Panko-Crusted Salmon and Warm French Lentils

Greetings from the barren hinterlands of northern Westchester County!

Yes, I am still banished to the Timbuktu of the Tristate area, the Siberia of the Northeast, completely lacking cell service, and now in addition to forced family bonding and merriment in the form of St. Patrick's Day celebrations my parents are making me prepare all of their meals. (Translation: I've had a really relaxing couple of days up here doing absolutely nothing and happily utilizing my parents' kitchen which is almost the size of my entire NYC apartment). I'm heading back to the city tonight, but lucky for me (and my parents, and you) I had time to cook one last meal before I go. I was actually supposed to make this dinner last night but ended up going to see The Artist instead.

BTW what did you guys think of The Artist- did it actually deserve Best Picture? I thought it was cute. Not great, but very good. The sound editing and special effects were pitch-perfect. And I now have a petite crush on Jean Dujardin. Like, his forearms contain more sex appeal than the entire male population of my law school combined. But I digress...

~le sigh~

This time I gave the Barefoot Contessa a try, making a couple of recipes from her book "How Easy Is That?": Warm French Lentils and Panko Crusted Salmon.


Just how easy WAS it? Meh, not too bad. I had to go out and buy a few ingredients we didn't have (French Le Puy lentils? Really, Ina? Not all of us are so classy as to just *happen* to have French AOC lentils lying around), but the prep itself was relatively simple. And I only set off the smoke alarm once.


Both recipes were relatively simple and helped create a meal with fantastically complex flavors despite the limited number of ingredients. I highly recommend both, although my mother commented that the mustard flavor in the lentils was "quite strong" so you might only like them if you like mustard (but I generally dislike mustard, and I liked the lentils, so go figure). There was actually dijon mustard in both dishes, creating some continuity on the plate.

And now, onto the documentary evidence of my culinary adventures!

The lentils dish was started by sauteeing leeks and carrots in olive oil for 6 minutes (normally you would add chopped garlic in at minute 5 but ma mère is allergic).

Meanwhile, 6 whole cloves were stuck into a peeled onion and brought to a boil with one cup of lentils and 4 cups of water.

Once the lentils started boiling, the carrots and leeks were added.


Once the lentils were almost tender, the onion was removed and discarded and the lentils were strained and put into a bowl with 1 tsp of butter. Meanwhile, I mixed olive oil, dijon mustard, red wine vinegar, salt and pepper in a small bowl.


This mixture was then poured over the lentils, and the dish was allowed to cool slightly before serving.


For the salmon, I mixed 2/3 cups of Panko breadcrumbs with 2 tbsp of finely chopped parsley and 1 tsp lemon zest. The crumbs were drizzled with 2 tbsp of olive oil and tossed thoroughly.


The salmon, cut into filets and skin-side down, was smeared with dijon mustard and sprinkled with salt and pepper. The Panko mixture was pressed onto the top of the fish.


2 tbsp of vegetable oil were heated in a large saucepan on the stove. I placed the salmon in the saucepan for 3-4 minutes to create a nice sear (unfortunately at this stage some of the breadcrumbs fell off and burnt on the pan, leading to the fire alarm incident. Oops). The entire pan was then moved to the preheated-to-425-degrees oven for 5-7 minutes, until the fish was almost cooked through and the breadcrumbs started to turn golden brown. The pan was removed from the oven and covered with aluminum foil for 10 minutes to let the fish set.

oh heyy there, charbroiled breadcrumbs

I served the salmon with the lentils, some plain white rice, and a lemon wedge. Yum scrum! Thanks, Ina. You just won a point in your battle with Nigella Lawson.

Bailey's Black and White Cupcakes

Aside from openmindedness and appreciation of diversity and all that good stuff, one of the benefits of having parents from different cultural backgrounds is the number of holidays my family celebrates. And yes, I am indeed part Irish so unlike SOME of you green beer -swilling heathens out there I possess a legitimate right to celebrate St. Patrick's Day thankyouverymuch. (Fake snark alert: feel free to get down with your badass green beer -drinking self whenever your heart desires).


