Fall Vegetables

Fall is coming, with its cortege of amber colors and burnt wood smells. Under the mild climate of the eastern shore the days are often sunny but there is crispness in the air, which signals a change of season. My vegetable garden is still going strong and the green beans, beets, leeks, carrots, cardoons, kales, broccolis, cauliflower, cabbages and Brussels sprouts pile up on my kitchen table. In fact vegetables and salads are at their best in slightly colder weather. I am inspired by this fresh display to eat mainly vegetarian. As I have replanted the herbs inside, I have plenty of aromatics to play with. The following recipes, as often in a working kitchen are variations on themes already visited. Blinis, béchamel and my fondness for Moroccan savors and French cuisine are familiar by now. The vegetables showcased in the recipes are not the only ones, which can benefit from the techniques described: any large leaf plants can be substituted for cardoon or Swiss chard, for example salad or cabbage. A Greek version of the Syrian stuffed cardoon even uses grape leaves albeit marinated. Leaves are not all similar however and a tough plant such as kale needs a longer cooking time to become palatable. Béchamel and cheese will transform most vegetables into a gratin: instead of cauliflower, broccoli, endive, cabbage and even cucumber will do. When marketing, it is more important to select the freshest product than to buy the precise ingredients the recipes call for.
All recipes serve 4, except for the first. Suggested quantities will provide about 30 blinis.

Green blinis
(Easy, Preparation and cooking time: 30 minutes, Cheap)
Ingredients:
Bouquet of cardoon leaves
Bouquet of parsley
1 onion
2 garlic cloves
4 cups flour
3 cups milk
3 eggs
Salt and pepper to taste
½ cup cooking oil

Material
Food processor with the blade attachment on
Blender
Salad bowl
Frying-pan

Wash and dry the cardoon leaves and the parsley. Mince in the food processor. Peel the onion and garlic. Add to the content of the food processor and mince finely. Reserve in a salad bowl.
Place the eggs, milk and flour in the blender and mix well.
Pour into the salad bowl and mix everything.
Pour the oil in the frying pan and place on the medium range of the gas. When the oil is hot, pour 4 times ¼ cup worth of batter. Make sure each mound is kept separate. When the batter bubbles, flip the pancake over. Repeat until you run out of batter
Serve hot with a salad.
Moroccan beets
(Easy, Preparation and cooking time: 40 minutes, Cheap)
Ingredients:
4 cups beets
1 tablespoon cinnamon powder
1 tablespoon cumin powder
1 teaspoon mild pepper (from Espelette) powder
2 tablespoons sugar
4 tablespoon orange water
The juice of a lemon

Material:
1 4-quart saucepan
Salad bowl

Remove and discard the leaves of the beets and wash the roots carefully.
Place them in the saucepan. Cover them with water and set the saucepan over low gas. Cook 20 to 30 minutes after the water boils. The beets are cooked when they can be easily pierced with a knife. Keep ½ cup of the cooking liquid. Strain and peel the beets.
Slice the beets. Place them in the salad bowl. Sprinkle them with the cinnamon, cumin, mild pepper and sugar. Pour the ½ cup reserved cooking liquid, the orange water and lemon juice on top and mix well.

Syrian stuffed cardoons
(Easy, Prepartion and cooking time: 1 hour, Cheap)
Ingredients:
16 leaves of Swiss chard
3 lemons
4 tablespoons of olive oil
Stuffing:
1-cup ½ Arborio rice
1 cup chickpeas
2 bouquets parsley
1 bouquet mint
2 onions
½ cup olive oil
1 teaspoon cinnamon
Salt and pepper

Material:
1 food processor, blade attachment on
1 saucepan and cover
1 salad bowl
Paper towels
Set of tongues

