Croque-MaDAMN

Posted on November 15, 2014 by Jasmine Nielsen

This was a very, very long week. I left the office late on Friday and met up with a friend for dinner, drinks and some mutual commiseration. I was feeling a bit better after shrimp-stuffed bacon-wrapped jalapeño peppers and a couple of mezcal, Campari and red vermouth concoctions. We headed down to Film Forum for the late showing of Vertigo. The theater was mysteriously empty, so I did not feel compelled to jab Louis when he started to snore softly next to me. Like I said, it was a rough week.

We emerged a couple of hours later into what felt alarmingly like winter. Louis walked me to the subway station. Two hours, three trains and a walk across Lower Manhattan later (I do not recommend taking the 2/3 this weekend), I arrived home, filled the humidifier and burrowed under the covers. I should be catching up on work emails. I should be completing the work from my summer course. I should be hauling the compost to the farmers’ market. I should be cleaning my apartment.

Instead, I made breakfast.

Kale & Leek Croque-Madame

1/2 tablespoon butter plus enough to fry an egg
2 heaping tablespoons minced leek
1/2 tablespoon flour
3/4 cup whole milk
1/2 tablespoon Dijon mustard
1 pinch nutmeg
1/2 cup finely chopped kale (You could blanch this first, but I like my greens toothsome and a bit bitter.)
2 pieces bread (I went with a nice, hearty whole grain.)
1 egg
salt and pepper

Melt the butter in a small pot over medium heat. Add the leeks and sauté for a couple of minutes. Add the flour and whisk continuously for a minute or two. Add the milk, mustard and nutmeg and bring to a simmer, whisking frequently. Gradually add the kale and keep whisking. Let cook for five minutes or so until the mixture thickens to a paste and the kale has wilted. Season with salt and pepper to taste.
Toast the bread under the broiler. Divide your kale-leek béchamel (that’s right, you just made a béchamel!) evenly between the two pieces of bread and pop under the broiler for a couple of minutes while you fry an egg. Place the egg on top of your béchamel-slathered toast and you’re good to go.

If I accomplish nothing else, I will still consider today a success.

Kabocha Squash & Sage Bread

Posted on November 7, 2014 by Jasmine Nielsen

The squash situation has gotten a little out of hand. This week’s CSA share, the last of the season (sniffle), brought the count up to a dozen–six delicata, one butternut, one acorn, one turban, one pumpkin and three kabocha squash to be specific.

I also had some fresh sage that was threatening to turn to dust after three weeks in the crisper. (It’s been a busy month.) The sage was grown at La Finca del Sur and purchased at the South Bronx Farmers Market, which Lily Kesselman and her neighbors started this year to bring farm fresh fruits and vegetables to their corner of New York City. I spent a delightfully sunny fall afternoon learning what it takes to start a community-led farmers’ market and chatting with Freddy in between sales of his collards, fresh herbs and late season tomatoes.

Kabocha Squash & Sage Bread

1 medium kabocha squash
10 tablespoons butter (plus a little extra for greasing your pan)
1/4 cup loosely packed fresh sage leaves
2 cups flour (plus a little for dusting your pan)
2 teaspoons apple pie spice (or, if you didn’t happen to just get a free bottle of this in the mail because you inadvertently ordered a totally insane quantity of bay leaves and coriander seeds, you can use 1 teaspoon cinnamon plus a little nutmeg and whatever other baking spices you have on hand)
2 teaspoons baking powder
1 teaspoon salt
1 cup brown sugar
3 eggs

