Posted By Christine on July 28, 2010

Delia has a relatively new advertising gig with Waitrose, Britain’s most upscale grocery store chain. 

Under the multi-media scheme, she and fellow British celebrity chef Heston Blumenthal, creator of the three-Michelin starred Fat Duck in Bray, Berkshire, encourage people to cook at home mainly through TV ads, Internet streaming videos, and printed recipe cards that instruct people how to make them using ingredients found within the Waitrose aisles.

I picked up two of Delia’s recipes recently and pushed my trolley through the Waitrose in Eaton Village and picked up everything I needed to produce Half-time Saltimbocca Pork with Parma ham, sage and Marsala as a main course and English Summer Pudding as a dessert when our American friends were in town.

Both dishes were remarkably easy to assemble, a feature I am rapidly discovering is a Delia hallmark.

The “half-time” in the pork recipe’s title refers any cook’s ability to whip it up during the break between football halves and eat it atop dressed greens while watching the second 45 minutes of the match.

The summer pudding involves lining a bowl with crust-less white bread and filling it with berries (black and red raspberries, red and black currants, strawberries and blueberries) warmed with some sugar so that their juices flow bright red and infect the bread with their crimson as it sets overnight in the fridge.

One of these dishes was fabulously balanced between sugary and sour, soft and subtle.  But the other was far too sweet for my taste, and unfortunately, I’m not talking about the pudding. 

The pork medallions with sage and Parma ham was a fine combination – much like veal or chicken would be in any Italian saltimbocco preparation.  Delia has you make the accompanying sauce from just sweet Marsala and butter, as it is one standard preparation of Saltimbocca alla Romana.  So I guess I cannot wholly fault Delia for the overly sweet sauce to this otherwise salty dish. 

But for my taste, I think the next time I need a quick half-time meal, I’ll dilute the marsala with some broth, enrich it with some demi-glace or maybe tart it up a bit with some dry white wine or lemon juice.

Category: Delia Smith, Pork Marsala, Pork cutlet, Pork loin, Recipe, Saltimbocca, Sauces, Summer pudding | 3 Comments »
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Posted By Christine on July 24, 2010

One of the major drawbacks to finishing culinary school is a sharp drop in the number of dinner party invitations one receives.  Chef Hunt, the culinary dean in Le Cordon Bleu in Pittsburgh, warned us about this phenomenon, advising us not to take it personally.  Prowess in the kitchen is intimidating.

But my English friends, Danny and Sue, are very supportive of me in my efforts to embrace the best of British home cooking.  Last night, they tossed aside their fears (although they did mention them as we sipped our second glasses of sherry before dinner), invited us to dinner, and did not just one, not just two, but three full on Delias in my honor.  

As they slaved over my dinner, they trotted out their entire collection of Delia cookbooks for me to peruse.  I have most of them, but will definitely be searching through the second-hand book shops here for a copy of her 1985 edition of Frugal Food, in the forward to that cookbook she warns that British eaters were getting too fat and that home cookery would help save both themselves from larger trouser sizes and heart troubles and the planet from reckless consumption.

The starter was Piedmont Roasted Peppers, a recipe first published in Delia Smith Summer Collection in 1993. Delia traces the credit for this dish from the London restaurant where she first ate it to a Welsh place where the London chef first ate it.

This is one of those dishes where you want to throw all manners aside, grab a piece of bread and use it to sop up the drippings in the roasting pan.  You slice red and yellow peppers in half, removing the seeds but keeping the halved stems intact for dramatic effect.  Then you stuff the peppers with skinned, raw tomatoes, garlic slivers, anchovy pieces and a grinding of fresh black pepper.  Amply drizzle the lot with olive oil and roast the stuffed peppers until they are slightly charred and fabulously running over with sweet juices.  You serve them topped with sprigs fresh basil.

After eating these – well, what I had of them as Eliza ate her two and one of mine – I’d have to say that Danny and Sue had nothing to fear but my full on approval and expectation that they serve these every time we come to visit.

