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.

Plum cake

My pear cake recipe (here) works well with other fruits. Tonight, my daughter and I made a plum version of this cake with the following proportions:

• 5 ripe plums


• 4 eggs


• 180g (less than 1 cup) sugar


• 1 stick (114g) butter


• 170g (about 1 1/3 cups) flour


• 1 tsp baking powder


• 1 tsp vanilla extract


• 1/2 tsp ground cinnamon

We beat the eggs and sugar until foamy. We added the melted butter, then the sifted flour, then the baking powder, vanilla extract, and cinnamon, mixing well (with a whisk) while adding each ingredient.
We poured the dough in a buttered, round metal pan (the same old 10" x 2" I used in the pear cake recipe).
We placed the plums, halved and pitted, on the dough, cut side up.
We baked for about 50 minutes in a  340ºF oven.

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.

Yogurt Dip

Yesterday we were invited to a potluck Easter egg hunt party, and I remembered about the potluck part of it about five minutes before leaving. Thankfully we had all the ingredients I needed for a quick yogurt dip. I combined the ingredients listed below in a glass jar, cut up young and juicy carrots from our organic CSA box into strips, and I even got the time to take a picture! Now that's fast...

• 1 6-oz (170 g) plain yogurt (Clover organic for instance)
• 1 lemon (or Meyer lemon), juiced
• 1 clove garlic, pressed
• 1 tablespoon cumin seeds, crushed
• salt

This also makes a great sauce for grilled lamb chops.

A few years ago I blogged about my childhood Easter memories.

Lemon Marmalade

Are Meyer lemons and navel oranges still in season? They were a couple weeks ago. Trees in our neighborhood were bending under the weight of hundreds of brightly colored fruits. A friend brought us a bag full of them, picked up in her backyard that very morning. And what do you do with citrus that has been lucky enough to grow without pesticides? Eat them with the skin! I made lemon marmalade that weekend (and brought a jar to my friend as a thank you gift), using a recipe from my mother-in-law*.

For about 8 jars
(I often reuse empty 13-ounce Bonne Maman jars.)

• 6 Meyer lemons (organic or pesticide-free)
• 2 navel oranges (organic or pesticide-free)
• 1.5 kg (6 cups) sugar
• 1 liter (about 1 quart) water

 

Day 1

1. Rinse the fruits under running water. Pat them dry.
2. Cut them in 4 lengthwise, then take the seeds out and place them on a square of cheese cloth that you tie with a string (in French it is called un noué). If you don't have cheese cloth, you can put the seeds in a tea ball.
3. Thinly slice each fruit quarter (about 3-5 mm or 1/8-1/5 " in thickness).
4. Place the fruit slices and the pocket of seeds in a large pot (I use my pressure cooker without closing it, althouth une bassine à confiture—a jam pan—would be more authentic...). Pour 1 quart (about 1 liter) water on the fruits. Place a lid on the pot.
5. Wait for 24 hours.

Day 2

1. Place the pot or pan on the stove on medium-high heat, lid on. Boil for 50 minutes. Turn off the heat.
2. Wait for 24 hours.

Day 3

1. Find 8 or 9 empty glass jars with lids. Clean them if necessary and boil them in water for 5 minutes to sterilize them. Let them dry on a clean dish cloth.
2. Open the pot or pan and remove the pocket of seeds. Pour the sugar and stir until it dissolves in the fruit juice.
3. Bring to a boil and cook without lid for about 35 minutes.
4. Use a ladle to pour the hot marmalade in the jars. Fill the jars up to the bottom of their rim. Close immediately. As the jam cools down, the air inside the jar will retract and the lid will pop. Store the marmalade for up to one year in a kitchen cabinet (or a cellar if you have one). Refrigerate after opening.

I use this marmalade just as any other jam, spread on whole wheat walnut bread for breakfast.

* I actually modified the recipe a little bit. Gisèle uses 12 true lemons, 2 oranges, and 1 peeled grapefruit with 2 liters of water and 3 kg (12 cups) of sugar. Her recipe yields about 16 jars. Since Meyer lemons are sweeter than true lemons, the grapefruit wasn't really necessary in my case.



         

Artichoke!

Simply boiled and eaten warm, leaf after leaf, with vinaigrette until getting to the best part–the heart. Yum!

Clementine Christmas Cookies

Happy holidays everyone!

For about 40 cookies (depending on their thickness and the size of your cookie cutters)

• 250 g (2 cups) flour
• 200 g (1 cup) sugar
• 125 g (1/2 cup or just over 1 stick) butter
• 1 clementine
• 1/4 tsp ground cinnamon
• 1 or 2 egg yolks

1. Cut the butter in small pieces and allow it to warm up to room temperature (you can use a microwave for a few seconds).
2. Combine the butter, sugar, flour, and cinnamon in a large bowl. Rub the ingredients between your hands to obtain a uniform "sand."
3. Squeeze the clementine. Add half of the juice to the flour mix and briefly kneed with your hands. Add more juice as needed to obtain a shiny, elastic dough that doesn't stick to your hands. Shape dough into a ball. Refrigerate for 1 to 2 hours.
4. Roll the dough down to 3 or 4 millimeters. Cut out shapes. Place on a non-stick cookie sheet (or use parchment paper). Lightly brush each cookie with egg yolk.
5. Bake in a 360ºF (180ºC) oven for 10-12 minutes, until golden. Keep an eye on the cookies as they will rapidly change color. Uneven oven temperature and uneven cookie thickness will make them cook more or less rapidly.
6. Let the cookies cool down and enjoy, or store in a metal box for later.
   