Preheat the oven to 400 (or 205 if, two years on, you still haven’t figured out how to switch your oven back to Fahrenheit). Cut the squash in half and scoop the innards into a bowl. Cut the halves into quarters and place in a roasting pan. Cook for 40 minutes or so, until the squash is lightly browned and fork tender.
BONUS RECIPE: While your squash cooks, remove the squash seeds from the guts as best you can. Rinse the seeds in a colander, which will help remove a bit more of the guts, but don’t sweat it if you don’t get them perfectly clean. Toss the seeds with a heaping tablespoon of coconut oil, a couple of tablespoons of sugar, a little cinnamon and cayenne, and a healthy pinch of salt. Spread the seeds onto a baking sheet (lined with foil if you’re lazy like me) and pop into the oven along with your squash. Make sure to check on these regularly, as they’ll go from toasted to burnt pretty quickly. (One suspects that a lower oven temperature would help, but we’re trying to be efficient here!)
Meanwhile, melt 10 tablespoons of butter in a very small saucepan over low heat. Roughly chop the sage and add it to your melted butter. Let cook for five minutes or so and then remove from heat. You want the butter to get golden and give off of a sage aroma, but avoid burning the leaves.
Whisk the flour, sugar, baking powder, salt and spices in a small bowl.
When the squash is done, drop the oven to 350 (175 Celsius, which you think I would have memorized by now) and remove the pan. Peel the skin from your roasted squash. (This will be infinitely easier if you let it cool first. But, if you made the ill-advised choice to start a baking project at 10:00pm on a school night, a large spoon should help get the job done with only minimal damage to your fingertips.) Drop the squash into the food processor and purée until smooth.
Stir the squash, sugar, eggs and sage butter in a large bowl until smooth. Add the flour mixture in batches and stir until incorporated.
Use the butter you failed to return to the fridge to grease a loaf pan. Swipe some of the flour spilled across the kitchen counter into your pan and shake to coat. Scoop your batter into the pan and pop it in the oven. Let bake for 45-50 minutes, until the loaf is nicely browned and a butter knife stuck inside comes out reasonably clean. (Another 5 minutes probably wouldn’t hurt, but damn, it’s getting late!)

In the interest of time, you’ll want to take care of the dishes while your bread bakes. I recommend starting with the spatula you used to scoop the batter out of the bowl.

By the time you finish cleaning up and write your blog post, the bread should be done. Let it cool for a bit and then gently pop it out of the pan. Not being much of a baker, I have no idea why there is a raised platform in the center of the loaf. I’d be ever so curious if yours comes out the same.

Odd protuberance or not, this bread will be very good–so much so that there will only be a small slice left on the office snack table by the time you get out of your morning meetings. Fortunately, this will be enough to ward off starvation during your next meeting.

EAT THIS: Plum & Ricotta Tartine

Posted on October 10, 2014 by Jasmine Nielsen

When today promises to be even longer than yesterday and you’re not sure when your next meal will be, start with toasted whole wheat sourdough slathered in ricotta and topped with sliced plums, honey, fresh thyme and black pepper. This pairs nicely with a latte and some last-minute packing for a much-needed weekend getaway.

Grown Folks’ Grilled Cheese & Tomato Soup

Posted on October 2, 2014 by Jasmine Nielsen

Summer reared its head one last time this weekend, with temperatures soaring to the low 80s on Saturday. I kicked off my 40th birthday by taking a funder on a tour of community-run farmers’ markets in East New York and Bushwick and ended the night jubilantly dancing with good friends at Franklin Park. (OK, fine, I ended it at a 24-hour diner, but that was technically the day after my birthday.)

By Wednesday, which was the first day in October, temperatures had dropped to the low 60s. There’s a crispness in the air that I will always associate with the first day of school. The woman at my local coffee shop must be feeling the same deeply ingrained nostalgia. “Have fun. Make new friends!” were the words she sent me off with this morning.

The close of my workday found me meeting the same funder for a cup of tea and a lovely apricot and pistachio tart at one of Maison Kayser‘s New York City outposts. I hadn’t had their addictive pain au cereales since my June study trip to Paris, so I grabbed a loaf before departing.