But let's be honest, for us St. Patrick's Day has nothing to do with culture or saints or snakes or Ireland and everything to do with family and food. Saturday night was our annual St. Patrick's day dinner, and as usual my aunt's corned beef and cabbage solidified her reputation as, like, the best cook EVER. Corned beef and cabbage is one of those meals that sounds disgusting and doesn't look or smell much better, but it tastes sogoodsosaltysomuchflavor and ugh vegetarianism be damned I have a weakness for it to the point where its not even funny. My aunt also makes an amazing irish soda bread with raisins that is dense and sweet and beyond fabulous, as well as great cole slaw and great potatoes and seriously everything she touches is usually delicious, so I was at a bit of a loss as to how I could possibly make a dessert that people would even want to LOOK at after that amazing dinner.


The answer? Alcohol. (As usual, amirite?). To be specific, Bailey's Irish Cream. Lots of it. Bailey's in the cupcake batter. Bailey's in the chocolate ganache. Bailey's in the buttercream frosting. Bailey's swigged straight from the bottle as I toiled in the kitchen...

Just kidding. That's gross. I used a glass.

The cupcakes were inspired by a recipe from Better Home & Gardens, but as I started making the batter I didn't like the results I was getting (too thick, not enough chocolate, etc.) so I tweaked the recipe as I went along, and improvised the frosting. The result was a moist and surprisingly light cupcake with deeeelicious frosting flavored with just enough Bailey's to make it interesting. The chocolate half of the cupcake could have used some more flavor so going forward I might substitute cocoa powder, but all in all the cupcakes were a crowd pleaser and I'll def be keeping one in the freezer to celebrate with on the REAL St. Paddy's day after I'm done taking the MPRE (come to think of it, the entire bottle of leftover Bailey's might come in handy as well).

Bailey's Black and White Cupcakes

Ingredients:

• 1/2 cup butter, room temperature
• 4 egg whites, room temperature
• 2 cups all-purpose flour
• 1 teaspoon baking powder
• 1/2 teaspoon baking soda
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 1 3/4 cups sugar
• 4 tablespoons Irish cream liqueur
• 1 teaspoon vanilla
• 1 1/4 cups buttermilk
• 4 ounces bittersweet chocolate, melted

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees and place paper liners in 24 cupcake/muffin molds. In a medium mixing bowl mix the flour, baking soda, baking powder, and salt and set aside. In a large mixing bowl beat the butter until soft, adding the sugar, vanilla, and liqueur. Beat until combined, scraping down the sides of the bowl every once in awhile. Add egg whites one at a time, mixing well after each addition. Then alternate adding the buttermilk and flour mixture, mixing until just combined.


Why buttermilk? The acid in buttermilk reacts with baking soda to produce bubbles of carbon dioxide, hence why buttermilk is the preferred liquid of many cooks for making light, high-rising biscuits, scones, pancakes, etc. In this case it lends itself to a light cupcake with a very soft and fluffy crumb.

Pour half of the batter into a separate bowl and add the melted chocolate. Fill each cupcake mold about 2/3 of the way full, spooning chocolate batter into one side of the cup and white batter into the other.


Bake about 20 minutes or until the tops spring back when lightly touched. Cool in pans on wire racks for 5 minutes and then remove cupcakes and set on the racks to cool entirely.

Symmetry has never been my strong suit

For the Bailey's Ganache:
Bring 1/2 cup of whipping cream just to a boil. Remove from heat, add 6oz chopped bittersweet chocolate and let sit for 5 minutes.


Add 2 tbsp Bailey's and stir until smooth. Let sit for 15-20 minutes until somewhat thickened, and then smoosh about a tablespoons-worth onto the top of each cupcake, smearing it around a bit with the back of a spoon until relatively flat but not dripping over the side.


Let set (about 1 hour or 15 minutes in the fridge).


For the Bailey's Icing:
Mix 2 sticks butter (room temperature) with 2 1/2 cups powdered sugar until well blended. If you have a mixer, great. If not, this can be done by hand. Add in 3 healthy tablespoons of Bailey's and mix well. Spread onto the top of cupcakes with a knife or use a pastry bag with a wide tip.


For some extra flair, sprinkle with mini chocolate chips, crushed coffee beans, or green sugar crystals.


Enjoy!

Tahini Dip

Well, this is embarrassing.

I feel like that awkward kid in middle school who forgot about the science fair and shows up with a crap paper mache volcano while the girl next to him demonstrates the aerodynamics of her homemade hovercraft.


