Swiss Chard & Black-Eyed Pea Salad

Posted on July 13, 2014 by Jasmine Nielsen

My nephew Wally is mad cute.

He is also a vector for disease. I have been rocking the same glazed eyes and runny nose for the past week (though I fear they’re not quite as cute on me). By Friday my cough had reached a new level of intensity, rendering sleep a challenge. In the wee hours of Saturday morning, desperate to feel that something other than my cough was “productive,” I set some black-eyed peas to soaking.

I had big plans for Saturday, but a pounding headache and sheer exhaustion compelled me to stick close to home. Luckily, I had those black-eyes peas, a fridge full of vegetables, and friends who were game to scrap our night out in favor of supper on my roof.

I’ve been trying to spend more time on the roof. While the air in my apartment is thick and stagnant in these dog days of summer, it’s always breezy and at least ten degrees cooler up on the roof. A glass of wine and a little al fresco dining as the sun sets will cure just about anything (except maybe this cold). I like to treat my rooftop suppers as picnics, preparing simple, fresh food that’s easily transportable and meant to be eaten at room temperature.

Swiss Chard & Black-Eyed Pea Salad

3/4 pound (1.5 cups) dried black-eyed peas, soaked overnight and drained
1 large onion
1 bay leaf
1 teaspoon red pepper flakes
2 teaspoons dried thyme (or a few sprigs if you’ve got fresh)
1 tablespoon olive oil
1 teaspoon smoked salt
1/4 cup red wine vinegar, divided
3 bunches swiss chard, turnip greens and/or other leafy greens, roughly chopped
3 tablespoons finely minced fresh dill
salt and pepper

Add beans, onion, bay leaf, red pepper, thyme and olive oil to a large pot. Cover with water by one inch, bring to a boil and reduce to a simmer. Cook until just tender, 30-45 minutes, adding water if needed.
Remove onion and bay leaf. Stir in smoked salt, half of the vinegar and a healthy dose of black pepper. Add the greens in batches, starting with the stems, which will take a little longer to cook. Let simmer until greens are tender but still toothsome, 15-20 minutes.
Remove from heat and stir in the rest of the vinegar, dill and salt and pepper to taste. Let sit for at least 30 minutes. Serve cold or at room temperature.

I served this salad alongside whole wheat sourdough toasted in coconut oil and a variation on last summer’s Garden Pea and Spring Onion Puree. A couple bottles of rose rounded out the meal.

Neighbors trickled up to the roof as the sun set. Dishes were carried downstairs and replaced with chocolate and more wine. Just after dark, the supermoon rose above the chimney of an adjacent building.

Fava Bean, Mint & Feta Dip

Posted on July 7, 2014 by Jasmine Nielsen

A week after returning home, I’m still on a bit of a bread bender. Having polished off the last of my Parisian stash on Friday, I found myself tucking in my desk chair at 5:45 this evening in order to make it to the Union Square Greenmarket before the good people of Bread Alone packed up for the day. Once I had a quarter loaf of their excellent organic French sourdough stashed in my tote, I was free to roam. I told myself I didn’t need anything else, as I still had vegetables left over from last week and another CSA share arrives tomorrow. But a giant bag of fava beans was just three dollars. And wouldn’t some fresh mint (at two dollars for a nicely sized bouquet) be just the thing to make the favas’ green and slightly nutty flavor pop? And who can pass up tender young garlic?

