Spring hasn’t exactly sprung yet here in Brooklyn. The trees are still bare and are showing no signs of sprouting anything. Even the crocuses, let alone the daffodils, remain mostly tuberly and dormant.

Nonetheless, there are some signs of the changing season as our long-suffering chives are poking through all bright green and soft, and our tough little tarragon plant is also making a comeback. And, it’s these weak, but brave, first signs that we’re clinging to in order to retain sanity at the end of what seems like a very long and cold winter.

So, with these hints of verdant optimism poking through the bare earth, we’re looking ahead to the increasing bounty of our tiny garden, and asking you to nominate your Top Five favorite herbs. This month’s winner will receive a package including various herb seeds and a cookbook/guidebook to growing your own essential culinary flavorings.  Click here to read the rules of our monthly top five giveaways.

Amy & Jonny’s Favorite Herbs:

1. tarragon
2. chives
3. lavender
4. thyme
5. sorrel

If spring has already sprung where you are, why not try our very delicious recipe for Grilled Lamb Shoulder Chop with a Yogurt Herb Sauce and Grilled Pita or this Lavender & Herb de Provence-stuffed Pork Rib Roast?  How about a simple and healthy Artichokes Stuffed with Parsely, Garlic and Parmigiano?

Think spring, readers! Think spring.

Check out WANF’s other Top 5 contests and winners here.

After that kick-a$$ cheesecake we devoured I figured that free pasta would pale in comparison.  Boy was I wrong.  As most of you know, we prefer savory food over sweets and I’d take a big, steaming bowl of perfectly al dente pasta over a cheesecake any day.  I’m serious here.  Garofalo’s pappardelle from their “signature line” did the trick. We paired this fabulously tasty pasta with a hearty Sausage Ragu and it held up while adding that perfect chew to the dish.

I know I go on and on (and on) about how important perfectly al dente pasta is to me, but I can’t imagine wasting a fabulous sauce on a crappy, soggy bit of pasta.  Too often if you follow the instructions on the back of a box of pasta you’ll be left with it way overcooked.  My rule of thumb is to always subtract two minutes from the given instructions and usually I get the perfect chew.  This time I decided to test Garofalo’s (hey, it was free) to see if their instructions were bang-on. 8 minutes is what it said and 8 minutes was all it needed.  Maybe they got it right because this pasta is actually made in Italy, “near the ruins of Pompeii”.  It actually tastes like it is made in Italy.  The other thing I love about Garofalo pasta is that they offer “different” pasta shapes besides the obvious penne, spaghetti and linguine.  Some of these specialty cuts include schiaffoni (large oval-shaped noodle) and calamarata (like thick-cut calamari rings).  These are the types of shapes I want to eat when I’m bored of the norm.

No lie – I highly recommend this pasta, especially along with our deliciously hearty sausage ragu.  In fact, I’m writing the rep from the company to ask where I can get some in Brooklyn.  I have a feeling I’ll have to harass the manager at my local grocery store to order some, but it will be worth it.

PAPPARDELLE WITH SAUSAGE AND PEA RAGU (serves 4)

Ingredients:

• 1 lb. pappardelle (dried or homemade)
• 1 lb. ground sausage meat (or sausage links taken out of the casings)
• 1 onion, finely diced
• 3 cloves garlic, finely minced
• 1 teaspoon fennel seed, crushed
• 1 28-oz. can of crushed tomatoes (preferably San Marzano)
• 1 cup of red wine
• 1 cup of peas (I used frozen)
• basil
• salt and pepper

What to do:

1. Saute your onions and garlic in some olive oil for a few minutes to get some color on them.  Add the sausage meat and break up with a wooden spoon.  Allow to brown for 2 to 3 minutes and then add the fennel seed and stir.
2. Add in the red wine and stir into the meat.  Allow to cook down for a minute.  Add the whole can of tomatoes.  Let this cook on medium-low and stir.  It will cook for about 20-30 minutes until all the flavors come together.
3. While the ragu comes together, boil some salted water.  About ten minutes before you’re ready to eat, boil your pasta till al dente and add directly into the ragu along with a 1/4 ladel-full of pasta water. Add peas.  Cook for 30 seconds, toss in some basil and plate.  Serve with parmigiano reggiano. Enjoy!

Last week I had off from work for our “midwinter” break.  It wasn’t a very relaxing week but cooking, for me, is very relaxing. Five hours of cooking can actually be quite relaxing as well.  And that’s what happened when I decided to take on the challenge that Joan of Foodalogue put in front of her readers – create a dish from Ethiopia.  I made six Ethiopian dishes and ingredients and, yes, it took me five hours to create all of it.  But, in the end it was all worth it.

