CURING THE SANDWICH BLAHS

Friday, November 11, 2005

The last two meals we had for dinner this week were sandwiches. How boring! How trite! How...how...alas, how busy people eat sometimes. In case any of you food snobs out there are hesitant about serving sandwiches for dinner, here are four tricks I use to assuage my obsessive food snob side when sandwiches are really all we have time for:

1. Good bread. Bread can make a huge difference in the quality of your sandwich. I like to make my own (focaccia is my favorite easy one) on the weekend when I have time, but the bakery at our grocery store carries some nice ones too.

2. Cheese! I am a cheese fanatic, so most any sandwich filling could use a good dose of a good cheese, in my opinion. Be brave and add a bold cheese to a plain sandwich (I like blue cheese to liven up plain old turkey) or use a creamy cheese and make a nice spread (goat cheese and basil is a favorite around here).

3. Crunch. I really like for my sandwiches to have a variety of textures when I bite into them. Bread is nice and soft, cheese is gooey when melted, so something crunchy really adds a lot to the eating experience for me. Bacon works well, or a crunchy lettuce. A sprinkle of green onions or toasted nuts can also add a bit of texture to your sandwich.

4. Spread. The sauce part of a sandwich is really important to me. I HATE store-bought mayonnaise worse than anything I can think of at the moment, and mustard is okay, but really only on hot dogs. So, since I'm so fussy, I like to make something to spread on sandwiches. My favorite at the moment is an Artichoke-Caper Spread (recipe below) I adapted from Sara Foster's Artichoke Aioli. Mine is not quite as complicated, and it makes a ton and keeps well. We spread it on everything from ham sandwiches to pizza.

The sandwich you see in the photo is Chicken Salad on Focaccia. The chicken salad is a mixture of: grilled chicken (from the salad last night), grapes cut in half, toasted pecans, green onion, tiny pieces of red onion, and shredded Parmesan cheese. I dress it with homemade mayonnaise, spiced with a little paprika and seasoned salt.

If you are philosophically opposed to sandwiches for dinner, these ideas work fine for lunch or picnics too! Here's the recipe for the artichoke spread:

ARTICHOKE-CAPER SANDWICH SPREAD

2 cloves garlic

1 14-ounce can artichoke hearts, drained

1 T. capers, drained

1 cup mayonnaise (I only use homemade, but I'm a freak about the store-bought stuff. It gives me nightmares)

A pinch of red pepper flakes

1/2 t. Kosher salt

Juice of a lemon, if you have it

With the food processor running, add the garlic cloves until they're minced. Then add the artichoke hearts, capers, salt and pepper flakes. Puree. Add mayo and lemon juice. Foster's recipe also calls for horseradish and mustard, but I leave those two things out. Add them if you wish. Spread on French bread, add a slice of ham and a sprinkle of Feta cheese, and you have yourself a not-so-blah sandwich!

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AUTUMN SALAD

(if there is such a thing)

Thursday, November 10, 2005

I really want to start making really autumn-ish dishes and telling you all about how warming and comforting they are. I've been trying to get in the spirit of the season. See, I made soup yesterday? But here's the thing. It's in the eighties still. I am wearing t-shirts and flip-flops to class. How am I supposed to assume my place stirring a big steaming pot of soup when I have the air conditioning running? I couldn't fight it anymore this week...salad it is (or was).

To dress my salad appropriately for the season, I started by gathering the greens right from my backyard. David's first official vegetables in our garden include an assortment of greens, but we aren't sure exactly what all of them are. As best we can tell, there's some kind of curly lettuce, a red-leaf one, kale, and a bright green one with small round leaves (baby lettuce? butter lettuce? David doesn't remember).

Grilling seemed a good option since it had cooled off a little bit by dusk, so I marinated some chicken breasts in a sweet and sour mixture, and David grilled them for me. For the dressing, I wanted it to be warm to wilt the greens a little bit. So I started by frying some bacon, and then added shallots, pecans, and some diced pear. It turned out to be a lovely combination of flavors, and the warm dressing made it feel more like a fall dish (without the my-standing-over-a-hot-stove-for-a-really-long-time part). After the chicken is cooked, the salad comes together really quickly. Here's how it worked:

SWEET-HOT GRILLED CHICKEN SALAD

For the chicken:

2 pounds chicken breasts

3/4 cup soy sauce

1/2 cup rice vinegar (cider vinegar would work too)

2 T. dark cane syrup or molasses

2 T. sesame oil

1 T. fish sauce

2 T. hot chili sauce (I use Sambal, a Thai version)

Juice of 1 lemon

Mix all; marinate for a few hours or overnight. Grill chicken over medium flame.

For the Warm Balsamic Vinaigrette:

4 pieces bacon

2 shallots, minced

1/2 pear, diced

1/2 cup pecan pieces

1/4 cup balsamic vinegar

1 t. dark cane syrup or molasses

1/2 t. salt

Cook the bacon in a medium skillet until done; remove. Add the shallots and cook until tender, about 4 minutes. Add the pear and pecans, and cook about 5 more minutes until the pear is very soft. Add the vinegar, syrup, and salt, and cook another minute or two, stirring constantly.

