Leafing through

Posted on May 23, 2011 by Chelsea

Writing is slow. And it’s difficult. I learned this when I was first considering authorship (I wanted to write young adult novels, and then I wanted to write fantasy novels, and then I wanted to write The Great American Novel. And then I decided to go to graduate school). Yet I forget this with dependable, routine frequency, and then when I sit down to write something, I’m astounded and dismayed when it turns out to be challenging.

But cooking is often fast. And it’s not all that difficult, if you’re paying attention. So it’s funny that I seem compelled to combine the two. Something that is over so quickly – created in half an hour, consumed in another – takes me a week to contemplate and fit words to. And this surprises me, for some reason. It’s synesthetic, really. Taking the products of senses and forcing them into words is neither easy nor accurate. And yet if we’re going to write about food, that’s what must be done…

“Poach broccoli rabe or stemmed greens like collard leaves, then drain and chop. Combine with chopped water chestnuts and diced mushrooms in a skillet with sesame or peanut oil, minced garlic and hot pepper flakes. Cook until vegetables soften and dry a bit.”

I permitted myself a few shortcuts this week, purchasing already-sliced water chestnuts and a big sack of greens from Trader Joe’s.

Approximations:

1 16 oz. bag mixed cooking greens

1 small can sliced water chestnuts

2 cups chopped mushrooms

¼ cup vegetable oil

2 TB sesame oil

4-6 cloves garlic, finely minced

½ tsp red pepper flakes, or to taste

2 TB soy sauce, or to taste

I heated up a pot full of salted water and dumped in the greens when the water came to a boil. They only took a few minutes to cook, and when the thickest stems were just crisp tender, I declared them done and drained the pot, leaving the leaves in a colander so they could drip as dry as possible.

In a large skillet, I heated up the oil while I chopped mushrooms. I think sesame oil has a very strong flavor and it sometimes burns, and since mushrooms tend to absorb quite a bit, I thought I’d give them a mixture to sizzle in. When their color had darkened and they had given up their moisture, I tossed in the sliced water chestnuts and the garlic.

I’ve gotten into a bad habit of turning away from the stove lately, assuming things will take longer than they do (perhaps misapplying to the kitchen what I’ve learned so grudgingly about writing?) and returning to the smell of char, so I was careful to add my cooked, drained greens only moments after tossing the garlic around the pan. Then I tossed on some red pepper flakes and gave the skillet a vigorous stir.

Because I served this with my favorite tofu recipe, I didn’t expect the greens to need any extra salt, but when N. and I tasted we realized it was missing something. The simple addition of a few splashes of soy sauce rounded things out perfectly. The greens had a tender crunch that is becoming one of my favorite textures; it’s the barest resistance against the teeth and then a soft chewiness that fills your mouth – I don’t know how to properly describe it. The water chestnuts, on the other hand, scream with texture and crispness, though they don’t taste like much. The mushrooms offer up such rich deep flavor that I almost didn’t need to textural contrast of the water chestnuts. If I made this again I might leave them out. The soft tender slipperiness of the cooked vegetables made this a dish with such comfort and familiarity that I could have eaten the whole pot on my own. Easily. Quickly. Nothing like writing.

If writing is slow, for me, eating is like reading. Both are acts of consumption: the words leap into your brain from the page and you must digest them to find their meaning. The food slips into your mouth and lends flavor, nutrition, sustenance.

I’ve always done both more quickly than I should. But when it tastes so good, what else can you do?

Iron Chef

Posted on May 15, 2011 by Chelsea

Some years ago, my friend A. suggested I host an Iron Chef party. We were taking suggestions for themes, and among others she offered this one. I was intrigued. How would it work? Who would choose the ingredients? Who, most importantly, would win? I must admit to harboring some jealous desire to be the victor, should such an event take place. I like to cook, and I like to feed people, and I’m a bit of a hostess-who-wants-to-be-the-mostest, so it seemed like a competition in which I would not only excel, but feel extreme competition.