Ethiopian cuisine is one that I have only recently become acquainted with and when I first tasted it, I was hooked.  While researching for this post I realized how little is out there on this fabulous cuisine.  Anthonly Bourdain recently said that he believed Ethiopian food would be the next big trend in eating and I have to agree that it should be.  It’s delicious, communal, flavorful, fun to eat and relatively healthy (except the ridiculously high amount of butter used in the dishes).  We’ll see if his prediction is correct.  I mean how can you go wrong when all you have to eat with is your hands and some deliciously sour, sponge and crepe-like bread called injera?

The two biggest staples of Ethiopian food are a spice mixture called berbere and a spiced clarified butter called niter kibbeh (see both recipe below).  Many Ethiopian recipes utilize one or both of these ingredients.  The other staple and accompaniment to Ethiopian food is injera bread which is traditionally made from a specific type of flour called teff and usually takes three days in order for it to ferment causing its sour taste.  I didn’t have teff flour so I utilized Saveur magazine’s recipe which wasn’t as delicious as the authentic type but did the trick.  Brushing lemon on the bread gave it a bit of the sour flavor I was craving.  As mentioned earlier, injera bread is used as your plate, fork, knife and spoon when eating Ethiopian food.  Your food will come in small piles scattered on a a big injera where you will tear off bits of the outside layer in order to get the food in your mouth.  You continue until you eventually have to eat the layer that has sopped up all the flavors of each dish you chose.  These are some of the best bits but you’ve got to get to the end of the meal to savor them.

Ethiopian food is like no other – it borrows ingredients from Portugal (chile peppers), the Orient (ginger) and India (spices) to create a taste that is very, well, Ethiopian and very different to anything you’ve ever eaten.  Most of the recipes found below are based on things found in the cookbook Exotic Ethiopian Cooking and a blend of other website recipes I found.  I recommend you all give Ethiopian a try, whether you have five hours to cook or have always been curious to try that Ethiopian restaurant down the street.  Vegetarians and non-pork eaters will have a field day and even the pickiest of eaters will enjoy this fun and fabulous cuisine.  So thank you, Joan, for pushing me to finally create Ethiopian food at home.  Now that I’ve done it I’ll be doing it again.  Now, I hope you will try your hand at it!

BERBERE (Ethiopian Spice Mix)

• 1/4 cup ground red pepper (about 8 Dried Chiles de Arbol, blitzed in a spice grinder)
• 1 teaspoon ground ginger
• 1 teaspoon garlic powder
• 1 teaspoon ground fenugreek
• 1 teaspoon ground cardamom (about 6-8 cardamom pods, blitzed in a spice grinder)
• 1/2 teaspoon ground nutmeg
• 1/2 teaspoon cloves (about 4-6 cloves blitzed in spice grinder)
• 1/2 teaspoon cinnamon
• 1/2 teaspoon ground allspice
• 3 tablespoons paprika
• 2 teaspoons dried onions, blitzed in grinder, or 2 tsp. onion powder
• 1 tablespoon salt and 1/2 tablespoon freshly ground black pepper

**Grind chiles in a spice grinder. Toast all seeds for about 3 minutes, allow to cool and add everything to spice grinder and blitz. 

NITER KIBBEH (Ethiopian Spiced Butter) – Makes about 1/3 cup – for the effort you may want to double or triple this recipe

• 1 stick + 1 tablepoon unsalted butter
• 1 inch piece of ginger, peeled and then grated on a microplane or grater
• 1 clove garlic, minced
• 1/4 red onion, finely chopped
• 1/4 teaspoon ground fenugreek
• 1/4 teaspoon ground cardamom
• 1/2 teaspoon tumeric
• 1/8 teaspoon nutmeg
• pinch of salt

What to do:

1. Melt butter on low heat and skim off the foamy, white layer that that floats to the top as butter melts (this is how you make clarified butter).
2. Add onion, garlic, ginger and spices and allow to cook on low heat for 15 minutes.
3. Turn heat off and allow to rest for 5 minutes.  Strain the butter mixture using a fine sieve or cheesecloth and store in a cool place.

YEKIK ALICHA (Ethiopian Split Peas)

• 1 cup yellow split peas, soaked for 1 hour
• 1 cup of water (or veggie stock)
• 1 cup chopped red onion
• 1 tablespoon ginger (1 inch piece, peeled and grated)
• 2 cloves garlic, minced
• 2 jalapeno peppers, minced
• 1 tablespoon nitir kibbeh (spiced butter)
• 1/2 teaspoon tumeric
• salt and pepper to taste

What to do:

1. Bring soaked split peas to a boil and then lower to simmer for 30 minutes.
2. Drain if there is extra water and then mash well (they will be very soft and will mash easily with a fork).
3. Add butter  to another pan and stir fry onion and garlic for a few minutes till onion is translucent.  Add ginger and spices and give a quick stir.  Add back the mashed split peas, jalapenos, salt and pepper and a cup of water (or veggie stock).  Reduce for a few minutes until you have a thick puree.  Serve on or with injera.

