Biblical Eggplant

Ever since we moved into this new house, every time I come down the stairs from my office, I happen to see the cover of Plenty, and every time I see it, I want to eat it. So today I made the cover recipe.

Eggplant with Buttermilk Sauce

Roasted eggplant with a creamy, garlicky buttermilk and greek yogurt sauce, topped with pomegranate and za’atar. The eggplant is allowed to absorb lots of olive oil before it’s roasted until it’s very tender. The pomegranate (which I could rarely find in LA but is easy to find here) serves both as sweetness to balance the tart sauce as well as crunch to balance the soft texture of the eggplant. Za’atar is a fragrant herb used in Middle Eastern cooking and is likely what the Bible frequently refers to as hyssop, but also commonly refers to a spice blend that includes sesame seeds, salt, oregano, cumin, and sumac (a delicious citrusy herb). I used the spice blend here. It rounded out the flavors to keep the dish savory.

 

Light Summer Fare

After the fun with pheasant, as sworn, I’ve been doing a lot on the grill and also been using plenty of farmer’s market veggies (meat too- they have local rabbit at half LA's price!). However, standing over a fiery grill when it’s already over 100º outside is a very different experience from enjoying it’s warmth while surrounded by the cool ocean breezes of LA. Here are a couple recent highlights:

Vegetable Paella

From Plenty. Red and yellow bell peppers, fennel, artichoke, limas, tomatoes, kalamata olives, onions, garlic, and of course paella rice flavored with saffron and smoked paprika.

Seared Tuna with Grilled Ratatouille, Israeli Couscous and Deconstructed Pesto
Just a fancy name for tuna on top of some big couscous, tossed with grilled squashes and dressed with olive oil, pine nuts, and torn basil leaves. Nicely seasoned and very light and fresh though!

Five Alarm Pheasant

Although we (mostly Kara) got the kitchen to a usable state within days of moving into our new house in Dallas, it wasn’t till last night that I finally had time to cook something new. While looking for duck, which is very hard to find here, I stumbled across pheasant, which I don’t recall ever seeing in LA but is readily available at our closest market now. It also reminds me of a wooden statue of the bird that stood near the dinner table at my grandparents’ ranch in Glen Rose, so this Southern treatment of it felt especially fitting.

Roasted Pheasant with Wild Mushroom Bread Pudding and Pan Gravy

Stuffed with aromatics and creole seasonings, the star of the dish came out perfectly cooked with crisp, golden skin, moist dark meat and tender white meat- similar to a nice roasted chicken, but a bit richer. The bread pudding is essentially like Thanksgiving stuffing, only rather than the traditional cornbread and poultry seasoning type flavors, it's made with white bread, more creole seasonings, mushrooms and onions sautéed in beer, and an interesting hit of molasses. The whole dish is topped with a pan gravy made with fresh orange juice and Rioja wine.

It was a fun first culinary exploration for Texas, although I would be remiss if I didn’t admit that I learned the hard way why no one likes to oven-roast at 500º when the weather is close to triple digits even at night. At least we know the smoke alarms and the A/C are in tip top shape. Back to bug spray and barbecue for now I guess.

 

Black Pepper Tofu

Matthew was visiting this week so I was cooking vegan. This tofu dish has a crazy amount of freshly ground black pepper, plus some chiles- real spicy. Even Kara loved it, but I would have to dial the pepper back for her to eat more than a few bites. I served it with jasmine rice and Cucumber Salad with Smashed Garlic and Ginger to help cool our mouths. Delicious.

More of the Door

Kara was in Dallas this past weekend, so I spent some time trying out more recipes from The Slanted Door. It’s definitely among my favorite cookbooks. She was actually disappointed that I cooked these without her, as she loves the book, too. However, she fostered a duck as a Junior Zoo Keeper named Lucky Ducky, and cannot bring herself to eat them. I get it. Squid, yes, duck, no. Anyway, I decided to get my duck on while she wasn’t around. She’ll still get some non-duck leftovers- like the killer quiche...

Spicy Squid Stir-Fry + Fried Shishito Peppers

Very spicy, but perfectly balanced with sweet—basil, red bell pepper, and pineapple—and salty fish sauce. Seriously amazing. The shishito peppers are great and I gather that frying them is common and trendy, but frying is unhealthy and at home it’s a mess, too. My Aunt Kit introduced me to peppers just tossed in oil, seasoned, and simply roasted in the oven. Not exactly the same, but I’ve done it many times since and I’ll stick to that method in the future.

