Panzanella

Tuscany. Just the name sounds so beautiful. Makes me think of green rolling hills, vineyards, cypress trees, sunsets, calm, quiet, cobble-stone streets, red roofs... Imagining Tuscany made me dreamy. And then I realized that I have been to Tuscany and that it is indeed all I imagine. That was a long time ago, seems like a different life now. I remember standing in line to see Michelangello's David and being surprised that the statue was smaller than I expected; climbing the stairs to the top of El Duomo in Florence and being utterly stunned by the view; sitting on the curb in a square, listening to a concert and drinking beer; walking the narrow streets of Sienna. And then, there is the memory of the medieval torture museum in the tiny town of San Gimignano, which still keeps me up at night. But I don' t remember a single meal I ate. So now, a little belatedly, I am trying to familiarize myself with Tuscan cuisine.

Panzanella is a traditional bread summer salad. I only found out about the concept recently, after coming across a grilled panzanella recipe online. And then I found that a whole of three pages are devoted to it in the Dean and Deluca cookbook (which is a fantastic read by the way). It is meant to be a leftover salad to use up stale bread (and possibly other odds and ends). But before I start muddling the water, here is the classical version:

Panzanella

1.5 parts tomatoes
1 part cucumber, peeled
1 part onion
1 part stale bread, de-crusting optional
torn basil leaves
Dressing: 2 to 1 ratio of olive oil and balsamic vinegar, preferably white
salt

Instead of giving exact measures, I am listing the basic proportions (by weight) though these need not be obeyed exactly. The idea is that the salad is dominated by tomatoes and bread, with less prominent presence of cucumbers, onions and basil. The exact preparation of the vegetables is up to you. Dean & Deluca suggest that you thinly slice everything. I prefer my tomatoes in bite-sized pieces and my cucumbers and onions quartered and then sliced. Either way goes. The bread should be de-crusted traditionally, but I left the crust because I like its chewy texture but that brings the bread forward flavor-wise. For a more fluffy and subtle bread texture, remove the crust. What bread to use? The salad works best with a hearty white bread with solid body and a bit of chewiness. It is best if the bread has been around for at least 4-5 day and is quite stale. If you only have non-stale bread, don't despair - just skip the "getting the bread wet" part.



Now, how does it all come together? Slice the onions and cucumbers, toss them with some salt and leave in a colander to drain some of the liquid while prepping the rest of the salad. Chop the tomatoes and add to the cucumbers and onions. De-crust the bread if desired and cut or tear into bite-sized pieces. Place the bread in another colander and sprinkle with cold water until the pieces are moist throughout (taste-test). It's ok if there are dry patches here and there, because these will absorb the moisture from the vegetables. Transfer the vegetables to a bowl, add the basil and toss with the dressing. Do not over-dress, you don't want to over-power the vegie taste. Add the bread and toss again, gently. Serve immediately or stick in the fridge for a few minutes until you are ready to eat it. This salad is way better if all the ingredients are really cold.

Crunchy Cabbage Salad with Sweet Miso Dressing

Cabbage keeps well for long periods of time but still this is no excuse for the fact that 2/3 of a head of this leafy green has been inhabiting my fridge for two months. Scary! I even moved the cabbage with me when I changed apartments three weeks ago. Yes, indeed, I am very fond of this particular head of cabbage. But it was time to let it go and last night I made this wonderful crunchy cabbage salad inspired by Heidi Swanson's Chopped Miso Salad recipe.

Hmmm... All the interesting things about cabbage I just learned on Wikipedia! Cabbage, apparently is from the mustard family and has originated in the Mediterranean by selective breeding of wild mustard plants for suppressed intermode length. It was known to the ancient Greek and Romans and was praised for its medicinal properties. The powdery, waxy finish on the leaves is called bloom, the bitterness is due to glucosinolate, and it is rich in riboflavin, vitamin C and glutamine. China is the largest producer of cabbage in the world, followed by India and Russia. South Korea is fourth (kimchi?) and Poland is 6th (cabbage rolls, anyone?). And now that we have covered the basics on cabbage, lets get to the recipe.

Crunchy Cabbage Salad with Miso Dressing

1 smallish head of cabbage
1 bunch chives, chopped
1 C almonds, pan roasted and chopped
1 C cooked garbanzo beans (optional)

Dressing:
2 Tbs miso (I used red miso)
2 Tbs brown sugar
1/2 tsp mustard
1 tsp sesame oil
1/4 C rice vinegar
1/4 C olive oil

To make the dressing, combine all ingredients except the olive oil, in a small jar or in a blender. Mix well. Add the oil. Shake the jar or blend until well mixed. This makes about twice as much dressing as you will need for the salad. I very much liked the dressing and will use it on other salads, but if you don't want extra then halve the recipe.

