My basil plants have gone wild. Growing like crazy. The most productive crop I’ve ever harvested. The Question? “How much pesto does one need?”
Those chefs at Food Network Magazine must be having the same problem because their September issue included a full-page layout on making basil-flavored salt. If that’s how Ina and Bobby and Giada and Guy are utilizing their extra basil, count me in. This week, I produced a personal cache of my own. Easy.
Put 1 cup of basil leaves, packed, and 1/2 cup of kosher salt into your food processor.
Wash Basil leaves carefully, preventing bruising, and dry thoroughly with a paper towel. Place leaves and 1/2 cup of salt in your food processor. Pulse about 12 times. Spread the mixture on a parchment-lined baking sheet and bake at 225 degrees until dry for 30 to 40 minutes. (I baked my mixture for 30 minutes and then turned off the oven for 10 more minutes.)
Let cool, return mixture to your processor and pulse again 6 to 8 times to create a fine powder. Pour it through a mesh strainer.
Twelve pulses later and you’re half-way to making salt.
Use to flavor everything from the obvious, fresh tomatoes and mozzarella, to sauces and salad dressings to meats, poultry and fish to stir-fry dishes to popcorn to Bloody Marys or other drinks.
Bake for 30 miinutes at 225 degrees, turn off the oven, bake for another 10 minutes. If not dry enough to your liking, bake longer. Midway through, toss the salt, breaking up clumps.
This process can be adjusted to make any flavored salt and I am going to try making olive salt as well as saffron-flavored salt next. If you are interested in knowing more about cooking with the world’s favorite seasoning, may I suggest SALT by Valerie Aikman-Smith. Or, go to The Meadow, a small speciality food purveyor (salts) located in Portland, Oregon, and the West Village, New York City. I’ve ordered products from them on line with great results.
“Salt has been a prized possession since the beginning of civilization,” Aikman-Smith writes. It was once a form of currency and wars have been won and lost over it. Nations have been taxed on their salt. In China, salt tax revenues were used to build the Great Wall. There are salt routes all over the world that were used to transport salt from continent to continent. At one time salt was so precious it was traded ounce for ounce with gold.”
Basil-flavored Salt can be used in many different foods, given as a gift, or included in your holiday food baskets.
“A wise woman puts a grain of sugar into everything she says to a man, and takes a grain of salt with everything he says to her.” Helen Rowland (English-American writer, 1876-1950)
(My daughter Melissa, who is also a writer and has her own site, flyingnotscreaming, wrote this week’s French Fridays with Dorie post.)
by Melissa Myers Place
One of the things I admire most about my mother is her unwavering determination. When she sets her sights on a goal, she works steadily and doggedly, looking neither left nor right, until she reaches her destination. So when she called last week to tell me that her husband of twenty-six years died after a decade-long struggle with Alzheimer’s, I knew that in the days that followed one of the things we would be doing was a little French cooking. It is with no disrespect to Michael that in amongst making necessary phone calls, discussing future plans, and revisiting favorite memories of the man we both loved, we would be making sure my mother did not miss her French Fridays with Dorie deadline. And Michael, who was always the most proud of Mary, would not have wanted it any other way.
For those of you who don’t know, French Fridays with Dorie is an online cooking group. Members are cooking their way through Dorie Greenspan’s latest book Around My French Table, and each Friday they post their results on their own foodie site. (All 50 or so members cook the same recipe each week.) It is a Greenspan love fest, and some followers have taken to calling themselves “Doristas.”
Despite the fact that at one point in my life I earned my living by cooking, I was a little intimidated when my mom handed me Greenspan’s weighty volume. I know from following my mother’s weekly posts for the past eighteen months that these Doristas are SERIOUS about cooking. And the French Fridays with Dorie commitment is not for the faint of heart. Week after week, these dedicated food enthusiasts fearlessly venture out onto a new cooking limb, and yes, Greenspan has simplified each dish as much as possible, but it is still Frenchcooking for goodness sakes.
“I hope it’s an easy recipe,” I said, as my mother looked up our Friday cooking assignment. What I meant was I hoped the recipe didn’t require the mysterious technique of braising or call for ingredients outside of my comfort zone such as phyllo dough or lamb shanks.
Luckily for me, this week’s recipe was Crunchy Ginger-Pickled Cucumbers. I love cucumbers, pickled or not, and had picked up two at the market earlier that day. I skimmed the recipe’s preface. Greenspan describes these pickles as a “hotter, hunkier take on traditional thinly sliced cucumbers in vinegar.” The description tickled me. I haven’t heard a variation on the word “hunk” since I was in junior high. I flipped to the back flap and took a good look at the bespectacled Greenspan who the New York Times calls a “culinary guru.” I decided if Greenspan could use the words “hot” and “hunky” to describe a French dish, then I could make it.
