Roasted Beet and Turnip Salad

It's now getting on to good weather and I'm out walking and hiking as much as I can these days. That's not leaving me a lot of energy for cooking, creating new dishes, or even time to write about them. Here's a departure from all my recent wildflower posts.

After a visit to an early farmers market and coming away with early season ingredients including arugula, beets, and pretty little white Hakurei turnips, I decided to make a salad. 

Roasted Beet and Turnip Salad
with Arugula, Goat Cheese, Croutons, and Spiced Hazelnuts

The very best way I know to treat beets for salads (if you're going to cook them at all) is to roast them. I wrap them in a single layer in an aluminum foil packet and place them in a moderate oven until I can pierce them easily. For these smallish beets at 350F, that was about 45 minutes in the oven. The smaller turnips I treated the same way, but only roasted them for about 20 minutes. I just wanted to soften them and not cook them quite all the way through.

For the salad, I peeled and chopped the beets, quartered the tiny turnips, made some croutons quickly in a skillet on the range, and then toasted whole hazelnuts in olive oil in that same pan before tossing them with a little of my pork spice rub. Everything went into a salad bowl with a bunch of arugula and some crumbled goat cheese. After drizzling the salad with a little extra virgin olive oil, a bit of really good balsamic vinegar, and a sprinkle of salt, I tossed the whole thing and Ann and I set about feasting.

I was really pleased with the addition of the beets to this salad. Their pepperiness complemented the arugula and contrasted pleasantly with the beets.

Mother's Day Dinner

Back in the restaurant days, we closed every Sunday without exception, including Mother's Day. Would-be customers would sometimes get irate and/or indignant that we would not be open on the day that they wanted to take mom out. Rarely ever did they consider that people who are in the restaurant business are human beings and that some things, such as being with family, are more important than money.

Cooking Fools: John and I Assembling Gnocchi

To make the most of our Mother's Day day-off from the restaurant, Ann and I would often host a Mother's Day dinner at our house, especially when Ann's parents were alive and able to make the hour-long schlep to our house. We fell out of the habit when her parents became unable to make it and then soon after, we relocated to Oregon away from our families. Then COVID decided to shut everything down for a couple of years.

And now in 2022, Ann decided that she wanted to have a dinner once again for Mother's Day. She even knew the dishes she wanted me to make: a potato-salad modeled on one we had eaten at a local restaurant and goat-cheese gnocchi. While I loved her ideas, I really didn't want to have two dishes that would have me doing last minute cooking, what we call in the business à la minute dishes, keeping me away from socializing with our guests, which is what I thought the idea was.

That issue, coupled with my objecting to having carbs on carbs in subsequent courses, fell on deaf ears and in the spirit of marital harmony, I ceased demurring. One thing I have learned is that when Ann is entrenched on some point, I really, really, really, really must want to try to move her off that position. In this case, it was just easier to shut up and cook! And I mean this lovingly with no ill intent!

A Little Snow for Mother's Day

When I think of Mother's Day, I think of mild temperatures, green grass, and flowers galore. But that isn't the case here in Bend, Oregon where it is really snowing hard as I type this. It won't amount to much down here by the river, but up in the Cascades, you can be sure they're getting dumped on. Still, we have pretty much of a spring menu for today and I guess that we will have to pretend that the weather is beautiful.

Special Guest Cady

Working for his Dinner, John Cooks Maiitake

For our Mother's Day affair, John and Heidi and Tim and Susan joined us. Tim was kind enough to bring a couple bottles of blends from his private stash, one Napa and one Columbia Valley. Tim and Susan also brought along their dog Cady whom we were very happy to entertain. It was great having a dog in the house again after having had to put Grace down just a very few days ago!

Appetizer: Potato Salad with Argentinean Red Shrimp

Potato Salad with Argentinean Red Shrimp

We have dined twice now at a very charming and competent Italian restaurant called Bosa. One of the appetizers on their current menu is Grilled Calamari on Potato Salad. The potato salad contains tomatoes, olives, garlic crema, and Sherry vinaigrette. The flavor combinations are wonderful and hats off to the cook on the grill station; the calamari has been perfectly cooked on both occasions that we have eaten it.

As much as we loved the calamari, the revelation for us was the potato salad under the squid. I made a mental note that I would try to recreate that salad and make it my own. I have always thought that one chef taking an idea from another chef is the ultimate compliment and nowhere akin to thievery. That I found your dish sufficiently wonderful to add it to my repertoire says how much I respect you. I never understood chefs who rant about people "stealing" their dishes.

Not having access, yet, to decent squid, I decided to make do with some lovely Argentinean Red Shrimp on top of the potato salad of roasted baby creamer potatoes, grape tomatoes, cracked olives, and a few capers. It sounds to me as if Bosa used two dressings, a garlic crema and a Sherry vinaigrette, but my version is an all-in-one dressing made of garlic confit, Sherry vinegar, salt, sour cream, and water.