Chop the cabbage in very, very small pieces. I chopped it like a big onion - cut it in half, put each half flat on the cutting beard and put 5-6 not all-the-way-through cuts lengthwise (from the core to the tip) and then I sliced it very thinly starting from the tip. When I got to the core, I cut around it. Cabbage is usually way too hard and fibrous for me so I always give it my secret family treatment - I put the chopped cabbage confetti in a bowl, salted them lightly and kneaded then for a minute. This can be done with one or both hands, you basically squeeze the cabbage and mix it, squeeze and mix until it's all softened up. The motion is really very similar to kneading. Add the chives, almonds and beans. Add the dressing, toss, chill. This salad can easily keep for a couple of days in the fridge.

This can easily be made into a left-overs salad - a meal to take care of all of last week's Farmer's Marked odds and ends. The dressing is slightly sweet but bright from the vinegar. It goes very well with the cabbage, but you can easily also add lettuce (finely chopped), blanched green and wax beans (cut into 1/2 inch pieces), peas, asparagus, cucumber (chopped into matchsticks), green onions, other green herbs.

The garbanzo beans are optional - I wanted to make a meal out of the salad - and can be substituted with some other type of beans (like navy beans or baby lima beans). I very much recommend that you just buy a pound of dry beans, cook them with some salt and keep them in the fridge or freezer for adding to soups and salads instead of buying the canned stuff which is (a) way more expensive and (b) way worse tasting. You can substitute the beans with stir-fried extra firm tofu too (or maybe even chicken but don't quote me on that).

De-li-cious! Next on my list of summer adventures? Panzanella!

Salad Season is Here!

Every summer I go on a salad binge. In a good way. It's just that I don't see any reason to be cooking and eating bean and potato dishes when I am going to have the whole winter for them. As a matter of fact I don't see much of a reason to cook at all when I can enjoy a crunchy, fresh, flavorful salad with nothing more but a knife and a cutting board (and a steamer basket in this case) in under 10 minutes from the fridge to the table. And so that I don't get into a rut eating the same tomato-cucumber concoction, I always try to find new salads to make. Here are two new finds.

But before I get to the recipes, a quick word on steaming: take it easy! Use the microwave timer and go for two minutes. At the end of that, taste a piece (careful, HOT!) and if the vegetable is a bit soft but still a bit crunchy, end it at that. Better undercook than overcook - we have all had enough of awful mushy vegetables.

Carrot Ginger Salad

3/4 lb carrots
1/2 - 1 Tbs ginger, minced
several springs of thyme, leaves only
1 Tbs toasted sesame seeds
a splash of sesame seed oil
the juice of 1 lime
salt to taste

This salad was inspired by something very similar I had at a bakery last week. The main ingredients were carrots, thyme and ginger and the salad was very lightly seasoned so that the carrot flavor came out. Lacking a significant source of protein this is really a side salad, mild and refreshing.

Chop the carrots in fat matchsticks and steam for three minutes until softened a bit but still crunchy. Cool and mix with the rest of the ingredients. Serve/eat chilled.

Green Bean Salad with Glazed Almonds

3/4 lb green beans
1 C cooked garbanzo beans
1-2 garlic cloves, minced
2 green onions, chopped
1 Tbs ginger, minced
1/4 - 1/3 C cilantro, chopped
2 Tbs rice vinegar
1 Tbs olive oil
salt to taste

1/4 C whole raw almonds
1 Tbs soy sauce

lettuce

A week ago I acquired some phenomenal Blue Lake green beans at the farmer's market and as much as I was enjoying munching on them raw, I really wanted to do something more grandiose with them. I found inspiration in this salad on Epicurious and added beans to make it more substantial. I tossed it with some greens to serve and enjoyed it for lunch yesterday. And for dinner. And for lunch today again. The beans can be steamed ahead of time.

Trim the ends of the beans and cut into inch long pieces. Steam for 2 minutes until bright green but still crunchy. Cool. In the mean time heat the almonds in a small dry skillet over low heat for a ~3-4 minutes until they start to brown. Pour in the soy sauce and stir in with the almonds and continues cooking until the sauce has evaporated. Cool the almonds and chop. Toss all ingredients in a large bowl and chill for the flavors to blend.

So far so good. I have planned to try two more salads this week!