The main course was Chicken with Sherry Vinegar and Tarragon Sauce, Delia’s adaptation of the French classic called poulet au vinaigre, which was first published in 1982 in Delia’s Complete Cookery Course. This dish requires a whole broken down chicken, the pieces of which are first browned in a small amount of hot oil and then simmered – uncovered – with loads of medium sherry, sherry vinegar, tarragon, and whole shallots and garlic cloves.  The sauce is finished by stirring in some crème fraiche.   There I go again, embarrassing myself by dipping my bread into the serving dish….

For dessert there was Baked Apple and Almond Pudding – which Delia credits the chef at an old pub in Laycock (in Wiltshire, not far from Bath) called the Sign of the Angel, and was published in 2006 as part of The Delia Collection, Puddings. This is a warm, creamy nutty, cake sitting atop homemade applesauce.  Pouring some cold, single cream over the top just seals the deal.

So Danny and Sue, with this extreme success under your belt, what are you cooking for me next week?

Category: Almonds, Apples, Delia Smith, Recipe, Sherry, Tarragon, Uncategorized, chicken, roasted red peppers | 1 Comment »
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Posted By Christine on July 21, 2010

This morning, I had the first English scone of this particular trip to the UK.  It wasn’t one of Delia’s, I am afraid.  It was pulled from a friend’s freezer, put in a recycled butter container with about six of its siblings, and brought to my place by said friend when she popped round for a cup of tea and a long overdue chat.

Turns out, my friend didn’t make the scones either.  She regifted them to me, admitting that fact just as I inquired whether or not she’d used cream in the recipe. Given the confession, she couldn’t answer my query with any authority. But if I were making an educated guess, I’d have to say they did have some sort of extra fat in the mix, because, in spite of the time spent frozen, they were just the right combination of crumbly and moist, a perfect carrier for a bit of butter and strawberry conserves.

I turned to Delia for some insight into which ingredients provide your best chance for a moist scone once you pull it out of the freezer.  It turns out that your most secure bet is a mixture of three fats, whether they are butter, full fat milk, buttermilk, cream, Greek yogurt or cheese.  All of the scone recipes in Delia’s cooking volumes I had on hand and on her Web site call for that three-way combination, whether she is instructing on a savory or a sweet variety.

Delia advises that all scones are best eaten on the day they are made.  But she also concedes that any left on the plate will freeze perfectly well.

Category: Baking, Delia Smith, Uncategorized, scones | 2 Comments »
Tags: Delia Smith, scones

Posted By Christine on July 20, 2010

My husband is all about loyalty.  He truly believes (even sometimes as late as the last week in September) that the Red Sox will still be playing in October. He still avoids Florida because of the 2000 election results. And he’s not convinced the traditional English custard recipe I pulled from the voluminous Delia’s Complete How to Cook (Random House, 2009) pages is any better than the dessert sauce made from Bird’s Custard Powder that he grew up on.

Bird’s is an off-white, egg-less dust with an ingredient list comprising corn flour, salt, colour, annatto (a natural red/yellow dye) and flavouring.  You mix it with a bit of sugar and a lot of milk to get a thick, off-yellow cream that lifts up even the modest British pudding on offer.  Bird’s – by its own marketing admission – is “the original custard brand, established in 1937 and loved by generations ever since.” (That a commercial brand, of course, since custard — sans the vanilla flavoring– can be traced back to the Romans’ sweets tables.)

Delia’s recipe yields a smooth, bespeckled, pale cream that starts with six egg yolks, two ounces of golden caster sugar, a spoonful of corn flour, and a pint of double cream that’s had steeping in it a vanilla bean — seeds scraped free and floating.  Delia has you bring the vanilla cream to just beneath simmering and then slowly stream it into the eggs that have been beaten with the sugar and flour.  You return the mixture to very low heat and keep stirring until it thickens enough to coat the back of a spoon. (You can find the full recipe on Delia’s site.)