A couple of blocks away I stumbled upon Beecher’s Handmade Cheese, which I had been meaning to investigate. Cubes of their signature cheese, Flagship, greeted me just a few steps inside the door. It was everything you want cheddar to be–sharp, creamy and crumbly all at once. My hunch that it would melt beautifully was confirmed by the sweet bearded Macalaster graduate working the counter. I mentioned my grilled cheese vision and he encouraged me to add a little funk to the mix in the form of Alemar Cheese’s Good Thunder. This young man seemed to know his cheese. And so I departed with not one but two precious (and preciously priced) cheeses in my sack.

While I am perfectly capable of eating nothing but a grilled cheese sandwich for dinner, I felt compelled to dispatch with some of this week’s CSA share. Boy, am I glad that I did.

Roasted Eggplant and Tomato Soup

1 medium eggplant
2 large tomatoes
1 medium yellow onion
1 red bell pepper
1 jalapeño pepper
1 1/2 tablespoons olive oil
1 small handful cilantro
salt and pepper
splash red wine vinegar

Preheat the oven to 425. Drizzle 1 tablespoon olive oil into a roasting pan. Rinse the vegetables and slice them in half, making sure to core the peppers. Place everything cut side down in the roasting pan, drizzle the remaining olive oil over the top and place in the oven.

Let roast for 30-40 minutes until the vegetables are soft and their skins are beginning to char and pull back.

Peel off the skins from the peppers and tomatoes and transfer everything to a food processor. Add a healthy pinch of salt and black pepper and purée until smooth. Continue to run the processor while you slowly add water until you’ve achieved the consistency of your favorite tomato soup. Add the cilantro and purée for a couple of additional minutes. Just before serving, bring soup to a simmer, remove from heat and add a splash of red wine vinegar.

WARNING: This recipe made about two servings of soup. I am seriously bummed to not have more leftovers, as it is quite tasty. As your attorney, I advise you to double it.

I recently read that Gabrielle Hamilton makes her grilled cheese using mayonnaise instead of butter. This is a game changer. Seriously.

Grown-Up Grilled Cheese

2 slices good quality bread
1 tablespoon mayonnaise
2 ounces serious cheese – 1 cheddar and 1 a little funkier

Bring a cast iron skillet up to medium-low heat. Spread the mayonnaise on one side of each piece of bread. Place one slice into the skillet, mayonnaise-side down. Layer on your cheese and add the top slice. Let cook until nicely browned, pressing gently with a spatula. Flip and repeat the procedure. Let sit for a minute or two before serving to make sure all of that oozy goodness doesn’t drip right out.

EAT THIS: Red Leaf Lettuce with Tomato Vinaigrette

Posted on August 10, 2014 by Jasmine Nielsen

For a simple supper at the end of a superb summer Sunday, macerate fresh chopped tomatoes and basil in a garlicky red wine vinaigrette. Toss with red leaf lettuce and croutons made from the remainder of Friday’s baguette. (If you happen to have a little Serrano ham left, so much the better.) Pair your salad with a wine spritzer using that Riesling that somehow escaped consumption mixed with a little seltzer.

Gazpacho, Calamari & Paprika Crostini

Posted on August 9, 2014 by Jasmine Nielsen

My friend Sara is on vacation in Maine this week, which means that I picked up a double CSA share Tuesday night. Hauling this quantity of vegetables plus two melons, goat yogurt, honey, eggs, granola, and a few pounds of assorted meat is no joke. It took me a good 30 minutes just to organize my refrigerator.

Between the tomatoes, onions, green pepper, cucumbers and fresh basil, it was clear what had to be done.

Farmer Ted’s Gazpacho

5 large tomatoes, cored and quartered
1/2 bulb fennel, cored and chopped
1 large green pepper, cored and chopped
1 large cucumber, seeded and sliced
1 medium white onion chopped
2 cloves garlic, sliced
1 jalapeño pepper, seeded and sliced
1/4 cup good quality olive oil
3 tablespoons or so sherry vinegar
salt and pepper
1 cup packed fresh herbs (I used basil, Italian parsley and fennel fronds, because that’s what I had on hand.)