The source of my shame? I'm not sure if what I have to share with you today is a "recipe" per se. Calling this a recipe would be like calling the directions on a bag of microwave popcorn a recipe. It's THAT simple. But I am still posting in the hope that one day, someone just like me (aka someone craving hummus who is too lazy to go to the grocery store to get chickpeas because it is FINALLY SPRING BREAK goddamnit and I just want to sit on my fire escape in the sun and read the latest issue of World Soccer magazine).... ahem, yes, JUST LIKE ME will see this and think "oh good! Here's what I can do with my lifetime supply of tahini paste."

So here is a non-recipe recipe for Tahini Dip, a rich and creamy creation perfect for those times when you want something a little zestier and thicker than hummus and/or are too lazy to get off your ass and get some chickpeas.

Tahini Dip

Ingredients:

• 1/2 cup tahini paste
• 1/4 cup lemon juice
• 1 clove garlic, crushed
• 1/2 tsp salt
• 1/4 cup cold water

Mix the first 4 ingredients together. Add the cold water, little by little, until the dip reaches the consistency you want. Garnish with a sprig of cilantro/parsley.

Looking at the ingredients you may wonder how this doesn't end up a soupy mess because tahini is pretty runny to begin with. But a weird thing happens when you add the lemon juice- the tahini seizes up and thickens, until it is almost like a coarse dough.


The cold water then counteracts this and brings the tahini back to its creamy consistency.


This dip is pretty good with almost any vegetable. Serve it with pita wedges, bell pepper or cucumber slices, or make a meal out of it by sprinkling with some feta and serving with panfried zucchini. Yum scrum.

Healthy egg salad

Sadly enough, I got the idea for this from a premade egg salad at Westside Market. But anything they can do you and I can do better, so give it a try:

Ingredients:

• Hardboiled egg whites, roughly chopped
• Baby spinach
• Cherry tomatoes, quartered
• Red onion, roughly chopped
• Feta cheese, crumbled
• Olive Oil
• Salt & Pepper

Mix the first 5 ingredients together (proportion to taste). Drizzle with olive oil and sprinkle with salt and pepper. Can be eaten alone, or on a salad, sandwich, or bagel.

Easy. Healthy. Make it. Enjoy it.

Leek, Zucchini and Cheese Casserole

This lovely recipe is introduced in Olive Trees and Honey as follows:

A classic example of the Sephardim's love of vegetables mixed with cheese and eggs, this comforting casserole goes by many names: quajado/cuajada ("coagulated"), sfongato de puerro ("leek sponge"), and almodrote de prassa ("hodgepodge of leeks")...

First of all, since when is the "Sephardim's love of vegetables mixed with cheese and eggs" a cultural characteristic of note? And secondly, what a hilariously unappetizing collection of names. Although "hodgepodge of leeks" is kind of great, if only because it gives me an excuse to use the word hodgepodge. Repeatedly. Hodgepodegehodgepodgehodgepodge.

Err, anyways... the original recipe was a straight up leek and cheese casserole but I thought that would be a tad bit too one-dimensional. I love me some veggies, so I made a modified version by replacing half of the leeks with grated zucchini. I used feta and Gouda as my cheeses but you can also use kefalotyri or parmesan instead of the feta and Muenster or cheddar instead of the Gouda.

This dish represents a lot of firsts for me:

• My first time cooking with leeks
• My first time making anything with Gouda.
• My first time using fresh dill since a scarring incident that started with me making greek zucchini fritters for my family and ended with my mother discovering that she has a violent allergy to dill

So needless to say I was a little nervous about this one. How did things go? Let's take a look!

Remember when using leeks...

...to only use the white and light green parts. Wash them carefully; leeks can hold a lot of dirt. The fresh leeks smelled delicious.

The grated zucchini adds some extra flavor and texture, and helped me tone my right bicep

Sautee the leeks and onions in a saucepan with vegetable oil until slightly softened and then simmer with water, zucchini, and kosher salt until tender
Strain the leeks and then add them to a mix of feta and Gouda cheeses, eggs, salt and pepper, olive oil, and fresh dill

Spoon the mixture into a 9x9 casserole pan and bake in the oven for 55 min until firm and golden brown on top

The verdict? Delicious! The heaviness of the cheese and eggs was nicely countered by the light vegetables. The dill added some complexity to the briny feta. Since I used the feta I probably could have cut down on the salt. Otherwise, the dish was perfect- like a greek frittata. Love. The casserole can be served warm or at room temperature with some rice or a side salad.

