Tag Archives: eggs

Ratatouille Three Ways

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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.

Summer Vegetables for Roasting

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.

Ratatouille Shirred Eggs Before

Ratatouille Shirred Eggs

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.

Ratatouille Bruschetta

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.

Five-Spice Spare Ribs

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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.

Figs with Yogurt and 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

Gingered Shiitake Rice

Stir-Fried Bok Choy

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
  1. 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. 
  2. 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.

Chard, Scallion and Shiitake Fried Rice

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.

Romaine and Sardine Salad

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.

Out with the Old (Potato Salad)

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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.

Scorpion Bowl

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.

Oona and Veggies

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.

Poatoes

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

  1. 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.
  2. Prepare five hard-boiled eggs using your own preferred technique or my loose interpretation of Betty Crocker’s instructions. 
  3. 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.
  4. 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.
  5. 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.

Potato Salad

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.

Asparagus & Ramp Remoulade

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Spring is finally here in New York City. The birds are chirping. The trees are in bloom. My toenails are painted (and, more importantly, trimmed). And ramps have returned to the farmers market.

I’ve previously reported on the ramp craze. While some might argue that we have reached the tipping point, after a long winter of turnips, potatoes and more turnips, the sight of anything green is cause for celebration. Plus, ramps are damn tasty.

Asparagus & Ramp Remoulade

  • 3 pounds asparagus
  • 4 good quality eggs
  • 1 large bunch ramps
  • 1 1/2 tablespoons olive oil
  • 3/4 cup mayonnaise
  • 2 tablespoons Creole or other whole-grained mustard
  • 1/2 tablespoon tomato paste
  • 1 celery stalk, finely minced
  • 1/4 cup thinly sliced scallion greens
  • 2 tablespoons finely minced parsley
  • 1 tablespoon prepared horseradish
  • 1 tablespoon white wine vinegar
  • 1 small clove garlic, finely minced
  • juice of 1/2 lemon
  • 2 teaspoons sweet paprika
  • 1 teaspoon hot paprika (or to taste)
  • salt, pepper and (if you think it needs it) a pinch of sugar
  1. Blanch your asparagus in batches in a pot of boiling water. When the stalks are just tender but still al dente, plunge them into a large bowl of very cold ice water. (Do not skimp on the ice–even if it means that you will likely come up a bit short when it’s time to whip up a round of Sazeracs for the evening’s festivities.) Spread the asparagus on dish towels to dry. Then roll bunches in paper towels and stick in the refrigerator until just before serving.
  2. Boil the eggs. If you don’t have your own method, check out the technique I’ve been using since I was seven years old. It has yet to fail me.
  3. Now it’s time to prep the ramps. Rinse them thoroughly, giving them a soak if you see dirt in the folds, and trim the very tip. Bring the oil up to medium low heat in a cast iron skillet. Working in a couple of batches, place the ramps in the skillet so that the white parts are in the oil and the leaves are draped over the edge of the skillet. When one side has browned nicely, use the leaves as a handle to flip. When they’re nice and brown all over, shove them all the way in and allow the green portion to wilt and crisp up a bit. Sprinkle these with salt and set aside.
  4. Combine the rest of the ingredients and let chill for at least an hour.
  5. Just before serving, peel and roughly chop the eggs. Lay the asparagus onto a large serving platter and strew with the ramps. Spoon the remoulade over the top and then sprinkle on the chopped egg. 

This dish made for a lovely presentation as a first course at last night’s dinner party for eight people. While I failed to get a picture of the beautifully arranged platter, I did manage to capture a shot of the leftovers right before I devoured them with my fingers while taking a break from doing the dishes.

Asparagus and Ramp Remoulade

The Morning After Savory Bread Pudding

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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.

Stale Bread

The Morning After Savory Bread Pudding

  1. Pour yourself a big glass of water and set the oven to 350.
  2. 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.
  3. 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.
  4. 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.
  5. 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.
  6. 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. 

Savory Bread Pudding

Pickled ‘n Deviled

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Saturday night Sarah hosted the third annual Holiday Oyster Extravaganza, in which we prepare and consume 100 oysters (along with a liberal dose of booze). Shucking 100 oysters is no easy feat, but Mark once again rose to the occasion. As usual, I was in charge of the oyster accoutrement. This year’s raw oysters got a toasted fennel mignonette and a beet and horseradish relish.