Then school happened and I put it aside for a while. Long enough, in fact, that A. moved away and years passed. It was not until last Saturday that this long awaited, long anticipated event actually took place. Through a public poll, secret ingredients were chosen. They were revealed in the invitations: the Iron Chef Potluck 2011 would feature potatoes and Parmesan cheese.

Fortunately for me, in need not only of potato and cheese inspiration but also multiple dishes (gotta make sure everyone’s fed and happy!), I had Bittman. I chose two intriguing potato-based party dishes.

“48. Cut sweet potatoes into wedges; boil until tender. Drain and toss with olive oil. Wrap each with a prosciutto slice and a sage leaf, then roast until browned.”

This sounded outrageous. Outrageous easy, outrageous good. I used:

2 large sweet potatoes, halved lengthwise and sliced into wedges

2 packages of prosciutto (basically you just need a piece for each potato wedge, so it depends how many wedges you have)

1 package of sage leaves (same thing here)

Olive oil spray

Additional directions are not really needed here – Bittman’s original text tells you exactly what to do. I boiled the sweet potatoes for 10 minutes or so until they were tender but not falling apart. When they were completely cool I sprayed them and the baking pan with olive oil spray, pressed a sage leaf against the flesh of the sweet potato wedge, and wrapped it up with prosciutto.

I preheated the oven to 400F and roasted these little packets for almost half an hour. At this point, the prosciutto was getting crispy and, truth be told, I needed the oven for other items. The sweet potato spears never got browned, and I suspect the oven temperature was too low. When you bake French fries the oven has to be up really high, so the next time I make these I will set the temperature at least to 450F. I suspect only then will the kind of caramelization Bittman hints at take place on the sweet potato.

Regardless of browning, these were good. The sage packs a punchy flavor, so if you’re not a fan of that sharp autumnal herbiness, skip it or use something less pungent. The prosciutto-potato pairing was genius. Salty and crispy paired with mild tender sweetness, all in a two-bite package. Perfect party food. I could have stood leaning over the counter with a bowl of these beside me for the whole afternoon.

But no. The time of the party was approaching. I had to move on with only a sampling.

“Autumn Rolls: Shred sweet potatoes or carrots and Brussels sprouts or cabbage. Roll them up with fresh sage or mint and some sprouts in rice paper. (Add sliced shrimp if you like.) Make a dipping sauce of soy, garlic, grated or minced ginger and honey.”

I had never thought about serving sweet potatoes raw (though Bittman does suggest this in multiple dishes), but I was drawn to it because it seemed in keeping with the Iron Chef project: in a challenge like this, using the ingredient in every one of its forms seems logical. If you can boil it, roast it, mash it, bake it, why not shred it up and use it still crunchy?

Regardless, I decided some extra preparation was necessary. I used the following:

½ large sweet potato, shredded and soaked in cold water for ten minutes to remove starchiness.

½ small head of cabbage, very finely sliced

30-40 mint leaves

1 cup sprouts (I used clover)

Rice paper wrappers

½ cup soy sauce (I used gluten-free)

2 cloves garlic, finely minced

½ inch knob of fresh ginger, grated

2 TB honey or to taste

After soaking the sweet potato in a cold water bath and changing the water once to drain away as much starchiness as possible, I decided the shreds seemed pleasantly crisp without leaving a “raw potato” residue on my tongue. I tossed them together with the cabbage and about a tablespoon of soy sauce. I put this with the rest of the ingredients (through rice paper) in an assembly line and executed my rolls.

These are not difficult, once you get the hang of them, but they are time consuming. It takes me at least half an hour to roll up a batch of these, and I’ve made them many, many times.

Soak a wrapper in warm water until it is very pliable. This takes 45 seconds or so. When it is the consistency of wet tissue, spread it on a paper towel or kitchen towel and then flip over and spread again. This gets excess water off so you don’t have a soggy roll. At this point I usually put the next one into the water so it’s ready by the time I’m done rolling. Since I took pictures of almost every step, let’s do this Pioneer Woman style.

Place a few mint leaves all over the wrapper.

Add a tablespoon or two of the sweet potato and cabbage mixture.

Add the sprouts.

