Category: Vegetable

Tajine with Eggplant, Chickpeas, and Olives

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Allow me to introduce this highly-anticipated and newly-inducted member of my household: an Emile Henry olive green ceramic 3.5 liter tajine. This baby can hold enough food for 10-12 servings, is microwave and dishwasher-safe, and no amount of heat will make it lose its beautiful glossy color.

I’ve wanted a tajine ever since I took a cooking class at a riad in Marrakech, where we made a lamb and okra tajine (preparing okra was not the most painless choice, as anyone who’s ever shaved tough hairs off of a few dozen little okra will know, but the results were delicious). The colorful painted tajines found rather cheaply and ubiquitously in Arabic markets are exclusively decorative, however, as the painted surfaces are not treated. Traditional tajine cookware, somewhat disappointingly, is generally plain brown ceramic–so imagine my excitement at finding such an elegant, beautifully finished tajine that’s capable of feeding an entire table of people.

The tajine’s conical shape captures condensation and recirculates moisture, making it an ideal vessel in which to slow-cook meats, fish, and vegetables. Moist, tender results are ensured, so you don’t have to worry about checking every 20 minutes to see if the stew is too dry. If you want to make this dish but don’t own a tajine, cooking in a dutch oven will produce comparable results (though less fun and a lot less aesthetically pleasing).

This dish is really perfect for a dinner party–it can easily serve a modest group, is extremely low-maintenance (essentially, you throw all the ingredients inside with spices and some water and it prepares itself), and as far as presentation goes, well that’s self-evident. No one can help being impressed when a giant covered platter is placed in front of them and dramatically unveiled amidst billows of fragrant steam.

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A tajine is, in all honesty, best suited to meats like beef, mutton, or poultry, where slow stewing in low heat over a long period of time will break down the toughness in the flesh. Most vegetables cannot hold up to such stewing and will simply collapse into unappetizing mush. Chickpeas, on the other hand, are perfect for a tajine, and the addition of tender eggplant stewed with spices is filling and delicious. Olives are used often in classic tajines to add a salty-briny balance and colorful garnish.

One large sliced eggplant is enough to feed many people, but even better would be baby eggplants, if those are available to you. Also, the addition to the tajine of a couple of tomatoes, quartered, would do no harm.

I finish my tajine with a squeeze of lemon, but this dish would benefit from Moroccan preserved lemons, which contribute a bright and powerful distinctively pickled flavor. You can find a recipe for preserved lemons in the NYT Diner’s Journal.

A last note: tajines are generally considered whole meals in and of themselves, served in the dish they are cooked in. Although you may be tempted, there’s no need for couscous here (which is an entirely different dish). Instead, make the Moroccan bread khobz to go along with the tajine (which is exceedingly simple to make; see here), or buy some crusty rolls.

tajine

Tajine with Eggplant, Chickpeas, and Olives

serves 4-6

  • 2 onions, sliced
  • 4 cloves garlic, crushed
  • 4 Tbsp olive oil
  • 1 large eggplant, sliced longways into quarters, sixths, or eighths, depending on size (OR: 10-12 baby eggplants)
  • 1 cup dried chickpeas, soaked overnight
  • 1/2 cup olives (green, purple or an assortment as preferred)
  • sea salt
  • 1/2 tsp ginger, powdered
  • 1/2 tsp turmeric
  • 1/2 tsp black pepper
  • pinch saffron
  • pinch paprika
  • 1 small bunch cilantro, chopped
  • 1 small bunch parsley, chopped
  • juice of 1/2 lemon
  • 1 cup water
  1. Place the eggplant slices on a plate lined with paper towels and salt generously. After 30 minutes, dab away exuded water.
  2. Place the sliced onions and crushed garlic in the bottom of a tajine (or dutch oven) at least 32 cm in diameter. Drizzle oil over onions and garlic and cook over medium heat until softened. 
  3. Arrange the eggplant slices evenly in the tajine and drizzle generously with oil. Cook 5-6 minutes or until browned on one side.
  4. Add salt, ginger, turmeric, paprika, saffron, and black pepper, then 1 cup hot water and chickpeas. Heat to a simmer, then lower heat if necessary to maintain simmer and cover. Cook 35-40 minutes or until eggplant is soft and chickpeas tender.
  5. Add the olives and half of the chopped cilantro and parsley. Reduce if there is too much liquid.
  6. Before serving, drizzle the juice of half a lemon over the top and add the rest of the fresh cilantro and parsley. Serve with Moroccan bread.