For the stuffing, clean and strain the rice and place in a salad bowl. Clean and dry all the herbs and mince them in the food processor. Add the peeled onions and mince again. Add the rinsed and drained chickpeas, the oil, salt, pepper and cinnamon. Mix well.
Separate the leaves from the ribs of the cardoons.
Fill the saucepan with water. Bring to a boil and plunge the cardoon leaves in the water one at a time for 3 minutes. Retrieve from the water and drain on paper towels.
Layer the ribs at the bottom of the saucepan.
Roll each leaf around a cylinder of stuffing. Place each stuffed leaf over the ribs, which will prevent the stuffed leaves from sticking to the pot. Repeat until you run out of leaves and stuffing.
Pour water to reach the level of the stuffed leaves. Add the juice of the lemons and 4 tablespoons of olive oil. Cover and cook at low heat for forty minutes.
Serve lukewarm or cold.

Cauliflower gratin
(Easy, Preparation and cooking time: 40 minutes, Cheap)
Ingredients:
1 cauliflower head
1 cup béchamel
¼ cup grated Gruyere

Material:
4 quart saucepan
Ovenproof dish

Cut the bottom of the cauliflower and remove any leaves.
Place a pan of water over the medium range of the gas and bring to a boil. Blanch the cauliflower for about 5 minutes.
Drain. Cut the cauliflower in florets.
Butter the ovenproof dish and place the florets in it. Pour the béchamel on top. Sprinkle with cheese and bake for 30 minutes.
Serve with a green salad.

The not so bitter endive

Endive descends from wild chicory (cichorium intybus) and as all salads, is a medicinal herb. A 100 g will fill 20% of our daily selenium need. Its culture, notably the blanching process is described as early as 1600 in Olivier de Serres’ Agricultural Theater. It is in 1850 in the Brussels Botanical Garden that the first modern endive is produced, forever associating it with Belgium cuisine. It is a versatile plant: it can be used whole, sliced or, one leaf at a time. It can be consumed raw, dressed in oil and vinegar or cooked. In the first stage, it is a mild and crunchy herb. In the second some precaution must be taken to insure that it is not too bitter, UNLESS the cook wants to use the bitterness to her advantage. Our taste being conditioned by the five receptors in our tongue - sweet, sour, salty, bitter and umami or savory – it is important to identify where each meal component stands to better build a complex savor. The braised endive recipe could be a perfect companion to a caramelized duck magret or to a Vietnamese slightly sweet fish. In general endive benefits from the slight addition of sugar whether in its pure (cane) form or fruit (fructose). As a result, to remove unpleasant bitterness in the endive and ham gratin recipe, I advise blanching the endive in water to which a tablespoon of sugar is added. The boat shape of its leaves inspires us to use it instead of bread for a calorie-less appetizer. Consider the following list as the beginning of your own repertoire.
All other recipes serve 4

Endive appetizer*
(Easy, Preparation time: 10 minutes, Reasonable)
Ingredients:
4 endives
¼ pound (113 g) smoked salmon
1 lemon
½ cup (118 ml) crème fraîche
¼ pound (113 g) salmon eggs
1 tablespoon chives
Material:
Paring knife and board

Fill the sink with cold water, plunge the endives in the sink.
Remove the endives, cut the bottom tip and separate the leaves. Dry them.
Lay them on to a tray.
Mix the crème with the chives.
Wash and slice finely the lemon. Cut each slice in 8.
Spoon the crème mixture in the center of each leave. Add either a salmon piece or a spoonful of salmon eggs. Top with an eighth of lemon slice.
Serve immediately with a dry white wine.
*Other endive topping suggestions:
A mixture of blue cheese and butter crowned by a quarter slice of apple
Tuna tartare crowned by an eighth of a slice of lemon
A mixture of crabmeat and avocado
Etc…

Endive Salad
(Easy, Preparation time: 15 minutes, Cheap0
Ingredients:
3 endives
2 oranges
The juice of a lemon
10 walnuts cracked
5 tablespoon walnut oil
1 tablespoon chive
Salt and pepper
Material:
Paring knife and board
Grapefruit spoon
Salad bowl

Halve the oranges and, with the grapefruit spoon, remove and place carefully in the salad bowl the orange segments. Add the oil, lemon juice, salt and pepper. Add the cracked walnuts cut in 4 pieces.
Remove the outside leaves of the endives if needed. Wash and dry the endives and slice them thinly. Mix them to the content of the salad bowl. Sprinkle with chives and serve.