To assemble the salad:

Mixed salad greens, washed and torn

Remaining half of pear, diced

1/2 cup chopped green onions

Spread greens on plate; top with pear, green onions, chicken, and bacon slices. Pour dressing warm on top of salad.

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ARE YOU SICK OF PESTO YET?

Wednesday, November 9, 2005

A strange cat has been hanging out at our house lately. He's pretty cute, brown and gray tabby with really bright green eyes, but Chester and Carmela are having a hard time adjusting to his presence. We often hear the yelps and hisses of kitty violence in our backyard, opening the door just in time to see our cats ganging up on this wandering neighbor.
 

A few weeks ago, I had the back door open because it was so nice outside, and I came into my kitchen to find a cat on the floor, one that doesn't belong to me. He quickly sauntered back out when he saw me, but he isn't afraid to intrude. His favorite spot in the backyard is near our enormous basil plants, so in honor of his persistent presence around our house, I named him after another constant in our kitchen: Pesto.

I've never had basil plants (or strange cats, for that matter) hang around this long. I don't know if it's because we planted them late in the season or because of the near-tropical climate, but they show no signs of fading any time soon. And so, I've had a never ending supply of pesto in my fridge (as I'm sure you've noticed!) and am trying to find new ways to use it. This soup is perfect for a fall use of the usually summertime herb; it's warm and creamy but not too heavy. I adapted it from the recipe for Basil-Eggplant Soup in Martha Hopkins and Randall Lockridge's Intercourses; my version differs only slightly from theirs.

Eggplant Basil Bisque

1 medium eggplant

1 medium yellow onion, chopped

2 cloves garlic, minced

Olive oil

4 large tomatoes, or 1 14 1/12 ounce can whole tomatoes, drained

1 1/2 cups chicken stock

1/8 t. cayenne pepper

1/2 t. Kosher salt plus more to taste

Cracked black pepper

2 ounces goat cheese

2 tablespoons basil pesto

Peel the eggplant, and cut into small chunks. Boil in salted water until tender, about 10 minutes. (The original recipe calls for grilling the eggplant, which I'm sure would impart lots of flavor. I keep meaning to try it that way.) In a large saucepan, saute the onion and garlic together over medium-low heat until the onion is translucent and very tender but not brown. Dice the tomatoes and add them to the pot; cook for another 5-7 minutes, until the tomatoes are soft. Add the eggplant and chicken broth; season with cayenne, salt, and pepper. Simmer for about 45 minutes. Remove from heat to cool a bit. Mix the pesto and goat cheese in the blender to form a greenish paste. Remove the pesto paste from the blender, leaving a little sticking to the sides. Puree the soup in batches, but be careful! Hot soup will blow the lid right off your blender. Reheat the pureed soup if necessary; serve with a spoonful of the basil paste on top. I didn't have goat cheese when I made the soup you see in the photo, so I just used pesto. It was still good, but the goat cheese adds a nice creaminess that I like, so if you have it, use it. Serve with crusty bread and a salad.

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PAPER CHEF #12: A CUTE LITTLE LAMB?

Monday, November 7, 2005

For this month's Paper Chef competition, hosted by the dynamic duo over at Belly-Timber, contestants were given an unusual assortment of ingredients. Basil, oranges, and fish sauce were randomly selected from the list of nominees; for the final ingredient, Mrs. D and Chopper Dave chose a cuddly one: lamb.

I admit, I was daunted. My inexperience with cooking up Little Bo Peep's charges gave me pause about participating in the competition this month. And, my sister was in town, and I have a presentation next week, so it would be a busy weekend...the excuses mounted up.

But, Saturday morning on my weekly trip to the Red Stick Market, I stumbled across Mr. and Mrs. Boggs, in from Sugartown, Louisiana, selling none other than the very creatures in question. I chatted with them about the various cuts and preparation methods for a while, and they convinced me to buy a pound of their best seller: lamb sausage! Mr. Boggs promised that I could use it just as I would any other bulk sausage,--not so daunting after all--and just like that, an entry in Paper Chef was a few ingredients away.

Basil still grows abundantly in my backyard (it's 85 degrees outside here as I write this), and fish sauce is a pantry staple, so I only had to pick up a few oranges, and I'd be on my way.

So...what to do with lamb sausage, basil, oranges, and fish sauce, you ask? Well, stuff them in an acorn squash, of course! Okay, so maybe that idea didn't come that easily, but at any rate, that's what I decided to do.

I've been meaning to make a big batch of pesto anyway, and the basil-garlic flavor seemed a perfect accompaniment for the sausage. To thicken the filling and add some creaminess, I added bread crumbs and fontina cheese, which melted up nicely. I wanted to use orange pulp for complexity, but I didn't want the sweetness to overpower the other flavors. So, I added some zest to the pesto and roasted the oranges, scooping out the pulp after the heat had mellowed the sweet acidic flavor just a bit. Fish sauce presented a bit of a challenge. Using it for the fishy flavor wouldn't work with the lamb, and too much would overwhelm the filling for sure. So, I decided to use it as a substitute for salt. Instead of salting the squash before baking it, I rubbed the inside with fish sauce and some olive oil.

