Back In Action

after an impromptu four-month hiatus, The Egg Plant will once again be posting regularly, just in time to show off my new fancy kitchen instruments including a huge cast iron dutch oven and a double boiler!

ICNB4: Battle Asparagus

Tonight's battle, asparagus, was truly a feast. On account of our supermarket challenge, when the secret ingredient was revealed, it was virtually the only bit of produce in the apartment. Though it seemed like a big challenge to cook without so much as one onion or more than a quarter of a lemon, the ingredient pulled through. How much Frencher can you get than asparagus, and, seriously, how many ingredients do you need for French food? If you've got French food in mind, all you need is a ton of garlic, some butter, and eggs. with these, the possibilities are pretty much endless in French cuisine. I set to work on an appetizer of asparagus spears bound with fried eggs and topped with garlicky hollandaise, a cream of asparagus and green bean soup, and a pasta dish with asparagus in a garlic/white wine sauce. A very light menu, and pretty easy. We leisurely cooked through our hour and a half time limit with very little rush, and, despite an unfortunate blender gasket incident ending in a river of asparagus soup and severe miscommunication about who was supposed to salt what and how much salt that should have entailed, the meal turned out remarkably delicious, and really demonstrated the French paradox: The food coma that set in after the first course really prevented us from consuming any sizable portion of the butter-laden fare.



Blanch Asparagus. Gently saute three spears. When they start to blister a tiny bit, crack an egg over them. Sprinkle with Parmesan and pepper, and fry until whites are set.
For the garlic Hollandaise, mash some garlic and salt (non-iodized, please) in a mortar, and place is a bowl with two egg yolks, 1 tbsp of water and 1 tbsp of lemon juice. whisk over hot water until creamy and bright yellow. Remove from heat and add four oz of butter, 1/2 oz at a time, until sauce is a creamy, coating consistency.



Saute asparagus and garlic in a little butter. Add asparagus blanching water and vegetable stock. bring to a simmer and hold for a few minutes. Blend with a can of green beans, some basil leaves, and more butter. Return to pan and stir in 1 cup of instant milk powder. Simmer. Season and thicken with an egg.




blanch asparagus tips and slices. boil pasta. Saute asparagus and garlic slices in butter with salt, pepper, and chili flake. Deglaze with white wine and lemon juice. stir in pasta and basil chiffonade. Serve with Parmesan.


Dissolve into an oh-so-French food coma, and indulge in existential literature.

Waste not, want not

I'm going to come right out and say it: organics are a bunch of bull.

I'm not really against the concept of organically grown produce, but I'll be the first to point out to you how sad it is that our society has reached a point where the only way you could have possibly made food just a hundred years ago is now a hip, niche market trend that very few people can afford. And don't get me started on the farm bill and the ever-lessening standards for what counts as organic - that's another post.
What I'm trying to say is that buying organic products isn't the only, or even the best, way to lessen your footprint and connect to your food. Cookbooks like Fannie Farmer and Better Homes and Gardens just might be. You can buy all the organic mac and cheese you want without understanding the origins of the food you eat, but when you learn how to make that food yourself, you'll understand exactly.
Think of how little you'd waste if you had to make everything from scratch. Everything would be precious, everything would be a unique creation. Food would become more personal, less nutrition than art. it would be much harder to toss the last pickle if you crafted it yourself.
I think that what scares people most about making food from absolute scratch isn't always the time commitment, it's miseducation. People no longer understand how to make simple foodstuffs such as bread and pickles. The process seems mind-boggling, insurmountable, and, above all, dangerous. To someone with nowhere to begin, the simple process of baking bread seems like a tedious laboratory experiment that will probably fail, and the idea of pickling conjures up images of petri dishes growing lethal bacteria. It can definitely be daunting.
Armed with in-depth cookbooks from eras past, and an fear of foodbourne illness that has lead to an encyclopedic knowledge of the topic, I dive head-first into home-canning, bread-baking, cheese-making, and other lost arts. Every Wednesday I'm going to report on one such experiment, attempting to make it approachable to even the most timid of home cooks. My first topic: Sun-dried tomatoes.

