lime basil tomato martini

There is transient beauty in a dying garden; an intimacy that is gained by observing its natural progression.

Looking around at the tracery of brittle stems, shriveled leaves, and the determination of fruit clinging to withering vines, I see the loveliness of imperfection, the quiet dignity and grace, the stamp of passing time.
The Japanese call this wabi-sabi.
I call it the poetry of decay.

There is, however, nothing poetic about cleaning up all of this decay. It's hard work. It merits the reward of a libation.

It seems that anything can be called a martini these days. I'm not a purist, but to me, a martini is not defined by the vessel that it's served in, but by the inclusion of gin and vermouth. Beyond that, any added flavor is fair game.

lime basil tomato martini

2 oz. lime basil-infused gin, chilled
1/2 oz. dry vermouth, chilled
1/2 oz. filtered tomato water, chilled
2 cocktail tomatoes, speared on a sprig of basil

Place liquids in chilled cocktail shaker with 2 cubes of ice. Shake and strain into chilled martini glass. Garnish with cocktail tomatoes.

To make lime basil infused gin: Pack an isi whipper with fresh lime basil that has been lightly crushed. Half-fill the canister with gin. Cover and charge with 1 N2O cartridge. Shake slowly for 1 minute. Rapidly discharge gas. Uncover and allow to stand for 3 minutes before straining. Chill.

To make tomato water: Cut Ripe tomatoes in half horizontally. Set a sieve over a bowl and squeeze out the seed sacs and liquid from tomato halves. Reserve the tomato flesh for another use (if you peel the tomatoes beforehand, the flesh can be diced into concassé). Press on the solids in the sieve to extract as much liquid as possible. Pass the liquid through a micro filter or a coffee filter, without pressing, to produce clear tomato water. Alternately, the sieved liquid can be allowed to stand until the solids settle to the bottom, and the clear liquid can be spooned from the top.

To make cocktail tomatoes: Cut a small, shallow slit in the stem ends of cherry tomatoes (I used Sungolds and Sweet 100s). Drop them into a pot of boiling water for 5 seconds, or until the skins rip open. Immediately remove to a bath of ice water. Slip the skins off each tomato and layer them in a sterilized glass jar with coarse salt (1 teaspoon per pint). Pour in enough dry vermouth to cover the tomatoes by 1/2". Let the tomatoes cure in the refrigerator for 2 days before using.

summer pasta

In these, the last days of summer, autumn encroaches clever and lithe.

I try to ignore the signs, but it's worse than that.

I see the chlorophyll drain from the leaves and tell myself it's just the sun. I notice the flowers looking dry and wan and say it's because I didn't give them enough water. And… isn't the goldenrod blooming extra early this year?

I'm in denial.

It's not because I dislike autumn. I don't. But because I will miss summer.

It's not even that it's been a good summer. It hasn't! Losing my father cements it as one that I will poignantly remember forever.

Still… I hate to see it go.

I think what I'll miss most is the bounty at my fingertips.
The joyful sight of fruits on the vine.
The perfume of herbs baking in the sun.
The many colors of ripe.
Nature, in all of her white-hot intensity.

But it's not over yet.

As the sun arcs lower in the sky and night grows longer and cooler, summer vegetables rush to put out their last flush. It's a well known fact that leafy greens, crucifers, and root vegetables taste sweeter when nipped by cold, but I would swear that late-season tomatoes and corn are the best of all. They are only sweeter in memory.

Colors and flavors, the icons of summer, are arranged atop a swath of emulsified tomato milk like notes on a scale. A seasonal keyboard.

Tucked in between are tubes of parmesan pasta. I'll tell you about those next time.

These are covered by a strip of reduced corn juice, thickened by its inherent starch and bursting with flavor. Its form is controlled by freezing, then tempered to a fluid sauce.

Just for this dish, I ignore my tendency towards minimalism, my carefully managed urge to over garnish. I lay it all out. Let nature play all of her notes at once. A crescendo of flowers and herbs.

