’t, so I made one. (Sorry for my absence–too much recipe development for others that I can’t reveal and that makes me feel sad on the inside and less inclined to blog because who wants to read about that?) 

But last night! The corn souffle! It was so light! So airy! So “like an omelet but so much lighter!” (thanks dashing husband). So “I ate the whole thing!” (thanks Ernie). See how to make your own.  

Before the souffle, however, my Very Tall Cousin Sam stopped by with his Viking Goddess Girlfriend and her Baby Sister (basically, she has the same look and style but with dark hair–which I mention only because the entire extended family is obsessed with VGG–I include myself–and if they could get a look at her younger sister, on the left below, they would LOSE THEIR MINDS because she is just like VGG–including her willingness to see Ernie’s room and watch him kick a ball and listen to him count to 100 in English and 29 in Spanish and anything else he would possibly think of to keep their beautiful, Nordic attention–but “dark and mysterious” which you would think being Norwegian would keep you from being, but no, which is weird to post about because I was taking pictures while they were here and they were asking about the blog, so they’ll probably read this…, but they really are just so beautiful and not in a creepy model-way but in a stunning real-person way and next to them my dashing husband and I really do look like odd, albeit fabulous-looking, trolls).  

We all had a fine time, the tall and the gorgeous and the trolls all together: cocktails, olives, and Ernie antics at hand (did I mention how my brother taught Ernie how to play “exploding apple baseball” from the fruits of our apple tree during his recent visit? no? really? seems I would have mentioned that….).

My favorite part of the visit, however, was definitely when Sam got up, went out to his car, returned to the living room, and pulled some plastic-wrapped prosciutto from his pocket for us all to share. Smooth move, exlax.  

We had to stop Ernie from Bogarting the “prosciut.” I mention this just in case anyone was questioning his Italian heritage, which I’m pretty sure they weren’t.