Asparagus

Photo: Ryan Freisling for Wikipedia

All of this week's recipes will feature what I consider the quintessential spring vegetable: asparagus. Although asparagus can be very simple to prepare, it's good to know a few things.

When choosing asparagus, I try to pick stalks that are on the smaller side. Thicker asparagus is older and thus more likely to have started to take on a woody texture (once asparagus flowers, it becomes very woody).

Like any vegetable, it should always be thoroughly washed, and I find that asparagus is particularly prone to collecting sand.

To trim asparagus for cooking, a simple, an efficient method is to bend the asparagus stalk, which will cause it to snap at a natural breaking point, dividing it into the woodier, thicker part that isn't very tasty and the tender stalk and tip which is. Although I usually discard the thicker part, it can be used to flavor stock (as my pasta dish later in the week will show). Alternatively, you can use a peeler to remove the tough outer layer of the thicker part of the stalk, but this will increase your prep time significantly.

My favorite simple preparation for asparagus is to broil it. I do this frequently. It makes a simple, satisfying side dish that goes well with fish and meats. It can also be chopped and added to salads when cooled.

Simple Broiled Asparagus

1 bunch of fresh asparagus stalks, trimmed
Olive oil spray
Seasoned salt
Fresh-ground black pepper

1. Preheat the broiler with the oven rack adjusted to about 4-5 inches from heat element.

2. Arrange the asparagus in a single layer on a baking sheet. Spray with olive oil and sprinkle with seasoned salt.

3. Broil asparagus for 7-8 minutes, turning stalks halfway through (I use kitchen tongs).

4. Sprinkle fresh-ground black pepper on top and serve.

New Reference Guide

I added a new feature to my blog today, a reference guide, which I will update regularly. It contains information about abbreviations, equipment, terminology and measurement conversions that I intend to be particularly useful for interpreting recipes, both by me and others. If you have any suggestions for information to include on the reference page, please let me know. It's accessible from the title bar.

Roasted Chicken with Greens and Bread Salad

On this very day a year ago, Chris and I walked into San Francisco's Zuni Cafe for dinner hoping to try its burger, tipped as one of the country's best. Sadly, their burger is served only during lunch, no exceptions.

At the time we were disappointed, but it meant that instead we got to enjoy the restaurant's other famous dish: roasted chicken for two with warm bread salad. Turns out, it was an auspicious swap. The dish was very good, so good that I sought out a recipe for it and have made it several times in the last year.

The bread salad is the best part: crusty peasant bread is tossed with olive oil and lightly toasted before soaking up the salad's white wine vinaigrette and mingling with its flavors of garlic, scallions and vinegar-plumped currants. Just writing this makes me want to go make another batch.

Zuni Cafe's dish comes with a whole roasted chicken cut into pieces with lots of crispy, seasoned skin. It's not as special but a lot easier to use boneless-skinless breasts and thighs like I did. To give the chicken a flavor boost, I roasted the chicken pieces on a bed of fresh thyme, along with olive oil and S&P. I also substituted arugula for the red mustard greens.

I'm not the only one singing the praises of this dish. It's been featured on the Today show, where you can find Chef Judy Rodger's original recipe. Smitten Kitchen did a nice take on it a few years ago.

Although I really enjoy this dish and make it every few months, I would still really like to try that burger.

Roasted Chicken with Greens and Bread Salad

Adapted from Zuni Roasted Chicken with Bread Salad by Judy Rodgers of Zuni Cafe

Chicken:

1 bunch of fresh thyme

1.5 lb. boneless-skinless chicken breasts

1.5 lb. boneless-skinless chicken thighs

Extra-virgin olive oil

Seasoned salt to taste

Fresh-ground black pepper to taste

Bread salad:

8 oz. crusty Italian or peasant bread
7 tbsp. extra-virgin olive oil

1 tbsp. currants
1 tbsp. red wine vinegar
1 tbsp. warm water
1 1/2 tbsp. white wine vinegar
Ground sea salt and fresh-ground black pepper to taste
2 tbsp. pine nuts
3 garlic cloves, sliced very thin
4 scallions, white end chopped with a little bit of the green part
2 tbsp. lightly salted water
4 cups of arugula (or other salad greens)

1. Preheat broiler with oven rack about 5 inches from heating element. Cut crust off bread and discard or use for other purpose. Tear and slice bread into pieces of about 1 to 2 inches. Put bread pieces in a large bowl, add 2 tbsp. olive oil and toss to coat. Spread bread pieces onto a baking sheet and broil to lightly toast, about 1-2 minutes (watch carefully, they will burn easily, especially if you hand tear the bread). When done, allow to cool and then put bread pieces back in the large bowl.

