butter lettuce, radish, and avocado salad with mustard dressing

This is another Jean-Georges Vongerichten keeper recipe. Easy to assemble. Very refreshing. We had it with grilled Polish sausage and pan-fried pierogies. I had a love affair with that dinner.

KT notes:

1. I think butter lettuce is the same thing as Boston lettuce (which is what I found at my grocery store).

2. What are "slender pink French breakfast radishes"? I used sliced regular old radishes.

J-G's BUTTER LETTUCE, RADISH, AND AVOCADO SALAD WITH MUSTARD DRESSING

1 tablespoon red wine vinegar

2 1/2 teaspoons Dijon mustard

Kosher salt and freshly ground black pepper

2 tablespoons grapeseed or other neutral oil

2 teaspoons extra-virgin olive oil

1 head butter lettuce, torn

8 slender pink French breakfast radishes or baby round red radishes, halved

1 scallion, white and pale green parts only, thinly sliced at an angle

2 tablespoons roughly chopped fresh dill

1 avocado, halved, pitted, peeled, and sliced

Whisk together the vinegar and mustard with a pinch each of salt and pepper. Continue whisking and add the oils in a slow, steady stream until the mixture is emulsified.

Toss the dressing with the lettuce, radishes, scallion, and dill. Top with the avocado and serve.

crab toasts with sriracha mayonnaise

When i first picked up Home Cooking with Jean-Georges and flipped through the book, I was slightly intimidated by the recipes. On closer reading, I tagged about 20 recipes that look doable and appetizing. One of these was the sriracha mayonnaise mixed in with some lump crab meat and served on toast. We ate it as a snack while watching the Caps stick it to the Bruins. Great game, great snack!

KT notes:

1. I felt a little skittish eating a raw egg yolk (in the sriracha mayonnaise) but we washed it down with beer and wine and deemed it safe.
2. I used Harris Teeter brand "jumbo lump crab meet." It fit the bill perfectly.
2. J-G suggests serving this appetizer with champagne. Um, yes please.

J-G'S CRAB TOASTS WITH SRIRACHA MAYONNAISE


4 slices good sourdough bread
3 tablespoons Sriracha Mayonnaise (recipe below)
8 ounces picked lump crabmeat, preferably peekytoe, picked over for bits of shell
Crushed red chile flakes, optional
1 lemon, cut into wedges

Toast the bread until golden brown. Cut each slice into 2-inch pieces.

Gently fold the mayonnaise into the crabmeat until well mixed. Spoon the crab mixture into a serving bowl and set inside a larger bowl filled with ice to keep cold if desired. Garnish with chile flakes if desired. Serve with the lemon wedges and toasts.

SRIRACHA MAYONNAISE

1 large egg yolk
1 tablespoon Dijon mustard
1/2 teaspoon kosher salt
3/4 cup grapeseed oil or other neutral oil
2 teaspoons fresh lemon juice
2 teaspoons sriracha

Whisk together the yolk, mustard, and salt until well blended. Continue whisking while adding the oil in a slow, steady stream to emulsify the mixture. Whisk in the lemon juice and sriracha until well blended. The mayonnaise can be refrigerated for up to 2 days. Makes 1 cup.

quinoa with spinach, goat cheese, and sauteed shiitakes

Up next for cookbook club is Jean-Georges Vongerichten's Home Cooking. Tonight I tested a simple salad recipe from the book. The name of the salad almost literally lists all of the ingredients -- quinoa, spinach, goat cheese, and sauteed shiitakes. If you remember the name, you remember the recipe. It was earthy and flavorful and high on the healthy meter.

My notes:

1. The full recipe serves four. I quartered everything, give or take, and successfully made a single serving.
2. J-G has you toast the quinoa for 5 minutes before adding the water. Mine seemed to be burning and popping like popcorn after about 3 minutes, so I made it stop. The quinoa didn't taste burnt in the salad and arguably had more depth of flavor.

J-G's QUINOA WITH SPINACH, GOAT CHEESE, AND SAUTEED SHITTAKES

1 cup quinoa
Kosher salt and freshly ground black pepper
6 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil
8 ounces fresh shiitake mushrooms, trimmed and quartered
6 ounces baby spinach
1 tablespoon plus 1 teaspoon red wine vinegar
4 ounces fresh goat cheese, crumbled

Toast the quinoa in a large saucepan over medium heat, stirring frequently, until golden brown, about 5 minutes. Stir in 1 1/2 cups water and a pinch of salt and bring to a boil. Cover, reduce the heat to low, and simmer until the water is absorbed, about 15 minutes.