Melting Snowman Cookies

Now is the winter of my discontent.* Mild temperatures are nice and all, but I want SNOW. I want sledding and snowmen and rosy cheeks and warm mugs of hot chocolate drunk slowly while reading the New York Times Style Section (don't judge) and watching the snow fall outside my window. Alas, it is not to be. And given that for the first time in recent history I've made it through the winter without losing a pair of boots to salt stains and water damage, I guess I should be thankful. But, well.... I'm not. I still want snow. Luckily these adorable melting snowman cookies take me back to the magical times of yesteryear aka last year when I knew what being cold felt like. I made them for a party and they were a HUGE success. And quite tasty, if I do say so myself.

Melting Snowman Cookies

Ingredients:

• sugar cookie dough (use your favorite recipe)
• marshmallows
• royal icing (confectioners sugar, meringue powder, warm water)
• food coloring or premade cookie icing
• mini chocolate chips

Make a batch of sugar cookie dough using your favorite recipe. Shape balls of dough about the size of a small ice cream scoop into uneven, lumpy pancakes about half an inch thick. You want the dough to bake in the shape of a melted puddle, so the more uneven the better and no two cookies should be the same. Bake according to recipe directions, although you may need an extra minute or two because the cookies are rather large. Allow to cool.


Make the royal icing by beating 4 cups of confectioners sugar, 3 tablespoons meringue powder, and 6 tablespoons of warm water until stiff peaks form. This will take about 10 minutes. Transfer half of the icing into a bowl and add 1/2 teaspoon of water at a time until the icing get slightly runny.

Place a piece of tinfoil or parchment paper on a tray, and arrange the cookies on top. Spoon some of the runny royal icing onto each cookie and spread it around with the back of the spoon, allowing the icing to drip over the edge of the cookie.

Before the icing fully sets, grease a plate with butter or shortening. Place several marshmallows on the plate and microwave for approximately 20 seconds, stopping the microwave before the marshmallows double in size. With well-greased fingers to avoid stickiness, smoosh a marshmallow onto each cookie to make the "head." Repeat until each snowman has its own little mushy face.


Now comes the fun part- decorate however you wish! I used mini chocolate chips for buttons and then put food coloring in the remaining icing and piped scarves, bows and hats onto my snowmen. I used Wilton's cookie icing in orange and black for the faces and hands (if you do this, do NOT microwave the icing for the full time suggested on the bottle- it will be too runny. I had several deformed, sinister-looking snowmen as proof of that fact, but my family ate them before they could be photographed.)

*This reference is not as random as it may seem. I saw Richard III at BAM last week and it was AMAZING. A very long production (3.5 hours), but the actors were fantastic, the set production was striking, and I enjoyed every minute of it. Plus, Kevin Spacey is badass. Go see it if you have the chance!

Annnd we're BACK!

So, it's been awhile...
I didn't write. I didn't call. I'm sorry.
I promise I still care.

It's just, this blog started as a method of final-exam-studying procrastination. And then finals were over. And then I started work. And then work was over. And then I spent a semester in Barcelona. And now THAT'S over, and I'm back in NYC, yet again in the mood to procrastinate, and hoping to cook as much as possible during the next couple of months before I become a corporate law drone with no free time who comes home to a fridge stocked solely with beer, water, and a lifetime supply of condiment packets hoarded from seamless web deliveries.

BUT things are going to be a bit different this time around. Because.... brace yourself.... I won't be making that many desserts.

I know, I know, its madness. What's Torts & Tarts without the Tarts? It's just torts... and that's no fun. But never fear, when JSus closes one kitchen cabinet she opens another one, and the one I just opened is full of yummy ingredients I can use to make recipes from this book:

And this book:

And this book:

And all the other underutilized cookbooks I've accumulated over the years.

Why? I don't know, I guess I've been belatedly inspired by the Julie & Julia craze of cooking your way through a cookbook. While I'm no longer strictly vegetarian, most of the meals I make are, and there's only so many stir-fries and salads a girl can eat before she goes crazy. Plus this will provide some structure and hopefully keep me cooking and keep me posting! So here goes.