Fava Bean, Mint & Feta Dip

enough fava beans in pod to fill your salad spinner (Sorry, I have no idea what they weighed.)
four cloves garlic – the younger, the better
juice and zest of 1/2 lemon
3 tablespoons good olive oil
small handful of mint leaves
1/2 tablespoon Aleppo pepper
salt and pepper
2 ounces feta

Set a small pot of water to boil, crack open a cold beer and get to work popping the fava beans out of their pods. The technique is similar to shelling peas. It will get easier as you go, I promise. The beer helps.
By the time you shell your final bean, the water should be boiling. Add a generous pinch of salt as well as the beans. Peel the garlic and toss this in as well. Let boil until the beans are tender, approximately five minutes, then strain into a collander and rinse with cold water.
Remove the garlic and dump the beans into a food processor. Pulse several times until you have a coarse mixture. Remove approximately half of the beans. Add the garlic, olive oil, lemon zest and juice, mint, Aleppo pepper, and salt and pepper. Puree until smooth, taste and adjust seasoning.
Stir in the coarsely ground beans and crumbled feta.

This would make a great hors d’oeuvre served on small crostini or with pita points for dipping. I stashed about half in the refrigerator for tomorrow’s lunch and ate the rest slathered on toasted slices of that Bread Alone sourdough while watching the sun set from the roof of my building. With the temperature hovering around 90 degrees at 8:00pm, this made an ideal supper.

Summer Squash & Kale Bruschetta

Posted on July 4, 2014 by Jasmine Nielsen

I arrived home in the wee hours of Tuesday morning after a truly amazing study trip to Paris. Eighteen of us spent two weeks examining the performance of Frenchness through food. As you might imagine, we ate quite a bit in the process. We did not, however, encounter fresh vegetables in the quantity that Food Studies scholars are accustomed to eating. By day four, we were all obsessing about dark leafy greens, which were nowhere to be found.

What we did encounter was bread. There were crusty baguettes from the anarchist collective, rustic country loaves steeped in a studied old world charm, slender and elegant ficelles, impossibly buttery croissants a mere three blocks from our uninspired hotel, luscious eggy brioches encased in glass bells, and a particularly memorable seed-encrusted whole wheat loaf that we consumed in an impromptu picnic on the steps of the Musee d’Orsay.

But one bread emerged as the clear winner. My final day in Paris found me stashing my suitcase in a locker and (finally) mastering the bike share system with a single goal. I traveled from the 15th to the 10th arrondissement to purchase a hunk of Du Pain et Des Idees‘ sublime pain des amis.

As those who have had occasion to dine with me know, I’m not much of a bread eater. It can be helpful for transporting sandwich fillings into your mouth or sopping up egg yolk, but I prefer to take my cheese straight, or perhaps with a crisp apple slice. Bread fills space in one’s stomach that could be devoted to more tantalizing fare. Or so I thought before I encountered pain des amis. This nutty, toothsome loaf with its confounding bacon aroma is good all by itself. It is even better, I have learned, toasted in a dry cast iron skillet.

Pain des Amis

The pain des amis and I survived a rather harrowing bike ride on some of Paris’ main thoroughfares, a painfully expensive taxi to Charles de Gaulle airport, a troubling but comical security encounter involving two kilos of artisanal flour, a missed connection in London, a delayed flight, and an even pricier cab ride home from Newark (which was not our intended destination).

Staying awake until a suitable bedtime was about all I was good for on Tuesday. (Well, that and some cat cuddling.) I headed out around 5:30 to pick up my weekly CSA share and nearly wept at the site of all those vegetables. I had some truly spectacular food in Paris. I did not, however, encounter any kale. I returned home eager to introduce my pain des amis to all of this fresh produce.

CSA Vegetables

Summer Squash & Kale Bruschetta

2 scallions
3 thin slices good bread
1 medium summer squash
5 stalks purple kale
1 ounce feta cheese
6 basil leaves (mint or parsley would also be great)
1 1/2 tablespoons good quality olive oil
1/2 lemon (zest and juice)
pinch Aleppo pepper (or a little less red pepper)
salt and pepper

Bring a cast iron skillet up to medium low heat with half a tablespoon of olive oil. Trim and reserve the dark green portion of the scallions. Slice the white and light green portions lengthwise into strips. Cook, flipping occasionally, until limp and starting to brown. Sprinkle with salt and remove from pan.
Place bread slices into pan and allow to toast, flipping as needed, while you go about the next steps.
Using a vegetable peeler, shave long ribbons of summer squash into a small bowl. Slice the kale as you would for a slaw and add this to the bowl along with the feta, remaining olive oil, lemon juice and lemon zest, Aleppo pepper, and salt and pepper. Mince the scallion greens and fresh herbs. Add these plus the cooked scallions. Stir to combine and let sit for at least five minutes to allow the flavors to meld.