Fold in the sides until they overlap across the toppings.

Now fold over the side closest to you and then roll the whole thing into a tiny burrito.

Line them all up like little soldiers and you’re ready to go! I usually slice them in half on an angle. I do this for two reasons: 1.) it looks really pretty, and 2.) they aren’t huge and overwhelming looking as finger food. It’s also nice because it allows your guests to get a peek at what’s inside.

While I was rolling, I put the sauce ingredients in a very small saucepan and turned the heat on low. With minimal stirring to be sure the honey wasn’t burning on the bottom, I had a slightly thickened dipping sauce in 10 or 15 minutes.

These were delightfully fresh. The cabbage and sweet potato gave nice crunch, the sprouts were an interesting, almost tickly feel against your tongue, and the sauce was ridiculously tasty. Again, with the salty-sweet theme I unconsciously adopted, the honey and the soy sauce played excellently against each other, and it got just thick enough, and with just enough bite from the aromatics I added, that it complemented the fresh rawness of the rolls very well.

Both these offerings were delicious, and despite the competitive gnawing I sometimes feel inside, neither of them took the ultimate prize. We allowed everyone up to three votes: one for best representative of potatoes, one for best representative of Parmesan cheese, and one for best incorporation of both. The ultimate honor went to the cheese.

Take a gander:

This is a parmesan crisp topped with a slice of salami, a slice of quince paste, and a twist of caramelized onion. Talk about salty-sweet! When I asked the winner for permission to post his dish, he agreed and, delightfully, offered the following specifics:

Parmesan Crisps can be found at: http://projects.washingtonpost.com/recipes/2007/05/09/lacy-parmesan-wafers/
I used only 1 Tsp of cheese because I wanted a smaller diameter crisp.
topped with smoked salami (1/8in thick slice)
slice of quince paste (1/8in thick)
sauteed onions (~1/2tsp) (one sweet onion, olive oil, pinch of sea salt, 1 tsp sugar, 2 tsp butter) .
serve at room temperature.

Congrats, Iron Chef 2011!

Kale and coconut

Posted on May 8, 2011 by Chelsea

Kale is a recent love for me, at least relatively speaking. I had seen the curly leaves used as edging – a kind of metaphorical hedge between dishes in fancy hotel breakfast buffets or salad bars; a hefty big brother to curls of parsley left quasi-artistically on the side of a plate – but I had never eaten it. Sometimes it didn’t even look edible, but more like a plastic plant trapped somewhere in the realm of land kelp.

Last year I began experimenting with kale, mostly thanks to bloggers like Shauna at Gluten-Free Girl and Elana at Elana’s Pantry. N. and I have chomped our way through kale in lasagna, pesto, braised with soy sauce and mushrooms, and of course coated in olive oil, sprinkled with salt and paprika and roasted into chips. Its robust, almost waxen toughness seemed to require aggressive cooking techniques. I never believed the recipes I read suggesting raw consumption could be tasty. And yet Bittman advocated for this as well!

“74. Trim and chop kale; salt and squeeze and knead until wilted and reduced in volume, about 5 minutes. Rinse, dry and toss with olive oil, lemon juice, chopped dried apples and toasted pine nuts.”

With my yen for freshness and greenery escalating, I decided it was worth a try. The cast of characters consisted of:

1 large bunch Italian or lacinato kale

1 tsp. salt, plus more to taste, if desired

2 TB olive oil, or to coat

Juice of half a lemon

½ chopped dried apples

¼ cup toasted pine nuts

Doubtful, I tore the beautiful emerald lobed leaves from the tough central stalks, then roughly chopped the huge pile of leafy scraps into smaller pieces. I sprinkled salt over my heap of salad and began to knead. To my utter amazement, in under a minute the leaves had started to change in texture and consistency. They became more like spinach, then more like cooked greens, and I decided to knead only for two or three minutes, fearing from the drastic reduction in volume already that I would end up with less than two servings. When I stopped kneading, I flopped the wilted clumps into a salad spinner to rinse, de-salt, and spin dry.

