Coctél de Atún

A long time ago in a galaxy far, far away...oops, wrong story. Let's call it 20 or more years ago back in Winchester VA before I opened my own restaurant, a very short-lived restaurant opened in an old house on the main drag. The chef and manager was the son of the owner of a small chain of Mexican restaurants in the Shenandoah Valley. These restaurants specialized in the food of the owner's home state of Jalisco.

Coctél de Atún

This new restaurant was the first foray for this family into our town. For the very short time that the restaurant was open, I tried to eat there when I could to help the restaurant survive. The son, Luis, was trying to do food that was not the usual knock-off predictable garbage Americanized watered down Mexican.

Luis and I got to know each other a bit and he would share tips about Jaliscan food with me and would always encourage me to order his off-menu specials. One blistering hot and extremely muggy day, I ordered a special called coctél at Luis' urging. I wasn't sure what to expect from a dish named cocktail.

What arrived at my table was a giant soup bowl of a spicy cold tomato soup, garnished with avocados and vegetables, and topped with several steamed shrimp. Of course! Coctél de camaron, shrimp cocktail, not a dish that I ever associated with Jalisco, but why not, with all its coastline?

What impressed me most about this dish how was delicious the tomato juice-based soup was and how refreshing it was on that blistering day. I never forgot this dish or how proud Luis was of it in all these years since.

A couple decades after this experience, I finally got around to doing my own version with #1 grade yellowfin tuna. My broth is tomato juice, clam juice, cucumber, lovage, garlic, cilantro, and chipotle. It's on the green side because I blended cilantro stems, lovage, and cucumber into the tomato juice to give it a bit more body. Vegetable garnishes are red onion, poblanos, orange peppers, tomatoes, cucumber, and avocado.

Delicious! Luis, wherever you are, thanks for the idea!

Recycling

Let's face it. Cooking can be strenuous especially at the end of the day when you're tired and don't have the enthusiasm to spend a lot of time in the kitchen. Even I, a retired professional chef, have days when I don't want to do something complicated or think a lot about dinner. For me, the most strenuous part is deciding what to eat. Executing it is pretty easy after that.

Something that really helps me is planning for leftovers from the major meals that I cook. When you've got leftovers, it really limits the scope of deciding what's for dinner, rephrasing the question as "How can I recycle these leftovers into a new meal?" For me, it's much easier to come up with ideas when I have constraints, such as using up leftovers, versus trying to come with a plan given a blank slate.

Cannellini-Piquillo Ersatz "Rouille"

Cannellini-Piquillo Ersatz "Rouille"

Here's an example from last week, shot over a four-day period. It starts with a lower-fat and lower-calorie ersatz rouille, a type of aïoli from Provence made with red peppers. Rouille is the classic garnish to bouillabaise. We're watching what we eat, now about three months into quarantine with rampant boredom and scant exercise. We don't want to give up flavor, but we do want to give up fat and calories where possible.

Enter this rouille. Rather than start from a base of egg yolk and olive oil, I substituted white beans. I put two pounds (1 kg) of cannellini and half a pound (250g) of piquillo peppers into the food processor along with 8 cloves of minced red hard neck garlic. When all was smoothed out, I drizzled in 2 tablespoons (30 ml) of extra virgin olive oil and then seasoned to taste. Not rouille, but not bad either, especially with that spicy red skin garlic!

While the sauce was destined to be eaten with a massive head of roasted cauliflower for dinner, I made 2-1/2 pounds, a processor bowl full, because I wanted to have the sauce on hand to use in other ways. After dinner, the remaining sauce went into the fridge to be incorporated into other dishes during the course of the week.

Arroz con Pollo Italiano

Likewise, when I make chicken or basically any other protein, I make enough for at least two meals. Having leftover meat in the refrigerator guarantees at least one follow-on quick taco meal. Last week, I was in the mood for something similar to chicken cacciatore, but I wanted to incorporate rice. It struck me that I could make arroz con pollo with Italian flavors to satisfy my craving.

Arroz con pollo was a frequent and favorite staff meal at the restaurant. We'd prep a hotel pan in the afternoon and leave it in the walk-in until about an hour before close, about 90 minutes before we would sit down to eat. Then it would go into the slow oven and would be ready, piping hot, once customers left the building.