If you were serving this as an hors d’oeuvre, I would recommend piling the kale and squash salad onto small pieces of toast and serving immediately. I went for a deconstructed bruschetta, which ensured that the bread didn’t get soggy before I ate it.

Summer Squash and Kale Bruschetta

Five-Spice Spare Ribs

Posted on June 16, 2014 by Jasmine Nielsen

Greetings from Heathrow Airport, where I am having my first encounter with the wonders of Business Class travel.

It was an excruciating flight across the pond. Sheer exhaustion, a couple of stiff cocktails and Led Zeppelin IV enabled me to sleep through takeoff and the first hour of flight. But that left me with seven hours in which to watch mediocre movies, obsess about my physical discomfort, and make frequent trips to the restroom so as not to feel trapped.

A travel mishap found my stepdad ponying up some of his precious miles to ensure that I made it to Paris in time to start a two-week study trip. It seems that steerage was all booked, so I will be flying Business Class for the second (and, sadly, much shorter) leg of my travel. I knew this meant a bigger seat and complimentary on-board cocktails, but had no idea about the perks at the airport.

The transfer between terminals involved approximately a mile of walking and a 15-minute bus ride through the back end of the airport. I arrived at the Air France counter tired, hungry and more than a bit cranky. The woman I handed my passport to didn’t appear any happier–until, that is, she pulled up my name and discovered that I was (for this brief moment in time) a member of the elite. Within minutes, I was stepping through the discrete frosted doors of the Sky Club where they greeted me warmly and booked me for a complimentary facial. I had debated grabbing coffee and a lackluster baked good in the terminal, but it turns out there’s a full buffet breakfast, an espresso machine, and Bloody Mary fixings here in the Sky Lounge. There are sleek and clean bathrooms, all manner of comfy chairs, and a wall of moss, ferns and ivy that is doing wonders for my respiratory system.

Having knocked back a latte, a cappuccino, two glasses of cucumber-infused water, half a Bloody Mary, and a proper English breakfast (beans!), I thought I’d take a little time to update you, dear reader, on my progress on that fridge full of fresh produce. As previously reported, Saturday started with a Greek-Style Kale Salad. For my midday meal, I topped the slightly-past-their-prime figs with more of the goat milk yogurt and some flowering thyme.

I spent the afternoon running errands while some ribs left from last season’s Lewis Waite Farm Carnivore Share spent their time marinating in preparation for a farewell feast. Louis arrived a little after 8:00 bearing Prosecco, Chardonnay and a Zinfadel that, I am ashamed to confess, we did not even crack. By 8:30 we were sitting down to a delightful meal of five-spice spare ribs, stir-fried bok choy with scallions, and rice cooked with ginger and shiitake mushrooms.

Five-Spice Spare Ribs

1 rack pork ribs (approximately 1.25 pounds)
1/2 cup mirin
1/4 cup tamari or soy sauce
1/4 cup white wine vinegar (Rice wine vinegar would be good, but I seem to have run out.)
2 tablespoons Sriracha
2 tablespoons five spice powder
2 tablespoons sugar
1 tablespoon sesame oil
1 teaspoon cayenne
4 cloves garlic, finely minced
1 tablespoon minced fresh ginger
small handful of roughly chopped scallion greens
black pepper

Cut the rack into individual ribs by running a knife between the bones. Combine the rest of the ingredients in a shallow baking dish and submerge the ribs in this marinade. Cover with plastic wrap and let sit in the refrigerator for at least eight hours, flipping the ribs to ensure even penetration.
Pre-heat oven to 325, remove plastic wrap, tent ribs with foil and pop in the oven. Let cook for one hour, then remove the foil, flip the ribs, and let cook for another hour. At this point, your marinade should be starting to thicken. Remove the ribs to a covered serving dish to keep warm. Pour the marinade into a small container and simmer on the stove top until it is the consistency of barbecue sauce. Drizzle this over the ribs and serve.

