Omelette for Claire

Oozing and gooey and effortlessly simple: the omelette is so incredibly easy to make, I don't know why pages of recipe books have been devoted to it's complexity. But first, a word about my friend Claire. Claire is an incredible celebrity booker who I've worked with over 8 years. She's booked some of the best covers I've ever worked on. (Brooke Shields, Faith Hill, and Giada de Laurentiis included) She's also one of those wonderful people that take the weather with her. She's brilliantly sunny, even while all those around her might be full of gloom. Today Claire can't decide whether to walk over the bridge to my apartment, or take the J train. She's bringing with her a cool set of eye glasses she wants me to have, and in lieu; I'm cooking her an omelette. 

Omelette stuffed with goats cheese. Put sticky nuggets of local NY goats cheese inside an eggy mixture. Melt till tender and gooey.  

OMELETTE STUFFED WITH GOATS CHEESE: Crack 4 eggs in a bowl, add 4 tablespoons of tap water, salt and pepper and whisk. Put butter or french walnut oil in a medium pan and add the egg mixture to the middle of the pan so it spreads out evenly to the outer sides. Let sit for one minute. Don't stir. Put sticky nuggets of local NY goats cheese on one side of the pan, let the cheese sit and cook for a bit and then relax, (it's just an omelette!) When the egg mixture still looks runny and not yet cooked through, fold over one side to the other side, covering the cheese nuggets and slide off onto a plate and voila! Tip: Don't over cook, take the omelette off when it's just nearly cooked through, and not yet hard. It will continue to cook while it rests.

I used goats cheese from Painted Goat Farm, NY. Which I got at the New Amsterdam market.

www.paintedgoat.com/

www.newamsterdammarket.org/

Zucchini Skin Sauce

Thinly shaved zucchini skin makes a great sauce

The greenmarket still has zucchini but unfortunately the farmer there tells me it's probably the last week.

When cooking with animals, it's important to use the whole beast and not waste a single part. The same respect has to be said for vegetables. I'm guilty of throwing out the vegetable peelings, as well as the green tops from a various bunches of carrots or beets. It always bothers me that you can't buy bunches of cilantro at a regular supermarket in NY with the roots still on (unless you got to Chinatown). Where did the roots go? The roots are the best part!

Inspired by a green based color-themed food story that I art directed at Martha Stewart Living this past week, together with a recipe for an Emerald green sauce I love from Perla Meyers "The peasant kitchen" (see my previous post on her book) Here are 2 recipes that use the "whole" zucchini.

Cauliflower with bright green zucchini skin sauce. 

1) FALL ROASTED CAULIFLOWER WITH ZUCCHINI SKIN SAUCE: In a food processor, put half a cup of extra virgin olive oil, 1 and a half tablespoons of red wine vinegar, a small tight fistful of finely chopped italian parsley, 2 tablespoons of minced scallions (but only the green part), 2 whole garlic smashed, add the shavings of 2 whole medium zucchini's, a quarter wedge of finely diced medium green bell pepper, 4 whole flat anchovy filets, 3 cornichons and 1 tablespoon of small well-drained capers. Salt and pepper. Blend. Sauce should be smooth and a luminous green color.

Cut a whole cauliflower into pieces. Blanch the pieces quickly in big pot of boiling salted water for 4 minutes. Place the blanched pieces on a baking sheet, rub a tiny bit of oil into them and put them in the oven at 400 degrees until they start to brown and cook through. Check them frequently so don't burn. Take out pieces and slather in green zucchini skin sauce.

The cauliflower with the sauce is great served with simple grilled fish, flash-fried tofu or chicken. Another side of roasted sweet butternut squash with a splash of maple syrup or crunchy pumpkin seeds on top would round out the meal nicely.

Perl's recipe calls for the cauliflower to be steamed and then the sauce added immediately, which you can do, especially if you're pressed for time. I like the browned and nutty flavors though that develop from roasting the cauliflower. It gives a depth of flavor that mixes well with the pungent green sauce.

Use up the leftover skinned zucchini with the leftover scallion whites for this recipe for Zucchini and cheddar fritters. 