Arroz con Pollo Ready for the Oven

Outside, I heated a cast-iron frying pan in my grill and browned six chicken thighs in olive oil until they were crisply brown on both sides, about 20 minutes. In decent weather, I do it outside to avoid setting off the f*cking smoke detector in the kitchen. It keeps the kitchen cooler as well.

Meanwhile, I prepped the vegetables: onion, carrot, celery, and lots of garlic. I then assembled spices (red pepper flakes, saffron, salt, and pepper) and a bouquet garni of oregano, sage, and lots of rosemary.  Out of the refrigerator came about a cup of olives and a half a cup of pickled capers. I drained a 28-ounce can of chopped tomatoes into a large measure and added chicken stock to the tomato juice up to the one quart line. Finally, I measured out 2 cups of long grain rice.

When the chicken was browned, I removed it to a plate and sautéed the vegetables in the cast iron pan on the grill, adding the spices and the bouquet towards the end. When the vegetables were translucent, I mixed them with the tomatoes, olives, capers, and rice and added the mix to the bottom of the roasting pan with the chicken on top. I poured the broth over, covered the roasting pan with foil, and put it in a slow oven (350F) for 90 minutes.

Out of the Oven, Ready to Eat

This recipe scales fairly nicely: just make sure that you use about two cups of broth to every one cup of rice.

Arroz con Pollo Italiano

Poached Eggs over Rice 

One of the dishes that Ann liked the best for brunch on our Sundays together back in the restaurant days was a poached egg over a loose risotto-like pile of Israeli couscous, inflected with piquillo peppers and topped with a pimentón (smoked paprika) aïoli.

Poached Eggs over Rice

I aimed to recreate the feel of that dish using some of the leftover rice and the cannellini-piquillo "rouille." In the span of ten minutes, I rewarmed the rice with a bit of chicken stock, mixed some of the "rouille" half and half with mayo and a little water to thin it, and poached some eggs. I added mayo and water to the white bean-red pepper sauce because I wanted the texture to approximate a true aïoli more closely.

Brunch just doesn't get any easier than that.

Tacos de Pollo

As I mentioned above, I like to have leftover proteins in the refrigerator to facilitate putting a taco dinner on the table in next to no time.

I first made a quick salsa fresca from tomatoes, onions, cilantro, chile peppers, lime juice, and salt. Then I took the leftover 50-50 rouille-aïoli from the day before and mashed it with a super ripe avocado and lime juice for some quick guacamole.

I picked the chicken off a couple of thighs leftover from the arroz con pollo and seared it quickly in a pan. After that, I gave a little more of the leftover rice a quick sauté to crisp it slightly.

Taco Fixings: Guacamole, Salsa Fresca, Rice, Pulled Chicken, Cotija

This is about a simple as dinner gets. The most strenuous thing was picking the meat off a couple of chicken thighs, mere child's play.

Tacos de Pollo

Recycling

In the course of a single week, I made a fake "rouille" from white beans and piquillo peppers and a big pan of arroz con pollo, both in quantities guaranteeing leftovers. From the remains of these two dishes, we had a very easy egg dish for brunch and a simple taco dish for dinner. Recycling leftovers is a great way to minimize the effort of putting food on the table and a great way to help answer the age-old question, "What's for dinner?"

Salsa Verde

Fair warning: although this post is ostensibly about salsa verde, it's really about putting a delicious and healthy dinner on the table quickly, with a minimum of effort.

Salsa Verde

Tomatillos are dirt cheap at the market right now, something like 88 cents a pound, so it's definitely time to take advantage of that. It pains me something awful to see people shelling out good money for bottled salsa verde when it is so easy to make something that it so much better in quality for very little effort.

Salsa verde is nothing more than tomatillos (generally called tomates in Spanish, with jitomates reserved for red actual tomatoes), serrano chiles, garlic, and onion, all roasted. After roasting, the vegetables are blended with fresh cilantro and lime juice to taste. 

Tomatillos, Serranos, Garlic, and Onion Ready to Roast

You'll notice in the photo above that I have not peeled the garlic, just sliced it in half. After it roasts, I just squeeze the roasted garlic out of the husks and pitch the husks. Much easier than peeling garlic before cooking.