As my mother read aloud the ingredient list, I prayed we didn’t have to make another run to the store. These days even the simplest errands seem momentous. “Can you substitute ingredients?” I asked.
My mother looked horrified. “NO!” she whispered, as if afraid the other Doristas could hear.
I realized at that moment that this was even more serious than I previously thought. And, that I would have to be on my best cooking behavior because I tend to be a sloppy cook: I don’t measure and I rarely follow a recipe exactly or even closely. I hadn’t felt so much pressure since I caught a frying pan on fire during a tryout for a cooking position, but for my mom, I was going to try with all my might to channel the Dorista spirit.
“Are you going to create your mise en place?” She asked as she headed to the other room to sort through some paperwork.
“What does Mikhail Gorbachev have to do with it?” I asked. My mom sighed, and I yet again regretted not paying more attention during my French language courses in college.
“Just take a lot of photos” was my mom’s parting advice.
Consulting the Dorista Bible closely, I gathered all the required ingredients, and arranged them carefully on a cutting board. Forty photos and twenty minutes later, I was finally ready to begin.
Mise en place for Hot and Hunky Cucumbers
“How’s it going?” my mom called. “It’s pretty quiet in there. Are you okay?”
“I’m just about ready to start,” I called back. “Could’ve made this five times by now,” I mumbled to myself.
And it was true. As I am committed to avoiding processed food, I have to cook fast to keep up with the food needs of my family of four. But taking the photos and documenting each step on the notepad by my elbow slowed the cooking process considerably. My admiration for Greenspan’s followers was growing by the minute.
I was glad I’d happened to purchase seedless cucumbers so I could eliminate a couple of steps, but I had to call my mom into the kitchen to double-check that I was cutting the cucumbers into the correct hunky shape. I carefully salted the cucumbers (holding back a little as I doubled the recipe and a full teaspoon of salt seemed like a lot), and while they stood for the required 30 minutes, I prepped and mixed the remaining ingredients.
Salted cucumber hunks
I have to confess that I have a love/hate relationship with fresh ginger. I love when it comes to the party, but don’t like when it hogs all the attention. I’ve found in the past that fine grating the ginger helps release the flavor, but eliminates the unpleasant stringy texture. Not able to locate my mom’s fine grater, I used her larger-holed grater and then minced the strands finer with a knife, hoping that Greenspan wouldn’t mind.
Grated and minced ginger
I combined the seasoned rice wine mixture with the drained cucumbers . . . and that was it. I scanned Greenspan’s recipe again to make sure I hadn’t overlooked a step. It had been almost too easy. I tasted a hunky cucumber chunk. I was disappointed by the blandness and wondered if I had been mistaken in doubting Greenspan regarding the salt amount. With a disappointed sigh, I put my Hot and Hunky Cucumbers (as I’d taken to calling them) into the fridge to chill.
Later that night, even though my mother and I were especially missing Michael and feeling pretty low, we headed to a small Fourth of July gathering with a few close friends, pickled cucumbers in hand. We were warmly welcomed by our lovely host and hostess, and each party member bravely took a spoonful of pickled cucumbers onto their plate. And to my great surprise, the cucumbers were good. As Greenspan already knows and I am beginning to learn, sometimes nothing helps like time. It helped my cucumbers, and it will help the grieving, sad hearts of my mom and me.
Although I will be happy to return to posting weekly personal essays on my own site–a much easier feat than the French Fridays with Dorie commitment–I enjoyed my foray into the world of Greenspan. I learned a thing or two, but mostly I discovered what a wonderful group of people you all are. My mother and I have been so grateful for the outpouring of kindness and support from the French Fridays with Dorie community this past week. It has been truly remarkable, and has proven that you Doristas are made of the very best ingredients.
Chilled Corn and Crab Salad, a delicious addition to your summer salad choices.
Sometimes it takes a village. Isn’t that how it goes? This week’s definitely spectacular summer salad has been a community effort. My prediction: you’re going to love it.
Shortly after arriving in Aspen, just barely having gotten unpacked and organized, a friend and I jumped in the car and drove to Denver to see the Yves Saint Laurent Retrospective at the Denver Art Museum. The exhibit, a sweeping march through the designer’s forty years of creativity, opened in Paris before going to Madrid, with a last stop in Denver.