I tossed the kale with olive oil and lemon juice in a large salad bowl, then added the pine nuts and apples. A quick taste led me to add a miniscule sprinkle of salt, and then it was ready to serve!

We enjoyed the salad with chicken apple sausages – I wanted to capture the special flavor of the apples and highlight their sweetness against the tart lemon and bitter kale. It was a very successful salad, and would be particularly good at the height of summer when you cannot bear to encounter the heat cooking requires. Just pre-toast the pine nuts on a cooler occasion and this salad flies together.

The contrast of flavors is lovely. It manages to hit all four of the major taste bud groups: the kale is bitter, the hint of salt gives it nice salinity, the apples are sweet, and the lemon is tartly sour. Similarly, it satisfies a variety of textures: the kale is tender but still has some body for your tongue to play with, while the apples are chewy and the pine nuts provide a satisfying crunch.

Using kale as a salad base provides so many possibilities. I already know I’d like to try toasting the apple rings to try and achieve a more chip-like texture and add extra crispness: apple croutons, if you will. A more savory salad might entail replacing the apples with a good grating of sharp cheddar or Parmesan cheese. Hard boiled eggs, walnuts, and maybe a scattering of bacon would make a more substantial salad. The options are endless.

But the title of this post isn’t about endless kale. It also mentions coconut, so I’d better move along.

With half a bag of sweetened, flaked coconut in my pantry and a small bevy of beauties descending on my house for a ladies’ TV night, I decided to over-achieve this week and make another Bittman selection to share with my friends.

“100. Spiced Macaroons: Mix 3 cups shredded unsweetened coconut, 1 cup sugar, ½ teaspoon ground cardamom and a pinch of salt in a bowl. Stir in 3 lightly beaten egg whites and a teaspoon almond extract. Drop in small spoonfuls on baking sheet and bake at 350 degrees for about 15 minutes, or until golden on the edges.”

I must admit from the outset that my process was a considerable adaptation, spurred by a shortage or downright lack of both ingredients and time to obtain more. I used the following:

2 cups sweetened shredded coconut

¼ tsp garam masala

Pinch of salt

2 lightly beaten egg whites

1 tsp amaretto liqueur

From there, I followed Bittman’s directions exactly. At the point the house began to smell like a vacation, I pulled the cookies from the oven and, unable to resist, stuffed one that collapsed from its fragile form into my mouth. Oh heaven. It was incredible. The coconut was still chewy, and I’m pretty good with words, but the mixture of spice and salt did something I can’t describe. Cooks are always saying salt enhances the other flavors of the dish, and that’s what happened here. The coconut and egg whites suggested lightness and airy tropical sweetness, while the garam masala was incense and thick dark spice, but just the barest touch: a perfumed, candle-lit temple down the road from an endless white sand beach. Fanciful, you say? What can I tell you… coconut is one of my favorite flavors, and when it is elevated to such heights a certain mystical religiosity is perfectly appropriate.

The cookies were quite tender, and some declined to hold together at all. This made them easier to eat, in a way, because they were already breaking themselves for us – all but insisting upon their own sacrifice – but the next time I attempt them I want them to hold together better. I may cook them a little longer, or perhaps beat the egg whites more vigorously. You wouldn’t want stiff, or even soft, peaks, but perhaps an approach to peaks would help the coconut cling together. Nevertheless, three girls in the space of an hour decimated a plate of macaroons, leaving behind only three stragglers who were so lonely that I found them a happier home the following afternoon as a reward to myself for accomplishing some much-needed reading. I must say, the lift from an analysis of 14^th century poetic aesthetics into all-but-mystical flavor vacation is about the best an afternoon snack can do.

Fresh breath

Posted on May 2, 2011 by Chelsea

Oregon’s springs are interesting and sometimes frustrating seasons that really make you think about all the definitions of the word “spring.” Sure, this evokes images of shy but increasingly sure sunshine, flowers, warmth, but that’s not what a spring is. When springs stretch out, inevitably they snap back. With a frost advisory a few nights ago and the weather still stubbornly refusing to push up out of the 60s, we have experienced more of a springing back than a springing forward.