GOMEN (Stewed Collard Greens and Cottage Cheese)

• 1 lb collard greens, stems removed and chopped
• 1/2 lb of cottage cheese (about 10 ounces), drained
• 1 inch piece of ginger, peeled and grated
• 2 cloves of garlic, minced and smashed to a paste
• 2 tablespoons nitir kibbeh (spiced butter)
• salt and pepper to taste

What to Do:

1. Boil greens until tender.  Drain and press down to get rid of all the excess water. Finely chop greens.
2. Add butter to a pan and cook onions for five minutes then add ginger and garlic and cook for a minute or two. 
3. Add greens and stir. If you find it needs a bit of moisture, add a touch of water or stock.  Add salt and pepper to taste.
4. Transfer to a bowl and stir in drained cottage cheese.

ZIGNI WE’T (Ethiopian Spiced Beef Stew)

• 1 lb minced beef
• 1 1/2 cup chopped red onion
• 1/4 cup berbere
• 1/4 cup nitir kibbeh
• 1 tablespoon ground fenugreek
• 1 1/2 tablespoons ginger, peeled and minced
• 1/2 teaspoon cardamom
• 4 cloves garlic, minced
• 1/4 teaspoon cinnamon
• 2 cups water
• 1/2 cup wine (red or white)
• salt and pepper to taste

What to do:

1. Fry onions for a few minutes and add garlic and ginger.  Add berbere plus water, stir.
2. Add nitir kibbeh and sprinkle beef while stirring.  Allow all the beef to cook and all the liquid to be cooked away. 
3. Add rest of spices, stir. Allow to cook until meat is done, about 15 to 20 minutes.  Serve on or with injera.

Such was my mood then upon reading the latest issue of the magazine that is quickly overtaking Rachel Ray as WANFs bête noire. You see, the January edition of Bon Appetit focuses on what is calls “the new trend” of everything a cheval, or mounted by an egg, as it were, and quite apart from having spent a good part of our 2007-2008 oeuvre (pun intended) posting recipes and photos of various foods dressed in this way, we, quite pathetically perhaps, like to think of ourselves as in the comparative culinary vanguard and hate to be thought of as simply following a BA trend. So, before we go on, I would like to state, in no uncertain terms, that we not only made the subject of this post dish in October (towards the end of our self-indulgent egg sluttishness), but that our posting this now is influenced in no way by the food magazine zeitgeist.

With that off my chest, allow me to introduce to you one of the most wonderful ways of cooking eggs – uova in ragú, or eggs in a Bolognese sauce. Not to be confused with the well-known Tex-Mex breakfast staple of eggs in hell, this is essentially a Bolognese sauce version of the Tuscan classic Uova e Spinaci Cotti alla Fiorentina which we posted during aforementioned egg-focused period. And, not only does it allow one to indulge a fetish for eggs and meat, but the visual contrast on your plate of the white and yellow of the egg against a reddish-brown background of ragú is one to please children of all ages, even those in their 30s.

Less research than we typically do suggests that this is not an authentic Bolognese dish, and in fact, our inspiration came from a menu item - Uova al Pomodoro (eggs baked in a marina sauce) - at a small local trattoria called Apertivo. Nevertheless, we feel that it should definitely sit among the greats in the canon of Emilia-Romagna cuisine, utilising as it does the king of sauces, the ragú.

The main key to success, then, in this stupidly simple dish, apart from some (forgive the pun) good eggs, is clearly the quality of your ragú, so we strongly encourage you to read at least some of the marathon post that is A Tale of Two Sauces: It’s A Traditional Ragú Bolognese Deathmatch from last year to get a sense of the time, effort and joy involved in creating this wonderful thing. Then, once made (and you will have plenty leftover), simply add sauce to a large saucepan, heat until simmering, and crack in as many eggs as you like (two per person seems about right). Then, either cover with pan lid and reduce heat to medium-low, or slap the whole thing into a 350F (180C) oven and bake until eggs are firm, about fifteen minutes. It can be served over pasta (think pappardelle or tagliatelle) or simply as a main course with some bread and salad on the side. Come to think of it, I wouldn’t be upset if I was served this for breakfast either.

But, reminiscing about skinnier times, I must say that Christmas Eve and Christmas Day were very delicious.  And, as Heather says, “Catholic much?”.  Yes, we try to incorporate as much fish into our Christmas meal as possible and one starter we had on Christmas Day was this fabulously easy and mildly decadent Salmon Rillettes.  Many know this traditional French “spread” to be made primarily with pork but also with duck, rabbit, chicken or other types of meat, and is often made with tuna or salmon.  Meat rillettes are made by cooking the meat slowly in fat so that it is so tender it almost melts or shreds and is then blended with the cooking fat so that is is able to be spread, once cooled, on pieces of bread.  One day we’ll do a meat rillette for the blog but, until then, give this tasty (and easier to make) salmon version a whirl.  Don’t be afraid of the butter content and ease your worries about eating raw egg by buying cage free and organic.  It needs fat and is supposed to be eaten in small quantities, so enjoy it – but maybe you should wait until after your post-holiday purge?

