A late winter's salad

Signs of spring cheer the heart, but it's only mid-March as far as produce goes in the East. If you like a salad for lunch, think beyond tomatoes and lettuce. Here's one that's colorful and hardy for a cool, rainy day.

A late winter's salad
Serves 2

Ingredients
½ cup cooked wheat berries, chilled
½ cup cooked French tiny green lentils, chilled
4 mini bell peppers, sliced
Handful of haricots vert, or tender green beans, cooked and cooled
½ cucumber, peeled, seeded and diced
2 tablespoons quality olive oil
1 tablespoon balsamic vinegar
Celtic gray salt and freshly ground black pepper to taste

Instructions
Toss all in a bowl and serve. Also good over a bed of tender field greens or arugula.

When is balsamic just a cheap imitation of the real thing?

Good to know, from Good Stuff NW:

Bottles of balsamic vinegar on store shelves labeled "Balsamic Vinegar of Modena" are a commercial grade product made of wine vinegar with the addition of coloring, caramel and sometimes thickeners like guar gum or cornflour.

Authentic balsamic vinegar, labeled "Aceto Balsamico Tradizionale di Modena," is produced from the juice of just-harvested white grapes (typically, Trebbiano grapes) boiled down to approximately 30% of the original volume to create a concentrate or must, which is then fermented in a slow aging process which concentrates the flavors.

Best summer salad ever - insalata caprese

Photograph © 2013 Lori Korleski Richardson

One salad defines summer, and that's the Italian insalata caprese (salad in the style of Capri).

Simply, it's a ball of buffalo mozzarella, sliced thinly; fresh, very ripe tomatoes, also sliced thinly; fresh basil leaves, cut horizontally into tiny ribbons; salt, pepper, balsamic vinegar and olive oil to taste.

Some notes and variations that I have tried this summer and enjoyed:

• Many cooks don't have the technique needed to thinly slice a whole ripe tomato, especially a large heirloom, and don't even think of slicing a tomato without sharpening your knife first. To make it easier on yourself, core the top stem area, cut the tomato in half, put the cut sides down, then slice. This makes cutting up the mozzarella easier, too.
• Replace the salt with finely ground sel gris or other gray sea salt, or smoked salt crystals.
• Buffalo mozzarella too dear? Skip the commercial varieties (too bland and bad texture) and try some goat cheese, provolone, or even a triple cream that's somewhat on the firm side (Cowgirl Creamery on the West Coast and Caromont on the East have good ones). 
• A mixture of colored tomatoes are great for a party platter.
• Don't like vinegar? Don't want the extra calories of olive oil? Allergic to pepper? Can't tolerate salt? Fine. As long as the tomato is fresh and ripe, it can stand on its own.

As my husband can tell you, I'm rather harsh in my judgment of tomatoes, grilling waitstaff on whether the tomatoes in the salad are ripe (I do this only in season; out of season, I don't bother ordering salads with tomatoes in them) and sending the salad back if they aren't. I know why a restaurant may have food-service tomatoes even in August and September, but I don't have to pay for their lack of awareness or bad business practices.

Shad roe - a harbinger of spring in the East

While living in California, I came across several shad fishermen, and even saw the fish for sale occasionally at Taylor's Market in Sacramento. But it wasn't until I came to Virginia that I discovered the pleasures of its roe. Shad roe is only available locally for a few weeks in the early spring. So the season begins very early in Florida, moves up to Georgia, then up the coast to Virginia and Maryland, where it is known as Maryland caviar. 

John McPhee, one of my favorite authors for his journalistic style, wrote "The Founding Fish," an entire book that waxes eloquently about shad, and has provided New Yorker magazine readers with many recipes over the years for both the fish and the roe. By the way, the fish is also at its best during spawning season, when it gets fatter and more succulent. 

On the West Coast, shad don't start up the Sacramento River until late spring. They continue on up river, and group for several weeks near Corning in June and early July.

In the fish market, shad roe definitely stands out among the pale fillets - it's bright red and looks vaguely obscene. It comprises two long egg sacs called lobes, joined together by a thin membrane. Each is a meal for one. Since it is better to eat fresh, it's best to share with someone you love... who also loves shad roe, or is willing to try it.

When cooked, it turns the color of liver, with a grainy interior. But it doesn't taste like liver or caviar. It is much milder and takes on the flavors of the ingredients it is cooked with.

Here's a recipe, adapted from DC's Blue Duck Tavern chef Brian McBride, that I cooked last week. I served it with a salad of local lettuces and arugula, dressed with a little olive oil, spices, salt and pepper and a squeeze of lemon.

Pan-Fried Shad Roe

Serves 2

Ingredients

4 slices of meaty sliced hog jowl bacon (or any lean, hickory-smoked bacon), 2 slices diced, 2 whole

1 large shallot, or 2 smaller shallots, thinly sliced

1 clove of garlic, minced

1 medium-sized set of shad roe (two lobes)

Kosher salt and pepper

2 tablespoons butter

1/4 cup vegetable demi-glace, made with 1 teaspoon of Better Than Bullion vegetable stock and 1/4 cup water

1 tablespoon stone-ground mustard

1 tablespoon balsamic vinegar glaze

Instructions

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. In a cast-iron pan over medium heat, sauté diced bacon until the fat renders. Add shallot and garlic. When the onions are caramelized, remove the mixture from the pan and set aside. Wipe the pan and return it to medium heat.

Raw shad roe

Cut along the center membrane to separate the roe lobes. Pat the sacs dry and season them with coarse salt and black pepper. Melt butter in the pan, add the 2 whole pieces of bacon, and gently place the lobes in the pan. Let the roe brown on one side for 3 minutes, basting occasionally with the butter, then flip it, taking care not to tear its membrane. Place the pan in the oven for about 5 minutes. The roe is done when it is lightly caramelized and feels firm, like a medium-rare steak. Set the roe aside.

Drain the fat from the pan and return it to medium heat. Deglaze the pan with the vegetable demi-glace. Return the onion mixture to the pan, with the mustard and balsamic glaze. When it starts to boil, take it off the heat.

Slice the roe on the bias and serve one lobe per person over a mound of the onions with a curled bacon strip and a drizzle of sauce. Serve with a lemony salad and sliced baguette to absorb the sauce. You won't want to waste any of it.

An easy bread salad

Also known as panzanella

Although I make this salad by feel, it does require a few things that cannot be substituted: Homegrown tomatoes (or ripe ones from a farmer who's not shipping them somewhere), high-quality extra-virgin olive oil and stale artisan bread. If your tomatoes are really juicy and your bread is sufficiently stale but not hard, you can just cut the bread in cubes and skip the soak.

Lori K's easy bread salad
Serves 6

Ingredients
1 large day-old baguette or equivalent stale artisan bread
2 large ripe tomatoes, cubed (one red, one yellow adds color)
2 tablespoons capers, drained
Sliced kalamata olives to taste
4 tablespoons olive oil
2 tablespoons balsamic vinegar
6 basil leaves, ribboned
handful of arugula if you have it
Sea salt and peppercorns, freshly ground

Instructions
Soak the bread in hot water until softened but not soggy. Squeeze out the water. Put in a big bowl. Toss in everything else, adjusting oil, vinegar, salt and pepper to taste. Chill and serve.
Vary the flavor by soaking the bread in broth, adding peperoncini slices for a kick, a little rosemary or replacing the vinegar with lemon juice.