And yet my taste buds are ready, even if the weather is not. I am finding I crave greenness, tartness, fresh peppery crunch, to combat the rich softness of winter comforters. Bittman obliged:

“28. Toss cooked Israeli couscous with toasted pecans, orange zest and juice, chopped mint, cider vinegar and honey. Bake in an oiled dish or use as stuffing.”

Remembering the pleasing tapioca-like chew of Israeli couscous from my last experiment with this pasta, I was enthusiastic about this combination. I assembled:

1 box Israeli couscous

½ cup chopped toasted pecans

a drizzle of olive oil

2 TB cider vinegar

2 TB honey

zest and juice of ½ a large orange

2-3 TB chopped fresh mint

I cooked the couscous according to package directions, letting the tiny pearls sizzle in olive oil for a few minutes before adding water. This quick toasting adds a deeper flavor, which I am in deep support of. This dish could easily be made gluten-free, with the simple replacement of quinoa or brown rice for the couscous. Either way, I’d still advocate toasting the grain before boiling it.

While the couscous cooked, I chopped, zested, and juiced, then put my pecans into a cold oven, which I promptly set for 400F. I’ve discovered that generally in the time it takes the oven to preheat, the nuts have toasted, and you can take them out and add them to the dish in question, feeling pride that you’ve been able to use that oven energy for part of the meal. The only problem with doing this is, you still have to check on the nuts occasionally, because depending on the temperature you are setting the oven to, it may take longer than you expect to preheat… and this equates to burnt nuts.

As I picked through the all-but-charred remnants and discarded the truly blackened pieces of what had been ½ cup of pecans, I found myself reflecting on the choice of citrus in this dish. I love citrus. I like the brightness, the tartness, and its ability to transcend the sweet/savory divide. And yet, when I think citrus, I almost inevitably turn to lemon. Salad dressings, fish, pasta, cheesecakes, all benefit from a grating of lemon zest or a hangnail-piercing squeeze of juice. Why, I wondered, do I never think of oranges in the same way? Lemons are like a deafening gasp of freshness. Orange peel is somehow more synaesthetic: bright, yes, but punctuated by a perfumed headiness, like walking through a cloud of incense. Yet here, when I blended the orange juice, vinegar, and honey together with the zest, it was the most perfect zingy-sweet-tart dressing imaginable. Ideal for this dish, I imagined so many other applications: drizzled over prosciutto wrapped bundles of arugula, tossed with chunks of fruit for a summer fruit salad, maybe even spooned atop grilled fish or chicken. I resisted the urge to sip spoonfuls of it.

After fluffing the couscous with a fork and distributing some olive oil through it to prevent clumping, I mixed everything together in a baking dish and tossed it with the delectable sauce. This was brightness at its apogee. I stowed it in the oven for half an hour.

While the couscous baked, I prepped our vegetable side. With the Farmers’ Market back up and running, the profusion of leafy vegetables is almost overwhelming. Without intended anything of the kind, I had brought home an enormous bundle of rainbow chard – red, pink, orange, salmon colored stems – and decided to impart some vinegar-based freshness into it as well. I sliced the leaves away from the thick stems and then chopped the stems like celery into half-inch-or-so thick pieces. Then I dropped stems and wafer thin slices of ½ a red onion into a pan with a few tablespoons of butter. While those cooked down, I chopped the chard leaves roughly and considered flavorings. Though I often pair chard with nutmeg, craisins, or balsamic vinegar, this didn’t seem like the right companions for tonight. Sometimes I add garlic, sesame oil, and soy sauce but this, too, seemed like it wouldn’t mesh well with our zesty-fresh couscous. At last, genius! I dribbled in not only a few teaspoons of cider vinegar to match the flavor in the couscous, but at least a tablespoon of whole grain mustard, which I scrambled quickly amidst the softening stems. Then all that remained was to toss in the leaves, turn them over in the pan a few times until they wilted, and add some salt and pepper. Bingo. Amazing.