Andy is also very loyal to me, so he didn’t protest the homemade custard, at least not in front of our guests – one of them, an very animated 10-year-old, fresh from a three-week stay with relatives in France where his excitement for food was genetically reinforced, actually yodeled (he had a week in the Alps, too) when he tasted it. My husband, in fact, had several helpings of it poured over the banana bread pudding I made as the custard carrier. But he did pledge his undying allegiance to Bird’s.

While I like the Sox and understand the Democratic aversion to Florida, I disagree with him on this matter.  I can pass on the Bird’s in most instances.  But I’m sitting here snacking on a bowl of Delia’s custard (sans any type of pudding under it) as I write in the wee hours of the morning.

 Banana Bread Pudding

The British’s definition of “mean” varies greatly from the American one.  Over here the word means “thrifty”. In that spirit (and since I’d just spend five quid on the vanilla bean I needed to make the custard), I looked to see what I had in the pantry to fit the underlying pudding bill. From the day old bread, very ripe bananas and an abundance of milk and eggs, I came up with this recipe.  

Ingredients

Butter

7-8 cups of hearty day old bread, torn in bite sized pieces

3 ripe bananas, sliced

½ cup sugar, divided

4 eggs, beaten

3 cups of milk

Cinnamon

Ground cloves

Method

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

Use the butter to coat the bottom and all sides of a 13-by-9 glass or earthenware dish.

In a large bowl, mix bread, ¼ cup of sugar, bananas, eggs, milk, 1 teaspoon cinnamon and ½ teaspoon cloves and stir completely.  Pour mixture into prepared dish.

Mix ½ teaspoon of cinnamon with ¼ cup of sugar.  Sprinkle cinnamon sugar evenly over the pudding.

Place dish inside a large, rectangle roasting pan.  Fill the roasting pan with water so that the water level goes about ¾ of the way up the sides of the pudding dish.  Cook in the water bath for about 50-60 minutes until the top is nicely browned and the middle is set.

You can serve this warm or at room temperature.  I suggest Delia’s custard as a perfect sauce, but Andy is sticking to his Bird’s. (To help buy your vote, I’m sure he would be happy to bring some back for you if you can’t get it at your local grocery.)

Category: Custard, Delia Smith, Recipe, bread pudding recipe | No Comments »
Tags: Banana bread, Bird's Custard, bread pudding recipe, Delia Smith, English Custard

Posted By Christine on July 19, 2010

Would you think I was a freak if I copped to, upon landing in any new place, making a beeline for the nearest grocery store? Well, I do. I find it fascinating to see what people take for granted as staples and what they deem luxuries, distinctions that are quite evident to me based on the variety of items offered in any one category.   

In my favorite grocery in Norwich, there are 13 varieties of Spanish chorizo (a flavorful, course ground pork sausage traditionally produced on the Iberian Penninsula). Clearly the English have adopted this lovely reddish-orange link as a staple seeing as they need to have it at the ready in hot, whole, smoked, raw, sweet and sliced formats.  I’m just pleased to have it at all. 

At home I can easily get my hands on the Mexican variety, but that variation is almost always raw and it is flavored and colored with more affordable chili peppers, not with the traditional pimenton (smoked paprika), which is the source of Spanish chorizo’s signature color and flavor.

Today, Delia and I paired up her penchant for eggs with my own for Spanish chorizo in a dish that is, work-wise, very doable for breakfast but has a heartiness about it that would serve you and your guests well for either a lunch or dinner main course.  It’s Spanish chorizo hash with fresh fried eggs.

Delia’s instructions are to medium dice a couple of potatoes and set them to steam in a pot until they are fork tender.  While that is happening, you mince a fat garlic clove and chop a small onion, a bell pepper and a sizable chunk of Chorizo in similar sized pieces. You then sweat the garlic, onions and peppers in a hot pan with a bit of olive oil and then push them aside in the pan and heat up the chunks of chorizo.  From there you add the potatoes (which have been drained by this point), a rounded teaspoon of hot paprika, and salt and pepper and mix thoroughly.  Keep the hash over low heat while you fry as many eggs as you need.  Serve the hash on a place with a hot, fried eggs and plenty of break to help sop up the lovely yolk as it picks up a reddish tinge from the paprika.