Add the tomatoes to the large bowl of a food processor and run until you have a slightly chunky tomato sauce. Add the rest of the vegetables, oil and vinegar and a good dose of salt and pepper. Run until any large chunks are gone. Taste and adjust seasoning with additional vinegar, salt and/or pepper. You can also add a pinch of sugar or a few dashes of hot sauce to balance the flavors. Add the herbs and run for about a minute more. Refrigerate for at least a few hours to allow flavors to meld.

Paprika Aioli

3 tablespoons mayonnaise
1 tablespoon tomato paste
1/2 tablespoon hot paprika
1 tablespoon lemon juice
salt and pepper

Combine all ingredients and let sit in refrigerator for at least an hour.

The rest of this dish takes about 20 minutes to complete, so feel free to knock off for a while and grab a nap. You deserve it. (And, if you’re honest with yourself, last night’s margaritas demand it.)

Crostini

1 tablespoon olive oil
8 slices baguette

Bring a large cast iron skillet up to medium-low heat and swirl with the olive oil. Place bread in skillet and let sit until the bottom side is crisp and just a bit browned. Flip and repeat.

Calamari a la Plancha

1 pound cleaned and sliced calamari, drained and patted dry
2 tablespoons olive oil
1 tablespoon Aleppo pepper
3 garlic cloves, pressed
salt and pepper
juice of 1/2 lemon

Return the skillet to the stove over medium heat. Toss the calamari with oil, Aleppo pepper, garlic, salt and pepper. Add to skillet, cook for one minute, stir and flip pieces and cook for one more minute. Remove from heat and dress with lemon.

At this point, you are ready to plate. Pour the gazpacho into bowls and nestle the calamari in the center of each. Spread the aioli onto your crostini and strategically place alongside the calamari.

Sean and I ate our supper on the roof while sipping a crisp Sauvignon Blanc and admiring the pink and orange sunset–which, now that I think about it, evoked the warm hues of our gazpacho with calamari a la plancha and paprika-aioli crostini. For dessert, we managed to polish off a whole, perfectly ripe melon with some lovely serrano ham I’d picked up earlier in the day at BKLYN Larder. A couple of hours later we trekked down four flights of stairs, walked past a handful of buildings, climbed another four flights and joined friends on a nearby rooftop for one last round of drinks before calling it a night. God, I love summer.

Ratatouille Three Ways

Posted on August 3, 2014 by Jasmine Nielsen

This isn’t so much a recipe as a concept–one that employs the summer’s bounty and yields a nice supper, brunch for two, and an afternoon snack, all with minimal effort.

Make Ahead: 1) Crank the oven up to 400 and chop up whatever summer vegetables you have on hand. I used zucchini, yellow squash, fairy tale eggplant, and the roots and bulb of a bunch of baby fennel (which, YUM). 2) Toss the vegetables with a good quantity of olive oil, salt and pepper in a large roasting pan and pop it in the oven. 3) Let cook until you start to smell something really good. Give the vegetables a good stir and return to the oven until they are soft and nicely browned. This can be done a day ahead of time.

For Dinner: 1) sauté onion, garlic and red pepper flakes in some olive oil. 2) Add some chopped fresh tomato and cook just briefly before adding some of your roasted vegetables. 3) Stir in some freshly boiled al dente pasta, allowing a little of the pasta water to form a loose sauce. (I was feeding a friend who avoids gluten, so I went with a brown rice pasta, which was surprisingly tasty and toothsome.) 4) Cook for a minute or so, remove from heat, and toss with some fresh basil. 5) Serve with a nice dollop of ricotta cheese.