2. Preheat oven to 375 F (it won't take as long since the broiler was just on). In a 9 x 13 baking dish, arrange the fresh thyme sprigs on the bottom of the pan. Pat chicken pieces dry and place on top of the thyme. Brush chicken pieces with olive oil and season with seasoned salt and pepper. Put in oven and roast until internal temperature of chicken is about 165 F (should take about 20-30 minutes).

3. While chicken is roasting, prepare the bread salad. Put the currants in small bowl and add red wine vinegar and 1 tbsp. water. Set them aside to plump while you prepare the other ingredients. Whisk 1/4 cup of good quality extra-virgin olive oil with the white wine vinegar and ground sea salt and pepper to taste. Add about 1/4 cup of the dressing to the toasted bread and toss to coat (the remaining tbsp. of dressing will be used later for the greens).

4. Heat a small (8-inch) frying pan over medium-low heat. Toast pine nuts in pan until fragrant and lightly browned (doesn't take long, watch carefully and keep nuts moving to avoid burning). Remove from pan and add to bowl with dressed bread. Add 1 tbsp. olive oil to pan. Add sliced garlic and chopped scallions and saute until softened, about 2 minutes. Add to bread. Drain currants and add to bread.

5. Place bread mixture in a small (8 x 8) baking dish. Sprinkle 2 tbsp. salted water over the bread mixture. Cover with aluminum foil and place in oven to warm during the last 7-8 minutes of time when the chicken is roasting.

6. Add arugula to large bowl and toss with remaining white wine vinaigrette. When broad mixture comes out of oven, remove from pan, add to bowl and toss with greens. Serve bread salad under roasted chicken pieces. 

Cocktail: Spring Breeze

I don't think it's possible to make a cocktail that's more refreshing than this. Mint, cucumber and lemon juice are all classically "refreshing flavors." Together with Hendrick's gin and some sugar, it makes a cocktail that's like being kissed by a cool spring breeze.


Spring Breeze

1 oz. simple syrup
8 fresh mint leaves
1-inch cucumber
1 1/2 oz. gin (Hendrick's)
1/2 oz. fresh lemon juice (1/2 lemon)
2 oz. club soda
Small mint leaves and a slice of cucumber (optional garnish)

Add mint leaves and 1/2 oz. simple syrup to cocktail shaker. Muddle mint leaves with a twisting motion. Peel cucumber and chop into 1/2-inch cubes. Add to shaker and muddle with a crushing motion. Add ice, gin, lemon juice and another 1/2 oz. simple syrup. Shake until cold. Strain into rocks glass with ice. Top with club soda and stir to combine. Garnish with small mint leaves and a slice of cucumber.

Food (Section) Fight!: Week 15

Food (Section) Fight! is my weekly look at The Washington Post's Food section and The New York Times' Dining section with my verdict on which section had the better content for the week.


Sometimes it's nice to be surprised. I had a preview of what one of the food sections was offering today, and I was sure that it meant it would win. Turns out, I was mistaken. However, it was a competitive week, with both sections offering up enticing new columns today.


New York Times
The New York Times was off to a strong for two reasons: 1) The front page declared this week's Dining section to be "The Pizza Issue." That gets me going off the bat, for I love pizza (see my recent crispy pizza post). 2) Columnist Mark Bittman returned to the Dining section today. Bittman is something of a legend in food writing circles. For years, he wrote the Dining section column, The Minimalist, a celebration of how to bring out the best in fresh ingredients with simple recipes.


Bittman's new column "How to Cook Everything," is a riff on his celebrated cookbook of the same name (it's also available as an iPhone app, which I wrote about awhile ago). His first How to Cook Everything column ties into the issue's theme, espousing his simple approach to pizza, including his easy recipe for Basic Pizza Dough (which I consulted for my Crispy Pizza recipe). 


To some extent, I was prepared to award Food (Section) Fight! to NYT this week on the basis of these very promising moves. However, the rest of today's Dining section failed to live up to the promise of the front page.


The rest of the pizza coverage was underwhelming. Pete Wells has a piece on fried pizza, which doesn't really interest me (I suppose I'm a traditionalist in that I think pizza should be made in an oven). He also ignites one of my pet peeves by using the word "ecosystem" in the wrong context, referring to "New York's crowded pizza ecosystem." An ecosystem is an ecological unit comprised of living things and, as wonderful as pizzerias are, they are not, in fact, living (the people who run them, that's another story). Eric Asimov has a column on what to pair with pizza, in which he concludes that you can pair just about anything (red wine, white wine, beer, champagne or Coke). Melissa Clark offers up a couple of calzone recipes, which is like pizza's cousin. She says for the dough you can use homemade or purchased, but fails to direct readers to Bittman's dough recipe on page D3. Melissa! 


