Warm Green Bean Salad

Last week I listened to an interview of Alice Waters on NPR (by Terry Gross on Fresh Air). It was so inspiring that it got me dreaming about opening a place of my own all over again. (This is a recurring fantasy... which shouldn't surprise you too much). I spent last night in my Dream Café, welcoming patrons with delicious yet simple, healthy, affordable food made from the freshest ingredients, presented in a short, ever-changing seasonal menu, and featuring a fun selection of small plates for children, and a place for them to quietly play and read after their meal, so grown ups can have a few minutes of respite. Sigh...

As I was listening to Alice, two thougts came to mind. First, she mentioned that she stopped seeing her friends when she got into the chaos of opening Chez Panisse. She also said that she stopped cooking there when she had her daughter... So this dream business of mine sounded quite incompatible with my dream life of the moment. Unless maybe I could have a cafe that required work only from 9 to 5 week days (i.e. preschool hours)? Sigh... My second thought, which alleviated my disillusion, was that as far as focusing on the quality of ingredients, I was definitely, albeit modestly, following Alice's path. Nothing is more pleasurable to me than eating vegetables and fruits (and meats and fish) that taste like themselves. In her interview, Alice said that finding the ingredients was 85% of cooking, and that the Bowl of Fruit was the item she was the most proud of on her menu. I found that comment truely admirable.

All this got me thinking about the vegetables that my family used to grow in France. We didn't have a garden, but my grandparents and several uncles and aunts did. All were growing, among many other delicious plants, green beans. I don't know if green beans are still in fashion in France's vegetable gardens. They certainly were 20 years ago. The kind that my family grew was what is called "haricots verts" in the US: small, thin, dark green beans, which are both firm and juicy and barely require any cooking at all. Just a few minutes of steaming or boiling in salted water, then you can eat them warm with a piece of melting butter on top. This is how we ate them most of the time—and they rarely made it to the table: we would snack on them as soon as they were ready. Another favorite was to add boiled potatoes to the beans and season either with butter (and decorate with lemon wedges) or vinaigrette dressing.

Summer is nearly over but I found organic green beans last Saturday, so there is still time to try out this recipe, which I prepared a month or two ago. As a matter of fact, I will receive filet beans (another name for haricots verts) in my CSA box tomorrow.

Serves 4–5

• 1 lb green beans (preferrably thin, tender ones)
• 8–10 small potatoes (about 1 lb). New potatoes of any variety, or small Yukon Gold for example. I prefer silky rather than starchy potatoes, but both make great warm salads.
• 1 small shallot

Dressing:

• 1 1/2 Tbsp old-style Dijon mustard (with whole grains), or regular Dijon mustard (Try to find a French brand, such as Maille or Amora, for a more authentic taste.)
• 1 Tbsp Jerez vinegar (sherry vinegar from Spain), or regular red wine vinegar
• 2 Tbsp sunflower oil, or other mild-tasting oil
• 2 Tbsp olive oil (Try to find oil made with olives from only one country¹—e.g. Greece or Italy—, extra-virgin, cold pressed)
• salt and freshly ground black pepper

Start with the potatoes: peel them and boil them in salted water until cooked but still firm (stop cooking as soon as a knife can go through easily), about 15 minutes.

Hull the beans² (unless they are very thin) by carefully snapping each end and pulling the string that runs along the bean (which is only a problem in more mature beans). Rinse the beans.

While the potatoes are cooking, prepare the dressing. Place all the ingredients in a small sealable container³. Close tighly with a leak-proof lid. Shake well until homogeneous.

Thinly chop the shallot and place at the bottom of a large salad bowl.

As soon as the potatoes are cooked through, drain them and place them in the salad bowl. Pour 2 or 3 Tbsp dressing on them and toss. The warm potatoes will absorb the oil and flavors of the dressing and shallot.

Steam or boil the green beans in salted water for no more than 5 minutes in a pressure cooker. They must be firm but not crunchy, soft but not floppy. They loose the brightness of their green color without really tarnishing...