SALMON RILLETTES (adapted from Bistro by G. Hiriqoyen) - serves six to eight

Ingredients

• 1 3/4 pound (or 12 oz.) piece of salmon, skin removed
• 7 oz. of smoked salmon
• 1/2 cup (4 oz.) of unsalted butter at room temperature
• 2 eggs (the freshest possible), beaten
• 1/2 fennel bulb, chopped very fine using a blender or food processor
• juice of 1 lemon
• 2 tablespoons fresh chives
• optional: 2 tablespoons chopped fennel fronds
• 1 tablespoon chopped capers
• salt and pepper

What to do:

1. Season your salmon filet with salt and pepper, place in a steaming basket, cover and steam over gently boiling water. You could also poach the salmon in  a few inches of water, covering the salmon.  Cook salmon until it is firm to the touch, about 9 minutes.
2. Remove salmon and put in a bowl and shred the salmon with a fork.  It may be easier to just use your fingers, but shred so that pieces are not shredded finely but will give the rillette some texture.  Cover and refridgerate to cool.
3. Place the room temperature butter in a bowl and, using a rubber spatula, “work” it till it’s smooth and creamy. Add the lemon juice, chives, capers, fennel and fennel fronds and mix together well.  Now add the beaten egg, only adding half at first, then mixing.  If you feel it’s still kind of “dry”, add 1/4 more of it.  Personally, I thought it was too wet with 2 whole beaten eggs, so see what works best for you.
4. Cut the smoked salmon into small pieces, about 1 inch “strips” so that they are similar in size to the shredded pieces.  Add the cooled fresh salmon and the smoked salmon pieces to the butter mixture and mix together thoroughly until it is completely incorporated together.  Taste for seasoning and add salt and pepper and more lemon juice if necessary.
5. Put in one big ramekin or individual ramekins (about 2 tablespoons per ramekin) and allow to chill in the fridge for at least 3 hours.  Bring to room temperature before serving and serve with toasted slices of baguette.

Note: prepare for a very long read or click here to skip forward to the recipe.

In the same way that there is probably some truth in the Chinese claim to have invented the noodle that became the ubiquitous Italian pasta, the origins of the archetypical British dish of fish n’chips seems to stem from Sephardic Jewish and French Protestant immigrants to the UK. In the mid-18th century, fishing trawlers became large enough to catch significant numbers of North Sea bottom-feeding white fish and domestic railroads expanded so that much of the UK began to have cheap and regular access to this fresh bounty. Also at this time, the potato-cooking skills of French Hugenot immigrants and the fish-frying traditions of Southern European Jews came together in what was to be a lasting and wildly popular marriage.

The French fry had been invented years earlier when the poor had first ventured to cook this new world tuber - originally only thought good enough for animal feed – and these techniques have continued to be refined to this day. Jews immigrating to the UK and other areas of Northern Europe having been expelled from Portugal and Spain brought matza (matzo, matzoh, matsah,) with them, which they knew to be an excellent coating for fish when ground or crumbed. Combining these two techniques with the endemic British passion for beer and deep-frying, resulted in one of the most famous exports from the British Isles since limey sailors began spreading a horrifying variety of VDs in port cities the world over. 

Today’s fish n’chips (depending on where you go) still closely resemble the original ideas found in Portuguese fried fish dishes pescado frito, in which strips of fish are dunked in a light batter of water, matzo flour and salt, then rolled in crumbed matzo before deep-frying in a cauldron of hot oil. In fact, the Portuguese are sometimes credited with having introduced this technique to Japan where it developed into the extremely delicious tempura style. In the UK, beer was often added in place of water to the flour (typically plain flour nowadays, rather than matzo) and salt, with the resulting batter being richer, but somehow lighter, frothier and more golden colored.

The British habit of “chipping” potatoes into larger batons than the continental Europeans, and now the Americans, and only frying them once, appears to just be a local habit. Some have suggested that the UK picked up on an early potato-cooking technique and kept it while the more culinarily-advanced French and Belgians continued to experiment with thinner-cut potatoes and double-frying, so that they perfected the golden and crunchy frites of today. I prefer to think of the British technique to be based not on ignorance, but on textural appreciation. For why have a crispy deep-fried fish and pair it with something else crispy? Why not pair it with something softer and more unctious?

My Life with Fish n’Chips

Anyway, fish n’chips became incredibly popular in the UK and its colonies around the world, with the chip shop still a fixture on virtually every town’s high street in the UK, Ireland, Australia, New Zealand and South Africa. For much of my youth, growing up in provincial England, it was one of only two choices for cheap, take-away/out food – the other being the uniformly foul and greasy hole that was the Golden Lantern Chinese take-out, so fish n’chips played an important role in our Friday night social traditions. After choir practice at our local church, we’d often hit the chip shop for a “slap-up” dinner of cod & chips with mushy peas, and bread & scrape (sliced white bread with lard), all washed down with our weekly soda allowance – a can of Lilt (a pineapple and grapefruit flavored soda).