This is my tribute. An homage. A celebration.
The swan song of summer.

tomato milk and cornflakes

More bottom-of-the-bowl goodness: tomato milk.
Tomato milk is the lovely elixir that occurs when tomatoes mingle with bufala mozzarella and basil.
It is liquid essence.

Late-summer native corn has no peer.
When we're not eating it straight off the cob, I'm juicing it for sauces and soups.
As is often the case when juicing vegetables, the remaining pulp is dry, flavorless fiber that is discarded. A wonderful by-product of juicing just-picked corn is that the pulp is juicy, tender, and full of flavor.

corn flakes

Note:It is important to use the pulp from corn that has been juiced on the same day that it is picked, before the sugars convert to starch and the pellicle toughens.

After juicing corn kernels, remove the pulp from the juicer basket and saute it over medium heat with 1 Tablespoon of butter for each cup of pulp until it just begins to brown. Season with salt and scrape pulp onto a baking sheet that has been lined with silpat. Compress corn pulp into a 1/4" thick even layer, using fingers or a spatula. Dehydrate at 65C/150F for 2-3 hours or until uniformly dry. Break off a segment of dried pulp and gently crumble into flakes with hands, letting flakes fall back onto silpat. Repeat with remaining dried pulp. Spread flakes evenly on silpat and bake in 82C/180F oven for 30 minutes-1 hour, until crisp and lightly toasted.

bread and tomato water

While it's true that fruits and vegetables are often at their best at a certain time and place, I'm not a slave to eating seasonally or locally or [insert buzzword]-ly. There are so many opinions and discussions on the topic, but as far as I'm concerned, quality gets the final word.
Right now, on my patch of earth, there's a whole lotta quality to be found.

In late August, the local tomatoes clearly demonstrate the tenet of simple preparations. They are of optimum quality and so abundant that they make their way into nearly every meal. A quick and satisfying lunch involves nothing more than thick slices, sprinkled with salt and drizzled with good olive oil. The best part comes at the end— the umami-laden tomato water that collects at the bottom of the bowl. When meals are that casual, etiquette is tossed aside, and the savory juices are noisily slurped directly from the bowl.

If there is good bread at hand, a hunk is used to mop up the juices. The yeasty, malty flavor and chewy texture changes the taste entirely— transforms it into something else. If I had been brought up in an Italian house I would compare it to Panzanella, but my bread and tomato association leads to Açorda.

Açorda is a rustic bread soup from Portugal. At its most basic, it's made by pouring a water, garlic, cilantro, and olive oil broth over day-old bread. Typically, the bread used is Broa— a dense, round loaf made with wheat flour, enriched with cornmeal.

There are gussied-up versions of Açorda; my favorite involves prawns cooked in the broth with tomatoes. For today, I've ignored the prawns and the cooking, but kept the impression of the dish with a hunk of my mother's excellent Broa soaked with seasoned red and yellow tomato water, olive oil, garlic bulbils, green coriander seeds and sprigs.

Outside of summer, it would never occur to me to attempt a dish whose sheer simplicity relies entirely on an ingredient used at its pinnacle of flavor. Like it's inspiration, it's a humble dish— the food of peasants. But it's also profoundly good and begs a revision to an old adage:

[wo]man can live [happily] on bread and [tomato]water alone!

potatoes halibut garlic

earthy potatoes the color of an Aegean sky
silken paint spread on a porcelain canvas

piquant bulbils strewn across a Skordalia triptych
like stray pearls from a necklace that has come undone

Poseidon offers fish from the depths of a torrid ocean of oil
they emerge blistered and weightless as ghosts

caught up in the fantasy I imagine
[only for a moment] that I've made something new
something original

foolish me it's only fish and chips

skordalia

200g red bliss potatoes, peeled and cut into 1/2" dice
200g purple potatoes, peeled and cut into 1/2" dice
100g extra virgin olive oil
7g garlic, thickly sliced
salt
50g french bread, trimmed of crust and soaked in milk
25g white wine vinegar
25g red wine vinegar
garlic bulbils

