An anniversary dinner to remember

Detail of wallpaper at
Chez Panisse.
Photograph ©2014,
Lori Korleski Richardson

We were due to be in Berkeley on the day of our 25th wedding anniversary, so there was one restaurant that immediately jumped to the top of our list: Chez Panisse.

And we were not disappointed. Although a printed menu comes to each table, there was more to each dish than what was described. Each course seemed somewhat small, but by the time we were done, we were quite full. We ordered a glass of Spanish sparkling rosé (a 2011 Cava Rosado) for each of us to start, then I had a glass of chardonnay (2010 Votes du Jura, Peggy et Jean-Pascal Buronfosse, France) with the fish course, and Jim had a pinot noir (2011 Ponzi Tavola, Willamette Valley) with the duck (we shared sips).

After we were seated in a room that had been redone after a fire closed the restaurant last year, and presented with menus and a wine list, a basket of rustic whole wheat and a pain d'epi came, with a small butter bell and some fleur de sal. A server then came by with a few green, unpitted olives that had been marinated in orange and lemon zest.

 Here are the menu items, followed by photos.

First:
Porcini mushroom and celery salad with fava beans, mint and new garlic vinaigrette. The favas were mashed and spread on a delightful crostini; the sprouts and radish were also nice additions. Much to my delight, the celery was absolutely fresh and not overpowering in quantity.

Photograph ©2014, Lori Korleski Richardson

Fish:
King salmon in saffron brodetto with agretti greens. The broth was made from halibut and the little yellow orbs were cooked and peeled yellow cherry tomatoes. The poached squid was amazingly tender and tasty. Agretti is a salt-tolerant plant that is native to the Mediterranean, but tonight's greens were locally sourced. They had the look of rosemary, the taste of spinach and the texture of a delicate seaweed.

Photograph ©2014, Lori Korleski Richardson

Main:

Grilled Salmon Creek Ranch duck breast and leg with sage and pine nut salsa, wild rocket and squash tian. As you can see from the photograph, a couple of spears of peeled asparagus slipped in, along with a generous grate of parmesan. The sage was muddled with the pine nuts, rendering it an amazing seasoning for the duck. The leg was exceedingly rich, having been cooked confit style then crisped, while the breast was grilled in the fireplace until just warm. It was so melting tender that practically dissolved on our tongues. The tian was like a light, crustless quiche. Side note: Wild rocket, indeed. Just try keep arugula in the garden.

Photograph ©2014, Lori Korleski Richardson

Dessert:
Star blueberry tart with candied Meyer lemon.

I stopped taking photographs before dessert arrived, so I'll try to describe it the best I can. The tart was a slender slice, with a light, whole wheat crust. The candied Meyer lemon was in tiny bits scattered on a side drizzle of honey and a goodly number of raspberries. On the other side was a dollop of vanilla-bean crème anglaise. It was pure heaven.

After dinner, our server stopped by with the restaurant's version of an Almond Joy: two tiny coconut macaroons and two almonds dusted in cocoa.

What could we say but yum! And we'll be back well before we celebrate our 50th.

Asparagus - expensive to buy, but that's not all

Photograph © 2013,  Lori Korleski Richardson

Asparagus is a very tasty vegetable, easy to fix, forgiving if a little under or overdone - but at more than $3 a pound, it's considered a luxury item.

To keep it in top condition, you need to cut off the ends and stick it in water; if some of the spears look dehydrated in the store, pass on that bunch. Likewise, make sure that all the spears have their tips, and the tips aren't soggy and soon to rot.

When you prepare it correctly for cooking, it loses even more value. To make the most of what's been bought and give it the proper presentation, many chefs will trim all the ends so the spears are all the same length, and if they more ambitious, peel the bottom half. This makes the ends taste better and make the texture somewhat less stringy, but it's still not the optimum preparation.