Drain the beans and add to the salad bowl. Pour a couple more Tbsp dressing if all has been absorbed by the potatoes. Toss gently (avoid breaking the beans).

Serve immediately.


¹ To me it's an indication that it was made in smaller, maybe more artisanal batches. But I don't know for sure. And the taste should be more distinct (unique to the country of origin) than if olives are mixed.

² This is a social time in a French kitchen—at least it is in my family. Everyone grabs a few handfuls of beans to hull and chats around the kitchen table.

³ I use a recycled jam jar. If there is any left-over dressing, I just put the jar in the fridge. If there is very little left in the jar, I still keep it (French mustard is expensive over here!) and add more ingredients (in the quantities listed above) in the jar next time I need dressing.

Fennel Bulbs au Gratin

Halved, steamed in a pressure cooker for a few minutes, then placed in a buttered pyrex dish, sprinkled with butter and grated Gruyère cheese, under the broiler for 5 minutes.

Chestnut stuffing

When I see fresh chestnuts at the farmer's market or in the produce aisle, I can't resist: I buy a bag. They remind me of the "chestnut fair" ("la vogue des marrons"), a traveling carnival that takes place every fall atop the Croix Rousse hill in Lyon. Amidst the noisy, flashy rides and cotton candy vendors are fire-roasted chestnut vendors. They roast fresh chestnuts from Ardèche, the nearby producing region, in big barrels over a crackling and smoking wood fire. They serve the hot, blackened chestnuts in cones made of newspaper. You warm up your hands by holding the cone for a few minutes, then shell the chestnuts one by one, trying not to burn your fingers, and eat them while still steamy. What a treat.

Chestnuts also remind me of Christmas meals. Chestnut-stuffed roast turkey, served with sautéed apples and more chestnuts, is one of the traditional Christmas dishes in my family. Here is a recipe for the stuffing, adapted from my 1991 Larousse de la Cuisine.

The recipe is for a 9-lb (4-kg) turkey. Since this attempt was just for fun (and for the 4 of us), I didn't buy a whole turkey but two drumsticks, and baked the stuffing (or dressing, rather) around them. The turkey pieces were simply seasoned with salt and pepper and brushed with sunflower oil. I baked them for about one hour at 350ºF (180ºC), adding the dressing about 20 minutes before the end.

• one bag fresh chestnuts (1.6 lbs or 740 g)
• 4 strips bacon, diced
  
• 1 yellow onion, chopped
• 1 thin, boneless pork chop (about 1/3 lb or 150 g), diced
  
• 1 apple (Pink Lady for example), thinly sliced
  
• salt, freshly ground black pepper
• 1 pinch freshly grated nutmeg, 2 whole cloves, 1 pinch ground cinnamon

1. Cut a cross into each chestnut with a sharp, pointy knife.
2. Roast the chestnuts on a cookie sheet, cross facing up, in a 450ºF (230ºC) oven for about 30 minutes. Let them cool down a little then peel them (use your hands to break the shells and remove them). Crumble the chestnuts between your hands or chop them coarsely with a chef's knife.
   
3. Fry the diced bacon and chopped onion in a pan for a few minutes.
   
4. Add the diced pork and cook for a few more minutes.
   
5. Add the apple slices. Season with salt and spices. Toss well. Cook for a few minutes.
6. Remove from the heat and toss in the crumbled chestnuts.
7. Use as turkey or chicken stuffing, or bake separately as dressing for 20 minutes.
   