The show was well worth the four-hour drive to and fro. Betty and I enjoyed, after my eight-year absence from Colorado, our two wonderful days together. As usual, much of our discussion revolved around food. My friend is no slouch when it comes to cooking and baking. In fact, Julia sat at her table a time or two, so I’m always interested in what she has to say. She inspires me.
As a amateur home cook, I always gather my ingredients together, checking to see I have everything I need. The French call it Mise en Place.
Before returning to Aspen, she suggested we detour to a little-known European bakery in Avon. What a discovery! Their coconut macaroons? I wish I’d bought more. The baguettes. Oh là là. Continuing on our culinary tour, her next stop was Gypsum where the only Costco in the High Country is located. Yes, if you live in the mountains, it’s a 135-mile round trip to a Costco. So if you’re passing by, you stop.
That’s where I bought a pound of crab meat.
The salad, ready to be folded together. The corn has cooled to room temperature, the crab and minced sweet pepper mixed together, the dressing whisked, and the cilantro ready to be chopped.
After returning to Aspen I received this e-mail from my Nevada neighbor, Michelle. “I know you are looking for good salads for the summer. I am making this tonight, it is so delicious! I substitute cilantro for the basil and serve it over Bibb lettuce leaves, sliced tomato and sliced avocado. I used a red jalapeño pepper and it was just hot enough. That and some good crusty bread makes the perfect meal! “
The nearby El Jebel grocery store had just stocked fresh ears of corn. (Don’t you love these towns’ names?) I needed fresh spices but my neighbor, Karen, had already urged me to harvest her overabundance of herbs.
So that’s my story and the reason this week’s Summer = Salads recipe is Chilled Corn and Crab Salad.
Chilled Corn and Crab Salad served on thinly-sliced tomato .
For my purposes I wanted this salad to be more about the crab than the corn. However, being Iowa born and bred, I urge you to make the extra effort (and, mess) and use fresh corn. I substituted a sweet petite mini pepper for the Thai chile because I didn’t want the heat, just the color. Like Michelle, I used cilantro instead of basil.
Chilled Corn and Crab Salad served with Corn Cakes garnished with homemade guacamole.
This salad seems so clean cut to me. It looks nutritious and acts healthy. Although there are many ways to serve this dish, I served one plate rather plainly, accompanied only by corn cakes garnished with guacamole. For the guacamole, I never stray from Rosa Mexicano Restaurant’s recipe. (The corn cakes are the upcoming FFwithDorie recipe which you’ll read about later this week.) For the other luncheon plate, I piled the salad onto farmers market tomato slices.
Long ago, when visiting Manhattan, I tasted Rosa’s guacamole at her restaurant. Never have I tasted better so I still stick to her recipe.
This would be a mighty tasty and luxurious addition to any buffet table, potluck dinner or picnic. It’s a salad that can be transported quite easily – thrown in a Ziploc bag, stashed in the cooler. It won’t wilt, break apart, or get its feelings hurt. Hopefully, you’ll agree this is a yummy addition to your summer salad list.
Chilled Corn and Crab Salad
Adapted from Martha Stewart Living, September 2007, and Michelle Morgando.
Serves 6 Luncheon Portions/12 Potluck or Buffet Portions
Ingredients
3-4 tablespoons olive oil or grapeseed oil
3 cups fresh corn kernels (from about 5-6 ears of corn)
1 small red onion, finely chopped (about 1/2 cup)
4 tablespoons fresh lemon juice
1 teaspoon of sugar
1 sweet petite mini red pepper, diced
16 ounces lump crabmeat (about 2 cups)
2 tablespoon coarsely chopped fresh cilantro
1-2 teaspoon coarse salt
Freshly ground pepper, to taste
Directions
1. Heat 1 to 2 teaspoons oil in a nonstick skillet over medium heat. Add corn and cook until tender, about 3-5 minutes. Remove from heat. Stir in onion. Let cool to room temperature.
2. Whisk together lemon juice and sugar. Drizzle in remaining tablespoon plus 1 teaspoons oil, whisking until combined.
3. Combine corn-onion mixture, pepper, crabmeat, and cilantro. Fold in lemon dressing. Salt and pepper to taste.
4. Cover, and refrigerate until chilled, at least 30 minutes, preferably 2 hours. Serve plain or garnished with cilantro leaves or guacamole. Enjoy.
Colorado’s state flower, the white and lavender columbine (Aquilegia caerulea) is commonly known as the Rocky Mountain columbine. Its journey to become the Colorado state flower began near the end of the 19th century in 1891 when Colorado school children voted the Rocky Mountain columbine their favorite flower (The cactus came in second place!). These columbine, pictured above and discovered while hiking near the Capitol Creek trail, are uniquely white in color.