Meanwhile, heat 4 tablespoons of the oil in a large skillet over medium heat. Add the mushrooms and a pinch of salt and pepper, and cook, stirring occasionally, until golden brown and tender, about 8 minutes.

Spoon the warm quinoa and mushrooms over the spinach on a serving platter, then drizzle with the vinegar and remaining 2 tablespoons oil. Season with salt and pepper and top with the goat cheese.

Arabesque POD

making a list

The 11-day office closure that I've been looking forward to has already been interrupted by work and is expected to be interrupted by further work next week. In an effort not to succumb to bad mood bears, I've made a list of all of the fun and relaxing things to do when not working.

1. Read about Roosevelt and the Night Circus.

2. Make many cookies.

3. Practice Moroccan recipes for January's cookbook club.

4. Listen to Buble's Christmas.

5. Eat some oysters and see A Christmas Carol.

6. Taste wine. This is a separate blog post in and of itself. After spending hours of research time on tripadvisor, my Sonoma wine country itinerary is a thing of pride.

around my french table

This month's cookbook club book: around my french table by Dorie Greenspan.

Yes, I've started a cookbook club. After reading this blog post, there was no way that I wasn't going to start/be in one. And having participated in regular book clubs before, two things have always held true for me: 1. I never like reading for pleasure a book that someone else has picked for me that I have little interest in. 2. Getting together and bringing snacks and food and eating and drinking wine were always the best part of book club. So why not make the club about the cooking and eating? Sheer genius.

We met this past Sunday and ate an amazing array of dishes from this month's book. We made: onion biscuits, cheese and olive bread, leek and potato soup, cafe-style grated carrot salad, bacon and eggs and asparagus salad, pumpkin-gorgonzola flans, a mustard tart, beef daube (beef stew, uses a whole bottle of wine!), hachis parmentier (shepherd's pie), slow-roasted tomatoes, cauliflower-bacon gratin, and apple cake with ice cream. Everyone's dish came out well, we had a great variety, and cookbook club is officially awesome.

This book has some solid recipes and was a good investment. My only complaint is that I can't make "pumpkin stuffed with everything good" (pie pumpkin stuffed with bacon, cheese, bread, cream, and herbs, baked, and pumpkin scraped and mixed into the filling; oh and then you can roast the pumpkin seeds for an extra fun snack) year-round. I made one in mid-October, but pumpkins were gone from my grocery store by October 30. Must plan ahead next year!













I'm definitely looking forward to January's cookbook club. Next book: TBD!

J&G's Butternut Squash Soup

Be under no illusions -- working with butternut squash is a huge p in the b. That being said, this recipe makes a pretty awesome soup.

I actually made this soup once last year and was underwhelmed by how little meat it had (none). It just wasn't filling. Yet fall is here again and I found myself craving this soup as an appetizer or a light lunch. So let's revisit.

The recipe calls for crème fraîche, and I can't read or say "crème fraîche" without thinking of a South Park episode that P had me watch a while ago. Um, this:

Harris Teeter didn't appear to sell crème fraîche, but the word on the street is that you can make your own using some cream and buttermilk and a little time out on your counter. It can be used like sour cream, but unlike sour cream, it can also be whipped. I decided to leave the crème fraîche experiment for another day and use Greek yogurt, which is arguably more healthy but still makes the soup plenty creamy.

I also followed the shiitake mushroom suggestion, because seriously, what are black trumpet mushrooms?? The shiitakes have their own distinct flavor, but I couldn't help liking them paired with the butternut squash.

The results taste like you're slurping up a bowl of autumn.

Full disclosure: I am not posting a picture of my soup because it didn't look quite as creamy (and bright orange) as the soup shown on metrocurean. Sorry for being so self-conscious about my butternut squash!

As a side note, Jean-Georges has a new cookbook that is to be released shortly. I am hoping to acquire it and perhaps have it be a contender for the next cookbook club book. What? Yes, cookbook club. The subject of another, later post (that will blow your mind).