Sun Dried Tomatoes are expensive. Daaaaaaaaamn. You would think they used tomatoes made out of gold. I am not part of the population that can afford sun-dried tomatoes, so when I saw some only mildly blemished tomatoes on the damaged shelf at A&P (alright, so I stepped foot in a grocery store- but I didn't go grocery shopping, so it's OK), I just had to try to make some. After reviewing a couple of recipes, I had my game plan ready. it was simple, really.
First, wash and trim your tomatoes, and Preheat the oven to 200. Damaged tomatoes are good for this, because you won't notice any damage after they've shriveled up. Roma tomatoes can be halved, cherry tomatoes left whole, and larger tomatoes cut into wedges. I cut mine into sixths.
Arrange the wedges on a baking sheet and sprinkle LIBERALLY with KOSHER salt. That's probably the mot important part. Sprinkle on tons and tons of salt so all that moisture can wick away from the tomatoes, and make it kosher so that the salt crystals don't leave with all that juice. next sprinkle with some Italian herbs and pepper, just enough to season it a little.
Drizzle with olive oil and balsamic vinegar, or just oil, if you please, and stick in the oven.



The Next Most Important Part: DON'T OPEN THE OVEN! just let it do its thing for the next 6-8 hours, and then check on it. Opening the oven door is only going to make the whole process slower.
When you check on the tomatoes, they should look like this:



If they don't, leave them in until they do. If they do, take them out before they burn. You can keep them covered in oil, in the fridge, for a couple weeks, or freeze indefinitely.
After doing all that cooking and witnessing ll that shrinkage, it's easy to appreciate the price of sun dried tomatoes, and now I'm just a little closer to where my food comes from.

ICNB3: Battle Chard

Last night's battle was by far our most successful one so far. Dan got a a big beautiful bunch of Swiss Chard for the secret ingredient, and honestly, I was a little worried. I've only cooked with chard once, and it was a disaster. I overcooked the tops and undercooked the stems (which is really, really bad for you- always cook stalks that color until they absolutely melt, or you risk bitter tastes, kidney stones, and other nasty side effects.)
But this time I stepped up to the plate. Right off the bat I put Sous Chef Dan to work on a pasta dough and sauteed half my bunch with some onion. I then put on a pot of sugar water, started breaking down some of the stunningly bright stems, shocked some tomatoes, and mysteriously blended a flounder fillet with some egg.
My plan? Chard ravioli with homemade tomato sauce, Stir fried greens with fish balls, and Swiss chard tart.

Swiss Chard Tart?!?!

Yes, swiss chard tart. My concern over all foods toxic led me to realize that swiss chard, with its mildly irritant thin red stalk, is very similar in composition to its poisonous, thick stemmed cousin, rhubarb. Enough sugar, and my chard would be reduced to a delicious pink syrup suitable for any baked good.



Ravioli filling and stalks for dessert



still life with fish balls:
Stir-fried chard and bok choy with fish balls in a fish sauce, coconut milk, and lime vinagrette

The fish balls were a hit, although not as good as the traditional surimi ones you get at a restaurant, and the ravioli were fantastic, if thick. I impressed myself on that one, and I was even more impressed by the sauce that Dan managed to pull together for them with very little guidance: it had a nice acidity and was very rich, which worked perfectly against the earthy chard filling in the too-thick pasta. And the Swiss Chard tart? Perfect. Served with ice cream, It was a perfect dessert: the crust was flaky, the syrup was thick, and the chard was every bit as sweet and sour as the best rhubarb pie.

Chard ravioli with tomato sauce

When will the leftovers end?