Asparagus has a natural breaking point to each spear. Take each spear, and starting from the bottom, bend it until you find the point where it snaps without effort. Above that point, the spear is tender and doesn't need to be peeled at all; below, it is tough and woody. Cook only the top parts - steamed, microwaved, baked or grilled, but not past the point the vegetable is no longer bright green - and you will be assured of tender asparagus.

Save the ends in the freezer to add to vegetable broth or toss them in the compost.

A fine Valentine's

I am basking in contented satiate at the moment.

Our Valentine's Day meal, eaten at home, was Linguine with Calamari and Garlic; roasted asparagus; salad of romaine, bibb, baby lettuces, tomatoes, avocado and radishes, dressed with spices and olive oil. We enjoyed a Hendry Primativo, which burst forth with spells of wonder when we brought forth the dessert, the vegan chocolate mousse that was featured last week in the New York Times. 

And to make it all perfect, the love of my life took the day off. We're almost to our 24th anniversary, and I hope we'll have 24 more!

Linguine with Calamari and Garlic

Bon Appétit,  December 1996

Serves: 2

Ingredients

1/2 pound linguine

4 rolled anchovies with capers, from 2-ounce tin; anchovies crushed, oil reserved

1/2 pound cleaned calamari (squid), thinly sliced crosswise

3 large garlic cloves, chopped

1/4 teaspoon dried crushed red pepper

3/4 cup dry white wine

1/2 cup thinly sliced fresh basil leaves

Instructions

Cook pasta in large pot of boiling salted water until just tender but still firm to bite, stirring occasionally. Drain pasta, reserving 1/2 cup cooking liquid.

Meanwhile, heat reserved oil from anchovies (about 2 tablespoons) in large skillet over medium-high heat with garlic. Add calamari and toss just until opaque, about 1 minute. Add crushed red pepper and crushed anchovies with capers and stir 1 minute. Add white wine; boil until sauce is slightly reduced, about 3 minutes. Mix in basil.

Add pasta to mixture in skillet. Toss until heated through and sauce coats pasta, adding reserved cooking liquid by tablespoonfuls if pasta seems dry, about 2 minutes. Divide pasta and calamari between 2 pasta bowls and serve.

Weeknight nage for busy gourmets

The recipe I posted earlier this week is good but complicated. 

It took Jim a whole afternoon to prepare this wonderful dinner: 

Sautéed Maine Scallops on Garlic Mashed Potatoes with Chanterelle Mushrooms and Parsley Nage in "Terra: Cooking from the Heart of Napa Valley" (Ten Speed Press, 2000, 256 pages) by Hiro Sone and Lissa Doumani.

What follows is my simplified version for two people. It takes about 30 minutes to fix, and is a good way to flavor up chicken breasts. It also looks impressive. If you don't care for cilantro, use flat-leaf parsley instead.

Lori K's Chicken Breasts in Rustic Nage

Serves 2

Recipe ©2012  Lori Korleski Richardson

Ingredients

For the nage

1 small minced shallot

3 tablespoons dry white wine

1/4 cup heavy cream

Sea salt and freshly ground pepper to taste

1 small bunch cilantro, stemmed

1/4 cup packed spinach leaves

1/3 cup chicken stock

1 clove garlic, smashed

1 tablespoon olive oil

4 ounces white or brown mushrooms, sliced

For the rest

2 small chicken breasts

Sea salt and freshly ground white pepper

Spray olive oil

8 baby carrots

4 spears asparagus

1/2 yellow bell pepper

2 cups boiling water

1 pack (4.1 ounce) Idahoan Baby Reds instant mashed potatoes

4 sprigs cilantro, for garnish

Instructions

To start the nage, combine the minced shallot and wine in a small, heavy, nonreactive saucepan. Bring to a boil and cook until reduced to 1 tablespoon. Add the cream and return just to a boil. Season lightly with salt and pepper. Set aside and keep warm.