Mr. Chips, the snappily-titled chip shop in my Cheshire town was universally known as just “the chippy” and, correspondingly - demonstrating some terribly enlightened feelings towards the town’s tiny, but most obvious, ethnic population - the Golden Lantern, was referred to as “the Chinky”. Subsequently, this ordinary little town has gentrified virtually beyond recognition, with all manner of ethnic restaurants elbowing aside these two bastions of atherosclerosis. However, echoes of these former times can still be heard in local parlance. Sadly, the Golden Lantern is gone, replaced by Slow Boat and Treasure Village, which now, demonstrating how times have changed for the better, are referred to as “the Chinese”; Mughli, an Indian restaurant, is either ”the curry house” or “the Indian”, and Est! Est! Est! is “the Italian”.

Fish n’chip restaurants still play a significant role in British gastronomic and cultural life. As with many countries, the UK has recently undergone a revolution in its food traditions, returning to basics and local ingredients and striving for sustainability. This has led to a re-evaluation and revival of many traditional dishes, including the hugely devalued fish n’chips. With North Sea cod stocks (like cod almost everywhere) having crashed due to overfishing, some traditions have had to change, and now other white fish are used including hake, halibut and haddock in its place, but the typical methods of beer and matzo batter, quality malt vinegar, fine sea salt and first-class British potatoes cooked in beef tallow (beef lard) are emerging again, much to my delight.

We’re heading to London to visit my new nephew in a couple of weeks, and will be hitting up arguably the finest chip shop in the capital, Fryer’s Delight in Holborn, which you will be the first to hear about right here in these pages. To date though, the best fish n’chips I ever had was at a very dodgy-looking chippy in Fleetwood, Lancashire (NW England, about 1.5hrs north of Manchester). Overlooking the grey and miserable-looking Irish Sea, I ate perfectly fried, golden cod, soft and salty chips and deliciously thick marrowfat mushy peas. It was a glorious, all-English experience.

But don’t think that fish n’chips only comes with mushies – oh no, variations abound in dressings. While the traditional is the simple sea salt and malt vinegar with a side of tartar sauce and M.P’s, others include, parsley sauce, brown gravy, curry sauce, garlic sauce, piccalilli, mayonnaise, Henderson’s relish, Worcestershire sauce, pea wet or pea’s water (liquid strained from peas during the creation of mushy peas) which is often free, baked beans, cheese or cheese curds, coleslaw, ketchup, chilli sauce, thousand island dressing, salad cream, chip spice, brown sauce, and summer savory (turkey stuffing & gravy), to name but a few.

Ever striving for the traditional in our take on the dish, we went with a pale ale batter, beautiful Atlantic cod (yes, i know it’s unsustainable, but our fishmonger doesn’t sell haddock or hake) thick cut chips, homemade mushy peas, homemade tartar sauce and, perhaps excessively, homemade curry sauce – my wife being a huge fan of dipping sauces. In fact, all of them are fiendishly easy to make, but as with most simple dishes, the key is high quality ingredients. Old potatoes and a shitty piece of fish even when perfectly fried will still taste like a turd. Similarly, beautifully fresh potatoes and cod fried in rancid old oil will be a disaster. Make sure you buy everything as fresh as possible. Fresh potatoes have very few “eyes” and yield a nice sheen of liquid when peeled, and fresh cod or haddock (hake is fine also) will have wonderfully shiny skin and nice firm flesh. If it’s already flaky and soft do not buy it, instead sharply reprimand your fishmonger for having the temerity to sell such tat.

Fish n’Chips with Mushy Peas, + Tartar and Curry Sauces (serves 2-3)

So, it might be tempting fate, but an unusually warm spell of late in New York has had me craving cooler, more autumnal weather. I bought a scarf and gloves that I’ve been unable to wear unless standing in front of an open fridge, which has annoyed my wife and caused our apartment to smell of blue cheese.

So in an effort to usher in more normal weather we made a creamy rabbit stew. But you don’t need to be craving a crisp fall morning to enjoy this dish. You could just be tired and in need of some TLC.

Forget the all-in-one massage chair with natural-feeling temple flexion-pads and built-in footspa, and the crack-team of velvet finger-tipped Chinese feng-shui massage therapists, this rabbit, mushroom and tarragon stew is so soothing we’re considering bottling it and selling it at CVS (or any other cheap store of your choice). It’ll not only soothe the turmoil in your mind and body, but it’ll almost certainly relax you and help you off to a restful 9-hour sleep (or at least it did for us).