Fact: we haven't been grocery shopping in at least two weeks.
The last time we went was a $20 spree at the hong kong supermarket, (that's actually a lot of money at the hong kong supermarket) and our stockpile of Asian vegetables has been reduced to a half of a bag of baby bok choy.
July's slew of parties has provided us with an ample supply of leftovers to peruse, and somehow, even as we near the end of the leftovers, the fridge, not to mention the freezer, is paradoxically full. I think it's time for some summer cleaning. The freezer is a no man's land. I must brave the storm of salsa verde, papaya sauce, Meatless meatballs, "octopus stock," and rolls, piles upon piles of rolls.
I froze these items as a defensive tactic in the fight against food waste, but the battle seems hardly won when I open the freezer and am hit in the head with a container of zucchini fritter batter and a bag of mozzarella sticks, both suspended in the place between uh-oh-i-made-too-much-of-this and just-throw-it-all-out. And I really don't want it to get to that stage.
And so we embark on a challenge: to not go grocery shopping until all there is to eat is rice and mayonnaise. This plan is probably the best way for anyone to not waste food, because if you stick to it, you're going to eventually have to eat the strange cans that accumulate in the back of the cupboard as well as the pickles you bought three months ago, instead of occasionally moving them around and finally throwing them out over serious doubts that they are safe to eat anymore.
And the best part, I get to rehash recipes I made before I started this blog!

allez leftovers!

This is a great way to use up seemingly disjointed leftovers: Iron chef them!
After a raucous party at my parent's house, Dan and I were awash in bizarre leftovers just in time for our weekly installment of Iron Chef: New Brunswick. I advised him to pick one leftover for me to include, and that I would try to use as many leftovers as possible in my dishes. It was a difficult choice, given the possible list of a bag of pretzels, mustard, two jugs of wine, various crudites, fruit salad, sour cream, about two pounds of pickles and olives, lasagna, and cake, among others, but his pick was sensible: A bag of cucumber slices. I set to work.
First, I mysteriously filled a jar with white wine, cucumber cubes, green pepper cubes, and a sliver of scotch bonnet pepper. Into the fridge it went, confounding my announcers (Dan).

I needed desperately to get rid of those olives and pickles, not to mention the sour cream, so I quickly whipped up a traditional polish dish, mizeria, which consists of thinned sour cream with chopped cucumbers, pickles, and olives. I served it as a dip for all the cut up vegetables that i had acquired, as well as some from my own stock that weren't going to last much longer. Not bad, and Dan approved despite his avowed hatred of sour cream.

A third dish took advantage of a nub of wan purple cabbage and a single anorexic scallion that have been in my fridge for two weeks: cucumber-laden spring rolls. They contain some staples that I always have on hand as well: bean threads, ginger, fish sauce, and lime. Not the prettiest spring rolls I've made, but certainly delicious.

The sleeper hit of the night turned out to be my mysterious jar of wine and vegetables. After an hour in the fridge, It got a squeeze of lime juice and a dash of salt, and was poured into glasses with a little lime seltzer. Delicious! The cucumbers and green peppers are really refreshing, and the hot peppers added an occasional bite as well as a background spiciness for the whole drink. We decided that it would be a great signature drink for an upcoming dinner party, but what to call it? After a brainstorm session, starting out with the unappetizing 'gazpacho spritzer' and the slightly better 'veggie sangria,' we decided upon 'sangria blanca.' Pretty, no?

Spinach Stuffed Flounder with Balsamic Reduction

Last night I was able to thoroughly redeem any transgressions I had made against food in Sunday night's Lime Soup Incident, and, after dreaming all day about reduced balsamic vinegar, made this delicious dish:




The recipe:

Cook about 3/4 lb of spinach and blend into a paste with five cloves of garlic, some salt, pepper, and lemon juice. Soften up some butter and cool the spinach mixture so that you can pound everything into a smooth paste. Line up some big spinach leaves slightly longer than the length of your fish fillet, and place your fillet on them. Spread the mixture on the fish, and roll up with the leaves like a pinwheel. Bake at 400 degrees.

Meanwhile, Boil some water for spaghetti and reduce about 1/2 cup balsamic vinegar and 1/4 cup red wine with some garlic, a couple teaspoons of caster sugar, red pepper flake, and a dash of lemon juice. Reduce it until it coats the back of a spoon quite nicely.

When the spaghetti is done, drain it and saute a couple garlic cloves in the pot with olive oil. This should take about 30 seconds. The garlic shouldn't be brown at all. A dash of lemon juice, red pepper flake, salt and pepper, and in goes the drained pasta to saute for a moment.

Serve the fish cut on a bias, drizzled with the reduction, next to a nest of spaghetti. Bon Appetit!