The Verdict is In: A Watermelon without pips (seeds) is not a real Watermelon.
Whoever invented watermelons without seeds did a grave injustice to summertime. Is there anyone among us whose childhood didn’t include a seed-spitting competition?
This is what came to mind as I prepared this week’s summer salad choice, Watermelon, Feta and Black Olive Salad. I first spotted this recipe in Nigella Lawson’s ForeverSummer cookbook published in 2003. Oprah adapted it for her August 2006 issue and Martha highlighted it in an July-August 2007 issue. When a food blogging colleague recently reminded me of this tasty Greek combo, I pulled out my cookbook.
This salad stands out in any crowd.
Since I’m back in Colorado where summer is synonymous with potlucks, I see this as a perfect contribution to a food table. This Mediterranean salad is splashy, stealing center stage from the traditional potato salad and coleslaw. It’s tasty, with no hidden players. Everything – melon, olives, feta and red onions – are independent but swing well with each other. This salad likes to travel and will hold up just fine, if need be. A big crowd? It doubles or triples easily.
The lime juice enables the red onion slices to blush.
Maybe the Greeks can’t balance their budget but they sure can create a razzle-dazzle salad.
Nigella Lawson’s Watermelon, Feta and Black Olive Salad
Forever Summer (2003)
Serves: 8
INGREDIENTS
(the only adaption I made was exchanging walnut oil for olive oil and adding toasted chopped walnuts)
1 small red onion
2-4 limes, depending on juiciness (the more, the better, I think)
1.5 kg (3.3 lbs ) sweet, ripe watermelon
250g (1 cup) feta cheese
Bunch fresh flat-leaf parsley
Bunch fresh mint, chopped
3-4 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil ( I used walnut oil)
100g ( 1/3 to 1/2 cup) pitted black olives
1/2 cup toasted chopped walnuts (my addition)
Black pepper
METHOD
Serves: 8
1.Peel and halve the red onion and cut into very fine half-moons. Put in a small bowl to steep with the lime juice and bring out the transparent pinkness in the onions and diminish their rasp.
2. Remove the rind and pips (seeds) from the watermelon, and cut into triangular chunks (see picture). Cut the feta into similar sized pieces and put them both into a large, wide shallow bowl. Tear off sprigs of parsley so that it is used like a salad leaf, rather than a garnish, and add to the bowl along with the chopped mint.
3. Pour the onions, along with their pink juices, over the salad already in the bowl. Add the oil, olives and nuts. Using your hands, toss the salad very gently so that the feta and melon don’t lose their shape. Grind black pepper to taste and add more lime juice, if needed.
Note: I bought a seedless (without pips) watermelon for this salad. I didn’t think it had the flavor of the regular watermelons I usually purchase. Not a scientific study, however.
Odds are, when you’re planning a Sunday supper menu, homemade pizza with Lime Honey Beet Salad would not appear in the same sentence. Just not palate-pleasing, huh? Let’s follow that with dessert, homemade-homemade Limoncello Sorbet. The first homemade is for the limoncello, an Italian lemon liqueur, which two neighbors and I produced during the last two months. The second homemade is the sorbet we made using Little Darlin’, our ice cream maker.
Scrubbed, roasted, peeled, sliced and mixed with cider vinegar, lime zest and juice, honey, olive oil and spices, result in a very tasty colorful beet salad.
Probably this is a meal to serve only blood relatives, those family members who already love you unconditionally. That’s why my neighbors, Michelle and Adriana, and I invited only our families to supper. For safety’s sake, Michelle suggested we throw a green, leafy salad into the mix. Why not?
Adriana’s husband, Bob, served as grill master, sommelier and Bob-of-all-Trades
Agreed, it was a mishmash of flavors and tastes but everything seemed to work. If you recall, we have 50 pounds of pizza flour to use this Summer so we got busy and made six different kinds of Sicilian-crust pizzas. What was especially delightful was the long and lazy supper, taking our time to evaluate a pair of pizzas before grilling more. Enjoying the beets, the greens and the conversation.
We sprinkled our paddles with corn meal so the pizzas could be easily transferred to the stones. This time, a classic margherita and a Provencal pizza.
Those little pesky grape tomatoes, on the roll……..Adriana to the rescue.
After tasting that limoncello sorbet, it’s going to be hard to keep me down on the farm. I just may have closed the barn door on my perennial favorites, vanilla, chocolate and strawberry. Sunday supper with family? What could be better than that? If you want to make this beet salad, go here for the recipe. If you wish to see the improvisations of other Doristas this week, beet a path to this site.