Vote with Your Wallet and a Spring Potato Salad

There has been a distinct shift in how I think about food and cooking and in how I shop over the last few months. After reading books like "Fast Food Nation" and "In Defense of Food", I am now convinced of the importance of the whereabouts of your food before it came inside your kitchen. It is an increasingly active movement for sustainable food, one led by Michael Pollan and Eric Schlosser and a number of other opponents of modern agricultural practices, a movement to change the way we produce food, shop for food, eat food. Recent movies like King Corn and Food, Inc. are trying to give publicity to the movement though I doubt either of them will have the popularity (and the impact) of The Inconvenient Truth. The idea of sustainable food is very multifaceted. On one hand there are the health issues - the food we eat is rich in calories but poor in nutrition (yes, this is true even for your greens if they came from a large commercial farm). Then there is the rich environmental issue - contemporary agricultural practices are responsible for 22.5% of greenhouse gases (47% of methane, 88% of nitrous oxide and 9% of CO2), a major cause for land loss (due to erosion and loss of fertility), a threat to biodiversity and a serious pollutant (where do you think all the cow poo goes?). In addition, transporting food half the way around the world so that we can have watermelons at Safeway year-round is a huge fuel sink. And finally there is the complex social issue - people need food and will need even more food as the population increases but our centralized scheme of mono-cultures is fragile and bad for us and frequently the ones at the bottom of it, the producers, are the biggest losers of all.

It is a long laundry list and it calls for a major over-haul of the food industry. Certainly this is not going to happen overnight but things are starting to stir. The number of Farmer's Markets in the USA has increased dramatically over the last five years giving a boost to small farms and creating a local demand-supply network. The same is true for Community-sponsored Agriculture. Victory gardens are making a comeback, tomato and squash plants peeking through the fences of many of the houses in my neighborhood. My concerns are that so far these alternative food sources are only accessible to a small fraction of the population (the one that has access to them) and that they mainly address the produce portion of the food-pyramid - sustainable meat production is very rare and supermarkets are still full of processed corn-derivatives.

Baby steps, baby steps. What can I (and you) do? In an effort to increase the quality of my food and reduce its carbon footprint, I have made a commitment to purchase all my produce from the Farmer's Market. I am voting with my wallet. I kind-a have it easy though - there is a fantastic and very reasonably priced farmer's market every weekend three miles from my house and I live in California - the Mecca of produce. Does it make a difference? I tried to explain my war on fast food to my parents and they were very befuddled in a "who cares" way, but I haven't spend a dollar at a fast food restaurant since October and I feel great about it. However, I think this decision to source my produce locally is bigger that just a feel-good feeling - it is a vote for and sponsorship of the Farmer's Market folks, of their effort and commitment and ultimately good for me (I eat a LOT of fruits and veggies). I am kissing my demand for instant gratification good-buy.

But enough of the prelude. This aweeeesome potato salad recipe comes from Smitten Kitchen and uses all Spring products (I get really irked by mixed season recipes... pear-strawberry cobbler, anyone?). I love this salad! And just for the record, the ingredients - potatoes, green beans, scallions and basil - cost me ~$4.50 at the Farmer's Market.

Pesto Potato Salad with Green Beans
2 lb new potatoes, quartered
1/2 lb green beans (better go for 1 lb)
2-3 scallions, chopped

1 bunch of basil, just the leaves
1-2 cloves garlic
~1/4 C of olive oil

1/2 C pine nuts, toasted
a splash of mild vinegar
salt & pepper
parmesan for garnish


Wash and cut the potatoes into bite-sized peaces (not too small though, not diced). Place them in a pot, cover with water and boil then until tender, 8 to 10 minutes. Add the beans (ends trimmed and cut into inch-sized peaces) and boil another 2-3 minutes. The beans shouldn't be soft but still a bit crunchy. Drain well and let cool. While this is all happening, make pesto from the basil, garlic and olive oil; add just enough oil to make a paste, not all of it. Stir the pesto, scallions and pine nuts with the beans and potatoes. Season with salt, pepper and vinegar, stir, garnish with parmesan, serve. Awesome. (Hint: make more pesto than you need - you are going to love the pesto-potato combination so much, you'll want more pesto. Or use it on some pasta. Or bread. Or just about anything else.)

The bottom line of this very long post is that there is a bigger picture behind the tasty recipes and pretty pictures, the picture of the vast food industry which we are all supporting with our choices of where we shop and what we buy. Support your local farmers. Vote with your wallet. Know where your food came from, who it came from. Be proactive. Do what you can - your actions matter. And enjoy the potato salad!

