of cabbages and kings (there were shoes in that bit too)
19 Jun 2010 1 Comment
in beets, casseroles, cheese, greens, lemons, pasta, recipes, vegan, vegetarian Tags: bread crumbs, Brooklyn, cabbage, Community Supported Agriculture, cooking, CSA, dinner, gardens, garlic, health, kim chee, kimchi, Napa, Savoy, summer, sustainable, tempeh
scape handler
Diogenes advised the young man, “If you lived on cabbage, you would not be obliged to flatter the powerful.” To this, the courtier replied, “If you flattered the powerful, you would not be obliged to live on cabbage. “
we still had a pound and a half of cabbage after the preacher eater’s adventure in kimchi. The fermenting project netted us a huge jar of fruity-peppery, gingery pickled cabbage and carrots with plenty to gift to the neighbors, but half a head of Savoy and an entire red cabbage began accruing squatter’s rights in the left crisper drawer.
virtuous, humble and reliable, cabbage earned accolades in ancient Rome and held its own among the French Court of Catherine de Medici. It plays mythical roles from beau diviner to baby-maker to faerie land wormhole gateway. Ubiquity and poor handling put this staple out of favor. Outside of the obligatory 4th of July coleslaw and a few dedicated sauerkrauters, we mostly avoid cabbage, rumored to generate stink as it cooks and after you eat it. Like so many misunderstood foods, these unfortunate experiences are not really the cabbages’ fault, yet the stigma remains.
so she was gasping when she called me from the farm share pick-up, Guess what’s in the share? Cabbage!
we almost swapped that cabbage out. Our CSA site has a box to trade stuff you might not want: hate broccoli? take your neighbor’s unloved turnips. One cook’s trash is after all…
we had a cart like that in grade school in the gym turned lunchroom. I kept my much maligned salami sandwiches to myself but always took a cruise around the table for anything interesting. It was perpetually teaming with inside-out pb&j sandwiches mangled in transit, bashed up bananas, and overly red apples that you knew were mealy despite stiff and shiny skins. Disappointing. Although the CSA swap box held far more promise, the farmer was giving us Napa cabbage, a new variety for our growing collection. Humbled to fate, perhaps, we decided to confront our cabbage surplus head on.
as soon as our newest cabbage arrived home, we went right for the heart, putting away 3 bunches of outer leaves and pulling the central leaves for instant salad. We also shredded that lingering red cabbage, mixing half with shredded new beets and olive oil, balsamic vinegar, salt and pepper—jarred this.
for Instant Gratification CSA Salad, combine a quarter of a red cabbage, shredded, with the innermost pale green leaves of Napa cabbage in a huge glass bowl. Rinse a handful each of the finest of spinach and beet greens. Stem the spinach and roll the beet greens up like a cigar, slice them and add to the other greens. Scrub and slice thin three Japanese radishes—not those leg of lamb sized Daikon, these were round like typical red radishes but pure white and milder—and add to the salad.
then come the scapes, wonderfully loopy and green, like bracelets. Discard the stringy tips at the bulb end then slice the bulb just below the neck then slice it open lengthwise. Slice a few inches of the green stem the same way, long, elegant, on the diagonal. Rinse off a handful of pea pods, pop off the stem end if it is tough (ours were utterly edible). Slice in half if they are long then lengthwise, right through the peas, split their tiny equators. The cutaway of the inner landscape is pretty like the scapes. Heat a small frying pan over a medium flame and pour in a few slugs of olive oil. Toss in the scapes and the peas, salt and pepper and toss them around over high heat for a few minutes, until the peas are bright green. Dump right from the pan into the salad bowl and toss. Squeeze half a lemon over the whole thing, toss some more and serve. This salad accompanied BBQ tempeh sandwiches to our table.
the next night, several bunches of Napa leaves went into a skillet pie reminiscent of stuffed cabbage rolls but far less work:
break dried spaghetti into 1-inch lengths for about a cup of broken noodles; boil and drain them. Cook a cup of quinoa for about 15 minutes in 2 cups of boiling stock. While the grains and pasta cook, chop several scapes (or garlic) and shell some peas. We had about ¼ cup of peas and saved the pods for miso soup. Toss garlic and peas with the pasta and grains in a big bowl along with salt and pepper. The stock we had on hand was deep with mushroom flavor, which I think made this the best sort of comfort food, a dish that draws the eater in to pause then wraps you in thick, familiar flavor, smelling really good.