What to substitute for bouillon cube

Being away from my source of bouillon cube has been a curse for many years. I had to wait for my next trip to France to buy some, or I had to add the little package to my wish list when my parents visited. This was one of the last items I decided I could only get there. (As a new immigrant I used to load my luggage with all sorts of things, but little by little I found my way around my local store's aisles and discovered substitutes for all these goodies.)

A box would last me nearly a year, so I always had supplies for the few recipes in which bouillon cubes seemed irreplaceable, like this beef and carrot stew. I would use them very sparingly. But one day... months away from any trip to/from my bouillon cube paradise, I used the last cube in the box. Oh, horror! What was I going to do!!! The safety net was gone.

Rather than despair, I read the list of ingredients on the side of the box, in hopes that I would be able to come up with an equivalent mix of spices. Here's what I read:

Maggi's Kub Or ingredients:

• salt, flavor enhancers, hydrogenated palm oil, natural flavors (wheat, soy), sugar, onion, glucose syrup, citric acid, garlic, coriander seeds; pepper, cloves, celery, and bay leaf extracts, preservatives.

I started realizing that there really wasn't any need to wait for a trip half way around the world to flavor my stews and soups! Half of the ingredients didn't need to be part of any recipe (flavor enhancers? Palm oil? Preservatives?). The other half (the actual spices) was widely available in California. So here is what I tried in my next beef and carrot stew, plus a few other meat or vegetable-only dishes.

Replacement for 1 bouillon cube:

• 1 tbsp olive oil or butter
• 1/2 fresh yellow onion, chopped
• 2 fresh garlic cloves, peeled, halved, stem removed
• 2 fresh or dried bay leaves
• 3 sprigs fresh or dried thyme
• 1 tsp whole coriander seeds, crushed
• 1 tsp whole celery seeds, crushed
• 2 whole cloves
• Salt and freshly ground black pepper

It turned out beautifully every time. I didn't need to rely on scarce supplies anymore, and my dishes had become 100% natural.

And this is how the curse became a blessing :-)

PS: I sill love Kub Ors and recommend them if you can find them!

Fava bean and egg salad

As a scientist I can't help myself but weigh fava beans before and after shelling them every time they cross my path. I had blogged about the experiment here already. And yesterday as usual I took my scale out. This time we had 3 pounds of pods, 1 pound 4 ounces of beans with skin and just under 14 ounces of beans once skinned (28% of the pods' weight). We had enough for 3 generous servings.


The following recipe is inspired by this one, from Marmiton.org.

• 3 lbs fresh fava beans (in pods)
• 2 sprigs thyme or savory
  
• 3 brown eggs
• 3 calçot onions (or green onions)
• 2 to 3 oz (60 to 85 g) goat cheese*
• 1 tbsp Banyuls vinegar (or sherry vinegar)
• 2 tbsp olive oil
• salt and pepper

1. Boil the eggs for 10 minutes then plunge them in cold water.
2. Remove the dark leaves and the outer skin of the onions and slice them thinly. Place them at the bottom of a salad bowl and cover with 1 tablespoon vinegar.
3. Shell the fava beans. Boil them with thyme (or savory) in salted water for 5 minutes, then plunge them in cold water to stop the cooking. Pop the beans out of their pale green skin. Place them in the salad bowl.
4. Peel and slice the eggs. Add them to the salad along with the cheese, shaved or diced depending on how hard it is.
5. Season with salt, pepper and 2 tablespoons olive oil. Toss.
6. Serve or refrigerate.
   

* I used a fresh California goat cheese rolled in herbs that I had handy. I think a hard goat or sheep cheese would work even better.

Vegetarian Potato Curry

Today's featured recipe is vegetarian Potato Curry which I made to accompany some frozen roti canai my swedish uncle bought during his visit during CNY. I didn't want to waste it cause it has been sitting in the freezer for quite some time. This dish is very rich in flavor and can also be served with rice. I actually wanted to add Jalepeno Peppers in as an experiment cause I think the spicy and sour taste will enhance the dish but unfortunately I couldn't get my hands on any. Anyways here is the recipe I ended up using:

Ingredients
6 Medium sized PotatoesPotatoes
- cut into quarters
1 cup Fresh Green PeasFresh Green Peas

1/2 CauliflowerCauliflower
- chopped into small florets
2 OnionsOnions
- chopped
1 Large TomatoLarge Tomato
- chopped
3 GarlicGarlic
- crushed
1 small pc of GingerGinger
- grated
1 tsp Red Chili PowderRed Chili Powder

1/4 tsp Turmeric PowderTurmeric Powder

1 tsp Mustard Seeds
1/2 tsp Urad Dhal
Chopped Coriander LeavesCoriander Leaves

Salt to taste
Oil


Directions
1] Heat oil in a pan add mustard seeds.
2] When it pops add the urad dhal and fry until golden.
3] Add ginger, garlic and fry for few minutes.
4] Then add the chopped onions and fry until it is translucent.
5] Add the chopped tomatoes and mix well.
6] Then add the potato pieces and green peas and fry for few minutes.
7] Add cauliflower, red chili powder, turmeric powder and salt.
8] Mix well and pour water until the potatoes are covered. Cover the pan.
9] Lower the heat and cook until the potatoes becomes soft and the gravy becomes thick.
10] Garnish with chopped coriander leaves.
11] Serve hot with steamed rice or roti canai.



Technorati Tags: recipe, indian food, vegetarian, potato curry

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