It’s a sweet, spicy, salty, satisfying bite.

Category: Delia Smith, Pork, Potatoes, Recipe, Uncategorized, chorizo, eggs, hash | 2 Comments »
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Posted By Christine on July 17, 2010

In my last post I whined about transitioning from culinary school to whatever comes next.  Today, the golden opportunity for procrastination on dealing with that situation fell into my lap in the form of a house swap.

Friends from the UK wanted to understand what life is like in middle-America is all about.  On Tuesday they moved into our house in Carlisle, and yesterday, we landed in their home here in Norwich, in Norfolk, England.

The house swap will last a month.  And while that helps me put off some aspects of the transition (namely taking up my externship position in the kitchen of Trattoria Piatto in Carlisle), I cannot sit professionally idle for an entire month (I suppose I could try, but that runs counter to my Type A personality, I think).

So I plan to use this time to get to know Delia Smith a little bit better than I currently do, which is indeed a short-coming in my culinary experience, especially if I want to write articles and develop recipes targeted toward the home cook.

Delia is a self-taught British cookery mainstay — a cross between Julia Child and Martha Stewart, if you need an American point of reference – who is positively manic about precisely developing and testing her recipes before publishing them. Delia is ubiquitous in British kitchens.  She has spent the whole of her 40-year career teaching average English people how to cook everything via her newspaper articles, BBC cookery television shows, dozens of cookery books and, most recently, her web site, www.deliaonline.com.

Delia’s reportedly worth well over 20 million pounds (although she repeatedly denies being rich) and holds, with her husband, a majority share of a professional football team (Norwich City Football Club).  There is a common phrase used among my British friends: “Doing a Delia”, which means they are serving a dish resulting from one of her fool-proof recipes.  And many times they can quote you the page number from which they’ve pulled it.

There is also the matter of “Delia Cheat” products, ingredients that Delia has deemed to be of very high quality and help cut down on the time to prepare the recipes that include them.  Makers of these product proudly where a “Delia Cheat” logo and enjoy increased sales, which leads us to the next Delia phenomenon.  It’s called the “Delia Effect” which means almost immediately after she sings the praises of a raw ingredient, a prepared product or a kitchen utensil, sales simply soar.  Within days of her BBC Christmas special airing last December sales of ingredients used on the show like soft prunes, tinned chestnuts and Fair Trade cinnamon increased by 106, 71 and 59 percent, respectively.

One of the rudimentary premises of Delia’s work is that everyone can cook, and her seminal “How to Cook” series first published in 1999 and 2000 and updated in a 700-page bound volume last year, starts with the humble but mighty egg. She gives tidbits about storing and measuring the age of the egg like those I’ve seen in other cookbooks.  But she also advises on how variously-aged eggs are best suited for certain culinary usages.   If you’re going to poach it or fry it, it’s best to catch it from the hen. If you have to separate the eggs for use, say, in either custard or meringue, they need to be less than a week old.  For hard-boiled, scrambled or an omelet a two-week old egg is fine.  When making baked dishes like quiche or using eggs in baked goods recipes, eggs as old as three weeks will suit, but Delia feels that no one should keep eggs longer than that.

My procrastinating passage of time with Delia’s recipes begins with the egg. I am homing in two of my favorite things: British egg mayonnaise sandwiches and anything having to do with Spanish chorizo.  And one more favorite by proxy: traditional English custard because Andy will simply eat anything covered in it.

I hardly ever eat egg salad sandwiches at home and never buy them out in the US because they have so much mayonnaise in them. But here in the UK, I do because they are simply that good.  In fact, I grabbed one at the Marks and Spencer’s in the Manchester train station yesterday as my first meal in England.

