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July 25, 2009
Weird salad is good salad
Tonight I was reminded of the awesomeness of kitchen improvisation.
So I get to Green Arcade, all ready to read and cook, right? I’ve got my huge cucumber (pictured in previous post below), some regular-sized pickling cucumbers, some lemon cucumbers, some mint, some cherry tomatoes, some lemons, some olive oil, and some salt.
So I’m up there, right? In front of the audience and all, talking about this impending cucumber salad, right? And after discovering that the huge cucumber does not actually taste that good (the peel was pretty thick and waxy-tasting, and an audience member pronounced it “young,” i.e., unripe), I decide it doesn’t matter and I have plenty without it because of these beautiful lemon cucumbers. Right?
Well, no. As embarrassing as this is for a cookbook author to admit, what I thought were large lemon cucumbers were actually small melons. I realized this when I sliced them open and discovered beige seeds. Cucumbers have translucent or white seeds, and no way was this a cucumber. A little taste sealed it. I had a mild, only slightly sweet melon on my hands. Two, actually.
After a quick poll of the audience, we decided to proceed with the original plan, minus the garlic that was going to go into the dressing. I was skeptical about the tomatoes, but it turned out really well. Thanks, Green Arcade audience! And thanks, Patrick, Green Arcade proprietor, for the pepper mill!
Here’s the recipe:
• 2 small cucumbers (or 1 large), cut into small-bite-size pieces
• 2 small melons that look like large lemon cucumbers (or any kind of not-too-sweet melon in approximately the same quantity as the cucumbers), cut into small-bite-size pieces
• 2 handfuls cherry tomatoes, cut in half if they’re big and left whole if they’re small
• 1 small handful mint, finely chopped
• 1 lemon
• some olive oil (maybe 2 tablespoons?)
• some salt (a teaspoon?)
• freshly ground pepper to taste
Combine the cucumbers, melon, tomatoes, and mint in a bowl. Zest the lemon into the bowl. Cut the lemon in half and squeeze the juice in there as well. Pour some olive oil on top, sprinkle on the salt, add pepper, and stir to combine. Eat.
Note: The rind on the melons I had was really thin, I didn’t even peel it. But if you have a thick or in any way unpleasant rind on your melon, you probably want to peel it.
July 4, 2009
Scrounged Germanic potato salad
When I was growing up, whenever my mom (who did all the cooking) couldn’t face the task of putting together a regular, organized, main-dish-plus-sides meal, we would do what we called “scrounging”: basically, pulling leftovers and other ready-to-eat items out of the fridge/pantry and assembling a meal. It was fun and meant that each person got to satisfy hir whims, to some extent.
I think the practice is part of what gave me the bug for improvisational, use-what-you’ve-got cooking—which I put to use today.
I’m due at a friend’s party in just a few hours, and due to a rough work schedule this week, I missed all my farmers market opportunities. I didn’t have a lot to work with for a decent pot luck contribution, and all the places to get good fresh ingredients are closed today.
As I pondered the problem and considered just bringing a bottle of wine that’s sitting in my frdge, I remembered: I have potatoes that I got at the market a few weeks ago. And I always have olive oil, and garlic. And surely I can find some appropriate mustard and vinegar in my cobbled-together kitchen (it’s a long story, but most of my stuff is in storage right now and I’m kinda squatting in a not-very-hospitable place). Then I remembered that I even have some parsley that, though it’s probably on its last legs, might have a few salvageable leaves left. Bingo: Germanic potato salad. (Why Germanic and not just German? Well, I make no claims to authenticity, and as a former copyeditor, I’ve gotta be precise. But I digress.)
Here’s what I had:
• About 2-1/2 pounds of small Yukon Gold potatoes (any variety on the waxy side would work well)
• One bunch old parsley (a small handful of the leaves were still good)
• Some spicy brown mustard (I also found Chinese horseradish mustard and some dijon; the latter would also have worked well, but I chose the brown)
• Some white wine vinegar
• Some olive oil
• One garlic clove
• Some salt
And here’s what I did:
• Boiled the potatoes (no peeling!) for about 20 minutes (until a knife slid easily through one of them)
• Minced the garlic and then mashed it into a paste, along with two pinches of salt, with the side of my knife
• Put the garlic in a small lidded jar with about a tablespoon of mustard, a tablespoon of vinegar, two tablespoons of olive oil, and a scant teaspoon of salt; shook it all up
• Minced the parsley
• Cut the potatoes into chunks when they were cool enough to handle; took a shower while I let them cool a little more but not too much (hot foods absorb dressing very well)
• Put the potato chunks in a bowl, poured the dressing over them, added the parsley, and stirred
In an ideal world, I probably would have used cider vinegar instead of white vinegar, and I would have loved to have added a scallion (if I’d had one, I would have sliced it into tiny rings and added it with the parsley, and I also probably would have skipped the garlic). But I made a lovely picnic dish to share without planning ahead and without having to go to a chain supermarket to buy anything processed or grown far away, so I’m damn satisfied.