The pairing was lovely. The perfumed orange peel and the pecans in the couscous were a beautiful marriage, as the heady zip of the orange benefited from the caramel smokiness toasted pecans always seem to have. The vinegar kept it from being too sweet, and the mint gave the suggestion of flavor, though I think it could be replaced by parsley with no ill effects.

The chard dish was spectacular. The same bite of vinegar stood out in both, but the chard was definitively savory, and the mustard gave it some backbone. The onions and chard stems had become meltingly tender, but the just wilted leaves left a freshness to the dish.

Crisp, very cold apple cider, or a Ruby ale from McMenamin’s, would have been splendid with this. Light but substantial, rich without being heavy, with those wintery flavors of orange peel and pecan applied to the freshness of spring.

The sun is out. Does that mean, Oregon skies, we can put our hopes in Springtime at last?

Mistakes can still be delicious

Posted on April 25, 2011 by Chelsea

Though many of Bittman’s 101 Make Ahead Sides seem clearly autumnal, and some downright Thanksgiving-y, some are a bit further afield. This week we went with one of the latter.

“40. Peel and trim pearl onions and toss them with a mixture of minced ginger, garlic, chilis and peanut oil. (A little sesame oil is good, too.) Roast until nicely caramelized, then drizzle with soy sauce.”

This clearly called for an Asian theme, so I bought tofu and bok choy for an accompanying stir-fry. As for the sideshow-in-the-spotlight, I went the easy route and assembled:

1 bag frozen whole peeled pearl onions, defrosted

5 cloves garlic, finely minced

2-inch knob of fresh ginger, peeled and finely minced

1 red jalapeno, seeded and diced fine

2 TB olive oil (I didn’t have peanut oil and the olive oil was right there on the counter…)

1 TB sesame oil

2 TB soy sauce

I did as Bittman instructed, with the exception that, skimming the recipe too quickly, I mixed the soy sauce in with the onions and everything rather than waiting until they were done. This, like hastily dumping the onions into a pie plate while they were still slightly frozen, was a mistake. This dish needs dryness to work. Or, rather, it needs its primary moisture to come from fat, like anything you roast, and not from a water-based liquid. It also, I suspect, needed a cookie sheet rather than a glass pie dish to roast in. Something about the conductivity of metal plus the extra space a cookie sheet would have afforded would, I suspect, have produced better results.

Not that my results were bad! I preheated the oven to 400F and slid the onions in for 20 minutes while I made the stirfry of tofu and greens. I used my favorite tofu recipe, adding the bok choy in when the tofu was about halfway done. Then I added a few tablespoons each of white wine and soy sauce to give the bok choy something to soften into, and to add a little flavorful sauciness to the dish.

When the 20 minutes I’d allotted the onions were up, I slid them out to find basically zero caramelization. All the color you can see in this photo is from the soy sauce. I attribute this to three things: the onions were too wet from a combination of the soy sauce and the not-quite-completed defrosting process, the pan was too crowded, and I wasn’t patient enough to leave them in longer (N. had gone on an epic 12-mile run earlier in the day and could not wait much longer for dinner). So there was no beautiful toasty browning, but we ate them anyway.

They were mild and sweet with sharp kicks from the aromatics: a faint burn from the garlic, a forward warmth from the ginger, and the barest suggestion of spiciness from the pepper (leave the seeds in for more heat). They were tasty, but I suspect they needed that caramelization to be really special. I ended up tossing them in with my tofu and bok choy and eating the whole thing as a single stir-fry, as if they were supposed to be commingled. They forgave my mistakes, coexisted, and rather than a side-act-acting as a main and a main with side features, they just became dinner.

Here we come to a turning of the seasons…

Posted on April 19, 2011 by Chelsea

With the slow and probably undependable change in weather, it is becoming harder to budget my time according to the schedule established by winter. My days, approximately, consisted of: teach class, hold office hours, come home, work on dissertation, feel sorry for myself about the rain, cook, fall into bed. Blog about said cooking once a week. Now, I have replaced “feel sorry for myself about the rain” with “feel sorry for myself about allergies and the amount of time I can’t spend outside because a.) it makes my throat close up and b.) there’s that whole dissertation thing that didn’t go away just because there are radish sprouts in my garden.

