In Praise of Arugula

19 Jan 2011 11 Comments

by scolgin in Recipes, Sensational Salads, Video Tags: , , , ,

The Italians know something we Americans often don’t. That is, that sometimes the most wonderful dishes are the most basic. If you’ve got fresh, great quality produce and make the right flavor combinations, the simplest things will be the most delicious. And here I share with you one of my favorites.

Arugula may be the best of all herbs. It grows wild in places like Greece and Italy, where old toothless guys with walking sticks and baskets and faithful hound dogs named Pirot forage for it on barren hillsides. It’s easy to grow, at least in California. Let it go to seed, and you’ll have little wild arugulas popping up all over your yard. And you and your kids can get a basket and pretend you’re foraging, too.

Peppery, floral and complex, its flavors become even more sublime when it is combined with five additional ingredients — fresh lemon juice, best-quality extra virgin olive oil, shaved aged parmesan, freshly cracked pepper and flaky sea salt such as Maldon. As beautiful and sophisticated as it is simple.

My 7-year-old son who is suspect of anything green will devour as much of this salad as I will serve him, he loves it so. You will too:

Italian Arugula Salad
serves 4

1  cup arugula per person
fresh lemon
extra virgin olive oil
1/2 cup thinly shaved aged parmesan reggiano
flaky sea salt & freshly ground pepper

Choose nice looking plates. Spread a cup of arugula artfully around each plate. Squeeze lemon juice over the top, one or two good squeezes per plate should do it. (You should be able to drizzle all four salads with a single lemon.) Then drizzle each salad with your best olive oil. Sprinkle some salt over the top, and a twist or two of freshly ground pepper. Top each with some shaved parmesan. Serve immediately, perhaps as the first course in an Italian dinner.

Wine suggestion: A nice, light pinot grigio or floral sauvignon blanc.

Coolest pepper mills on earth: www.peppermills.ca

Deep in the Heart of Texas

29 Sep 2010 1 Comment

by scolgin in Recipes, Sensational Salads, Video Tags: , , , , , , , , , , ,

We were beginning to enjoy the cool fall weather. And then it hit. In Southern California, we call it the Santa Anas. You might know it as Indian Summer. Put simply, it got @#$%ing hot!!! 110 in the shade.

Life hands you lemons, you make lemonade. The perfect opportunity for a last barbecue or two. So the other night, we called some friends over and did Texas-style. Stood out on the deck with my tongs like a cowboy. Hollered at the chickens and the kids, spit into a tin. Perhaps it’s still warm where you are, and you’ll want to try it too. Put on some Patsy Cline and call the cowboys in…

More knowledgeable people than I could speak more articulately on the regional differences in barbecue. In Texas, I know they love their beef, and they like chilies. I know you’ll love this steak with salty-sweet chili rub. To go with it, I made cheese grits and an iceberg wedge salad with bleu cheese dressing and pancetta — neither strictly Texan, but pretty good foils to the flavorful steak. We drank one of our big jammy family zinfandels — there’s no better varietal with barbecue. Of course, beer, a nice mint julep or even a zesty margarita would’ve paired well. This Texas dinner will serve 4, amply.

*   *   *

Cowboy-Style Grilled Steak

2 lbs good steak on the bone (rib-eye, preferably; but porterhouse is good too)
2 tbsp salt
1 tbsp sugar
2 tbsp pimenton (Spanish smoked sweet paprika) or regular paprika
1 tsp ground chipotle pepper
1 tsp ground pasilla or other mild red chili

Take steaks out of the fridge about one hour before you grill. In the meantime, combine other ingredients to make a rub. About 10 minutes before grilling, sprinkle steaks evenly with rub. Gently massage the rub into the meat.

Heat your BBQ as high as it will go — mine gets up around 600 degrees. Cook your steaks 3 or 4 minutes on each side, depending on thickness, until cook medium or medium rare to your preference. Remove, cover with foil, and let sit for 10 minutes. Then use a very sharp knife to cut across the grain into 1/2 inch thick slices. Spread a few slices on each person’s plate, and serve with cheese grits.

Cheese Grits
(Note: I highly recommend buying some Anson Mills grits from the link on this blog. They’re about the best grits on earth. While you’re there, pick up some dried polenta, including the fabulous rustic polenta integrale. Make your shipping costs worthwhile!)

1 cup dried grits
water
1/2 cup grated cheddar
1/4 cup grated pecorino romano or asagio
1 tbsp butter
salt & pepper to taste

Heat about 2 cups of water in a pot to a simmering boil, and add dried grits. Reduce heat to medium low and cook, stirring and adding more water frequently, for up to an hour. Grits should be tender and not at all crunchy. Add salt and pepper to taste, then stir in cheeses. Stir in butter last, and then cover and let sit for five minutes. Scoop some onto each of four plates, and surround with a fan of the steak slices.