The next morning I converted the leftover rice into fried rice with swiss chard, scallions and egg.

Later that afternoon, I polished off a head of romaine, half a cucumber that had been hiding in the crisper and the rest of the scallions with a dressing made from the last of the goat milk yogurt, garlic scapes and whatever fresh herbs I still had on hand. Some canned sardines–stockpiled for just such a purpose–rounded out the meal.

Just before leaving for the airport, I admitted defeat and delivered one last bunch of kale to my neighbors. No vegetables get left behind!

OK, best be off for my pre-flight facial before they figure out that I’m an imposter.

Greek-Style Kale Salad

Posted on June 14, 2014 by Jasmine Nielsen

This not the refrigerator of someone about to leave the country for two weeks.

I am weak in the face of the season’s bounty. Having already overbought at last Saturday’s greenmarket, Tuesday found me dashing home to Brooklyn after work to collect my first CSA share of the season before hopping a train back into the city for four hours (seriously) of Alison Krauss and Willie Nelson at Radio City Music Hall. I’ve done my best to eat my way through all of these vegetables, but that’s a tall order when you’re pulling a 60-hour week.

Late Wednesday I made myself a salad of red leaf lettuce, radishes, strawberries, scallions and fresh herbs. This was damn pretty, but didn’t quite come together flavor-wise. Had I to do it over again, I’d eliminate the radishes and let some of the strawberries macerate in the dressing for a bit before assembling the salad.

Thursday night found me at yet another work event. I wrapped my week and celebrated the beginning of a much-needed two-week vacation with swanky hotel bar cocktails and some down and dirty Indian food.

I awoke this morning determined to get through my stockpile of vegetables in the 32 hours before my departure for the airport. Noting that I still had almost a full pint of luscious (and decidedly not cheap) goat milk yogurt, I started the day with this Greek-inspired kale salad. A latte and a hard-boiled egg left over from last weekend’s potato salad extravaganza made it breakfast.

Greek-Style Kale Salad

1/4 cup good quality plain yogurt
pinch salt
1 teaspoon honey
2 tablespoons red wine vinegar
1 garlic scape, sliced into thin disks (or a little minced garlic)
1/2 teaspoon Aleppo pepper (or a pinch of red pepper flakes)
1 teaspoon dried oregano (half as much fresh would be great if you have it)
1 bunch lacinato kale, cut into 1/2″ shreds
1/2 cup cherry or grape seed tomatoes, halved
4 scallions, white and light green portions thinly sliced
10-15 kalamata olives, roughly chopped
1 tablespoon of the good olive oil

Combine the first seven ingredient in a small jar, shake vigorously and let sit while you prep the rest of the ingredients. Add the olive oil and give it another good shake. Add everything to a bowl, toss to combine and let sit for 15 minutes or so until kale begins to wilt and take on a glossy color.

Those ill-fated radishes would have been great here, as would a little sliced cucumber. But it was still a damn tasty breakfast.

EAT THIS: Asparagus, Scallion & Ricotta Tartine

Posted on June 11, 2014 by Jasmine Nielsen

Top toasted whole grain bread with ricotta cheese, pan-grilled scallions and asparagus, lemon zest, salt and pepper for a quick and delicious breakfast when you’re eager to get out and smell the roses (literally if, like me, you’re lucky enough to live five minutes from the Brooklyn Botanic Garden).