Here’s how to do it:

RABBIT, MUSHROOM AND TARRAGON STEW

What you need:

• 3 rashes of bacon, cut into pieces
• 1 small onion, diced finely
• 3 cloves garlic, minced
• 1 box of button mushrooms, cleaned and sliced lengthwise
• 1 whole rabbit, cut into pieces
• 3 sprigs of tarragon – 2 with tarragon leaves removed and chopped and 1 left whole, bruised by back of a chef’s knife
• 2 1/2 cups of white wine
• 2 heaping tablespoons of dijon mustard
• 1 1/2 cups of chicken stock
• 1/2 cup light cream

What to do:

1. Heat heavy-bottomed pan/pot to medium-high and cook bacon pieces until almost crispy. Remove with a slotted spoon and set aside.
2. Pour bacon fat into a bowl and, starting with one tablespoon, add the fat back to the pot. Cook onion, garlic and mushroom in the bacon fat until medium-soft (about 5-6 minutes). Remove and set aside in the bowl with the bacon.
3. Season the rabbit pieces with salt and pepper. Add a bit more bacon fat (or butter if you’d prefer) back to the heavy-bottomed pan and add your rabbit pieces. Sear the outside on all sides of each piece until they are nice and golden brown (about 6 to 8 minutes). Remove to a plate for a moment.
4. I know, I know… lots of removing of food from the pan. They’ll be back soon. Deglaze the bottom of your pan with wine – keep heat up to medium and scrape all the bits from the bottom of the pan. After about a minute or so, add your chicken stock, tarragon, bruised tarragon sprig and mustard. Stir.
5. Now, add back everything – rabbit, mushrooms, bacon, onions, garlic, etc. – to the pan. Bring to a boil and then lower to medium/medium-low and simmer, covered for 30 minutes. After that, continue to simmer the dish uncovered for another 20 to 30 minutes. It will cook down to a thicker sauce.
6. Finish by stirring in the cream and fishing out the loose tarragon sprig. Enjoy!

Check out some other posts you may enjoy:

• “OPEN” RAVIOLO WITH HARE AND JUNIPER BERRY RAGU
  
• PROVENCAL RABBIT WITH OLIVES AND CAPERS
• ARROZ MARINERO (SPANISH SEAFOOD AND RICE)
• KILLING ANIMALS: HOW DO YOU REALLY FEEL ABOUT IT?

We are fortunate enough to live in a city with a ridiculous amount of diversity when it comes to restaurants, and one place we frequent often is a ‘hip’ Colombian restaurant (what the hell, it is Brooklyn). When we go there it’s because of two things: 1) We’re friggin starving and are ready to eat till we drop and 2) we want to get drunk. They have very strong drinks, and the food, shall we say, ain’t exactly light either. Maybe the strong drinks are to help your appetite and enable you to eat more?

One of the favorite menu items is the very popular and typical Colombian dish Bandeja Paisa. Yes, I wasn’t lying when I called it a “gut buster”. There is no way in hell I’m not unbuttoning my jeans when I decide to order this one. Originating from northwestern Colombia (the province of Antioquia), this dish’s name stems from bandeja, meaning tray or platter, and what the people of the region are known as, paisas, or country-folk. The idea is that this mixed platter would be eaten at lunchtime after a hard morning working in the fields and would be followed (like there would be a choice!) by a lengthy siesta before anything resembling work could resume.

In 2005 the Colombian government planned to make bandeja paisa the national dish, but instead with the name of bandeja montañera (mountain tray). This move was actually faced with widespread opposition, citing that only a small percentage of the population actually eats bandeja (perhaps unsurprisingly, or they’d all be in cardiac arrest and/or 500lbs). However, the government persisted and now you can find all sorts of Colombian tourism paraphernalia advertising bandeja as the national dish – perhaps in a daring bid to encourage obese gringos to head on down for a feast…?

Anyway, like many traditional dishes the exact combination of ingredients/items often differs depending on who you ask, but, again, like many traditional dishes, there are a number of ingredients that all versions contain. Arepa (a thin shallow-fried corn cake), grilled marinated skirt steak, pork chicharron (crispy, deep-fried pork belly cracklins), a fried egg, chorizo, red beans (stewed red beans) and rice. [Note: some versions contain other foods including morcilla (blood sausage), sweet fried plantains, avocado, vinegary shredded red cabbage salad, fried potatoes, tomato sauce, and hogao (aka criollo sauce made with onions, tomatoes, pepper, oregano, cumin, and salt).] We combined our beans with the chorizo, substituted the rice with yucca fries, and cut the richness of the meal with the traditional Colombian condiment, aji.

Estimates vary, but it’s a meal of between 1,500-1,800 calories (that’s most of your daily intake), and yes, that’s right, and it’s all eaten for lunch. I, who can hardly sit up straight at my desk after a sandwich and an apple for my midday repast, find it almost impossible to imagine engaging in manual labor even after only half a plate of this magnitude. Combine this with the nearly year-round equatorial heat that part of Colombia enjoys, and I’d be retiring to my hammock for forty (or more) winks, which is why we tend to save up our bandeja eating for the colder months, and happily for us (but not our cardiologist) those months are on the way. So, get out the largest plate you own, starve yourself for a couple of days ahead of time, consider cancelling your plans for the afternoon, and get stuck into a bandeja paisa - it’s only your waistline at risk!