Place the red bliss potatoes in a bowl and drizzle with 10g of olive oil. Add half of the garlic and a sprinkle of salt. Toss well, then pack into a bag and vacuum seal. Repeat with purple potatoes. Sous-vide at 85C/185F for 45-60 minutes or until very tender when pressed.
Empty the contents of the red bliss potatoes into food processor and add half of the remaining olive oil. Process until smooth. Squeeze excess milk from bread and add to processor along with white vinegar. Process until smooth and fluid, adding some of the milk if too thick. Season with salt. Repeat with purple potatoes, using the remaining ingredients and the red vinegar.
To serve, screen the skordalia through a stencil onto plates or serve in separate bowls. Sprinkle garlic bulbils over top.

halibut crisps

115g halibut, cut against the grain into 1/4" thick slices
rice flour
salt
peanut oil for deep frying

Season halibut with salt on both sides. Lay out a sheet of plastic wrap on a flat surface. Cover with a thick dusting of rice flour. Place a slice of halibut over top of rice flour and generously dust top with additional flour. Cover with another sheet of plastic wrap and pound until paper-thin, adding more rice flour if necessary. Repeat with remaining fish slices. Cut pounded slices into 2" discs with round cutter.
Heat a pot of oil for deep frying to 190C/375F. Fry discs for 1-2 minutes, or until crisp but still pale.
Serve with skordalia. If desired, sprinkle with dehydrated, pulverized kalamata olives and cinnamon basil stems.

lamb coconut yogurt garlic

Garlic scapes are the flowering seed heads and stems of hard neck garlic varieties. It used to be that farmers removed them to direct the plant's energy into developing the bulb rather than the seeds, and would discard them. At some point, an enterprising farmer thought the mildly-flavored scapes were a marketable novelty, and now they are popular seasonal treats at farmers markets. Incidental crops like these are often a win-win situation.

When harvested just as they begin to curl, the stems are tender and mild. By the time that the seeds begin to form, they harden and become tough. At that stage, I like to use them as skewers for grilled meats and vegetables, allowing heat to release their aroma and infuse the food from within.

This dish is loosely based on souvlaki, with deliberate Greek flavors. Instead of the ubiquitous oregano, I used winter savory (Satureja montana), an under-utilized perennial herb that tastes like a blend of thyme, pine, and lemon, to season the lamb and tzatziki.

The tzatziki was made with yogurt curds, which readily form when yogurt is gently heated to 170F/76C. The process is identical to making ricotta, but as the yogurt is already acidic, it doesn't require the addition of buttermilk. The curds are folded into coconut milk, along with savory, garlic and cucumber.

The ground lamb is blended with minced aromatics (savory, onion, garlic scapes) and coconut powder, then wrapped in a blanched fig leaf and grilled.

I know that gif's are sometimes annoying, and even though these shots are overexposed, I thought that it effectively demonstrated the leaf-folding technique.
Actually, I'm kind of mesmerized by it. I'm alternately disturbed and amused by the furling and unfurling. As it folds up, I think "Silencing of the Lamb", then it pops open, exposing itself like a Cypriot burlesque queen.

the simple charm of wild carrots

A new attitude is really just a change in perception. It's what makes one man's rags another man's riches. It's how a weed becomes a charming flower.

And, yes, the wild carrot has many charms.

Take, for instance, one of its common names: Queen Anne's lace.

OK, maybe you have to be a girl (or an Anglophile) to appreciate that one.

And then there's the flowers, all lacy and white, but they can be any color you like. If you put the cut stems in water stained with food color, the blossoms will change color right before your eyes. They're chameleons that way.

What it doesn't have, at this stage, is a lot of edible parts. But because it's so aromatic, it has plenty of extractable flavor.

Simple infusions are one way to capture the flavor. In these very busy days of summer, simple is good.

And it doesn't get more simple than this. The only hard part is the waiting.

I picked my first cucumber and serrano pepper from the garden on the day that the vinegar was ready. It made sense to toss them together in a light salad. Cool cucumbers and hot peppers are a nice contrast.