Cucumber Salad

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Now is time for the post-holiday detox. Five weeks of cookies, candy, cornbread, and cream-based alcoholic drinks calls for sobering up with bowl of cucumbers. When I was attending work parties in Japan, where drinking is a highly valued part of professional performance, I would remedy the morning after with tsukemono, those brightly-colored Japanese pickles. The clean, briny taste cleared my head and went easy on my stomach.

This salad is flavored with celery seed, dill, a little bit of white onion. Use long, thin English cucumbers so you don’t get the pulpy mess of seeds that are hidden in salad cucumbers.

Cucumber Salad

serves 5-6

  • 2-3 English cucumbers, sliced thickly and quartered as shown in photo
  • 1/4 white onion, thinly sliced
  • olive oil
  • apple cider vinegar
  • dill, finely chopped
  • celery seed, finely ground
  • 1 Tbsp sugar, or to taste
  • sea salt
  • freshly ground black pepper
  1. Combine all ingredients except the celery in a bowl and whisk together. Toss with the cucumbers.
  2. Allow salad to marinate for a couple of hours in the refrigerator before serving. Serve cold.

Chilaquiles

On grocery trips I always end up overestimating how much food I need to buy. This stems in part from my own family’s propensity to buy in bulk (does a family of four really need a second 48-ounce container of minced garlic? “It was on sale,” comes the response) but also from me frequently choosing to shop when I’m ravenously hungry. Yes, I know that is a recipe for frozen pizza and muffin assortments, but I generally hate shopping and therefore put it off until I open the fridge and realize that I have a choice between eating lasagna noodles with soy sauce, or trudging down to the grocery store.

After one of these overloaded produce runs, my refrigerator initially looks rosy and full-cheeked, but after a week or two it begins to resemble something brown and wilty, being full of uneaten goods quickly ripening past their prime. Corn tortillas are especially bad for this, and somehow my brain still insists on getting two packs at once: “They’re only 49 cents, might as well round it out and make it a dollar.” The same reasoning explains why I always end up with ten avocados at the same time: “Ten for $2? What can I lose?” I lose a bunch of mushy avocados and stale tortillas to the compost bin.

The advantage of having a roommate who’s lived in Mexico is learning what to do with old tortillas. Before this I had no idea that there were delicious ways to dispose of even the warped, tough, hardened corn tortillas that have been sitting on top of my microwave since last week.

One way to do it is chilaquiles, which is basically a dish of old corn tortillas fried with onion and peppers, and frequently mixed with salsa or mole sauce and queso. It’s a breakfast dish, so eggs are commonly in there as well. My roommate and I like to use fresh diced tomatoes instead of the salsa, or just leave it at the onions and peppers, which makes everything crispier.

Making chilaquiles is very simple: first you tear or break up some old corn tortillas into pieces. Slice an onion thickly, then slice one or two poblano peppers lengthwise into strips (or, barring that, a green bell pepper). If desired, cut some tomatoes into thin wedges. Then fry the onion and pepper for a few minutes in vegetable oil until softened, and add the tortilla pieces. Stir to avoid burning but let the tortilla get crispy and brown.  Add the tomatoes last and cook just until soft. Sprinkle a liberal pinch of salt over everything and some ground pepper. Serve very crunchy and hot with a big spoon of sour cream.

That’s it! And don’t you think it’s a better way to get rid of old tortillas than the compost bin…

 

Edamame Cranberry Salad

Over the holidays we tend to go hog wild (turkey wild?) for everything in combinations of meat, butter, potatoes, and pie crust, pushing the token dish of greens to a forgotten and little-frequented corner of the table. Like cousin Merle, everybody knows it’s there but we just don’t talk about it.

But let’s remember how nutritious, and delicious–and pretty, too!–a nice little green can be, when bumping elbows with mashed potato and gravy volcanoes and shreds of overdone turkey breast. A simple salad like this one can be put together in about five minutes and will help prevent the post-Thanksgiving-”Why did I eat so much?“-stupor. Edamame is rich in protein (a nice alternative to some or all of the turkey) and adds textural as well as colorful contrast to a holiday plate.

The edamame-cranberry combination is loosely inspired by my mother’s lima bean and corn succotash dish, which she used to make for every holiday dinner until we convinced her not to. Here, instead of pale and mushy frozen lima beans we have snappy, firm edamame and instead of watery corn we have sweet and vibrant dried cranberries. Feta adds a salty contrast and some richness. And see how festive it looks!