2) ZUCCHINI AND CHEDDAR "FRITTERS" : Grate the 2 already skinned whole zucchini's very finely. Put in a bowl. Squeeze out excess water by pressing the zucchini between paper towels or tea towels. Add one egg lightly beaten, a good pinch of salt and pepper and a half a cup of local grated cheddar. Mix together. Fry generous spoonfuls in a non- stick pan in vegetable oil, until browned.

Serve the fritters with fresh tomato sauce for dipping.

A return to simple food

A friend loans me a copy of Perla Meyers' 'The peasant kitchen; A return to simple good food', with beautiful photographs by John Stuart. The book came out in the 70's, and even then was pushing for an emphasis on the freshness of ingredients, and a simple and direct approach to Seasonal foods. She advises not to run into a supermarket expecting to find everything you want and rather look for a small street market that takes pride in the freshness of it's produce. Her introduction includes a lovely story about what she finds at an outdoor food market in Portugal (on a cold winter's day). Where the inspiration for the days meal came from and should come from, what one finds there. This book came out in 1975, 35 years ago.

Weekend in the country...

I'm invited up to prop stylist Paige Hick's house in Pennsylvania with the food stylist Adrienne Anderson to cook, catch up and hang out. We brainstorm a menu for an early Fall dinner the day I arrive to have that evening with a group of Paige's neighborhood friends.

http://paigehicks.com/

http://adrienne-anderson.net/

A lazy morning; mugs of hot coffee and Anna del Conte's beautiful book (The Painter, the Cook and the Art of Cucina) on regional food in Italy which has over 100 of Val Archer's subtle and delicate paintings of food.

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Painter-Cook-Cucina-Anna-Conte/dp/1840914955/ref=pd_sxp_f_pt

Across Paige's garden is a shallow scattering of red, yellow and green tomatoes. Like tiny discarded toy traffic lights. Some are split, squashed or savored by bugs but there is still a lot of good shaped, edible ones too. We stroll for awhile in the morning sunshine collecting peppers, pulling up green onions and picking herbs for an early colorful lunch.

Adrienne finds a stray branch that we erect (cheekily) as our 'flag' on our erected table to herald in our first Fall lunch.

Pops of color, soft sunshine and a simple pasta with freshly picked tomatoes and herbs under a clear and crisp blue sky.

Bright, yet warm and comforting. Adrienne delivers a deft but heavy hand when it comes to coarsly grated parmesan which adds tang, depth and an element of stick-to-the-ribs-iness. She also throws in some pan-roasted carrots, last minute, to add a heartiness that's buttery, pure and earthy.

The early Fall dinner

THE MENU:

Adrienne's pork shoulder

Roasted garden carrots

Cornbread

Cabbage

Oh porky pork, come to me! Adrienne was inspired to create this recipe from the wife of a Dominican chef she worked with in the West Village.

ADRIENNE'S MARINATED PORK SHOULDER: Toast 2 teaspoons each of whole fennel, coriander and cumin seeds. Put them in a grinder and pulse until fine. Put the ground spices in a food processor and add 10 cloves of whole garlic, a tablespoon of freshly grated ginger, 3 tablespoons of salt (Yes, 3) a good blob of Sabra's Red schug, (or I've also used Kirmizi Biber, a hot but sweet pepper powder sometimes used in Turkish/Ottoman dishes), a giant glug glug of olive oil, throw in a whole bunch of fresh coriander and some red wine vinegar. Whizz into a fairly liquid-y paste. Rub it all over a 5 pound pork shoulder that you've initially stabbed 20 or so times, (serial killer proportions). Make sure you get it into all the crevices. Put entire pork and it's marinade into a giant zip lock bag and place in the fridge to marinate for 2 days. (Or at least 12 hours). When ready to cook, shove the pork in the oven, loosely covered in foil. Start at 425 degrees for first 20 minutes then take it down to 375 and cook until done. Take off the foil for the last 20 minutes. *Adrienne's tip: If you don't have a separate grinder to use to blend the spices you can use a regular electric coffee grinder and toss in a handful of raw rice to clean out the stray coffee grounds. If some coffee grounds do get into this particular recipe, though, it can only enhance the flavor.

 

The slow roasted pork with sweet cornbread, cabbage and roasted carrots straight from the garden. 

