Malign me no more

Greek salad. Say those words to dyed-in-the-wool New Yorkers and they will be met with a shrug or a cringe. There are a few dishes in the history and lure of New York have received such a mediocre wrap: Not because they are truly mediocre, but because pizzeria's all over chose to make them in that fashion, thus scarring the memories and palates of the natives for all time.

Oh, they were sorry piles of wilted iceberg with canned olives carelessly tossed with thinly shaved yellow onions and a couple of mushy pink-hued tomatoes. All this finery was doused liberally with red wine vinegar and vegetable oil. These so-called salads looked like decomposing remains from better iceberg in days gone by. They no more appealed to the palate than two week old sliced lemons.

Grocery stores and even the old pizzeria's in New York have come along way since then. Good news for anyone who is preggers and cannot, cannot tolerate the smell of cooking, or cooked food, no?

Greek Salad
8 servings

6 cups hearts of romaine, cut into bite-sized pieces
Kosher salt and freshly cracked black pepper
1 cup kalamata olives, pitted
2 English cucumbers, peeled and cut into medium dice
3 roma tomatoes, cut into medium dice
1/2 pound fresh mozzarella cheese, cut into medium dice
Juice of 1/2 lemon
1/4 cup best quality extra virgin olive oil
1 cup crumbled feta cheese

Place the romaine in a large salad bowl and season with salt and pepper. Add to the romaine the olives, cucumbers, tomatoes, and mozzarella. Drizzle the olive oil and lemon juice evenly over the top and toss gently to coat. Fold in the feta cheese gently. Serve.

Red Wine: Friend and Foe

Please join me at Blushing Hostess Homekeeping for a lively discussion: Red Wine: Friend and Foe.

For the way it was

Afternoon, Friends.

It never ceases to amaze me the way dishes go by. One of the many reasons I began Blushing Hostess was to chronicle my cooking life and the recipes and garden yields that influenced the dishes we ate. In a collection of cookbooks I keep towards the bottom of the shelves, there are thousands of worthy recipes. Though, they have for a few years now seemed to me more recipes gone by, if you will, than current and influential.

I know restaurants that seem to cook from these very cookbooks. They have commanding and moving views of the Boston and Cape Cod shorelines, old captains chairs for seating, and thin red-patterned worn carpets. They smell a little shore-line musty, smack of another time when people actually wore dinner jackets while eating out on vacation and dining with ladies with bouffant hair, sheath dresses made of thick polyester fabrics and wearing big plastic beads for necklaces. They served dishes of a legendary and high order that go by names youthful trendy diners have little connection to: Newburg, Thermador, Imperial, and Diane to name a few. It was an age of thick white sauces, fish covered in butter, then sprinkled liberally with cracker crumbs and more butter before being passed for mere seconds under a broiler. There was a time this was some pretty haute grub, okay? I'm young, but not so young as not to remember eating a Oscar this or an Imperial that. The truth of the matter, as I have intimated plainly to you, is that some places of this ilk remain. And the truth of me is that sometimes, I seek comfort in the things I associate with my first fine dining moments with my extended family.

It is ever so rare these days that I would pick up any cooking magazine and see one of these old fat-laden, heart-attack threatening renditions of butter, more butter, wine, stock, and cream. Oh, but there are days I want them back fiercely if only to uncloak a primary truth about restaurant food of this near age: Just because it looks healthier than the old days does not mean that it is. Restaurant food is not, for the most part, intended to help you govern your health. It is intended to taste fabulous in order to bring you back again and again. It is intended to make you crave something they do well.

Here are a couple more painful facts but facts nonetheless: Truly good steak is finished in butter. Tasty sauces are finished in cream, or butter. Salt punches up the flavor of everything when used correctly (Don't believe me? When you bake that next batch of chocolate cookies, sprinkle some grey sea salt over the top just as they come out of the oven.) If you are eating rich foods, restaurant or not, in moderation these occasionally creamy buttery bursts on your tongue will not be your greatest undoing. If you are eating them with abandon every night, why, you may have yourself a problem by next week. The point is, while the names and cooking techniques vary from the age of smoke-filled seaside joints, the fact of caloric and concerning ingredients remains.

But if, in the course of a moderate and careful life, you occasionally wish for a beautiful plate of food which is admittedly not the lowest in calories but is the highest in gorgeous, old-restaurant with a view of the Cape shore-comfort, make this dish. Or make it, for a guy named Mr. Micheli, who years ago sent it into Gourmet magazine in remembering his mother. I imagine her with a lovely big do, a sheath dress, and wearing a big necklace. I too make this in her honor, and in honor of the way it was.

Chicken (or Halibut) Louisa
Serves 4
adapted from Mr. Micheli's recipe as published by Gourmet, 2000

I occasionally use fish steaks of halibut here to make it special but Mr. Micheli, that old fox, he used boneless chicken breasts to make it a thing you could make on a Tuesday night. And you will be fine with dried tarragon though, tarragon is a lovely thing to have in a kitchen garden for salads and pot pie crusts, just off the top of my head...

4 (1/3-inch-thick) chicken cutlets
(1 1/2 lb)1 tablespoon olive oil
1 tablespoon unsalted butter
1 medium shallot, finely chopped
1/2 cup dry white wine or dry vermouth
1/2 cup chicken broth
3/4 cup heavy cream
4 or 5 plum tomatoes, coarsely chopped
2 tablespoons finely chopped fresh tarragon
1/2 extra-large chicken-bouillon cube, crumbled

Preheat oven to 200 degrees.