Edamame Cranberry Salad with Feta

serves 4

  • 1 cup edamame, cooked and shelled
  • 1/4 cup dried cranberries
  • 1/4 cup crumbled feta
  • drizzle of olive oil
  • fresh lemon juice
  • sea salt
  • freshly ground black pepper
  • fresh basil, chopped (optional)
  1. Combine all ingredients and mix well. If using basil, add just before serving.
  2. Serve cool or at room temperature.

Mashed Sweet Potatoes with Chipotle Peppers

 

Thanksgiving anticipation has finally set in around these parts, evidenced by the cheerful potpourri of round and colorful pumpkins inhabiting my kitchen. Accompanying them are boxes of cornbread, baskets of onions, mounds of garlic, heaps of potatoes, and–better yet–the potato’s prettier and sweeter sister.

I like to make mashed sweet potatoes for Thanksgiving, because their vibrant orange color feels so much more festive than traditional dullish white spuds. The sweetness of sweet potatoes, on the other hand, can be overwhelming for me, so chipotle peppers in adobe sauce add a balancing smokey heat and nice bits of earthy color. You can find chipotle peppers with adobe sauce canned in most larger grocery stores.

The idea for this dish originally came to me from Mark Bittman, I believe, though the actual recipe has been lost to internet archives of years past. The dish really requires no recipe at all–just boil and mash your sweet potatoes, add butter or garlic or nutmeg or whatever else you prefer, and then the chopped chipotle pepper with adobe sauce. For new or especially exacting makers of this dish, measurements (which, admittedly, do sometimes come in handy) are included in the recipe below.

Mashed Sweet Potatoes with Chipotle Peppers

  • 4 medium-large sweet potatoes
  • 1/4 cup butter (1/2 stick)
  • 1 tsp freshly grated nutmeg
  • 1 tsp sea salt
  • 3-4 chipotle peppers, plus adobe sauce (from can)
  1. Peel and cube the sweet potatoes. Boil in a large pot until completely fork-tender. Strain and put back in the pot.
  2. Cube the butter and add to the pot.Grate the nutmeg into the pot, and add the sea salt. Mash together and beat if desired.
  3. Chop the chipotle peppers finely. Add to the pot with plenty of adobe sauce.
  4. Stir until smooth. Serve warm.

Carottes Râpées

One thing living in France taught me is that when it comes to vegetables,  simpler is better.

Naked carrots, grated raw and barely dressed, are one of the sexiest French salads, in an everyday-sexy kind of way. You can find carottes râpées in the packaged deli aisle of any supermarket or convenience store in France; it’s an obligatory side at pique-niques, or on school lunch trays, or for light Tuesday dinners.

The usual carottes râpées salad, the kind you find at Monoprix or Carrefour, has perfectly grated skinny little carrot sticks like crunchy orange straw, in a completely useless vinegary-water dressing. At home, your grating job might look less than perfect but the addition of a few simple extras like fresh lemon juice, fresh cilantro, and raw garlic will soon make up for that.

My grated carrots look like they came out of a cheese grater. Which they did. Those of you with fancy mandoline-julienne graters, go to town. Otherwise, you can arm yourself with a very sharp knife, a steady grip, and a lot of patience and julienne those carrots the old-fashioned way.

If you think just carrots is boring (it’s not!) you might mix in some julienned celery root or beetroot. An even better idea, I think, would be to add citrus–swap a spoonful of fresh orange juice for some of the lemon juice and cut in some orange pieces.

Carottes Râpées (Grated Carrot Salad)

serves 4

  • 6-8 carrots
  • juice of half a lemon
  • drizzle of olive oil
  • 2-3 garlic cloves, minced
  • small bunch of cilantro, chopped
  • sea salt
  1. Peel the carrots. 
  2. Grate the carrots as thinly and longly as possible. If you have a fancy vegetable grater so much the better. If you don’t, take your sharpest knife and start slicing away, then slice some more.
  3. Put the carrots in a mixing bowl. Add the lemon juice, minced garlic, olive oil, salt, and mix. Add the cilantro last and mix again.
  4. The salad will keep in the refrigerator for a couple of days–any longer and the cilantro will start to wilt.

Greekish salad with Beet Greens and Watermelon

Here’s an example of cooking on the fly, whereby a medley of unrelated foods occupying fridge or pantry space is pulled out, subjected to heat or a knife or otherwise altered according to a mental file of basic technique and knowledge, then spontaneously assembled into a little meal that if nothing else, at least fills the belly. This, of course, is what home cooks are in the habit of doing, recipes being special-occasion special-effort sorts of things. Most of the time the results of these practically-motivated flights of fancy are only ho-hum, sometimes it all ends soggily and with not enough salt–but then there are other more pleasant evenings when everything turns out quite nicely.