Limoncello Sorbet
Recipe by Adriana Scrima
Preparation:
10 minutes + cooling time, 25 – 30 minutes chilling time; 2 hours to ripen in freeze minimum. Makes eight 1/2 – cup servings.
Ingredients:
2 cups sugar
2 cups water
1 – 1/2 cups freshly squeezed lemon juice
1 tablespoon finely chopped lemon zest from one of the lemons used (use a vegetable peeler to remove the colored part of the citrus rind)
1 – shot glass of Limoncello
Combine sugar and water in a medium saucepan and bring to a boil over medium-high heat. Reduce heat to low and simmer without stirring until the sugar dissolves, about 3 – 5 minutes. Cool completely. This is called a simple syrup, and may be made ahead in larger quantities to have on hand for making fresh lemon sorbet. Keep refrigerated until ready to use.
When cool, add the lemon juice and zest; stir to combine. Turn the machine ON, pour the lemon mixture into freezer bowl through ingredient spout and mix until thickened, about 25 – 30 minutes and maybe longer if you are going to add Limoncello because it is alcohol and it does impede the freezing process.
When adding Limoncello the alcohol needs to be added during the last two minutes of the freezing process.
Since the holidays are just six months away, I’m starting to put together and create note cards, gift enclosures, and a food label collection for my personal holiday giving. This year I’m doing a set and playing with culinary words (the beet/beat idea) and wanted to share them with you. Thank you for indulging me and being guinea pigs.
An early supper, prior to showtime, roasted chicken, céleri rémoulade and a baguette.
Since a trip to France is in my near future, it’s time to dust off the grammar books, pull out the flashcards and begin listening to Michael Thomas’ “Speak French” CD’s. He may be touted as “the language teacher to the world” but, truthfully, I find him very irritating. Still, I listen and repeat, over and over again.
The highlight of my summer schedule, to reward myself for daily disciplined study, is French film night. Once a week I order a film and settle in.
L’Affaire Farewell, a spy thriller based on a true Russian espionage event which occurred during the Cold War era in the Eighties.
Although I always block the English subtitles, after twenty minutes I usually fold and turn “English” on (but try not to peek). Tonight I’m watching “L’Affaire Farewell”, an espionage thriller set at the height of the cold war (1981). It’s based on a true story involving a KGB official and a French engineer. Sounds good, don’t you think?
To set the mood, I picked up a roasted chicken from my butcher, bought a baguette and prepared Céleri Rémoulade, a classic French starter/salad and #3 of my summer salad recipes. Americans sometimes compare this dish to coleslaw. Although celery root is considered a winter vegetable, I found these handsome devils at my local farmers market last week-end.
These little balls of bumps are happy being called céleri or celeriac or celery root. Your choice.
This was quite simple to put together, was a perfect compliment to the chicken, and would be just as delicious with a steak or the like. I’ve tasted Céleri Rémoulade so many times when in France and am happy to now know how to make it myself.
The celeri, after being grated in the food processor. It’s time to mix in salt and lemon juice.
The mustard, mayonnaise dressing.
CÉLERI RÉMOULADE
Adapted from Ida Garten’s Barefoot in Paris cookbook, Celery Root Rémoulade, p. 94.
Céleri Rémoulade
Serves Six
Ingredients
2 pounds celery root
3 teaspoons kosher salt
3 tablespoons freshly squeezed lemon juice
1 cup mayonnaise
1 tablespoon Dijon mustard
1 tablespoon whole-grain mustard
2 teaspoons Champagne vinegar (or, white wine vinegar)
2 tablespoons capers
5 cornichons, chopped
2 tablespoons chopped parsley
Pinch freshly ground black pepper
Directions
Wash the celeriac (also called celery root) well. Using a sharp knife, peel off all the celeriac’s brown outer portions. Cut the celery root into thin matchsticks with a mandoline, or grate them in a food processor fitted with the coarsest grating blade. I applied pressure to the pieces as I fed the chunks through the feeder. Place the celery root in a large bowl, sprinkle with 2 teaspoons of the salt, 2 tablespoons of lemon juice and mix gently. Allow to stand at room temperature for about 30 minutes.
Meanwhile, in a small bowl whisk together the mayonnaise, the 2 mustards, the remaining tablespoon of lemon juice, the vinegar, the remaining teaspoon of salt and the pepper.
Add enough dressing to lightly moisten the salad and to your taste. Stir in the capers and cornichons. Save the extra sauce to add, if needed, just before serving when you also add the chopped parsley. Serve cold or at room temperature.