Endive and ham gratin
(Easy, Preparation and cooking time: 50 minutes, cheap)
Ingredients:
4 endives
1 tablespoon of sugar
4 ham slices
1 cup (225 ml) béchamel
½ cup (118 g) parmesan cheese grated
Material:
1 4-quart pan
1 set of tongues
1 strainer
1 ovenproof dish

Preheat the oven at 380F (195C).
Plunge the endives in a sink full of water. Cut a thin slice off the bottom, and keep each endive whole.
Set enough water to cover the endives and the tablespoon of sugar in a pan to boil. When the water boils, blanch the endives for 10 minutes.
Remove with a set of tongues and place in the strainer to drain.
Heat the cup of béchamel. Add the Parmesan cheese to melt.
Roll a slice of ham around each endive and place the 4 rolls in the ovenproof dish. Pour the béchamel on top and cook for 30 to 40 minutes.
Serve hot.

Braised endives
(Easy, Preparation and cooking time: 70 minutes, Cheap)
Ingredients:
4 endives
1 lemon
2 onions
1 tablespoon sugar
Salt and pepper to taste
Material:
Saucepan and cover
Wash the endives and leave them whole.
Peel and slice the onions.
Oil the saucepan and layer the onion slices first and then the endives.
Cover the saucepan and place on the lower setting of the gas range for 30 minutes.
Add the lemon juice and the sugar and cook for another 30 minutes, turning them every ten minutes.

Veal classics: blanquette

The French have their own national veal dish: the blanquette, literally something white. Like the pot-au-feu and any preparation involving simmering, it probably dates back to the sixteenth century. I was disappointed not to see any reference to it in Alexandre Dumas or in Julia Childs. She writes of Normandy’s veal rib, which shares with blanquette a generous usage of cream but utilizes a fatter and tastier part of the animal than the latter does. When cooking a rib of veal, whether sautéing or baking it, one capitalizes on the natural caramelizing reaction that occurs during cooking. With the blanquette, however, there is no Maillard effect. As the meat is blanched and consequently scrubbed of taste, the cook disposes of the equivalent of a blank page. Her art is to impart flavor to blandness. That’s where the cream, lemon, mushrooms and onions come into play. The other challenge is to turn a lean cut of meat into a tender piece. To achieve this goal, a long simmering time is all that’s required.
My recipe follows the traditional method and serves 4. Variants involve using a béchamel (August 14th), before adding the cream and the yolks, and sautéing the blanched cubes of veal in butter.

Veal Blanquette
(Easy, Preparation time: 30 minutes, Cooking time: 6 hours unattended, A little pricey)

Ingredients:
1 lbs and ½ (800g) veal from the shoulder cut in 1-inch cubes
1 carrot peeled and diced
1 small onion frozen, peeled and diced
1 bouquet garni
1 garlic clove peeled and smashed
20 tiny onions blanched and peeled once cool or fresh in season
½ pound (250g) white mushrooms washed divided into heads sliced and bottom cubed
2 tablespoons sugar
1 tablespoon butter
2 cups vegetable stock
Juice of ½ lemon
1 cup (250ml) heavy cream
2 yolks
Salt and pepper
Material
1 large saucepan and its cover or a slow cooker
2 salad bowls
1 strainer
1 small saucepan