Put the cilantro and spinach in freezer zip bag and partially close. Microwave until just wilted. Seal the bag and throw the bag into the freezer to chill. Put the stock and garlic into a blender, along with a little salt and pepper. Take the bag out of the freezer, drain the greens, squeeze out any excess water and add to the stock and garlic. Process until smooth. Season lightly with salt and pepper. Put 1 tablespoon of olive oil in a medium skillet over high heat, add the mushrooms and sauté for 4 minutes. Set aside.

Using the microwave, cook the baby carrots in a bowl with a little water until tender, about 4 minutes. Snap off the tough ends of the asparagus, then put them in a freezer zip bag and partially close; cook about 2 minutes or until bright green. Cut the ribs and seeds off the yellow bell pepper and cut into 8 strips. Cook in a freezer zip bag until just well heated. Drain all these, season with a little salt and pepper and keep warm.

Pound the chicken breasts until they are about a 1/4-inch thick. Season with salt and pepper and spray with olive oil. Heat a cast-iron shallow skillet to hot over high heat. Sauté the breasts on one side until they are very white around the edges. Flip and cook about a minute less on the other side. Remove the pan from the heat and let the breasts rest in the pan for 1 minute.

As you do this, boil the water for the potatoes. Add the pouch of potatoes all at once and stir well to moisten. Cover and let stand for 5 minutes.

Meanwhile, finish preparing the nage: Reheat the cream mixture, and add the cilantro-spinach purée and the mushrooms. Bring just to a boil, then remove from the heat. Taste and adjust seasoning. Set aside and keep warm.

To serve, put 1/2 cup mashed potatoes in the center of each of 2 warmed shallow bowls. Spoon the  nage evenly around the potatoes, then place one chicken breast on top of each serving of mashed potatoes. Arrange the vegetables on and around the chicken. Garnish with cilantro springs.

Prepping food for easy meals

Here are some tips that you can do after shopping that will save you time on weeknights after work.

Green beans: Snip the ends off. Bring a pot of water to a boil and put a drain insert or steaming basket in it. When the water is boiling well, put the beans in. Get a bowl of ice water ready. When the water comes back to a full rolling boil, take the beans out and put them in the bowl of ice water. Drain and store in the fridge for up to three days. To prepare, heat a tablespoon of butter or olive oil in a skillet, add beans, season with salt and pepper (and garlic or black bean sauce if you desire) and saute until heated. Serve. Top with a tablespoon of crumbled bacon, toasted sesame seeds or slivered almonds if desired.

Lettuce: Wash the heads thoroughly when you get them home and shake dry. If the bottom has turned brown, cut a 1/4 inch or so off. Wrap the lettuce in paper towels and put back in its plastic bag (clean the bag out first if the lettuce was especially dirty). You can even tear the leaves for salad if you plan on using it all in a day or two. Still, be sure to wrap the lettuce in paper (or cloth) towels. But don't use a metal knife and cut it; it will discolor rapidly.

Asparagus: If you like grilled asparagus, cook a pound or two at a time. Be sure to snap off the bottoms; they will naturally break where the tender part starts. Cook it about 8 minutes or until crisp-tender, no more. You can reheat it in the microwave (if it seemed a little bitter to you the first time, try reheating it in milk - that smooths out the taste) or use it cold in a salad or with a drizzle of lemon and butter and a poached egg on top.

More to come as I think of them.

Later this week, we will be gone a few days to see my nephew graduate; if I don't keep up my posts then, please check back after June 9 for sure.

Spring sprung from the earth

I've written how I've come to view fava beans, with their short growing season, as the herald of spring. And they almost are exclusively a home cook's dish, since their preparation time precludes most restaurants from offering them.

Another lovely springtime offering, which also is best fresh, is morels. Even in season, they are very pricey, but the good news is that you don't need but a few ounces to make an impact in a dish. The photograph is of a black morel, courtesy of The Great Morel Picture Page.