Entrée: Goat Cheese Gnocchi with Chicken Confit, Asparagus, Peas, and Maiitake

Goat Cheese Gnocchi with Chicken Confit, Asparagus, Peas, and Maiitake
Crispy Chicken Skin Garnish

When Ann and I started discussing the idea of goat cheese gnocchi, we knew we needed a salty ingredient to play off the relatively neutral gnocchi. At the restaurant, I would have used house-cured duck confit or house-cured country ham (prosciutto), both of which we kept on hand at all times. Here at home, however, I don't have access to or have need for these items, so I decided to make a quick chicken confit to serve as the salty ingredient.

Then I went "foraging" at the various markets around town, trying to find some spring ingredients. In addition to sugar snaps, pea shoots, and purple asparagus, I wanted some mushrooms, specifically morels. I did find some ratty looking morels, but they were absurdly priced at $80 per pound, so I brought home some maiitake instead. I also decided, since I was going to make chicken confit, to confit some garlic at the same time and include it.

This is a lot of ingredients for one of my dishes, but it is what I had on hand and needed to use. Were I to do the dish again, I would simplify to gnocchi, asparagus, chicken confit, morels, and a splash of cream to bring them all together.

Gnocchi Mise en Place: (clockwise from top left)
Sugar Snaps, Pea Shoots, Purple Asparagus
Toasted Hazelnuts, Maiitake, Chicken Confit, Garlic Confit

I made the gnocchi and prepped the garnishes in the morning, leaving the final cooking and assembly for the dinner itself. I really don't like to do à la minute dishes for parties because it takes me away from guests. In this case, the meal was super sauté heavy, so I asked for a volunteer to reduce the time we were at the stove. John gladly accepted the challenge and he set to work cooking all the garnishes while I browned batch after batch of gnocchi in brown butter. Once we were done and had gently mixed all the ingredients in a large bowl, I plated the gnocchi and topped each plate with a crispy chicken skin.

Dessert: Strawberries with Balsamic Vinegar

May 4th was the first day of the Bend Downtown Farmers Market and we were excited to visit it last week. It is still very early days for the market here on account of our weather, but at least some vendors are making the trek across the Cascades to bring us some fresh product from the Willamette Valley, such as these strawberries from the Woodburn area. They were neither super ripe nor super tasty as far as strawberries go, but they were better than nothing. Ann wanted them tossed with a little sugar and a splash of balsamic vinegar and so that's what we had.

Strawberries with Balsamic Vinegar

After several years of not cooking a nice meal for Mother's Day, it sure was nice to get back in the saddle again and to have good friends with whom to share the occasion.

Kale Salad with Pomegranate, Asian Pear, and Guanciale

It's not often that I manage to make something that Ann won't eat. But this Christmasy kale salad is beyond her limits. I ended up eating two huge kale salads for consecutive meals.

Kale Salad with Pomegranate, Asian Pear, and Guanciale

She had a brief flirtation with wanting to eat more leafy greens and asked me to make a kale salad with bacon. She has never liked kale in the past and so her request surprised me, but ever eager to please her, I made this salad of kale, pomegranate seeds, cucumber, Asian pear, guanciale (smoked hog jowl, the only bacon-like substance that we have in the house) with a balsamic vinaigrette.

In my experience, the only way to make raw kale edible in a salad is to literally drench it in a high-fat dressing and this dressing was anything but high in fat. By so drenching it, you lose any benefits of eating the kale. I enjoyed it to a certain extent, especially all the bits at the bottom of the salad bowl, but eating raw kale to me has something in common with rubbing salt in your wounds: you'll survive it, but it isn't a pleasant experience.

No more kale salads for us.

Sablefish with Balsamic-Roasted Onions and Quick Pickles

One of the best, most luxurious fishes on the planet is the sablefish, locally known as black cod, though it is not a cod at all. It is a fish that I have worked with sporadically over my career. We would get some flown in to the restaurant in Virginia from our purveyor in Alaska, but it would come in only infrequently along with our salmon and halibut, most of my fisherman's catch being sold to Japan.

Because it is so good, it wants to be treated simply so that it can be the star of the show. Moreover, because it is so high in fat (good fish fats), it wants something acidic to help balance it. In this case, I decided to use two different vinegars to help balance the dish: balsamic and rice.

Sablefish with Balsamic-Roasted Onions and Quick Pickles

I decided to plate the sablefish on a bed of onion slabs first marinated in and then roasted in balsamic vinegar. Then I decided to quick pickle some cucumber slices to garnish the top of the fish. The two sources of acid complemented the unctuous fish.