Place the veal cubes in a saucepan. Cover with water and bring to a boil. After 30 seconds, strain the veal pieces and rinse them under cold water.
Place the meat in the slow cooker. Cover with the stock. Add the carrot and onion cubes, the garlic paste, the bouquet garni and the mushroom bottoms. Simmer on the low range of the slow cooker from 6 to 8 hours. Set the slow cooker on the warm setting. Strain the meat and reserve the broth in a salad bowl. Place the veal pieces back into the slow cooker.
Put the butter in a small saucepan and melt it over the low setting of the gas. Add the peeled onions, a pinch of salt, some ground pepper ½ the sugar and enough water to cover the onions. After six minutes, strain and add the onions to the meat in the slow cooker.
Repeat the same sequence for the mushrooms. Add to the veal and onions.
Put the strained broth in the same saucepan. Over medium gas, bring to a boil and let it reduce until you have a cup (200 ml) left.
In a salad bowl, whip the cream and the lemon.
In another salad bowl whip the yolks.
Add the content of the first bowl to the boiling broth. When the boiling resumes, cook the cream for another three minutes. Remove from the gas. Add the yolks while whipping constantly. Add salt and pepper and taste. Strain the sauce over the meat. Serve immediately, or add to the content of the slow cooker and keep on the warm setting until ready to serve. Garnish with white rice and be generous with the sauce.

Veal classics: osso buco

Veal is a festive dish, which has a long pedigree and benefits from the use of vegetable stock and tomato sauce stored in the freezer. It was customarily served at European aristocratic tables along with fowls as a way to assert status: the commoners would hesitate to sacrifice a young animal and hunting was a sport reserved to the nobles. Because of its youth when slaughtered a calf has very little fat. The sauce has to offset the leanness and becomes the star of the dish.
Italians own veal, although the French who love their Blanquette beg to differ (more about the latter next week). From the scaloppini thinly cut by butchers in the ham machine to the thick shanks filled with opulent marrow, a whole scale of taste is explored. The Freudian slip that the eponymous hero of the Osso buco, (literally empty bone) is, says it all: marrow is what gets eaten first. For me it was love at first taste…at Cipriani in New York, the most Italian of cities outside the Peninsula. Ever since, I have tried to duplicate the melting flavor of the meat enriched by the saffron infused tomato sauce. The savor of the dish is further enhanced by the hot/cold brought by the minced lemony herbed addition, the gremolata, at the very last minute.
As any dish, which benefits from a long simmering time, it is easy to adapt to the slow cooking method.
My recipe takes some liberty with the original. Traditionally it is served with saffron risotto, the creamy sauce of which clashes to my taste with the delicate broth. I prefer to substitute pasta and integrate the saffron thread to the meat preparation. For the sake of lightness, I forgo the dredging of the meat with flour prior to the browning first phase. Gremolata is a blend of garlic, parsley and lemon zest. I personally find fresh uncooked garlic too strong for the dish. Omitting it allows the saffron to join the perfume symphony and enrich the base citrus note.

Osso buco
(Easy, Preparation: 15 minutes, Cooking time: 3 hours largely unattended, A little pricey)

Ingredients
4 veal shanks tied with kitchen twine
Salt and freshly ground pepper
¼ cup olive oil
1 small onion diced
2 cloves garlic minced
1 cup dry white wine with one pinch Saffron
1 carrot cubed
1 slice celery root or a branch of celery peeled and diced
1 cup frozen tomato sauce defrosted
Gremolata:
1 bunch flat parsley
The zest of a lemon

Material:
Slow cooker or large saucepan and cover
Set of tongues
Wood spoon
Food processor

Pour the olive oil in the aluminum inset of the slow cooker, or the saucepan and place on the low flame of the gas. Sprinkle salt and pepper generously on the shanks before stir-frying the meat. Cook until well browned on both sides for about 5 minutes. Remove the meat from the inset with the tongues and set aside.
Add the onions, garlic, cubes of carrots and celery and cook for five minutes, stirring all the time. Add the saffron wine and bring to a boil. Add the tomato sauce and bring to a boil. Remove from the gas.
Add the reserved meat to the content of the slow cooker inset, place inside the slow cooker and cook for three hours on the high setting.
Just before serving, place all the ingredients of the gremolata in the food processor and mince. Sprinkle on top of the meat and propose a side dish of fresh linguine pasta. Serve with the sauce.