For Brunch the Next Day: 1) Set the oven to 400 and repeat steps one and two above, adding in all of your leftover roasted vegetables and substituting a fresh jalapeño for the red pepper flakes if you happen to have one on hand. 2) Stir in some fresh basil. 3) Reserve about a third of the mixture and spoon the rest into individual baking dishes, forming a hollow in the center. Crack a couple of eggs into each dish and pop into the oven until the eggs are just set.

For an Afternoon Snack: 1) Toast some nice bread in a dry cast iron skillet over medium heat. 2) Top with the last of your ratatouille.

And that, my friends, is how you consume two zucchini, two yellow squash, a large bunch of baby fennel, half a pound of eggplant, three onions, a head of garlic, a bouquet of purple basil, and one jalapeño pepper in 24 hours.

EAT THIS: Tomato, Bread & Ricotta Salad

Posted on July 17, 2014 by Jasmine Nielsen

When life gives you twelve-hour workdays and Farmer Ted gives you the first tomatoes of the season, whip up this quick salad with pan-toasted croutons, ricotta cheese, scallions, fresh basil, salt, pepper, balsamic vinegar and good quality olive oil.

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

The Morning After Savory Bread Pudding

Posted on April 27, 2014 by Jasmine Nielsen

Last night I hosted seven strangers for dinner in my home as part of a project for the Food and Performance class I am taking this semester. The menu had a distinct New Orleans flavor:

Sazeracs

Creole Fromage Fort, Mushroom Pâté, Olives & Cornichons

Asparagus & Ramp Remoulade

Duck, Oyster & Andouille Gumbo over Rice

Vanilla Gelato Topped with Goat Milk Cajeta & Spicy Pralined Pecans

While it is going to take me a while to piece the evening together, I’m willing to call A Strange Dinner Party a success. The conversation flowed. Food and drink were consumed. Connections were discovered and forged. The highlight may have been after dessert when everyone pitched in to change a lightbulb–a task I don’t do when alone because it requires standing literally on top of the sticker on the ladder that says “Do Not Stand at or above this level. The Sazeracs and stimulating conversation left me so amped up that I managed to plow through nearly all of the dishes before collapsing into bed.

I woke up inexplicably early, having slept a sum total of 10 hours over the past two nights. Sleep deprivation and weekend cocktailing had me feeling a little worse for the wear. I needed a hearty breakfast to fortify me for this afternoon’s New York Abortion Access Fund Bowl-a-Thon. My bleary eyes scanned the kitchen and alit on the now stale bread that my guests had apparently refrained from using to soak up their gumbo.

The Morning After Savory Bread Pudding

Pour yourself a big glass of water and set the oven to 350.
Grab those stale baguette slices and roughly cut them into 1″ chunks. Spread them on a baking sheet and pop them in the oven to toast until just turning golden.
If you’ve got some leftover cooked veggies on hand, you’re almost home free. If, on the other hand, you polished off the last of the asparagus while doing the dishes last night, heat a cast iron skillet up to medium-low with a little olive oil. Add some sliced garlic (or onions or whatever) and a nice pinch of red pepper flakes. When the garlic starts to turn golden, add a big pile of broccoli rabe (or mushrooms or spinach or whatever vegetable(s) you have on hand). Season with salt and pepper and sauté until cooked through. If you happen to have a bunch of scallions you forgot to serve with last night’s gumbo, throw these in toward the end.
Crack four eggs into a medium mixing bowl. Add a cup or so of milk or cream, salt, pepper and a pinch of two of nutmeg. Now stir in that cheese that you hastily packed up at the end of the night. This is a particularly nice way to recycle your already recycled fromage fort.
Mix your toasted bread cubes in with the sautéed veggies and scoop this into a small baking dish. Pour the egg mixture over the top and pop your bread pudding in the oven.
Cook until the eggs are set and the bread on top is nicely toasted–about 25 minutes, which should be ample time to fix yourself a much-needed cup of coffee.

the drunken fig

All measurements are approximate.

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