It Might as Well be Spring

Today's weather was amazing. I will dare say that the spring has finally arrived, and with it all things spring. My neighborhood was full of renewed life this weekend as people strolled the sidewalks, setting out for cafes, plant nurseries, grocery stores, and parks. The time of salad dinners has finally returned. On my balcony, somehow the chives survived the boston winter and have sprouted up again out of the dried brown remains of its neighbor plants in one of my pots, providing us the first local produce of the year. I snipped some today for what turned out to be a really delicious salad: organic baby romaine, with panko crusted goat crottin new england Macintosh apples, and wholegrain mustard vinaigrette. This was so good, it merits a recipe:

Serves 2

1 (5. oz) package organic baby greens
1 tasty apple
2 small goat cheese crottins (I used a french 'crottin de Champcol' 60g, which had absolutely the perfect consistency and flavor for this salad, but you can use one larger one or a slice of boucheron and cut it in half)
1/3 cup of panko style breadcrumbs
1 egg, beaten
1/4 cup potato or corn starch
1 cup corn or peanut oil for frying

vinaigrette

1 large shallot, diced
1/2 tsp sea salt
fresh ground pepper
2 tsp assertive red wine vinegar (your everyday regina won't do here, it must have stronger acidity and more pronounced flavor to balance the fat in the cheese and the sweetness of the apple).
3 tbs good quality olive oil1
1 tsp whole grain mustard
1 tbs chopped chives

Wash and thoroughly dry the greens, set aside.

Prepare the vinaigrette, place the diced shallot in a medium jar, with the vinegar and salt, and let it sit for a few minutes to soften the flavor of the shallots and dissolve the salt. Add the other ingredients, screw on the lid and shake. Taste it on one of the salad leaves, and correct for acidity and salt. It should have a strong acidic bite to it, so add more vinegar if necessary or more oil if it tastes harsh.

Prepare the crottin. Coat the cheese with corn starch, followed by the beaten egg, and finally coat in the panko. Fry in a small saucepan in enough hot oil to coat (or nearly coat and you can flip it), until golden brown. Place the crottin in a 350 degree oven to heat all the way through and keep warm, at least 15 minutes or until ready to serve.

Assemble the salad. Toss the greens with vinaigrette, plate. Slice the apples thinly and arrange on plate and drizzle with additional vinaigrette. Finally plate the cheese, and garnish with additional chives.


Yesterday's dinner was a late night affair, we ended up eating around 1am. It was really fast and delicious. Fresh black pepper fettuccine with tomato sauce, italian sausage, and button mushrooms. It's so easy to make good tomato sauce just from canned tomatoes and garlic, so I don't know why anyone buys those little jars of evil.




My friend melanie came to visit this week. We used to live together in a vegetarian co-op in college. It was a brief visit, but it was nice to catch up and cook at least one meal. We made hand-rolled vegetable sushi. It was my first attempt at making thick japanese omelet dashi maki tamago and without the special square omelet pan. It certainly seemed like a disaster when I was making it, as folding the thin layers of cooked egg over and over was a much messier business then my recipe suggested, and I thought I was going to end up with scrambled eggs. But to my surprise it came out pretty close. I also made marinated tofu and used up the last of a jar of kimchee. My photographer was asleep, unfortunately, and the camera had only enough batteries for one picture before it died, so I'm afraid this doesn't show this off as well as I would like, but it was tasty.

the seaweed is always greener . . .

So my evergreen friend--who incidentally just got back from a trip to Nepal and has posted beautiful pictures and clever prose on her knitting blog--pointed me toward another food blog. While it is indeed a beautiful blog with beautiful pictures, it was highly envy inducing, and it wouldn't take to much to make me trade in the life of a boston grad student, for one of a culinary traveler in Japan (well, pretty much money is all it would take). Just think of how much you would learn just by eating and grocery shopping there. The variety of regional specialty produce is amazing. The agricultural system is like the other side of the looking glass from the U.S.'s large-scale, commodity, mass market agriculture. At least they have done something interesting, creative, and aesthetically appreciable with the enormous amount of subsidies given to farmers. At any rate, my first move after seeing this blog was to imagine up a japanese-inspired dinner that would sooth my envy and convince me that Boston offers enough possibilities for creativity and beauty for the time being (and use up some of what was in the fridge). The result was clams in miso broth with seaweed noodles, tofu, and shitake mushrooms.

Crime and Punishment

So my apologies for not posting sooner, but I'm very sad to disclose that someone stole my laptop. A warning to everyone:, it takes literally less than a minute, and it can happen when your bag is within eyesight. In this case, while I was checking out a book in the music library, a space perhaps only twice as big and more open than my appartment. I saw someone suspiciously leave while I was checking out the book, and when I turned around to grab my bag, the laptop was gone. I hope whoever ended up with it enjoyed all of the food pictures before they reformatted it, or destroyed it for parts. Needless to say, this has taken its toll on my productivity, so I didn't have time to go grocery shopping, to clean the kitchen, and start cooking again until recently.
This picture attests to the clutter my life was in last week. Amid papers and piled up mail is a bowl of orecchiette with pesto and lentils.
Yesterday's dinner was a big hit, though it took an enormous amount of work. I made chicken biryani from some chicken I've had frozen for more than a month and all of the spices tat exist in the whole wide world. I suddenly understand why its a right of passage for young indian women to learn to prepare, 'full indian dinner.'


Tonight we had the leftovers, which had time to deepen their flavor, and I made some whole wheat naan, which were excellent.



This is a picture of the pho I made when I was home over spring break at my parents house, this is the enormous plate of thai basil and bean sprouts. We made the broth completely from scratch from ox tails, and made homemade beefballs, It took probably 7 hours and was a logistical nightmare. I don't know if its worth it, considering that restaurant pho is pretty good and really cheap. But, it was far and away the best pho I've ever made, and my family was very impressed.


Here I am, very focused, dishing out the pho.