This little salad fits in the latter category. For last post’s brownies we made full use of the sweet ruby earthiness of beetroots. But what to do with the leafy purple-ribbed greens that come attached, and which would surely wilt in a day’s time? Making a salad seemed evident, and quick and painless besides. I had feta and a jar of kalamata olives on hand, for the start of a classic Greek combination of flavors. So I chopped up the greens and the olives, and crumbled some feta over the top. Tomatoes would have been a predictable addition, but tomatoes I did not have, nor did that seem very interesting. I was also finickily opposed to the clash of red against the deep purple accents already present. Rummaging further into the refrigerator produced the cheeky grin of a summer’s end watermelon, and so (approving of chunks of pink to interrupt the Jokerish color scheme), I cubed that and sent it into the bowl.

At this point the salad had plenty of bitter, lots of salty, and a touch of sweet. It was missing a tang–some diced red onion would do the trick. I rather like the sharp edge of raw red onions in a salad, but it’s not for everyone. A gentler palate would pause here to undertake caramelization. I opted to save fifteen minutes and a dirty pan, and, finely dicing a quarter of an onion, whisked it into a simple dressing of olive oil and balsamic vinegar. A light sprinkle of sea salt and three vigorous cranks of the pepper mill finished the salad off, and my fork did the rest.

And that’s one way to use up beet greens.

Beet Brownies

Do you ever wonder what “red velvet” is, besides a whole lot of red food coloring? Why all the fuss over cocoa and some dye drops?

These are not “red velvet” brownies. No, these are big, fat, down-to-earth beet brownies. They are also the best brownies you’ll ever have. At least they’re the best brownies I’ve ever had, and I know my brownies.

Beets are nature’s food coloring, and this lovely deep red-chocolate color is all natural. The rather subtle earthy flavor of the beets actually pairs wonderfully with chocolate, of which only unsweetened will give the proper intensity. So don’t shortchange yourself with semi-sweet or cocoa powder. The beet puree also keeps the brownies nice and moist, with that necessary fudgy-chewy texture. They tread that fine line between dusty-cake-squares and sticky-choco-tar where only real brownies come out to play.

I’ve cut down on the sugar in these brownies, because I see no need for them to be overly sweet, and the beets add some sugar as well. But, if you’ve got a serious sweet tooth you may want to add an extra 1/3 cup of sugar.

Beet Brownies

makes a small batch of 9 brownies. for the big, thick brownies shown in the photo, double the batch and use a slightly larger pan.

  • 3 oz. unsweetened chocolate
  • 1 stick (1/4 cup) butter
  • 1 cup sugar
  • 2 eggs
  • 1 tsp vanilla
  • 1/2 tsp sea salt
  • 2/3 cup flour
  • 2 small-medium beets (makes 1 cup cooked pureed beets)
  • 1/4 cup dark chocolate chips
  1. wash the beets and boil for about 30 minutes, or until completely fork tender. immerse in cool water and rub gently to remove skins. chop roughly and puree with an immersion blender. you should have about one cup of pureed beets.
  2. preheat the oven to 350 degrees F.
  3. grease an 8×8 inch pan (use the butter stick wrapper)
  4. chop the chocolate roughly. melt the chocolate and butter together in a bain-marie (put the chocolate and butter in a metal mixing bowl. place over a larger pot of gently boiling water. stir constantly to avoid burning and remove bowl from bath when melted).
  5. stir in the sugar, vanilla, salt, the eggs one by one, then the beets.
  6. stir in flour gradually. do not over-stir batter. add chocolate chips.
  7. pour batter into pan. bake 25-30 minutes or until toothpick inserted into middle comes out clean (or almost clean, depending on how well-cooked you like your brownies).
  8. let cool. cut and serve and see them marvel.

Shaved Asparagus, Radish, and Parmesan Salad

 

I’m a bit late for asparagus season here, but this classy little salad is for those of you who want to give one last hurrah before fall starts sneaking in after Labor Day.

In this salad I use raw asparagus, to keep everything nicely green and crisp. Shaving it into long, thin ribbons makes it more easily palatable and gives a delicate touch. The ribbons can be made using a mandoline, vegetable peeler, or even a sharp paring knife (in descending order of technological sophistication). My asparagus this evening were of the smallish kind, so I sliced each stalk in half or in thirds lengthwise. With bigger, more robust varieties, first peel and discard the thick outer stalk, then use a Y-peeler to shave the rest into ribbons. Keep a lemon for company while you work and give the cut asparagus a drizzle now and again–it’ll keep everything fresh and bright.