Poondu Thuvaiyal or Chutney (Side dish with garlic)

In many parts of Tamilnadu this side dish is very popular and which is not so in chettinad.My neighbors used to tell that they have to make few idly’s more if they have poondu chutney. I always had a feel that the chutney will have excess garlic flavor which will make us embarrassing while we go out due to its odd smell. So I never bothered to try it. But one of my neighbors insisted me to try this at least once. She is very dedicated in cooking that she hand grinds it each time. I told her that I can’t do so. She asked me to grind it at least in the mixi and taste. My next doubt was how much garlic I can peel to have a good amount of chutney. Garlic costs Rs 250 a kg now. Though that is not a matter to be bothered for we people, we always use less of a thing when it is off season.
I should really agree that it was delicious and mouth watering . My younger one loved it and asked me why I never used to do that chutney. I told this recipe to my elder daughter in US and she too loved it. She gets peeled big garlic there and finds it very easy to do this chutney when in a hurry. Bachelors there can buy and store the peeled garlic in the fridge and can use the chutney as a side dish for frozen chapatti as well. Little chutney will be enough for 3 or 4 idly’s. The qty of chutney will be less as the ingredients are less.
Ingredients
Whole garlic -2 or 3
Tomato -2 (medium size)
Red chili -3 or 4 (according to taste)
For seasoning
Oil (gingerly if available) – 1 table spoon
Mustard -1 teaspoon
Broken urudh dhal -1 teaspoon
Curry leaf –little
Procedure
The procedure is very simple. Note that no onions are used. Cut the tomatoes into small pieces. Keep the kadai in the stove. In little oil sauté the chilies first and remove it from the oil. Then sauté the garlic and tomatoes nicely till the garlic gets almost cooked. Finally add the salt needed and allow the mix to cool. Once it cools grind it nicely in the small jar. Even after grinding if there are small pieces of garlic inside don’t bother. It will be tasty as a whole. After removing it from the mixi season the chutney and pour it on top of the chutny and mix well till the oil gets mixed nicely into the whole chutney.

Agretti

Here is one of the wonderful surprises of this week's CSA box. As Andrew Griffin explains in the newsletter, agretti is the Italian cousin of the American West's tumbleweed. It starts out with slender succulent leaves with "a unique marine flavor and toothsome quality". As it matures, agretti becomes, like it's American cousin, a sprawling, dry and prickly shrub, which no-one would eat!

Here is what we did, with the help of the newsletter's recipes and advice:

Serves 2

• 1 bunch agretti, clean (we pulled the leaves from the hard branches and rinsed in cold water twice)
• 4 slices prosciutto
• 1 tbsp olive oil

1. Tear the prosciutto into small pieces and pan fry until crisp. Remove from the pan and reserve.
2. Heat up the olive oil and sauté the agretti until wilted (3 or 4 minutes are enough).
3. Toss the agretti and prosciutto together and serve warm.

It was a little too salty for my taste (the original recipe called for pancetta) but the crunchiness of the agretti was great and the flavors really pleasant.

Tangy Garlic Chutney

A quick delicious chutney to go with Biryani Rice or indian snacks.

Ingredients
5 Garlic ClovesGarlic Cloves

1 medium TomatoTomato

5 Red ChiliesRed Chilies

Salt to taste
Oil


Directions
1] Fry the 1st 3 ingredients in little oil.
2] Add salt and grind into a smooth paste.
3] Heat little oil in a pan and add this ground paste and fry until it becomes thick.
4] Serve hot or cold.



Technorati Tags: recipe, indian food, vegetarian, garlic chutney

Creamy Healthy Cucumber Raita

I just finished preparing my cucumber raita for tomorrow's dinner. I plan to accompany this with a special dish which I will feature tomorrow if time permits. This creamy dish is best served chilled and for me it goes very well with lamb kebabs or tandoori chicken. I will be refrigerating over night and serve it for dinner tomorrow.


Ingredients
1 cup plain Yoghurt
1/2 cup finely chopped CucumberCucumber

Salt to taste
1 tsp chopped Coriander
1/8 cup Cumin PowderCumin Powder

Salt to taste
Pepper to taste
Red chili Powder to taste


Directions
1] Whisk the yoghurt with little water.
2] Add the cucumber.
3] Season with salt, pepper & cumin powder and mix well.
4] Sprinkle the red chili powder on top


Note: You may use some chopped coriander as garnishing.




Technorati Tags: recipe, indian food, side dish, vegetarian