PS. For more blogs on sustainable food check this review.

How do you pronounce this?

I was browsing through the pages of a not-to-be-named sports magazine a couple of weeks ago when I came across a recipe for quinoa tabbouleh in the cooking section (which I always find somewhat out of place in such publication). Tabbouleh (pronounced [ta'bu:li], also tabouleh, tabouli) is an Arab dish, frequently served as an appetizer (or mezze). Its primary ingredients are bulgur, parsley, mint, tomatoes and scallions and it is typically seasoned with lemon juice and olive oil. Oh, I love tabbouleh sooooo much!!! And what an interesting idea to mix up the ingredients a bit. So taking inspiration from the magazine recipe I concocted a Quinoa Tabbouleh:


1 C quinoa
1/2 big bunch of parsley
1 handful of mint
1/4 red onion, chopped
3-4-5 Roma tomatoes, squeezed and chopped
1 English cucumber
1 can of garbanzo beans (oh, yes!)
lemon jiuce
salt
splash of olive oil


Combine quinoa with 1 1/2 C water and a pinch of salt, bring to boil and simmer for ~15 minutes, until quinoa is soft, but still has a slight crunch. Cover and let it cool. I made this with the intention of bringing it to work for lunch which meant that the salad will be in the fridge for a few days so initially I mixed everything but the tomatoes and cucumber in a bowl, covered it and refrigerated it. Then every morning I would chop up some lettuce, tomatoes and cucumber and top them with ~3/4 cup of the quinoa mix. Yum! And nutritious too!


I have only recently discovered quinoa (pronounced ['ki:nua], above middle) and found it a tasty and fun ingredient to include in salads, stir-frys and in place of other grains. Quinoa is a pseudocereal and not a true grain. It originated in the Andean region of South America and has been a staple food there for 6,000 years. The Incas even considered it sacred - quinoa was second in nutritional importance, superseded by the potato and followed by corn. During the European colonization the Spaniards scorned and tried to suppress its use due to its importance in non-Christian ceremonies, obviously without success - Peru, Bolivia and Ecuador are now the world's top producers. Quinoa has been gaining popularity (among protein starved vegetarians) because of its nutritional value - it is high in protein (12-18%), it is a complete protein, it is rich in dietary fiber, iron and magnesium, and it is gluten free. It has a pleasant nutty flavor and a light crunchiness, and can be easily substituted for rice, couscous, bulgur. Plus, it looks really cute.



So far so good. However, last weekend I made a long due visit to the Farmer's Market and ended up buying a bottle of liquid gold - Lemon Infused Olive Oil (capitalized on purpose) from the Queen Creek Olive Mill. I don't frequently splurge on fancy foods but this stuff is just phenomenal - smooth olive oil with a vibrant lemon flavor. Furthermore, it comes packed with a feel-good-about-yourself feeling as the olives are grown locally and you are supporting a small family business. The acquisition of lemon infused olive oil could only mean one thing - more tabbouleh! But while I threw the previous one together in a hurry, I decided to make this one a work of art. Classical Arabic culinary art. And in my humble opinion, it was a wild success. Here are the ingredients:

1 C dry bulgur
1 bunch flat leaf parsley, chopped
a handful of mint, chopped
4 green onions, choped
4-5 Roma tomatoes, squeezed and chopped
3/4 - 1 English cucumber (...you'll never guess...), chopped
2 Tbs (lemon) olive oil
zest of 1 lemon
juice of 1/2 lemon
salt

The key to a good tabbouleh? Dry ingredients. I put the bulgur in a bowl with a little salt and poured 2 C of boiling water over it. Then I covered it and let it cool and absorb the water. A few hours later there was still some unabsorbed water so I put the bulgur in a cheese cloth and left it to strain overnight. The next day I chopped up all the herbs and veggies and mixed it up. I prefer to use Roma tomatoes because they are not as watery. I felt that the juice of 1/2 lemon was just enough to not overpower the lemony flavor of the oil but if you want more sourness, add more juice. I recommend adding the zest too - adds lemony flavor without sourness. This turned out oh, so, good! The fresh vegetables, the herbs and the spices gave it such a rich flavor and I love the different textures - the chewy bulgur, the crunchy cucumber and the leafy parsley. I am already looking forward to lunch (shown here) tomorrow, after the flavors have had the chance to blend overnight!

PS. After-lunch review: fantastically minty-fresh! But beware of parsley between your teeth ;)