I used a kilo (2 pounds) of tomatillos, six serranos, a head of garlic, and an onion. Then I finished it in the food processor with the leaves from a bunch of cilantro, the juice of a lime, and salt. Because I wanted this batch of salsa very thick, my yield was about a pint, two cups. I could have thinned it with water.

If the salsa is to be served and eaten right away, it can be served just like this. If you want to keep the salsa in the refrigerator, it is best to cook it in a frying pan for a few minutes with water as necessary to thin as you see fit. You can see that my salsa is vibrant green and thick: I made it to be eaten right away. The raw cilantro in it will rot if you try to store it for any length of time without cooking it.

I make and keep several salsas in the refrigerator to make it dead simple to have tacos for dinner with no fuss. I freaking love tacos. So that everyone can assemble custom tacos, I put all the toppings together and let them roll their own.

Taco Toppings: Tomatoes, Cilantro, Cotija, Nopalitos, Romaine, Salsa Verde

For our tacos the other evening, I seared a piece of Pacific Cod rubbed in cumin, garlic, and Mexican oregano (very different than Greek oregano). 

Pacific Cod Tacos de Pescado

Olive Oil, Salt, and Pepper

Hundreds of times in my career, I was asked what kind of special seasoning I put on a piece of protein to make it taste so good. When I replied, "olive oil, salt, and pepper," people almost always thought that I was being a smartass—I am a pro at that too—but I was being serious.

Grilled Wahoo/Ono with Mango Salsa and Asparagus

If you have a pristine piece of meat, poultry, or fish, you don't really need to do anything to it to make it taste great. As I told the cooks coming through my kitchen, all you have to do is not screw it up. I'm sure I used a bit more colorful chef language than that, but you get the gist.

As a rule, if I had a nice cut headed for the grill, I would brush it with olive oil, salt, and pepper and let it shine, just like I did for the wahoo in the photo.

This wahoo, more often than not called by its Hawaiian name ono out here on the West Coast, came from Northwest Fresh Seafood over in Newberg. When the loin came out of the cooler, I could see that it was special. I have handled hundreds of loins of wahoo in my life and even from ten feet away, I could see how tight and clear this one was.

Olive oil, salt, and pepper did its magic once again.

I have to say that I am really happy with my new grill: I got those deep grill marks on both sides of the fish without it being overcooked in the middle. Working this Weber home grill, I can get results just as good as using the huge cast iron Vulcan grill at the restaurant. Call me tickled.

Summer Rolls

When the temperatures soar, we always go looking for cooler foods at home, especially ones that we can eat outside on our shaded front porch. Summer rolls fit that bill nicely. With almost no effort and with about anything in the refrigerator/garden, you can have a cool delicious dinner. Thank you Vietnam!

Ready for Summer Rolls

Step 1: Soak the Rice Paper

Step 2: Build the Roll

Step 3: Dip Away

I usually make nước chấm, a fish sauce based dipping sauce, for our summer rolls, but alas, out here in farm country fish sauce is hard to come by and I was almost out. Instead, we made do with a sauce of peanut butter, lime juice, fish sauce, sriracha, and garlic.

It was a blast for us, eating our first outdoor meal of the year out on the porch, rolling the little packages like burritos and stuffing our faces. There is something that we really enjoy about eating with our hands: it seems so much more intimate in a way.

But I found out in the restaurant business that Ann and I are in the minority. While Americans will make exceptions for hot dogs and corn on the cob, many, the majority I would wager, have an issue with eating food with their hands. I remember seeing customers in the dining room of the restaurant struggling to eat mussels, summer rolls, pork belly tacos, and flat breads with a knife and fork.

At least for our tasting menus, I would have the servers discreetly let customers know that it was OK and even preferable to eat a particular course with their fingers. Still, a significant percentage of customers couldn't forgo the knife and fork. We Americans have a built-in bias: eating without utensils is somehow improper and low class.

I wonder what they would make of our late night dinners at Shiv's restaurant where there were no utensils on the table, only a basket of naan, straight out of the tandoor. Or a foray to an Ethiopian restaurant where injera stands in for the naan.

If sight, smell, taste, and sound (think of the hiss of sizzling beef on a black iron skillet) are all part and parcel of the dining experience, why make an exception for touch?

Salade Niçoise

Salade Niçoise?