Iceberg Wedge Salad

1 head iceberg lettuce
1/2 cup crumbled bleu cheese (roquefort, gorgonzola, etc.)
1/4 cup milk
1 tbsp mayonnaise
4 strips pancetta (or bacon), cooked to crisp
salt & pepper

Remove the core from the lettuce, and cut into quarter wedges. Mix the bleu cheese, milk and mayo vigorously together until it forms a thick dressing (some chunks of bleu cheese should remain). Drizzle some dressing over each of the wedges, then drizzle with a little olive oil. Sprinkle with salt and pepper to taste, and lay a cooked strip of pancetta on top of each. Serve.

A Little Trek to Little Saigon

09 Sep 2010 8 Comments

by scolgin in Markets & Stores, Recipes, Sensational Salads Tags: , , , , ,

Fish at the ABC Market in Little Saigon

When friends invited us to spend a few days at a beach house in Seal Beach, my imagination immediately went east. Across the 405, into the lovely city of Westminster… to the markets of Little Saigon.

If you’ve not been to Little Saigon, you’re missing a fascinating window into the culture of Vietnam. If you haven’t eaten much Vietnamese food, you don’t know what you’ve been missing. I’ll include a couple recipes later in this post. But be warned — you’ll have trouble finding shredded green papaya, fermented fish sauce and sugar cane at the Vons. So you may need to make an afternoon adventure of it. And if you don’t live in Los Angeles, well… you can dream. (Or improvise.)

The dreaded durian

Little Saigon is in Orange County, east of Huntington Beach. If you’re on the 405, get off at Golden West, find Bolsa Ave., and head east. Soon you’ll begin seeing pagoda roofs, Pho restaurants and businesses owned by people named Nguyen. Speaking of those Pho (beef noodle soup) restaurants — or any other kind of Vietnamese restaurant — if it’s lunchtime and you’re hungry, pick one and stop in. I have no specific recommendations — I’ve randomly patronized several of them and they’re all good. But it is the markets, first and foremost, that I go for.

As you head east on Bolsa, the first market you’ll come to on the right is the ABC Market. A little further along, just past Magnolia in an alley to the left, is the A Dong Market, another good one. These places are bigger than Ralphs and filled with things you’ve likely never seen — stinky durian fruits, preserved duck eggs, live eels, dried creatures of every kind, black-skinned chickens. Vietnamese people crowd the fish bins and yell out orders to the white-frocked guys at the offal counter. It’s as close as a vacation to Southeast Asia as you’ll come. Stroll up and down the aisles and you’ll be in awe of the variety. I come here to get things I will use for making French or Italian dishes — ducks, frozen soft shell crabs, beef short ribs, whole raw anchovies. The prices are great. And I come for things I could only imagine using for Vietnamese food — that green papaya and fermented fish sauce I mentioned, for example. I also get Chinese goods like dilluted red vinegar, chili oil and XO sauce. And, in a nod to Vietnam’s French Indochine days, you’ll even find pretty darn good baguettes and croissants.

Delicious packaged things

Vietnamese cuisine is one of the most lovely of all Southeast Asia. Lighter and less sugary than the more familiar Thai cooking, less salty and fermented than Korean, its most resonant characteristic is the bounty of flavorful “condiments” served with each dish — fragrant mint and basil leaves, crunchy batons of cucumber, pickled garlic and chopped peanuts. And their cloudlike rice wrappers — which you’ve likely begun to see being wrapped around miscellaneous things at Gelson’s or Whole Foods. (Containing no fat or gluten, they’re highly yoga-student friendly.) Following are two of the best (in my humble opinion) pillars of many a Vietnamese menu. Again, these require a few unusual ingredients and a bit of focus. But the results are well worth your effort. And you didn’t have any plans this Saturday anyway, did you…

Green Papaya Salad
Serves 4

Green papaya salad

1/2 lb shredded green papaya (available in the produce section at the above two markets)
1/2 lb New York steak, cut into slices
1 clove garlic, finely grated
olive oil
1 tomato, cut in eighths
1 small cucumber, cut in 1/4 inch slices then in half
1/2 small onion, cut in half and thinly sliced lengthwise into slivers
2 tbsp basil leaves
2 tbsp mint leaves
1/4 cup thinly sliced or grated carrot
1/4 cup chopped peanuts

Nuac Cham Dressing:
Juice 3 limes
3 tbsp fish sauce (nuac mam in Vietnamese)
1/4 cup water
3 tbsp sugar
1 clove garlic, finely grated
1/4 tsp crushed red pepper

Make the dressing. Combine the lime juice, water and fish sauce, and stir in sugar, whisking vigorously until it has dissolved. Add garlic and red pepper, stir and set aside.