If you go hunting for morels yourself, the good news is that the only similar poisonous mushroom is the false morel, and even that one can be tolerated by most people if cooked (but even in Finland, where the false morel is a cherished delicacy, there are deaths from eating them). Here's a bit more information on identifying the difference:

The early false morels can be told apart from the true morels by careful study of how the cap is attached to the stalk. The edge of true morels' (morchella) caps are intergrown with the stalk, but early morels' (verpas) caps hang over like a thimble, for which they are sometimes referred to as "thimble morel." Early false morels are the first morels to fruit in the spring, shortly after leaves begin to form on deciduous trees. Narrow-head morels (morchella angusticeps) fruit next, around May. The last morels to fruit are the yellow or white morels (Morchella esculenta), then crassipes.
Cap: the cap of false morels is wrinkled and irregular, bell shaped or cone shaped, attached only at apex (top) of cap not like true morels which have caps that are attached at the bottom, the color yellow brown to olive yellow or tan, darkens with age.
Stalk: 6-16 cm high, white to creamy or tan, hollow, often stuffed with white cottony pith. Spores when seen under a microscope are elliptical and have large oil droplets; true morels have no oil droplets.

Here's how we used a few fresh morels (purchased from Foods of All Nations) last night.

Twice-as-nice-a-roni with fava beans and morels

Serves 4 as a side dish

Ingredients

1 pound fava beans

1 tablespoon plus 1 teaspoon olive oil, divided use

1/2 cup angel hair pasta, broken into 1/2 inch pieces

1/2 cup basmati or other long grain rice

2 cups non-fat chicken or turkey broth

1 teaspoon butter

4 ounces fresh morels, sliced

Fresh ground pepper

Instructions

Prepare fava beans: Remove the beans from the spongy pods (the pods and the bean casings make great additions to your compost pile). Bring a pot of water to a boil and add the raw beans in their casings. Fill a bowl with water and ice. When the beans have returned to a boil, remove them from the boiling water and put in the bowl of ice water. When cool, remove the beans from their casings. Set aside.

In a saucepan that has a tight fitting lid, saute the pasta bits and the rice in a tablespoon of olive oil over medium-high heat until the rice turns white and the pasta browns. Add the broth and bring to a true boil (the liquid will look like it's boiling when you add it to the hot grains, but will then subside), then cover and turn down the heat to simmer. Set a timer for 15 minutes.

Meanwhile, saute the mushrooms in the butter and teaspoon of olive oil. Add a generous grinding of pepper. When they are almost softened, add the fava beans, and heat until they are just warm.

When the rice/pasta is done, add the morels/favas and stir gently to mix. Serve hot.

Note: If you want more vegetables, a half-pound of crisp-tender asparagus cut in 1/2 slices would be a good addition.

A spring salad

Here's an unbeatable mixture: Fresh English peas, asparagus, new onions, shaved fennel, frisee, roasted pistachios, Virginia ham sliced thin and crisped with a little garlic. Toss with a little high quality olive oil, sprinkle with a little kosher or sea salt and pepper to taste. Mmmmm, spring!

Days without food...

Sorry I haven't posted in a couple of days; been dealing with the gang who is trying to get us into a new house (and a new kitchen!). Besides, it's April Fool's Day, so why would you believe anything I said, anyway? I'll post tomorrow morning before things get all crazy again.

Meanwhile, here are some links to today's food sections:

How I learned to love goat meat by New York Times' Henry Alford. Goat, the most widely consumed meat in the world, has been edging its way into yuppier climes for a year or so.

Mark Bittman (The Minimalist) on Spanish tortillitas, with recipe.

Brown rice, once synonymous with hippies and vegetarianism, gets mainstream respect. San Francisco Chronicle.

10 iconic California cheeses (only 6 of which I've had the pleasure to taste). San Francisco Chronicle.

And an asparagus recipe from Debbie Arrington of The Sacramento Bee:

Crispy California asparagus straws

Prep time: 35 minutes
Cook time: 15 minutes
Serves 9 (36 straws total, 4 per serving)

This is a fast appetizer with great flavor. You can prepare them ahead of time and bake just before serving. As an option you can add a slice of prosciutto when you roll the asparagus up in the dough.