The make-up of many famous dishes is a highly personal thing, often rooted in childhood. The dishes that we grew up with are the canonical versions of those dishes and any deviation from those dishes can inspire legions to argue, sometimes vociferously and vehemently. This is especially true for a dish also tied to the region of our birth. Those who would trample our heritage are our enemies.

I've often blogged about how small land wars have been fought over whose grandmother's recipe for various dishes is the One True Version. You can hear the childish taunts. "My Nonna's ragù is better than yours." "My Oma's paprikash is the best."

In France, one of these contentious dishes is the humble Salade Niçoise, which you may or may not see in the photo above depending on your idea of what constitutes such a salad. The minority position in this squabble is held by the "Cercle de la Capelina d’Or," a tiny but vociferous Niçois preservationist group. The majority position belongs to the rest of us who enjoy and make the salad.

Members of the Cercle, who certify restaurants in Nice as authentically Niçois, argue quixotically that a true version of this world famous salad may not contain cooked vegetables (especially green beans and potatoes) and must not contain vinegar. This stance likely is rooted in cuisine pauvre, peasant cooking, in which the dish probably derived from a plate of ripe tomatoes and anchovies, doused in olive oil.

For the rest of us, a Salade Niçoise contains blanched green beans, boiled potatoes, and the whole is dressed with a classic vinaigrette.

How did we arrive at this divide over beans and potatoes?

Blame the schism on Auguste Escoffier, the so-called king of chefs and the chef of kings. Escoffier codified modern French cooking in writing the primary and seminal textbook on professional cooking, Le Guide Culinaire, in 1903. A measure of this book's importance: it is still in print and still in use today as a culinary textbook and kitchen reference.

1903 also saw publication of another cookbook called La Cuisine à Nice by Henri Heyraud, whose recipes in part influence the Cercle. While the Escoffier book is still in print and in use, Heyraud's oeuvre is extremely rare and will cost several hundred dollars to purchase.

Escoffier included both cooked green beans and potatoes in his salad, the whole dressed with oil and vinegar. Heyraud did not include the beans or potatoes, opting only for raw vegetables (red peppers and artichokes) but his salad was dressed with vinaigrette, something that the Cercle seems to have conveniently overlooked in its ban on vinegar.

Back then in the early part of the 20th century, just as it is now in the social media era of the 21st, influencers and their followers mattered. While Heyraud is largely forgotten, thanks to Le Guide Culinaire, Escoffier's influence extends to many generations of chefs, both directly and indirectly.

Directly, Escoffier trained hundreds of chefs and cooks in his days at the Savoy, Ritz, and Carlton hotels, bastions of fine dining. Indirectly, Escoffier's recipe has been passed down to later authors who works were also influential.

For example, at least two generations of American chefs, primarily those who are teaching now, took their cues from the 1961 groundbreaking English-language treatise on French cooking Mastering the Art of French Cooking by Simone Beck, Louisette Bertholle, and Julia Child. The salad in Mastering derived from Escoffier and I count myself among those who learned it in those pages. In turn, I passed my salad along to many of my chefs and cooks before I retired. Escoffier's influence continues, generation over generation, sad to say for the preservationists.

While the Cercle's promotion and preservation of la vraie cuisine niçoise is admirable and even laudable, the rest of the world has voted against them in the matter of this particular salad. But no matter which camp you fall into, you must admit that a well made Salade Niçoise is one of the gems of summer and the south of France, potatoes and beans or no.

My version varies with the ingredients on hand, but must include tomatoes, green beans (preferably the tiny haricots filets), potatoes, olives, hard boiled eggs, and either tuna or anchovies, with my preference going to anchovies when I can get them. Lettuce never appears in my version. I would add baby artichokes if I could find them.

I dress the fish, green beans, potatoes, and artichokes in a classic shallot vinaigrette made with white wine vinegar, extra virgin olive oil, minced shallots, and a touch each of mustard and salt. 

I leave you with some thoughts on a key component of the salad, hard boiled eggs, of which I have had a great many terrible versions in my career versus far fewer brilliant ones. They are so easy to do that they should be spot on every time, no matter the cook.

Hard Boiled Eggs

I'm not a huge fan of boiled eggs. I ate way too many hard cooked eggs as a child—thanks Mom!—and to this day can get queasy in their presence. As a result I am overly picky about hard boiled eggs.