in a big, cast iron skillet, sauté half an onion, chopped, in a bit of butter and olive oil. Add ½ a pound of tempeh, chopped, along with salt, pepper, red pepper flakes and paprika, turning and cooking until it begins to brown. Ladle in about a cup of stock and a few stalks of spicy basil or other herbs then bring to a simmer, steaming the tempeh. When the stock has evaporated, turn the tempeh in with the grains and stir. Let this all cool just a bit then crack in an egg, stir.
preheat the oven to 400° and wipe out your heavy skillet. Melt 3 tablespoons or so of butter and spread a layer of bread cubes (about 3 slices of bread, cubed) along the bottom of the pan. Season and toast the bread over high for a few minutes, turning to coat all sides in butter. Smooth out the bread layer and cover with the grain/tempeh and over that layer several rounds of Napa cabbage leaves. Crumble fresh feta and shred some parmesan cheese over the leaves; dot with butter and sprinkle with paprika. Bake the whole thing for about 20 minutes, until the leaves are soft and cheese is melted. In a bigger casserole, there could be a few layers and, I imagine, delectable.
summer jewelry
we have some of the remaining cabbage earmarked for miso soup, and surely the last bit of red cabbage will go into our daily lunch salads, or maybe this kale and cabbage slaw. Getting through all this cabbage was originally about conquering it, but this affair turned out much tastier triumphs. And we still have kimchi.
** with affection to alice & her creator, who gave me so many things to talk about then eat
fire escape salad
21 May 2010 2 Comments
in beans & lentils, greens, recipes, vegan, vegetarian Tags: Brooklyn, catnip, container gardening, cooking, gardens, herbs, home cooking, italian cooking, onion, rosemary, sage, salad, sustainability, thyme
come as you are!
the trouble with writing about salad is that making salad is not really cooking but assembling. Yet, these are essential ensembles. Consider this your salad reminder— salads make a fine meal from a cool kitchen. With global weirding subjecting us at random from this day forth to the heat formally relegated to the official months of summer, the oven’s days are numbered. Even off the shaded garbage courtyard, this Brooklyn apartment kitchen can get hotter than crêpes suzette come summer. Maybe the possibilities of salad make hot weather an ideal time for wooers-not-cookers to court; salad can be high on haute and low on technique. What matters most is the freshness of the goods, and the whole rainbow of plantdom is pretty much a candidate. It goes without saying that salad is really good for you.
this salad thrills because it is composed mostly of bounty off our fire escape, where we’re nurturing a container garden of lettuce and herbs, plus catnip for the miraculous flying cat, the K. Pidds.
the k. pidds
in scavenged tubs, two kinds of lettuce are putting out sails of green and red leaves. After harvesting greens the size of my hand, the still unfurling centers promise more salad to come. I hope to add Tom Thumb and Little Gem. If we add rocket, soon we’ll have mesclun.
authorities claim the key to a gorgeous salad is well-rinsed and gently, thoroughly dried greens. Simple oil and vinegar dressing clings to dry leaf sides. In Unplugged Kitchen, Viana la Place not only feels “a keen excitement” when she sits down to eat a dish of beautiful green leaves, she writes: “Harvesting lettuce leaves in the garden right before supper creates a romantic vision, but it also allows us to derive the full benefits from each ruffled, fragrant leaf.”
a heartfelt Italian cook, Viana delivers 25 recipes for lovely salads, including beloved veggies: purslane, artichokes, beets, and old fashioned potato and nasturium salad. As I nod to her here, she gleefully shares “salade fatigue” by 1960s fashion impresario Simonetta, an Italian in Paris and a Snob in the Kitchen:
many of Simonetta’s salads, including this one, call for the salad to “season” for an hour before serving. For Simonetta, a salad must be fatigué, “tired,” to be good; it must be “mixed, beaten, and drunk with its dressing.”