David Tanis' Seaweed Salad takes a really pretty picture. I don't know if I'm gung ho about putting seafood in my salad, but all the other ingredients sure look nice together. Pete Wells reviews Alison Eighteen, a new restaurant new Union Square that gets only 1 star. Then there's Jeff Gordiner's story about a guy who likes to paint pictures of cheese, which is amusing, but not really about either cooking or eating. 


Washington Post
So the New York Times dazzled me with the promise of a good section but ultimately let me down (except for Mark Bittman--LOVE Mark Bittman). Meanwhile, the Washington Post churned out a real work horse of a Food section today. You know how I said I often judge a good Food section by whether I'm still reading it by the time I finish breakfast? That was certainly true today. 


Front and center is the new column by David Hagedorn, which I am really excited about. It's called "The Process," and it's going to document the methods by which Hagedorn turns interesting ingredients into original dishes. For me, this is really exciting. It's is exactly where my personal cooking interest lies right now: learning how to use exceptional ingredients and draw on a working knowledge of cooking technique to produce delicious, original recipes. For the home cook, I see this is an important tipping point: crossing that threshold from replicating recipes others have made to wielding sufficient expertise to create your own. It's an exciting challenge, and I'm really looking forward to reading this each month. The first column focuses on a selection of spring vegetables: fresh chickpeas (i.e. not the canned kind), garlic chives and scallions, with recipes for each (particularly like the Scallion Shiitake Pancakes). 


Last week, I said I thought Tim Carman and I weren't on the same wavelength. This week, I love his story, a review of chef Alain Ducasse's new cookbook Nature, which includes some particularly witty phrases: "Alice Waters would have gushed like a broken fire hydrant in Queens, given the chance!" and..."which has earned him enough Michelin stars to form his own private galaxy." Full disclosure: his review didn't actually appear in the Food section (it's online), but the recipes he adapted from the cookbook do, including the rather tasty looking Spring Tartines.


For those who follow the D.C. restaurant scene, the trials and tribulations of chef Robert Donna will not be new to you. For those who don't, here's a quick recap: For years, Donna presided over the kitchen of his renowned downtown restaurant Galileo (I ate there twice, it was fabulous). When the building owner decided to renovate, Donna moved his operation to Crystal City, opening a more casual eatery called Bebo. Here the problems began: Bebo was plagued by bad service and mixed reviews. Still, the devotees seemed to give him a pass and when he returned to D.C. proper with Galileo III, that's when it got really bad. The good reviews? Gone, along with much of his staff, who reportedly took off after he failed to pay them. Yikes. Donna closed up shop, tucked tail between legs and took off for Phoenix (Yeah, odd, but it happened). Well, now he's back with a new casual pasta and pizza restaurant in upper northwest called La Forchetta. Already, it's embroiled in controversy for apparently having lifted its name and logo from a Venezuelan restaurant and creating confusion with the similarly named French D.C. restaurant La Fourchette. However, Tom Sietsema's First Bite preview sounds promising (thankfully for me, since I have reservations there soon). The pizza sounds a little disappointing, but other dishes sound good. Tom fails to mention anything about the pasta, which perhaps he is saving for his review proper. 


Other good content this week includes Jane Black's story about mobile carts bringing produce to low-income, urban neighborhoods, Bonnie Benwick's Dinner in Minutes recipe for Kale and Chickpeas Stew, reminiscent of this All We Can Eat post from January about kale and chickpeas, and Stephanie Witt Sedgwick's Nourish recipe, Grilled Asparagus, Farfalline and Prosciutto Salad.


Verdict
The Washington Post. Despite my excitement over the NYT pizza issue and the return of Mark Bittman, I was even more impressed by the new David Hagedorn column and overall good coverage this week from WaPo. 


Score
The New York Times: 8
The Washington Post: 7

Ginger-Hoisin Salmon with Quinoa Pilaf

In my continuing quest for good salmon dishes, I came across The Lovely Pantry's Hoisin Salmon with Quinoa and Zucchini. Quinoa is very popular these days, a crunchy whole grain that is supposed to be very good for you. It can be a bit bland on its own, but tossed with other good ingredients it adds wonderful texture. I liked the idea of pairing it with salmon as well as giving an Asian flavor with hoisin sauce.

For the quinoa, I decided to turn it into a pilaf, adding sweet onion, red pepper and corn. For the salmon, I switched to broiling, which is my preferred method for cooking salmon, and also added another Asian flavor--fresh ginger. The basil was just because it was hanging around the kitchen, but it went nicely with the quinoa and vegetables.