Glass Appetizer

Small glasses, called “verrine” in France, have recently been used to serve “compliments of the chef,” or hors-d’oeuvres. The technique can easily translate to the home. The investment is minimal. You can purchase a few shot glasses and tiny spoons or recycle votive glasses and use them to transform leftovers or store-bought dips into elegant and colorful appetizers with a little imagination and a few fresh ingredients. It is a lovely addition to a buffet, and is a truly clean finger food. Everything can be prepared ahead; the assemblage takes place at the last minute and can be thought of as the final decorative touch.
An added advantage is that glass unlike finger food is breadless and quite often, at least in the examples I favor, vegetarian. Virtually any starters can be turned into an appetizer. Besides the four recipes detailed below, here are a few suggestions:
Cold ratatouille (August 7th). Strain the juices and spoon the vegetables into the glasses. Sprinkle a few chives on top and a few drops of flavored olive oil.
Summer Gazpacho (May 23rd), no spoon needed.
Eggplant caviar (July 31st) Wedge a slice of toasted garlic bread.
Veggie fries. Place a dip (hummus) at the bottom of the glass and plant a bouquet of carrots and celery sliced longitudinally in it.
As the weather turns, hot soup can replace cold suggestions.
Red: Cherry tomato appetizer
Ingredients
2 cups cherry tomatoes washed
10 basil leaves washed and dried
1 cup tapenade (Friday March 20th)
1 buffalo mozzarella cut in cubes

Material:
10 mini glasses

Divide the cherry tomatoes in 10 glasses. Top with a few cubes of mozzarella, a teaspoon of tapenade and a chiffonnade (see lobster salad September 4th) of basil leaves.

Green and red: Guacamole
Ingredients:
3 ripe avocadoes
1 hot pepper
1 coriander bunch
1 shallot peeled
2 limes
1 tomato peeled and seeded
Salt and pepper
Corn chips

Material:
Food processor
Juicer
Plastic container
10 glasses

Halve the avocadoes. Remove the skin and discard. Remove the pits and place in the plastic container. Put the avocado flesh in the food processor.
Juice the limes and pour the limejuice in the food processor. Add the tomato and shallot.
Clean the coriander bunch under running water and dry. Divide roughly the leaves from the stems. Place the leaves in the food processor.
Clean the pepper. Open it and remove as many as the seeds, which contain the hot taste, as you want. Add to the food processor.
Pulse according to your taste. (I like my Guacamole chunky). To store the guacamole until ready to serve, place in a closed plastic container with the avocado pits.
Divide the guacamole in 10 glasses. Place a chip in each glass. Lay a bowl of chips in the middle of the coffee table where you are going to serve drinks and the appetizers

Green: zucchini
Ingredients:
1 tablespoon of olive oil
3 zucchini washed and cut in cubes
1 tablespoon ground cumin
Parmesan flakes
Material:
Saucepan or wok
10 glasses

Place the oil in a saucepan over low gas. Add the zucchinis and the spices. Stir-fry for 3 to 5 minutes. When cool enough, divide the zucchinis into 10 glasses. Top each glass with a few Parmesan flakes.

White: Mercedes’ ceviche

Ingredients:
6 medium tomatoes
1 small onion peeled
1 bunch cilantro washed and dried
The juice of 4 limes
1 lbs (500g) uncooked shrimps
5 raw scallops
Salt and pepper to taste
3 to 4 drops of Tabasco
2 tablespoons Worcestershire sauce
Material:
Food processor
Saucepan
10 glasses

Cut the tomatoes and onions in quarter. Put them in the food processor with the cilantro and run for two minutes. Reserve.
Blanch the shrimps and the scallops in boiling water for one or two minutes. Let them cool at room temperature.
Mix shrimps, scallops and the reserved sauce together. Add the limejuice, Tabasco and Worcestershire sauce. Salt and pepper to taste.
It will keep in the fridge for a week. Spoon out the ceviche in the shot glasses.