current food fashions have veered away from greens besotted with dressing but beaten and drunk have a certain camp appeal. She recommends whacking towel wrapped greens against the counter to tenderize them, also a satisfying way to call forth the essential oils in herbs going whole leaf into salad.
fire escape salad
our herb garden includes spicy or Greek basil, a diminutive cousin of the towering Italian type classically paired with fresh sliced tomatoes and creamy mozzarella in mid-summer. Also tiny, forest green peppermint. Lime basil, with slender, petal-thin leaves. Sage that has since been menaced by the weather and lost its leaves but seems to be reviving. Creeping thyme, lots of it, my favorite.
rosemary too, which is now only three branches strong but with care will become a bush and burst forth with fragrant purple blossoms. Those will go in the salad too. Rosemary needles, with the resiny toughness of an evergreen (though it’s a member of the mint family), are better cooked, even for salad. Bringing me off the fire escape and into the pantry for staples that made this salad a meal.
cannellini beans cooked with one healthy branch of our little shrub and a bit of salt and fresh ground pepper. When boiled tender, drain the beans in a colander and toss with a pour of olive oil, salt, fresh pepper and handfuls of fresh herbs. While the beans cook, slice a red onion very fine and soak the shreds in ice water for at least 10 minutes to take the bite out. Marinade in balsamic vinegar, salt and pepper for as long as you like.
in your biggest, best salad bowl, gently combine the beans and onions with your greens, including that succulent lettuce and fresh herbs. Just lift the onions out of their marinade with a fork. Despite Simonetta’s preferences, the vinegar soaked onions and oiled beans will carry plenty of dressing into the salad. Croutons are nice, and grated parmesan. Serve with crusty white bread toasted and sliced, along with a plate of very fine olive oil with a pool of honey in its center, sprinkle with sea salt and a crank of fresh pepper. Trust me.
tofu scramble
22 Jun 2007 1 Comment
in mushrooms, recipes, soy, vegan Tags: brunch, cast iron, gardens, leftovers, scrambled eggs, tomatoes
Press a
block of tofu
between kitchen towels under a weight (like the joy of cooking but put a plastic bag or waxed paper under it so it doesn’t soak your book).
slice 2 or 3 celery stalks into chunky half-moons and chop a small onion. Smash, peel, and mince 2 or 3 cloves of garlic.
Heat a big fry pan—like a 12 inch cast iron skillet—and add 2-3 tablespoons of olive oil. Sauté the onions and celery for a few minutes then add the garlic. Cook until the onions are translucent. How long this takes will depend on how high your heat is and the volume of veggies you are cooking. I like to cook it on high heat, stirring often, to move things along.
Crumble the tofu into the pan. I leave it in fairly big chunks; some folks like their tofu scramble in rubbley little bits. I think it is supposed to make it more “scrambled-egg like,” but I am against pretending food is not what it is and i don’t like the texture of nubbley mush. Let the tofu brown a bit then sprinkle in 2 teaspoons or so of turmeric and a half teaspoon or so of cumin. Stir in a tablespoon of Bragg’s or soy sauce.
Slice whatever mushrooms you have into similar sized parts for even cooking. For example, slice about half a dozen crimini mushrooms into three parts each; take the stems off if they are really woody but on the very small ones especially (which you can just cut in half) you can leave the stems on. Add the mushrooms and cook the whole mess for about another 10 minutes or so, until the mushrooms are juicy. You may want to cover the pan. If you have a lot of mushrooms, you may want to cut them along with all the other veggies and just set them aside until they need to be added to the pan.
***
tofu scramble—just like omelets—lends itself to incorporating pretty much whatever veggie leftovers you have around. That pile of greens you made last night with hot sauce, that half a can of chick peas in the fridge, or some of those tomatoes your neighbor brought over because his garden exploded at the end of the summer are all candidates for tofu scramble. You can serve it with that last ½ inch of salsa in the jar. Although humble and accommodating, tofu-scramble is utterly brunch-worthy, and in my opinion, stands up to a bloody mary as well as any omelet.