If you like rock hard yolks with a green ring around them, you can stop reading here. If you like eggs that are set but slightly creamy in the middle, like those in the photo above, read on.

At the restaurant, we used massive Rhode Island Red eggs that are even bigger than commercially available jumbo graded eggs. Post-restaurant, I have since adapted my timing for jumbo eggs. If you are using large eggs or smaller, you'll need to reduce the cook time.

In a sauce pan, cover the eggs with a good inch of cold water. Place on a high flame. As soon as the water comes to a rapid, rolling boil, turn off the flame. Cover the pot. Set the timer for 8 minutes. When the timer goes off, immediately chill the eggs in cold water until they are cold to touch. Done.

You can adjust the timing for more or less done eggs as you prefer.

A Hankering for Lamb

Lamb Burger, Tzatziki, Harissa, Horiatiki Salata

Although I am not a big carnivore, I really do love lamb and would eat it in preference to beef just about any time. Lamb shanks are one of my all time favorites, but I would never turn up my nose at leg of lamb, marinated in rosemary, garlic, and red wine, grilled to medium rare. And in the burger department, I do believe I prefer lamb to most beef.

Out here in northwestern Oregon, lamb seems hard to come by and what I do find is exorbitantly priced. Maybe I just need more time to find the right suppliers. Or maybe it is the region. The Willamette Valley seems to be given over more to crops and nursery plants, where the Shenandoah Valley in Virginia hosted a lot more livestock.

I was spoiled in my restaurant days always having a ready supply of lamb. We would take delivery of a whole lamb each week. We went through about five suppliers in the tenure of the restaurant, so it must be hard to make a living raising sheep. Still, we had a constant stream of farmers coming to the restaurant to solicit our business and no shortage of lamb.

I would use the carcasses to teach my cooks (after they graduated from rabbits and fowl) how to break down and use every part of a larger animal, a skill that every chef should have, but so few possess. If we are going to kill an animal to eat it, we are obliged to let none of that animal go to waste. And we did not at the restaurant, a point of particular pride for me.

I would sometimes let a cook break down a lamb, but truth be told, I enjoyed doing it myself. I find something very zen about quickly and efficiently processing a carcass for maximum use. It also allowed me time away from the business aspects of running a restaurant to ponder how to use each cut of the animal.

Even though it was a lot of work each week with each new lamb, I enjoyed the mental gymnastics of figuring out how to put a lamb on the menu. Aside from the offal, which scared a lot of diners and mainly ended up as chef snacks and family meals, every bit had a use on the menu. When diners are looking for rack of lamb or a high-value cut that they recognize, it takes a lot of creativity to put the so-called lesser cuts (necks, breasts, and briskets) on the menu in a way that entices customers to order them.

The hind legs would inevitably end up on the grill in some form or another. The small top loins and tiny tenderloins would end up in a mixed grill, or sometimes on the nightly tasting menu where we would do something special with them. The shoulders and sirloins might get cubed and braised for a tagine or stew or they might also end up on the grill. 

The ribs might go on the appetizer menu, first slow-roasted to tenderness, then grilled at service. The bits and pieces would head for the grinder where they might end up in a terrine, in a meat pie, or on the lunch menu as lamb sliders.

The bones, neck, and so forth would end up getting braised, the picked meat going into some dish (lamb tamales or pot stickers, for example) and the stock being brought down to a demiglace for garnishing the grilling cuts.

The shanks would often go into the freezer for weeks until we could collect enough to put them on the menu. The much sought after racks, we would typically break down into one- or two-bone chops and put them on the tasting menu.

Customers would often ask, "Why don't you put rack of lamb on the menu?" I would always answer with a question of my own, "With two racks per animal and one animal per week, how many weeks would it take to have enough racks to get through a single night at the restaurant?"

With the 24x7 availability of cuts at the supermarket, I believe that many people are so disconnected from the process of butchery that they have forgotten the limited supply of choice cuts on a single animal, if they even considered it. Which brings me back to lamb burger: the lesser cuts often end up in the grinder for burger.

This reflection was brought about by the lamb burgers we had the other night, pan-seared and served with tzatziki, harissa, and a faux horiatiki salata.