Onions with Balsamic Vinegar, Prior to Roasting

I slabbed a big onion and poured on a bit of balsamic vinegar and let the slabs stand for twenty minutes, turning the slices once, to marinate. After I sprinkled them with salt and pepper, I put them in a moderate oven until the onions were soft, but still holding together, and the balsamic vinegar reduced to a syrupy glaze.

Cucumber Slices in the Pickle Brine

Quick pickles are just that: pickles that take no time. They pick up a bit of the pickle brine, yet they retain the fresh snap and crunch of the raw cucumber. I make my brine by taste. I start with a bit of rice vinegar and then dilute it with water until I am happy with it. Then I stir in salt and sugar, tasting as I go, until I am happy with the flavor of the brine. In go the cucumbers for a short stay, an hour or less. These were in the brine just about an hour.

Searing the Skin Side of the Sablefish

Sablefish is among the easiest fish to cook for two reasons. First, because of the fat content, it is very hard to overcook it to the point where it is inedible. And second, because it has a built-in timer. When the flesh starts to flake apart, it is ready to serve. You can see the very visible flakes in the top photo.

I always serve sablefish with the crispy skin attached. It is a treat on par with and perhaps surpassing salmon skin. One day, perhaps I will make sablefish skin hand rolls as a special treat for Ann and me; I suspect it will be far better than the same sushi made with salmon skin.

As always, hats off to Northwest Fresh Seafood for impeccable fish.

Crostini and Vinho Verde on the Patio

February 28!

Remember the 3+ feet of snow of just a few weeks ago? How about 66 degrees, shorts, and bare feet on the patio today?!

Sundried Tomato, Caper, and Goat Cheese Crostini

All winter we've been drinking (and loving) our red wine but when the weather gets nice, there is something special about that first bottle of patio wine on the patio in the spring. I am here to report that it was fantastic, the wine, the crostini, and most of all, spending time chatting with Ann.

I spent the (very chilly and windy) morning pruning the wisteria (which are in great shape thanks to all the hard work I did last winter) and after frozen fingers, I spent the late morning and all afternoon painting the master bathroom which we are remodeling.

I had all afternoon to think about the glorious weather outside that I was missing. At some point, I suggested to Ann that she put a bottle of Vinho Verde in the fridge: after seven hours of pruning and painting, I was going to need some adult therapy. And wonderful and faithful companion that she is, she did just that.

After I finished cleaning up from painting, I made these crostini from sundried tomatoes, capers, goat cheese, and balsamic vinegar. Anticipating the beautiful weather on Sunday afternoon, I brought home some micro-basil on Saturday night to garnish the crostini. Not only do the micros look beautiful, but they give a concentrated burst of flavor.

Fresh Local Micro-Basil: a Burst of Flavor

And out to the patio where we spent an hour or more before the sun got down too low and we cooled off enough to want to go back inside. About that first Vinho Verde of the year: I really missed that slightly spritzy, intensely sappy, low alcohol, green apple-flavored wine. Year in and year out, Bartholomew Broadbent ships awesome Vinho Verde!

Annie Makes Soufflé

This past weekend, my wife cooked for me a delightful Gruyère soufflé and one of the best salads that I have ever eaten! Those of you who don't cook for a living have no basis for comprehending how wonderful this is, so just let me assure you that it is always fantastic when someone else cooks for you, especially someone who cooks as fabulously as my wife.

Gruyère Soufflé

This tale started last Thursday when I asked Ann in a casual text if we had any plans for Sunday, my day off and last day to rest before the circus which is Valentine's Day. She replied that we did not but that she was making yummy food for me. Score! I generally cook on Sundays because I want to. There are no other days of the week that I can really cook for her unless she were to come to the restaurant and then I wouldn't be really cooking just for her and she would be reminded painfully that I spend all my nights with my restaurant mistress instead of her. Suffice it to say that it is a huge deal for Ann to cook for me on a Sunday and that I was greatly anticipating it.

Greens with Pickled Red Onions and Warm Balsamic Dressing

This is one of the best salads I have ever eaten. But what a giant pain in the rear! Ann asked me to bring some ingredients home from the restaurant, but our communications were a bit garbled and the long and short of it is that we had to go back to the restaurant on Sunday to get micro-basil for the salad. And then I had to go back to get the prosciutto. I thought Ann was going to cry when we got back to the house to find that we had forgotten the prosciutto. And so I went back to the restaurant and made sure I grabbed a bottle of wine too, because all that running back and forth was not what I planned for my day off and I was a bit frazzled.

Back to the salad which comprised greens, basil, mint leaves, parsley leaves, red onions pickled in red wine vinegar, shaved Parmigiano Reggiano, prosciutto, toasted pine nuts, and a garlicky warm balsamic dressing. Absolutely fantastic. I had two helpings and ate the bulk of the leftovers in a wrap the next day.

Separating Eggs

Shaving Parmigiano

Just Coming out of the Oven

Dinner was fantastic! Nobody, not even a professional chef, could have made it any better.