Bandeja Paisa

So, because this is a meal made up of many constituent parts, and because, with our version, we tinkered with the traditional ingredients a bit, what follows is basically a run-down of recipes starting with the most time-consuming preparations.

Stewed Pinto/Red Beans with Chorizo
See this recipe here we made a while back.

Yucca Fries

• 1 medium sized yucca (cassava), peeled and cut into 1/4inch (1cm) rings or half-moons
• 2 cups vegetable oil, heated to 350-375F
• 1tsp kosher salt
• Fry yucca rings until golden and crispy. Remove to plate covered with paper towels to drain, and sprinkle with salt.
• Keep warm in oven if not eating immediately as they get chewy and tough if left to cool

Skirt Steak

• Sprinkle steak lightly with salt, pepper and rub generously with sliced garlic.
• Marinate in olive oil until ready to grill.
• Heat skillet or grill to screaming hot. Brush marinade off steaks and grill on each side for about 2-3 minutes (depending on thickness – use poke test regularly) for a nice medium-rare.
• Cover with foil and allow to rest for 5-10minutes.

Shredded Red Cabbage Salad

• Shred or finely slice 5-6oz red cabbage after removing tough outer leaves
• Put cabbage in a bowl and mix with 3tbsp granulated sugar, 1tsp kosher salt and 1/2cup white vinegar
• Allow to marinate and grow together for as long as a couple of days.

Colombian Arepas

• 1 cup masa harina (fine cornmeal flour)
• 1/4tsp salt
• 1/2 cup hot water
• 4oz vegetable oil
• combine corn flour, water and salt into a sticky dough
• make a ball out of some of the dough and roll into a circle about 4-5inches across and 1/4 thick
• heat 1tbsp oil at a time, and fry dough circles until golden and crispy
• drain on paper towels, then dress with butter/margarine and serve immediately while still warm

Spicy Colombian Aji

• 1 sweet pepper, finely diced
• 2 jalapenos, finely diced and de-seeded
• 3 small cloves garlic, finely chopped
• 1/4 onion, finely diced
• 10-15 stems cilantro, finely diced
• 1/2 cup white vinegar
• 1/2 cup water
• juice of 1/2 lime
• 1 teaspoon granulated sugar
• Combine all these ingredients together and let sit for at least an hour or as long as 2 days for the flavors to improve

Pork Chicharrones
We used the great recipe we found at Nikas Culinaria, and encourage you to do likewise.

Then, combine all this goodness on a plate (we suggest you share it with at least one other person unless you want to drift into a food coma you may never come out of) and enjoy with the latin cocktail of your choice (avoid beer, it makes everything swell up), or perhaps, as the Colombians would, accompany it with a few shots of aguardiente!

Thank you to about.com for featuring this post in their Colombian food section.

One was a fabulous side dish we made that was our play on a typical tomato gratin. The difference in the way we made it and the way it is typically made is how we sliced the tomatoes. Most tomato gratin dishes use tomatoes just cut in half. We decided to thinly slice them which created a real concentrated tomato flavor with a nice crunchy and spicy top. It almost felt as though we were eating a form of pizza. The “sauce” (tomato slice) and the cheese (parmigiano) combined with the crunchy “dough” (breadcrumbs) was really nice in the mouth. What was only made for a side dish to some pork turned into the star of the show.

While tomato season is here, give this easy side dish a try. I’ll do my best w/ measurements, but remember, depending on how big your dish is, you may want to get creative with your own measurements. This recipe is just a guide.

THIN-SLICED TOMATO GRATIN (serves 4)

Ingredients:

• 1 glass oven ware dish (we used one that was 9×12)
• 4-5 large tomatoes, cut into 1/4 inch slices
• 6 cloves garlic, minced
• 6 leaves of basil, thinly sliced
• 1/4 cup parmigiano reggiano (plus extra for the breadcrumbs – see below)
• 1/4 cup olive oil
  
• For breadcrumb topping:
  • 1 cup of unseasoned breadcrumbs
  • 1/2 cup parmigiano reggiano or romano cheese
  • 1 1/2 teaspoon paprika/pimenton
  • 1 teaspoon oregano
  • 1 1/2 teaspoon peperoncino
  • 1 teaspoon dried basil
  • 1 teaspoon thyme (fresh or dried)
  • 1 teaspoon garlic powder
  • 1 teaspoon onion powder
  • 1 teaspoon black pepper
  • 1/2 teaspoon salt (or to taste)

What to do:

1. Preheat oven to 425 degrees.
2. Put a bit of olive oil in the bottom of your baking dish. Arrange your tomatoes flat down, side by side, in your dish. Sprinkle with some salt and pepper, the minced garlic and 1/4 cup of the parmigiano reggiano.
3. In a separate bowl, mix your breadcrumbs with all of the herbs, spices and the cheese. Mix. Sprinkle some of the dry mixture (before you add the olive oil) on to the top of the tomatoes (about 1/8 of a cup).
4. With a fork, blend in the olive oil with the remaining dry mixture. It will look kind of chunky. Sprinkle as much of this mixture on to the tomatoes as well. You may not use all of this – eyeball it. Top with some fresh basil.
5. Put in oven for 15 to 20 minutes, until top is brown and crusty and the tomatoes have shrunk a bit.