Raw Oysters with Fixin's

The roasted version featured a fennel-saffron cream.Roasted Oysters with Fennel-Saffron Cream

The Blue Points were delicious, but I’m here to talk eggs. Much as I love eggs in all their forms, I’ve had trouble keeping up with the share I get from my CSA, so I had resolved to prepare deviled eggs for Saturday’s party.

On Thursday night I wrapped up my third semester in NYU’s Food Studies program and went out with friends to toast a month of pleasure reading. I got home late and tipsy, but determined to get a head start on prepping for the party. Rooting through the fridge for a snack while my eggs cooked, I stumbled on some beets that were looking a little worse for the wear. This got me thinking.

A few years back a friend and I spent a weekend checking out Pennsylvania’s Amish Country. We had occasion to dine at a smorgasbord, where I stumbled on the delight that is a beet-pickled boiled egg. As previously confessed, I am a sucker for a hard-boiled egg. Throw in tangy flavor and an outlandish pink hue and I am putty in your hands.

Beet-Pickled Deviled Eggs 

  • 2 large beets
  • 1 tablespoon olive oil
  • 1 dozen eggs
  • 2 cups apple cider vinegar (Bragg if you can get it)
  • 3-4 tablespoons assorted pickling spices (I used black and red peppercorns, coriander, fennel, allspice, torn bay leaves, and probably something else I’m not thinking of at the moment.)
  • 1 teaspoon salt
  • 1/4 cup sugar
  • 1/2 cup mayonnaise
  • 1 tablespoon Dijon mustard
  • 1 tablespoon dried mustard powder
  • salt, pepper and whatever your taste buds tell you to add
  • 2 scallions, greens thinly sliced and white portion reserved for another use
  1. Pre-heat the oven to 400. Rinse the beets, toss them with the olive oil in a small pan and stick in the oven. Cook until tender (about 45 minutes).
  2. Boil the eggs using your own technique or according to my interpretation of Betty Crocker’s failsafe recipe.
  3. Once the beets are cool enough to handle, peel and slice them. Add these to a large jar or a bowl along with the vinegar, salt, sugar and spices.
  4. Peel the eggs and add them to your brine, taking care not to splash the fuchsia liquid all over your white tank top.Eggs Pickling
  5. Place a lid or some plastic wrap over the top and pop it in the refrigerator. Let these sit for 12 to 24 hours, stirring at least once to make sure they take the color evenly. I left mine in the brine until I got home from my office holiday party the following night and this is what they looked like.Pickled Eggs
  6. Fish the eggs out, pop them in the fridge to dry, and snack on the pickled beets. Still not a good time for a white tank top.
  7. Carefully slice your eggs in half lengthwise and pop the yolks into a bowl. If you’ve left them in for the full 24 hours, the yolks will be quite a sight, as will the paper towel where you set the halved eggs.Sunset Egg YolksBeet Stains and a Lemon
  8. Using a fork, mash the yolks roughly with the mayonnaise, mustard, mustard powder, salt, plenty of freshly-ground pepper and anything else that strikes your fancy. Press the mixture through a sieve for a refined, creamy filling. Or don’t. Taste the mixture and tweak as you see fit. I added a pinch of sugar and probably some other stuff I can’t recall.
  9. Let the filling chill until just before you are ready to serve. Spoon it into a freezer-worthy plastic bag, snip the corner and pipe the filling directly into the egg (not so) whites. Or just glob it in with a spoon.
  10. Garnish with the scallion greens because none of the crappy stores you went to had chives and a little green makes the eggs look more like food and less like some sort of alien life form.

Beet-Pickled Deviled EggsThe eggs were a smashing success, as was the party. The guests laughed. The Christmas tree twinkled. The yule log crackled on the flat-screen television. At some point in the night, Prosecco and oysters gave way to rum and hunks of leftover cheese. Eventually, I was forced to brave the elements. A daylong snowfall had turned into freezing rain. The streets were slushy and abandoned.

Mouse HatMy newly acquired hat and I got home a little before 3:00am. I had a devilishly good time at this year’s Oyster Holiday Party, but will confess to feeling a bit pickled come Sunday morning.