Pat chicken dry and season with salt and pepper. Heat oil and butter in a 12-inch heavy skillet over moderately high heat. Brown chicken on both sides in 2 batches, about 6 minutes per batch. Transfer chicken to a plate and keep warm in the oven until ready to serve.

Add shallot to skillet and cook, stirring, until tender, about 1 minute. Add wine and deglaze by boiling over high heat, scraping up brown bits, until reduced by half. Stir in broth, cream, tomatoes, and tarragon. Simmer, stirring, until tomatoes are softened and sauce begins to thicken, about 6 minutes. Season with salt and pepper.

Return chicken, with any juices accumulated on plate, to skillet and simmer until cooked through. Serve with rice.

Ease and comfort

There are a million references in the cooking world to ease and comfort. Every food related publication seems to have an area devoted to these ideas every month, they are called something reassuring like, "Quick," or "Fifteen Minute Suppers." I am generally leery of this concept because one of the basic understandings I carried with me from childhood is the knowledge that nothing worth having is easy.

Nonetheless, something about the below recipe when it was originally published in the the New York Times told me it should have fallen into the timely and comforting category rather than the luxe restaurant-food-at-home claim the article attached to the original recipe (which was for Artic Char, virtually the same thing which can be treated in the same manner as the salmon below). This is a fairly fast, unbelievably painless, and remarkably impressive dish to make.

What I have learned from this and my other fish recipe love is that given how quickly some fishes cook, my old axiom should no longer apply: A long cooked fish is a nasty fish so, let's call this easy, pretty quick, and outside the "good things take time" conventions. I am not sure it is luxe food. Though, it is deeply good, chest warming, and satisfying food.

Roasted Salmon with Ancho Shallot Butter
Serves 4
adapted from this New York Times recipe

Use more or less of the compund butter as you wish. Lovely with brown rice.

Ancho shallot butter:
2 teaspoons olive oil
1 small shallot, finely diced
1/4 cup white wine
1 stick unsalted butter, softened
4 teaspoons ground ancho chili pepper
1 teaspoon ground coriander
1 teaspoon honey
1/4 teaspoon salt

Salmon:
Canola oil spray for greasing the roasting pan
4 6 ounce ounce boneless salmon fillets
Sea salt and freshly ground black pepper

For the ancho-shallot butter: In a small skillet over medium heat, heat oil and add shallot. Sauté until softened, about 5 minutes. Add wine and simmer until evaporated, about 5 minutes. Remove from heat and allow to cool.

To make the compound butter: In a mixing bowl, combine softened butter, ancho chili, coriander, honey, salt and sauteed shallot. Mix well until blended and smooth. (New York Times note: "May be used immediately, or covered and refrigerated for up to 3 days, or covered and frozen for up to 3 months; bring to room temperature before using.")

Now the salmon. Preheat oven to 300 degrees. Lightly oil a shallow metal baking pan, and arrange fillets in a single layer. Salt and pepper the fillets. Then spread each with 2 tablespoons ancho-shallot butter. Bake 10 minutes. They will still be right pink on the inside. Plate, re-spoon pan sauces over each plated filet. Serve.

The trouble with food

There are times in everyones life when food becomes so much less appealing. For many, this does not happen until much later in life when our bodies have to contend with something so all-consuming no bodily effort can be put towards enjoying or even caring about food. For others, it happens sooner and periodically throughout the course of a lifetime. For me, it happens when I am pregnant, as I am now. Newly and sickly so, unfortunately.

This second pregnancy is much like the first: I can tolerate cold, scentless foods best. There is the occasional craving in the first three months and a desperate need for ice cream at most times. While I cannot explain these oddities to anyone around me in a way that makes any sense, I see some evidence there may be little hands at work: My daughter is a fierce eater of very good ice cream and avocados now that she can choose her own sustenance.

Jennifer always got the call when I needed a burger then. My Mom had to eat a good deal of Indian food with me, that ended in an unfortunate dish of Chicken Vindaloo which sent the seventh-month babe wildly fighting inside. And John made a probably a hundred ladies-portion-turkey-lettuce-tomato sandwiches and blueberry-muffin-extra-butter at Kingsley's as those months passed. All of this was a marked improvement over those first three months in which food was just an agony for me, and vitamins no less a nightmare.

This is by way of a warning: There is only so much cooking I can manage because I cannot tolerate the smell of food. More cold food will appear here because these recipes are tested according to what I can manage, normally against a multitude of obligations and pursuits, but now against a queasy, easily-offended, and relentless stomach. Bear with me, will you?


Grilled Corn and Cojita Salad with Lime Dressing
Serves 4

This salad is best at this time of year when the corn is super fresh and sweet. I prefer Cojita to many Feta applications because it is less salty and more creamy in texture as crumbling cheeses go. You could add a roasted poblano to this salad for some heat...

8 ears of corn (preferably sweet), cleaned
1 cup cojita cheese, crumbled
1 medium red onion, diced
Juice of one lime
1 tablespoon chili powder
Kosher salt and freshly ground black pepper

Coat your grilling surface with non-stick cooking spray. Heat your grill to medium.

Place the corn ears on to the grill. Cook for 7 minutes on each (relative) side, or until cooked through. This will depend on the size of the ears.

With your chef's knife, cut the kernels from the corn into a medium bowl. Add the cojita, red onion, lime juice, and chili powder. Toss vigorously to combine.

Season with salt and pepper to combine. Serve hot if you must but flavor deepens with a couple of hours in the refrigerator.