smitten kitchen » Spring

asparagus with chorizo and croutons

deb — Wed, 22 Jul 2009 02:04:51 +0000

I have been thinking a lot in the last couple of weeks about what it means to cook when you’re pressed for time. I’ve always had the luxury of time. Even when I juggled a full-time job and a site, the sum of my evening tasks were still only to make whatever I felt like making for dinner, and if dinner was done at 10 p.m. instead of 7:30 p.m., we just shrugged it off.

Alas, as you other mamas out there know, the third trimester is all about waking up one day in a frenetic frenzy, as I did out of the blue yesterday morning. If we’re about to go into lockdown for a couple months, there is so much we have left to do: the upholstery needs to be steam-cleaned! The baby’s room needs a dimmer switch! The printer cartridges are, like, totally out of ink! And I haven’t yet learned to cook respectable meals in a minimum of time.

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pickled sugar snap peas

deb — Fri, 05 Jun 2009 23:57:52 +0000

After a winter in which I was so sick of heavy winter vegetables, I went on strike against them (and pretty much everything that wasn’t peanut butter and jelly sandwiches or Raisin Bran, if we’re being honest here), I have been having so much fun the last couple weeks hitting the markets, especially now that they’re hitting their stride. In our new neighborhood, we’re not only so much closer to the Union Square Greenmarket, but have the added bonus of a couple mini-markets that conveniently run on Union Square’s off days, and I have to confess: the tinier ones are my favorite, due to my aversion to being elbowed when I’m sifting through my produce. Call me crazy.

First, there were radishes.

Then ramps. (I made this risotto and highly, highly recommend it, with ramps or any other sharp spring onion.)

Then teeny, tiny strawberries, so cute I wanted to pinch all of their little cheeks. I could not bring myself to do anything but eat them just like this.

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asparagus, goat cheese and lemon pasta

deb — Sun, 17 May 2009 22:50:53 +0000

A couple weeks ago, I had a fantastic warm asparagus salad at a nearby restaurant, one I immediately swore I’d make at home. It had segments of white and green asparagus tossed with goat cheese and a tarragon and lemony mint vinaigrette and it was piled on a bed of red endive, my favorite. It was stunning. It was delicious. Alas, this is not it. What a tease I am, right?

After trying and failing to find all three elements — the green asparagus, white asparagus and the red endive — for the next two weeks, I gave up. Oh, and sure, you could use all green asparagus and regular pale endive, but you’ve met me, right? I’m a pain in the butt and without the visual, it was going to be no fun at all for me. It would not do.

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artichokes braised in lemon and olive oil

deb — Tue, 31 Mar 2009 21:09:35 +0000

Given that I can say, without pausing or so much as batting an eyelash, that artichokes are my favorite food on earth, it's kind of a bummer that they're so woefully underrepresented here. Sure, there are Artichoke Ravioli, a quick Potato and Artichoke Tortilla, a a scooped heart filled with fresh cranberry beans, a gratin and some crostini in which they play a supporting role, but when you love them as much as I do, this is not enough. Nothing ever is.

Artichoke season can't come soon enough for people like me, even if the best we usually get are cross-country, battered and overpriced visitors. It is never enough to deter me, and neither were these downright busted looking ones I saw at the store yesterday for a reduced price. I pounced on them, as even with shoddy leaves, their hearts are in the right place, that is, center and endlessly delicious.

I had the misfortune to find this braised artichoke recipe in the November 2008 issue of Gourmet, misfortune not because I had any doubt it would be the most delicious thing in the entire world, but because although I am never going to be the poster child for the eating local movement with my cross-country artichokes in March, November is just not a time to find decent ones in New York City (although I hear the west coast gets a bumper crop in October -- lucky!).

The wait nearly killed me, but I'm pleased to say that it paid off. Look, there's nothing quick about prepping whole artichokes -- just getting them down to their delicious hearts takes some time, and multiplied by eight, sheesh. But it's so worth it. There is no comparison in the flavor of fresh 'chokes to frozen or canned ones -- they may as well be different vegetables. And although the process can be intimidating, once you get it down -- and I hope these photos help -- you'll wonder what took you so long to try them.

One year ago: Vegetarian Cassoulet

Two years ago: Mixed Berry Pavlova [Perfect for Passover!]

devil’s chicken thighs + braised leeks

deb — Fri, 13 Feb 2009 00:48:12 +0000

This, my friends, is all the evidence you will ever need that you can never go wrong with a Suzanne Goin recipe (also: that ugly food is the tastiest). Because despite having a horrible cold (not just any cold, mind you, but a Man Cold) all week, zero appetite, even less inclination to stand (upright! like on my two feet! how exhausting!) in the kitchen and cook and actually briefly calculating the food costs in my head of chucking the dish (already marinating) and trying it again another week, with Alex’s help we trudged on through and had this for dinner last night and it was amazing. Curative, even. I feel 50 percent better today.

So what’s all this about? Well, you start by braising leeks, which if you’re me, already has you sold. Amusingly, I was halfway into the leek prep when I had a vague feeling of deja-vu and you know what? I told you about these last year, to the day! Memory, what memory? Anyway, they’re unbelievable and seriously, if you’d like, you can stop right here. Serve them with some proscuito, a poached or sliced hard-cooked egg, mustard vinaigrette, some thick bread and maybe a sharp little salad on the side and you’ll be happy as a clam. Swap the chicken stock for vegetable stock and you can even make them amenable to vegetarians.