Delia’s take on the egg mayonnaise is open faced comprising three hardboiled eggs cooked no longer than seven minutes, a hefty tablespoon of chives, four finely chopped spring onions, greens and all, only a tablespoon of mayonnaise (this small amount is what draws me to this recipe) and a small bit of softened butter sitting on half a freshly baked roll.  The combination is one that starts with a crunchy onion flavor, followed by a soothing creaminess. It’s a great comfort food when you’re a peckish on a Sunday evening, but know you shouldn’t indulge too heavily because you also know what you ate at the pub lunch earlier in the day.

Tomorrow’s breakfast: chorizo hash with fried eggs.

Category: Uncategorized | 3 Comments »
Tags: chorizo, Delia Smith, egg mayonnaise, egg salad, home cooking in the United Kingdom

Posted By Christine on July 1, 2010

I was nonplussed by the last day of my formal culinary school adventure. There was no ticker-tape parade in my honor. No fireworks. No three-tiered graduation cake. Heck, having to produce said cake as a practical application of my new skills would have rendered more excitement.

There was really only the matter of me passing my ServSafe Alcohol certification test: 80 multiple-choice questions – 18 of which I could get wrong and still pass. The main requirement for success was knowing how to count drinks and assess if the drinkers were drunk. I’d practiced those skills the night before, sitting at a Belgian beer bar in Shadyside with Andy, who’d flown into town to help me move home. Three minutes after I filled in the last bubble with my No. 2 pencil, Andy picked me up on the corner of Sixth and Liberty. Driving east on the expressway, I watched the Pittsburgh skyline disappear in the rear view mirror as I stripped off my chef’s jacket for a more comfortable ride back to my real life.

I’d originally thought that particular ride would serve as the setting for the final posting to this blog which had as its hook the ups and downs of being 42 and in culinary school. But when I mentioned that termination plan to one of my oldest friends, she indignantly said “You can’t stop blogging. You’re not remade yet. I want to read about you hitting your goal.”

“Which is what exactly?” I said partly to her, but mostly out loud to myself.

As my psychologist friend tells me every time I hit a life crisis, I really stink at transitions. But my mother describes me as a person always looking for the next mountain to climb. Reconciling those two people in my head as I wrap up my six-month stint in culinary Candy Land has got me in a bit of a she-said/she-said kind of a tailspin.

This transition is a total whopper. And I think the next mountain top seems to be clouded with volcanic ash.

Some days I want to crawl into the unfinished side of my basement and simplyorganize the boxes that have yet to be unpacked from last year’s trans-Atlantic move or finally clean out the washing machine detergent receptacles that have gotten crusty. “I don’t need an interesting career. I can clean my house and be perfectly happy.” Those are the thoughts running through my head on those days.

But on the other days — when I am sitting across the kitchen table from a local micro-farmer who is explaining with such gusto what goes into growing the perfect Central PA tomato, or when I am working with lady who raises and sells goat meat to develop a recipe with serious curb appeal — that I realize I am happier now with the subject matter about which I write, and need to pursue food writing with all I’ve got.

Then there are the in-between days. On these days, I’ll do crazy things like invite only slightly controlled chaos into my kitchen by hosting cooking enthusiasts I met on-line (and have subsequently come to bond with) into my kitchen for a communal canning — 28 quarts of sour cherries! a half bushel of apricots! — so I might possibly catch the eye of the editors of one of the hottest food-related sites out there in the social media market. Or as I bat story ideas around my head, deeming them either too stupid or too parochial to pitch, only to find them featured in the latest issue of the newspapers, magazines and web sites I dream about contributing to. On these days, I contemplate calling my old boss and begging for tech writing work that would be much easier to get because I am a known quantity in that realm.

Yes, I know that would be defeating the whole purpose of this “remaking Christine” exercise. Onward and upward is the only way I can travel now. I take heart in the fact that even as the Icelandic cloud cover cleared, so shall the path to my next summit.