I let the syrup infuse for just over a week, until the wild carrot flavor was good and concentrated. I have lots of fun, simple plans for this syrup. One of them is to drizzle it over grilled carrots: wild carrot-candied carrots.

But since the cucumbers are coming in fast and furious, my attention went back to them. This time, I pickled slices of the cucumber in the vinegar, spiked with serrano, then topped them with a dollop of syrup, whipped with 5% versawhip. The whipped syrup looks like a rich whipped cream, but with pure, clean flavor and a lightness that cream cannot imagine.

I served the sweet-tart-spicy-cool-creamy bite in a nest of fuzzy wild carrot seeds so that when my fingers rubbed against it to pick it up, they carried the scent of wild carrots to my nose.

Quite simply, wild carrots have me charmed.

onion caramel

To make onion caramel: Line an 8" pan with greased waxed paper or a silicone mat. Place 300g of onion syrup in a 5-qt pot (don't use a smaller pot as the syrup will form large bubbles and expand considerably). Add 200g heavy cream and set the pot over medium-high heat, stirring until mixture begins to boil. Cook to 250F/121C. Immediately pour onto prepared pan and let cool until caramel hardens. Cut into desired sizes and shapes with an oiled knife.

porcini onion apple

Judging by the comments in the previous post, the general consensus was to take the onion syrup aboard the foie gras train. A very tasty ride, no doubt, but as y'all were thinking liver and onions, I was thinking waffles with syrup.

chamomile-poached granny smith apple balls ✢ caramelized pickled allium triquetrum ✢ fried shallot oil ✢ young spruce tips

porcini-mesquite waffle ✢ delice de bourgogne triple cream cheese

onion syrup

porcini-mesquite waffles

Porcini flour is made by grinding dried porcini mushrooms in a spice grinder. Mesquite flour can be purchased at health food stores. It is made from the dried pulp of mesquite (Prosopis alba) pods and has a sweet flavor and aroma, reminiscent of toasted coconut, roasted coffee, chocolate, and cinnamon.

85g all-purpose flour
20g mesquite flour
10g porcini flour
5g sea salt
3g baking soda
2g baking powder
150g buttermilk
57g melted butter
1 egg

In a large bowl, whisk together the dry ingredients until uniform in color. In a separate bowl, whisk the egg while adding the buttermilk, then whisk in the melted butter. Make a well in the center of the dry ingredients and pour in the wet. Stir with a wooden spoon to combine the ingredients and form a smooth batter. Allow batter to rest for 5 minutes to hydrate flours.
While the batter hydrates, preheat waffle iron according to manufacturer's instructions.
When iron is hot, place 2 Tablespoons of batter in center of iron to make small waffles, or up to 1/4 cup to make full-sized waffles. Lower lid and cook until steam subsides and waffle pulls away easily from iron.
Makes 8-10 small waffles or 4 large.

onion syrup

sweet
tart
spicy
savory
salty
oniony

you know you want some

onion syrup

300g sugar
100g Vidalia onion juice (about 1 large onion, put through a juicer)
200g dry red wine
150g red wine vinegar
50g balsamic vinegar
50g extra-virgin olive oil
5g fleur de sel
1.5g sichuan pepper, coarsely ground
1 medium Vidalia onion, cut lengthwise into 8 wedges and separated into petals.

Place sugar and onion juice in a large saucepan. Stir until sugar is evenly wet. Cover pan and set over medium heat. Cook for 3 minutes, then remove cover and turn heat up to medium high. Cook syrup to 360F/182C, or until medium golden and smells like toasted onions.
Immediately remove pan from heat and carefully add the wine to the pan. The hot syrup will sputter and boil, add the wine slowly until it calms down. Return pan to stove and continue cooking on medium high heat. When the syrup has dissolved in the wine, add all of the remaining ingredients. Adjust the heat to maintain a full rolling boil and cook the syrup until it reduces and thickens to the consistency of maple syrup. This can take up to 10 minutes.
Allow syrup to cool slightly and strain out the onion pieces. Store syrup in refrigerator for up to one month.