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napa cabbage salad with buttermilk dressing

deb — Thu, 31 Jul 2008 17:22:28 +0000

Stop. No, seriously. Stop everything you’re doing. What are you eating for lunch today? Are you going to one of those delis that will put whatever you want in the salad and mix it with some mysterious, better-not-closely-considered dressing in a squeeze bottle and charge you $10? (Is this a NYC thing, or do they have these everywhere?)(Further, have I waded so far into the NYC bubble that I no longer know what people outside it eat for lunch?) Well, I want you to take a good long look at it and repeat after me: No more deli salads.

Because have you seen this beauty? This should be your lunch tomorrow. This salad dressing is so good. So so so good. Oh, and the salad isn’t half-bad either.

People, I’m in love. Like just about everyone else who bakes, I seem to always have buttermilk left in the fridge, but it’s always too little to make something something frosted and fancy. I had no idea there was such a simple dressing out there that could use it up in half-cup increments, or heck, give you an excuse to buy more because it’s so darn good.

All I’m saying is, don’t say I didn’t warn you, okay?

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strawberry rhubarb pie

deb — Tue, 27 May 2008 18:12:22 +0000

I usually try to shield you from examples of my various forms of Crazy, but in this case, it’s just too relevant not to own up to. You see, I’ve got all sorts of superstitions about pies, with each and every harebrained theory derived from some near or actual pie disaster in my past.

There’s the theory that pies can smell fear; if you’re certain your pie will be a mess, it becomes something of a self-fulfilling prophecy. Then there’s the theory about making anything but the simplest lidded pie in the summertime, as the heat and humidity defies any level of air conditioning and makes your pie dough melt apart, no matter how many times you chill the dough. I also believe that pie recipes can be curses, because not every apple has the same level of sweetness, tartness and liquid and it’s nearly impossible to come up with a core recipe that works each time.

In short, my pie superstitions could be summed up as, “Shh. The pie can hear you.”

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caramelized shallots

deb — Mon, 14 Apr 2008 15:05:43 +0000

This is one of those dishes where I want to tell you to stop everything and make these right now, but then I remember that I already said that this week, last week, the week before and a few other times in between. If I keep saying this, I’ll be like the girl who cried … cook! and nobody will take me seriously when a truly transcendent recipe comes across this page. Like today. So let’s just suffice to it so that this is a frighteningly good recipe and an excellent way to handle the early spring disappointment of a farmers’ market providing you nothing but onions and tubers. Instead you can caramelize shallots!

Now, I think we already know that caramelized onions are the bees’ knees but these are even more spectacular and that is because of the vinegar that is glugged in, which gives it a slight tang raising the sweet-salty butteriness to a “I will never eat anything else for the rest of my life” experience. And yes, there is a good bit of butter in this dish, enough that when I made it the first time a few years ago I skimped on it, the shallots stuck to the bottom of that pan and I was consumed with regret. Not this time, though. Rest assured that almost all of the butter stays in the baking dish, and does not cling to the shallots–and us, one hopes–in more than a barely-there layer.

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fork-crushed purple potatoes

deb — Wed, 09 Apr 2008 20:45:23 +0000

If there is any singular advantage of having a Cook This list with bullets numbering into the hundreds, its that one always has an idea of what can be done when they finally make it to the Union Square Greenmarket on the most stunning, spring-like Sunday one has seen since forever only to find that it was not filled with the ramps and leafy things of one’s spring Greenmarket fantasy but onions and potatoes as far as the eye can see. [One can also write the longest sentence ever.]

Because, you see, I’ve had a simple recipe for purple potatoes bookmarked for nearly a year now, but before last weekend, had yet to run into the purple potatoes required to make it. Yes, I said required–what? Oh, you think you could use just any potato? That dark, reddish blueish hued tubers are not a prerequisite to this dish? Well, I say you sound exactly like Alex and Alex is wrong, too.

No, being my needling, fussy self, I wouldn’t make this dish until I found purple potatoes. According to NYMag.com, this potato was developed in Colorado way back in ~~ancient times~~ 2006 using “natural cross-breeding techniques that somehow results in a superspud containing freakishly high amounts of antioxidants.” Apparently, these purple nuggets found a fan in a chef named Michael Anthony who–although I am not the chef-gazing type–we like enough to have invited (heh–by way of opentable.com) him to cook a celebratory dinner for both our first (at Blue Hill) and second (at Grammercy Tavern) wedding anniversaries.

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spring panzanella

deb — Fri, 04 Apr 2008 17:26:36 +0000

Every morning, I wake up and I have to remind myself that it is not spring yet. I push past all of the cute spring clothes I’ve overeagerly purchased and reach for one of the sweaters and lined pants I swear I have worn ten hundred thousand times since September and I was tired of them then: It’s not spring yet. I read food blogs from people in Paris and San Francisco, fawning over the new strawberries and colorful produce at their farmers’ markets and go to ours and see the same cabbage and potatoes (though I’m crossing my fingers for ramps today) as before: It’s not spring yet. And I honestly don’t know why I would expect to be spring in the first week of April when it is never spring in New York during the first week of April but still, I have never been more impatient for the world to warm up around me.

But last weekend it was at least unfrozen enough to take little walk that landed us at the Balthazar Bakery where we split the most mildly sweet and adorably tiny pistachio doughnut ever and picked a small boule of their “sourish” (their description, not mine) white bread and proceeded to forget about it (shame, shame) until it staled. Suddenly, there on the subway platform a couple days later I started scheming about a spring panzanella that would make me feel better about how far off warm weather seems.

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