Category: Uncategorized | 2 Comments »
Tags: Culinary school, transition

Posted By Christine on June 21, 2010

Last Friday I had lemon soufflé with Chambord crème Anglaise for breakfast.  And I make no apologies. Not even to my sister-in-law to whom I’ve pledged undying Weight Watchers solidarity so that we might don bathing suits without embarrassment by Labor Day.  Yes, it was so good there was no guilt involved.

I’d switched my normally scheduled kitchens class from the 1 to 4 PM slot to the 6:30 to 9:30 AM one so that I could make Massachusetts by nightfall, where my kids had spent the previous week with my parents while I made desserts in Pittsburgh and Andy dug around in the National Archives in Washington, D.C. en route to his next book.  I was only halfway through my first cup of tea when Chef told us to take the basic sweet soufflé recipe and turn it into any combination we could dream up. I even surprised myself when I suggested to my partner Jack that we go for the lemon/raspberry combination.  Jack didn’t argue, he was even sleepier than I.

I’d only done one other soufflé in my life.  A cheese and artichoke one I tested for www.Food52.com, a food-related social networking site with which I have recently become obsessed. So I was a bit concerned to be dealing with a new formula, a new cooking technique, and a flavor profile concocted while I was still half asleep.

The formula was a basic one.  Equal parts flour and butter worked into a paste (classically called a beurre manie) which will eventually be used as a thickener for the base of the soufflé batter.  Bring to a boil a mixture of four parts milk to one part sugar and off heat vigorously whisk in pieces of the beurre manie ball until all is smooth.  The pot goes back on the heat until it gets so thick, that it seems too far, maybe because the whisk could stand straight in the paste without assistance.  Work in egg yolks and the zest of a couple of lemons and fold in the egg whites that have been whipped to soft peaks and sweetened.

Ramekins had been lined with butter and dusted with granulated sugar and we scooped in the batter which, unfortunately,  looked relatively flat to me. I was not hopeful we were going to get lovely, lofty and light soufflés on this go around.  It was still just too early in the barely caffeinated day to be optimistic.

 We did not realize until it was too late that we should have been making the crème anglaise in tandem with the soufflés in order to get it heated enough to make the eggs safe and the consistency right and cooled again to make the sauce a cold contrast to the warm main event.  Jack scalds the milk while I whisk the eggs.  We combine the two in a slow, steady stream so as not to get scrambled eggs (even if that was the more appropriate dish for an 8 a.m. tasting!)  The mixture gets a hot water bath to get to 185 degrees, a shot of Chambord, raspberry liquor, for flavor, and an ice bath to cool it quickly.  In between these steps I sneak a peak in the deck oven and am pleasantly shocked that the soufflés are a full inch over the tops of their ramekins. 

Our only dilemma left at this juncture is uniting the two elements. Chef explains that if we carefully put a small hole in the top of the soufflé, we can spoon some of the raspberry custard into its center, giving the eater the best of both in each bite.  That eater would be me. And I must confess it forward that I’d do it all over again if ever given the opportunity.

Category: Uncategorized | 2 Comments »
Tags: Chambord, Creme Anglaise, lemon souffle, Recipe

Posted By Christine on June 17, 2010

I know there was likely a note of sarcasm in her voice when Mary Antoinette suggested that everyone should eat cake.  But it seems that we have certainly taken her advice to heart.

In addition to the completely obvious one – birthdays, that is, it’s fair to say that celebrate just about every major life event with a cake.

Weddings. Anniversaries. Baptisms. Bat and Bar Mitzvahs. Graduations. New jobs. Retirements.

 “And as soon as everyone you know realizes how you are now making your living, they will call you and ask you to bake that cake,” said our substitute Chef one day last week.  That was the opener for his lecture on why we needed to understand the scientific concepts behind turning fat, eggs, flour, flavorings and garnishes into a creation worthy of whatever the special event warrants. 

“I am not saying that you can’t master the technique.  It’s a self-correcting process.  If you make a mistake, you change something the next time, it gets better,” said Chef.