For the salad, slice your steak into thin slices. Mix with a drizzle of olive oil, the grated garlic, a dash of sea salt and freshly ground pepper. Let marinate for 10 minutes, then cook on a very hot grill for about 3 minutes on a side, until browned. Remove and slice into thin strips.

Toss the papaya with sliced cucumber and tomato and herbs. Pour in about 2/3 of your dressing (save a third for dipping sauce for your shrimp dish, below, if you are making it). Add a good drizzle of olive oil and toss. Divide between four plates. Top each salad with strips of beef, some shreds of carrot for color, and a sprinkling of chopped peanuts. (I’ve also chopped up a well-fried egg in the pics above.)

(Note: you could make this salad with finely chopped napa cabbage if you couldn’t get the green papaya.)


Shrimp on Sugar Cane
Serves 4

(l to r) rice papers, condiments, shrimp on sugar cane, braised chinese broccoli

1/2 lb peeled and deveined shrimp
1 garlic clove
1 egg
salt and pepper
4 sugar cane, 4-6 inches long, cut in half lengthwise (find canned at Asian markets)
8 dried rice papers
8 small romaine lettuce leaves
1 bunch mint leaves
1 bunch basil leaves
1 small cucumber, cut into batons
1 cup cooked bean thread noodles
1/4 cup chopped peanuts
2 tbsp nuoc cham (recipe above) for dipping

Making sure there is no shell left on your shrimp, puree in a food processor with the egg, garlic and sprinklings of salt and pepper. (A blender will also work, although you’ll need to turn off and stir a few times to make sure your shrimp is thoroughly pureed.) Wet your hands, and form a small patty of shrimp around each half of sugar cane. (Sort of like a shrimp popsicle.) Place on a large plate or platter. Heat BBQ grill to high, and cook the shrimp popsicles about 4 minutes on each side, or until they begin to brown. (Make sure all the shrimp is cooked before you remove.)

Cook the bean thread noodles. Heat some water in a small pot to high. Toss in a small bundle of bean thread noodles (they come in individual dried bundles). Turn off heat and let noodles sit for a few minutes, stirring once or twice, until they are soft. Drain.

Set your condiments out on a large plate or two, as in the picture above — the romaine leaves, the herbs, the cucumber batons, the bean thread noodles and the peanuts. Place the nuoc cham in a small dipping bowl. Rehydrate the rice papers by running them briefly under warm water. Lay out on a large platter, making sure they don’t overlap much or they will stick together. (Alternately, you can rehydrate them one or two at a time, as needed.) Lay out shrimp popsicles on another plate.

Each diner assembles his or her own rolls. Take a rice paper, place a lettuce leaf near the center, take shrimp meat off of one sugar cane and place on lettuce leaf. Top with condiments as desired — a few noodles, some mint and basil leaves, a couple cucumber batons, some peanuts… and then roll up like a burrito. Dip into nuoc cham and enjoy with a cold beer! (Singha is my choice with this meal.)

A Salad Called Caesar

04 Sep 2010 11 Comments

by scolgin in Recipes, Sensational Salads Tags: , , ,

Cesare Cardini

On a warm August night in 1932 in Tijuana, Mexico, Clark Gable sat slouched in a back booth of the restaurant at the Hotel Caesar, swirling the ice in his bourbon and pushing croutons and romaine around a plate with his fork. Across the table, Jean Harlow twirled a platinum curl around her index finger and glared across at him.

“You’re more interested in that salad than you are in talking to me,” she said in a vampy whisper.

“Sweetheart,” Gable replied, “If you were half as layered and complex as the dressing on this salad, then we’d have something to talk about.”

A dapper man with a servile smile and a starched white jacket emerged from the shadows, clasping his hands in front of him.

“Mr. Gable,” he said with a thick Italian accent, leaning in closer to the table,” Can I get you anything else?”

Gable glanced across at Harlow. “What’s the forecast back home, doll?”

“Dry as far as the eye can see,” she said.

Gable raised his bourbon. “One more for the road, Cardini.”

“Make that two,” said Harlow.

I just made that up. But it might’ve happened.