Check out some other posts you may enjoy:

• PHILADELPHIA SCRAPE-STYLE LEMON WATER ICE
• AUTHENTIC THIN-CRUST PIZZA
• TORTILLA SOUP
• FARINATA (LIGURIAN CHICKPEA FLATBREAD

By the way, if any of you are still reading this far, we were surprised by our family with a visit to FRENCH LAUNDRY for dinner.  We’ll be telling you all about it soon.

“If I should wish a fruit brought to Paradise it would certainly be the fig.” - Prophet Mohammed

We don’t really “do” dessert. We really don’t. If we did we’d probably get a lot more hits from Tastespotting and Foodgawker, since they only seem to post chocolate flavored desserts topped liberally with powdered sugar and sprigs of mint. But bitterness aside, and in a kind of concession to both these photo sites and our own heavy bias towards savory dishes, we decided that it was time to make some sort of dessert, and a summery one at that.

Now, because we’re not bakers of any note, we decided to avoid baking, and indeed, cooking altogether, and simply arranged what nature and the bounty of our local grocery store had provided — namely, figs and greek yogurt decorated with honey and crushed pistachios. About as simple a preparation as you could imagine, right?

Serious About Figs

So, because there’s no recipe to speak of, I need to somehow extend this already overly long post, so here are some interesting tidbits about figs that I certainly wasn’t aware of, and I suspect, if you’re honest, you weren’t either.

Figs are the fruit of the ficus plant, or tree, and if you’ve ever had house plants, you’ll probably have had a ficus. While she was a student, my sister had one that survived heroically for six years on a steady diet of the dregs from cold cups of tea before meeting its tragic Waterloo being pulled out of her third floor window by an adventurous and powerful squirrel.

It is thought that figs (or ficus’) are among the most ancient genuses (genii?) of flowering plants being as much as 80 million years old, so it is little wonder then given the scientific accuracy of the Bible (note: this is irony) that they are described in its pages as the first fruit, and that it is with fig leaves that Adam and Eve hide their nakedness from the good Lord in the book of Genesis. In fact, contributors to the holy book were not the only ones to extol the virtues and practicalities of the fig, Roman poet, Pliny the Elder wrote, “Figs are restorative. They increase the strength of young people, preserve the elderly in better health and make them look younger with fewer wrinkles.”

In the intervening years, a wondrous variety of different kinds of figs have come into being — some through mutation, some by the hand of man, but today in the United States a couple of different kinds of fig predominate. The common or mission, fig is most, err common, and though, with its purple skin and pinky-peach flesh and yellow seeds it is at its best when fresh and ripe, sadly it is most often eaten dried. It was brought to North America by the Spanish and first planted in 1759 at San Diego Mission (hence the name). Later, the Smyrna fig variety arrived in California’s San Joaquin Valley from the eponymous town in modern-day Turkey in 1882 and was renamed Calimyrna later this century in honor of its new homeland. Other relatively easy to find varieties include the Kadota and Adriatic figs, the former is the American varietal of the Italian Dattato and is practically seedless, and the latter, well, is a variety originally from the Croatian coast, and is now very commonly made into, of all things, Fig Newtons.

Other interesting points about figs include: only the female fig is edible, and that figs are not really fruit as such, falling into the category of false fruits, (as indeed do strawberries, and many other berries) because the fig is, in fact, the flower and the seeds it contains are the fruit. Like I said, interesting, right? What? oh…

Anyway, it’s fig season right now through the end of September, so go get yourself some and enjoy them as if they were the first fruit! We have entered this simple and easy recipe in A Southern Grace’s Beat the Heat event since this is a great thing to make when it’s boiling hot outside.

Recipe (if you must have one) serves 4

12 ripe mission/common figs, split and spread as above

6-10oz plain Greek yogurt

2-3 tbsp runny honey

2 tbsp crushed pistachios

Assemble all these on plate and enjoy, perhaps with a chilled glass of dessert wine. We think something like a Pedro Ximenez or Moscatell would be rather nice.

Check out some other posts you may enjoy:

• CACIO E PEPE: SPAGHETTI WITH PECORINO AND BLACK PEPPER ROMAN-STYLE
• KILLING ANIMALS: HOW DO YOU REALLY FEEL ABOUT IT?
• JAMAICAN JERK CHICKEN WITH RICE AND PEA
• GRILLED STEAK WITH TARRAGON GARLIC BUTTER
• MASHED YUCA WITH SOUR ORANGE AND ALLSPICE