The cooking-related result of this achingly slow emergence of sun and the degree by degree warming happening outside is that I long for vegetables. And yet, because I have been spoiled by the last two years of growing fresh vegetables in our backyard, I find myself unsatisfied with the produce currently available to me. “On-the-vine” tomatoes at the grocery store? Insipid. Watery. All but flavorless. Cucumbers? Slightly bitter and lacking that impossible crispness I like so much. Greens? Acceptable, but when you cannot cut them leaf by leaf as needed from the still growing plant, they wither and waste so quickly in the refrigerator.

And yet my yen for garden fresh and mentally satisfying interpretation of “healthy” won out when choosing last week’s Bittman, our first foray into the “salads” category:

“75. Wild Rice Greek Salad: Toss cooked wild rice (or mix wild and white) with chopped tomatoes, cucumber, red onion, kalamata olives and crumbled feta. Dress with olive oil, lemon juice, parsley and mint.”

This sounded flavorful enough to disguise any less-than-amazing harvest I might find at the grocery store. I decided to use brown rice instead to up the flavor and fiber content, and collected:

2 cups pre-cooked wild rice (from Trader Joe’s)

1 cup uncooked brown rice

3 medium tomatoes, chopped in large pieces

½ cucumber, halved and sliced

½ cup red onion, slices quartered

½ cup kalamata olives, halved

½ cup crumbed feta cheese

½ cup each roughly chopped Italian parsley and mint

¼ – ½ cup olive oil

Juice of half a lemon

Salt and pepper to taste

I cooked the brown rice in my rice cooker, and when it was done about 40 minutes later I mixed in the wild rice, which had been sitting at room temperature. I figured they could meld and match each other’s temperatures while I prepped the rest of the ingredients and cooked the salmon I had decided to serve with our salad.

While the brown rice was still warm I tossed it with the olive oil, lemon juice, and a few grinds of salt and black pepper. One of the most important lessons I have learned about grain-based salads of any kind is to dress it while the base is still warm, so the flavorful liquids can permeate the rice or pasta or quinoa and flavor the comparatively bland grain.

I sliced up my onion and immersed the slices into a bowl of ice water. This removes some of the astringency from the onion, leaving it mild and very crisp.

While the rice cooled and the onion chilled out, I turned my attention to the fish. I used:

1 lb. wild salmon, skin on, bones removed

4 tb. butter

½ – 1 cup white wine

2 garlic cloves, finely minced

1 TB lemon zest

Half a lemon, sliced (convenient, no?)

2 TB roughly chopped Italian parsley

Salt and pepper to taste

I set the fish in a baking dish on the counter to begin coming to room temperature so it wouldn’t take so long to cook. I preheated the oven to 400F and then, in a small saucepan, melted the butter and added the garlic, wine, and lemon zest. I let this cook together for ten minutes or so at a very low simmer. Then I salted and peppered the fish, poured the sauce over it, sprinkled on the parsley and placed the lemon slices over the top before stowing the whole beautiful thing in the oven for half an hour.

With moments remaining on the clock, I assembled the rest of the salad: tomatoes, cucumbers, onions (drained and de-iced, thank-you-very-much), olives, cheese, and herbs went into the dressed, seasoned rice and received a relentless toss. Now nothing remained but to evacuate the oven, pile our plates high, and eat.

Both elements of the dinner were excellent, although I should have cooked the salmon a few minutes less. It was fleshy and rich, with a tinge of acidity from the wine and the lemon zest, while the butter and wine had kept it moist and delectable. It could have been flakier, but then, that was my zealous overcooking.

The salad was the freshness I’d been hoping for, though because it contained brown rice it was still nice and filling. Here again, the lemon added the right tanginess and woke up the rice and vegetables. Similarly, the sharp saltiness of the olives and feta cheese, mingled almost unexpectedly amidst the mild vegetation, made this salad a glorious thing to continue dipping my fork into. I served it at room temperature, so the rice was tender and smooth to bite through, lacking that starchy crunch it sometimes has straight out of the refrigerator.