I served the squash with buttermilk basil biscuits and spicy orange marmalade over arugula with oranges, red onions, goat cheese, and a sweet-hot vinaigrette, made with orange marmalade, red wine vinegar, the juice from the roasted oranges, and a tiny bit of fish sauce. The vinaigrette complemented everything so nicely, I ended up drizzling it over the whole plate!

The lamb sausage filling really worked well with the squash: the eating experience involved mouthfuls of creamy, savory filling and sweet, buttery squash flesh, with hints of the sweet heat from the vinaigrette. The spicy bitterness of the arugula provided a strong backdrop for the oranges and red onions, and the spicy marmalade matched up nicely with the buttery flakiness of the biscuits.

All in all, I was happy I ran into Mr. Boggs; otherwise, this Paper Chef would have passed me by, and I would still be contemplating the ethics of eating those who I count before I go to sleep. As a matter of fact, I might have overcome that hurdle altogether: maybe in the coming weeks, you'll see recipes for Lambsagna or Lamburguine. Who knows?

In any case, here are the recipes for this meal:

Lamb-Stuffed Acorn Squash

1 large acorn squash, or 2 smaller ones

2 oranges

1/2 t. fish sauce

1 t. dark cane syrup or molasses

Olive oil

1/2 pound lamb sausage

2 cloves garlic, minced

2 T. basil pesto (see here for my recipe)

2 ounces Fontina cheese, cubed

1/2 cup finely ground bread crumbs

Preheat the oven to 400 degrees. Split the squash in half, lengthwise. Score each half by cutting deep diagonal slits into the flesh, making a diamond pattern. Be careful not to cut all the way through the rind. Rub the flesh with olive oil and fish sauce, and drizzle with syrup. Zest each orange and set the peel aside. Cut each orange in half and drizzle the flesh with olive oil, Kosher salt, and cracked black pepper. Place the oranges and squash on a baking sheet, cut side up, and bake for about 20 minutes. The baking time will depend largely on the size of your squash; you should be able to pierce the flesh easily with a fork when the squash is done, but you will bake it a little longer later after it's stuffed, so you don't want it to be caving in this first go-round. Remove the squash and oranges from the oven and let cool. When the oranges are cool enough to handle, you want to separate the pulp from the skin and membrane, while reserving the juice. I did this by peeling and segmenting the oranges over a bowl fitted with a strainer. You should end up with about 1/4 cup juice and a good handful of the pulp. Set aside. Brown and crumble the sausage over medium heat in a large skillet. Remove the sausage and drain off all but a tiny bit of the fat. Add the garlic and cook until tender; then, stir in the pesto, along with the reserved orange zest. Add the bread crumbs and stir continuously, until a paste forms. Add the orange pulp, and cook for about a minute or two. Add the sausage and the cheese, stirring until the cheese melts. Stuff each squash half with a scoop of the sausage mixture. Drizzle with olive oil and bake for another 10-15 minutes.

Spicy Marmalade Vinaigrette

1/4 cup reserved juice from the roasted oranges

1/2 cup orange marmalade

1 T. crushed red pepper flakes

1/2 t. fish sauce

1 t. Dijon mustard

1/4 cup red wine vinegar

1/2 cup olive oil

Stir together the marmalade and the crushed red pepper; reserve half for biscuits. To the other half, add the orange juice, fish sauce, mustard, and vinegar. Whisk vigorously. Add the olive oil very slowly, whisking constantly until the mixture emulsifies.

Buttermilk Basil Biscuits

3 1/2 cups flour

2 t. baking powder

1 t. baking soda

1 t. salt

1/2 cup basil leaves, chopped

1 stick butter, cubed

1/2 cup vegetable shortening

1 cup buttermilk plus more if needed

Preheat the oven to 425 degrees. Mix the flour, baking powder, salt, and basil leaves together in a large bowl. Add the butter and shortening, alternately. Some people do this in a food processor; I like to use my hands to mix in the fat. Mix the dry ingredients and the butter and shortening until the mixture is crumbly and the fat is pretty evenly distributed. Add the buttermilk and stir with a fork just until the liquid is incorporated; be careful not to over mix. Add more buttermilk if the dough is too dry; it should be sticky. Turn the dough out onto a floured surface, and knead just a few times with your hands. Roll out with a rolling pin and cut into desired shapes (I like hearts!). Bake for 12-15 minutes, until beginning to brown on top.

Plate Assembly:

1 bunch arugula

10-12 basil leaves, torn

1 orange, cut from peel and membrane into sections

1/2 small red onion, sliced very finely

2 ounces goat cheese, crumbled

Spread greens on each plate. Top with orange sections, red onion, and goat cheese. Place stuffed squash in the center. Drizzle vinaigrette liberally over all, and serve with a buttered biscuit, spread with the reserved marmalade-red pepper mixture. Eat immediately, and do not picture any animal with white, curly fleece.

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