Vietnamese Quiche + Duck Salad

You can’t get much more French-Asian fusion than this! The quiche is made from pork, mushrooms, glass noodles, delectable Dungeness crab, and of course, eggs. It’s insane how much flavor that crab packs. I thought a duck confit salad would be a perfect starter, in keeping with the French theme. Frisée, radicchio, and apples, tossed in a citrusy Asian vinaigrette and topped with duck. It was sinfully delicious, but I’m done with frying for a while now. (*Duck confit is essentially fried duck). **Since this writing, this salad has become a staple in our house, though I make it with chicken thighs, so we don't offend Kara's Lucky Duck**

Duck Porridge + Jicama and Grapefruit Salad

This duck porridge is similar to classic chicken and rice soup, but with duck stock instead of chicken stock, more rice, and with flavors like ginger and green onion instead of carrots and celery. The whole duck provided the stock, and then the breast and legs are served alongside with a bold dipping sauce made from ginger, chiles, fish sauce, lime juice, etc. Thinking of duck a l’orange, I made a salad with grapefruit as a starter. Another complex Asian-style dressing on top of a salad with red cabbage, jicama, and sugar-crusted pecans. Refreshing and fitting. This was actually a pretty light meal- soup and salad.

Lobster Pad Thai

Lobster Pad Thai

With huge seared scallops. And shrimp. Rice noodles, garlic, snow peas, bean sprouts, cilantro, carrots, and roasted peanuts, I could go on. Rockin’ a lot of stuff here.

Kara and I are making sure we visit our favorite restaurants before we leave LA, and an amazing local Thai place called Ayara is one of them. If/when you’re in LA, you really should go there. When we went the other night, they had a lobster pad thai special. But Kara’s fave is chicken fried rice and mine is their duck curry. So we decided I would make the pad thai myself and we’d stick to our favorites.

This was a challenge, but ultimately a success. When I put this much care into a dish with such expensive ingredients that can be ruined in a matter of seconds, plus rare flavors like tamarind and bold ones like fish sauce, it’s very satisfying to pull it off. Not bragging though; classic dishes like pad thai or even just methods to properly cook shellfish are easy to take for granted and I’m humbled by the experience of others that enables me to eat things this luxurious.

We splurged. We all should.

Bon appétit.

 

Vindaloo is Fun to Say

Not sending this to my entire food email list, but thought you guys might enjoy it. This was last weekend. More from Plenty. They should call it Plenty of Hard-to-Find-Ingredients. Made for a nice meal, pretty picture, and lots of leftovers though. I paired these three dishes on the author’s suggestion. Not sure of his reasoning, but I like a chef’s suggestion...

Fried Lima Beans with Feta, Sorrel, and Sumac

Tender limas lightly pan-fried in butter and olive oil. Sumac, again, is a tart spice, and feta is, of course, a tart cheese. Sorrel is apparently pretty common in many cuisines and goes by many names, but is hard to find here. It is also surprisingly tart and citrusy. I could only find sorrel at Whole Foods in the fresh herbs section in those over-priced 3/4 oz plastic boxes (not even at farmer’s market or Indian specialty shop). Since this recipe uses it as a main component, not an herb, I’d have had to spend $25 to get the full amount! Spinach and lots of lemon juice is a suggested substitute. I did buy one box of the sorrel so I’d know what I was/wasn’t missing. I cooked some and used the rest as garnish. It cooks differently from spinach, and definitely tastes very different, but I’d say his substitute is worth saving over $20 for this recipe.

Green Bean Salad with Mustard Seeds and Tarragon

Very fresh- blanched green beans, snow peas, and English peas tossed with nigella seeds (another new one to me) and mustard and coriander seeds lightly toasted in the hot olive oil that dresses the salad. Mild and refreshing, but every now and then you hit one seed or another for an exotic burst of flavor.

Two-Potato Vindaloo

Very complex flavors, used just about every spice in my cabinet. Between some red bell peppers, tomatoes, a dash of sugar, and sweet potatoes, this was really good, but a bit sweet for me. Warms up well and the flavors deepen after a day or two, so it makes great leftovers. I left out the heat, hoping Kara may be more likely to enjoy it, so it may be my fault the sweetness wasn’t quite balanced. Had to drive halfway across town to find fresh curry leaves for this, easily an hour round trip. Unlike most hard to find ingredients, in this case I stepped to the register and heard, “That will be one dollar.”