The radish is sliced thinly as well, giving a scatter of cheeky little rounds and bright pops of pink. A perfect foil to the slender streaks of asparagus and squarish pieces of shaved Parmesan.

Shaved Asparagus, Radish, and Parmesan Salad

  • one bunch asparagus
  • a handful of large radishes
  • juice of one lemon
  • olive oil
  • Parmesan cheese shavings
  • ground black pepper
  • sea salt
  1. Wash the asparagus and trim off the tough bottom of the stalk.  In a bowl, shave the asparagus lengthwise into ribbons using a peeler (a Y-peeler works best).  As you go along, add the lemon juice to keep the bright green color.
  2. Shave the radishes in the same manner and add to the bowl.
  3. Add the rest of the lemon juice, the shaved parmesan, a drizzle of olive oil, and the coarse salt and crushed pepper. Toss to combine.
  4. Serve and enjoy immediately!

Ratatouille

The French provençal dish ratatouille has been made famous by Disney and Pixar but it’s enjoyed a cherished presence in the south of France for much, much longer than that.

Ratatouille is always made with the sunny trio of eggplant, red bell pepper, and zucchini, along with tomato, onion, and garlic. The vegetables are chopped and sautéed in olive oil until a soft provençal vegetable mash-up results. The dish can be served hot or cold, as a side or with bread or rice as a main course. Eating a spoonful of ratatoille is like savoring a concentrated dose of the Mediterannean sun.

Opinion differs on the best way to prepare ratatouille; I suppose it depends on how much time you have.  The simplest (and least tasty) version is simply to sautée all the chopped vegetables together. Slightly improved technique (and flavor) calls for sautéeing each vegetable separately and then combining them and simmering them together. This preserves the individual flavors of each ingredient before they are mixed. What I (and my French cooking mentor) prefer is to grill the trio of eggplant, bell pepper, and zucchini with garlic and olive oil and then simmer them together with the previously sautéed onion and tomato. This, in my opinion, gives the best mélange of flavor. [A note: I prefer to leave the eggplant skin on, because otherwise it disintegrates completely and loses all form. Ratatouille purists, however, may disagree with me. Which is not the worst thing in the world.]

The preparation of the vegetables alone (peeling, chopping, etc.) requires quite a bit of time as well as more hands than your own two–and then the grilling and cooking extend the cooking time from reasonably long to very, so be prepared to spend all afternoon in the kitchen. Of course, if you have the good fortune to be en vacances in Provence (as I am right now) some leisurely chopping and chatting with cooking buddies all afternoon won’t be a problem, especially if you have a bottle of Pastis on hand, the sun overhead, and the sound of cicadas in the background. Just remember to save time for a game of pétanque afterwards . . .

Ratatouille

serves 4-6

  • 2 large eggplants
  • 2 red or yellow bell peppers
  • 3 zucchini
  • 4-6 tomatoes
  • 2 medium red onions
  • 1 head of garlic
  • 4-6 Tbsp olive oil
  • salt
  • pepper
  • handful of fresh basil
  • herbes de provence
  1. Remove the stems of the eggplant (don’t peel), slice lengthwise into thick strips (see photo above), maybe 1/2 inch thick. Remove the ends of the zucchini and peel, then slice into thick strips like the eggplant. Remove stems and seeds of peppers, quarter them.
  2. Using a garlic press, mince 3-4 cloves of garlic. Mix with 2 Tbsp of olive oil. Brush eggplant, zucchini, pepper slices with olive oil & garlic.
  3. Arrange in one layer on a grill or oven rack and cook until one side is browned and slightly blistered. Flip and grill the other side. Grill in batches if there is not enough room, taking care not to let the vegetables burn.
  4. Meanwhile, peel the tomatoes and roughly chop. Dice the red onion. Mince the remaining 3-4 cloves of garlic. Sautee tomatoes, onion, and garlic together in a large pan with 2 Tbsp olive oil until onion is soft.
  5. Once eggplant and zucchini are grilled, slice into long strips (see photo above). Rub off skin of the bell peppers and slice likewise.
  6. Add eggplant, zucchini, and bell pepper to the sautée mixture. Season with salt, pepper, and herbes de provence. Cook on low heat until all vegetables are soft and more or less homogenized into one mixture. Turn off heat and mix in fresh chopped basil. Strain out the excess liquid and oil.
  7. Serve warm or cold, as a side dish or with rice or bread as a main dish.