The Cabbage is thinly sliced and sauteed in fresh garlic and butter. "Butter is better" advises Adrienne... "Not oil. As the cabbage really benefits from the additional sweetness of the butter"

Cheers!

Catering for the Epstein party-tomato tartin

The Epstein Catering gig.

The Photo Editor at Real Simple magazine decides to hire us to cook for a shower she's throwing her good friend Amy. She leaks that her pregnant friend has been obsessed with pickles, so we decide to overcompensate in that area and hit the Farmers market to give her lots to choose from. A bearded man with the faint smell of whiskey on his breath and an ultra pale green hat is oddly specific that sunchokes have hit the market and are kitty corner to where I stand. He's right, and their the only ones in the market so we decide to snatch some up to slice and pickle them along with picking up some sturdy green tomatoes to make a chutney. I've already pickled some Perignon shelling peas (which become much less stringy and fibrous when you blanch them first) Their peas turn an ebony black inside their spidery pink green cases, and mixed with vinegar create a beautiful pinkish hue.

Perignon Shelling Beans

The week I'm preparing for this party, I happen to work with long time friend and food photographer Quentin Bacon.

www.quentinbacon.com

He mentions he's just shot Kim Boyce's book "Good to the grain"

http://www.amazon.com/Good-Grain-Baking-Whole-Grain-Flours/dp/1584798300

Inspired I purchase it and get excited by the apricot and boysenberry tart (on page 152) with rustic rye flour dough. I decide to emulate a version of it for the Epstein gig, but make them mini sized, like little hand  'pies' but using sweet ripe peaches and raspberries instead.

Kim Boyce's incredible rye flour dough, with the peaches and peach jam and raspberries placed in the center

The beautiful grey pallor of the rustic dough

lamb chops (and slow roasted summer tomatoes)

Hurricane Earl is apparently coming to town with promised storms, winds and possibly cooler temperatures. I decide this gives me license to turn on the oven for the first time this Summer and start roasting. I decide to do Lamb chops with tomatoes. Succulent lamb chops are grass fed and locally sourced from Pennsylvania (I got them at Marlow and Daughters, here in Brooklyn) and serve them with local market cherry tomatoes that I roast slow and low with a good drench of sea salt and olive oil  for 105 minutes at 325 until caramelized which brings out their natural sweetness. They're quickly jarred after roasting -layered deep with olive oil. Later I whisk the tomatoes into a heavy garlic aioli, and slather them heavy and thick over the top of the briskly grilled but pinkishly rare lamb chops. They're delicious. 

Jarred and ready

France, the farmhouse, Paris

Breakfast from La Grande Epicerie Paris

I like the sturdy cool glass container that houses the Pannacotta. Surely this is the best way to serve and store dairy. I don't exactly feel like Pannacotta at 10 in the morning but it's Paris and I like the container and I can see using it to as a jar to mix Vinaigrette in when I get home. The sweetness goes really well with the lardon and Comté roll that accompanies it. The Pannacotta wobbles achingly under the spoon, in a quivering sway. It's thick and creamy but not too sweet. It's perfect.

I spend 3 hours at Grande Epicerie De Paris, the food supermarket at Le Bon March

I wish I knew more about bread making. A roll from Grande Epicerie is taunt and leathery and cracks when you bite into it to then get pungent lardons and Comté, (a cheese made from unpasteurized cow's milk in the Franche-Comté region of France) making it gooey and soft. http://www.lagrandeepicerie.fr/#en-GB/home

Paris

Simple early dinner

Good Cookery

The dinner for locals (Bourdeilles)

The Bourdeilles dinner for locals

Dinner at the community hall with the local townsfolk and farmers.

My chicken

Perigueux and the free range chicken

Lucie tells me that if I can cycle down to the town of Bourdeilles by 8am and stash my bicycle someplace, she will let me hitch a lift with her to Perigueux to pick up a free range chicken.

cheese and sausage

Hand pressed walnut oil (Huile de noix)

The hand pressed walnut oil I got at the farmers market the first day in Brantome has become my staple. I fry the potatoes in it and also toss it with a syrupy balsamic vinegar and pour it onto crisp butter lettuce greens.