Yearly Archives: 2012

Roast Chicken with Muhammara

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What???!!!  There’s a Garum Factory post in my mailbox?  Boy, did this week fly by!  

I hate to break the news, but it’s still Wednesday.  We’re running a couple of days ahead of schedule because this weekend is the PanMass Challenge bicycle ride for the Dana Farber Cancer Institute–and Team Rialto-Trade is a big participant.   I wish I could thank each and every one of our contributors in persons–Thank you! Thank you! Thank you!  

And now, back to the food…

Muhummara, a spicy ground walnut and pepper paste, has been on my post list for some time.  We’ve got some more grilled items coming up and I didn’t want the month of August to be all-grill, all-the time, so while Jody’s notes may suggest that this is more appropriate for December of February, ask yourself, When is a roast chicken ever the wrong thing to make?”   The answer is never.  

Grilled Mussels with Coconut Curry Broth

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Grilled Mussels with Coconut Curry Broth–what more is there to say?  Last summer we did a piece about grilling clams.  Mussels–and oysters–work the same way.  You pop them on a hot grill and wait.  When they open, they’re done.  We’re talking about very lightly grilled seafood here.  As you can see from the pictures, Jody first made the coconut curry broth.  Then we grilled the mussels (no, really, we grilled the mussels).  If you’re deft with a pair of tongs you can get the mussels off the grill and into the coconut broth with minimal loss of mussel juice. Toss the mussels with the herbs and the coconut broth and Bob’s your uncle.

Warm Radish Salad with Bacon and Pea Tips

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Sometimes you eat the bear and sometimes the bear eats you.  That’s the way it was with Warm Radish Salad with Bacon and Pea Tips.  Salad is a killer to photograph.  Light glints off the dressed surfaces, producing bits of glare or “hot spots.”  And if the salad is one part greens and another part something else, then while it may taste delicious to toss everything together, that homestyle approach doesn’t make for an alluring photo.  The heavier components tend to weigh down the more delicate ones.  What’s a guy with a camera and a chef for a wife to do?

Make the damn salad and photograph it a second time, that’s what.*  The salad above is composed with a photograph, or dinner guests, in mind–radishes here, salad there, easy on the dressing.  The photo shot from straight down later in the post is the way we’d normally eat the salad in all its messy collapsed glory.  Different stees.

You choose.

Apricot-Cherry Cobbler

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Today I had Apricot-Cherry Cobbler for lunch.  Twice.  A rare indulgence.  I was outside taking pictures, the whipped cream was starting to fade–the rest of my family was headed for Cape Cod.  What was I supposed to do, let it go to waste?  It was a very satisfying lunch. This week’s subject requires no special expertise.  Make the fruit filling, dollop it with the biscuity topping.  Bake.  It may be simple, but it’s as primally satisfying as a rope swing beneath a shaded tree on a summer afternoon.

Chilled Garlic Scape and Buttermilk Soup

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There’s nothing like a bowl of cold savory soup in hot weather, and until the day we do a post on jellied madrilene, this Chilled Garlic Scape and Buttermilk Soup will have to stand in.  It’s a wrinkle on vichyssoise, close enough to feel familiar, but with a few turns you might not have expected, like scapes and buttermilk.

Tart, garlicky, cool–you’re going to love it on a sweltering night.

Fireworks for the Fourth of July – Pickled Eggs 3 Ways

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Pickled Eggs 3 Ways is the final and most colorful installment in our recent trilogy of egg recipes.  We made two batches of each of these eggs, a week apart, both to test the recipes and so I could photograph the process from pickling juice to finished eggs.  As I write this the first batch of three dozen eggs is nearly gone–in case you’re wondering if kids will eat pickled eggs,  the answer is Yes, they will.  Who can resist wedges of a saffron and purple egg, child or adult? These eggs are tart, but not completely sour (note the sugar in the recipes), which makes them a flexible dining companion.  Of course pickled eggs are the ultimate picnic food–festive, not prone to spoilage, and given to pairing nicely with other preserved items like cheese, smoked fish–and great beer.  They stand out with mixed greens–and when combined with with wasabi mayonnaise make a killer egg salad

Happy Birthday to us – Poached Chicken Breasts with DIY Mayonnaise

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We’re on an egg roll these days.  Last week zabaglione, this week Poached Chicken Breasts with DIY Mayonnaise–and next week… well, you’ll just have to check back next week.  One hint, picnic.  And no, I’m not talking about deviled eggs.

As a younger–and thinner–man, I used to make mayonnaise a lot.  I also used to eat chicken breasts.  Then the original “white meat” took over the world as the healthy convenient food of choice and I just walked away in search of tastier pastures.  I can’t explain why I stopped making mayonnaise, except to say that after I got involved in the restaurant biz, we just drifted apart.  So here we were, decades later, bumping up against each other. Can you ever really go home again? I wanted to find out.

Wilted Green Salad with Fresh Chickpeas, Feta and Greek Yogurt

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Craig Claiborne, the late pioneer of food journalism for the New York Times once wrote a New Year’s Day column that included the line, “Blessed indeed is the household whose refrigerator contains an overlooked tin of caviar.”  Yes, well.  For most of us, caviar times may be gone, but that only means the return of our salad days.  Substitute chickpeas for caviar and you’re halfway to Wilted Green Salad with Fresh Chickpeas, Feta and Greek Yogurt.

Poor No More – Spaghetti with Clams and Toasted Breadcrumbs

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Spaghetti and Clams with Toasted Bread Crumbs takes its inspiration from two dishes–spaghetti alla vongole, a dish of string pasta with clams popular in Naples, Rome, wider Campania and farther north along the Italian coastline; and pasta con il pangrattato, pasta with breadcrumbs, a very basic dish of la cucina povera, the cooking of the poor.  At its most elemental the latter contains no more than pasta, breadcrumbs, oil, salt and a bit of garlic.  Variations include raisins, cauliflower, anchovies and olives, which is to say that a little stale bread, some pasta and oil is all you need for dinner–if you have anything else you can dine in the lap of luxury.