Out with the Old (Potato Salad)

Posted on June 8, 2014 by Jasmine Nielsen

This week was one of the toughest I have ever experienced. What little time I wasn’t working I devoted to psyching myself up for the next day. With help from my truly amazing network of friends, I crawled across the finish line around 7:00pm on Friday–just in time to suck down a comically large flaming cocktail (with my buddy Justin, though I assure you I could have gone it alone) before catching the Loser’s Lounge tribute to Talking Heads.

I awoke Saturday with a determination to move forward with positivity. I brushed my teeth, threw on a pair of overalls and headed out to the Grand Army Plaza Greenmarket. It seems that mother nature is also looking for a fresh start. Ramps, rhubarb and the last of the winter root vegetable stockpiles are finally giving way to all manners of green things. Despite the fact that CSA season starts back up this week and I am leaving the country next Sunday, I loaded my bag with cucumbers, garlic scapes, kale, asparagus, cherry tomatoes, parsley, scallions and a head of red leaf lettuce twice as large as my own uncommonly large head. Oona was just as titillated as I was by this bounty.

Given my commitment to renewal, it seemed fitting that Saturday would be the day I finally cleared out the dregs of my winter CSA share from the crisper bin. While good quality vegetables grown sustainably and distributed in a community-minded manner are always welcome, I will confess that this year’s crop was a bit overwhelming for me. I’ve learned that people welcome an offering of apples, but look askance when you show up at a dinner party with a bottle of wine and five pounds of dirt-coated potatoes.

As luck would have it, I’d been invited to a barbecue and assured that potato salad would be most welcome. Ken is a Louisiana boy with a couple of books under his belt and takes his food seriously. For three days, Ken had filled my Facebook feed with photos of giant slabs of meat in various stages of preparation. And so I set about concocting a classic American potato salad with just a bit of Cajun flair.

“I’m Horrified by How Much I Want More Potato Salad” Potato Salad

Bring a large pot of well salted water to a boil. Scrub a mess of potatoes, chop them into large pieces and drop into the boiling water. Boil until the potatoes are fork tender (maybe 20 minutes), then pour into a colander. Return the potatoes to the hot pot, dump in some vinegar (white, apple cider, red wine, or whatever else you have on hand) and stir to cook off any excess water and allow the vinegar to soak into the hot potatoes.
Prepare five hard-boiled eggs using your own preferred technique or my loose interpretation of Betty Crocker’s instructions.
Chop half a jar of gherkins (yes, the sweet ones) into very small pieces. Do the same with the light green and white portions of a bunch of scallions and a pile of flat leaf parsley. Peel the eggs, thinly slice whichever one came out the prettiest and roughly chop the rest.
When the potatoes are mostly cool, stir in a few very large dollops of mayonnaise, a large dollop of the prepared mustard(s) of your choice, a good dose of mustard powder, a quarter cup or so of the gherkin brine, some additional vinegar, plenty of salt and pepper, a little cayenne and paprika, and whatever else strikes your fancy. (Diced Vidalia onion, celery, and red bell pepper come to mind, but I did not have any of these on hand.) Gently fold in the scallions, parsley, chopped egg and gherkins. Taste and adjust the seasoning with additional mustard, vinegar, brine, salt, pepper, etc. I like a potato salad with a sharp mustard bite and just a little sweetness from the gherkins.
Spoon the mixture into a bowl, garnish with paprika and sliced egg, and let sit in the refrigerator for a couple of hours before serving.

Somehow I had it in my head that the barbecue started at 2:00 rather than 3:00pm. Ken and his family were gracious enough to welcome me at 2:45 while the rest of the guests rolled in at more appropriate hours. There was much beer drinking and meat eating. Peter and I fell out a few hours later to meet friends in Prospect Park for some New Orleans music thanks to Celebrate Brooklyn. I strolled home around 10:00pm sated by beer, meat and dancing. Summer is (finally) upon us.