No salad, perhaps, has been written more about than the Caesar — invented, so the story goes, by Cesare Cardini at Caesar’s restaurant in Tijuana in the mid 1920s. There are whole books — and blogs, I’m sure — devoted to it. What more do I have to add? Nothing really. I’m a purist — I don’t like grilled chicken breast or seared ahi on top, I don’t like Southwestern style with sizzlin’ shrimp or half Romaine grilled on the barbie. But what I do have to contribute is a nifty shortcut on the dressing, which fits in nicely to my blog since it’s based on mayonnaise. (Shhh, don’t tell that yoga student you’ve got coming to dinner…) Since mayo is essentially an emulsion of egg, acid and oil, I figured it would stand in well for that raw egg that makes everyone nervous when they eat Caesar’s. It did.

Caesar Salad

Serves two

1 head romaine lettuce (or two heads baby romaine)
2 thick slices crusty bread, cut into cubes
olive oil
flaky salt
anchovies
shaved Parmesan

For the dressing:

2 tbsp mayonnaise
2 anchovies, minced
1 garlic clove, smashed in a mortar (or finely minced)
juice 1/2 lemon
a few dashes of Worcestershire sauce
a few grinds of fresh pepper
2 tbsp olive oil
1/4 cup grated Parmesan

Chop up romaine into large pieces. Toss bread cubes in olive oil with a little salt, place on a piece of foil and then toast in a 250 degree oven for around 30 minutes, until golden.

Make the dressing: combine mayo, anchovies, garlic and lemon juice in a large bowl. Add Worcestershire and pepper, then whip in olive oil to emulsify it into the dressing. Finally, mix in grated Parmesan.

Toss salad and croutons with dressing until thoroughly coated and distributed. Plate salad, top with anchovies to taste, and sprinkle with shaved Parmesan and freshly ground pepper.

L.A.’s Star Salad

31 Aug 2010 8 Comments

by scolgin in Recipes, Sensational Salads Tags: , , , , , , ,

Cobb salad with heirloom tomatoes, Applewood-smoked bacon, roquefort, grilled chicken and farm eggs

Remember that famous episode of “I Love Lucy” where Lucy and Ethel are in Hollywood, and they go to The Brown Derby to look for stars? They see William Holden in the booth next to them, and through the usual hilarious misadventures, wind up causing Mr. Holden to take a pie in the face. (It’s the same episode where Lucy later catches her nose on fire while lighting a cigarette…)

Back in the day, The Brown Derby was not only the place to see the stars — it was where L.A.’s greatest salad was invented. Go watch that episode of “I Love Lucy” again, and you’ll see it was a Cobb Salad that Bill Holden ordered. Created by the restaurant’s owner, Bob Cobb (cousin of baseball great, Ty Cobb), it’s one of those magnificent salads where all the components fit perfectly like a puzzle — crunchy lettuce, crisp bacon, velvety avocado, rich eggs, tender chicken, sweet tomatoes and salty bleu cheese.

I’ve seen this salad made with all kinds of other random ingredients — corn, cilantro, seared ahi, chipotle-this-or-that… I’m not one for screwing with a classic. I will offer my usual advice, however — the better your basics, the better the finished dish. So I use heirloom tomatoes, Applewood-smoked Niman Ranch bacon, a good Roquefort cheese, eggs from my own chickens… This recipe serves two, like in the picture.

Cobb Salad

1 medium head romaine lettuce
1 chicken breast, sprinkled with salt an hour before cooking
1/2 cup cherry tomatoes, sliced in half
1 avocado
2 eggs
3 strips bacon, cooked (save the fat)
1/4 cup crumbled bleu cheese
1 tsp Dijon mustard
1 tbsp red wine vinegar
1 tbsp rice wine vinegar
2 tbsp extra virgin olive oil
flaky sea salt and pepper

Cook the chicken breast in the reserved bacon fat over medium heat, turning once or twice, for about 15 minutes or until firm. Chop the romaine lettuce up. Place on two plates. You’ll arrange the rest of the salad on top of the lettuce. You’re welcome to get mavericky and do it your own way. But here’s how I arranged my Cobb salad in the photo. Slice each egg in four, and place two wedges at two corners of your salad. In the other corners, place half an avocado, sliced, and your tomato halves. Slice your chicken breast into strips, and arrange half the strips on each of the salads. Break up some bacon and scatter it on top of the chicken strips. Then scatter some crumbled bleu cheese over the salad.

For the dressing, in a small bowl combine the mustard and vinegars. Stir the oil vigorously into the mustard vinegar mixture until thoroughly combined. Drizzle over your salads. Finish each salad with a sprinkling of flaky sea salt and a few grinds of fresh pepper.

Wine suggestion: a crisp New Zealand sauvignon blanc (that’s for you, Emma)

*Stay tuned for the next installment of my “Great Salads” series — the Cobb’s southern cousin, the famous Caesar salad of Tijuana, Mexico, complete with a dressing shortcut based on none other than mayonnaise!

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