INGREDIENTS
36 asparagus spears
4 sheets of phyllo dough, thawed
1/4 cup butter, melted
4 ounces Parmesan cheese, grated, divided use
Salt and pepper to sprinkle on top

INSTRUCTIONS
Preheat oven to 425 degrees. Trim ends of asparagus. Blanche asparagus in boiling salted water until lightly tender to the bite, about 3 minutes.
Place one sheet of phyllo on a cutting board. Set aside the remaining sheets, cover with a damp towel. Brush the phyllo sheet with melted butter. Cut the sheet into nine rectangles, two cuts down from the top, two cuts across.
Place an asparagus spear at the bottom of the short side of the rectangle with the tip sticking out from the dough by two inches. Sprinkle on a teaspoon of cheese. Roll up spear and seal with butter. Finish with remaining spears.
Place on cookie sheet lined with parchment paper. Sprinkle with remaining cheese, salt and pepper. Cover the exposed asparagus tips with foil. Bake until golden brown and crispy 10 to 12 minutes. Serve warm.

Per serving: 181 cal.; 9 g pro.; 30 g carb.; 3 g fat (1 sat.); 3 mg chol.; 338 mg sod.; 2 g fiber; 14 percent calories from fat.

Tangerine dreams

Reading the poetry on my husband's blog this morning, I recalled my tangerine tree in my backyard in Sacramento. It's grown huge (so much for the dwarf designation on its lable). The tangerines this year were a bit tart, but still very tasty, I thought. They had seeds, so they weren't that easy to eat out of hand (unless you had just picked them and you could just spit out the seeds in the yard). Jim squeezed a whole quart of juice from them once; he said it was much harder than any orange juice he had ever made. I guess that's why you don't see much tangerine juice offered commercially.

Lori K's tangerine asparagus

Ingredients
1 pound asparagus, trimmed (see note)
Olive oil (preferably extra-virgin, in a spray bottle)
Freshly ground black pepper
Sea salt
2 tangerines or a large can of Mandarin oranges
1/3 cup fresh tangerine juice or orange juice
2 teaspoons rice vinegar
1 teaspoons roasted sesame oil
1 teaspoons grated tangerine peel or orange peel
1 garlic clove, pressed or a 1/2 teaspoon garlic juice
1 teaspoon grated peeled fresh ginger
4 tablespoons pine nuts

Instructions
Preheat oven to 450 degrees. Spread asparagus in 13 x 9 x 2-inch baking pan or on a broiler pan; spray with oil and season with pepper. Roast asparagus until crisp-tender, 8 minutes. Transfer asparagus to a platter and season with sea salt to taste; cool.
Using sharp knife, cut peel and white pith from tangerines. Cut between membranes to release segments and remove seeds, if any. Arrange tangerine segments atop asparagus. Whisk juice, vinegar, sesame oil, peel, garlic and ginger in small bowl to blend. Season dressing to taste with salt and pepper. Drizzle over asparagus. Sprinkle with pine nuts and serve.
Note: The best way to trim asparagus ends, although it may result in uneven spears, is to bend the stalk as near to the end as possible until it snaps. The stalk above the snap will be tender. The remaining stalk is woody and tough. They should go in the compost pile.

Tip -

xGoof of the day: I broiled a pound of Peruvian asparagus I got from Whole Foods yesterday (seasoned with a spray of olive oil and freshly ground black pepper, 8 minutes, perfect to the tooth and a lovely shade of green) after popping off the bottoms. But since I no longer have a compost pile (we're renting a condo in Charlottesville until June), I wanted to use the bottoms as well. I thought maybe by slowly cooking them until soft, I could purée them and use them in soup. I thought wrong. They turned a putrid green and once processed, they were as stringy as a bowl full of toothpicks. Slimy toothpicks. So the bottoms ended up in the trash anyway.