Tzatziki

Tzatziki, by any one of its names, is ubiquitous in the Mediterranean and it varies depending on the cook and the region. Each batch that I make is different, depending on what I have on hand and what my mood is. I like my tzatziki really thick, so I make it that way. I prefer red wine vinegar to lemon juice, so I make it that way. I prefer oregano to dill, so I make it that way. I don't peel my cucumbers, because I like it that way. I hope you get the point: use this "recipe" as your jumping off point and make it your way.

1 quart Greek yogurt

1/4 cup extra virgin oil

2-3 tablespoons of red wine vinegar (or lemon juice) to taste

1 5-inch section of cucumber, rind on, finely diced

4 cloves garlic, minced

1 teaspoon dried oregano (or a big bunch of fresh oregano, minced)

salt to taste

Mix everything and adjust the seasoning to your liking. It's better after it stands overnight in the refrigerator.

Grilled Zucchini with White Bean-Artichoke Pesto, Harissa, and Hummus Dressing

I love vegetables, especially roasted and grilled vegetables. When we left Virginia in 2017, we sold our grill. Since then, because finances have been thin, we had no grill until just weeks ago. One of the things I have missed the most is grilled zucchini. Now that I have a grill, I'm working towards satisfying that itch, with the delicious vegetarian summer dinner that you see below.

Grilled Zucchini Platter

Last week, I grilled zucchini and put the squash on a platter with piquillo peppers and olives, then drizzled the platter with harissa and a dressing made of hummus, lemon juice, and olive oil. In the center of the platter, for some protein, I put a bowl of white bean-artichoke pesto. I would have loved some pita with this, but we are trying to shed a few of the many pounds we have gained during this quarantine. The pesto, at Ann's urging and because we love spicy food, has a healthy tablespoon of harissa swirled in.

White Bean-Artichoke Pesto

It seems kind of weird to call this a pesto, but that's what it goes by. This is a very quick spread or dip made from items in my pantry. If you leave out the cheese, you'll need a touch more salt, but the result will be vegan.

1 can cannellini beans (15.5 oz net)

1 can artichoke hearts (8.5 oz net)

4 cloves garlic, minced

1/2 teaspoon Kosher salt

1/4 cup grated Pecorino Romano cheese (optional)

juice of half a lemon (more to taste)

1/2 cup extra virgin olive oil

In a food processor, puree the white beans, artichoke hearts, and garlic to a semi-smooth paste. I like to leave some texture in the final product. Add the salt, lemon juice, and cheese and mix. With the motor running, drizzle in the olive oil until the pesto is as loose as you want. Adjust lemon juice and salt to taste.

Quick Harissa

Harissa is a spicy condiment from North Africa, most frequently attributed to Tunisia. Lover of spicy food that I am, I have had a lot of harissa in my life and none that I like better than the quick harissa that I developed at the restaurant. I call it quick harissa because rather than process dried chiles, I make it with Huy Fong Foods' sambal oelek as a base.

I cannot get enough of this delicious sauce. Every batch is different depending on my mood and ingredients at hand, but this is a base recipe. My inspiration originally came from Copeland Marks (a phenomenal culinary writer) and his book The Great Book of Couscous: Classic Cuisines of Morocco, Algeria, and Tunisia.

1 tablespoon caraway seeds

1 tablespoon fennel seeds

1 tablespoon cumin seeds

2 cups sambal oelek

8 cloves garlic, minced

1/4 teaspoon ground cinnamon

1/2 teaspoon salt

juice of one lemon

1/2 cup olive oil

Mix the caraway, fennel, and cumin seeds. Reserve one third as whole seeds and grind the remainder in a spice mill. I like the whole seeds in my harissa for texture. Mix all the ingredients and let stand for a few hours: it gets better with age. Adjust the seasoning to your liking. I store mine in the refrigerator after topping it with olive oil. 

Hummus Salad Dressing

I make batches of hummus weekly as hummus is one of my absolute favorite foods. I probably have a recipe for hummus somewhere on this blog, so I'm not going to give a recipe for that here. Do you really need a recipe for chickpeas, garlic, salt, olive oil, tahini, and lemon juice, all whirled up in a food processor?

I use hummus for all kinds of things, including tomato-hummus bisque and a really quick and easy salad dressing, that I mainly use for dressing vegetables.

1/2 cup hummus

1/2 cup extra virgin olive oil

juice of one lemon

salt

Mix well and adjust the salt and lemon juice as necessary.