Salmon with Quinoa Pilaf
Inspired by The Lovely Pantry's Hoisin Salmon with Quinoa and Zucchini

1 cup red quinoa, rinsed
2 cups low sodium chicken broth (may substitute vegetable broth)
2 tbsp. olive oil
1 medium (or 1/2 of a large) sweet onion, diced
1 zucchini, cut into 1/4-inch cubes
1 red bell pepper, cut into 1/4-inch dice
1/2 cup sweet corn kernels (may use frozen)
Seasoned salt and fresh-ground black pepper to taste
3/4 lb. salmon fillet with skin
Olive oil spray
2 tsp. grated fresh ginger
2 tbsp. hoisin sauce
2 tbsp. basil, cut into thin ribbons

1. Heat quinoa and chicken broth in a medium (2.5 qt.) saucepan over medium-high heat until mixture boils. Reduce heat to low and cover. Simmer for 10 minutes.

2. While quinoa cooks, in a large (12-inch) frying pan, heat 2 tbsp. olive oil over medium heat. Add onion, zucchini and red pepper and saute for 5 minutes. Add corn and continue sautéing another 10 minutes. Season with seasoned salt and fresh-ground black pepper. Add to quinoa once it has simmered for 10 minutes and continue to simmer another 5-7 minutes until the chicken broth has mostly absorbed.

3. Position oven rack to 4-5 inches from the broiler and heat. Put salmon fillet skin-side down on a rimmed baking sheet sprayed with olive oil. Spray salmon with additional oil and smear grated ginger on flesh side of salmon. Season with seasoned salt and fresh-ground black pepper. Broil for 5 minutes, flip salmon over and broil another 4 minutes. Remove from oven. Discard salmon skin and, if desired, scrape off the grey fatty part. Flip salmon over again so the side with the ginger is up. Put hoisin sauce in a small microwave dish (like a Pyrex ramekin) and heat for 5 seconds to thin it out a bit. Spread over salmon and broil for another minute. Remove from oven and slice in half.

4. Serve a few large spoonfuls of quinoa pilaf in a shallow bowl topped with a piece of broiled salmon and a sprinkling of fresh basil chiffonade (not pictured, because I forgot to add it before the photos, but we ate it!).

Food Truck Lunch II

Awhile back I wrote about some downtown D.C. food truck lunch options. I thought it was time to revisit the topic.

Apart from the ongoing regulatory battle, the biggest news in the D.C. food truck of late is the arrival of Jose Andres' truck Pepe. It's been around for a few weeks now, but Andres' Spanish sandwich truck seems is still setting records for longest food truck lines (in addition to its record prices, including $20 for the Pepito de Iberico, which includes Iberico pork, Serrano Ham and roasted green pepper--sounds delicious).

Regrettably, I haven't tried Pepe yet. But not for my having not tried. Most food trucks tweet their location in the morning well before lunchtime, which you can track with a map of their locations on Food Truck Fiesta. For awhile, Pepe was tweeting it's location later than most others, although it seems to be improving. However, I've had bad luck trying to locate the truck. One day when it was going to be at the Portrait Gallery at 11:30 I was ready to go. I showed up at 11:30 even and...no pepe. I circled the block three times and even did a lap around Hotel Monaco in case Pepe's location had been a little off. No dice. I ended up getting food from another truck and learned later that Pepe was about 20 minutes to its spot. I'm determined to try it soon though.

Here's a round up of some of my best recent food truck lunches:

Chupacabra. The Chupacabra is a mythic Latin-American monster, but there's nothing scary about the food served up at the food truck by the same name. These are the best food truck tacos I've had so far (yes, better than TaKorean). Pictured above is their trio of chicken, pork and shredded beef tacos, all of which come topped with chopped radishes and cilantro, giving the spicy, seasoned meat a cool, fresh finish.

Borinquen Lunch Box. This truck serves Puerto Rican cuisine and was recommended to me by my coworker with a Puerto Rican heritage. She steered me towards the Tripleta, and I'm a better man for it. It's really, really good. As the name implies, this is a sandwich with three meats: roasted pork, skirt steak and ham, served with lettuce and potato sticks (basically mini French fries). It's not a particularly healthy sandwich, but it is very satisfying.

Carnivore BBQ. A hankering for a good barbecue sandwich is easily satisfied by this truck, whose pulled pork sandwich features a rather generous helping of shredded pork served on a bun with slaw and barbecue sauce. I thought the sandwich was really good; not too spicy, not too sweet, although that will vary depending on what sauce you choose (I opted for Memphis).

CapMac. It's been a few weeks since I visited CapMac, and they are no longer offering their winter mac, a dressed up mac & cheese featuring shredded pork, roasted butternut squash and fontina cheese (they told me today that they are now offering a roast pork Philly mac, with fontina and provolone cheese sauce and sautéed broccoli rabe). Even if this is no longer there, I imagine whatever seasonal offering has replaced it will be just as good.