EAT THIS: Fig, Avocado & Spinach Salad

Posted on June 2, 2014 by Jasmine Nielsen

Figs, avocado, scallions and baby spinach in a mustard, honey, safflower oil and apple cider vinaigrette can be prepared and consumed in the 20 minutes between your arrival home from a board meeting and your 9:00pm conference call–though you may find yourself in need of a square of Jacques Torres’ Gingerette Bar to help everything settle.

Field Peas & Broccoli Rabe

Posted on June 1, 2014 by Jasmine Nielsen

I spent the latter half of the week upstate on a staff retreat. I knew the food at Omega Institute would be healthy and restorative after the previous weekend’s barbecue and boozefest. But I had no clue how delicious it would be. Each meal featured a bounty of cooked and raw vegetables, whole grains, legumes and some of the best tofu and seitan dishes I’d had since my hippie childhood amidst the Illinois cornfields. Ordinarily, despite my best intentions, I max out at a single plate of food. At Omega, I found myself going back for a second round of fresh, locally grown pea shoots with an addictive mustard miso dressing. Aside from the fifth of Bulleit Bourbon that I smuggled in for a little late night unwinding back in my cabin, it was three days of clean living.

The trip back to the city was gruesome. It took us about three hours to travel the 20 miles from the Northern Bronx to Downtown Brooklyn. You can spend three days on a staff retreat in the woods, but the true team building comes when you’re stuck in a minivan during summer Friday traffic. The rental wasn’t due back until the next day and I had high hopes of using it for a little adventure dining and perhaps an errand or two. But by the time I dropped everyone at their various subways stops and made it back to my neighborhood, I had resolved to ditch the van back at its garage. My friend Molly, who had flown in from San Francisco for a work conference earlier in the week, was waiting at the bar around the corner from my house. I texted her that I’d be there in five minutes. Being a true friend, her reply was simple: “red or white?” Three glasses of a lovely Sauvignon Blanc and a terrine of chicken liver mousse were a fine reintroduction to urban living.

Yesterday we bummed around Brooklyn, as I showed Molly the radical changes that have transpired since we first met here 17 years ago. We grabbed coffee at one of the ten or so coffee shops that now dot the neighborhood. We hit up the Grand Army Plaza Greenmarket, where I picked up asparagus, scallions, shiitake mushrooms, eggs, spinach, fresh thyme, bacon ends and some whole wheat sourdough. We walked over to Clinton Hill for a little flea market browsing followed by white sangria and a snack of lamb meatballs and spicy goat cheese croquettes. Later that night we dined on fiddlehead ferns, orecchiette with flowering mustard greens, and pork shoulder infused with rosemary at a place I’m pretty sure used to serve chicken wings and General Tso’s chicken from behind bulletproof glass. Today’s portion of the neighborhood tour focused on gardens of both the botanic and beer varieties.

Two hours ago I loaded Molly and her suitcases into a Town Car with the requisite cracked leather seats and pine tree-shaped air freshener. (Not everything about Brooklyn has changed.) I am now indulging in a little Sunday night melancholia–and this delicious bean salad, which was inspired by a dish that my neighbor and fellow blogger whipped up for a potluck a few months back. Check him out at Brooklyn Roof Garden.

Field Peas & Broccoli Rabe

1/2 pound dried field peas
2 tablespoons butter (skip this or substitute coconut oil to make this dish vegan)
1 bunch broccoli rabe, roughly chopped
2 stalks celery, finely minced
1 bunch scallions, white and light green portions thinly sliced (greens reserved for some other purpose–a spinach, scallion and shiitake frittata, say)
1/4 cup sherry vinegar
1 tablespoon olive oil
1-2 teaspoons hot paprika
salt and pepper