“But the science just can’t be ignored because it directly affects the taste of the final product.”

Making air and trapping it appropriately inside the other ingredients in the mix is the nucleus of the cake-making process.  That particular day we were working on high-fat cake (well, cupcakes, anyway) formulas using the creaming method (aka the “conventional method”) where you first use a paddle attachment to a Kitchenaid mixer to cream the butter and the sugar together for 7 to 10 minutes on a medium speed.  The science behind this step is that the paddle attachment running at a medium speed for a long period of time creates an even air cell structure in the mixture.

Then the eggs go in, one at a time so as not to tax the even cell structure. Then you alternate adding the dry ingredients and the wet ingredients in increments, mixing the batter after each addition until each addition is incorporated.  The science behind this pattern is that the batter may not be able to absorb all of the liquid unless the flour is present.

 Now, scientifically, butter adds flavor to a cake that just can’t be matched by shortening. But the tradeoff for the taste is that butter cakes made solely by the creaming mixture have a coarser, more tough crumb.   

So we folded in some meringue – more air will make it more tender.

“Ten percent of baking a good cake is talent, and the rest is hard work and paying attention to detail,” said Chef.

And then there, of course, the simple fact that anything can taste good if it is covered in butter cream frosting.

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Posted By Christine on May 28, 2010

On Wednesday I was personally off pastries, their sweet garnishes and their inherent fat.  I needed to get some vegetables into my body for a variety of health maintenance reasons. Luckily, the stars aligned for me that day as I drove back to Carlisle for a mid-week family fix. The CSA box (well, it’s a bunch of bags, really) had arrived, the Farmers on the Square Market was on and flourishing, and Eliza decided she needed to cook something.

Typically Eliza’s free-range experiments yield concoctions that she doesn’t dare try herself (but Andy’s such a good dad that he always wades into these uncharted waters and comes up with a compliment). That day, as she was standing in the 90-degree kitchen with the fridge door wide open declaring that she felt she “needed to create something”, I suggested that she might want to make something that she’d actually eat herself. This is not a new suggestion, I make it every time she ventures into her own culinary world, but this time she listened.

“Do we have any soft cheese?” No.

“These black beans already have spices in them?” Yes.

“What else are we having for dinner?” Pork loin with an oregano, garlic and lemon gremalata; spinach salad with roasted Asian turnips and cranberries (goat cheese would have rounded that dish out, but sadly, I forgot to buy it at the market); and, grilled spring onions with a balsamic reduction.

“Can I use these cut up tomatoes?”  Maybe, let me smell them first, as I’m not sure how long they’ve been sitting in that disposable plastic container.

“What are these?” Garlic scapes.

“What do they taste like?” I’m not sure, I’ve only ready about them and the New York food crowd is currently gushing over them so I bought a bunch at the market to see what the buzz was about. Let’s try them together. The flavor profile of a scape — soft and garlicky on the front end with an onion finish — makes sense given that these long thin strands that look like the green bits of a spring onion but are actually the tops of garlic plants which get lopped off in the spring so that the garlic can save all its energy producing a pungent bulb.

“Yum, I’ll use these.”

From there she created a salsa or bruschetta topping (you can pick your own cuisine of origin) as she put half of her mixture in the mini-chopper for the former and kept the ingredients in larger chunks for the latter.  Both toppings comprised garlic scapes, minced oregano, chopped tomatoes, olive oil, red wine vinegar and salt and pepper. I helped her to thinly slice some sourdough bread. She brushed each piece with olive oil. And, together, we reminded ourselves not to forget them under the broiler.

She plated them (took pictures, of course, because I promised her some blog space) and proudly served them. We fought over who would eat the last one.

She got it.

As she chomped on her triumph, in my head, I couldn’t help but think to myself, also triumphantly:  ”Yes, my kid can create a tasty dish from whatever she can find in the fridge.  I’ve taught her that at least.”

Category: Uncategorized | 2 Comments »
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