Add the peas to a medium pot and run water until it comes up a couple of inches above the peas. Add the butter, bring to a boil, reduce to a simmer and cook for 40 minutes or so until they are just tender. Add a teaspoon of salt and simmer another 10-20 minutes until the beans are nice and soft but not yet falling apart. Turn off the heat and let sit.
Add 1/2 inch of water and a large pinch of salt to a large pot. Bring to a boil and then add the broccoli rabe. Cook with the lid on, stirring occasionally, for 3-8 minutes depending on the thickness of your stalks. You’re going for an ever-so-slightly al dente texture. Pour into a strainer and rinse with cold water to stop the cooking process.
Stir the celery, scallions, vinegar, oil, paprika and a good bit of black pepper into the beans. Squeeze any excess water from the broccoli rabe and mix this in as well. Taste and adjust the seasoning with additional salt, pepper, paprika or vinegar as you see fit.

As you can see, my field peas got a little mushy. They were still quite tasty but, if you have the time, I recommend soaking the dried beans the night before. This will help them to retain their shape and also cut down on cooking time. I used this technique a few weeks ago and the resulting dish was a bit more photogenic, particularly when served alongside marinated and grilled flank steak. Tonight I went for a more humble approach to dinner.

Scallops, Arugula & Tomato-Olive Vinaigrette

Posted on May 27, 2014 by Jasmine Nielsen

This weekend was Beth and Don’s annual epic barbecue in Baltimore. In March Neil and I tagged along on a road trip down to Lang BBQ Smokers in Nahunta, Georgia to collect Don’s new baby.

Don spent the past couple of months seasoning his new cooker with lard and taking it on a few dry runs. But Sunday the beast fulfilled its true calling when a couple hundred people descended on Beth and Don’s home for a twelve-hour festival of meat. Tending the cooker was serious work, as I learned during my six-hour stint. I’ve got a handful of mystery bruises and what I can only assume is heat rash on my chest. When I blew my nose yesterday, it yielded something familiar in texture but black as, um, charcoal. Two days and two showers later, I still have a faint dirt ring in the crease in my neck. And the lovely dress pictured below will likely never be the same.

I got home around 8:00 last night and depart for my next adventure around noon tomorrow. Tonight I was craving some time on my couch and a light supper that required minimal heat. I swung by Mermaid’s Garden on my way home from the office and picked up some large and luscious dayboat scallops. Half an hour later, I was sitting down to this delicious salad and cuing up Sunday’s episode of Mad Men.

Scallops, Arugula & Tomato-Olive Vinaigrette

2 tablespoons sherry vinegar
1 tablespoon whole grain Dijon mustard
2 tablespoons olive oil
1/2 teaspoon or so hot Spanish paprika
1 small shallot, minced
8 assorted good quality olives (seasoned, stuffed, etc.), finely chopped
1 medium tomato or 8 cherry tomatoes, finely chopped
1 tablespoon small capers
2 tablespoons chopped flat leaf parsley
pinch sugar
1/2 pound dayboat scallops
1/4 cup leftover white wine
salt and pepper
3 cups arugula

Whisk the mustard and vinegar together in a bowl and then slowly whisk in 1 and 1/2 tablespoons olive oil until emulsified. Stir in 1/4 teaspoon or more of the paprika, the shallot, olives, tomatoes, capers, parsley, sugar and a good dose of black pepper. Allow this to marinate while you move on to your scallops.
Bring 1/2 tablespoon of olive oil up to medium heat in a small heavy-bottomed skillet. Pat the scallops dry with a paper towel and sprinkle on both sides with salt, pepper and more of the paprika. Once the skillet is thoroughly heated, place the scallops in gently and resist the urge to touch them for about three minutes. Peek under one and, if it has some nice brown color, flip them all over and give them another three minutes or so. Remove the scallops, return the pan to the heat, add the white wine and stir, making sure to scrape up any crusty bits on the bottom. Reduce the wine to a couple of tablespoons.
Lay your arugula on a plate, spoon the vinaigrette over the greens, place the scallops on top and drizzle them with the reduced wine.

This would be great with some crusty bread. Alas, I had none.

the drunken fig

All measurements are approximate.